Things I Love

1. Asian soups in freezing London. That includes the Vietnamese pho, the Korean tofu dishes (soon doo boo or jigae) and malaysian soups (laksa, etc.). Sorry but I don't think Japanese miso soup qualifies on this one (not substantial enough) but any of the soba noodle or udon noodle based soups do. As do the Thai soups with coconut & lemongrass.

2. coffee - the time out recently did a listing of what they consider the best coffee in London. Oddly absent was Monmouth (which is more like desert than coffee, as a friend put it). I don't love the lack of democracy at Monmouth (one size coffee, one type of milk), but I do love the taste. http://www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk/ourshops.htm

3. Life is for living Mondays. My own way of tackling the Monday blues is to promise that Monday will be a day when you do something special - you go out to dinner, movie, whatever. Just as long as it's not "just another weekday". Cause after all, life is for living. And even more so on the worst day of the week.

Things I Love

1. Time Out Magazine / website (although sometimes their recommendations are completely off)
2. Coffee (Monmouth's or Cafe Vergnano 1928 or Cafe Italia)
3. Tea (haven't found a fantastic tea place; there are many in London)
4. Movies - Curzon Soho, BFI, ICA amongst others
5. Art - the Tates, the Photographer's Gallery (recently moved), the National Gallery (& Portrait Gallery just to mix things up) & Estorick Collection (tiny but awesome)

More on these later...