London: August 1-6, 2006

From Tours, France, we RyanAired it to London where we were graciously hosted in Notting Hill by our good friend from Ireland, Simon (that we got to know 8 years ago in Melbourne) and his Irish flatmates John and Michael. Actually, the whole time we were in London we may as well have been in Ireland, and though we also met Brazillians, Senegalese and Kiwis, we didn’t meet any native English people at all. The Irish lads’ apartment was on Portabello Rd., famous for it’s weekend market, which was a great atmosphere to soak up. We borrowed Simon and John’s spare bikes and spent our 5 days in London cycling from one end to the other through great parks, by various waterways and along the main roads, where avoiding the red double-decker buses was something Zoe struggled to come to grips with.

We cycled along the Thames, catching Big Ben at sunset before dinner and a William Blake outdoor theatre promenade performance that was quite spectacular and atmospheric. It had been a while since we had seen theatre since it isn’t such a common thing to do in Japan.

We cycled from Notting Hill in the West End to Broadway Market in the East End along the canal, stopping briefly to check out a market in a grungy part of town and Little Venice (or more accurately, losing the path along the canal and surfacing onto the streets to “check it out”). We were lucky with the English weather. It was even nice enough to swim at some lakes in a park.


It was great to catch up with our friend Abdou and meet his fiancé. It has been 8 years since we had seen Abdou, after Craig and Abdou studied together at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.

The highlight of our time in London was probably the ride home from the free Fruitstock Festival and great performance by Arrested Development at a park. Speeding along the canal in darkness with 10 Irish lads after a few drinks was quite an invigorating experience.