London at Last!

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I left Tokyo at 11am, and after a 12 hour flight (had to watch Zoolander again!) arrived at Heathrow at 3.30pm (local time). As you can imagine, you sort of lose your bearings a little with the whole time-zone thing. The time difference between Tokyo and Syd was only an hour so you still cop the full jet lag! Suprisingly, after claiming my luggage at the airport I walked straight through customs. It took me a while to actually realise I was through customs. I expected a fairly rigorous baggage check considering the toughening of baggage restriction laws (thanks for sending the vegemite mum!) and terrorist alerts. But no, the desk was empty at customs and there were about 3 international flights of passengers all walking straight through. It was a public holiday but still kinda strange...

Upon realising I'd actually made it to London, I bought my Oyster card (thanks Kam!), and caught the 'all stations to Cockfosters' train to Hammersmith. With nearly 30kg of luggage, and about 3 hours sleep in the last 30 hours, I struggled with my scribbled-down directions off the net to find my hotel. There are no street signs in London! Brilliant! Street names are hidden on the bottom of corner buildings...which I finally worked out. Anyway, after asking about 10 people (I'm sure half of which were Aussie) I found the place and checked in. I walked up through the hospital-style corridoors to my room and upon opening the door, thought that maybe it wasn't such a great idea to book a cheap hotel on the first night. The plan was to have a private room on the first night to catch up on some sleep before heading to a hostel the next day. I think the cleaner must have been on strike for the past month. The place was more nasty than cheap! If I hadn't just flown 12 hours and been half asleep, I probably would've asked for a refund and moved on somewhere else. I managed to get through the night and couldn't have been happier to walk out the door the next morning!

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