Alright, now that I'm spending the money to blog, I might as well tell the whole story and not let it be hanging. :)

The goodbyes, the wait, the flight - Said goodbyes to my friends and headed straight for the line up. It's pretty insane to see so many people at the airport, especially when it was just a little past 7am. Finally got my boarding pass, and then getting through the security gate was quite a story. I must say, after the incident in NYC, security is a 'little' tighter than usual. So I walked past the metal detector. It beeped. Nothing unusual, it always does. The guy asked me to take off my shoes and walk past. WTF? So I did, and nothing beeped. Great, so now they think I have bombs in my shoes. Then they swiped some stuff all over my laptop for 'analysis', and said,"Yes it is a laptop, you may go." Like, duh, it looks like a laptop, and I turned it on to show them that it works. It takes a computer to do an analysis to tell me that?

My flight was delayed for an hour. I have no idea why, because by the time they explained it, I already fell asleep. :)

Arrived in London. Couldn't find the guy that was supposed to pick me up. Took me two long distance calls home to find the number to call the guy. Nobody told me to wait for him in front of the car rental places. The guy had NO IDEA where to drop me off. So I had to call home once again to find the address of my apartment. Even with the address, the guy had no idea where to go except for the general area. We drove around for two hours looking for the place, and then he got pissed off at me. Uh, hello, Mr. driver, you are supposed to drive me there. Not to mention that, but he made me look up the map for him and give him directions. I just landed about an hour ago and he wanted me to read a map of London and figure out the streets?! Good luck. Thank goodness for security guards standing around where I live. They told me exactly where to go and I findlaly checked into the apartment.

Now let me tell you how nice the apartment is. It's surreal. It's absolutely insane. I'll put the pictures up once I get internet access and can send pictures. The stupid USB port here at the internet cafe doesn't work, so I can't send any pictures from my camera. I have a balcony, a living area, a dining area. The kitchen is fully stocked (not with food, but just pots and stuff). I have a queen-sized bed. I have my own bathroom. I live in a freakin' hotel. :)

Faiza (my roommate) arrived the next morning as soon as I stepped out of the shower. Helped her unpacked a bit, eat a bit of food she brought with her, and we went out shopping. Needed to buy some food before we starved to death. Arrived at Waitrose (now for those who knows about London should be groaning by now), it looks like freakin' M&S (Marks and Spencers). The prices are relatively similar too. I have pictures, of a can of tomato pasta sauce, selling for �5.00. Nice small bottle too. The prices are HIGH. I thought stuff were expensive in the US. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, it's way more expensive here. We ended up buying a bottle of water, a cheap cheap can of pasta sauce (still setting us back �1.80 I believe), and some oranges. Call that lunch/dinner or whatever. Stuff is just way too expensive. I'm going to lose some major weight here.

It was around 2pm when we finished walking around and Faiza wanted to go home for a nap. I ventured out to the city by myself, taking the tube. Now here is where I complain about prices again. �2.00 for a single trip down to the city. That's $5.00CDN. Now we should all stop complaining about how expensive TTC is in Toronto. Regardless, I took the tube down here and walked around Oxford Street. There is a BIG Virgin Magastore here, and it lives true to its name (the second part that is). 4 floors, any CDs you look for will be here. Adrian, give me a list of stuff you want and I'll check it out for you. There are the usual fast food restaurants, but an abundant number of cafes and bistros around also. There is also several Muji stores here, which I haven't seen since I went back to HK a couple of years ago. As predicted, everything is expensive, almost $=� here.

The rest of the evening was rather uneventful, other than unpacking and watching the telly. I'm getting down with the lingo here. :P

Now here I am! Today I'm going to walk around and see what I can find here in the city. Perhaps buy some necessities and head home. Starting work first thing tomorrow morning. Wish me luck! :)