Food in London
Polish shops are open 24/7 (or close to it). The food there is so cheap that it almost makes you forget about the bad taste.
Kebab shops: they're everywhere but 9 out of 10 kebabs taste like crap.
Indian food: they're everywhere but 9 out of 10 restaurants give you bad afteraffects on the toilet.
Tesco Express: all the food you could conceivably want to buy, yet somehow it all TASTES LIKE CRAP.
Pizza: 9 out of 10 pizza chefs have never seen a real pizza. The one that has doesn't deliver to your home. Seriously, people should be punished for calling something a pizza when it's clearly a piece of dog turd.
Pret, Eat and Itsu: these are, much to my surprise, London's last hope.
Landlords, foreigners.
Every time I talk to my landlord I realize what an awesome guy he is. He could've just kicked me out and forgotten about me, but he is taking care of every single person that is renting with him. The new place is still not finished, but I'm confident that it'll be nice. Not due to the builders, mind you. According to my landlord they're assholes first class, and he now regrets going for the cheapest option. Well, that's my spin on it. His version was a bit more.. racist. It's sometimes a bit too easy to be racist when you find that some people conform exactly to their nation's stereotype. Must be careful not to fall for that one.
Freedom / cycling
I wonder how many times I wrote a blogpost titled 'freedom'. Today I cycled 45km and I regained that old feeling that I never truly felt in the UK. I always felt threatened here while cycling; this country is not nice to cyclists at all. Whenever I used to cycle on a busy road, which is inevitable given the sorry state of the so-called 'cycle network' in the UK, I always felt worried that drivers would not give me enough space or bump into me. This was perhaps not entirely irrational, but I've only had one close encounter in the UK and that was in central London. The countryside is very much like Japan, and I feel confident again to take my rightful place on the road. That, combined with the fact that my butt is starting to conform to the new saddle, means that I feel free to cycle anywhere I want. Total freedom achieved. Country unlocked. Next!
Old age
When I was 25 years old I cycled across half of Japan; how could I possibly be more fit than that? I used to think that I would never get as fit as I was then, but lately I feel like challenging that. Even back then my endurance/stamina was not that good. I don't think I've got more stamina now than I did then, but it's close. I did lose a lot of muscle and gained a lot of weight, but I'm at a point where I have confidence that I can fix it. All I have to do is cycle more. A lot more.