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SimSim and I went on a little ‘adventure’ last night in our efforts to find an ice rink in East London.

First, we went on the bus towards Stratford – the future home of the 2012 Olympics, insha’Allah. On the way, we got stuck in traffic on Green Street, one of the main districts for S.E. Asian shopping in London. However, it is also the home of West Ham United football ground; so Saturday nights tend to bring out the footie fans.

Unfortunately, the rink that we were intending to visit had mysteriously disappeared. A drastic change of plans was required. SimSim had it on good authority (well, her sister told her) that there was a rink in the O2 centre, previously known as the “Millenium Dome“. In all my years in London, I’d never actually visited the Dome, so I thought, “what they hey, let’s do it!”.

Unfortunately, we only found a dry, indoor ski slope… and I didn’t feel that adventurous.

So we continued on to the nearby Docklands – London’s modern financial hub – to seek out the Canary Wharf ice rink; a dead cert that we had seen advertised online.

Huzzah! Success! Oh wait… does this mean I have to ice skate now? Eep!

I forgot to mention that I’d only been skating once before in my life, around six years ago… and during my ice-capades, I fell over three times, resulting in a nasty bruise to my left butt cheek. Umm, too much information?

Well, after a lot of girlish screaming, I managed to do the improbable, and stay up on the ice long enough to glide around a bit. SimSim was my rock… in fact, most of the time, I was clinging onto her (when I wasn’t clinging onto the sides of the rink for dear life). She also provided a lot of my propulsion power, as I haven’t quite figured out how to… erm… well, move forward on my own. Look, staying upright is hard enough!

We were doing really well. We had witnessed many tumbles, scrapes, and crashes, but had managed not to lose balance once during the entire session. Even after a random boy decided to grab onto me as he was falling over!

Then, on the way to the exit, something terrible happened… yeah, I fell… but, with grace. In other words: the other cheek is still intact. The hardest part was getting up. Once again, SimSim proved herself, and helped pull me to my wobbly feet. I guess the evening would not have been complete without me looking like a complete idiot (as if the previous 45 minutes had not been enough).

Check out the other photos from my evening in East London: