London - Update - Video Bloggin

Hey guys not to much to add to these videos, the first two are real quick from Richmond and the second is from today which is an update of the week.

Rock on!

London - Regent Park

London - Update - Rugby, Richmond and The Dungeon

Time sure has passed quickly since I arrived on July the 8th, that's about two and a half months. I've started work and have been doing my time on the central line, about 2 hours everyday of commute all up. In Port Macquarie I had about 10 minutes from door to door, alot has changed for a start there are another 8.4 million people in London.

After work I go out sometimes or have a big cookup at home, the movies are also like four minutes from the house. British movies aren't my thing though so I tried the local video store, me and Mel are currently watching 'The Ice Harvest', pretty good movie.

The Londoner's love pints and I've been indulging abit as well, though me and Mel have decided four units is enough each night. You know I need to watch my weight and all that.... we've been eating out a little bit too.

Brick Lane has been absolutely fabulous, only minutes away and every weekend there is something different on. Traditionally it's the place for curries and lots of Indian scalpers are scattered through the street offering you discounts and drinks if you come into their restaurant. There's no such thing as a free dinner so I always so no, in saying that I've tried some curry and wow they pack a punch into it down Brick lane. The English call them ruby Murries, well thats what my English flat mate asks 'have you been down the road for a ruby Murry?'



Otherwise Brick lane has festivals galore, so far I've been to the Thai festival, Music festival and the Brick lane markets. Usually the bottom end of the lane is packed with people and it's a very trendy opposite to the run down curry joints. The bars are also very cool, there are a whole lot of them and they cater for different types however there are very little suits about and the streets are full of arty farts so you can just imagine.

The flat in Whitechapel is going good and the flatmates are behaving for a spell, all except Mel, she's always very naughty :) Though on the occasion she does cook, clean and do the washing for which I'm very grateful. So there you go life in the real East End is going well and when I'm not going out me and Mel are exploring some new park or some new place.

Mel has just got a job, so soon enough we will be travelling through Europe on long weekend excursions. I'm looking forward to seeing some new places, though there are still so many to see in London.....

Rugby Fun

The Rugby world cup is officially on and the South hemisphere teams are carving up the Northern sides. I usually just watch the big games and since relocating to London, watching the game is like renewing my Kiwiana.

So when Dwayne and Dan were heading out to Belushis me and Mel decided to pop along as well. The game was England vs South Africa and funily enough I caught up with Bronwyn from NZ, hadn't seen her in ages. Well it was a great game, South Africa ended up wasting England and half the bar cleared out, which was great because it was shoulder to shoulder. After that a few of us trundled off to the walk about (another bar) and were drenched in drunken peoples booze yeeehaaa! I think Dwayne did pretty well at the end of the night though! Be sure to ask him if you get a chance :)

Will and Hanna also invited us to a Ireland versus France, sux for Ireland because they lost. We went to Barracuda, which was a really nice bar, lots of space and heaps of tv sets to watch the rugby and some big Plasma's. There was another two guys there John and Dan who gave Mel some flack and made her feel welcome to London. Really though we could hardly hear each other that night, John and Dan ended up going home early.... I think Dan was getting married in Los Vegas on Tuesday so that was a good reason :) So the couple party stayed and danced the night away... well for about half an hour actually. The walk home was enjoyable for some but not all.

Sunday @ Richmond Park

Parks have still been very much on my agenda, there has been some lovely weather and the weekend provided another opportunity for me and Mel to get out and about. We thought we'd go down to Richmond from Whitechapel via the tube. Only 2 pounds extra for the pleasure, Richmond is about 50 minutes commute off-peak, so we set off about 9am in the morning.

We've learnt to get maps and read signs alot, because it's very easy to get lost in London and we both can't stand the messy A-Z. We navigated from the tube to Thames and then up to Richmond park. It was a really nice walk and we passed through the Terrace gardens which were very pleasing on the eyes. You'll see plenty of flower photo's, there were some very cool ones that looked like ear rings.

At Richmond park you meet a busy intersection of cars, it's just the entrance but you'll find that most of London's major parks have cars running through them. Stopping at the map we made sure we were on the right side of the park, it looked like a half an hour walk to the bikes, which we had intended to hire. Thankfully we were in the right place and we set out to explore the beautiful park.

