Welcome to the sessions. This is a space where I will periodically journal and post updates on stuff that happens.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
~Day 1: Arriving in London Central~
Not going to be many pictures in this post. We landed in London at about 10:45am, right on time. The flight was actually pretty good; we were given a snack, then a 'curry chicken' dinner, and then a small breakfast as we neared the British Isles.
Being our first backpacking trip, Alfred and I definitely overpacked our bags. It was like carrying a 50-pound child on your shoulders, and another 40-pound child on your shoulder strap all day. Alfred had just brought too much clothing; for me, my laptop and camera gear were weighing me down, but I sure wasn't coming to Europe without getting some serious shooting in. In retrospect, I should have invested in an Archos or something for portable storage and whatnot, but we needed my laptop to do stuff like book hostels and train tickets anyway.
So we got on the shuttle from Gatwick to London Central, and emerged from Victoria Station into a world where they do everything backwards. Their English is better, the city design and architecture awesome, but you never quite know when to cross the street, and we learned to just make jaywalk it whenever there was a chance, as the locals do. It was like walking from Haig across Yonge to Civic (in high school) all over again.
I'd arranged to meet my old buddy Steve Wong (hereby referred to as Wongz) at Charing Cross/Trafalgar Square at about 5pm, but we got into town by 2pm and had 3 hours to kill. We hopped on the tube (the London Underground aka their subway...except "subway" to them means an underground pedestrian walkway) and went over to tourist information center in Westminster. Picked up a few brochures for not just London, but Scotland and Ireland as well. Tried to call Wongz from that payphone, but didn't realize that if you didn't keep feeding the phone, they'd cut you off after a minute.
The first order of business to get a temporary SIM card so we wouldn't have to keep feeding payphones, so we walked over to Covent Gardens and visited the Carphone Warehouse (a UK chain of mobile dealers). We walked around the area, soaking in the London culture, but to be honest, it just wasn't sinking in. It was grey and dreary, but more importantly, we were tired and grumpy from having to carry around those damn packs. We just wanted more than anything to get to Wongz's (we were staying with him) and rid ourselves of them. We had heard all about London's thievery problems, and I felt like I was walking around with a 50-pound bullseye on my back. Even looking over my shoulder was difficult with the packs.
So we walked around London, all the way down to Trafalgar Square, but not really appreciating it all, and sure as heck not in the mood to snap a few pictures (and announce to London I was carrying $4000 in camera gear). Eventually, 4:30pm did roll around, Wongz got off a bit early, the sky opened up and dumped buckets on Trafalgar Square, and we by the time we met Wongz we were soaked.
Off back to Wongz's place at Whitechapel to settle in, unload, shower and change. Wongz's water boiler was somewhat hit and miss, the worst thing being how it lures you into his shower with 30 seconds of nice, hot water, and then shutting off and leaving you to wash off all the soap in ice-cold water.
Headed out afterwards to meet Janey at Picadilly Circus, then over to SoHo for some Indian food. Wongz was headed out after to grab a pint somewhere that sounded like it had really cool beer, but I was already blacking out for moments here and there during dinner. All sound would fadeaway, I would start to hurtle face-first towards my food, but I'd somehow wake back up. I was unbelievably exhausted, so I declined, went home, and started to download the few pictures I had taken. The 5-minute downoad wasn't even halfway done when I put my head down, briefly, and completely passed out. I slept longer, deeper, and better than I had in over 3 weeks.
Picadilly Circus.
LEFT: More Picadilly Circus. Not really sure what "Circus" means to the British tho. LEFT: The top of the fountain at Picadilly Circus. I've heard it called "ridiculous" by a few Londoners; I can kinda see why.
