Hackney Pearl

The Hackney Pearl (11 Prince Edward Road) is a cafe located within a minute walk from Hackney Wick London Overground station (one station to the west from Stratford). Once you get off the station, you might wonder if you come to the right place, as the area is quite run-down. But you are right. The cafe is located almost like in the middle of nowhere. Still, it is one of the best places to eat in London. My onglet steak (for 15.50 pounds) was simply awesome, the best steak I've ever had in years. The staff is super friendly. The decor is homey, in stark contrast to the landscape through the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street (which increases the feeling of coziness inside). If you visit London for the Olympic Game next year, it's worth a trip.

Pinchito

There are quite a few Spanish tapas restaurants in London. But most of them are rather disappointing. Pinchito Tapas, a couple of minute walk from Old Street station, is an exception. The black-and-red interior invites you to the trendy Barcelona bar atmosphere, vibrant with Spanish-speaking customers while maintaining the right amount of noise. Each tapas dish is presented beautifully and tastes delicious. The service is proper.

My 22.5-hour "Easter" holiday

As I worked everyday during the four days of the Easter holiday, I think I deserve to do the following in the middle of a week.

Wed 27 April

15:30 Leave office early, heading to Cityterminalen (Stockholm Central Bus Terminal)

16:00 After struggling with the ticket machine that doesn't easily accept my credit card, manage to hop on a coach to Skavsta Airport just in time.

17:30 After more than a hour of sleep, the coach finally arrives at Airport. Queue in front of the Ryanair check-in counter even though I don't have any luggage to check-in. Non-European citizens are required to have the boarding card stamped by the Ryanair staff before going to the security check point.

17:40 Have an early dinner of Ceaser's salad that I took away from Hantverkargatan 14 Specerie. Restaurants at Stockholm airports are unbearable.

18:35 A Ryanair flight to London Gatwick takes off on time. During the two hour journey, read the latest issue of Monocle magazine.

20:00 The flight arrives in Gatwick on time with fanfare (you know what I mean if you've flied with Ryanair).

20:20 After struggling with the ticket machine that doesn't accept my UK bank card, just miss Gatwick Express to London Victoria.

20:30 With a takeaway cup of Caffe Nero's caffe latte, get on board to the next Gatwick Express train.

20:35 The train departs.

21:05 The train arrives at London Victoria station.

21:10 Top-up the Oyster card and head to Oxford Circus by tube.

21:30 Arrive at my friend's 30th birthday party at Aqua Nueva Spanish restaurant. Feel overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the restaurant which my London friend says is nothing special. That is the moment I realize I've become a country-bumpkin by living in Stockholm for more than three years.

22:00 Cannot really keep up with the speed of the conversation by Londoners, realizing that I've been spoiled by Swedish people's reserved way of communication.

23:45 Leave the restaurant and head to London Bridge by tube.

Thu 28 April

00:05 Arrive at Cable nightclub, chosen as the Best Club of 2011 by Time Out magazine. Told that they don't accept a credit card. That is the moment I realize I've been spoiled by Swedish ubiquitous acceptance of credit cards.

00:15 After walking back and forth to the nearest cash point, finally get into the nightclub. The legendary drum & bass producer LTJ Bukem is on the deck at a club night named Swerve, featuring smooth drum & bass aka liquid funk.

01:00 After getting used to a London nightclub atmosphere that I totally forgot about and finishing the purification of my body with the sound of drum & bass, start dancing. Bukem's DJ play is not my kind of taste, but some tunes just make me dance.

01:55 Fabio takes over. This is the moment that I am after by flying all the way to London. And his DJ play never disappoints me. Smooth and sexy with occasional funky or reggae-ish smasher tunes, one of which just makes me dance crazy while other people seem put off by complicated rhythms.

03:15 The Swerve party still goes on after the scheduled end time of 3 am. Don't want to leave, but have to in order to catch a coach to Stansted Airport.

03:20 Get on a night bus that is supposed to go to the coach stop, which actually doesn't.

03:35 Get off the bus and hail a cab and ask if the driver knows where the coach stop is. He says, "Have you never used a cab?" Yes, London cab drivers are the only service that England can be proud of to the whole world. Nowhere in the world can you find such a reliable taxi.

