I'm On A Journey

Welcome To The Island of Misfit Toys

Open Up My Eyes

Adventurer

The Dharma Bums

All good things are wild and free

   

And so the adventure begins

Sunday Music: Hans Zimmer - Winter's Tale

A Chance To Escape

Surfs Up: Newquay, Cornwall

Being Mind Blown at the Museum

Keeping Fit During The Colder Months

Let's Get Juicy

Recently I decided to do a "juice cleanse" after my weekend of drinking and eating unhealthily at Reading Festival. Truth be told, it didn't go well due to the lack of research I done beforehand and ended up really ill at work on the third day.

However, I thought I would share with you my favourite juice recipes as they're pretty damn delicious and supposed to promote weight loss for any of you guys looking to shed some holiday weight.

The first recipe is called Green Lemonade, which instantly drew me to it since lemonade is my favourite drink ever. The fresh kind though, that is bittersweet. The ingredients are:
2 cups of spinach
4 leaves of kale
1 cucumber
1 lemon
2 apples
Another good part about this drink is that it comes out in the most beautiful, vibrant green! Let's just say I am obsessed with green juices and their shades.

The next recipe is something is another recipe I found online but with a few added ingredients for health benefits. The ingredients are:
1 mango
1 cup of pineapple
1 orange
1/2 lemon
2 cups of spinach
2 apples
I found this recipe to be really refreshing first thing in the morning and gives you a spark of energy with the natural sugars in the fruits.

The last recipe is one that I found in Camden Market one day with my Dad. It is so refreshing and delicious! The ingredients are:
1 cucumber
2 apples
1 lime
3 mint leaves (you can add more if you like)

Let me know what your favourite juice recipes are and if you try any of the ones mentioned above!

Reading Festival 14

21st - 25th August 2014. 

I have been going to festivals now every summer for the past three years. They are my favourite part of summer, hands down. What could be better than spending a weekend in a field, dancing, drinking, singing with some of your closest friends. 

This year was my first year at Reading Festival and it certainly won't be my last. It all starts on the Thursday where you arrive and set up camp. We had two lovely gentlemen help us set up our tent since we had no clue. Would have ended up as three damsels in distress without them. Once you are all set up, the drinking begins and it's basically a day to get to know your neighbours for the next four days and see what's going on around your camp. We had a cute little bar in our camp that had a dance floor and only played the music of artists that were going to perform that weekend. So it was pretty damn good. Everyone was so lively and the atmosphere was buzzing in there. I ended up dancing on the tables - for a short while anyway before the security guard came and got me down. Booooo! 

The music festival begins on the Friday at 12pm and each day was the same. The headline act always finished at 11pm. So each day is pretty long and jam packed of artists that you want to see over the duration of the weekend. I think the most time we had spare each day was about an hour whilst we waited for another act to begin that we wanted to see. Over the duration of the weekend I saw: Arctic Monkeys / Blink 182 / Paramore / Jamie T / I Am Legion / Vampire Weekend / Twin Atlantic / Enter Shikari / Imagine Dragons / Foster The People / Peace / Bombay Bicycle Club / Chvrches / Royal Blood / Adventure Club / A Day To Remember / Papa Roach / Disclosure / The 1975 / The Horrors / The Kooks / Clean Bandit / Breach / Bondax / You Me At Six. So yeah, pretty busy but amazing weekend! 

I was pretty damn excited to see Imagine Dragons as I have been obsessed with their album Night Vision for over a year now. It has so many wonderful, giddy memories attached to it. Heck, I even cried during the performance of one of their songs (Demons). Other acts I really enjoyed were Jamie T, since he was a surprise act we literally stumbled upon him on the way back from the toilet. Best surprise ever! It was so good to see him live with one of my best friends from school since his songs are pretty much an anthem for those years. Of course I was stoked to see Arctic Monkeys for the second time this year. They are so bloody good live and my crush on Alex Turner just came rushing back again. He is so dreamy, mmm. 

Hopefully Reading 2015 will be on the cards! I miss that weekend already. My cold that I am currently suffering with from that weekend keeps the memories fresh in my head. 

To see my videos and some other photos from that weekend, go to my Instagram here. 

