london calling

after five previous visits to London, with each of them failed attempts to catch up with my mate Gav, this time i was determined to see him!

and it was worth the wait! i hadn't seen Gav for about two long years since we met in Sydney, so i was obviously so stoked to see him! and it was a day of catch-ups, with me also being lucky enough to catch up with my mates Terry and Andy who i haven't seen in close to a year, and of course my good mate Tommy Tommy -- who i have seen a lot more recently, but that didn't diminish the fun we had!


this trip to london was also my first time to venture into a club in London, and i see what all the fuss is about -- great venues, great music, great eye-candy -- but then again, i was never going to have a bad time when surrounded with such good company


however, i will admit that it's not so much fun when your jet-lag dictates that at 5:30am it's time to leave the club, but the train that takes you home to your hotel doesn't arrive til 6:30am, and you're sitting outside the train station in the freezing cold -- so you wander about the city late at night, staring at the crowds, potentially inviting danger -- and see a shining light: an angel in the form of a nightbus -- just sitting there, big and warm, waiting to take you to your massive bed with those hotel linens. i swear i'm a big fan of public transport, but never, never have i been so happy to see a bus before in my entire life


so thanks guys, for showing me a great time -- let's do it all again soon, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww yeah!




stay tuned, next week: BEIJING!!!


let the good times roll!!

london bridge not falling down, falling down

a relatively small blog entry, but one that's worthy of a mention all the same.


london flights seem to be easy enough for me to obtain, so when i found out that Jordan would be in london for a whole month, i thought i'd try my hardest to get another london flight to come back and see him here -- but the Universe and I must be good mates at the moment, because I was handed another london flight without even having to ask for it

london will always be one of those places that i could happily keep going back to, and always seem to discover something new and great that i didn't see the last time i visited.

the brilliant thing is, that all those people that i was so devastated to lose when they left Sydney years ago, are now so accessible to me here in london!

thanks for a great outing Jordan, see you in sydney!ding!


a day filled with:


(in no particular order)
jordan . singha beer . japanese rice crackers . reluctant cafe nero . talk of candice lake . my education of the evolution from patootie to tuuut tuuut! . a "sorry i'm late" t-shirt . a has-beena from italia . BBQ pork . cranberry spritzer . walking around london town pretending at times that we have some clue where we are and where we're headed -- but never once caring where we are or where we're headed . old compton street . travel notes scrawled on paper placemats . thai food . our inability to find an ATM . vintage postcards . other people's tattoos, and why they got them . an interactive window display at Orange Telecommunications that you control by waving your hands in front of the glass . a mad dash to make the last train out to Heathrow .


here are the (four) photos:



stay tuned, next week: MANCHESTER!!!


let the good times roll!!

one london sunday

a day filled with:


(in no particular order)
tommy . green tea . benson the dog . brick lane . an hour or so spent in a bookstore researching my cross-country american road-trip . pumpkin ravioli . the west end . the photographer's gallery . a public announcement at the tube station: "due to a person under the train, there will be no north-bound service on the piccadilly line" . jordan . lucas . guiness beer . paul . jordan's mum . the spitalfield markets . starbucks venti soy chai latte, extra hot, no water . a local pub called "the gun", and the two men sitting across the table from each other -- asleep . a football match playing on the big screen that i didn't watch . a sunday roast good enough to make nigella lawson feel threatened . lady jayne . two fox furs, hanging on the bed head . sam . polly waffles . "useless pieces of shit" that are actually treasures . a dinner plate with a bird on it . cranberry juice . shopping on a day where everything was closed to celebrate jesus rising once more . home-made rice pudding . a clock in the shape of Iceland . catching the last train of the night back to your hotel . subzero temperatures, and fear that i may actually lose a finger to frostbite . hypochondria . an obligatory fridge magnet for the collection . snowflakes falling and making me look like i have dandruff!


here are the photos:




stay tuned, next week: NEW YORK FREAKIN' CITY!!!!!!!!


let the good times roll!!

london still

back to good ol' London town!

after having already seen all the major tourism sights of London last time i was here with my mate Natalie, I was looking forward to a relaxed, laid-back trip to London to visit my hometown-mate Tommy -- without feeling like i had to race around this city trying to see all that it had to offer

this time to London offered a much more interesting view of London: where previously i had seen most of it from the top floor of a double-decker open-air tour bus, the London that Tommy showed me was a lot more appealing and I understand much more about why London has such a magnetic pull of twenty-somethings from all over the world.

on my last visit, London had semed so over-whelmingly large, massive even, a big sprawling city that made me feel that if i ever lived there, i'd struggle to find my own place. but down on ground level, walking through the streets around Covent Garden and through SoHo, i discovered that even in a city with an incredible population like this, there is still such thing as a familiar face, and i realised that cold anonymity isn't always the way it goes over here


it was so good to hang out with Tommy again, it'd been about a year since we'd seen each other, and so we did what old friends do best, sat in a cafe and talked shit and caught up, walked around and saw his London and met some of his friends -- and even though i'd promised myself no shopping, well of course some money had to be spent somewhere, i couldn't just leave it sitting in my wallet now, could i?!


here are the photos:



stay tuned, next up: LONDON, AGAIN!!! (i think?!)


let the good times roll!!

ye olde london towne

london!!!

well, firstly i must apologise for this lengthy delay in my posting updates -- i don't really have any sort of valid excuse, i'll just blame laziness! i promise i'll try not to let it happen ever again!

the bad thing about leaving it so long between postings, is that now i have no recollection of what i got up to on my trips that i did a month or so ago, so i'll just post the photos and hopefully that will give you an good enough suggestion of what i got up to

now this was a trip of Firsts for me: my first time to london, AND my first time to have a great mate with me working the flight!
i was so incredibly excited to have Natalie on board with me and to have beside me as we both discovered London for the first time together:

so yeah, i can't remember exactly what it was that we got up to, but i do remember how FREAKIN' cold it was in london!!! and the majority of our time in london was spent on the top storey of an open-air double-decker tour-bus, i'll blame Natalie for that! actually, it was my fault that we had to sit upstairs and never downstairs in the heated enclosed section -- i dragged Natalie upstairs with me because i refused to take photos through a window -- so yeah, sorry about that Nat, hopefully over the past month you've regained some sensations back into your fingers

also, i remember being overwhelmed by the tour guide's recollections of Britain's many kings and queens of eras gone by; talk of Edward The Thirds and Henry The Fifths and Johnny The Seventeeth and who lived in what building during which century, it was all so much to take in!
but we had a great time, london's a fantastic city, and i'm looking forward to having a bit of time there to check it all out! (even though my Macca's "value" meal cost me AUD$17)


anyways, here are the photos!:



stay tuned, next week: SINGAPORE!!!


let the good times roll!!