London
Saturday March 18, 2017
I've been in London a week and have covered most of the major attractions. It's been overcast most of the time, and yesterday was super cold, but there were a couple of stunning days where it was definitely shorts weather and it truly felt like spring. The vibe here is way different to Oxford, there's definitely that big city feel. There's so much to see and do, and I love it. It is quite expensive though.
There's so many well-known landmarks that it's not worth listing out all the ones I've seen. Most days, I catch the tube into town and wander the streets. Soho is especially interesting at night, with all its alleyways filled with bars and eateries. I was out at Greenwich yesterday, visiting the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian (which is not exactly at 0 longitude these days, but oh well.) The area by the Tower of London, St Katherine Docks, has tons of hip restaurants and cafes, and the area by the London Eye, Southbank, has some cool food markets and occasionally, free performances inside the Royal Festival Hall.
My wanderings for Pokemon have also taken me to pretty crazy places too. There was a Slugma nest at Stave Hill near Canada Water, a Cyndaquil nest at South Park near Parson's Green and at Golder's Green, and a Houndour nest at Whittlington Park near Archway. There was an Unown spawn in the middle of nowhere where I had to train for 30 minutes, bus for 10 minutes and run for 5 minutes to get there. After dinner last night, I got off the train going home to catch two different lines and run on a full stomach for 200 metres to catch a Hitmontop in Bayswater. There's no doubt I'm getting exercise, but many times I wonder if this game is worth so much of my time. Maybe I'll talk about this in another post.
Things haven't been all peachy though. On Thursday, I slammed my thumb in the stupid door and decided to cancel my day, but felt miserable for staying at home, so ended up heading out and doing a bit of shoe shopping because my hiking shoes are getting a bit worn. Yesterday, I was looking for food in Soho and had a bit of a sad eating by myself. Eating out to me is an inherently social activity, designed to be enjoyed with other people instead of alone. I really wanted to go to this Brazilian Churrascaria where they serve you unlimited meat, but it would have been so pitiful by myself. I'm usually okay being solitary when I'm travelling, but when I'm eating... I could use a bit of company.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:49am on Saturday March 18, 2017 :: 0 comments :: 
Blenheim Palace and Bath
Thursday March 9, 2017
There's a couple of places that are easier to reach from Oxford than London, so while I'm here, I thought I might as well get those out of the way. Charlotte recommended Blenheim Palace, just a short bus ride north of Oxford, so as the sun was out on Monday, I decided to head there.
Blenheim Palace is massive. It's a little unfortunate that at this time of year, the gardens aren't in bloom yet, but it does mean there aren't as many tourists wandering around. Blenheim Palace has been home to the various Dukes of Malborough, but is more famous for being the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. The front steps were under renovation when I was there, but there was still a lot to see and learn about this residence and the various people who have been involved with this building.
On Tuesday, I took the train to Bath, famous for its Roman baths, built on top naturally occurring hot springs. Again, it's stunning to see structures that are hundreds of years old and so well preserved, and even though it may not be perfectly intact, the remnants themselves have their own stories of how they came to be in that state. I walked from the train station to Pulteney Bridge, then walked around Bath Abbey before spending a solid hour walking around the Roman Baths. The tour is very well thought out, taking you through the background, architecture and features of the bath in a linear fashion. You get to taste some of the spa water at the end - I would not recommend this. It does not taste pleasant.
I also covered the Assembly Rooms, the Circus, Royal Crescent and the Botanical Gardens. All in all, I would have spent close to six hours wandering around; a lot of the tours from Oxford and London also include Stonehenge in the day trip but only give you four hours to explore Bath, which is doable but quite rushed, especially if you are walking around everywhere.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:10pm on Thursday March 9, 2017 :: 0 comments ::
The Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon
Sunday March 5, 2017
On Saturday, I took a day trip to the Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon, famous of course for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The English countryside, on a good day, shows a vibrant green that I haven't seen since leaving New Zealand, but mainly because every place I've been to has been covered in snow (or Malaysia.) I can finally see why people talk about these rolling hills too. It's very picturesque and full of buildings and structures that are hundreds of years old. There are so many small churches around here. There are houses with thatched roofs made from dried straw. There are dry walls - walls made without cement or mortar because it was too expensive. It's interesting because there's so much story behind all these things, and that simply doesn't exist in New Zealand.
The first stop was to Minster Lowell, a village that had popped up to take advantage of wool production. It was named after the Lovells, who were the land holding family of the area. The ruins of the manor house remain today, and this is where we spent most of our time here.
Second on the list was Burford, home of the church where mutineers of the New Model Army were held captive by Oliver Cromwell. Again, the buildings are rich with history and beautiful architecture. Etched graffiti on the stone of the font in the church still remains, scratched out by one of the prisoners in the church during the mutiny. It's amazing to think it has been there for 400 years and that it can still be seen today.
