Back to work

Hey friends,

So I started work on Monday which means that there's been less time for adventure, but I have been continuing to try the local food. I found out that this office is also moving and that the area will have a much bigger selection of lunch options than the food court at the mall where we are now.

My favorite part about the office has to be the tea ladies. They have ladies that come around and bring you fresh tea and refill your cup a couple of times during the day. They're sweet older ladies and it's super convenient.

I never thought about this, but it makes sense in hindsight. Locals over hear can't instantly tell the difference between a Brit and an American. Most people assume I'm from London. Sure our accents are completely different to us, but it makes sense that to someone who speaks English as a second language, it's not obvious. Little things like this aren't surprising, but I never would have thought about them if I didn't come over here.

Oh yeah, this is another thing I noticed, everyone over here takes almost exactly the same lunch hour. In New York, lunch hour was kind of a floating thing. Not that any one person took lunch for 2 hours, but the first "lunchers" would start around noon and some people didn't eat lunch till after one pm. but around here it's like Ol' Faithful: 12:30 everyone goes and gets lunch or takes their lunch out. Groups all sit together and the tables around the office and then an hour later everyone's back at work. I don't know how this many people can coordinate lunch times this well. It used to be a struggle to get 10 people to be ready for lunch at the same in New York.

I'm starting to look for apartments. I think maybe apartment hunting for the first time in a foreign country where I don't speak the first language is a little daunting. I had it too good in New York. If I can pull this off, I know I'll be set.

So far my favorite thing is the smell of the MTR station in the morning. (In general, the subway system is much cleaner than NYC.) But the station near the hotel has all these little pastry shops in it and every morning it just smells like heaven with powdered sugar on top. This is something NYC has to get in on. Pastry shops > trash/hobo pee.

Alright I'm done rambling.