Day 6 - 'Waimbleee' (Wembley) and British Music experience at the O2

The next 2 days' posts i'll try something different.... Day 6 was a visit to Wembley on request of Mr.Priyank Mahajan. There was a special Indian buffet at Sakoni's that was to not to be missed.

You enter Wembley. First 5 mins your mind says - Welcome to India (in a queer sort of way)......5 more mins in there it says Welcome to Gujarat (again in a very queer sort of way)

As soon as you get out of Wembley station you read big signboards on walls that says- ' Spitting pan on the walls is unhealthy and anti-social. It is a public offence with a fine of .....'

(Picture coming soon...parth sarda has to email....update: emailed and put up here)

Meena Bazaar!

ICICI Bank - Wembley Branch and Krishna Sarees

You will find names of shops based on famous hindi movie names like Raj, Chandni and also television names like Tulsi! For more pictures and captions, click on the slideshow below:

All said and done one must admire the adaptability and entrepreneurial spirit. Some of them are really doing well. For e.g. Sakoni's. The food was quite good and I also saw the 'goras' eating there. The restaurant is run ekdum indian style with more seats in less space to cater to more people. The buffet caters to all Indian tastes and the waiter takes ala carte orders on a PDA! Gujjubhai owner himself was managing the waiting area and booking tables. The entire system was being run really systematically. There's a reason why Mr.Mahajan never leaves from London for Leeds without paying a visit to Sakonis. He gets that homely Indian food and the feeling ....

Next we bade goodybye to Mr.Mahajan and left for North Greenwich for the British Music experience at the O2 arena. The planned engineering works on the London Underground made sure we used 3 forms of transport to reach there but it was all worth it. No photography is allowed(and rightly so) there so I have no photos and I don't want to tell you what it exactly is. Just that a person even remotely interested in music must go here. One can spend hours here. I had a brilliant time!

If you're really inquisitive you can google the - 'The British Music experience, O2'

Thats about it...we used the Thames Clippers to come to London Eye pier. Its a very well organised service - the water transport(especially Thames Clippers) in London. Just a little expensive thats it :P Like most things in London!

Day 5 - The Home of Cricket, Covent Garden & Leicester Square

Somethings one is just passionate about. You revere certain things to point of making them holy. Lords Cricket Ground is a holy place for me. I cannot explain the feeling when I first entered the stadium on 29th August 2010. There's one more feeling left though....the one that a player feels on laying foot on the holy grass......

If you cannot see the slideshow above right click on this album link below and open in a new tab:

Lords - The Home of Cricket

I had made up my mind I wanted to see the England vs Pakistan Test at Lords irrespective of the ticket price. It was co-incidental that I was in London and a Lords test was on. It would have been unwise to miss it. Now, it turns out that I got a 30 GBP ticket which is one of the cheapest at Lords. They told me that an India-England test would be double the price and that an Australia-England cheapest ticket would not be available under 100 GBP.

The entire experience was completely different from an Indian stadium. Now I must confess here that this was the first test I was ever watching! Yes, a cricket freak like me had never seen a test match at a stadium before even in India. But I have limited overs cricket watching experience and it is just very different from this. Security checking is smooth here and you’re allowed to take most things innocent people would take inside including 2 pints of beer. It’s almost a family’s day out once you’re inside. So many small activities going inside and it’s amazing to listen to conversations of old Englishmen discussing cricket. Most of them with those hats and coats that you can see in the 1970s videos of tests in England.

What was also very new for me was the audience response. Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap and stop. Hahaha! No shouting, no hooting. A few young English supporters trying to start the Mexican Wave but the oldies not supporting them. A few really high Englishmen started singing but again the atmosphere didn’t quite match up for that to continue.

There was young Pakistani supporter Imran in our stand with 3-4 even younger kids who were trying hard to have fun. He kept on shouting “Do it, Do it Pakistan” and the kids would shout after him. And they made quite a noise. There was hardly anything to cheer about for Pakistan all day anyway. “Pakistan Zindabad” was equally vociferous and mockingly few Englishmen in the stand would shout the same when yet another Pakistani wicket would fall. I liked the spirit of the young Pakistanis. They shouted as long as their throats could manage. By the last session Imran had to take a lot of questions about Pakistan in our stand from Englishmen old and young. They really took his case!

For me personally it was like a pilgrimage. I don’t think I can put it in words and I will not. Watching a test at Lords and playing there has always been a dream. The first part has been fulfilled (though I would love to see an India-England or an Australia-England test) and the second part would happen too someday.......

Later, Parth and I went to Covent Garden. It is a beautiful place and one must dedicate an entire evening or even a day just roaming about in that area. The weather was lovely and I had a wonderful time roaming there all the way to Leicester Square. What I wonder though is weather the entire Great Britain just eats Italian food when eating out. Almost every alternate restaurant is an Italian restaurant here with cuisines from other countries interspersed in between.

Leicester Square is Hot!

Leicester is a happening place. It was a bank holiday weekend and parties had started very early in the evening. I saw some of the hottest women I have seen in London at Leicester Square. The men must be decent looking too, I guess.

I met a very dear friend Mr.Priyank Mahajan at Leicester Square. Parth and I waited for Mr.Mahajan at Chiquito, a Mexican restaurant chain (Finally I was not eating bread!) Chiquito food is excellent even for vegetarians like me and I would highly recommend it. The evening was spent reminiscing good old days and general catching up. Parth had to leave early and later Priyank and I ventured into ‘The Casino at the Empire’. I had quite a bright day at the casino J

I will now abruptly end this post as what happened for the remaining part of the night is not important J

Few images from Leicester Square. It was raining so best images have not been taken

Day 4 - Piccadily Circus,The world at Trafalgar Square and The strongest woman

Co-incidentally we also have CA Parth Sarda(NMite, Umangite and my Creative HOD) in London now who arrived 1 day after me. He is going to be working with Deloitte London now and he has a few days off before he starts. So he met us today at Waterloo station and joined us.

As soon as you get out of Piccadily Circus Underground you are greeted by World’s most expensive billboard(according to Priyank Mahajan) and an area thats bound have an effect on the aspiring soul in you. Life means more...

It is quite a spectacular sight in the afternoon/evening. Full of people, with brands being thrown at you from all angles and great places to eat around.

After a heavy lunch at Pizza Hut, Alpesh, Parth and I proceeded towards Trafalgar square. A lot of people find the place boring and say there’s nothing to do but I really liked the place. I believe such an area should be there in all cities. We spent about 2 and half hours there, capturing the world with the Nikon D80. The square had people from across the world and of all kinds. Lovers, families, friends,tourists,painters, performers etc. We’ve taken pictures of random people from a distance without their permission :P

The World at Trafalgar square(right click and open in new tab or see slideshow at the bottom of the post):

day4 london -alpsd80

The entire day was spent wandering around central London – London Eye pier, Westminster, around globe theatre and TATE Modern etc. laughing and taking photographs of London.

However, the WOW! Moment of the day was when a woman lifter a 85 kg Parth Sarda on her shoulders! Outside the National Theatre we came across a show the Strongest Woman show. We sat there watching it when suddenly the performer came in the audience and took Sarda to the stage. Next what we saw is best seen in the pictures.

From Day 4 - The world at Trafalgar Square and the strongest woman

It was an evening well-spent and we rounded it off with an Italian dinner at Lizzi (so whats new! Pizza and pasta are Italian!) Well, this was marginally more authentic stuff. The photographs of today will do more talking. It’s a better camera and some of the pictures are by Alpesh, a way better photographer.

Day 4 - Slideshow

Day 3- Peace at the cathedral, Horror at the dungeon and Comedy at the Shakespeare's globe

I am quite glad I am staying at Guildford and not in London. Although it means that I need to travel about 50 mins everyday before I reach London, it gives me chance to write this and also see the beautiful town of Guildford. It is a lovely place with houses that take me back to the Enid Blyton days of mine when I was a kid. You suddenly start relating to P G Wodehouse and that brand of humour even more.
So I get out alone today and have to walk up to the Guildford station. It’s a tough route to explain and as expected I took the wrong route. But in that process I discovered the Guildford Cathedral. Historical stuff again. But it is a beautiful place. You have to be here to believe it. Calmness, serenity and peace. They give you a guide booklet at the start and there’s a lot to know if you follow it. For me, the highlight was the St.Urusula’s porch. From the porch you can see the entire town of Guildford and it’s a lovely sight. I also left prayers for a few friends. Hope they read them out on Monday.

From Guildford Cathedral

A cute british kid sitting with her dad on the other platform at Guildford station

For pictures at the Guildford Cathedral right click below and open in new tab :

Guildford Cathedral

Anyway so today I was on my own the whole day again as Alpesh had a big day at work. I had been recommended the London Dungeon by a lot of people: locals and desis. And now I know why. I think the 20 odd pound ticket is totally worth it. For me it’s one of the best fine arts displays/exhibits (Umangites will relate to this). And it’s the acting that makes it so engaging throughout. I did not get to take pictures as they don’t allow it in there. I will not talk about specifics. Visit it and enjoy. The cashier at the counter said ‘Have a horrible time’ after issuing a ticket to everyone. And by the way, the queue outside was huge but ala Siddhi Vinayak queue you could get into a fast track line by paying 4 more pounds. I had to do that to reduce my waiting time from 75 mins to about 10 mins.

London Day 3 album - right click below and open in new tab :

London Day 3

Next I venture aimlessly in the streets around London Bridge and decide to go to the Shakespeare’s globe. I reached there just about 5 mins before the performance started. I could not do the tour as it was late – 7.30pm so straight picked up the tickets for the show. Now, you had 2 options – get a seat for 25 pounds or stand in the rain for 5 pounds. Standing made more sense and anyway I did not know then how good the play was. Also standing takes you closer to the actors and some of us were right in the middle of the performing area. That was the structure of the stage setup. Actors constantly kept on entering and exiting from within the crowd. As it turns out the play – ‘The wives of Windsor’ was a superb comedy and I was constantly going back to my English text books of school times. Again you have to see it to feel it. All I can say is that it is quite an experience when you see a packed house of people break into a rapturous applause at the end. I think it is the moment that every performer craves for. If there is a little performer in you, you’ll realise what I’m talking about. I believe there’s a performer in all of us.

Globe album - right click below and open in new tab

Day 3 - Shakespeare's globe ,pizza express and waterloo station

The day finished amazingly at Pizza Express on the banks of River Thames just beside the globe theatre. Amazing garlic bread, again!

Day 2 - London Bridge, World War II and French dinner

Woke up really early at 6 am. Moved around the house and went out and realised how cold it was. Took a few pictures. Alpesh and Harshal had to leave early for work and I told him I would leave on my own since he would not be back until 12pm. Next I remember I wake up to an empty room at 11.30 am and realised I had just slept off again.

Anyway, so we leave the house now at about 12.30pm walking in the light drizzle to Guildford station. We took a long route as Alpesh wanted to show me his former university of Surrey. Now most universities in this part of the world have great infrastructure irrespective of the location or the university’s reputation. I was amazed at the Performing Arts Studio in there. Let me not even start talking about the football grounds and other sporting facilities. I didn’t take pictures due to the rain.