03:45 Just five minutes before the departure time, arrive at the coach stop. Get on the coach. Put ear plugs and eye masks. Immediately fall asleep.

04:40 Arrive at Stansted Airport. Queue in front of the Ryanair check-in counter even though I don't have any luggage to check-in. Non-European citizens are required to have the boarding card stamped by the Ryanair staff before going to the security check point.

05:25 Buy a box of smoked salmon and crayfish salad and a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice at Pret in the waiting lounge after passing the security check point.

05:35 Arrive at the boarding gate for the Ryanair flight to Stockholm Skavsta. Start eating my breakfast while passengers start boarding (which means the queue just moves from one gate to another gate).

05:40 Finish breakfast. Jump the queue with the Priority Q.

06:05 The flight departs on time. With ear plugs and eye masks, fall asleep immediately.

09:15 The flight arrives at Stockholm Skavsta on time with fanfare.

09:20 Get on the airport coach to central Stockholm. Put ear plugs and eye masks and fall asleep immediately.

11:00 Arrive at central Stockholm.

11:15 On the way home, stop by at Mellqvist Kaffebar to have an early lunch and whole coffee beans. Reconfirm that they serve the best coffee in Stockholm. Toasted sandwiches are also good.

12:00 Arrive at home. Take a shower.

12:30 Check my work email. Reply if necessary.

13:30 Leave home.

14:00 Arrive back in office.

Graffiti in Clifton Street Car Park

This is the kind of vibes in Hoxton.

Charlotte Road

 

Another example of the vibes of Hoxton. It makes me feel safe.

Hotel Review: The Hoxton Hotel

I stay at room 108 (a double room) of The Hoxton Hotel from 29 to 31 January, 2010. The first night costs 99 pounds while the second night costs 129 pounds.

The Good:

1. Stylish interior (pictured left).

2. Friendly staff.

3. Good location. The hotel is situated in Shoreditch, perhaps still the most edgy part of London. The Hoxton Square (where the White Cube contemporary art gallery is located with other trendy bars and cafes around) is within a few minutes by walk. Ten minutes or more take you to Brick Lane, the place to go for boho types (and Bengali curry lovers). For access to central London, Old Street tube station is five minutes away by walk. After the tube stops running at half past midnight, you can go back to the hotel from the city center by night bus easily (N35 from Tottenham Court Road, N55 from Oxford Circus, 243 from Aldwych).

4. The bed room is equipped with the not-so-touristy list of places to go in the Shoreditch area, which is also available on the website.

5. Not only is the Wireless broadband access available for free but also you don't need to enter any password to obtain access. Simple is the best.

6. Breakfast at the restaurant in the lobby, The Hoxton Grill (pictured above), is superb, if a bit pricey. I tried full breakfast (which includes black pudding) on the first morning. Even baked beans (which I don't really like) tasted good. I had pancake and bacon with maple syrup in the second morning. I expected an American pancake, but it was better than that. While the center part of pancakes is soft, the edge of pancakes is crispy and soaked in maple syrup. Yummy. For freshly squeezed juice, they serve not only orange juice (which every hotel does) but also pink grapefruit juice and watermelon juice. If you don't have time for breakfast or don't want to spend money, don't worry. A banana, a cup of yogurt, and freshly squeezed orange juice can be ordered for free at your preferred time. Since the bed room is equipped with an electric kettle (the common sense in UK but unfortunately not in other countries), Twinings tea bags (not Earl Grey or stupid flavored tea but proper black tea), and fresh milk in the fridge, you can have a hearty cup of milk tea right after you wake up, too. Very nice.

7. Two bottles of mineral water and a bottle of fresh milk are available in the fridge for free every day. There are no other unnecessary drinks in the fridge. But who need them? The front desk sells them for those who really need them.

8. The wake-up call can be snoozed once. (There's no alarm clock in the room.)

9. The soap bar provided in the bathroom smells very nice.

10. The dryer is provided in the bed room by default (in the desk drawer).

11. There are four electric sockets above (not below) the desk. One for the kettle, one for your laptop, one for your mobile phone charger, and still there's one extra.

