So close yet so alone.

The day start­ed with pan­cakes and a lit­tle taste of home. Good to know the Canadian maple indus­try is being sup­port­ed so far away.

Inside Monmouth (pro­nounced “Mon-muth”), a cof­fee-shop in Borough Market. One of the ways Mike likes to start his day.

Your hair looks fine dear. When I said messy, that meant cute. Nothing is wrong with your hair.

Oh god maybe if I bury my face in my hands she’ll for­get I’m here.

Look right and look left are paint­ed on the ground to let pedes­tri­ans know which way to check for oncom­ing traf­fic. Especially help­ful because the dri­ving on the oppo­site side of the road took some get­ting used to. The only oth­er place I’ve seen this in the world is Hong Kong, which I don’t think is a coin­ci­dence since it used to be a British colony.

The Clink is an old, noto­ri­ous medieval prison, now turned into a muse­um. The expres­sion “in the clink” to refer to being in prison comes from this place.

Royal Mail, the postal ser­vice of the UK. I saw this van as far as Scotland. Well, maybe not this exact van. I like how so many things in the UK are pre­fixed with “roy­al”.

The George Inn was built back in the 17th cen­tu­ry, and was a favourite spot of Charles Dickens and Shakespeare.

A repli­ca of The Golden Hind docked in St Mary Overie Dock. Shen told me that Hanako got to spend the night with her school one time and live like a sailor. A very, very cold sailor.

In the mid­dle of sev­er­al mod­ern struc­tures are the ruins of Winchester Palace, built in the 12th cen­tu­ry, most­ly destroyed by fire. Visible now are the doors to the but­tery, pantry, and kitchen.

The Globe Theatre was the the­atre to which Shakespeare belonged, and con­se­quent­ly made famous.

This struc­ture is called a Dreamachine, which is a stro­bo­scop­ic art piece where the lights turn on and off and fade into dif­fer­ent colours. The shiny met­al com­plete­ly stood out against the grungy bricks on which it was placed.

Southwark Cathedral.

Barclay’s bikes, or for­mal­ly “Barclay’s Cycle Hire”, are all over the city with over 5000 avail­able for rent (or for free, if you take it out for under 30 min­utes). Built in Canada and based on Montreal’s pub­lic bicy­cle sys­tem.

This adver­tise­ment for the Tate Modern was embossed in the stone, from before the turn of the cen­tu­ry I’ll wager.

I thought I was real­ly out of it when I saw this bus, cause I had­n’t seen a sin­gle ad for this movie with Colin Ferrell in it. Turns out it’s a UK exclu­sive release.

Subsidized pub­lic hous­ing.

A look across the Thames.

On the Millennium Bridge. At the oth­er end is St. Paul’s Cathedral, which I hap­pened to read about two days pri­or it terms of it’s sig­nif­i­cance to the British morale in World War II.

Everyone in this fam­i­ly is a pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

Children gath­ered out­side National Theatre.

There’s a smat­ter­ing of graf­fi­ti along the South Bank under the National Theatre. It’s an archi­tec­tur­al dead-spot named the “under-croft” that’s used as a skate­board park.

Big Brother is watch­ing you.

This was actu­al­ly the ceil­ing. The align­ment of the sten­cils appeals to me.

Mike lent me one of his over­sized coats, since I was­n’t plan­ning on brav­ing the London weath­er, not that it was more than a few degrees dif­fer­ent from Paris.

The Tate Modern muse­um of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary art, for­mer­ly a pow­er sta­tion. Saw my first Mondrian there, Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red.

Emma, Mike’s assis­tant, after post-pro­cess­ing an entire night for a client.

Each table has it’s own four-slice toast­er.

You can­not cross the ocean to get away from hip­sters.

Some local greasy piz­za, with a great thin crust that also came some­what sog­gy. My glass was a deli­cious con­coc­tion of fresh­ly squeezed orange, car­rot, grape­fruit, and cran­ber­ry juices.

Mess hall.

A pow­er box con­vert­ed to a key hold­er.

The Millennium Dome. View from top of the boat.

Before head­ing out though, we need­ed food, and I’d always want­ed to try some authen­tic fish and chips while sit­ting in a London restau­rant. Turns out fish and chips is usu­al­ly a mobile expe­ri­ence. There was only one fish left, a bat­tered cod, so we said, “We’ll have three chips and the fish”.

The chips were thick cut, pip­ing hot, and well salt­ed. I pre­fer mild fish too, so the cod was per­fect.

We had to eat on the run since we were late to the movie, and hung the bag out­side the Land Rover when we were fin­ished so it would­n’t stink up the cab­in of the car. It did­n’t real­ly work.