Paris - Baking Memories

I ended up finding this book for free on Amazon: How to Travel the World on a Budget: These Tips Will Save You Thousands of Dollars! which had some interesting points, but the most important one I remember is that the author talks about how a lot of people go on a holiday to Europe with the goal of "doing Europe" - i.e. seeing all the typical sights, taking photos, and going from tour to tour. They usually end up exhausted afterwards, and while they are able to brag about having seen X sights in Y countries, and have a thousand photos to show for it, they can't remember really doing anything, because it was just a whirlwind of travel trying to pack all the sights into a short period of time. While I did want to see a lot of the sights, and I bought a Lonely Planet guide and made huge lists of things to see, MrFodder and I ultimately decided to take this vacation as an opportunity to actually have a vacation. Especially as we are both using all of our work leave that we have saved up, so it'll be a long time until we get another holiday. Plus, as the book pointed out, any photos we take are not going to be as good as those taken by a professional with a much better camera, and can be found with Google.

Though I have to say that this photo that MrFodder took of the Eiffel Tower was very nice.

As a sudden idea while in Paris, I thought I might try to take a baking class, and since seeing that episode of Yakitate Japan! where he bakes a 324 layer croissant! (if you haven't seen the show before, prepare yourself for large amounts of ham - it's a great show though, if you don't take it too seriously). Unfortunately, I clicked the wrong class, and ended up booking myself into a pastry and dessert class, and I emailed the instructor asking to change, but the croissant class was at the same time as our train to Berlin, so I couldn't make it anyway.

I went to the class and ended up having a fantastic time, we made:

Florentines:

Layer cake (and ladyfingers out of the leftover cake batter):

Crème caramel:

To be honest, I'm still in shock that I made those (even though it was under the supervision of an experienced pastry chef, so that helped a lot). But it was a great experience, and gave me a much better appreciation of French cuisine. The instructor was incredibly knowledgeable. The class I did was the French Pastry class at Pâtisserie à la carte (she changes up the desserts she makes in the class, so you may not get the same ones I did). I learned lots of tips, and I'm not sure if it's OK to post them all, but I guess since they're probably not super secret things if all chefs are doing it, here they are:

• when making caramel, don't stir it, otherwise the sugar will crystalise on the spoon - if it is cooking unevenly, just mix it around by shaking the pot. However, if the caramel includes honey or glucose, then it's OK to stir. For non-glucose caramel, you know it's done when the bubbles are really small, and the surface starts looking smooth - it'll happen, just have faith!
• egg whites don't like to be beaten too fast, so start beating them slowly, and increase speed over time
• when working with vanilla beans, cut in half and boil the seeds and the beans with the milk. Once the milk starts to boil, remove the beans, and squeeze them out to get the vanilla oil into the mixture and discard the beans (super important, as the vanilla oil is only released when heated, and that is what gives it a lot of flavour).
• when putting Crème caramel in the water bath, put a sheet of baking paper in the tray first, so that when the water starts bubbling, it will bubble into the paper and is less likely to bubble into your dessert.
• when making the custard for the Crème caramel, and mixing the hot milk with the beaten eggs, keep stirring the eggs as you pour the hot milk in, otherwise the hot milk will cook the eggs
• use skim milk for the Crème caramel, as the lower fat content is good for helping it keep its light texture

I enjoyed it so much that after returning, I ended up booking two more classes for when we're in Florence - a pasta making class, and a pizza and gelati making class (which MrFodder is also interested in, so he will be joining me this time).

The High Life

Sorry for the deluge of posts. Our Internet access isn't as easy as it was in our previous hotels, so I'm trying to catch up on some posts at once.

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At the recommendation of one of MrFodder's colleagues, we booked a table at the Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel tower. You get to travel up a private elevator to the restaurant, which is 123 metres high in the Southern leg of the tower. At 105 Euros a person for a three-course meal (not including drinks), it's pretty expensive, but we figured that it's our honeymoon, and we rarely eat at fancy restaurants, so we decided to make this our super fancy meal for the trip. If you are thinking of going, make sure to book as early as you can, because the tables are generally assigned on a first come, first served basis when it comes to the tables that are along the window (where you can see down to Paris). The larger tables (for more than 4 people), seem to be away from the window.

