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.

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.

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.