Took a fast train to London-Waterloo via Woking. It takes about 40 mins to Waterloo. During the course of the journey we spoke about Alpesh’s experience here over the last 2 years. So the house is owned by a Pakistani and has been rented by all Indians – 2 Gujjus, 2 Marathis and 1 Sardar. It’s funny how Gujjus-Marathis stay together even in pardes. Natural affinity I guess :p It’s fascinating also to know what kind of people come here from India and for what reasons. But we’ll talk about that some other time. The quality of travel on Southwest trains is satisfactory and there are nice sights from the glass windows. Overall a great experience. They sell liquor and packaged foods and drinks on the train and I was trying to figure out what kind of sales must be made each day. I have not travelled yet in peak hours so would be difficult to know.

So we reach London Waterloo. Waterloo as you would remember is supposed to be historic. Alpesh showed me some famous clock at the station. In fact the remaining part of the day remained immersed in history. So we go to London Bridge station from there and Alpesh left me near the Queen’s walk start because he had to give a presentation in his college. Interestingly, his co-presenter was a Pakistani girl and she had made the entire presentation. Alpesh was free riding :p

So now I was alone. I had to decide where to go. Alpesh would meet me after 4 hours. It was drizzling and I spent time at the waterfront of the River Thames. From here on I shall let the pictures do most of the talking.

For more pictures right click on the link below and open in a new tab:

London 2010

I was in full World War II mode here at the Britain at War museum. Since I was a student it cost me 6.5 GBP. There is a movie at the start and then the museum. What I find fascinating is the quality of posters and communication at that time. It was funny and put the message across very succinctly. The Blitz zone is quite good too where they try to recreate the german bombings effect.
And then of course Mr.Churchill! In school I was always a german supporter when the world war was taught. But since the time I was introduced to the quotes, speeches and writing of Mr.Churchill its difficult not to admire the man.

Next, I spent time at the Queen's walk and went to the city hall. I was told the Mayor takes questions from the general public every week. Thats is to begin in September again now. Met a very nice lady guard who told me which places to see around. Met Alpesh there and we ate a veggie 'spicy' burger at Mcdonalds. They need to change their definition of spicy. Also we had to wait about 10 mins for our burger to come.

Alpesh had to get back to work so went and met Karine, an exchange student from Lyon who had come to IIM Indore last year. She is working in London and she invited me to join her for a birthday dinner of her friend. Now before you think I gate crashed, let me just tell you that it was a dinner where everywhere paid and was not a treat. So I met 4 French young professionals working in London. Nice to listen to their experiences here in London. It was very sweet of Karine to come see me off to the underground station. We were on oxford and bond street which are supposed to be shopping paradises for women.

All in all a brilliant day.

Day 1 - Kingfisher,London Skies and Patel

It was the auspicious day of Raksha Bandhan that I was leaving for London. I had a sad and terrible night before which I will refrain from talking about here. I want this section to only speak of positive things. Last 1 month has been a month of deep sorrow and mourning. In many ways it’s changed how I look at life.

So coming back to London, both Meru and Mega cabs were not available for a short trip to the airport (they’re doing tremendous business) and I had too much luggage to be taken in a rickshaw. And lo! Anuj Gosalia comes to my rescue. He is my saviour. It’s funny that he CAN actually be useful to someone : P. On a more serious note though it was touching to have both Anuj and Dhruval Doshi wake up early morning on a holiday just to drop me to the airport.

Now I have about 45 kgs of luggage in 2 bags with me which needed to be checked in. Kingfisher was kind enough to allow me upto 50 kgs since I am a student. I must mention that my experience with Kingfisher has been very good so far and I have flown double digit times with them. This was my first International flight with them though. I had web checked in and had booked a window seat about 2 months back: P (People who’ve travelled with me know what a sucker I am for the window seat!) I had about 2 hours before the flight took off. Went off to sleep for a while and had a Multi-grain sandwich from Cafe Coffee Day. It’s the only real affordable place at the airport to eat food. Rs.90 wonly.... There was row wise check in for the flight which was a first for me. I have been to Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia and have never seen this before. It’s quite efficient actually.