There were heaps of signs scattered around saying 'Stay on the path, don't get close to deer, recent foot and mouth outbreak', yay for foot and mount eh? So we decided it best to keep our distance and I took a few distance photo's. Really I should have taken the zoom lens, but after all they are only deer right. The scenery as you'll see is quite nice but doesn't change alot around the park. Though you should definitely check out the plantations, ponds and gardens very cool.



The bike hire was really easy to find and cost £8 / hour, the price alone put us off the riding. Not only would we've needed to shell out at least £8 pounds but we would have had to take the bikes back and then walk an hour and a half back to the station!!! So we decided to have a sammie instead and a coffee from the cafe in the park. The beauty about London is the parks have cafes and generally they are pretty good. The sammie had mould on it but we swapped it for another.

After that we just explored the rest of the park and the plantation would have been the highlight. There were lots of logs you could just sit and chill on, great place for a picnics to, as bikes weren't allowed in. After that we headed back to Richmond and drunk a few pints at the local O'Niels and watched NZ vs Scotland. The game was average and NZ won 40-0 but there was alot of scrums breaking apart which really slowed the game down.

London Dungeon

This place should actually be called the London Queue, if you go on a Saturday like I did, you'll spend about an hour and a half just queuing. The English love to queue though I did notice a few people slipping out of the queue to go do something else. I booked the tickets on lastminute.com which saved us about £20, well worth it. Once we finally managed to get ourselves inside actors would meet n greet you at every station.

The actors were pretty good and brought the place to life as they scared you and informed you a little of the history. Sometimes you were even involved in the whole drama, one poor bloke got sorted out in the torture chamber and we were all sentenced to the gallows! The had some good sets with Jack the Ripper, Sweeney's barbershop, the Fire of London and the Plague. Mel got quite a few good scares with a big bloke sneaking up on her and giggling in her ear.

I'm sure this place is really old and hasn't been upgraded much, probably like most of London, if you're thinking of going go during the week and bring some music or reading material for the queues :)

UK - Airport Arrivals & Underground Revolt

Missy Arrives

It's September now and the weather is just great outstide today, London has sparkled up abit lately and Melissa has been looking very happy. Melissa arrived on Monday morning from Australia, what a journey that must have been for her.

In anticipation I booked a couple of nights at the Sheraton so

1. I didn't need to get up and brave the tube at 4:30am to pick her up at 6:00am

2. She could sleep after her plane flight

3. Mels father said we both needed a dirty weekend

Melissa didn't know we were going to the Sheraton and was very spoiled, it was very nice and the staff were great, we both veged and pigged out and had a great couple of days.

Urban Hiking

Tuesday morning we headed off from the Sheraton Heathrow to Whitechapel. The first mode of transport was the Heathrow Express, it takes you to Paddington station in 15 minutes for £15 which is a really good service but abit pricey. The London Underground/Tube was on the strike that day so it was our only option.

The Underground was closed and I was at a loss to how we actually purchased bus tickets, so we went off to the buses. There were heaps of people trying to get on the bus and we found where to buy tickets but we couldn't get on the buses anyway. Our faces would have been so squashed up against the glass if we got on one!

So we thought we'd try the taxi, after seeing about 300 people queueing up for Taxis that were going no-where we decided to walk and why wouldn't you? It was only about 14kms home :) So off we went on the Urban hike, but first we stopped at Star bucks for a caffeine buzz. Officially we started at 11am, the journey ahead seemed daunting.

There were heaps of sights and the day was perfect for it, though Missys shoes just couldn't handle her pace, so I swapped suitcases and she was off again. That's right we had two suitcases weighing in at 24kgs each, hence the urban hike term. The first stop was Hyde park, beaut place and I showed Missy the gardens and a few statues it was very enjoyable. Then we followed it up with Saint James Park, Buckingham Palace and Weistminter. Mel was smiles all round and was in awe of London.

After that we went over the Thames and had some McDonald's and enjoyed the sights with Big Ben, London eye and several other buildings spotted about the place. The final leg of the journey was some rather treacherous paving stones, they didn't always agree with our suit cases but we carried on all the same. The London Dungeon came into view and then the Tower bridge and Tower of London. Well that's when I knew we wern't all that far away.

So we carried on another 30 mins and we made it to my house in the mighty East London. Couldn't believe it, Mel was excited to be at my house and we both had a well deserved rest.