24H Turnaround in London

22nd Nov 2004

The trip to London was sudden but as a flying freebie, I am more than happy to accommodate this into my calendar. I flew in last night, and for the first time taking a cab from Heathrow to the city. Never did the cab thing before whenever I was here on my own expenses. The cab literally took me on a night sightseeing tour, not intentionally but for the fact that my hotel is located at the south east of London city. Along the way, we passed through some places that I can recognized from Buckingham palace, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Westminster Abbey, Hyde Park, finally the London eye before I was dropped at Novotel city south hotel which is close by London Bridge.
This morning I check-out and set-off to our office 20 old Bailey. It is a very nice building and very near to St. Paul. It was unexpected but great to meet up with Emer Battelle, an Irish lady whom I worked with in Sweden last year. She is in London for an O2 quality review. Just when I was nicely settled in, Nikos called and said there is a change of venue, the meeting is no longer in Old Bailey but
60 Queen Victoria Street. I told him that I will work from Old Bailey for a while and be at Queen Victoria around lunch hour.
Then I walked my way from Old Bailey to Queen Victoria. It was a nice walk and reminded me of my time in Hong Kong. It was as if I was walking from Central to Admiralty. In fact I almost really thought I was in Hong Kong then. There are high rise building in the financial centers, men and women in their dark working power suits crossing the streets. The weather was fine, sunny but not windy. I passed by St. Paul Cathedrals and pause for a photo before I carried on my walk.
The presentation to client went well. The client is also one who well versed in Performance Management and people development, we talked in the same language and I know he is impressed of my thought leader thinking in this arena. He wants to meet up again in December so that he has the time to organize his thoughts. The meeting ended just before the rush hour, that I could easily grape a cab to Paddington Heathrow Express station.
It costs me GBP21 to get to my destination, which is ridiculously expensive!!! Then another GBP14 for a 15 min express train ride to the airport.
Just as I thought I settled in nicely to the airport and have a bit of time wondering around before setting off to Stockholm, then I realize the flight was delayed. It was not until 11pm when we were allowed to board the aircraft. Next thing I knew is the low visibility procedure was in place and also due to the late arrival, we sat at the aircraft by the gate for another hour before we were allowed to take-off. I finally reached Stockholm at 2am!!! I was really tired but there is another 2 hours limo journey to go.. I felt very bad for the limo driver who has to wait for long hours due to the delay. Bless him! It was not 4am in the morning when I arrived my apartment in Sandviken. I was glad that I didn't have meeting in the morning and I could ZZZZZZzzzzz on.