This restaurant is one of those fancy ones where the waiters pull out your chair for you, and they seem to have a billion different types of cutlery. Luckily, they brought out the right utensils for each meal, so I didn't have to worry that I was using the soup fork for my bread instead of the bread knife. All of the staff were incredibly attentive and courteous, even though we barely spoke any French - they spoke English. There was a sommelier who helped us pick out a champagne, and then the waiters helped us pick out which items from the menu we should try. Everyone seemed to know a lot about each item, which I thought was amazing. Plus, since I had sent them my allergy list ahead of time, they were aware of it, and without asking, modified my meals so that they were suitable.

I have to say, the food was amazing, though probably not the food that I would choose to eat if I had the choice. I know that sounds bad, but I guess my palate isn't really refined for the high life. In fact, as I sit here in the Hilton in Berlin (which I managed to get on sale), I feel like that kind of fancy life isn't really for me. I know the waiter was only doing his job, but a part of me wanted to sit in my chair without assistance. The entire time I was there, I felt like I didn't belong. I actually wore a dress and heels to the restaurant, and MrFodder and I were well dressed compared to how we have been for the rest of our trip, but I still felt like I didn't belong. I didn't want to eat my meal the wrong way (*gasp* She started eating the beef first without swirling her wine?! What a heathen!), I didn't want to make a mess and get us kicked out, I didn't want to accidentally make some innocuous seeming hand gesture and get someone fired. OK, I don't think it was that bad, but it just seems like a whole other world that I don't feel comfortable in. MrFodder says that because we have enough money to be eating there, then we belong.

It reminds me of that scene in The Wire, where D'Angelo (who is *spoiler alert* a drug dealer) and his girlfriend go to a fancy restaurant, and the entire time, he's looking around at what other people are doing, and he performs so many faux pas that you get the feeling that everyone around him is thinking he doesn't belong. But, just as MrFodder said to me, when he begins to doubt himself, his girlfriend says to him, "So? Your money good, right?" But he explains that sometimes, not matter how much you try to hide it, there's just something that stays with you. What I'm trying to get at is described so much better in this blog post - which draws parallels with The Great Gatsby (which is sitting on my Kindle unread, but after reading this post, is probably going to be the next book on my list).

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time at the Jules Verne, and I am definitely enjoying some of the nicer perks of staying at the Hilton (like a massive hotel room for one, plus a nicely furnished gym, and the fact that in the lobby we have people playing a freakin' grand piano). But it's definitely a holiday thing for me. I feel much more comfortable in my cheapo worn jeans and eating take-away food out of a styrofoam box.

Oh, actually, one part of the high life I do have to say I enjoy - travelling in first class. If you're an adult, the only Eurail pass you can get is a first class one, so we ended up with first class tickets from Paris to Berlin. The extra leg room and comfy seats were well worth it. If I could afford it, I'd travel first class all the time, and leg room doesn't usually matter to me! The train ride was just so comfortable that it didn't feel like 8.5 hours at all. After buying our Eurail pass, I think it was only around 30 Euros more to reserve a first class seat, and I'd 100% recommend it if you can afford it. Well, I guess we can't talk about what the regular class seats were like, so they might have been amazing, too. I kinda wonder if there are standing-room only "seats", as on the train from Frankfurt to Berlin, I noticed some people standing in the baggage area, and they were there when we boarded the train, and were still there when we left the train. Maybe they just don't like sitting down, I don't know.

Paris - First Impressions

The first thing we noticed about Paris was the fact that the Metro stations are definitely not built for people with luggage, or disabled people. There were no lifts going down to the train platform, so we had to lug our luggage up and down a heap of stairs. It made me glad that the only extra luggage we picked up in London was some chocolate frogs, a T-shirt, and some breakfast foods. Getting to our hotel was really straightforward, as it was just a short train-ride away - once we worked out how the Metro ticketing system worked (thank you very much Triposo Paris app!).

The first big hurdle we encountered was our lack of French. We tried to go out for dinner and the first few restaurants we went to had menus that were entirely in French, so we had no idea what to order. Plus, a lot of them seemed to have lots of smokers outside, so we moved on for cleaner air. It was also quite unfortunate that the place we stayed at was called Place d'Italie, which as it turns out, seems to be some kind of Little Italy, and there were so many Italian restaurants around. The Italy leg of our trip seemed so far away as we walked by Italian restaurant after Italian restaurant. Eventually, we found a place not far from our hotel that had an English menu.

