Mon, 02 Sep 2002

author Tim	location London, England
posted 10:36 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Virgin Trains ? ( No photos )
It's been a little while since an update since we have been fairly quiet, enjoying our last days in London for a while a least.
We're on our way on a Virgin Train to Carlisle - I didn't know just how much of an empire Virgin had over here. The morning has been hectic - what a suprise. Getting on and off the tube, up and down stairs, escalators (did you know that even though people drive on the left here, everyone walks on the right?). Liz and I managed to get separated at Victoria station - those tube doors wait for no-one.
We had our last breakfast and said goodbye to Betty and Betty the proprietors of our B&B. I guess that's B&B's B&B. We're booked again for later in the year when we come back to London to wave Meaghan off and pick up Margaret. Infact, we have a full shell of a plan done - I'll put it up here soon.
I think I'll break the entry up into separate days. Hope to get connectivity soon at Peter's in Carlisle.

author Tim	location London, England
posted 10:42 BST 02/09/2002	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Walking the Dogs, Farnborough, Bromley, Beer, Wine ( No photos )
Writing this from on the train, I'm splitting it up because otherwise it will get too cluttered.
Yesterday we started the day with another great walk with Tiggy and Molly, who were getting kinda used to us before we left. As was Lucky, who Zadro assures us is doing just fine. Sniff. This walk took us again up to the woods, but this time we were a little more adventurous, finding our way through a golf course where the dogs being walked seemed to outnumber those walking them by about two to one. Everyone in this area seems to have three dogs. Except us. Sniff.
Then, we jumped on the 358 bus to Farnborough, where Liz tidied up her grandparent's graves, and we again payed our respects. We walked a little more around Farnborough, including their old church (which was deserted by this time - about 3pm).
The local pub again called us, where we had shared a roast turkey dinner and a Ploughman's Lunch (which I had to inquire the contents of). Liz embarrased us both by asking what "that thing with the roast was". It was, of course, a Yorkshire Pudding. Locals laughed at us. It was great!
We then jumped back on the 358 to head back to Bromley. Unfortunately, being a Sunday, Liz's favourite dispensers of strange sausage roll substances were closed, much to her dismay. Her temporary sadness was quicky alleviated with a trip to the nearby Squirrel Gardens.
Thanks to Roy and HG, the only phrase I could remember whenever I saw a squirrel was "squirrel-gripper". Thanks guys. They were kinda cute, but didn't want to come over for Liz to pat them. Similarly for the geese and ducks.
Leaving Bromley on the now-famous 358, we headed back to Beckenham. The call of the local pub there was too much to resist one last time, so we had a quick pint there in the sunshine (which there has been an abundance of over here - very strange), before heading back to B&B's B&B.
We just had to finish off our bottle of wine, since carrying it was going to be a royal pain. So we did. This helped ease the pain of sleeping in the lumpy bed, with the dogs shaking the house to be let out, and doors slamming all night. Strangely, I'm still going to miss that place.

author Tim	location North of London, England
posted 11:00 BST 02/09/2002	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Elephant & Castle ( 3 photos )
We've now been to Elephant & Castle. Jade is living in a share house with four others. We weren't expecting much from inner-city London living, and we were pleasantly suprised.
Her place is very new, well-appointed, and she's living with great people. A far cry from the dirty, drunken image we had. That's not to say that that sort of thing doesn't happen. It's just that you can get something better if you look hard enough.
She's actually just got a "real" job, so this was half a new-job celebration party. Any excuse! She cooked us a great meal, followed up with some yummy expensive ice-cream. Liz watched The Matrix while Jade and I worked on reducing her China / Zurich photos to web-site size with my trusty laptop. She assures me they'll be online soon.
E&C itself is a big mess - subway walks all over the place serve to completely confuse the traveller. I'm forced to admit that they attempt to make it easier by the placement of maps telling you which places are in which directions. This would be great if these maps actually had a "You are Here" arrow on them. The end result is a lot of random wandering looking for streets and bus stops. This is common London-wide.
Home early, Liz proceded to watch her favourite TV show over here, "I'm a celebrity - get me out of here!". This survivor-style show, set somewhere in the Australian Outback (!) consists of sixteen or so of the whinyest poms you'll ever meet, stuck together for weeks to whine at each other. Complete with the "dial 123456 to vote off Tara now!!!", I'm tempted to ask for a "vote all off now" number to ease the pain.

