L'Auberge

Country: France

Location: Waterloo
Cost: £15 for a main

Another trip to a French restaurant with Sian and her Taste Card, this time in Waterloo and wilth a couple of other friends I made whilst I was working in France.  Our four meals came to about £35 with the taste card.   Hooray! I had magret de canard.

Salla part two

Location: Soho
Countries: Greece, Turkey, Egypt among others
Cost: £3 before 11 and £5 after


Salla has been running for a while in Soho at Escape bar and I thought it was about time I went along to see how it compared to the old location at Highbury and Islington. 


The good news is that the price has gone down and the event frequency has gone up!  The new location seems to have made a huge difference too. Escape is quite small so it felt very busy. 

There was even a male belly dancer who performed in the middle of the dancefloor at one point.  And the music was as good as ever with several songs I recognised. I went along with a Turkish guy so kept asking him "is this song Turkish?"


Website again: www.salla.co.uk/3.html

Melissa Brady belly dance taster classes

Countries: Turkey and Tahiti
Cost: free


Further to my trip to the vitality show I found that Melissa Brady was doing some free taster classes in a gym at Picadilly Circus so I signed up for 2 and ended up doing 3: beginners belly dance, belly ballet and Tahitian belly dance fusion. The classes were fun and energetic though the Tahitian dancing was very hard! 


I've also discovered a dance studio near me that offers belly dance classes for £7 - Coconut Grove Studios at Ladbroke Grove so I might give this a go at some point.


To give you an idea of Tahitian dancing:

Club Espeng

Country: Spain
Location: check their website
Cost: free


Club Espeng is a Spanish / English language exchange that takes place once a week on Thursday evenings from 19.30. I usually have my Spanish class on Thursday evenings but since we have broken up for Easter a couple of classmates and I decided to give it a go.

When we went the event was being hosted at Juno bar on Shoreditch High Street but check theory website for the most up to date location information.  The hosts were welcoming and explained the format :  a fixed amount of time in one language and then a switch to the other language. To prevent people staying in little groups they rang a bell after 5 minutes or so and you had to chat to new people.

It was a great evening and good speaking and listening practise. The only thing that was a bit tricky to judge was the level of the people you were talking to. At one point I joined a conversation between two native Spanish speakers which was very challenging until they realised I was a bit lost and slowed the conversation down. Equally you could end up with someone with a very low level of Spanish/English which could make a conversation hard work.  Everyone was very patient and understanding though. 

I really hope I pass my Spanish exam and can go on to further study . In any case I'd definitely consider going back once I have Thursday nights free again.


Website here:
www.clubespeng.org

Arigato Supermarket

Country: Japan
Location: Soho

This little Japanese supermarket on Brewer Street also has a small area where you can sit and eat food that has been purchased in-store.

(Photo from the internet)

Stanfords

Stanfords in Covent Garden is a travel bookshop selling guides, fiction and maps.  It's a great place to spend some idle time browsing and there's a little cafe at the back of the shop.

www.stanfords.co.uk/

St Volodymyr and the Ukrainian Institute

Country: Ukraine

Vladimir Sviatoslavich the Great was the Grand Prince of Kiev who converted to Christianity in 988.  There's a statue of him at Holland Park, just next to the Ukrainian Institute.  The institute offer Ukrainian language courses and events.

http://ukrainianinstitute.org.uk/

The Ukrainian embassy is also nearby.

Samba Belly Dance

I went to the Vitality Show in Earl's Court and there was a workshop and demonstration of Samba Bellydancing.

The teacher (Melissa, in green) combined some very basic bellydancing moves with a few samba style steps.  There was a great sword dance in the demonstration afterwards.

Melissa organises classes and taster sessions in London and details can be found on her website

www.melissabellydance.com/about.php

Kyoto Gardens

Country: Japan

Location: Holland Park

Cost: Free

This lovely little Japanese garden is in the middle of Holland Park and was presented to London as a gift from the Prefecture of Kyoto.