MrFodder tells me that Paris is built on a kind of hexagonal structure, where there will be a central roundabout, and the streets kinda branch out from there, with rings of streets that go further and further out. As with London, the train network is amazing, and it's so easy to get from one place to another. The tickets you buy seem to be 2-hour tickets, and you can catch any train in the network in that time period. Each hex seems to have a station. In fact, there seem to be stations everywhere. One thing that did trip us up was that the map that was given to us from the hotel had a much smaller scale than the one we got from London. Things that were walking distance on the London map were much much further away on the Paris map.

I have to say, the first dinner we had in Paris was amazing. Even though pretty much everything in Paris is trying to kill me - it was hayfever season, and good luck finding something to eat that doesn't have dairy, eggs or nuts in it - I have to say that almost everywhere we went in Paris smelled delicious. The places that didn't smell delicious smelled like stale urine, so I'm hoping the delicious smells weren't just overriding the stale urine smells, but it was just so nice to walk down a street of restaurants and smell heaven.

Paris definitely gives a great first impression.

London - Final Impression

As a tourist city, London is amazing. We came across so many of these maps, which were super helpful. Not only were they oriented in the direction that you were facing, but they had both a close-up view, and a further away view, which made it really great for orienting yourself.

Since we didn't have access to the internet outside of our hotel, we didn't have the help of Google maps, so these maps helped us a lot when it came to finding the Monopoly streets. Unfortunately, we found that they're mostly in the central part of London. The further out we went, the harder it was to find one of these. We never really went out into the suburbs (unless you count going to visit the Harry Potter studio the suburbs), so I can't really say if they are in the suburbs at all. Huge lifesavers though, as it saved us a lot of aimless walking.

As a food city, I would have to rate Melbourne higher. Sure, we went to a lot of great places, and since we knew we were going to Italy, we really limited ourselves by saying we weren't going to eat any Italian food here, but I felt a bit like in terms of value for money, the food wasn't that great. Well, I guess part of that is because of the weak Aussie dollar at the moment, so something that was worth 10 pounds (which became 20 AUD) wasn't as great as something I knew we could get for 10 AUD back home. And it was a bit unfair comparing things, as we were going out of our way to eat traditional English meals - and I don't think traditional Australian meals are considered amazing food back home. I have to say that Brick Lane lived up to its reputation. I know it has become a bit of a tourist trap, but the food we had there was amazing. The other Indian restaurant we went to was also very good. Far better than anything we could get back home. Even though I love fish and chips, I know that's not really something that's good to eat every day - and I'm pretty sure the fortnightly fish and chips during our fortnightly roleplaying sessions were a large contributor to the weight MrFodder and I gained.

It's also a bit unfair to compare food when some of the places we tried to go to were so packed. There were a couple of pubs near our hotel, but almost every time we went to them for food, there were no seats available. The only time we managed to get in was because one of the patrons made room for us on his table, so we managed to order food - and it was great. I have to say that portion size in London was incredible. I had forgotten what it was like to feel hungry - I just knew that it was time for lunch/dinner, and that I should be eating. We rarely ordered dessert at dinner, as nothing really caught our attention, and we were just so full.

I don't think we did all that much sightseeing, so we didn't learn all that much about the history of London. We did see some cool stuff at the Tower of London - if you're interested in medieval weaponry, and things like that. Getting around was incredibly easy though. We kinda lucked out by staying near one of the big stations in London (Paddington station), but changing lines, or catching buses is really straightforward if you know where you want to go. The trains come fairly often, so we never found ourselves having to be somewhere at a certain time, it was really lax in terms of planning to go places. Getting up early definitely helped though, as we found that the one time we had to catch a train during peak hour meant that the trains were somewhat cramped, but nothing compared to home.

Overall, I enjoyed our time in London, but it didn't really feel all that foreign, possibly because everyone spoke English, and a lot of the things were just like being back home. It's a great city, and I'm glad we went, but if we were to have to fly so far in the future, if the Australian dollar is as weak as it is, I think I'd rather skip London.