Visiting My Roots

I LOVE TO COOK! There I said it. There is no better moment than cooking something amazingly delicious whilst singing and dancing to your favourite songs. And I find it impossible to cook either without company or music playing in the background.

Being half turkish and growing up with my Nene cooking the most amazing food for us every Saturday I just want to be able to same and be able to cook foods from different cultures. So as being a new vegetarian I made some spicy vegetables kebabs with brown rice, brown pitta bread and sweet chilli hummus. It was so yummy, apart from the rice, brown rice is pretty damn hard to cook! I felt like I was in a Mediterranean country all I needed was a nice beach view and warm summer sun peering through the window. Can't have it all now can we?

Lately, I have been wanting to start cooking and experimenting more, well since becoming vegetarian. Food is the most exciting part of my day - sad I know, but I love to cook and it's a social thing as in my flat as me and my best friend tend to cook together. I need to invest in some cookbooks so I can try new recipes and new foods. Any recommendations? What are your favourite recipes?

Gettin' Dirty

So in March this year, I went back to my roots and went completely blonde and it was great. As soon as the light shade was presence on my head I felt brighter and not dull and miserable anymore. That was also the general feedback I got from people when they saw my new-do. However, things turned to the worse, got a little grey - literally - and the brunette me was back. I could not have been more devastated. A month has passed and I am now on my way to becoming dirty. Brown roots, dirty blonde hair! The kind that looks like it needs a good wash. Let us hope it all goes to plan.

The Indian Markets in Camden

You are all aware by now of my wanderlust and places that able to cure it for a moment. Well, as me and my flatmates wandered the maze of Camden Market I was lost. Transported to the beautiful, vibrant country of India. 

There are several little hidden shops filled with vibrant, embroided textures. I had a moment of pure awe as I entered them. I feel like this is the feeling Carrie Bradshaw would have had in Sex and the City 2 when she wanders the markets in Saudi Arabia and gets distracted by the stall of slippers and forgets where she is for a moment as she is filled with giddy excitement (and leaves her airport documents behind). The prices in these little market shops are quite cheap and they vary in each shop you go in. However, like foreign places you can haggle in Camden and the shop owner will always give you good offers and deals. 

Whilst I was in the markets I picked up a beautiful, light tunic with amazing oriental patterns on it. Also, got myself two little travel notepads that I can carry round with me in my bag wherever I go, a vibrant, patterned throw covered in embroidery to add a touch of colour to my new bedroom, some bindis to add some sparkle to my face when its drained and dehydrated at Reading festival at the end of the month and a slouchy bag that I can also take with me. If an inanimate object could look or be lazy then this bag would be the epitome of it. All of this for a mere £30! So good! My bedroom will end up reassembling one of the Indian markets sooner or later. 

I highly recommend that if you are ever in London that Camden Market is on your itinerary for your stay! You can get wonderful, unique pieces you'll never find anywhere else. 

New Beginnings

If you follow me on Instagram you would know by now that I am moving into a new flat. When this gets posted I will be moved into it and be living in my new town of Camden (I probably won't have any wifi). As you know the prospect of moving into a new space occurs, your mind - well mine anyway - goes at a hundred miles an hour trying to decide how you want to decorate and personalise it. I disliked the way I decorated my student halls room this year. I come to realise that I have a bit of a hoarding tendency for certain items and tend not to hide it and have it on show for everyone to see in my bedroom. However, this is going to change. A fresh clean slate.

For my new bedroom I want it be pretty, show a girlier side of me. Not so long ago Alexa Chung posted a photo on Instagram of roses dangling down from the ceiling on pieces of string and thought it would be an amazing view to wake up to above your bed every morning since some of us can't have the beautiful ocean view. Flowers give off a positive vibe which I really believe you should wake up with every morning as it really changes the attitude you give off and the outcome of your day. You start to enjoy a bit more just by changing to a more positive attitude. I find to do this in the morning I either think about things I love and appreciate, have a nice delicious breakfast or listen to a music playlist that is filled with songs you just want to get up, dance and sing to! Sorry flatmates!

The only furniture you really see in my new bedroom will be my bed and shelving unit. It will have this clean, fresh atmosphere to it. Plain and minimal. The only distraction in the bedroom will be the beautiful, inspiring magazines and books. Goodbye hectic hoarder and hello tranquillity.