author Tim	location London, England
posted 09:03 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Two-for-one Cocktails are Evil ( No photos )
Yesterday, we had a reasonably slow one, starting out with taking two of the four(?) dogs, Molly and Tiggy, that are at our B&B out for a walk. Not really knowing where we were going, we ended up in a wood taking a nice stroll. Very different from Sydney.
Then, we jumped back on the British Rail System for a trip to knock off a few more tourist destinations. First Buckingham Place, where we saw the changing of the guard, although not the pompous silly hat variety. Then, we took our first double-decker red busses for a trip up to Madame Toussads (which we didn't go into), and the next-door London Planetarium. This was a little dissapointing, going more for the pretty flashing lights, designed to grab the tourist dollars, than presenting any useful scientific information. Perhaps I'm just a nerd, but they could have done a lot better.
Back on the bus, we went back through Oxford Street - enough to convince ourselves that we don't need to walk through there on foot. Way too many people. The bus deposited us at Trafalgar Square, where we saw people swimming in the fountains, and lots of pigeons thinking "didn't we get a good feed here before?" - feeding them is now illegal.
On to Charring Cross tube station, we caught the tube to Leicester Square, to meet up with Jade.
We had a great night out with her - she took us around Chinatown and Leicester Square, pointing out where to eat, where to drink, and where to stand if you want the contents of your pockets removed.
The night started out at "brb", a yuppy-style bar, which we were at because Thursday nights are two for the price of one cocktail nights. Let's just say Liz is a little slow this morning.
Then on to a little Malaysian restaurant, where the food was good if a little hot. We weren't sure if we could handle the concept of Seaweed Jelly desserts, so Jade showed us to Ben and Jerry's - an ice-cream shop in Leicester Square.
We parted ways with Jade and then made our way back to the B&B, with Liz not giving her drunkenness away too easily to passers-by, except for the gentle swaying motion, sleeping on my shoulder and occasional maniacal laughter.

author Tim	location London, England
posted 07:53 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

A trip to Farnborough ( 4 photos )
Yesterday saw us take a trip to, as the title implies, Farnborough. It's not too far from Beckenham where we are staying - about twenty minutes bus ride further south.
There were a couple of reasons we went - first was to detour via Bromley and sample some cold pork sausage rolls which have been high on Liz's memory list since I've known her. We had a great lunch of these and a punnett each of strawberries and raspberries - yum!
The next reason was to have a look at the house where Liz's mum Margaret grew up, and then pay tribute to Margaret's parents at the cemetery. It's a very nice place, and quite memorable on the lovely day that yesterday was.
On the way back from there, we decided we should check out how the local drinking establishments were. My first warm pint was experienced in the form of a London Ale. Great stuff! Not as bad as the concept might seem - it was more lukewarm than warm.
Today will be another slow-starting day, before probably heading into London after lunch for a bit more of a look around, then we are meeting up with good friend Jade Chin. She and I did quite a bit of Uni work together, and she has been in London for a couple of months now, living at Elephand & Castle.

author Tim	location London, England
posted 10:14 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Quick word from Tim ( 2 photos )
Well, the laptop seems to have survived Liz's update, so perhaps she'll be allowed to do some more in the future, by popular demand!
The Singapore movie is now online! Click the movie icon on the left to view it. It's around 4.3MB, and as before, you may need to install QuickTime to view it. Make sure your speakers are turned on, and be sure to let us know what you think!
The camera will be gone for two or three weeks, so no photos unless we find cheap development and a scanner somehwere.

author Liz	location London, England
posted 09:16 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Trip to Portugal ( 2 photos )
Well, Tim has finally released his grip on his precious laptop, so now its my turn to tell you about all of our latest exciting adventures!
We now have a mobile number - have a look on the Contact page above for details.
We spent yesterday getting to know a small part of London. Our travels took us to Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, London Bridge and The Tower Bridge. Unfortunately we can't show you any photos, because Tim's camera has gone on a holiday of its own. To Portugal.
As you may remember, the digital camera has been playing up the last few days, so yesterday we took it to the UK Olympus Head Office. Once there we found an exceptionally nice pom (not at all whingey!), who tried to fix the camera, failed, and then sent it off to Portugal to be fixed. So now we just have my 35mm 'normal' camera.
Tim has been very eager to sample every beer in every pub we have come across (and there seem to be an excessive amount of pubs around here), so I have had to accompany him as The Official Drinking Buddy, and assist him in his quest to drink all the beer in London. Luckily they have some tasty (if very expensive) girl drinks in all the places we have visited so far!
Breakfast at our B&B is still very tasty and filling, so we have been surving on that, a small snack and a pub dinner the last few days, but it is very tempting to try food in all the trendy little pubs, cafes and food type establishments.