Friends and Colleagues

I'm having a hard time processing an episode of House that we just watched. As a bit of a side story in the episode, one of House's subordinates (Foreman) ends up writing and submitting a paper to a journal that another one (Cameron) has already written about. Cameron's wrote her paper first, but House ends up signing off on Foreman's and he gets published. Cameron is obviously pissed off about it. At the end of the episode, Cameron decides that they both had the right to write about that case as they both worked on it, and she goes and apologises for being so hostile towards Foreman. Foreman says that he doesn't need to apologise, and that in a few years, they probably won't even be working together. They might say hello or hug each other if they see each other at a conference, but as far as he's concerned, they're colleagues and not friends.

I'm sure you've all heard way too much about my movie already (which seems to have gone down OK, I didn't get any angry Facebook messages), but it's pretty clear that hearing about my colleague leaving hit me pretty hard. When Grad Daniel messaged me saying that the colleague was packing up for the last time, I was feeling pretty teary. It's probably a good thing that I was on the other side of the planet. I don't think that's how you're meant to react when a colleague leaves, I feel like spending hours editing a movie, and feeling teary is something that you do when friends leave your life.

Given the high turnover in retail and hospitality, it never really affected me when people quit Woolworths or the casino. There were the lifers, who had been there for years, and some of whom are still there, and the part timers, like myself, who were only there as a stepping stone for another job later in life. But this is my first real big job, and during my first rotation in the graduate program, one of my co-workers was made redundant. I'd only been in the team for a couple of months at that point, and I barely knew him, but I still found it tough to handle. He was the primary expert for one of our systems, and so it felt like anyone's head could be on the chopping block at any time (I thought I was the exception at the time, as I was on the graduate program, but I found out from another grad that the program had fired one of the grads, though we never found out why). I later found out that he was let go because he was a contractor (someone who is brought in on a temporary contract to do some work related to their specific skill set), and the work they had brought him in for had finished.

We've had a few more people come and go. I ended up leaving that team to move on to my next rotation in the graduate program, and again when I moved on to my third and last rotation. There are always comments that you'll keep in touch, but with one exception, that hasn't really happened. Perhaps that's what LinkedIn was meant to be for?

Earlier this year, my sub-team (a smaller portion of my overall team, which is assigned to working on particular assets within my team) drew the short straw, and had to move to a different floor from the rest of our team because we were expanding too much in order to try and get our major project track, and there wasn't enough space on our floor for everyone. I was pretty sad about it, because it meant that I wouldn't be on the same floor as the Daniels. Intern Daniel and I have a morning ritual where we go to the kitchen, fill our bottles with water (it's our equivalent of going to get a coffee), and discuss life, the universe and everything. Now that we're on different floors, I can't see when he gets in, and it's a bit of a hassle to change floors. It's also a pain in the ass, as we're separated from the support team, so when they rely on us for 3rd-level support, rather than just wandering over to our desks, they call us, or have to go upstairs.

One of my co-workers (who is on this sub-team) makes fun of me, because he says that I miss all of my "little friends". He agrees with Foreman, and that the people you work with are just colleagues, and eventually you move on, and they move on, and they just become a fond memory you might dwell on every now and again. That pretty much explains my interaction with most of the people I've worked with in my previous jobs. I actually try really hard to keep in contact with the people I worked with on my other graduate rotations. But maybe this is just the road to madness?

If you think about it, the rough time you're meant to spend in any one job before leaving is about 2 years (at least that's what some studies have shown for the field of IT - people who job hop end up getting paid 50% more than those who stick around hoping to be promoted during the regular cycle). If you're meeting 6-10 new people every two years, you can't realistically keep in touch with all of them. I'm struggling just keeping in touch with non-gaming people from high school and university, if I added everyone I've ever worked with, I'd never have any time for myself!

Maybe I'm just to keen to like everyone I meet. That works in high school, and niche majors in university, where you're somewhat forced to interact with the people you're in class with, but isn't really necessary at work. I can get my job done without hanging out with my co-workers on the weekend and catching up on the latest goss. In fact, it might be easier if I did that, as I wouldn't be stuck having 15 minute conversations whenever I go by someone's desk.

I still feel like Cameron is right, and that Foreman should have respected her enough not to write up the same case as her, and that you should try to be friends with the people you work with, but maybe I should be listening to those who have more experience in the matter?

