Day T-1: London

Today’s Walk: London

Planned distance: Unplanned, Actual distance: 21.44 km; Time taken 4 hours 10 minutes

Whether you fly a A380 or just a normal plane, a 13 hour flight is tiring. Two movies, few hours of sleep, a supper, a snack and a breakfast later I am still dazed.

In the morning 7:30 itself I managed to get an early check-in (at no cost!) at my favorite Rhodes hotel in Paddington. I have stayed here 4 times in the past, and is very impressed with this hotel. It is relatively inexpensive, has all facilities including Free WiFi and I even got free calls. After freshening up I did the best thing to avoid a jet lag – go for a long walk.

London is my favourite city for any holiday. After been here more than half a dozen times and after spending considerable amount of (holiday) time, I still find something new (which itself may be very old!) every time I come here. And, I have to say this, is the best city for pedestrians. There is so much to see by just walking.

There are very few cities in the world where the old and new mix so well. As a prominent financial nerve center of the world, cutting edge innovations happen (including some of the now disastrous financial products) in some of the buildings that haven’t changed even a bit over centuries.

Yes, the city has its problems of over crowding, crawling traffic (complemented by a wonderful underground train network), violence, pick pocketing and what not. But don’t most cities in the world have all of those?

As always today I went for a long and directionless walk with only one objective – come back to where I started after few hours.

The weather was terrible – it was dull, dark and damp – with frequent rains. So by British standards just a normal day. See the attached photo. No, it is not a black and white photo – that is how London looked today.

The weather motivated me to do some quick shopping for a better weatherproof clothing other than what I was carrying. I managed to get a Goretex jacket (which guarantees to keep me dry) , almost one third the price in Singapore. I am surprised!

In the evening I am going for a guided walk - what do you expect out of me anyway?

London has a variety of informative and educational walks like British Museum Walks and Tower of London walks where a knowledgeable guide takes you for a couple of hours of walk at interesting locations and tell the stories behind it. But who cares about such walks when there are Jack the Ripper Walk, Harry Porter Walk, Da Vinci Code Walk, Sherlock Holmes walk, Ghost Walk and Pub Walk which is much more fun!

Net connection is going to be choppy in the coming days. So you may not hear from me everyday.

Here is a collection of random photos from today trip.

 

Day T-2: In the beginning…

May be it is the mid-life crisis.

Early in 2008 I realized, that in 2009 I will be 40 years old and I want to do something worthwhile, something tough, something inspirational and something I can tell my kids with pride when they grow up. Looking at myself then (and weighing around 77 Kilos) I decided if what ever I do has to be a tough task, there should be an element of fun in it, otherwise I cannot motivate myself to do it anyway. After a little bit of research I come to a conclusion, I cannot climb Everest, I cannot do a Triathlon, I cannot swim the English Channel and I cannot even run a marathon. The only thing I could do worthwhile is a long distance walk (and that too listening to music).

I chose the “Coast to Coast” walk in the UK devised by a gentleman named Alfred Wainwright. “Cost to Coast” walk is a 308 kilometre walk across England starting at St Bees in Cumbria, the west coast of England, and ending at North Sea coast at Robin Hood's Bay, the east coast of England and can be done in about two weeks. It had all the elements I was looking for – a reasonably long and tough walk, English country side, Moors, Lakes, Nature parks, Inns and of course pubs.

I started practising lightly towards mid of 2008, and started taking it seriously by November 2008 when I started this blog describing my walks and my plan to do a Coast to Coast walk. Once you go public on a blog (with 4,582 unique visitors from 100 countries/territories to date) you cannot go back on your word. So I have taken my walks more serious and have covered 829.5 kilometres in the last 8+ months and in the meanwhile as an added bonus, I have lost around 5 kilos. The details of my every single walk to date is here.

The Perils of Travel:

Terrorism, Bird Flu, SARS and now H1N1 (Swine Flu) - the world is becoming a more dangerous place. The effect of all of this on travel is significant. It makes all of us worried, especially when UK has now become a hot bed of H1N1.

What if you get quarantined in the UK (I have heard horror stories about NHS, the National Health Service)? Isn’t the weather this year “bad”? Isn’t the British Pound strengthening? Isn’t this a bad time to travel? Questions? Questions? My take is - after all when is it a good time to travel? How would one know if tomorrow is a better day to travel?

I had decided the dates for this trip well in advance, as early mid last year. Even though the travel scene has gone from bad to worse (Singapore Airlines is likely to post a full year loss for the first time, even worse than the SARS period) I have decided I will not change the dates of my trip, even after a health scare 10 days back (not H1N1, just a throat infection, but the doctor who treated me had H1N1!). I felt it is a risk worth taking. Thankfully my family is also very supportive of this walk – they have seen me practicing for this walk for a long time. I would miss them a lot, especially the two young kids. I have never been away from them this long, ever.

Singapore to London:

Tonight (03/August, around 10:15 PM Singapore time) I am posting this blog entry from the Silver Kris lounge at the Singapore airport (benefits of being a frequent flyer) waiting for the A380 flight to London. 3.5G is great (and I hope UK will continue to offer me either 3.5G or at least WiFi). And after a very long trip to the east saving me 7 hours (which I loose promptly when I fly back) I will be in London tomorrow morning.

