Saturday night dancing at "Fabric"

Last weekend was my second weekend in London. The previous weekend Tuya and I went to "Beachcomber", a very small nightclub in Queensway. This weekend I decided to take her and Deegii (her high school friend from Mongolia who now lives in London as well) to a much bigger, fancier place called "Fabric".

Just like everything else in London, everything seems to cost double what it costs in Los Angeles. But I don't get paid double what I made in LA. I've stopped converting things into dollars. It just makes me angry so I try to avoid the resultant rise in blood pressure by not thinking too much about it.

We had a couple of drinks at a pub first. Then we went into "Fabric". It cost about 20 pounds each and I payed for everybody. Actually, I payed for everything for everybody the whole night. Fair enough, I volunteered and I'm the only one with a job of any consequence. Also, my companions are fun and great to look at. So it's a fair trade.

"Fabric" seems to be mostly underground and has an interesting architecture with brick-built archways. Like a 19th century railway station. There's supposedly 6 rooms playing different music by famous DJ's. The music was very danceable but a bit monotonous without much variation. The club was extremely dark and smoky, probably for atmosphere and ambience but I couldn't really see the crowds very well. That would make it hard to pick out prospective partners if you were looking to hook-up. Also, it seemed like there was a lot more men than women. Everytime I went to the toilet, my female companions were approached by potential suitors. I'm sure that boosted their egos. When I returned nobody would approach them, although maybe Deegii wanted them to.

Unfortunately, forcing Tuya to drink beer so quickly in the pub caused her to get really, really drunk. Luckily, she was very nice, loving, and sentimental but she didn't want to stay very long. So, even though Deegii and I would have been happy to stay a couple more hours, we left about 2am and got a private taxi home. Tuya impressed the taxi driver with her English skills which included all the best four-letter words that you can't say on the radio or daytime TV.

Not "Adventures of an Englishman abroad" anymore

I just realised I'm not abroad anymore and my therefore blog title "...Englishman abroad" seems inappropriate. But .... since I've lived in other countries for so long now I actually feel like a foreigner even here. Also, I'm the only English person who has been accepted as an "ex-pat" in an online ex-pat chatroom on meebo.com.

So, I guess until I become English again, I still consider myself "abroad" even in the country of my birth. If my plan to move to China in Spring 2008 actually happens then I will be truly, and indisputably abroad, once more.

London days

Me learning how to be English again. Lesson 1: drink tea from proper teacup.

Tuya made me a Mongolian potato salad for dinner. It was great and my expression showed my joy. Not surprisingly it was like good potato salad from other countries all over the world.



We took a walk to the most famous of all London parks, Hyde Park. It was full of foreigners like us. But mostly people from the Middle East. It's pleasant for an evening stroll and pretty close to our hotel.

So, I am now in London as you can see. I am staying at the hotel I mentioned in the previous blog. However, the room is a lot smaller than they showed on the website. Naturally, they put photos of their best room on their website. The first room they gave me was really tiny and I have a lot of bags and nowhere to put them, except around the double bed. Also, Tuya my Mongolian friend is staying with me for 2 weeks before she goes back to Mongolia. So it was uncomfortably small for the 2 of us. The next day we moved to a slightly bigger room. But on Thursday we are supposed to be moving to the biggest double room in the hotel. It's on the 5th floor and there are no lifts (elevators), only steep stairs. Great exercise, though. I take every opportunity to use the stairs wherever I am. I got pretty fit in LA in the Hollywood Hills. Don't want to lose that.

Also, we had some problems with the "free internet". Since it's a 5 story tall building, the wireless signal doesn't get to us even on the 4th floor. Finally they solved that today by giving me a wireless router to put in my room. Basically it was 2 days without internet which is not so bad for me, but Tuya has nothing to do, so it was really important to get it working.

Other things I had to do to make life a bit easier in London, were getting me and Tuya "Oyster" travel cards for using the underground (the tube). Getting Tuya a SIM card for her mobile phone,and getting her airline tickets changed for the date she wanted to return. That's was cool because we went to Air China and I got to try a little Chinese on the girl working there. So, generally, I have been very busy.

I am supposed to be looking for a flat to move into in as soon as possible. I haven't done much of that. It's a big hassle to chase around looking at flats during the week. I don't even know where I want to live exactly and London is a big city. Maybe I'll do some flat hunting at the weekend, and then more heavily next week.