London, home of Londoners

Two words, Rory, real..bacon..

We have finally left the safety of Felixstowe. On Monday, we went to the airport to drop my brother off. I bought a mobile phone. It is a prepaid phone and cost the ridiculous sum of twenty quid. That'll do nicely. Sometimes I hate the disposable culture that we live in and other times it works to my advantage. It was hard to say goodbye to my brother. The three of us have been doing everything together this last couple of weeks and it has been great to spend time with my brother and sister. But I managed to soak up the pain with a sandwich. Not just any old sandwich but the sandwich that I used to wake up in the middle of the night in Korea, screaming the name of- a mozzeralla, tomato and basil panini, food of the gods. Ah man it was good.

But the weather wasn't and shortly after leaving Heathrow, a brother down, we got stuck in a traffic jam caused by an earlier accident which was probably caused by the rain. But we made it to my sister's house in the end. My sister is the only home owner in the family and she lives in London, well just inside the M25, ok ok you have beaten it out of me, she lives in Essex. But her town is just a twenty minute journey from Fenchurch Street Station in the City. Now, until she moved to Purfleet I thought that Fenchurch St was just the name of a station on the Monopoly board, next you are going to tell me that Marylebone Station exists!

Monday night was a quiet one spent texting people with my new phone. Now all that time in Korea and I thought that I couldn't use my phone because it was all in Korean. Turns out that I am just rubbish with cellphones. I am such a phone spastic that I even tried to change the language to Korean so that it would feel more normal. But it didn't have it. Bugger.

Tuesday morning I was up bright and early and off into London to try and find the Embassy of Vietnam. Got the nearest station, High Street Kensington, dying for the loo. Had to stop and take some passport photos (having left my stash of them in Felixstowe, smart move, H), dropped a pound which rolled away. Frantically looked for it while the machine shouted at me to put in the rest of the money. Finally an Australian girl found it outside the booth and the photos were done. Then I had to find a toilet and by the time that was done it was after 12.30 and the visa part of the Embassy was shut.

So I went to Marble Arch and spent a very nice, though slightly surreal, afternoon with Russell, a guy I know from Gangneung. We went to the Pizza Hut buffet, where at least the surroundings reminded me of Korea. When Russ had to go I went to Tower Hill station to meet my sister and take silly amounts of photos. Many people have commented on my ak-cent since I got back. Apparantely I just don't sound English anymore. Which does work to your advantage when you are taking embarrassingly touristy shots of photo boxes and double decker buses.

Wednesday morning saw me more determined than ever to make it to the Embassy. And, after just a couple of false starts I did. I had to buy an A-Z at the Tube station as I had forgotten to bring one with me. Armed with that I was confident I would find it this time. In fact, I ended up giving directions to quite a few people. Nice. Finally, I found it (Embassy of Vietnam, 12 Victoria Road, near High Street Kensington Tube station or a short walk from Gloucester Road).

The People's Republic of Vietnam. Not really much into sharing the wealth, judging on the very posh little house they were in. But there was no queue. So it was all over quite quickly and I walked out a few minutes later, clutching my receipt to collect my passport next Friday, ninety quid the lighter. yep, NINETY QUID. Now that is a lot of money in anyone's book. I acted all nonchalant when he asked for the money, as if dropping nearly a ton is something that I do every day, but inside I was screaming 'that's 180,000 won you theiving so and sos!'

But I had acheived my first goal of the day and was feeling pretty good. I went to Baker Street, home of Sherlock Holmes, took a photo of the detective's statue and met my friend, Amanda (aka. one half of Des and Amanda, the couple that I went to Australia with).

After a very nice lunch (panini again. London, why did I ever leave you??) it started to rain. Amanda went back to work and I walked in the rain. For about five hours.

Not strictly true as it rained, then stopped, then rained and stopped etc. I walked down Regent Street, across Oxford Street, where I used to work in another lifetime, down to Piccadilly Circus and onto Haymarket and New Zealand House (80 Haymarket). I was there to get an application form for a Working Holiday visa, as in four short weeks I will be too old to get one. And if all the Kiwis are as cute as the guy in the Consulate, I might never leave. Now, Koreans aren't short but they aren't tall. I am often one of the tallest, if not the tallest, in my adult classes. But home in England and I realise that I am not tall at all. Hardly a little bit. It makes me feel quite dainty after feeling like a clodhopping heffalump for the last three years in Korea.

The guy told me that if I had been just a few weeks younger (ie. born after 1st July) I could have got a two year working holiday visa but being the oldie that I am I will just miss the date it changes. Dammit. And, because I appear to have been living in a high TB risk country (nobody told me!) I have to go and get a chest x-ray before I can get the visa. Hum. The good news is that it only takes about 15 minutes to get the application done and, at fifty quid, is almost half the price of a three month tourist visa to Vietnam. So I figure that next Friday I will pick up my visa from the Vietnamese Embassy and then rush over to New Zealand House, chest x-ray in hand, and my visas will be sorted, even if my purse will then be seriously over budget.

More walking around the rain, the sun, no the rain, some more sun and it was time to meet my sister and go for my first pint in England for over two years.

Which I had in the Walkabout in Covent Garden, a bar which, as you might have guessed from the name, is an Australian one. One pint later and I was off to meet Cat, a girl I met while fruit picking in the bowels of North Queensland many years ago.

And finally home. It was a long day. Not doing it again today.