12. Even though the ground floor lobby becomes a noisy bar after dark, bed rooms on the first floor remain quiet.

13. Wittiness. The invoice is entitled with "THE DAMAGE". On the bed room door, the instruction to use the safety box is entitled "Boring message number five" (I failed to find other four messages) and declares that they spend 175 pounds (if I remember correctly) for the safety box. The "Don't Disturb" door hanger instead reads: "Go Away."

The Bad:
Slightly tricky to arrive from airports except if you fly in to Gatwick (then you simply go to London Bridge station by train and change to the Northern Line for Old Street station).

The Ugly:

Nothing in particular.


Verdict: For a weekend city break in London, this is the ideal hotel for you.

Miso-marinated sea bass at The Engineer

The Engineer is a gastropub (a pub serving quality foods) located near Primrose Hill in London. Wallpaper City Guide London 2010 doesn't say much about foods when it introduces restaurants in London. It mostly talks about stylish decor. For The Engineer, however, it does mention quality foods that they serve.

Usually, the Wallpaper City Guide does describe what kind of foods each listed restaurant offers. For its London version, however, it seems difficult to praise foods offered by restaurants. :)

When I looked at its menu online, dishes are reasonably priced. So I picked this pub as a venue for dinner with a Japanese friend of mine.

Unfortunately, the meals that I have are not very great. However, the one that my friend orders---miso-marinated sea bass, bok choi, mash, soy & sherry sauce (17 pounds or 19.5 euro)---is superb. To our surprise, the taste of miso matches very well with mash. What's more, gari (thinly-sliced ginger pickled in sugar and vinegar, usually served with sushi in Japan) is hidden in the mash, and again, the sweet and sour taste of gari matches very well with miso and mash. This dish takes miso to another level. These days it's not that difficult to find an interesting European interpretation of Japanese food ingredients (for example, at Ljunggren in Stockholm). But it is rare to find a successful one.

By the way, the interior of The Engineer is decorated with flowery wallpapers (in Scandinavian taste, I would say). After dark, however, it's difficult to see them as the room is dimly lit. It's perhaps better to visit this place for lunch.

Camper Regent Street

Visiting Camper's flagship store in London at 207-209 Regent Street is a joy. Opened on September 25, 2009, the Spanish shoe brand's shop is designed by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka. Customers trying on shoes sit on his critically-acclaimed "Bouquet by Moroso" chairs made of paper tissues of reddish colors. One side of the wall is also covered with crimson paper tissues. Amazingly, Yoshioka's design is well matched with our common image of Spain, where Camper comes from. The place is perhaps the most delightful and thoughtful shoe store in the world.

 

V&A Medieval and Renaissance Gallery

The much-hyped medieval and renaissance gallery, opened last December, at the Victoria and Albert Museum (aka V&A) indeed beautifully showcases European design from the Middle Ages. Or I should not use the term "showcase" because they do much more than simply putting items in showcases.

Enter the museum from Cromwell Road and take the staircases on the right downstairs. Here you learn Romanesque and Gothic styles of design visually, because the first thing you will see is:

Then in the next room you encounter:

 

Like other newly-renovated galleries such as The Jameel Gallery on Islamic art and The Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries on sculpture, the V&A is very good in this gallery, too, at displaying objects in a way that enhances their attractiveness: 

Go upstairs to the ground floor. There the V&A has transformed the gallery space into a medieval court yard with the glass roof letting the sunlight fall. The view from the first floor balcony (pictured right) is elegant. 

The first floor gallery rooms feature Renaissance art. Here I do feel a completely different atmosphere, and I personally find it uneasy. The Renaissance style is too well-organized. It even feels a bit pretentious. That's my personal take, but it also means that the V&A succeeds in transforming the general theme underlying Renaissance into the gallery's vibes before explaining what Renaissance is about in words.

Before encountering the V&A during my life in London, I didn't understand the merit of visiting museums at all. The V&A changed my idea of a museum completely. They display objects as if they were decorating the living room. They present the whole gallery space as something pleasant to stay in. That helps visitors really appreciate the displayed objects. If you hate museums, think again when it comes to the V&A.

