I left my heart in...

Mike was very excited to discover that Tony Bennett was in town so we went to our first show in London last night at the Royal Albert Hall.

We felt a bit left out as everyone in the audience had white hair but nevertheless, we managed to entertain ourselves in our box seats and were all set with our bottle of white and sandwiches.

Proving that old people are indeed extremely punctual, everyone was seated by 7:55pm and the show began promptly at 8pm. Tony Bennett was great, so smooth and charismatic. I am not too familiar with his music but his songs are all short and sweet. I can't believe the guy is 81! He actually performed "Fly me to the moon" without any amplification at all. Apparently he does this regularly in his concerts to demonstrate the lost art of voice projection. Photos to come!

Hotel M&S - Opening soon...

We got our apartment!

Our First Week

Well it's been exactly a week since we have arrived in London. The weather has been beautiful with the exception of yesterday morning when it rained for the first time. Otherwise it's been blue skies and sunny every day. The London marathon was held on Sunday and apparently it was the "hottest marathon ever" at 23 degrees.... you just have to laugh when the "hottest ever" anything is 23...

It has been surprisingly pain free settling in. We spent the first 2 days on admin - setting up mobile phones, bank accounts, etc. Apparently it is difficult to open a bank account here in London because you need official address proof, but you can't set up anything which gives you official address proof without a bank account. Luckily Ryan had done his research and referred us to a company called First Contact which somehow can get around this requirement by paying them 35 pounds. Best 35 pounds I've spent so far.

The rest of the time we've spent househunting which is the perfect way to get to know London. We've now been around Angel, Islington, Chelsea, Sloane Square, Kensington, Bayswater, Notting Hill, West Kensington, and Holland Park. We've made one offer for a place in the next street to JLo and Po so fingers crossed.

We went to Ronald's big b'day at a restaurant inside St James Park on Friday night and managed to catch up with everyone in town which was lovely. On Saturday we had more househunting and also went to Portobello market in Notting Hill. Mike has been watching plenty of football so we are really getting to know the local pubs in Miranda's area. I've been introduced to Magners and Bulmers by Yuey (girls I think you'll like it...) and we've actually started drinking at lunchtime now. On Sunday we went to this retro bowling place with Miranda and her colleagues for her b'day where there was live music by a series of indi bands. Very cool.

Unfortunately my computer hasn't arrived yet so I can't post any photos until then. Please continue to leave us your comments!

We've arrived!

Finally... we're in London!

What a crazy day yesterday, running around non-stop trying to get
everything settled before departing - tax clearance, exchanging money
etc etc. We then discovered that we had way too much luggage, which I
still can't believe we managed to get through (with some help from Mr
First Class Ryan).

Thank you Mike's family, Karen, Cris, Sof, Em, Denis, Kelvin, Camilla,
Peter, Raymond, Alfred and Alan for making it all the way to the
airport to see us off. So happy to see you all before embarking on our
great adventure....

Please pray for Mr Computer

Mike and I came back from our respective Easter holidays in Sawadeeka and Pho-land to a very sick Mr Computer. We've taken him to Dr Denis who has referred Mr Computer to the Wanchai 398 Hospital. Hopefully Mr Computer will recover soon so that we can continue posting.

Thanks Thanks Thanks Thanks

Thanks to Cris for picking a great location (Bex) for the farewell drinks and doing the Evite, especially in the midst of her latest busy assignment. (PS from Mike - Please get the damn system fixed one way or another ... not that I am a big fan of the system, as I think the principle of legal tender should prevail over the cashless system, the cashless system should only be an alternative and not the only payment method).

Huge thanks to everyone who made it and for those who didn't make it, keep in touch!

Mike: We had a great time and for me personally, the night went by so quickly that when it was 2am in the morning, it still felt like I was on my first couple of drinks....

Steph: Special mention goes to those who managed to hide their true identities with their innovative outfits, in particular Denis and the Spice Girls. PS I love my LV Guide.

Zero's First Post

As Steph had pointed out, it has been farewells and farewells... my equivalent 'club crawl' was on Friday night as well, the usual suspects and I hit Macau, not exactly Bangkok style but given that organising another BKK tour was not easy, we resorted to something closer! Without divulging details of the activities, let's just say it was a great night out!

Farewelled out...

What a weekend. It all started on Friday night with my farewell "Club Crawl". Only managed 4 stops (Baby Buddha, Mint, [Jackie's bar next to Tivo], Hei Hei), but got amazingly drunk thanks to Jackie's lethal concoctions.