Simon Rau Fotografie

On Sunday afternoon I went right into the heart of London: Soho. At Underground Station Oxford Street you can jump right into the middle of the action. And boy, I didn’t expect so many people here on a cold, cloudy sunday in January. The streets were packed with people. Shopping, souveniers, dinner and nightlife all concentrated in one district. I wouldn’t want to live here close by – far too much trouble for my liking. But it was just what I wanted to experience for one day.

I went down Oxford street looking for a restaurant and some shopping places to get a post card for Maike – she collects postcards from friends everywhere. And I hadn’t had food all day so I was very eager to find a good meal. 🙂

My first stop was at the Disney store though. I wanted to see if there is anything I could use for my action figure photography project. Another thing I really like doing. But I was rather disappointed here. The store was much smaller than I anticipated from looking at their web site before and mostly had stuff for little kids (doh!).

This little street food stand looked like it survived from christkindelsmarkt.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Cub on Oxford Street

Be careful when crossing streets in London. Driving on the left side is really dangerous for tourists and passengers from most other countries. Britain is not the only place in the world driving on the „wrong“ side though! Did you know that out of 221 countries in the world, 59 have left-hand traffic? (Remember me, when I blog about my New Zealand adventure)

The Angus Steak House on Oxford street was the winner of my restaurant lottery. A good steak is the best food in the world in my opinion and so I went here for dinner. It was a very good choice – not only because the food was real good, but also because the stuff had a very nice british humor. When I sat down the waiter came over to me to get my order. As soon as I spoke to him he realized my German accent and startet talking broken, but good german to me. He asked me if I want to order a steak and fries. I said yes, that is exactly what I want. Then he asked me if I also want a salad as a starter. I told him no, don’t need a salad. He stared at me for a second and then yelled: Oooh, I’ll tell your mom!

I had a good lough. Great guy.

These pictures here show some places along Oxford street in Soho district. So much going on here I liked it. And just when I thought it couldn’t be much more crowded, I stumbled upon a giant asian gate on the middle of a close by road. It was the famous Chinatown Gate close to picadilly circus. And there were even more people!

All those people were either looking for a good asian restaurant, some asian grocery stores or lissening to one of the many street artists there.

Those two guys over here did some awesome cover songs. What a voice. And they played there for hours. I just couldn’t walk by…had to stand still for minutes listening.

I nearly regretted going to that steak house before – some of these chinese Restaurants looked really comfortable and interesting. Next time I will try one of these for sure.

There were also several stores with special asian food. I don’t know whats inside these pokemon cans though. But they look cool.

If you don’t wanna visit a real restaurant there, you can also go into one of the many snack bars there. This one had some chinese bakeries and sweets. Delicious!

I can only recommend this part of London! But that’s hardly an insider tip – giben that Soho is the part were most tourists will go for the nightlife in London. 🙂

The Docklands, located in the eastern part of London, are probably not the first place a tourist would go, if they are visiting London. I bet there are a decent amount of people who visited London several times already and were never there. That means unless your airport is the London City Airport which is located right in the dockland district or if you visiting ExCeL. This really huge exhibition centre is also located there.

End of January an american friend and myself went for a four day trip to London. Since we had an event coming up at ExCeL we choose a Hotel close by for the whole stay.

Here are some pictures of our hotel and the surroundings:

We picked „The Good Hotel“ for our stay. Because, who doesn’t want to stay in a good hotel? 😉 And it turned out more than just good! This hotel has a very nice stuff and interior. The rooms we stayed in were pretty small but absolutely clean and in good condition.

This is another view on the Hotel. As you can see it is located ON the water. You need to go over a bridge to get to the entrance. In the background you can see the Emirates Skytrain.