Here in London

The first week in London is already behind us, and it was just such a hectic and frantic week that I didn't have the energy to write at night. But that's the paradox about diarising your life; the more happens, the less time you have to write it all down.

In the meantime, we have found a short term place to stay, I spent a week running all over London trying to get us an affordable, charming, well-located flat (which I did, yay for me) and visited schools for Sean to choose from.

The flat-hunting was often frustrating, sometimes funny, a little scary at times (when I got lost in a dodgy area) but mostly just very time-consuming and crazy. In the end I grabbed a studio flat at 160 pounds a week in Queen's Park, with a very charming mantelpiece to it and squeaky clean.

One thought about agencies here: they should merge so they can offer to show you many apartments in a larger area, not like now when they each show you one flat within half a mile distance from their office.

This is it

At the eve of our big move to London I have just one thought... free at last! Yes, though our stay at my home in our little village wasn't all that bad once we accepted reality and learnt to enjoy it, quality of life will improve dramatically once we have our own place and set our own pace. Just the idea of eating what you want. Heaven!

In the end, freedom is truly all about responsibility. The whole human condition revolves for a large part about taking charge of your life yourself or letting society, peers and parents pave your way. Only the first path leads to freedom, so I accept responsibility for my life, and always will.

London's calling...

Changing pounds

Today I wanted to do 2 things: iron the laundry and change money. The first went very smooth, the second much more challenging than I had thought.

Though I changed money there before, this time the young lady told me I couldn't pick it up until next week. Which is a problem because then I'll be in London already. She had to ask her manager how to get money now, and it turned out that the guy in charge of the vault was already off. That meant they had to ask a 3rd person to go in and get the money for me. In the end (over 20 minutes had passed by now) they came back with... 45 GBP! That'll get me far in London.

Then it was a fourth guy who in the end deducted the money from my account and handed me the pounds.

Four people, 30 minutes, just to get a customer 45 pounds. Why do people who work at banks get paid huge bonuses? They can't even get the simplest thing right!

What we need

That's very little really. Before we left Shanghai, we either threw or gave away half the stuff we owned (granted, that includes plates and glasses). We sent about 6 big boxes filled with clothes, books, CDs and an appliance or 2 by slooooooooooow mail. Combined, they weighed about 100 kg. Flying to Europe we just had two suitcases and another two bags which we took on the plane. For the past 6 months we've only been using what was in the suitcases and bags: a modest amount of clothes (for a gay couple), laptop and toiletries. Not once did we feel the need to take something out of those 6 boxes. That leaves us with the reality that we actually only need about one quarter of what we had amassed by the time we left Shanghai. Talk about an eye-opener.

On the other hand, I can't wait to go shopping in London...

A new city A new blog

Five days before we make the big move to London, it's time to set up my new blog. Just as when writing a book, you finish one blog and begin another. My Random Thoughts from Gay Shanghai is out-dated, and it hasn't felt right for some time now. So I'm making the jump, going all blogspot on you and coming over to the big playa. I've even set it up so you can follow my tweets.

Sure, I'd love to write a brilliant little piece now about how excited I am about the big city life waiting for me, but I'm yawning and inspirationless, so let's call it a night, shall we?