Final Day in London

On Wednesday our time in London was mostly free from work responsibility. But two things kept us inside the warm study of the post production house. One, is was cold and wet outside. Second, the internet at the hotel wasn’t working due to the property management not paying the bill.

For most of the day, light snow fell on the city. Unfortunately, the air temperature was just at freezing and the warmth of urban humanity kept the purity from accumulating.

I took a break from the indoors and went on a quick walk around the neighborhood.

Juice on a windowsill.

Reinforcement wood.

Future car.

Machine shop.

Door.

Old poster scraps.

No parking sign.

Luggage on a pole.

A small cow at City Farm, a weird section of Haggerston Park.

Sheep.

Wazzup.

Snow beginning to accumulate on the grass.

Haggerston Park meadow.

Patchwork wall.

Portraits in place of windows.

Street mattresses for a quick rest.

Cable monster’s arm breaks out of the ground.

Old painted fence.

Scrappy salon.

A man on a rail.

Warning sign.

An abandoned car near the hotel.

Two parking tickets, £120 each, and a towing notice on the abandoned car.

Thursday we were in our surly cab by 6AM and off to the airport. And after a long, sleepless, business class flight, back in Shanghai Friday morning.

I “worked” from home on my last Friday in China: immediately taking a shower and a nap before an early afternoon call. After the call, I took another nap that lasted into the evening.

For dinner, a group of 8 friends from work met at Lost Heaven near the Bund for a sumptuous dinner and male bonding. Afterward, we went to two bars. Conversation was mostly loud and sophisticated and involved topics such as how we were doing, what we were doing, who we were doing/who we would like to do. I left around midnight and took a cab home.

I had some reflecting to do.