Not long now...

I haven't done much travelling recently, as I have a few exams coming up over the next two months.

In fact, the temptation to go swanning off round London when I should be studying is quite high, so I've decided to extend my deadline to getting my world tour finished to the closing ceremony of the Olympics rather than the opening one.  The closing ceremony will take place on 12th August, two months after my last exam.

Belgian surrealist art

A strange sight in a window near the Royal Courts of Justice - surrealist Belgian art.  Originally the idea of Marcel Marien, this particular spectacle was made by Wouter de Baat.

Foté Foré

My main purpose of visiting the Roundhouse was to see Cirque Mandingue's show Foté Foré. 

I went past the Roundhouse on the bus on Friday and wondered what was on.  I spotted there was a circus from Guinea (a country that I had somehow missed off from both my completed list and my still to visit list) performing there until 7th April 2012.

The event was a blend of acrobatics, drumming, dancing, clowning around and high energy antics.  

Circuses of the World

There is currently a small exhibition at the Roundhouse of photos taken from circus projects around the world.

There are photos from the following projects:

Phare Ponleu Selpak, Battambang, Cambodia
Zip Zap Circus School, Cape Town, South Africa
Circo Para Todos, Kali, Columbia
Sapana Circus, Kathmandu, Nepal
Roundhouse Street Circus Project, London

Shatkora Curry

Shatkora's botanical name is Citrus macroptera and it is a kind of bitter, sour citrus fruit that is used as a cooking ingredient in Bangladesh.

I had a shatkora curry at Shampan in Brick Lane and it was a really unusual flavour.

Banana fritters

There are lots of stalls selling food from around the world in Portobello Market, including the Ghanaian stall that I'd previously seen at Broadway Market in London Fields. This particular stall sells food from Sierra Leone.

I bought some Acara (banana fritters) and they were so tasty, and nobody seemed to want to share them with me so I ended up scoffing the lot almost before we'd left Ladbroke Grove station

Traditions Revisited

The Brunei Galley just had 3 Japanese exhibits which finished on 24-3-12:

- Traditions Revisited - Japanse fans from the Ishiyumi Family Collection.
- Tohoku - Images of Disaster
- One Thousand Pots, One  Thousand Thoughts

 One Thousand Pots, One Thousand Thoughts in the Brueni Gallery Japanese roof garden