Gordon Ramsay Plane Food

Flying with British Airways from London Heathrow airport means that you depart from the new Terminal 5 building. After passing the security checkpoint surprisingly smoothly, I have dinner at Gordon Ramsay Plane Food. It could be the best restaurant in London. A poached hake, a rocket parmesan salad, and non-alcohol cocktail called Lemon Tree are all good. Usually, airport restaurants inside the security checkpoint are lousy. But it's worth visiting Heathrow Terminal 5 early and having the last meal in London at this restaurant. (A friend of mine, a frequent flier from Terminal 5, told me that the service could be slow for passengers whose boarding time is fast-approaching.)

Bolitas de espinacas at Navarro's

Have dinner with a friend of mine at Navarro's, probably one of the best Spanish restaurants in London.

Not every dish is great. (I said "the best in London".) Calamares rebozados are horrible. Brocheta de cordero isn't as good as the one I had in Madagascar.

BUT I have to write this down to remember. Bolitas de espinacas are fantastic. They are deep-fried, breaded balls of spinach and ricotta.

The End

A great nightclub in London was closed for good today. The End nightclub, located in a few minute walk to the south of the British Museum, has been praised by many DJs and clubbers as one of the best nightclubs in London. Indeed, the quality of its sound system and the acoustic is one of the best among many clubs that I've been to in my life. During my five-year life in London, I've been there many times, especially for its Wednesday night party called Swerve, hosted by my favorite drum & bass DJ Fabio. That was the party I always went to when I was exhausted from my life as a PhD student. That was the place where I was always sure that I would feel happy and healed by great sound, especially deep and loud bass.

I wanted to fly to London for the final Swerve party last Wednesday, where Fabio would be on the deck for more than four hours, but my job obligations as an assistant professor forced me to give it up. After coming home last night from a drum & bass party held in a club in Stockholm which didn't have good acoustic or the sound system capable of pumping out proper bass sound, the most crucial element for drum & bass music, I terribly miss The End.

Another place in which I can feel happy for sure, which is an absolute rarity for me, is gone.

The End

I just learned that The End, my favorite nightclub in London and the nightclub I visited many, many times during my 5-year life there, will close its doors for good next January after 13 years in business. I'll try to catch one of its final nights.

Flat White

I was in London for a week. Kirsten, my former flatmate, recommended a Soho cafe called Flat White (17 Berwick Street, W1F 0PT). She went to this cafe because Tyler Brule, currently the editor in chief of Monocle magazine, wrote about it on one of his FT columns.

So when I met up with Kotono-chan, I took her to Flat White and each of us ordered a cup of flat white which, according to a waiter, is a double-shot espresso topped with steamed milk. What they served was the above picture. It was also tasty enough for us to order another cup. It didn't have any bitterness or sourness typical for bad coffee. It still had some distinct taste which I never enjoyed before.

Day One

Move to Stockholm exactly five years after I arrived in London.

Fly with SAS from London City Airport. Unlike Ryanair, SAS allowed me to check in online smoothly. Unlike any other London airports, boarding on the aircraft at London City is very smooth. I'll definitely book a flight arriving in London City next time I come to London.

Yumiko-san kindly comes to the airport to see me off with a piece of quiche she baked. This is very helpful as having dinner on the first day of your stay in a foreign city can be very difficult. (I ended up at McDonald's five years ago.)

The airplane arrives at Stockholm Arlanda Airport on time. The passport control is easy to pass without being asked anything, after I pass my passport with the work permit page shown. My check-in luggage returns to me without any difficulty.

My apartment keys were sent to the airport bagport by Christina, the Institute's super-secretary. ("The Institute" refers to my new workplace hereafter.) After learning where it is at the information desk, I pick up my keys at the bagport by paying 30 krona (about 2 quid) in cash (I bought a large amount of Swedish krona in cash at M&S in Convent Garden, London, yesterday. With your passport shown, you can buy foreign currencies by debit card).

Now start feeling hungry. Stop by at a Seven Eleven store in the arrival lounge and order mezewrap. It's surprisingly tasty. I'm delighted by the fact that I no longer need to suffer from stupid London sandwitch shops.

