Sleepless in ......London

Hey Guys,

Thought we'd be good kids and update our blog again with everything we got up to since we last blogged. Yesterday we went into central London on our own and didn't get lost - I thought it would be a whole lot more confusing than it is! As long as you know the name of the stations you want to get off at, you are fine! We managed to get Oyster cards, and use them correctly, and we found our way to Regent St to get our bank accounts all sorted so we had a very productive day.

We were quite stoked that they have a whole floor for Kiwi's and Aussies at HSBC for us to set up bank accounts - and there are no fees on our accounts -yay for the Brits - bloody NZ banks -robbers! one nil to the Brits! Anyway, as we left the bank we bumped into a girl I went to high school with -this world is so small!! So that brings up our count of people we have seen that we know to 3 within 48hrs of being in London! We then went for a big look around all the exciting shops, and checked out Soho, and Chinatown.

Feeling totally knackered we made our way to the tube station, but we were stopped as someone had left their backpack on the tube that we were going to hop on to. Scary! So we decided we would walk to another tube station nearby to avoid the problem - seems like there was no danger, but that was a bit of a reality check! We then came back and relaxed for the evening.

Today we again woke early - ie 4am (a bit better than the 3am yesterday morning! Maybe tomorrow we might wake at 5am?). So we got up and had some breaky, then went into Putney(shopping area quite like Ponsonby in Auckland, only about 10mins walk from Dee and Marks) and went to Sainsbury's and spent ages there just checking out all the exciting foods and different brands and unusal packaged foods that you can buy - like mashed potato!

We then bought some stuff from this place called Argos - it is so cool - you basically go there, the shop has very little stock in it, you open their giant catalogue - think hamilton phone book size, and you write down the number of the item you want, take it to the lady at the counter and pay, she gives you a receipt with a number on it and how long you need to wait, and then when your number is called, someone brings you the goods! Such a good idea, because it requires zero staff, they must have zero shoplifting, zero tidying/folding of linen etc for them - and so fast and cheap! You can buy anything from jewelery to digital cameras to furniture to duvets etc We bought some towels and a hair dryer.

We then checked out some cellphone providers on the way home and spent the afternoon looking up recruitment agents and adjusting our CV's. Tonight we decorated some ginger bread men that we had bought from Sainsbury's - we couldn't resist - they give you the sprinkles and tubes of icing and everything to decorate them with - I think it is a sign that we are already getting bored! - very tasty though! Hope to have some contact with some recruitment agents tomorrow - fingers crossed! We booked our accommodation for this weekends Edinburgh rugby world cup game to so that is really exciting - we can't wait, we go up by train on Thursday and come back on Tuesday afternoon.

And thats about us for today - will try and post some photos tomorrow (Bev's already snoring beside me here so I will get them from him tomorrow).
Jam