Finally In London

We finally arrived in London after what seemed like a long 7 hour flight. I couldn’t sleep at all, while Kenny was sleeping like a pig as usual. By the time we arrived in London, I was really tired and jet lagged. After a half hour line up in Customs, we eventually maneuvered our way around the London Heathrow Airport with our somewhat heavy luggage and took the Underground Tube (subway) to the hotel.
Let me tell you, from the airport to the hotel, it was the most horrible experience I had in my life. You see, we could have taken the Heathrow Express to get to the hotel, which was probably more convenient and easier, but it would have cost us around $25-$30 each. So we opted for the subway route, which was only $4.00 each. Having been in London before, I should have remembered the long stairs that they had at the metro stations. Not all stations had elevators, so what did that mean? It meant dragging our 40lbs luggage up and down the stairs. I have the biggest bruise from this experience. Lesson #2: if you are carrying luggages on a trip, don’t use the metro to get from one point to another. It is definitely a killer!!! Spend the money so that you don’t end up with a bruise like mine.

Ok, second most horrible experience of my life was when we couldn’t find the hotel. According to Expedia, it was suppose to be right across the Kensington Gardens. We literally took almost an hour trying to locate it. We asked the locals if they knew where the Kensington Gardens was, we found the gardens, but no hotel. After an hour of lugging our luggages with our backpacks on our back, walking up and down the same street trying to find the stinkin’ hotel, sweating like pigs, and really getting annoyed at how we couldn’t find it, a kind local London woman, finally gave us the right directions and we were on our way. Expedia was totally wrong. It was not across the Kensington Gardens, it was more like 3-4 blocks down from the Gardens. Let me just tell you, I have never shouted at Kenny so much in my life, and in that hour, I think I just did a world record. Sorry Kenny!!!!

We finally checked in and found that our hotel room was TINY. Conditions were good and clean and that was what was more important. Here are some pics of the room:

So in London, we basically did the main tourist things. Since I have been here before, I kind of already knew my way around town so that was a bit of an advantage. We did the sight-seeing tourist Bus – sat on a double decker bus while a guide explained all of the main tourist attractions around the city. We also went to Trafalgar Square, hanged at the Leicester Square, Piccadilly circus, walked along Oxford Circus (shopping district aka Yonge street in TO), the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, Westminister Abbey (the church used for all crowning ceremonies and where all the kings, queens and knights are buried here) and the London Eye. Click on the Gallery link to the right of the blog to log onto our album. (Sorry too many pictures to upload onto the blog)

Let me just say that the Buckingham Palace was a great place to visit. It really allows to you to see how royalty lives and I think the Royal family is damn rich. In one room, they had four chandeliers, and for each one, it needed 200 light bulbs to light it up. Each and every room in the Palace was really grand with wall to wall length sized mirrors, marble statues, grand paintings, and gold trimming on all of their wallpaper. Almost all ceilings were elaborately decorated with art or intricate carvings. We loved every minute of it. Too bad we weren’t allowed to take pictures.

Weather so far in London isn’t too great. On our second day in London, it rained all day and it was cold. It really sucked for sight-seeing since we were always wet and cold as everything was mainly outdoors. Couldn’t visit any of the parks and hardly enjoyed the shopping on Oxford Circus as all the shops were outdoors. I guess its just typical London weather.

Ok, we have one confession to make and that is we went to eat Chinese food on the first night in London. Kenny and I were dying for some good old congee and Fried Beef Ho Fan Noodles with a dish of fried rice. Man was that dinner good. We didn’t have any hot food to eat on the airplane because the catering company for British Airways was on strike, so all they had to serve were cold sandwiches. It was the best meal ever since TO. I know it hasn’t even been a long time away from home and we were already craving for Chinese food. So I am a bit worried on how we are going to survive the rest of our trip without Chinese food. But this proves a point, Chinese food is the best out there. Nothing beats it!!!

We are off to a Stonehenge tomorrow morning. Going to get some shut eye!!