We continued north to the Rollright Stones, a formation of rocks in three distinct groups: the King Stone, the Whispering Knights and the King's Men, all named after the characters in one of the local myths of the area. A king was met by a witch at this area, who said that if the king could see Long Compton from this position, then the King of England he shall be. Of course, the king could not see Long Compton, and was turned to stone by the witch (the King Stone) who then proceeded to turn the circle of men into stone (the King's Men) as well as a group of mutineering knights (Whispering Knights).
The last stop of the day was Stratford-upon-Avon. We had a few hours to walk around and join any tours of the various important houses in Shakespeare's life. I wandered down to the riverside and admired the gardens and some of the monuments and statues erected in Shakespeare's honour, and then had a quick lunch before wandering further into town. I ended up at the Holy Trinity Church, which is the site of Shakespeare's grave, and for £3, it wasn't too expensive to wander in. Again, magnificent architecture with all sorts of arches and columns adorning the main church area, and some fantastic stained glass windows in the fore and rear.
I was back in Oxford in the evening for a pizza and wine tasting session with Jono and Charlotte's friends, who take their wine tasting very seriously (and competitively!) Of course I had to self-moderate my consumption, and wasn't feeling too bad by the end of the night. We continued to Wolfson student bar and played some darts before retiring for the night.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:27pm on Sunday March 5, 2017 :: 0 comments ::
Still in Oxford
Friday March 3, 2017
I've pretty much covered most of Oxford's main sights - the Bodleian Library, the Ashmolean Museum and the various colleges around town like Christ Church, Trinity and Magdalen (pronounced Mawd-lin for some very odd reason). I walked the length of Port Meadow where I found some horses roaming around with no fence separating me and them, and I ambled around the Oxford University Parks and Christ Church Meadow, admiring the spring flowers starting to bloom along the riverside. And Oxford is a nice place, but I'm rapidly exhausting the to-do list. Next week, I'll visit the Natural History museum and take a day trip to Blenheim Castle, but that's basically all I have planned.
I spent the first day of March in London, picking up my biometrics residents permit, which allows me to go in and out of the UK freely, and I also met up with Alice, who took me to various places. We had a traditional English pub lunch of fish and chips, and wandered around Borough Market where I got a Baileys chocolate cheesecake. We walked to St Paul's Cathedral (via a few Pokemon spawns) and went inside briefly to attend mass, as it was Ash Wednesday. Normally £18, entry was free as long as you actually sat down for the service. Night fell as we got to Soho and Alice left to meet another friend. I continued wandering as I wasn't quite hungry yet, catching more Pokemon, because I just wanted to pass time, and then got an average steak dinner before taking the bus back to Oxford. It would have been close to midnight when I arrived, just in time for all the drunk people to be wandering the streets, and let me tell you, drunk English people are not fun.
Walking around London was interesting, because there's a lot to see. The landmarks are all so well known and to see them in real life is quite gratifying. But I have to say, if the Japanese are extremely orderly people, and the Canadians walk on the right side of the footpath religiously, then the English are chaotic and haphazardly wander down the street on all sides of the path. It's certainly a different place.
My blog has been having a few issues too. For some reason, the comments query suddenly spiked in memory usage, causing the database to return an empty set due to overallocation. Furthermore, I finally managed to install working versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP on my laptop thanks to WAMP, but it wasn't all smooth sailing and I'd rather not have to do anything like that again.
Posted by Jeremy at 6:21pm on Friday March 3, 2017 :: 0 comments ::
Oxford
Sunday February 26, 2017
I've finally made it to the United Kingdom, where I'm boarding temporarily in Oxford until I figure out what I want to do. It seems there is a high administrative overhead in opening a bank account, getting a tax number and finding a flat, and of course London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. The weather is exactly as I've expected it to be - cloudy and wet - but it is winter after all, and I expect it to warm up over the next couple of months.
It was a very early start in Reykjavik - 5am to be precise - to get to Keflavik Airport on Saturday, but the flight was short and I arrived in Gatwick just before noon with no problems at immigration. The bus to Oxford took two hours but at least it had free wifi. The first thing I noticed upon arriving is how gorgeous the buildings are; so full of character and rich with history. The food scene is apparently quite lacking here, but I'll be exploring the city tomorrow and will give you a proper opinion after I have experienced it myself.
I have at least managed to obtain a local SIM card for myself, and fortunately this deal allows me to roam around Europe with 12GB of data each month at no additional cost. Again, obtaining this was not a trivial exercise and reinforced the notion that bureaucracy is rife here. The app for managing my account and usage was only available in the UK App Store, so I had to create a new account in order to download it, and honestly I was rolling my eyes so hard at just how unnecessarily complicated things can be. Despite all this, it's all sorted now, and I've even managed to catch the fourth regional Pokemon, Mr Mime. That leaves Heracross (South America) and Corsola (equatorial countries), thanks to Generation II dropping a week ago.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:28pm on Sunday February 26, 2017 :: 0 comments ::