Then I take a taxi to the apartment. By reading a Stockholm travel guide obtained in the SAS aircraft, I've learned Taxi Stockholm and Taxi 020 (so named because its contact number is 020 20 20 20) are the most reliable. I find a Taxi Stockholm taxi. I notice that minor taxi company cars imitate Taxi Stockholm car's appearance.

About half an hour, I arrive at the apartment building. It first looks like a London's council flat building. When I enter, it smells of smoke as there was a fire in the basement last week. My apartment is on the first floor, but I don't know whether Sweden follows the British or American convention of numbering floors. On the ground floor, there is no door indicating my name. Walking upstairs, I find my apartment. The smoke smell continues.

Opening the door, I learn what my new place to live looks like. The spacious entrance hall has got three wardrobes. On the right, the door to the compact kitchen. In front, the door to the spacious living room with a very comfy sofa. Next to the living room is a bed room with two single beds and a study desk. Between the bedroom and the kitchen lies the bathroom. At the centre of the flat is one more wardrobe.

Read through the apartment instruction provided by University Accommodation Center. Learn that while the standard voltage in Sweden is 230 volt, bathroom sockets must be 110 volt by regulation.

And this instruction tells me where the nearest grocery shop is. After eating Yumiko-san's delicious quiche, I visit the shop. Three surprises. First, when I want to buy salt, pepper, or butter, it's hard to tell which one I should buy. I can't tell the difference between different types of, say, salt as the package description is in Swedish only. Second, there is a machine accepting used cans. It appears that you will get a receipt after returning cans and get refunded. Finally, plastic shopping bags cost 1.5 krona (about 10 pence) each!

Staring a new life in a foreign country may be tough, but it's also full of stimulation for curiosity.

A Sunny Day in London

Leave home around 10:30am, when the voice of a flatmate's girlfriend upstairs starts depressing me. Hop on a double-decker, heading for Shoreditch, the edgy area of East London. Getting off, walk towards Macondo, my favorite cafe on Hoxton Square. Find funky railings on a backstreet building on the way.



Arriving at Macondo, order seafood paella and chicken salad with mixed berries yogurt smoothie. Start reading an article on the June issue of Monocle, interviewing a Russian opposition PR woman. The smoothie comes first, which could have been colder on such a sunny day. But the paella and the chicken salad are gorgeous, a rarity in London.

Tired of reading Monocle, leave Macondo and enter Hoxton Square park. Following other Londoners, lie down on a lawn in the sun. With my iRiver MP3 player---a resistance to iPod dominance---start listening to the music London gave birth to: drum and bass.

Fabio's liquid funk mix and London's rare sunshine make me drowse a while. Waking up, notice that people keep visiting the White Cube gallery, which is usually closed on Sundays. With my headphone still on my ears, visit the gallery only to find it's the exhibition of latest works by Damien Hirst, probably the most popular contemporary artist in UK. Without being moved at all, leave the gallery and think about where to go next.

Walk down to Old Street tube. Find a graffiti of high quality beside rubbish bins.



Take the Northern Line to London Bridge. From the station, walk towards the City Hall. Realize that the City Hall has a really strange shape, with the Tower Bridge aside.



Walk along the Themes to the west, heading for the Tate Modern museum. Quite a few, but not an overwhelming number of, tourists.

Arriving at the museum, enter the Level 2 gallery, which is in my view the best gallery in Tate Modern. Like Anselm Reyle's works. Futuristic because he uses silver foil, neon colors, and mirrors. And stylish because for contemporary art works, they don't depress viewers. Wish I would have money in the future to buy his works to decorate a large, inorganic room for playing back music.

Getting out of the museum, see St Paul's dome looms across the river.



Turn back and head for Southwark tube station by following orange lamp posts. Take the Jubilee line to Green Park because there is an M&S above the station, where I can buy decent whole milk (I can't stand British milk on the usual supermarket shelf).

Then stop by at a Caffe Nero at the corner with Dover Street, ordering Frappe Latte with an extra espresso shot. Sit at a table outside, watching red double deckers and red bendy buses passing on Piccadilly, which makes me look back at the past five years of my life in London.

