photography

UK Road trip: Day Out in London

| The Paintress

Waaay back in June 2014, I went on a road trip across England with my good friend Grace. In August of that same year, I made my first post introducing my travels as a photo series. Well, its been a year since the road trip and I haven’t posted anything since! College has totally absorbed my life but now that its summer, I’m back baby! Sooo after much delay, I present to you the SECOND post of the U.K. Road Trip photo series.

Our first adventure, once arriving in England, was to explore ol’ London town.
To begin the day, Grace prepared me an old fashioned English breakfast. It consisted of morning tea, crispy bacon, jam & toast, and scrambled eggs. Yuum!
Next stop: Borough Market!
The market was full of people and stalls decorated with fancy cuisine. Check out these delicious chocolates!!!
More food!
I saw lots of stalls selling sangria. This was my first time drinking sangria… not really my thing.
More sangria!
We then made our way to visit Big Ben in all its glory.
I especially loved the beautiful pathway that lined the River Thames.
Grace got her self a little snack. These frosties are something specially sold on the streets of London.
Big Ben is a popular tourist site. The street leading up to it packed with people, street magicians and performers who can easily scam you for some pounds.
This is Melih! He is our friend Aylin’s cousin who also resides in England. Melih and Grace have known each other a couple years now but this was my first time meeting him. He served as my second tour guide. Thanks Melih!
The rest of our time in London was spent avoiding the rain. For shelter, we went to many of the free museums and art galleries.
Here is Grace observing some art work.
Grace contemplating the art of the Renaissance.
Self portrait time.

UK Road Trip: Introduction

| The Paintress

I went on a massive road trip across the UK from late May to mid June this year with one of my closest friends. Here is the first installment from our trip: a brief introduction to my partner in crime, Grace.

Grace and I have known each other since freshman year of high school and although she has moved several times in and out of the US, we remained in touch with one another. After two more turbulent years back in California, Grace and her family were permanently settling back down in the UK (where they are originally from). We started discussing our summer plans, mine working part time as a cashier while juggling college, hers adjusting to her new home up in Scotland. Our road trip idea first began over a tiny dream we both shared of traveling and adventure. “How amazing would it be if I actually came to England to visit you?!”, a constant fantasy I always poked at that slowly churned into reality over the course of our idle Facebook conversations. I promised her I would save up all my money from work to see her and after several long and tedious months of scanning peoples groceries, I finally booked a one-way ticket to London!

Little did Grace and I know the enormity of our nearly month long planned travels. After booking my flight, Grace quickly scrambled to pass her driving exams followed by rapid communication on which hotels to book and where to go. It was a frantic race to beat the clock before my arrival on May 27th! Most of the hotel bookings were done by Grace not to mention all the driving across England’s small, crooked streets. Grace was a nervous wreck and she had every right to be. Two twenty year old girls jumping from one city to the next in a soccer mom van was a frightening reality check. I was mostly in charge of getting my ass to Heathrow Airport on time and being the official navigator when our savvy, Aussie accented GPS screwed us over. Between all the anxiety attacks, junk food binges and wrong turns, we survived!

Although I have known Grace for nearly six years, being in a car with her for 3.5 weeks introduced me to a whole new person. We talked a lot about our future goals and aspirations, politics and family life. We mostly disagreed about everything and bickered constantly. We fought and drove ourselves crazy and annoyed the shit out of each other. While I was always looking for some mischief, Grace was thinking more logically. Safety came first to her while getting lost was always the first thing on my mind. Grace was comfortable on the ground, she kept our road trip steady and had her head screwed on straight. I was always up on some monstrous rock, feet dangling looking for adventure in dangerous places. Organized and clear headed, Grace was always one step ahead of me throughout the planning of our road trip. I simply sang along to the Spice Girls CD I brought, stubborn for some fun that would usually leave Grace worried. But through thick and thin, we always looked out for each other.  – J

Me on that monstrous rock I mentioned, Grace looking out for me from down below.

PS: Check out Grace’s side of the story! Click here to visit her new website.  

 

India 2013

| The Paintress

Here are a set of pictures I took  in India, more specifically on the western coast of Maharashtra. This is part one of the photography collection which I am currently in the process of editing.

*All photos were edited using Google+.

Photography by: Jui Apte

Somewhere on the road.
Shubhangi Moushi’s house in the morning
Closed spaces, shopping venders
Running to the bus
Rucha by the river
Unknown but posing
Train ride of colors
Beach side with Rohan