* London is an amazing city to bike around, but you don’t have to bring one, unless you plan on biking outside the central (your first trip to London, you will probably just be around the central). Biking around just made the city feel even smaller than it already does with the Underground. I had full access to London with the Underground and a bicycle (and if you plan on doing a few benders, a bike is necessary because the Underground is closed in the wee hours, midnight to 6am in my experience)
* Brompton World Championship rules. I need a better costume next time
* Getting out of Heathrow: the best time to arrive in Heathrow is ideally sometime between 10-midnight. I brought a bike so I was being extra cautious (didn’t want to end up in some shady part of London stabbed over a $2,000 bicycle). I tried biking out of Heathrow at 11pm. It’s impossible. I paid $40 to get a taxi to Hounslow (I smart-fully booked a hotel room in the neighborhood near the airport).
* Getting into Heathrow at 5am: the Tfl app is damn good. It continually updates. Only bad thing was the updates were incongruent with the my local station actually being open at 5am
* Trainline is the way to book train tickets. It was relatively straightforward, except the exit to Birmingham New Street was dodgy, and the train back to King's Cross was not communicated clearly. I had to go with my gut and just ask, and catch the whatever train going down to King's Cross.
* It took about 2 true hours to get from Marylebone to Heathrow all checked into the AMEX lounge
* I overpacked my bicycle check-in bag (80 British pounds), but for the lightness of my carry-on, and that I successfully made it on-time to my flight (and to meal it up at the AMEX lounge), it was all good. My flights were all paid with points so whatevs.
* Bring Tupperware to the AMEX lounge so you can fancy up your snacking when you are on the plane (instead of eating the cruddy airplane meal)
* Having 2 credit cards with no foreign transaction fees made paying for everything a breeze. AMEX is really only accepted by major retailers and transport (small shops and restaurants and bars don’t)
* I tried to optimize the use of my credit card points by booking “cheap pointed” rooms - did I pay that price dearly in Birmingham (one of the worst hotel rooms I have ever stayed in). In London, I smartly walked around the neighborhood I was digging, Marylebone (where I was staying at the Churchill), saw some vacancies and rolled the dice with the OYO Boston hotel, which turned out to be exactly what I wanted: $90 British pounds a night for a shared bathroom room. No frills, great natural room temperature. One of the main clerk dudes, he calls himself Mohammed Ali, was cool as a cucumber.
* Had no plan other than to meet up with my friend Minh. Hamilton was playing live at the hippodrome. Amazing.
* I used my mechanical watch, don’t want to fiddle with charging and I want a simple way to adjust the time given I am going to be in the UK and Southeast Asia. Mechanical watches are a flex nowadays.
* Pickleball was hard to schedule with the meet-ups I had, but West London Pickleball was decent at being organized on their whatsapp.
* Why are eSIMS and data this difficult? I bought Airalo and it worked after talking to customer service for an hour. I got T-Mobile as back-up and that was nice because I was able to call home and be on group texts back home, so felt like I didn't really leave the US. Being back for a day, my T-Mobile native 5G isn't working. Wish Steve Jobs was here to whip the eSIMs industry into shape. Data has been the bad part of the trip.
* Brompton World Championship rules. I need a better costume next time
* Getting out of Heathrow: the best time to arrive in Heathrow is ideally sometime between 10-midnight. I brought a bike so I was being extra cautious (didn’t want to end up in some shady part of London stabbed over a $2,000 bicycle). I tried biking out of Heathrow at 11pm. It’s impossible. I paid $40 to get a taxi to Hounslow (I smart-fully booked a hotel room in the neighborhood near the airport).
* Getting into Heathrow at 5am: the Tfl app is damn good. It continually updates. Only bad thing was the updates were incongruent with the my local station actually being open at 5am
* Trainline is the way to book train tickets. It was relatively straightforward, except the exit to Birmingham New Street was dodgy, and the train back to King's Cross was not communicated clearly. I had to go with my gut and just ask, and catch the whatever train going down to King's Cross.
* It took about 2 true hours to get from Marylebone to Heathrow all checked into the AMEX lounge
* I overpacked my bicycle check-in bag (80 British pounds), but for the lightness of my carry-on, and that I successfully made it on-time to my flight (and to meal it up at the AMEX lounge), it was all good. My flights were all paid with points so whatevs.
* Bring Tupperware to the AMEX lounge so you can fancy up your snacking when you are on the plane (instead of eating the cruddy airplane meal)
* Having 2 credit cards with no foreign transaction fees made paying for everything a breeze. AMEX is really only accepted by major retailers and transport (small shops and restaurants and bars don’t)
* I tried to optimize the use of my credit card points by booking “cheap pointed” rooms - did I pay that price dearly in Birmingham (one of the worst hotel rooms I have ever stayed in). In London, I smartly walked around the neighborhood I was digging, Marylebone (where I was staying at the Churchill), saw some vacancies and rolled the dice with the OYO Boston hotel, which turned out to be exactly what I wanted: $90 British pounds a night for a shared bathroom room. No frills, great natural room temperature. One of the main clerk dudes, he calls himself Mohammed Ali, was cool as a cucumber.
* Had no plan other than to meet up with my friend Minh. Hamilton was playing live at the hippodrome. Amazing.
* I used my mechanical watch, don’t want to fiddle with charging and I want a simple way to adjust the time given I am going to be in the UK and Southeast Asia. Mechanical watches are a flex nowadays.
* Pickleball was hard to schedule with the meet-ups I had, but West London Pickleball was decent at being organized on their whatsapp.
* Why are eSIMS and data this difficult? I bought Airalo and it worked after talking to customer service for an hour. I got T-Mobile as back-up and that was nice because I was able to call home and be on group texts back home, so felt like I didn't really leave the US. Being back for a day, my T-Mobile native 5G isn't working. Wish Steve Jobs was here to whip the eSIMs industry into shape. Data has been the bad part of the trip.