London: Monopoly Streets

I've finally lived out another one of my dreams - visiting all the streets that correspond to the streets on the UK version of the Monopoly board. It kinda started out as a silly excuse to travel around Australia, as I don't think I'd have gone to South Australia otherwise (apologies to my South Australian readers), and I still haven't completed the Australian version yet, though I've done five states worth of streets now, but seeing as it's very unlikely that I will return to London in the near future, I though I'd take the chance to do it all in one go.

We didn't end up going on a Monopoly tour or anything like that, but we did see some people with Monopoly badges at Leicester Square, so I assume that something like that exists. We just looked at a map of London, and decided to space out the streets based on the sights we wanted to see.

Day 1
Given that it walking distance from our hotel, we decided to hit up Marylebone Station. Didn't really go inside or anything, just got my photo and left. Though we happened upon Baker St, which is nearby, and decided to check if 221B was really there, and it kinda is, I don't think it's 221 if you look at the numbers on the surrounding buildings, but there is a small building that is made to look like it'd be the home of Sherlock Holmes, and the SH museum is also there.

Park Lane was also near our hotel, so we did a walk there, too (never seen so many expensive cars in my life, just parked there on the street). It turns out that Mayfair is a suburb, not a street, so I didn't manage to find a street called Mayfair, but I found a hotel called The Mayfair, which I thought was kinda cute (because people always want to build hotels on Mayfair), and used that for my photo instead.

Oxford St, Bond St (which is actually now New Bond St and Old Bond St) are also in Mayfair (though we ended up returning for those, as we had to look up whether they were the ones referred to on the board or not).

Day 2
Caught the tube to Piccadilly. Actually, most of the streets on the game are in or near the West End part of London, so if you wanted, you could start here. But we decided for a more scenic route so headed to Pall Mall, and walked to Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Bridge. We dun goofed, and didn't line up our arrival at Buckingham Palace to be when the changing of the guard happened, so we had to go back for that (11:30am - but get there early if you want a good view, as people start lining the streets and it's tough to find a good vantage point). Downing Street was closed off, so we didn't get to see 10 Downing St (where the Prime Minister lives).

We also knocked off Regent St, Marlborough St (which is actually Great Marlborough St in real life), Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square (you can't feed the pigeons there anymore), Vine St (there must have been something there when they picked the street initially, but there really isn't anything there now), Bow St, Coventry St, Whitehall, Northumberland Ave, and the Strand.

As you'd expect, there's a lot of shopping on the green properties, and high end shopping. I really liked Leicester Square, as we went to a great fish and chips shop there, and I went to Haagan Dazs for the first time (which I paid for later, as my eczema broke out during the night, but I think it was well worth it). The advantage of having our sleeping pattern still slightly messed up by jet lag was that we were waking up at around 6am, so by the time we were hitting some of these sights, there was barely anyone around. Later in the day, when we returned to Piccadilly, it was so much more crowded.

Day 3
Caught the train to King's Cross Station, which happens to be where Platform  9 3/4, of Harry Potter fame, is. You can get your photo taken running a trolley into the platform, but I think it's one of those deals where a photographer takes a photo and you have to pay for it. They do have all the different house scarves there though, so you can support your favourite house while you're at it (I was sorted into Hufflepuff on the Pottermore website, so I guess that's my house). Next to King's Cross Station is St Pancras International Station, which is where we caught our Eurostar train to Paris.

Just outside, you will find Euston Rd and Pentonville Rd.

From King's Cross Station, you could walk to the Camden Town market, which I wrote about in my last post, and that's what we did. Then made the crazy walk up Pentonville Rd to find The Angel Islington - which isn't a street either, but an area called Angel, with a street called Islington High St.

It was a long walk, and we should have just caught a bus, but I had to work off those Hagaan Dazs waffles. This time though, we did catch a bus (the 205) to Whitechapel Rd, which is where you can find the famous Brick Lane (home to lots of great Indian food, we went to a place /r/London recommended called Aladin, and I'm still drooling over the coconut rice we had. Somewhat pricey, but well worth it - be careful though, as Reddit warns that people will harrass you to go into their restaurant, and will promise drinks or discounted bills, but then not follow through with that promise and so you have to check your bill).

We walked back to Liverpool Station, where we caught the train back to our hotel.

Day 4
Caught the tube to Tower Hill station, which is a short walk to Fenchurch St Station. Walked to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels. Walked across Tower Bridge, walked to Old Kent Rd and created a new walk that also worked my biceps. As I mentioned, Old Kent Rd was where the shoplifting incident happened.

