Holiday Part IV: Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go To London

Day 9:

Arrived at our hostel where we were greeted by a sullen bouncer-type “security” guy that barked instructions at us to fill up a form with our particulars. Surprise 1: At the end of it, he asked us how to say “thank you” in Mandarin.

After putting our stuff in our room, we went out exploring… Our hostel is right in the middle of London at Picadilly Circus! The center of Central London was bustling even at 10pm! Off we went to check out Chinatown…

We found a shop selling all sorts of Oriental goodies… Snacks (they were selling Wang Wang snacks!), noodles, sauces, loads of stuff! Unfortunately, we went in as they were closing (there were still people browsing and paying at the cashier though) and when we tried to go down to the basement of the shop:

One of the storekeepers: 关了。(Closed)

Me: 你们有卖杯面 吗？ 可以看一下吗？(Do you sell cup noodles? Can I just take a look?)

Him: 我们什么都有卖！可是我们关了！现在不可看！(We sell everything! But we’re closed! Can’t look now!)

Is that attitude or what? After we walked around the rest of the Chinatown area, Cui concluded that they could afford to act so zuai because they were the only such shop around the area…

Went back to the hostel and planned our day for tomorrow. Asked the sullen-faced “security” guy for maps and recommendations of tourist attractions. Surprise 2: He was really helpful with the tourist attractions. He works at night and visits the attractions in the day so he’s rather familiar with them. He turned out not to be so sullen after all! Ended up chatting and found out that he sold his gym and groceries shop at home just to come to London to learn English and his excuse for being so sullen was: “I’m Argentinian, I don’t smile” which is as bizarre as me saying: “I’m Singaporean, I don’t vote” – which is rubbish, because we do. Of course we all do.

Day 10:

One complete day of sight-seeing. We started out together…

Trafalgar Square

Cleopatra's Needle
(Cui will have you all know that I was a bit obsessed with finding this landmark)

London Eye

... and lots more attractions e.g St Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey (read: I'm tired of waiting for this slow coach internet connection to upload my photos).

Just before lunch, we went separate ways… Not because we couldn’t stand each other any longer but because we were interested in different stuff... Cui went off to some Chinese Emperor's special exhibition (ahem, using MY student pass to prove that all Asians look alike to the Westerners. Or to get a student discount. One of those reasons, I forgot which.) while I went off to the art gallery.

I ended up back at the hostel first and after leaving my bag in the room, I went to the TV room (strangely enough, I went there to write a letter). There was a soccer match on TV and hence, the room was predominantly male (predominantly because there was a female. Me.) I had the grace to give up my front-row seat on the comfy sofa to sit at the back so that some alpha male could get a better view of the match. With that, I ended up sitting next to a guy who soon started talking to me... Using my impressive interrogation skills, I soon found out that he, Daniale, is a 31-year old Italian thoracic surgeon. (I am hoping "thoracic surgeon" in English does not translate back to "butcher" in Italian.)

15 minutes later, I was joined by another Italian guy, Pasquale, whom I had gotten to know earlier that afternoon. Pasquale is a 21-year old "student of music and student of languages" (that was really how he introduced himself! Yes, Gordon, I know you think it's pretentious.) who plays the cello, speaks Italian and Spanish and is currently learning English and Arabic. I introduce Pasquale and Daniale and soon they were chatting away in Italian, leaving me in peace to write my letter...

Then enter Cui, who had been waiting impatiently for my return - she figured that since my bag was in the room, I couldn't be far and would return soon. Anyway, she soon joined us in the TV room and the whole getting-to-know-each-other process started again. Somewhere during the process, a strange strange thing happened. Cui speaks English (obviously) and French (she had lessons for 2 years) while Daniale speaks Italian, French and a wee bit of English. Their choice of language for their communication was French (of which I know nothing except things like Baguette and Croissant). Yet, when they don't understand each other after trying in French and English, they looked at me! As if I could magically translate what was just said! Which, as much as it would boost my ego to say I could, I couldn't.

L-R: Pasquale, me, Cui, Daniale
*Needed no translation to understand: Let's go to the pub.*

In the pub, we were joined by 2 guys whom we didn't know. They just happily walked over to our table at some point and started talking to us. A guy who works in IT and a engineer(?). After asking if we were from Britain and being told that we were from Asia, they guessed that we were from Malaysia =_=

Right...and that's all I'm going to say about this day. The rest of the evening shall be summarised as "pleasant". *Guess what, Cui? I'm going to keep my side of the promise =P *

Oh... one final note: I'm inspired.

You know how everybody has something they would love to do e.g take salsa classes or volunteer or learn something new? If only they had the time... If only they had a partner... If only life was not so stressful... If only they didn't have to do the housework... And then sometimes, life drops us a nice surprise and sends a person or event along our way and suddenly, we're inspired... To drop our excuses. To make an effort. To finally do that thing we've been putting off forever.

Well, I'm at that point now. I'm inspired...