Sorry we haven't written for a while, we have been staying in dodgy hostels with limited access to the internet.
I have to say that I don't really understand why they say that you have to be at the airport three hours before departure time. Seems like a waste of good sleeping time to me.
Our flight from Narita to Heathrow was on a Boeing 777 this time (smaller plane) and it was apparently very full because when we checked our luggage in they upgraded us to premium economy because they couldn't keep our web check-in seat allocations.
The plane was much newer than our first plane, and the premium economy seats were awesome. They were even recliners with leg rests!
The flight again was really good. This time we went over China, Russia, Denmark and the Scandinavian countries on our way there. There was also heaps of good movies and documentaries to watch. This time the entertainment system was even newer, and you could watch movies on demand, without having to wait for the next start time.
Everyone told us about how bad Heathrow airport is, but that was not our experience at all. I reckon it took us about 20 minutes from the time we got off the plane to when we were getting on the tube to go into London!
When we rocked up to the customs queue, there was a fair few people there - it was moving pretty quickly though. Then one of the attendants invites us to skip directly to the front of the queue (for what reason, I don't know). When we got to the customs officer, all he asked us was if we knew the conditions of our visa, and then stamped our passports and sent us on our way! We couldn't believe it. We were expecting to have to answer all sorts of questions about where we were staying, how we were going to get work, etc.
Getting luggage around on the tube is a bit of a mission. Only some of the stations have elevators, so you have to carry your bags up numerous flights of stairs in many cases. The door of the train almost never lines up with the platform, and there is almost always a big gap between the two. And it doesn't help when you are packed into the train like sardines with lots of people.
We only had two nights booked in a backpackers hostel when we landed. It was in a area called Ravenscourt Park, which is on the west side of London, and it is a really nice area.
The first night we both woke up at about 1am, and couldn't get back to sleep. My sleeping patterns are only now getting back to normal, and it has been a week.
We had to hit the internet cafe and the payphone for days trying to find accommodation. Probably about one in ten people advertising rooms would actually answer their phones. The payphones in the UK don't give you change except for the coins that you put in. So if the smallest coin you have is a one pound coin, the phone call is going to call you minimum one pound. I don't even want to try to think how much money we put through payphones.
We trekked around on the tube to have a look at some places, with little success. The very first place we went to look at was in an area called Elephant and Castle (which we thought would be quite a good area - nice and close in, good transport links). We had to visit at about 7pm, because the owners were at work or something.
As we drew closer to the place, we grew more and more uneasy. The place was full of large housing commission style unit blocks and the street was full of dero-looking people hanging around in groups and drinking. I was dead set expecting to dodge some bullets from some gangstas at any moment. We got all the way to the street that we were supposed to find, but we couldn't find the place because there were no signs. The housing on that street looked like some of the worst housing I have seen. We then saw this couple walking along and we asked them if they knew where the address was. They tried to help us, but they were both quite drunk and just led us to the same street that we had already found anyway.
The guy was talking to me about how he used to be a doorman in the area, and how he knew about all the 'bollocks' that goes on (he was just like the guy out of Rise of the Footsoldier, if anyone has seen that movie). They also warned us that we shouldn't be walking around out here, and that Sharon should be holding her handbag close to her front.
After that we were sketching so badly that we abandoned the search and hightailed it out of there. So our first inspection was pretty much a disaster.
On another occasion, we trekked all the way out to the other side of the city to look at another place and the guy just never showed up to meet us at the tube station.
We found a really good place in Ravenscourt Park, and we went to look at it and it was pretty much perfect. The next day the guy called us up to tell us he had given it to his friends at the last minute.
In the meantime we had to extend our stay at the first hostel by two nights, and then we ended up booking into another hostel in north London for 7 days, which is where we are now. It is much better, we have free unlimited internet here.
As of yesterday we have now finally found some permanent accommodation, sharing with a bunch of Kiwis (argh!) in Acton. We are going to move in there on Monday. And so ends the accommodation saga.
Now we are doing a lot of jobseeking, but with at least some accommodation lined up we were comfortable enough to get out and do a bit of sightseeing for the first day today.
We went into the city today and had a look at a few of the sights. There are so many things to see in this city that it would probably take months to see half of it.
We went to St. Pauls Cathedral, which is an absolutely amazing building. Unfortunately you can't take any pictures from the inside. We climbed (hundreds of steps!) all the way up to the top of the dome and took in the sights over London. I have attached some pictures of this.
We also visited the Museum of London, learnt a bit about the Great Fire that burnt four-fifths of London to the ground in the 1600's.
We spent some time at the Spitalfields Markets, which were very cool. There was a lot of cool stuff that we wanted to buy, but we restrained ourselves (for now).
We are going sightseeing again tomorrow, hopefully we will post another entry with some more pictures. We miss everybody already.
