London Hotels
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Bye bye Asia, hello London!
Entry 19 of 37 | show all | print this entry |
Gidday gidday,
Well it's been a long time since I've written actually, I hope you weren't worried about us(!) but you'll be relieved to know we are safe in sound in old London town!
I think the last time I wrote we were about to spend our last few nites in Bangkok generally relaxing in the luxurious White Palace hotel - which actually wasn't exactly luxurious, but it was nice enough and compared to the rest of our accomodation so far it was quite superior. And of course it had a roof-top pool so we spent a good bit of time lounging about up there - when we weren't shopping that was! Not that we went crazy on the shopping - we knew we were only were allowed 20kg each from Osaka to London - but we did buy a few things - bags and clothes mainly. Then before we knew it we were on our way to the airport, excited about the next stage of the journey but also very sad to leave South East Asia. It was such a fantastic two months, helped by the fact that we were very lucky with weather, met lots of great people and avoiding getting sick or ripped off...but I can't recommend it enough, if you haven't been - go!!! And stay for as long as you can!! Two months we think was enough for us to do what we did without feeling rushed, but there is just so much to see and do over there that we could have easily stayed for 3 or 4 months, maybe longer??!
Anyway, we arrived in Osaka on Saturday night and had 2 full days back in our old hood Ishibashi, staying with Nooze...it was great to see our old buddies (Paul - bulgogi!) and felt sort of like coming home - wish we could've seen everybody, but time didn't allow. We scoffed as much sushi and sang and much karaoke as was physically possible in the time available before heading back to the airport, exhausted and sad again to leave - though leaving this time wasn't as hard as last time, and I know we'll go back to visit one day. In the meantime, I hope there are lots of good sushi restaurants in the UK/Europe...not sure what the chances are of finding karaoke box though?? No doubt we'll find out....
It was about a 14 hour flight from Osaka to Heathrow, with an hour stop in Frankfurt. Air Lufhansa was cool, Cam especially liked the bacon flavoured almonds...! We managed to navigate the tube (no worries for experienced Japanese train-riders such as ourselves)with our packs and super-heavy carry-on baggage to Wimbledon station. I went into a phone box to call our old friend Kim (flatmate from uni), and just as I was dialling the number she exited the train station on her way home from work and found us! It was so great to see her and she helped us with our bags to the flat her and Sam share with another kiwi/aussie couple, just a couple of minutes walk from the station. So we have been very gratefully 'dossing' here (as they say) for the past few days and we still can't believe we're in London!!! We haven't actually seen much of it yet, but what we have looks really cool. Our first day we were pretty tired, so had a bit of a walk around Wimbledon, which seems to be a really nice area, but that was about it. Yesterday we were feeling more energetic so we headed into the central city to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, along with thousands of other tourists - it was fun! Then we walked around a bit, through Hyde Park and had a look around Leicester Square and the West End - there are a million musicals I want to see! - and then visited the National Portrait Gallery which was really good (and more importantly, free!). There is so much to see and do here so I'm glad we're going to have lots of time to do it (when we come back and do the dreaded job-hunting thing...but we're not going to think about such things now!)
It's funny being back in an english-speaking country though - on the first morning we were here Cam went to the supermarket and bought a few supplies (namely baked beans, which was particularly excited about as you can't buy them in Japan so he's been deprived for a year and a half)and when the cashier gave him his change he struggled for a few moments trying to remember what to say...then suddenly realised it was "thank you"! In the last 2 months we've been saying kawp kun kaa (thai), kawp jai (lao) camun (vietnamese), okun (khmer)and of course previous to that, arigato (japanese), so you can understand the confusion!!!
Today we've been trying to organise stuff - we went and had a look at a van owned by a friend of ours who used it last summer for a tour of Europe and it looks perfect for us, so we're gonna buy it off him - works out perfectly for us. Getting insurance looks like it will be fine and the only thing we need to do is get the ownership papers sent away and returned...and buy a tent...oh, and of course plan where on earth we are going and what we're doing! But that should be ok. We're gonna probably head off on Monday for a bit of a test-run in the English countryside somewhere for a few nights, or until our papers arrive - then we'll book the Dover-Calais car ferry and will be hitting France very soon! Je suis tres excite!!!
So that's about it for the past 10 days - might add a few photos soon. I still plan to write this fairly regularly so please keep reading!! And sending us emails! I hope you all are good...until next time...
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