Jul 26
It’s almost upon us. One of the greatest sporting events in history and potentially, one of the greatest events in London’s history. The hype has been building for months. Experts are suggesting 11 million people will visit the city over the next six weeks. Sounds like pound signs for the retail and travel industries and a total nightmare for residents of London, like me.
Two and half years ago Neil, Sean and I sat in a cafeteria enjoying our first (albeit interesting) experience with Korean food. Surrounded by expats from America, Canada, England and the antipodean nations, we laughed about the tiny milk cartons, challenged each other to eat kimchi and discussed our dreams of riding from London to Morocco on a motorcycle.
Is London the top destination in the world? Millions of TripAdvisor travelers think yes.
A few weeks ago (when this list was published) I would have gasped in disbelief at this award and then given you a list of cities whom I deemed far more worthy than little old London town (Istanbul and Beijing come to mind). But after spending several days playing tourist with a friend and visiting the cities many sights, London has won me over.
If you’ve been wandering around Central London in the last few weeks you would have no doubt seen a few giant eggs on your journey. I’ve been egg spotting for a few weeks now and whilst I haven’t been out any specific egg hunting adventures I’ve snapped a few as I’ve gone about my daily commute.
Just like the Beatles and the mini skirt, the Mini Cooper is a symbol of an iconic decade; the swinging sixties. Whilst it was a little chilly for a skirt last Saturday, a trip around rainy London in Robert’s little red Mini, complete with blue boiler suits and tweed flat caps was the perfect way to see London and celebrate Neil’s birthday in style.
London is home to many a ghastly tale – the Tower of London alone is testament to some of the horrors that have happened within the city walls. However none are quite so gruesome or surrounded in as much mystery as the tale of Jack the Ripper and the unsolved Whitechapel murders. One eerie winter night we joined one of London’s most popular walking tours and followed the path of the Ripper around East London.
On Saturday we celebrated Waitangi Day with about 4,000 other Kiwis on the now (thanks to Dylan Clements) 13th Annual World Famous Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub Crawl, and it was awesome! Whilst New Zealanders at home were treated to the all too familiar protest at Waitangi headlines, Kiwis in London donned costumes, ate pies, sang songs and drank beer in celebration of our favourite nation.
After a massive day out on the Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub crawl we were treated to some snow on our journey home. Reports say as much as 10 centimentres fell in parts of London, I think we received about half that in Wandsworth Town.
Here are some pictures from our snowy street. Enjoy!
How will you survive London’s winter? Don’t you know it gets really cold there? Oh the Winters in London are so miserable…blah blah blah. The weather people keep telling me it’s been quite a mild winter, but even so; it’s still nothing like spending it in the deep freeze I call South Korea and now I have the stats to prove it.
Summer, sunburn and sausage sizzles, these are all things that remind me of a Southern Hemisphere Christmas, things that I’ve experienced at some stage during my twenty-six years worth of Christmas celebrations in New Zealand. Now that we’ve transported ourselves to the frozen Northern Hemisphere I’m expecting the opposite. I want sleigh bells, skating and that all elusive thing called SNOW!
Theme: Linen by The Theme Foundry