Lesson # 1

It is now 6:49pm (TO time) and we have just checked in. Our luggage weight cleared British Airways (phew!!) and we are set to go….one drawback: our flight was delayed by an hour and 20 minutes. Lesson learned today, always call and check the flight time before leaving for the airport. If I had known, the flight was delayed I could have stayed and played with Nathan a little longer. (Gonna miss the rascal so much) =) Well luckily we brought our laptop with us, and we are going to decide which movie to watch until its time to board the plane…hmm Initial D or Sahara…….

Us at the Airport (Left)
Me watching Initial D (right)

Finally Ready for Take Off

Don't be fooled. Planning a year-long or more trip around the world aint easy. It has been a long and treacherous 6-8 months of research and work. Many trips to the library looking for travel books and long nights staying up searching on the internet for accomodation choices. But dont get us wrong, we have a few more hours before we take off exploring the world. We are both excited, scared and nervous about this trip. There are so much uncertainties that we cannot predict or control.

Well let me just briefly tell you how one would go about planning a trip of this length and intensity: It first begins with deciding what our destinations will be. We asked ourselves where do we want to go that will give us the best opportunity to explore and get a taste of its culture but at the same time not have to feel like we are in danger, ie: in the Phillipines, a friend advised us not to go due to the high rate of kidnappings of Chinese people for ransom. (Even when our friend goes back to the Phillipines, he hardly leaves the house) When we heard that, Phillipines was definitely crossed off our list.

Finally after weeks of careful planning and hours spent playing with Long Haul's (www.longhaultravel.com) online trip planner, we finally settled on a travel itinerary. Our trip around the world will take us to: London, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Florence, Venice, Athens, Cairo, Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, and our last stop will be Hong Kong. A total of 18 cities within at least a year. Living out of one luggage each and hostel-hopping along the way, we plan to brave each city out solo except for Cairo where we will definitely be joining a tour. (Don't want to be wandering off on our own and ending up in the Middle East by accident) We broke the news to our parents, cashed in our savings and purchased a round the world ticket with Long Haul Travel.

The next step was the intensive research for each of the cities. We went mainly to Agincourt library looking for Fodor's, Lonely Planet and Frommers travel books. We also searched on websites like virtualtourist.com to get a feel for what each destination had to offer. I must "THANK" Lin for helping us in this department as she had made several very professional travel booklets with dividers and title pages for some of our cities. THANKS!!!! It definitely made our research a lot less painful.

From here on, it was handling the boring and most annoying administrative stuff such as extending OHIP, finding alternatives for our cash resources, renewing our passports and getting 5 vaccination shots each. I think the best part of planning this trip would be going to the backpacker stores like Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) and LeBaron Outdoor store. These stores really have a lot of cool and amazing items.

But what was it that prompted this year-long gallivant across the globe? Existential angst, an unshakeable feeling of restlessness and an inspirational news column that we read from the Toronto Metro Newspaper. It read:

“Why tell your grandkids you worked 9-5, five days a week for 40 years and quietly sat in traffic jams while people went to war, suffered disease and shot their own classmates? Tell them you refused to live in fear. Tell them you crossed the Amazon, saw the Lost Cities of Gold and met your soul mate in Casablanca. Travel to the ends of the earth. Go now and live adventures that will make your grandkids proud.”

This quote is what ignited our desire to travel longer, go further and play harder.
For me (Jamie), as my 27th birthday and subsequent quarter-life crisis approached, I felt a strong struggle to find my place in this crazy world of environmental chaos, weapons of mass destruction and pedophilic Pop Stars. Through travel, I hope to find answers to the age-old philosophical questions that continue to plague my friends and me: What do I want to be when I grow up? Will I ever be satisified with what I am doing in life? and What makes me feel fulfilled and accomplished at the end of the day?
My career and direction towards building a family life, however, will temporarily have to wait. Enlightenment is what I am looking for.

Stay tuned for our weekly ( I will try to keep it weekly) blog posts. Log onto our weblink as often as you like to keep yourself posted on our adventure.