Crossed London Bridge, and crazily decided to walk all 311 steps to the top (upon leaving, you get a certificate commemorating the fact that you walked up 311 steps). Walked past St Paul's Cathedral - our legs were jelly at this point, and we weren't all that keen to do more sightseeing. Then walked up to Fleet St.

Other than jail, which we weren't too keen to visit, and electric company and water works, we managed to cover all of the streets in a few days, and see a decent part of London while we were at it. All in all, I think it was a pretty cool way to see London, but if you're hard-pressed to see lots of the usual tourist sights, I wouldn't recommend it, as it doesn't leave a lot of time for many things, but we saw everything that we wanted to see, and I think that's the important thing.

London: Camden Market

On Sunday, we made a trek down to the Camden Markets. A co-worker of mine, who worked in the UK for ten years told me about it, and showed me a few photos of when he was last down here. He showed me some of the funny T-shirts that some of the stalls were selling, and that was the part that drew me to it the most. I looked it up on Google and they said there were also food stalls there, so I figured it might be something like those markets we have that run once a week during the Summer months, where you would have lots of different foods to try.

It took us a while to find the market, as I was convinced we could just walk there from King's Cross Station (another location ticked off my Monopoly streets list, and also where platform 9 3/4, of Harry Potter fame, happens to be (though the line for that was incredibly long, so I thought we'd try again on our way to Paris (as the train station for the Eurostar train (St Pancras International) happens to be right next door))). Technically, I was correct. In actuality, we got so very lost, that we ended up having to double back to King's Cross Station and catching the tube to Camden Town. It didn't look too crowded, but there were tons of stalls selling funny T-shirts and other clothes. In fact, I think the Camden Market part of the market was just rows and rows of clothing stores. Since MrFodder and I tried to walk there, we were starving by the time we actually got there, but I didn't want to eat at KFC (miracle, I know), or any of the restaurants on the road, as I wanted to try these famous food stalls.

We saw some boys running around with containers of some sort of fried ball thing, so we followed the smell to an Asian food stall, where we were given a sample of "Bang bang chicken". It smelled good, tasted good, but more importantly, it was food. So we bought a large container of it (half of which was filled with mediocre fried rice) and chowed down.

Big mistake. If you ever make your way to Camden Town for the market, and you're feeling hungry, power on.

Here's why: There are actually three sections of the market, and we had only stumbled upon the first. The second part, Camden Lock Market, is where all the food stalls are. I'm not kidding, here are a few photos - try not to look at this while hungry. Each of these is a stall, and that isn't even all of them, there was another path lined with more stalls.

As we passed food stall after food stall, we were filled with so much regret. The Bang bang chicken wasn't bad, but there were so many delicious smells wafting around. Every corner we turned was another piece of regret.

Mexican food.

Wood-fired pizza.

Practically every doughnut you can imagine.

Jamaican jerk.

We ended up getting a churro and a choc banana boat for dessert, but the smells were just intoxicating. We returned to the market again today, but some of the stalls weren't there, including the doughnut one.

I settled for paella.

MrFodder got a sticky pork bun.

I don't think we even bought any T-shirts or knick-knacks from the market, we went twice just for the food. And unlike the night markets we have back home, there weren't massive lines for food. Even on Sunday, which is so busy that they make the nearby station one-way (i.e. you can only get off there, you can't get on the train), because the foot traffic is incredibly. Finding a table is pretty much impossible though, so you really need to be able to hold and eat whatever you decide to buy.

I made the rookie mistake of having eyes bigger than my stomach, and couldn't turn down buying a shredded duck wrap with plum sauce, even though I already had a plate of paella in one hand.

(Here's half of one, he cut it in half for us so that we could share it.)

Was definitely worth it though, even if it meant MrFodder and I had to slowly waddle home.

Stop, Thief!

On our way back from Old Kent Road, we stopped by a post office so that MrFodder could send a postcard to his grandparents - his grandmother collects postcards in an album, so I'd like to send her one from each city that we visit. The post office also happens to double as a grocery store, so I wandered around to check out what they had in stock, as my fibre intake is a lot lower than it usually is when I'm back home, and my body has noticed.

