Day 1 in London: Getting a feel

Landed in London today morning after a slight delay of the British Midland flight. Having learnt from my Tokyo experience, have packed comparatively less weight this time. Still, dragging 30 kg through the Tube to my hostel in Central London was not fun at all. Reached my hostel by noon, but was still groggy after my overnight flight. Decided to take a bus tour through the city. Unfortunately, was so tired that I slept through many parts of the tour, including the time we passed over Tower Bridge :( Will begin proper sightseeing from tomorrow. Will also begin photographing my trip from tomorrow - somehow was not in the mood to start today.

My first impressions of this city are obviously with reference to Tokyo. It is a slower place, and lacks the energy that Tokyo pulsates with (perhaps it also has to do with the fact that I was working in Tokyo whereas I am a complete tourist here). I love the stone buildings and the history associated with many of the places here though. Places like Delhi and London have this great advantage of being thousands of years old with multiple strands of history to draw upon. Bombay has not celebrated its 350th anniversary yet and has passed through only two distinct historical phases - the British phase and the post-independence phase. And precious little of grandeur has been constructed post-1947.

Travelling on the Tube and the bus has been fun. The Metro here has a very low carrying capacity as compared to the trains in Bombay, or even that of the Tokyo Underground. But the trains are clean and reasonably punctual (can't compare favourably with the Tokyo Metro though). There are plenty of restaurants and food joints. Tokyo had those too, but London does not have the drawback of everything being described in Japanese. Ate risotto and soup at an Italian fast food joint for lunch - very delicious. The food at the hostel in the evening was not that great though...

Hope to start early tomorrow - should be a more entertaining day!