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Having only lived in England for two years of my life so far, I've never really had the chance to properly explore London, aside from the odd day passing through on my way from one place to another. This soon changed however, as I was recently lucky enough to have three weeks of work experience in central London, which provided me with the perfect opportunity to get to know our capital a little better.

The Tate Modern

Kensington Gardens

While I was wandering around the park I saw a lot of people with these mysterious 'Whole Foods' bags, so I took it upon myself to have a little hunt around in the area just outside the park to see if I could find out what all the fuss was about... and it was worth it! Whole Foods turned out to be this lovely market shop filled to the brim with lots of different kinds of exciting, healthy goodies. I opted for some tofu and veg from the hot foods counter which was lovely, but if you ever go be sure to keep an eye on the scales or you could end up paying quite a bit (oops)! The book pictured is one I picked up from the Tate gift shop - a lovely little creative journal full of gorgeous watercolour quotes accompanied by thoughtful prompts for your own writing. Exactly the type of thing I love!

Borough Market

As a vegetarian, I very much favoured the side of the market full of fresh fruits, smoothies and lunchtime snacks, with tons of veggie choices. I opted for a vegan mushroom burger myself and could not recommend it enough. My mum and I also had a couple of cheeky Prosecco spritzers while we were there!

The London Eye

The Eye experience is pretty self explanatory - half an hour riding around in a funky glass bubble - but I'd definitely recommend it for all you keen tourists out there! Try and get out on a sunny day if you can for optimum viewing enjoyment.


Southbank

On our way to and from the London Eye, we were lucky enough to wander along the lovely London Southbank, which has gorgeous views of the Thames, St Paul's Cathedral, the Globe and central London. We picked up some fantastic vegetarian burritos on the way from a street food cart, and on the way home ran into a 'poet for hire' who wrote an acrostic poem from my name in just five minutes on his little typewriter!

The Shard

'It turns out that we are not only made of the universe, of 'star-stuff' to borrow Carl Sagan's phrase, but we are as vast and complicated as it too. The evolutionary psychologists might be right. We humans might have evolved too far. The price for being intelligent enough to be the first species to be fully aware of the cosmos might just be a capacity to feel a whole universe's worth of darkness'

'Life is hard. It may be beautiful and wonderful but it is also hard. The way people seem to cope is by not thinking about it too much. But some people are not going to be able to do that. And besides, it is the human condition. We think therefore we are'

'It may be a dark cloud passing across the sky, but - if that is the metaphor - you are the sky. You were there before it. And the cloud can't exist without the sky, but the sky can exist without the cloud'

'I am you and you are me. We are alone, but not alone. We are trapped by time, but also infinite. Made of flesh, but also stars'

I changed it up a little bit because I didn't have all the ingredients, and I turned it into cupcakes instead of one big cake! This recipe made 12 muffin cakes. Here's my adapted recipe:

Ingredients

• 225g self-raising flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 115g brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 85g walnuts, roughly chopped
• 225g grated carrots
• 125ml maple syrup (I used golden syrup)
• 125ml rapeseed oil (I used olive oil)
• 225g icing sugar
• (Approximately) 100g vegan margarine

I've been taking part in a 'Go Vegan' week that the Vegetarian and Vegan Society have been running at uni, which has been so much fun! It's made me cook all kinds of new things, so I thought I'd share some of the recipes that I've learned. This vegan chilli is absolutely delicious and pretty easy to make, so I'd definitely recommend it.


Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 can of butter beans
• 1 can of sweetcorn
• 1 jar of tomato pasta sauce
• Tomato purée 
• Chilli powder
• Paprika powder
• Cumin
• Baby potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Spring onions

As you can probably tell by my lack of activity on here, I've been pretty busy over the past few months, so I have an awful lot to update you all on! First of all, I was really lucky last summer to go on holiday with my family to Thailand, so I thought I'd do a quick post on that. If you've ever considered Thailand as a potential holiday destination then hopefully this will be helpful for you, and if not then I hope you enjoy the post and photos nonetheless, and maybe tell me a bit about anywhere you've been on holiday in the comments below!

Flights

We did the flights to Koh Samui in two parts - one flight to Bangkok and then one from Bangkok to Koh Samui. There are only a couple of flights to Koh Samui each day as they like to limit the number of people who go there so it doesn't get completely overrun with tourists. Although the flight was only short, it was really enjoyable as we got served a Thai meal complete with noodles, fruit and cake. No in-flight entertainment of course, as it was a small plane, but I always love looking out the window on planes, so that was entertainment enough for me. Koh Samui airport is also really lovely - it's small, cute, half indoor/half outdoor, and they serve free food in the departure lounge!

Accommodation

The resort had two pools - one by the beach and one by the hotel - as well as a smaller one for children. The pools were really great; plenty of space for everyone and just a really nice place to relax in the day when it got too hot.

The pool by the hotel

Another great thing about the hotel is that it's got a section of the beach for the guests to enjoy. We really loved spending time on the beach as it was a little less busy than the areas by the pool and really close to the bar as well. The only thing I didn't enjoy so much about the beach is that there will quite often be local traders who will try to sell you things - they're extremely friendly and obviously I didn't mind them being there, I just felt bad having to say no to them!


The hotel also had a great walk from the rooms to the beach. There was a really lovely garden area with a little hut where you could sit and read in the shade, hammocks and plenty of palm trees. It really made you feel like you were abroad!


Finally, the poolside bar was absolutely fantastic. I feel bad to admit that my favourite meal there was the fried egg sandwich, considering we were in Thailand, but it was just so fantastic! They also had a buy-one-get-one-free offer on drinks between five and seven which was particularly popular with my me and my mum!

Local Area

There was also a really wide variety of dining options, from fancy restaurants to street-side food carts. Obviously there was a lot of Thai cuisine, but there were also other options. One night I had the most amazing pizza from an Italian restaurant! Close to the village, there was another little shopping area which was slightly more up-market. My mum and I grew to love this area, as there were buskers performing every night with a little caravan bar nearby, so we spent quite a few evenings watching people perform while sipping Margaritas!

Cuisine

Breakfasts in the hotel were particularly amazing as they had such a wide variety of food - did you know it's normal to have noodles for breakfast?! I really enjoyed having lots of fresh fruit while I was away, and discovered a new love for dragon fruit!


The pictures here show one of the traditional Thai nights at the hotel. There were loads of different options, from curry to spring rolls to noodle dishes and tons more! It was really great because you could watch your food being made and tell the chefs exactly what you wanted to have in it. My favourite Thai dish turned out to be Pad Thai, a stir-fried noodle dish that I liked to have with prawns. The hotel also did absolutely amazing prawn cakes!

Sightseeing

One of my very favourite parts about the day was visiting an area for elephant trekking! There was also a nearby waterfall that you could swim in which was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me - there's something so liberating about swimming in a natural pool with a bunch of people you don't know who are just as excited by it as you are!


The elephant trekking was also a major highlight and something that I've wanted to do for a really long time. We got to trek for about half an hour through natural Thai landscape with an elephant carer, as well as feed the elephants! They're such beautiful creatures and I felt so lucky to be able to spend time with them!

Overlooking panoramic views of Koh Samui beaches and coastline