London Day Two
The first day in the office was immensely enjoyable, more than I expected. We made our way to pick up security badges and such and finally made contact with our support folks.
Friendly, full of smiles, and genuinely nice, they had desks for us and made sure we were well taken care of. They even helped with lunch, and one of my co-workers helped us wind our ways through the London streets to a delicious Japanese lunch box spot where I had katsu curry, fried pork with curry on rice with pepper pickles. Delicious!
My iPhone is a star here. Everyone wants to touch it, zoom around, and basically marvel at the interface. Then they debate the merits of spending that much for a phone, usually followed by a staunch opinion of how good or bad it is. It’s amusing and I really enjoy how people are blown away the first time they use the gestures to zoom and swipe. Charming for sure.
After work we sped off back to our hotel, put on our jeans, and set off on the tube for Picadilly to wander around. It turned out for the best because we made our way around Soho, wandering here and there among high end shops until Karin spotted a Korean restaurant. We didn’t stop right away, and wandered some more. Eventually found our way back and enjoyed a delicious at-the-table barbecue meal of spicy rice cake & veggies, bulkogi and ox-tongue.
The rice cake was a long tubular thing, sort of a mochi shaped like a stick of string cheese, with a spicy sauce, mushrooms, green pepper, onions, and clear noodles. The ox-tongue, which I’d never had (I’ve had cow tongue) was paper thin and looked like pepperoni but turned out to be quite beefy flavored and delicious. The bulkogi was delightful as well, tender and full of good beef flavor. Seven large pachan (a-la carte, not included) came on the side. I had two *hic* Asahi beers as well. Delish. And the waitresses cooked everything for us.
After Korean we wandered some more and found ourselves in Chinatown. It was random because we were thinking of stopping there initially but didn’t want to eat Chinese. All of the sudden we both had an urge for a Chinese bakery, but all the ones we found were a bit too traditional.
Of course, we WERE in need of some sugar, and found a small internet café / gelateria / coffee house. I opted for dark chocolate ice cream in a cone, and Karin got a cup of hot cocoa. I don’t know what it is, but the milk just tastes better here, and the ice cream was divine.
Hopped back on the tube and made it back to our hotel around 10:30. Another successful evening of wandering and sightseeing.