oh Britania!

so the last few days, it's been a bit of a blur, I'm finding it hard to remember back to thursday/friday last week, but here's my attempt

so first things first, a few missed photos etc from japan:

some mean samurai dude:


one for mum and dad, go the gideons!:


ok, to London! here's the outside of our hotel:

on friday we got up and had bacon and eggs at a local place then went for a short walk to this nice(ish) looking building nearby. thought we'd take some photos even though the building wasn't really that flash:



so we continued on allong the mall, turned left at malborough road and onto pall mall, and left onto regent street where we arrived just in time for HSBC to open. we waited another 20 mins or so for someone to see us and they activated my bank accounts. I've got one that earns high intrest but I can't withdraw from using my card, and one that earns no intrest but I can use via the debit card. the cards here are slightly different, they've got the chip in them and you use them in the eftpos machines different. first time I went to purchase something I didn't know what to do :D

so next we wandered west along oxford street, bought a prepaid sim for me and found an internet cafe (the one we posted from two posts ago) and then had lunch in a mall type thing.... then we wandered east again,found the building that debbie was to go to for her "first contact" meeting (more on that later) and then wandered down into SOHO a bit, lots of nice quaint little resturants here:


back on oxford street again for debbie's meeting. basically debbie bought a package that included a prepaid sim, some credit, a bank account opening service with barcleys and some other miscelaneous services like free money transfers, CV assistance etc. so now debbie has a phone number also.

next we went for another wander down through SOHO, but this tie past leicester square and china town, these areas are absolutely packed with resturants and coffee shops etc. a short walk later and we arrive at trafalga square:

and the national gallery facing the other way:

a little walk later down whitehall and we hit the houses of parlament:

another 10 meters or so and we get a nice view of the london eye:

We're getting really tired by now, so we go to westminster station, buy our oyster card (an electronic card that allows unlimited train travel between two zones or unlimited any zone on the bus) and zip back to victoria where we're staying.


on the saturday we had breakfast at a different place and then went to our homestay :D it's quite cool. the water pressure is terrible but the bed is warm and the owners are friendly and that's all that matters.

on monday I had an interview with a recruitment agency and then with the umbrella company that I'm going through to start with. it was good to talk to someone who knows the market and for them to give me an idea of what my skill set should be bringing in initially. so we're looking at between 350 and 400 pounds per day for me at contract rates or 50k for a permanent job, this will increase once I've got experience in the financial industry and get to know more people etc.

more photos to come!