I could have visited Dover Street Market, Rei Kawakubo's revolutionary brand clothes store. But prefer not being reassured that any good-looking clothes in London are not affordable. Go back to Green Park tube station, taking Piccadilly and Central Lines to get home with Monocle at hand and earplugs inside my ears to silence the sound made by the clunky train carriages.

FT columnists

I terribly miss Tyler Brule's column on FT Weekend everytime I read the very first sentence of the column by Chrystia Freeland, who succeeded Brule as a columnist for the last page of FT Weekend at the beginning of this year.

This week, her column begins with the following sentence:

When Nancy Pelosi celebrated her swearing in as speaker of the House this year...

I actually stop reading before reaching the end of the first sentence of the column. Freeland, FT's US managing editor, keeps writing about America. That's already a cliche. Ordinary intellectuals love writing about USA because the country offers many mainstream polemical issues. Last week, Freeland began her column with:

Whenever the FT runs a picture of Hillary Clinton...

I then stop reading it. I don't care about Hillary Clinton. Intellectuals who love talking about USA always try to talk about some social or political issue triggered by some incident taking place in the State. It's so predictable. Absolute nothing beyond my expectation.

Instead, I have recently discovered an intriguing columnist on FT Magazine: Mrs Monneypenny. She's funny because her views often conflict with mainstream ones in Western society. This week, she writes: "I am not sure why we need lists of endangered species." She defends her position by referring to Darwin's survival-of-the-fittest theory. "If species are not fit enough to survive, then surely they should be allowed to become extinct?" It's so hilarious.

Her view on childbearing is also provocative to many in the West. Two weeks ago, she wrote: "I generally believe in sending [children] to boarding school as soon as possible after they start eating solid food." She refers to her three kids as Cost Center #1, Cost Center #2, and Cost Center #3. (I still don't fully understand what "cost center" really means. I know it's a term from accounting. Anybody willing to post a comment on this?)

Now you know my taste. This is why I tend to be quiet in front of people and keep blogging. :-)

Pierre Victoire

Have dinner with Yumiko-san at Pierre Victoire, London's affordable French restaurant.

We have duck in red wine sauce and baby chicken in tomato and basil sauce. Both main dishes are excellent. Bread and olives are excellent as well.

However, service and comfortability is not excellent. Waiters keep kicking Yumiko-san's chair. It takes five minutes to have a bill after asking for it. The place is packed with tables. Our private zone is rather limited. Plus, customers are amazingly noisy here.

I guess this restaurant is affordable despite its excellent food, because it's not that comfortable. If you only need good French foods, it's highly recommended. If you look for a place to relax, never go to this place.

Flatmate Hunting

On the day I decided my future, my landlord asked me to move out in a month's time (see 20 February).

Talking to my landlord revealed that she wanted me (and my flatmate) to move out because she got fed up with finding a tenant for each single room in our house and wanted to rent our house as a whole. (One of our flatmates moved out recently.)

Then I suggested to her that I look for a new tenant to our house. She liked the idea. It also made sense to me because if you're on the supply side of the market, you don't need to travel around in London to view flats and houses or to make many calls to ask questions and arrange viewings. It would be less stressful and less harassing.

I was right. In five days, I managed to find a new flatmate! Plus, I learned a couple of things from this flatmate-hunting experience.

The biggest puzzle to me was why nearly all flat advertisements provide incomplete information on the specification of a room/house. Part of the reason is that the advertisement media limits the number of letters you can use in your ad. But this doesn't explain why all the advertisements at Gumtree.com (this is a nice website for Londoners though it's a bit chaotic) are also incomplete, because you can write your ad as long as possible on this website.

You want to minimize the number of viewers. You want to screen out those not really interested in your property. Otherwise your precious time will be consumed by those who won't take your room.

So in my ad at Gumtree.com, I put every piece of information on the room and the house, including photos of the room, the kitchen, and the garden.

