Camden Markets

Ian and I visited London’s 4th most popular tourist attraction yesterday: Camden Markets. They’re made up of hundreds of stalls on the sides of streets, in many buildings and under marques. It’s a great place to get anything from cheap t-shirts, arts and crafts, sunglasses, clothes, shoes, fruit & vegetables, jewellery, etc etc. It’s packed full of colourful characters (see punks below) which was a nice change to seeing suits everywhere in central London. It kinda reminded me of Cuba St, Wellington, where everyone can comfortably be themselves – except on a much huger scale. Also on offer were a good range of international fare, of which, we sampled a Turkish kebab. I’ve been told not to expect much from kebabs here, but this place quashed that expectation somewhat by serving us a great kebab with a handmade wrap.



What was a bit surprising is that here, stall owners and sales assistants actually tried to help or sell you a product. As you probably know, most sales staff in England try to make you feel bad by giving you an annoyed look when they have to pause their cellphone conversation to serve you. Sometimes, they won’t even leave their conversations! It’s different at Camden Markets; I was looking at a power adaptor which was in plastic packaging and the guy opened it up for me to let me take a better look. I wasn’t really that interested and said “thanks, but I’ll leave it for today”. He said, a bit disgruntled “But I opened the package for you” to which I said “Well, I didn’t ask you to” and walked off.

All in all a great day. I’ll be returning with TJ when she comes to visit as I know she’ll love the place. And when I need a new studded leather dog collar…

They're not all bad, yeah?

I had a good experience on the train the other day. Normally everyone sticks to themselves and never daring any eye contact, but I came across the exception to the rule. I sat down next to a guy with a laptop. He started watching a movie and I naturally became curious as to what he was watching. He noticed this and offers me one of his earphones to share with me. Initially I declined, which is my default reaction, but then queried what he was watching. He said it was Casino and this clinched the deal for me. I had recently watched Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro directed by Martin Scorsese so was pretty keen to see Casino where the teamed up once again. We started half way through where Joe Pesci was torturing some thug with his head in a vice! We watched it for about 20min until I had to get off. We didn't talk during it, but the experience made me realise there are some friendly poms on the train and it brightened an otherwise long tiring day.

2006 - 1978 = 28

So I had my first birthday overseas yesterday and it went well. I might even stick around for one or two more. My great friends Jase and Sonya left this for me on the kitchen bench for breakfast (it's a hedgehog):

After work I met some friends a popular comedy club called the Comedy Store and had a great laugh. Man, the British comedians don't hold back and definitely have no regard for political correctness.

Yes, that is me wearing a tie! I got some temporary work at a stock brokers this week. It's general office work which isn't too taxing, so it's a good way to get back into work after over 2 months off. My favourite part of the day is when I take over security duties on the front desk (basically sitting down surfing the net or doing sudukas) for an hour then go and take my hour lunch break.

Job Hunt

My main mission so far here in London has been looking for a company with which to swap my time for some much needed pounds. It's not quite as easy as everyone leads you to believe with comments like "You're an engineer, you'll have no problems" and "They'll snatch you up, they love Kiwi's over there". It's been tougher than that, and I've started to look for temporary work before I manage to get into more of a career role. I've enrolled with many agencies and started to get some good temp possibilities for this week.

Along with that, I've been catching up with some fellow antipodean friends, sharing thoughts about making our way in the world far from home. I've been looking forward to breaking out of my regular routine of working a 5 day week, but find myself wanting to get back into it straight away, now I'm here. Maybe I wouldn't have to if I weren't in London, but I don't know how long I would last here if I don't. My plan at the moment is to work for a while to save some money and start doing some travel in the summer. That's me living in the future again, d-oh!!