author Tim	location Beckenham, London, England
posted 13:59 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Connectivity Again ( 4 photos )
Just a quick note now that we've found an Internet café not five minutes walk from where we are staying. Good stuff.
Our money isn't going to go far here - everything is just about the right price, if you change the pound sign (which I still haven't found on my laptop) into a dollar sign. You just have to forget the exchange rate and everything is fine!
We had a great breakfast this morning, and have spent the remainder catching up with Meaghan, looking at photos, etc. It's nice and relaxing. The jet lag isn't too bad - I just managed to convince my body that inserting an extra nine hours into the day is perfectly normal. Liz seems ok as well, which is great.
Gotta go - this is costing a lot, and there's still emails to reply to - keep them coming!

author Tim	location Beckenham, London
posted 21:43 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Touchdown! ( 11 photos )
Well, that's the flying part out of the way for quite some time. It all went smoothly once again, with the exception of us thinking we were going to die when the plane landed - we did a little zig-zag on the runway at high speed which was the talk of the passengers for hours to come. Quite scary.
So I got through immigration OK - I got asked to recite what the conditions of my Visa were, which was fine since I have studied them in fine detail. By the time I had found our baggage carousel (Murphy's Law dictates that when faced with a random choice between two possibilities, you will always pick the wrong one - I went the long way), Liz had already got it all stacked up on a cart. I've got her trained well!
Then, we walked out and were greeted with the fantastically smiling, if very short and hence quite hidden face of Meaghan! She guided us through the underground in a way that only an Aussie who has been in London for eight months can, and four trains, one bus and many many tall staircases to lug suitcases up later, we eventually located Beckenham Junction - the closest station to the Goodwood B&B where we are staying.
There was one slight moment of panic, where we were given about ten seconds warning that due to trackwork, we had to get out at the station we were at to get a bus to Beckenham. Only Liz made it out in time. Myself and Meaghan were left madly pressing buttons next to the door, but to no avail. We were re-united after Meags and I got off at the next station, and got a train back.
Our first meal in London was supposed to be a pub meal, but all the pubs had stopped serving food. So, we went to an Italian restaurant and I drank an Italian beer. Not quite warm lager, but I suppose there's plenty of time for that.
The B&B is homely, small, and run by two old biddies who are an endless source of amusement. Meags is staying tonight, and will go home later tomorrow. They apparently have no double/queen rooms available, so Liz and I have a twin (two single beds). At least Liz won't steal my covers.
Now that I've been up for almost 24 hours, it is probably high-time to go to sleep. Looking forward to the jet lag...

author Tim	location somewhere over Chennai, India
posted 09:47 India Time	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/London 1 ( all photos )

Up in the air, we fly ( 11 photos )
(Continued from Singapore 1)
No major dramas getting back on the plane. We had two separate busses attempt to pick us up this morning - which is far better than zero. A funny little man with a very slow Combi van, was it a sign of things to come for us?
Check-in went smoothly, and the bottle of Jameson in the overhead locker above me is the sign that duty-free shopping is not totally lost on us.
Breakfast on the plane was ok, but not spectacular, and we now have a load of drinks to re-fill our bladders. Hooray for economy class!
Liz did the most amusing thing so far on this trip, when our breakfast arrived earlier. We had this strange little packet of cereal, which had the milk in it's lid, and a clear cover over the cereal itself. Far be it from Liz to notice said clear cover, and she proceeded to empty a packet of sugar all over the now infamous clear cover. The look on her face was priceless as she attempted to come to terms with what had just happened. I'll give her that it has been an early morning - we're both feeling sleepy. That's a good thing with ten hours of flying time still to go.

(customised)