Okay this one will be short:
- First 2 weeks — quarantine after international travel
- Second 2 weeks — national lockdown: stay at home
See you in my next blog post!
Well, here’s the tl;fftr (too-long-feel-free-to-read) version. In 2014, I was fortunate to visit London for 3 days during a study tour. In 2021, 7 years later, I relocated from California to London. Despite having to stay at home for >95% of my time, moving to a new country, to an urban city that I have fancied living in, is still exciting and eventful. Relocation turns things I took for granted afresh. I used to do things. Now I feel things. On my Uber from Heathrow airport to my quarantine Airbnb, rather than staring at my phone all the time like what I always did, I looked at street views, wowing about the wide variety of architectures styles in London (even feeling weirdly connected to my Bay Area life when seeing a Tesla showroom, which reminded me of my white Model 3 that I cannot live without in North Cal). I learnt to use toaster, coffee machine, wine cooler, and for the first time, living in an apartment with a heated towel rail. I find myself looking at my surroundings like a kid, being curious about all the little things. That’s why even if I spent most of my time in an Airbnb or an apartment, I never felt bored. There are so many things I haven’t explored or learnt, and it energizes me.
One of my favourite activities in the past 4 weeks is grocery shopping. 30 days ago if you told me I would love doing chores I would probably laugh so hard. Grocery, to me, was something I would only do when I had to. I would 100% prefer Instacart, a grocery delivery app, over the experience of having to drive 15 minutes, shop for 20 minutes and carrying all the big heavy plastic bags back home. But now, grocery is like an adventure to me. I would start by making sure I remember to carry my canvas tote bags — I had so many of them but never used them even once. Depending on my mood, I may go to a Tesco or a Sainsbury that is walkable in a few minutes. Or I might take tube for a few stops and go to a M&S, Waitrose or an Asian grocery like SeeWoo. The first time walking into a grocery store has the most fun — the layout is new to me, what they offer is a mystery, whether I will find something I forget putting my shopping list is another unknown. Nerd enough, I think of myself as traversing through this shop graph via depth-first search, first learning about the what’s where and grabbing things that I need to buy along the way. Then I will use the hash map that I built mentally to jump around the grocery to find the rest of the items I need to check off. Unlike in the Bay, where I usually go to large hypermarket like Costco or medium-sized shops like Wholefood or Safeway, local supermarkets in London are all relatively small. It was kind of funny when I see 6 cloves of garlics on the shelf when I expected to see 60. But I was always able to find what I need in that small space and it made my shopping pathing not too tiring. On my way back, I again naturally pay attention to buildings and structures around me, guessing which year they were built; or look at pedestrians walking by, feeling the mix of chic and hippy style Shoreditch is offering. Just like New York, people don’t bother waiting for green light at a crossroad, I just sneaked into a group of “running-lighters”, smirking and talking to myself that I am 1% more Londoner now.
I have never intentionally tried to establish a bonding between myself and a neighbourhood or a city, but one day when I looked out of the window and saw this graffiti that says “Let’s adore and endure each other”, I had a sudden impulse that I want to make friend with this place. Culture to a place is a like personality to a human being. I am connecting with London’s culture through finding hidden gems, visiting boutique coffee shops, sitting on the top deck of arched, red, double-decker bus, taking underground and overground, reading information board in Hyde Park and Winchester Palace, drinking Ardbeg from Islay, putting Pulp, Blur, Radiohead and Oasis on repeat, pronouncing “awesome” as aw-sm rather than aa-sm (british accent, one word at a time), and genuinely enjoying this book called Unseen London.
Not surprisingly, there were some challenges with this move across the pond. Coming to a place where I don’t know many people, remote working with time zone differences, dealing with slow courier and logistics services (I am so used to getting next day delivery for everything), buying necessities and setting up the apartment from scratch (including lifting a 65' TV myself up to the TV stand only to realize the stand is not wide enough), to name a few. Big challenges or small, I have probably figured out most of them so I have a cozy space to live in, kitchenwares to cook myself food (or blender to make Huel when I am too lazy), and a work schedule that balances my personal time, work focus time, and collaboration with the team.
Now that the lockdown easing plan is out, I can’t wait to meet more old friends, dining in a restaurant, going to a gym (I will try again) and travel within UK and to Europe more!