While I was browsing the stock, a guy came in and grabbed a handful of 250g blocks of Cadbury chocolate, then breezed past me into another aisle. I thought it was unusual for someone to buy that much chocolate, and it looked like he didn't even know how many blocks he had exactly (I'd guess 5 or 6), as he just walked in, and grabbed them off the shelf. I didn't even see which flavour he had. I turned to look at him, just as he was placing the blocks into his jacket. He walked out of my sight, but then walked past the gap where I could see him, and his jacket looked flat against his chest, you wouldn't be able to tell that he had at least five blocks of chocolate in there.

At this point, I was 95% sure he was planning to shoplift that chocolate. Nobody needs that many blocks of chocolate, and even if he was planning to buy a heap, he just grabbed them off the shelf without counting how many he had. If he was having a party, he'd probably want to buy different flavours of chocolate, as it's unlikely that a group of people large enough to want to eat five blocks of chocolate would all like the same flavour. He also he kept pacing back and forth along that aisle and I kept seeing him walk past that gap. I wasn't really sure what to do. On one hand, I thought, maybe he really needed that food, the whole stealing to feed his family thing. On the other hand, if your family is starving, stealing blocks of chocolate isn't very good for their nutrition. Still, the post office/grocery store was somewhat large, and could probably absorb the loss of five/six blocks of chocolate. However, for all I knew, the grocery store could barely be making ends meet.

In the end, I ended up pulling aside one of the staff members and telling her about the man with the chocolate. I did this because MrFodder and I were debating whether it was OK to steal from large companies like Woolworths, because on the whole, they can handle the small losses. I was on the side that it was not OK, so it seemed hypocritical for me to standby while someone was stealing from a smaller store.

Not very exciting, but she ended up contacting a manager, and he confronted the guy. I couldn't see what was happening, because it all happened in another aisle, but there was some yelling, and they ended up taking him to the back part of the store. Later, they walked out of the store with him. Both the staff member and the manager thanked me, and MrFodder and I continued on our way after mailing the postcard.

To be honest, as we walked out of the store, I was scared. I thought maybe the would-be shoplifter would be angry that I narced on him (is that the correct term when drugs aren't involved?) and want to get revenge. I mean, he might not have gotten a clear look at me, but I mean he could have briefly glanced at me and seen that I was Asian. There was only one Asian in the store, and that was me. Not too hard to work out who might have dobbed you in. Luckily, he was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he got bored waiting for us to come out, as the line at the post office section was moving really slowly, so it took us a long time to get out.

This is the part that I'm not proud of, but as we were walking to London Bridge, a black guy started walking towards us (if my use of the term black offends you, please substitute your own preferred terminology for the rest of this post, I am going with black because that's all I really know about him, and it's relevant). I panicked, as I thought maybe he might be friends with the would-be shoplifter. I know it's stupid to think that black people can only have black friends, or that all black people are violent, so that is the part that I'm not proud of, but inside, I was feeling scared. When he reached into his pocket, I couldn't take my eyes off him, but he only pulled out a piece of paper. I guess he didn't know the would-be shoplifter, and was just some random passerby.

I don't know about the laws in the UK, but I remember Julian telling me that in Australia, you can't be prosecuted unless you step outside the store with the stolen goods. Since he never left the store with the chocolates, and since the police never came, I'm guessing they never pressed charges or anything like that. It's interesting, as when we came into the store, there was an announcement over the PA that the store was monitored by CCTV. I remembered we did that too, back when I worked at the supermarket. I asked my manager about it once, and he said that it was just a deterrent. Sometimes, if they saw someone seedy walking into the store, they'd do it just to try and dissuade them. Working the night shift at the supermarket meant sometimes there really was only a few customers in the store, and our security guard would be able to keep a fairly close eye on most of them. But still, there were plenty of thefts at the store, so it's not perfect. Surely any would-be shoplifter would know it's impossible to keep watch of every single section of the supermarket at once, so what kind of deterrence is that? A loss prevention officer on Reddit said that it's not worth the money of that additional surveillance to protect $5 worth of chocolate bars.

We are now back at our hotel, and the chances of the would-be shoplifter getting revenge are pretty slim. Though now a part of me is agonising over my decision. Perhaps this was a once-off thing, and if he had gotten away with it, he would have been filled with guilt and resolved to be a good person for the rest of his life. Perhaps he really was feeding his starving family, and has a really bad knowledge of nutrition, or his younger sibling has achieved some milestone in thier life, and he just wanted a little something to celebrate. Perhaps this whole sequence of events is proof to him that black guys are always being stepped on by others, and makes him mad enough to do something drastic.

