October 18, 2007

• London Day One.

  Well,
  it's actually day two in London, but I didn't have an internet
  connection last night. Here's the recap on my first day though!

  I arrived at Heathrow a bit
  before 10am. Immigration and customs were both cleared by 10:30am, bags were
  retrieved, and I was greeted by my driver and in our cab just a little after
  11am. Traffic into Central London was
  horrendous – we made it into my neighborhood around 12 noon. My flat wasn’t yet
  ready as a man was steam cleaning the carpets… so I wandered around a bit and
  had a cup of coffee. The neighborhood I’m in is lively to say the least. The
  area is great for people watching and has lots of eating and drinking options…
  it should be pretty fun. Here is the street I live on by day:
  
  

  And then by night:

  

  And then the building I'm in:

  
  
  I think because London no longer allows smoking indoors, the streets in
  areas with many bars and lounges are now plagued like Seattle and DC both where people spill out
  onto the streets littering them with cigarette butts and noise. In my living
  room, it’s a bit noisy because of the street, but in my bedroom, it’s fairly
  quiet.

  Chinatown is pretty close by
  – which figures, I always seem to live near Chinatowns.
  I’m anxious to try out all the eats there. There are also a handful of Korean
  restaurants scattered about there too. London Chinatown is probably about the
  size of Seattle’s
  – six blocks by four blocks.

  
  
  After freshening up a bit
  once the carpet cleaners were done, I went into my office and worked a good
  five hours. Everyone was nice and I think I’ll be just fine. There’s going to
  be a lot of work though! More on that later.

  The evening concluded about
  7pm at the office. I came back to my neighborhood and picked up some toiletries
  I was missing, picked up some take out from the Thai/Indonesian restaurant next
  to the building my flat is in, and came home to unpack. Interesting things
  about my flat --

  Toilet – it’s quite round.
  Every time I sit down, I feel like the seat is not down and that I’m going to
  fall in. I’m also not entirely sure how to flush the toilet as there are two
  buttons that cause for the bowl to be filled with water .

   

  My shower is pretty
  interesting – you need a pass code to operate the darn thing and there are all
  sorts of options for where and how the water comes out. You can make a call
  from the shower, listen to the radio…

  
  

  My “kitchen” is about the
  size of… an armoire. Within a cabinet, you have two burners, a sink, and a
  refrigerator. Take a look:

  
  

  That’s just about it for now.
  I didn’t have much of a chance to explore today. Perhaps after work.

  
  

  • 4:55 am
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