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Hundreds of thousands of people in the street, a parade of floats, and groups of police patrolling the streets of London can only mean one thing… the Notting Hill Carnival. This weekend, London put on its best and brightest weather to welcome at least one million people over two days to the streets of the Notting Hill district. Five words probably best encompass the essence of the carnival – People, Music, Food, Drink and Rubbish.

The carnival originally started as a way for the Afro-Caribbean community to celebrate and promote its roots and continues to grow each year. Reggae music plays a major part in the carnival, with plenty of the floats blasting it into the crowd, but the variety of music reaches far beyond it today. These days dozens of stalls and stages host people and DJs playing a wide variety of R&B, Hip Hop, Breaks, House and Drum ‘N’ Bass (at least from what I saw). Pictures cannot capture the madness in the streets, with the closest thing I have seen being Halloween on the streets of San Francisco.

Once you push (or get pushed) past the crowds of people and have some breathing space, you might find yourself in veils of smoke. Besides the obvious kind you find at most festivals, it also could mean you stumbled across the many food stalls lined up all over the place. “Jerk”-style food is abundant with BBQs in a barrel on almost every corner. You can also find a number of other food vendors there, serving other traditional and not-so-traditional Caribbean food. Even the bars and clubs get in on the act, with outdoor bars set up just outside building premises. With all this food and drink being consumed, you might expect quite a lot of rubbish and you wouldn’t be wrong. Bins are hard to find these days in safety-conscious London, resulting in giant piles of rubbish. Add, to that, the traffic and wind that blows through the streets and you can imagine what the streets look like at the end of the day.

All in all it is an amazing atmosphere to just walk around but you’ll find that getting into the heart of the carnival is actually the easy part. It is at the end of the day when the tube remains closed and the swarms of people return to wherever they came from, where you really have to fight your way out. Be prepared for a long walk, or least a long queue if you don’t leave early.

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Yesterday my good friend Kath (a fellow Brisbanite) came down from Oxford to visit me in London yesterday. It was a beautiful London day, and we walked around town and ended up having a coffee at Putney just across the river Thames. Avoiding the Rocket Restaurant Riverside this time, as I saw that awful waitress serving, we sat down at a nice little cafe that ended up being Carluccio’s (as in after Antonio Carluccio, the famous chef that can be seen on some cooking shows). I didn’t realise that the cafe bore any relationship until we went to have a look at the deli inside the cafe and saw his cookbook there. It’s a very nice deli, small but serving a good variety of things, from salads, cured meats, sweets and cakes, and well as many various packaged goods.

Feeling like I wanted to avoid anything with lots of caffeine, I tried the Cioccolata Fiorentina (described as a thick drinking chocolate in an espresso cup) but couldn’t help but laugh when I saw what was at the end of the menu (a Piaggo Vespa for only £1799)!

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My sister and I were standing in queue for half price tickets on Saturday, and somehow ended up with some for one that we didn’t really know much about, The Rat Pack. Set at the Sands Hotel, this musical takes you back in time to a place to be entertained by the three great singers, Frank Sinatra, Samy Davis Jr, and Dean Martin (all accompanied by the Borelli Sisters). This musical will disappoint if you are after acting genius, with its story really setting the scene for classic songs to be performed including “Under My skin”, “Once if a Lifetime”, “The Candyman”, “Mr Bojangles”, “Amore”, and “New York, New York”.

Of what acting actually happened was quite well done, with all the little characteristics of each singer very well detailed. Sinatra had his strong New-Yorkian accent, even throughout his singing, Martin, his, if not overdone, constant half-drunk state for which he was well known by, and then the charismatic and energetic performances of Samy Davis Jr. The costumes were just as well attuned to each person, Sinatra’s being the most finest with gold cufflinks and a full suit, Dean Martin still classic but a little more rough around the edges, to the white socks and slightly short pants of Samy Davis Jr.

This performance is definitely not a musical for everyone and especially unlikely to appeal to anyone in my age group, but I still enjoyed the show for both its small bits of comedic acting and the stunning singing ability of the actors. Be warned though, that a number of big fans of each of these singers may attend, and sitting next to them can be hazardous to your health, as my sister will tell you, (unfortunately having to listen to their awful singing!)

