Reflections on life in London

I decided to just pen down - rather type down my experiences on life in London. Having experienced a typical 9 to 5 life for over a week now, I think I am in a reasonably good position to put my thoughts in perspective. London is actually a very nice place. Surprisingly for all the trappings of a colonial power, I find this country and its people more open and more accommodating to expatriates and varied nationalities when compared to even the US which is supposed to be a land of immigrants. You find Londoners (I mean the british) queueing up Indian and Thai restaurants with equal enthusiasm as their favourite pub house. They are very sensitive in treating people well and with courtesy and respect. It is nice to see the police, the train announcer or the guy over the counter in a petty shop address you with "Sir" and end the sentence with a "please" and "thank you".

Things are so well planned. London as I said before is a very old city. There are multiple train routes like the Metropolitan, Jubilee, Central, Bakerloo, Waterloo, Eastern, DLR lines. All of them criss cross the city and are so well knit that you do not need any car in this city. You just buy one card and the same can be used in the buses as well. Safety is given utmost importance everywhere. In fact the other day, there was a story in the BBC about Londoners complaining that there was a bit of an overdose of Safety signs on the road !

I have now got used to the routine. Get into a train at about 8.15am and reach my destination - Canary Wharf at about 9.00. I have to say some thing here. This station - Canary Wharf is an underground station and there are 3 levels of elevators to get to the ground level from the platform! This in effect means they have dug in almost 100 feet below the ground and there are shopping malls, restaurants at the second or third levels below the ground!

Nobody really talks much while we travel in the train. I miss the constant chatter of a typical Mumbai train. People here are so quiet and they just keep reading or listening to music on their iPods. Trains are fitted with automatic doors and hence you cannot have people popping their heads out and hanging out of the doors! Partly because the trains go in and out of the ground.

Ok enough of trains. We have our food at a nearby Indian restaurant called Chennai Dosa. The atmosphere here is very mch Indian and they have put out a poster there - "A sincere advise to our customers - Indian food tastes good when eaten with the hand!" This is directed towards the typical English bred and table manner conscious and fork and knife wielding desi customers !

We normally walk our way back which is a good 25 minute walk. Atleast something to exercise you know. Yesterday there was a big event in the famous Wembley stadium here. This stadium is very near our hotel and we can see it from our rooms. There was an American Footbal match and I understand over 80000 people attended. The amazing thing was there was not a trace of anything after the match once the crowd dispersed. Imagine a trade fair or exhibition in India with such huge numbers attending ! There was no litter and not much noise. I think it has to do with the upbringing.

For all these, it is surprising to see the English talk low about themselves and criticise themselves often. We find it amusing. They tend to look up to other people and countries and criticise themselves. This is all over the TV, paper etc.

For all the good things, any place would be heaven only if you have your people around... and my people are at Chennai and that is still heaven for me...unless they are with me wherever I go !

Kamesh's London Sight Seeing

The day began with our checking the weather in BBC One. I now understand the importance given to weather here. We could plan our outings and dress up appropriately. The weatherman forecast a dull late afternoon with a resonably good morning - although not bright and sunny. We took a short walk to the nearby laundrette and dropped our clothes for wash and dry and then took a Metropolitan train to Baker Street. These are like fast trains which stop only in 2 stations. We reached Baker Street within 15-20 minutes. Just outside the station and right in front of Madame Tussauds museum is the bus stop for the tour. We paid 19 Pounds and that allows us to hop on and off at any point. This one was the Red tour. There are others like the Yello, Blue etc. Each of these tours takes a different route and some of the spots may overlap. It is called "The Original Tour". We sat in the upper deck which has an open top. The weather was nice and cool and bus waded through Baker Street and turned right into Cresent Park before turning into Portland Plaza. Right at the point when we turned into Portland Plaza, in the Cresent Park, there is a statue of Queen Victoria's father the Duke of Kent (see the picture). Along the way, we passed through BBC office and other old buildings. There was a commentary in the bus and we were hearing that through a plugged in earphone! Interestingly, commentaries are available in multiple languages and the commentary pauses and restarts exactly at the point when the bus reaches the spot being mentioned ! We went past a restaurant which was named "Garfunkels"...remember "Simon & Garfunkel?"

London was the biggest city in the world long back and is more than 2 centuries old. Many of the buildings are well preserved and reflect the classic architectural style that was prevalent then. Some of the buildings pictured along the way are shown in the photographs. We then passed through Regent Street and Oxford Street to turn into Trafalgar Square which is just opposite the National Art Gallery. There was some work going on at Trafalgar Square and we could not get a good view.

The traffic at London is dreadful. The one at T Nagar Chennai seems at times better since there at least the Traffic keeps moving. Here with narrow roads and criss crossing buses and taxis and cars, it is a nightmare driving down the road. We passed through the Haymarket and through the Royal Theatre where "Phantom of the Opera" was staged first. There is also a Sports Cafe here where we were told there are TVs even in the Toilets to make sure people do not miss any of the action !!

Past Trafalgar Square, we entered Whitehall and along the road there was a war memorial for all those who fought and died in the Worldwars. We saw a black gate along the road on the right. It looked like an entrance to a small road. Just realised that was downing street and a few paces away, the PM's official residence is at a corner. Entry to the road is restricted due to security reasons ! A few 100 metres ahead you come to a crossing and to the left you see the famous Big Ben. It is at one end of the Houses of Parliament which in itself is an architectural beauty. Britain is the world's oldest democracy and a lot of history and heritage is reflected in these buildings. We took some pictures there and one of the guards (posing with me in one of the pictures) told me he loves India and would love to come there and settle there in a small house !

The road along the side of Big Ben leads to Westminster Bridge across the River Thames. On the banks on the near side, we boarded a boat for a free River Cruise. This was the most enjoyable trip partly because of the lively commentary by one of the crew staff. It had a lot of the typical dry English Homour. Some of them like..." The commentary will be in a language called the London's version of English...whatever that is !" and "This bridge was built to ease the congestion of London. But it is a useless bridge since if you are on the bank you cannot make out where it is ! If you see some one on the bridge wave to them. They probably lost their way" etc.

We were able to see the London Bridge, the Tower of London - where they used to torcher prisoners, One of the oldest Pubs (more than 350 years old), the abandoned Power Station converted into a modern art centre, St Paul's Cathedral and many more.

We then crossed the Westminster bridge to reach the London Eye. This is a giant wheel with about 35 capsules each one capable of having 25 people. So on an average 900 people are on the wheel and you get a Bird's eye view of London. It spins slowly @ 1mile per hour and people hop in and out when the wheel is slowly in motion. Some spectacular pictures have come out when I took them from the top.

We then walked to Westminster abbey and then took a bus to Buckingham Palace. I should say that given the history and fame that this palace has, the looks are quite deceptive. It looks dull and pale and hardly any colour that you would normally associate with a place like this. We then headed back to Baker street passing the Marble Arch and Hyde park. We decided we will visit some of these places in detail later on.

On the whole a nice and fulfilling trip around London...though we would have preferred a much better brighter weather for us to walk around !