Trip to UK

I recently had to travel to the UK for business meetings.

I was meeting with a client to propose their projects for the new year.

I was staying in a little town called Bradford. The largest city near Bradford is called Leeds.

Behind my hotel there was a little canal that looked to be a tourist attraction with these tour boats in the summer.

I was surprised by how cold it was there when I arrived and there had been snow. In Vancouver at this time we were still just having above zero temperatures and it had mostly been sunny.

Although I imagine these are the thoughts of every tourist, I was struck by the thought that even though I was in this tiny little town, everything still "looked British".

It looked as I imagined it to look from different movies and photos.

I'd arrived late on Monday afternoon and on the Tuesday I was to meet with the client in the early afternoon.



So in the morning, I walked around the downtown and took some pictures.

I got myself some lunch and had a little walk.

However given the 8 hour time difference, I was really feeling the jetlag. I was awake when I should be sleeping and sleeping when I should be awake.

Not to mention I would just wake up at around 4:00 am every morning and not really be able to get back to sleep.

So I had meetings the next few days and the last day one of our senior sales staff met us there to give the meeting where we would present the projects.

We were going to go to Leeds, stay the night there and fly out of Leeds to Heathrow (London) and then to Vancouver, but instead we changed it so that we stayed the night in London. That was awesome and I really appreciate getting things changed so that I could do that.

Given we have connections in the UK now, most of our senior staff have made the trip and it was nice to go too.
So after our last meeting, which had gone very well, we took a cab to a train station.

We took the business train to London. The train was pretty cool. It was similar to an airplane where stewardesses go around selling food and drinks and there are little bathroom pods.

Most business people are on the train. They have their laptops and blackberry's and cell phones and work most of the time.



After the train we walked through the old station up and down staircases with our luggage in tow.

Thank goodness I was forward thinking enough to cram everything into a small carry on rolling case and my laptop bag.

Again I couldn't get over how old everything looked. It seemed that everything you touched must be an antique. When I'd explained this to those I was meeting with their common joke was always "Yes, to us it just seems run down!"


So we checked into a Marriott and I went to get ready to go out for dinner. I was so tired I was almost ready to fall asleep on my feet, but I wasn't going to waste a chance to party in London for the first time ever.

In London all the cabs are these black cabs like this one. In the back there are two bench seats that face each other and the ceilings are so high you can almost stand up in them.




So we took a cab to the Soho area and walked around for a little while seeing what there is to see. There was tons of shopping and this was before Christmas so there were tons of sales.

I did get a couple of things, but you could spend an entire weekend just shopping. The clothes are so nice and there were really good deals. There were also double-decker buses all over and little rickshaws like seen here where the driver bicycles you to your destination. We tried one because we were kind of lost and it was easier than meandering around clueless.

We had dinner at a really nice Indian restaurant as the area is known for it's great "curries".

Here is me in one of the red telephone booths that dot the side walk.
We went to a traditional pub and had a pint of beer.

It was close to Christmas and people were very upbeat and in the Christmas spirit.






After that we headed back to the hotel and the next morning, got up and headed for Heathrow and that was the end of my little trip to the UK.

I definitely want to go back to Mike and see more of Europe, especially Italy and France.