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Last night I attended Ben’s surprise birthday dinner, organised by Michelle and held at the Rocket Restaurant (Riverside). This bar and restaurant overlooks the Thames and is within walking distance of the Putney Bridge. It’s excellent location means that any sunset on a summer evening is going to be spectacular, assuming that the day is not suffering from London’s typical drizzle. The restaurants has seating both inside and out, but the most eye-catching seat in the resturant is the clam shaped, circular seating into which we all crammed ourselves in last night.

Food at the Rocket Restaurant is best classified as modern cosmpolitan, serving a wide variety of pizzas and calzones, as well as steak, tuna, sashimi and dinner salads. They also have a small number of starers, an excellent selection of side dishes but the size of their main meals do not warrant one. They also have a pretty ordinary dessert menu, with each item offered at £5. Although I did not have any, I was told that the strawberry chesscake (lavishly drizzled with strawberry juice and built up on a mini circular biscuit base) was excellent.

I had the vegetarian pizza served with lots of fresh Mozzarella was huge and extremely tasty. I ended up giving up a lot of it as it was so big and had ordered a side of Zucchini Fritters as well. The small individually battered zucchini chips were served on a decently-sized plate, and the naturally sweet flesh of the zucchini, well balanced with the light, crisp and saltiness of the batter was well received by everyone who had a taste.

Details: Rocket Restaurant (Map)
Found on: Brewhouse Street, Putney Wharf, Putney, SW15 2NS
Contactable via: 0208 789 7875
Highlights: Food quality was pretty good. Decently sized meals. Wide variety of side dishes and salads
Room for improvement: No drinks menu, service was shocking.

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Internet access in the hotel I’m currently staying at is ridiculously expensive (at £0.50 per minute) so until I actually start work tomorrow, I’ve been using public Internet cafes. The best value ones I have found in London so far are the £1 all day ones somewhere on Oxford or Regent Streets. I’m not excessively worried about computers that I have control of, but I am always concerned when using public computers, especially when you are logging into various accounts (email, blog, photo albums, and most particularly bank accounts).

I am not surprised that the computers in the Internet cafes are windows based, meaning that it already is more susceptible to certain security issues. The bigger thing that concerns me is that these computers allow anyone to install anything they like. This worked to my benefit, allowing my to install Skype, Firefox and to run Putty from my flash disk, but opening up this privilege also means that more malicious people could install any sort of sniper software, collecting passwords and account information, and potentially sending them to the user. One may have to be even wary of the owners of the café who could be harvesting this information for themselves (beware of what you pay for).

Fortunately I am informed enough to work out whether or not there is malicious software running before I give any login names and passwords, and where you should go to clean up traces of login names and passwords, but I wonder about those that are ignorant to the fact their identity could easily be stolen?

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After our fantastic holiday, I finally arrived to a slightly wet and overcast London. I am lucky enough to be staying close to the city, and can easily walk outside to a Tube station. In the last couple of days, I’ve been amazed by just how easy it is to get around, even just within walking distance. So far I’ve managed to visit Soho, Buckingham Palace, Chinatown, Notting Hill, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, Westminster Abbey, the B.A. London Eye, Covent Garden, Green Park, Somerset House, and the London Treasury. I’m really enjoying everything, but here are some observations I’ve made so far:

• Drivers get used to looking through foggy windows, the use of air conditioning to remove the fog seems to elude them
• You get used to the constant drizzle, there are plenty of people that walk about in the rain at a normal pace without a coat or umbrella
• Avoid sidewalks when it’s raining. I saw someone get instantly soaked by a wave of water when a car zoomed by.
• Journalists appear to be most eloquent here, with the most extensive use of the English language I have ever seen in the morning papers.
• As modern as the underground appears to be, climate control seems to elude them. There is no need to heat them when it’s warm already.
• Space is obviously limited, from the tiny little elevators, to where people are forced to drink out on the streets because the pubs are too crowded
• Concert tickets sell out fast (or maybe they end up in the hands of the “discount” ticket vendors that are selling them for more than double the original price)
• There is always something going on. This weekend alone was the V (music) festival somewhere out of London, Trafalgar Square had its own festival celebration, not to mention all of the clubs, pubs, and various music venues hosting their own gigs and events.