Kyoto Garden

Kyoto is located in Central Japan and was once the capital of the country for over one thousand years, beginning from late 8th century. The city is filled with an abundance of Japanese style gardens as well as rich heritage of highly skilled traditional garden construction methods. 

The Kyoto Garden in Holland Park was built by a Japanese Garden designer and his team to celebrate the Japan Festival in London in 1992. Japanese gardens are built in a way that shows respect and admiration for natural forms such as trees and rocks. The Kyoto Garden is in 'tour garden' style, one of the typical styles of Japan. The trees are trimmed to emphasise their natural shape. The three-step waterfall symbolises steep mountains and deep gouges which the pond depicts a vast ocean view. This garden gets more beautiful with time and the ever changing climate as the natural forms change parallel to these two factors. This emphasises the importance of the Japanese style gardens concentration on natural forms. 

The zen, tranquil feeling you get whilst sitting or wandering in this garden is like other. You are warned as you walk in that it is a place of peace and you can tell that people respect that and allow everyone to get the full enjoyment of peace and quiet in the hustle and bustle of London and get transported to a foreign place. 

It's places like this which make me fall in love with London even more. The city has essences of different cultures scattered around like little hidden gems which so true admiration for cultures of the world. It fills my thirst and ache for a distant place for the duration I am there and teaches me new aspects of foreign cultures that I would have probably only ever found out if I visited the country. 

I spent the afternoon in the Kyoto Garden reading King Lear by the waterfall. My body was in a Japanese garden whilst my mind was being transported back to Shakespearian England and it was a wonderful mixture. I enjoy nothing more than escapism and being surrounded by nature. You will be surprised how much you miss nature once you move to a big city. 

Feeling extremely zen right now. This is my new happy place. 

(I look like a little monkey in the wild in that photo)

Galavanting Around London

I'm finally back in my wonderful city of London after spending some quality time at home with my family and friends. You don't realise how much there is to do in London until you get away from it for a while and get stuck in a routine of going to the cinema, bowling or to dinner. I find it so exciting when I have a list of a million and one things I want to do and explore. You wake up everyday with endless possibilities. There is never a dull and boring day and that is the way life should be experienced. Full of excitement and wander. 

The 28th July was my first proper day back in London and I think it was a day well spent. The day I had planned was to go to Shepherds Bush and High Street Kensington with Catherine to run a few errands and then get home to carry on organising and packing my room. However, whenever me and Catherine are out and about in London we end up with so many fun ideas to do and our days are usually filled with spontaneity and we never know where we will actually end up. Our day actually ended up a little something like this...

After we went to High Street Kensington to do our last errands of the day we walked to Notting Hill to get Bubbleology and fish and chips. What are those tapioca balls all about?! It's like a nasty surprise waiting at the end of the tunnel (straw). Walking down Portobello and choking on balls was not a pleasant experience. 

We took our fish and chips to the river bank in Wandsworth trying to recreate a British past time in London where you eat this meal by the seaside. Unfortunately we were no where near a coastal town so this would have to do. It was so peaceful as we weren't in central London and to be quite honest, it didn't feel like London at all. 

In order to make ourselves feel better about the fact we had just stuffed our faces with greasy, deep fried food we went for a massive bike ride on the 'Boris' Barclay bikes. We just did not anticipate how long this bike ride would be. The ride ended up lasting three hours!! My bum and thighs certainly felt this the next day. Our journey went down part of the Thames Path which is a national trail that is around 180 miles long. We joined the path at Wandsworth and followed it all the way to the London Eye and Westminster, taking a stoop in Battersea Park and actually getting lost in Battersea. After following the Thames Path we continued on our journey through Westminster and took a brief visit to Miss Queenie - who was actually in that day, we had a nice cuppa - and found the gold Chanel logos that are painted on lamp posts nearby. 

We eventually ended our journey at Hyde Park Corner at 9pm. It was a bloody wonderful, spontaneous day. One of the best and most fun since being in London. There is nothing wrong with being a tourist in your own city every now and then (I do it more often than I should). It just reminds you of all the amazing reasons you live there and you constantly come across new, wonderful parts of the city. Also, who doesn't love exploring?!