Day T-2: Recap – Coast to Coast Walk Distances

Day 1	St. Bees to Ennerdale Bridge	22.5 km
Day 2	Ennerdale Bridge to Rosthwaite	22.5 km
Day 3	Rosthwaite to Grasmere	14.5 km
Day 4	Grasmere to Patterdale	13.0 km
Day 5	Patterdale to Shap	26.0 km
Day 6	Shap to Kirkby Stephen	32.5 km
Day 7	Kirkby Stephen to Keld	19.5 km
Day 8	Keld to Reeth	17.5 km
Day 9	Reeth to Richmond	16.5 km
Day 10	Richmond to Ingleby Cross	35.5 km
Day 11	Ingleby Cross to Clay Bank Top	20.0 km
Day 12	Clay Bank Top to Glaisdale	29.0 km
Day 13	Glaisdale to Littlebeck	13.0 km
Day 14	Littlebeck to Robin Hoods Bay	18.0 km
Total	Coast to Coast walk	300 km

Raffles Hotel – The Video

And here is a video version of my earlier blog entry.

Raffles Hotel

Raffles Hotel is possibly the most famous landmark in Singapore.

Last weekend I spend time with my father and my son walking around the hotel and spending a bit of time at one of the famous establishments in there (more on it later).

Nestled among the modern skyscrapers, Raffles Hotel preserves quiet a bit of the history it has been associated for more than 120 years.

 

It is interesting to note that this Singapore icon was owned by many non-Singaporeans (in the traditional sense). The founders of the hotel, Sarkies Brothers were Armenians, and the owner of the building, Syed Mohamed Alsagoff was an Arab trader. Even the latest owner, Colony Capital, is a California based company. It all shows the position of Singapore as an important trading centre than anything else (as well as the importance of having enough money). Strange, it may look today; Asian’s weren’t allowed as guests in the hotel until the 1930’s.

What is the most important part of Raffles Hotel – Expansive rooms? Tropical Gardens? No. It will be the Long Bar and its famous Singapore Sling. This cocktail was invented by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon in the earlier 1900 is a concotation of equal parts of gin, cherry brandy, and Benedictine shaken and then filled with club soda.

Generations of world famous and not so famous must have drunk Singapore Sling and must have eaten the unlimited servings of peanuts with it at Raffles Hotel! For non-alcoholics there is also a Virgin Sling (does it indicates Singapore is not a virgin?)

At S$23 + taxes, Singapore Sling (with a free “flow” of peanuts) at Raffles Hotel is an expensive drink. No choice – we too had to try it out! Three generations tried these world famous drinks – except the youngest one just tried hot chocolate.  It is interesting to note that loads of foreign tourists are hurried in to be fed with one of these drinks.

 

Another curious thing to notice is that Raffles Hotel faces the Beach Road – but there is no beach or sea in sight! Land reclamation over time has literally moved the sea and the beach half a kilometer away. Raffles Hotel facing the sea - what a sight it would have been!

Here is some more interesting information about Raffles Hotel:

• Raffles Hotel’s famous guests include Charlie Chaplin, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham (who called it “the legendary symbol for all the fables of the exotic east”), Queen Elizabeth and Michael Jackson.
• The last known wild tiger in Singapore was shot at the hotel more than hundred years back. In spite of the name “Singapura” (“Singa” means Lion) there were no wild lions in Singapore.
• The hotel was scheduled for demolition in the 1980’s. But sense prevailed. Presidential suites now go at S$ 3,000 a night!

My Nokia Widget

Nokia N97 review: After One Week*

Likes: Nokia Music Store where I could download millions of songs (and I have downloaded thousands already)
Dislikes: Music store takes ages to load, terribly slow, poor search capabilities and frequently crash

Likes: Nokia Music Store where I was able to download wonderful long forgotten songs which I could not get anywhere else
Dislikes: Norton 360 antivirus thinking Nokia Music Store (or some component) of it as a Trojan.

Likes: Lock button on the phone to lock key board. The screen goes dark instantly saving battery.
Dislikes: The screen does not lighten up when it is unlocked. Lock again and unlock and it works fine

Likes: USB cable that can charge the battery and sync contents
Dislikes: Some times it does not charge the battery. Still haven’t found out the reason

Likes: Auto-sync between the computer and phone
Dislikes: Has to press OK twice to start this process

Likes: Voice recognition
Dislikes: Does not work with any reasonable accuracy

Likes: Handwriting recognition calculator
Dislikes: Nothing here, it works!

Likes: Pre-loaded with applications to grab news, stock quotes etc.
Dislikes: Dislikes – no way to measure or control data downloads

Likes: Nothing about Ovi store
Dislikes: Everything about Ovi store. When comparing with Android Marketplace, Windows Marketplace and Apple store, Ovi store is a disgrace

Likes: Able to play lots of music when going for a walk
Dislikes: No Sportstracker for N97

* Are the dislike due to a bug or is it a feature? Only time will tell!