On board my co-passenger was a young firangi girl with whom I didn’t strike conversation until very late in the journey. More about that later. Kingfisher is good. I loved the food served on board. Desserts, White rum, snacks.....no reason for me to complain. The in-flight entertainment options are very good too. I watched Wake up Sid again and liked it more now. Also, saw a little bit of Bollywood Calling (Om Puri, Perizaad Zorabian wala movie). Thought it was quite trashy. I also saw one whole part of a BBC documentary on India that I have on my laptop. Not much needs to said about the cabin crew J! I think they do well and deliver on most promises that they make. The flight was jam packed and not a single seat was empty! I have made some good money on the aviation sector in the stock markets and I see no reason to sell my stocks: P The only cause of discomfort for me was the space and the leg room in the economy class for a man of my size. Plus, since I was on the window seat, every time I got up my co-passenger had to move which is a problem in a 9 hour flight because that would happen often. I got up only 3 times though in the entire flight. There’s of course the perennial problem of the guy sitting on the front seat reclining by a few degrees. There are only 2 ways out of this. Either adjust your size to the seat or make so much money that you can afford the next level of comfort. I think I like the latter option better ;-) The Kingfisher First Class is something I specially went to check out. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of effect it has on an aspirer like me. I don’t care whether it’s worth it or no but there will be a time where I will have the option(affordability wise) of flying first class every time I board a flight.

After about 6 hours into the flight, I was bored. I was fed up of the in-flight entertainment; my laptop battery had given away and was in no mood to read. My co-passenger also seemed bored and so I decided to start a conversation. I asked her if she was a local in UK and she turned out to be one and that question led to about 2 and half hours of good conversation. She is an first year undergraduate student of English Literature in Manchester but a resident of London. She was in India just to travel around with some friends. She said she had some of the best and the worst times of her life in India over the previous 6 weeks. And btw, she also had very good words for Kingfisher AirlinesJ. We talked about a lot of things and what struck me was the maturity. I have met very few girls in India of a similar age who can talk about so many things with such a perspective. Time just flew by until when we were over London. Congestion at Heathrow meant our pilot was forced to hover over London and that was the best thing that happened. It was a clear day in London and the city looked amazing from the plane. And since I had the window seat I had an awesome view! Plus, I had a guide in her. She kept on showing me important locations which she could spot. It was weird for her to see London from the top. It was quite a sight to see the River Thames, the 2012 Olympics stadium under construction, London Eye etc. She was kind enough to offer her contact details just in case I needed help in London.

Too much congestion at London Heathrow...something I have experienced often at Mumbai over the last 1 year. It took about 20 minutes to get out of the plane after landing. My immigration clearance and baggage clearance was pretty smooth. Almost everyone around me was asked to open up their bags for inspection. I was just asked a few questions and was allowed to go. I had no pickles and dairy products and they were happy with that. The toilets at Heathrow were quite dirty.

At the arrival gate waiting was Mr. Patel! He called out to me and I saw Alpesh. Same. Untidy long hair and no change in body size or shape. Harshal Shah(another NMite and Umangite) had also come along wearing shorts in what was turning from clear skies to quite a chilly weather. First thing Mr.Patel does is hand me over a Nokia N93 with a Vodafone sim. He declares it is my phone and my number for as long as I want to use it. We drove back to Guildford, Surrey in a taxi. Technically, it was the first time I was sitting in an Audi. Alpesh and Harshal live in a nice house in Guildford with 5 other inmates. We ordered Dominos Pizza and it was great catching up with THE Alpesh Patel. Already discussions on whether he should come back to India have started and there is going to be more discussion in the following week.

The garlic herb dip is something which Dominos HAS to introduce in India. By the way, Dominos doesn’t give any 30 mins guarantee in UK : P. Full with great pizza and tired after a long journey I just fell off to sleep at 9.30pm London time.

(No pictures are available for Day 1 as the camera did not come out of the bag. Hopefully from next post onwards there will be lesser words and more pictures)