What would you have done?

London: First Impressions

The first blog post from abroad. Hello from the lovely city of London. When I told my co-workers that I was looking forward to our almost-Summer European trip, and spoke about how I was going to get a tan, and then mentioned that we were starting in London, all of my former UK colleagues burst out with laughter. True to form, it rained on us not long after we landed in London, but that's been the only patch of bad weather we've had so far. Today, day #2, was nice and sunny - so much so that I had to break out the sunglasses.

The first thing I noticed was just how narrow everything is here. From the walkways, to the shops, even the roads. I remember someone telling me how fortunate we are in Australia to have the big houses that we do, with the giant backyards, but I didn't understand what they meant until I came here. Well, to be fair, Tokyo was also pretty narrow, but I never felt like I was in danger of being hit by a car if I stood too close to the road.

Which brings me to the next part - jaywalking is a way of life here. If you don't jaywalk, expect to spend at least an extra minute or two at each intersection. I don't know if it's just central London (we are staying at a hotel near Hyde Park), but it seems like the best way to spot a tourist from a local is to see whether they cross the road as soon as there's a gap in the traffic. We saw one guy run between two moving cars, barely dodging them. He must be born-and-bred London. But that was the only dangerous case of jaywalking we've seen so far, everyone else has been really safe about it, so I'm starting to think maybe it's just a rule here that you can cross whenever it's safe, regardless of the colour of the traffic lights - which this BBC news article confirms:

But there is no such offence in the UK, where it is considered a personal responsibility to cross the road safely (although London mayor Ken Livingstone last summer proposed making jaywalking illegal). The Highway Code recommends that all pedestrians abide by the Green Cross Code: "Where there is a crossing nearby, use it. Otherwise choose a place where you can see clearly in all directions."

At first, it seems everything is so cheap here, but then you factor in the poor AUD x GBP rate right now (0.52), and it seems everything is crazily expensive. Luckily, the conversion is pretty easy, since the Aussie dollar is roughly half the value of the pound at the moment, so all we need to do is double the price of everything. And by expensive, I mean eating out, the supermarkets seem to be selling things at roughly the same price as supermarkets back home, so I guess maybe it's a bit of an unfair comparison, as it's not like we'd be eating out all the time at home.

We took the Heathrow Express train, from Heathrow airport to Paddington station. Luckily, our hotel was only a 10 minute walk away. Well, 10 minutes according to Google maps. In reality, I think it took is about half an hour to get there, if you factor in the fact that we were carrying out luggage, and the fact that we got quite lost. But we made it to our hotel eventually. It's pretty nice that there seems to be a lot of street maps around London, so even though we were lost, it was easy to get back on track.

Not too much of interest to report. I've been slowly accumulating photos of our food adventures. I know I was worried that the food here would be too foreign, but I have tried things that I wouldn't normally eat at home. This morning, I had a classic English breakfast: a hash brown, sausages, bacon, tomato, baked beans, toast and a fried egg (which I gave to MrFodder). I did eat most of it with tomato sauce (because why would you turn down tomato sauce when it's on offer?), but other than the egg, I tried it all. I'm not game for black pudding though.

At Geoff's suggestion, I've been keeping an activity diary. He said that it often bothers him that he only has vague memories of what his honeymoon was like, and he wished he had spent more time recording things. I guess I have this blog as well, but I don't want it to turn into a what-I-ate-for-breakfast kind of blog - even though breakfast happens to be in a foreign location. I've been taking photos of all of our meals, but I don't think I'm qualified to be keeping a food blog, and I don't think other people find food as fascinating as I do. I guess I'll keep the more mundane stuff in my notebook, and try to post some interesting things here. I am pretty sad that I lost my streak, but I guess I was too busy with the movie and with packing to really process it until now. Oh well, I guess my next goal is to try and beat my old record for the most blog posts in a year (2007 (237 posts) - which also happens to be the last time I tried to write a post every day). I'm not actively trying to beat that number, but I'll see how I go.

End of the Streak

Well, I got completely distracted with my movie and forgot to write a post for yesterday. So that's the end of the streak. At least I can go on my honeymoon now without the pressure of having to write a post every day. And I beat GP.