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Our final day in Dubai was also spent indulging in Dubai’s cultural and iconic places. In the morning attended the Jumeirah Mosque tour. This tour is not one that you would typically think of, that of perhaps being guided around a building discussing the history and architecture of the building. In contrast to this, the famous Jumeirah Mosque tour takes you on a cultural tour that helps you better understand where the Mosque fits into the religion of Islam and distinguishing between activities that are part of the religion, and those that are part of the culture of the region which practices this religion. The tour lasts between an hour and an hour and a half and is highly recommended, especially if you have never visited a Mosque or read anything about the Islam religion.

Our final place of visit for the day was the 7-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab. Tours of the hotel are few and far, so either book ahead or be happy to take pictures from afar. We were lucky enough that my sister had booked us a lunch at the restaurant that resides at the top of the hotel, so we had no issues getting in. Needless to say, lunch was tremendously expensive, and even though my sister said she would pay (as she has been earning pounds for the last year), I was still uncomfortable indulging in such a lunch. I would suggest for those wishing to enjoy a meal there, definitely take the afternoon tea option.

Admittedly the view from the restaurant was quite beautiful, and the relatively clear day (at least for summer) gave us a good view of both the palm tree islands and world map islands. Lunch was enjoyable with fresh breads (beetroot loaf, parmesan and oregano crostini and a sun dried tomato foccacia), followed by a starter of shellfish bisque and the main of a modern beef “Wellington vs Rossini”. Both dishes were delicious and excellently presented, but the chef still managed to overcook my medium-rare steak I asked for.

For the rest of the day we lounged around on the beach and by the pool, basking in the warmth of our final day in Dubai before finishing up the evening with an Arabian feast at Al Muna inside Mina A’Salam.

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My sister had organised for us to be staying at the Le Meridien Fairway for half of our stay in Dubai. It is a fantastic hotel (although if you want something even ritzier and self-contained, definitely try the Le Meridien Dubai which includes the pool-bar and hotel village). This hotel is closer to central Dubai giving easy access to the various souks, shopping malls and other city sights.

The other part of our stay was scheduled for Mina A’Salam, part of the Madinat Jumeirah Arabian Beach Resort. Jumeirah is the western part of Dubai, sprawled across beach frontage hosting a number of beach resorts, beach clubs, sailing clubs, the Dubai Zoo, the water park Wild Wadi and home of the 7-star, Burj Al Arab hotel. Describing Madinat Jumeirah is beyond any vocabulary that I have as it is just simply amazing. This resort was architected to resemble old Arabia and is made up of 5 major parts, big enough to almost be considered a village of their own. A man made waterway stretching 3.7 kilometers connects all of the various parts, with the best way of getting around being the traditional Abra boats operating 24 hours a day. Madinat Jumeirah is also home to 43 world class restaurants, 5 pool side bars, several nightclubs and bars and an entire souk of up-market clothing and fashion stores.

The resort has a huge array of facilities including Dubai’s largest pool, several more outdoor and indoor pools, five tennis courts, several squash courts, a large club gym, and a 1 kilometer patrolled private beach where you can indulge in watersports of all kinds including windsurfing, sailing, water-skiing, kneeboard and banana rides. Inclusive in the hotel rate is free entry into Wild Wadi, the most advanced water park I have ever been in. Although it is not as big as Wet ‘N’ Wild back home, it’s the only place where I know where water slides will actually push you up hill. A large water tube circuit connects most of the park, so you can skim from place to place in the park. They also have two flowrider rides which simulates the experience of tube-riding and is a must do for any one who goes. The park also has a cashless payment system where you can pay for things on a watch-like device to pay for souvenirs, food and drink anywhere inside.

At night-time, the entire complex literally lights up. We sat on the beach watching the sunset and saw the massive Burj Al Arab light up at night. We can also sit inside our room and see the world renown 7-star hotel shift colours, lighting up the Jumeirah night sky.

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