[Takashi]

Next month. If I use a horribly cheap flight to London Stansted how screwed up am I? Because it seems like actually arriving to central London is more expensive than my flight there.
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[RobotRocker]

[Dracko]

What's in London?
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[Takashi]

[google]

[RobotRocker]

[les meat]

[google]

[skonrad]

I was just in London, but I worked the entire time, which was a bit of a pissoff. I took the express train from Heathrow, which was faster and less irritating than a shuttle or a cab, and then grabbed a cab to the apartment I was staying at off of Oxford. I can't remember how much it cost altogether, but it wasn't absurd. Food prices kind of killed me, and the level of service at restaurants / bars is pretty terrible from the North American perspective.
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[google]

[Takashi]

Hm, where will i stay? Good question. I have a friend-of-a-brother there.
Also, not sure if I'll bring company.

That said, if you pulled an all-nigher, where would it be? Because I would provably try and make the most of my time instead of sleeping. I can do sleeping at work.
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[Dracko]

My experience of London has been mostly crap, honestly.

It beats Paris, though.
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[Martial Loh]

i'd pay the extra for the Stansted express - the normal rail service is not good.. Also, you gotta pay £3ish for the actual oyster card - it is refundable, as far as i know...and i think you can probably apply and get one whilst you're abroad, in preparatiion.

Pro tip - bendy buses are unofficially free..haha!
Brick Lane/Old St area is good.. Lots of clubs & bars to choose from

[google]

[sam]

i've pulled loads of all-nighters in london to avoid getting early trains or waking people up, the trick is to keep going from chinese restaurant to chinese restaurant getting different rice in each one.

[GalaxyHead]

[google]

[skonrad]

[google]

[falsedan]

Don't catch the Stansted express, it costs too much for the level of service. £5 for an easybus that takes about 90 minutes vs. £12 for a 40 minute train

If you are staying for about a week, get an oyster and buy the appropriate weekly travelcard—a zones 1 and 2 costs ~£24 and gets you a lot of places, and you can stick another £5 on there to pay for travel in zones 3-6 if you feel like it. A 1-2 weekly travelcard gives you unlimited tube, national rail, bus and light rail travel from Greenwich to Acton, Archway to Clapham.

So about £40 should cover transport for a week, hope you've got some cheap accommodation near the city! If not, YHAs are OK if you can stand dorms, YHA St Pauls is right in the city (£19/night) and YHA Holland Park is literally in the park (£22). Also bringing your own food might be a good idea.

The Prospect of Whitby is a relaxed pub in Wapping, though stuffed if I can work out how to get there now that the East London line is closed.
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[falsedan]

OH hell you are staying for three days? Depending on where you're staying, your bet bet is to get an oyster and put about £15 work of pay-as-you-go credit on it. The maximum you'll be charged in one day will be less than the pre-bought paper travelcard.

The Prospect is a nice pub which I'd be happy to buy you a pint in, is what I meant to type.

The only good food that England has over continental Europe is soggy chips. Mmm soggy chips… bring some tins and a fork, you will save loads
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[google]

[falsedan]

I cannot comment on the quality of English Italian restaurants until I have had some porcini fettuccine here

also hell I forgot about the tea
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[google]

[falsedan]

Hey look I don't even pretend to speak Italian, let alone spell it

edit oh wait I see what you did there
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[sam]

admittedly i've never been to india and chances are they've got us beat here, but that fact notwithstanding i'm pretty sure the UK does the best indian food in the world.

[falsedan]

Dunno, the best indian food I've had was from a family get-together of a Kenyan housemate.

mind I don't eat tikka masala so maybe it is mindblowingly awesome
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[sam]

i don't eat tikka masala either (or any meat for that matter) so i maybe have a skewed perspective i guess. there's a definite quality to anglo-indian cuisine that i'd really miss before long, though, i doubt it'd pass for mindblowingly awesome in the eyes of many chefs but i think as a staple national diet you could do a lot worse!

on a similar asian-food-cooked-by-africans note, the best chinese food i've ever had was in ghana. for some reason they've really taken it to heart over there, it wasn't quite what i was expecting from the country but i couldn't complain. certainly found it easier from a non-meat perspective than kenya, at least...

[falsedan]

Well! My Kenyan friend's family were all Jains, which (in my mind) is a religion all about cooking incredible food without animal products. Jainism is an ancient Indian religion and my friend was ethnically Indian, but his family relocated there when India and Kenya were both part of the Empire
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[skonrad]

[google]

[Mr. Apol]

fyi this is the best thread on select button right now
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[PianoMap]

google the Vancouver bar scene sounds worryingly like the Kelowna bar scene the way you put it

[Takashi]

Seriously considering Heathrow for 150€ vs Stansted's 100-ish€. If I add the shuttle rides, I think it pays off. Also, my out flight is stupid early, so in Heathrow should be easier/safer to arrive in the wee night.

That means... arriving late Feb 3rd, stay 4rd - 5th, and leave 6th, arriving in time to work in the afternoon (or the morning - man, that will be rich). I'm taking advantage of the Carnival vacations, that I believe aren't holidays in London, because I think there may be shopping to be performed.
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[falsedan]

be aware that the tube doesn't run from 0030 till 600ish, so if you have to get to heathrow early in the morning you may have to bus it or catch a heathrow express
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[google]

[M. Croche]

[les meat]

Itallian Coffee Co, small pizza place off Goodge street has awesome 11inch pizza for £4, open till 11. About the best price/quality tradeoff I've found in the center

So you can go to the Goodge Street Casino basement for some beat/shoot em ups then grab a pizza there!

good plan that is

There is some awesome eating opportunities, people who say its rubbish probably went to the obviously terrible places.
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[falsedan]

I'm not yet totally used to buying things in pounds, so I eat at some incredibly shitty places as long as they're cheap

Temple Foods in Aldgate does sandwiches for £1.50! That's value for money right there
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[google]

[falsedan]

Imaging I have a pile of Australian money, and I am using my credit card to buy things in the UK with this monies.

£3 cup of coffee => AU $6.50 cappuchino => bloody rip-off

I am getting paid in pounds now so hopefully I'll stop thinking that £220/week for a studio is ridiculously expensive, what the hell, I could rent a three-bedroom terrace in newtown for that (in AU$)
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