I browsed a real estate agent's brochure to learn how to take a good picture of your rooms. A room picture can be quite tricky. It can make the room look smaller than it actually is. You can end up screening out those who are otherwise interested. I noticed one basic rule among the room pictures on the brochure: take a picture at the corner of a room and make sure that the opposite corner of the room comes at the one-third of the length of the photograph. This makes the room look spacious in a photograph (Lesson 1). See my learning outcomes: a double room and a single room.

On the Gumtree.com ad, I didn't put my phone number. One reason is to avoid receiving calls after you found a flatmate. I also wanted to control the whole process rather than being disturbed every time you get a call. Initially, my landlord kindly created an ad on the gumtree.com with my mobile number on it. Literally a few minutes later, I started receiving calls and texts including unsolicited sales pitches. I hurriedly deleted the ad once. I also didn't want to be distracted by callers who just wanted to ask questions on the room.

Instead I put an email address which is NOT my usual address. I created a Hotmail account for this purpose. This not only prevents spammers from picking up your address but also allows you to shelter your private messages from flatmate-hunting messages.

I learned that Hotmail is quite annoying (Lesson 2). I usually use Gmail (called Google Mail in UK due to the trademark issue). Gmail automatically refreshes the screen when a new message arrives. Hotmail doesn't. You need to click "Inbox" many times. Gmail cleverly screens out spams. Hotmail very often misclassifies junk mails. Finally, Gmail does not have conspicuous advertisements on the screen. Hotmail does.

In addition to the ad at Gumtree.com, I also created an original webpage for the room advertisement by using Blogger. Then selectively email those who have placed an ad at the "Room Wanted" section of Gumtree.com by mentioning the address of this webpage.

Whenever I received a message to my Hotmail account, I called up the sender to arrange a viewing. On Sunday afternoon, I scheduled five viewings. The first viewer, Caroline, didn't come on time because she got our house number wrong. She didn't look impressed by our house after viewing, telling me she would call me after she visited other places as well. The second viewer, Faisal, didn't come one hour after the scheduled time. Neither did Alex, the third viewer. I wanted to make sure if I needed to wait for them. So I called Faisal. He sounded like he overslept. We rescheduled the viewing in the evening. I then called Alex. She got lost. Alex finally came 30 minutes later. Her reaction while viewing the house was Meditteranean: "Fantastic!" But she wasn't Meditteranean when I said no to her question of whether we have the TV. She said she would call me after viewing another flat.

I learned one thing from Alex. She liked the high ceiling of the room. Which I didn't realize when I wrote an ad. Now the biggest puzzle was solved. The reason why flat advertisements tend to be incomplete is that advertisers have incomplete information on what flat-hunters are looking for (Lesson 3). People have different preferences. Unless you are an experienced flat advertiser, you certainly fail to specify important aspects of your room/house.

On Sunday evening, Faisal was supposed to come, but he texted me saying, "Sorry, I can't come. Bye." Another viewer, Eva, never came and never called or texted me. The final viewer of the day, Andrew, didn't come, either. One hour after the scheduled time, he texted me to ask if there is a living room in our house, without a single word of "Sorry" or whatsoever. I didn't reply to him as he wouldn't be a good flatmate.

Some people in London are quite nasty (Lesson 4). Well, I already knew this anyway.

On Monday morning, Caroline texted me, saying she decided to take another place. She's such a nice person. Alex, on the other hand, never contacted me again.

On Monday evening, I had two viewers. Nordine, the first viewer, said he would like to take the room, immediately after he finished viewing the house. Brett, the second viewer, said he was very interested but wanted to see another place as well before his decision. He said he would call me by lunchtime the following day.

Today, Brett didn't call me by lunchtime. I called him to learn that he was waiting for a call from another place he visited. Which suggested that he didn't like our place the most. Nordine becomes our new flatmate.

(In case you wonder, although the ad says there are two rooms available, my landlord says she's happy with just one new tenant. I just wanted to increase the probability of finding flatmates by attracting those looking for a room with a friend of theirs.)

Millie's Cookies

A mental note. DO NOT BUY COFFEE AT MILLIE'S COOKIES. Their coffee is horrible. And I suffer from it twice in two weeks, first at Victoria Station and this time at Euston Station. Their coffee makes your journey away from London miserable. Beware of it.