Greetings from Glasgow, Scotland! I am now nested at the Belhaven Terrace hotel, a townhouse bed & breakfast away from the city centre that cost only 30 pounds. So far everything seems to work in Glasgow, people are friendly and helpful—and they seem more simple natured and straight forward. RBS advertisement “make it work” are everywhere; perhaps thats the Scottish way? In sharp contrast, London is inhospitable; people are generally rude, services are inadequate, and where you wouldn’t want to hail a cab because its forbidden expensive and you can’t order another entree even if you really want it—opps, nope, you can’t afford it. So I am a bit perplexed why London is striving on the top ranks of a globally competitive economy and that its 10 year plan to be a globally leading innovative knowledge economy by 2010 actually is working— the ’success’ is likely reflective of its high price level and strong currency but just how long can it all last before it yields to the boom and bust of the business cycle? Perhaps all this applies only to a small group of highly skilled individuals who earns a much higher income than the average. The average nominal annual income of Brits is 29,331 pounds and where FTSE 100 CEOs make 711,000 pounds. With pounds floating at 2.1 against the dollar, nominally, UKer makes a lot more money than Americans in dollar terms; of course, it is only fair to compare real income by purchasing power parity and on that measure, UKers’ purchasing power is eroded by higher CPI so their quality of living is not necessarily higher. Without a compelling reasons, I wouldn’t like to live in London—where Chocolate croissant can set you back 2 pounds, a metro ride cost 1.5 pounds, I rather not think about how much rent is going for.This morning, it wasn’t all that smooth when I was at London when I had to pick up the emerging credit card at the HSBC branch in 2 hours before catching that plane to Glasgow—I took the rail Gatwick to save 8 pounds compare to the express but that took 40 minutes to get to the airport—I was at security checkpoint by 5:10 to catch boarding plane at 5:20–and I absolutely freaked out and had to politely ask to cut the line to get to get through the security—being the the last person to get on that plane I was relieved. It was really my fault that I took 5 minutes to grab 15 pounds of sandwich, salad, fruit and water at Mark and Spenser’s! I am gaining more confidence from traveling alone; what I wish to have is the power to overcome some of my imperfections so I have the power to do better and more things in life.  I also miss my father dearly, I wish I could have shared with him my journey and adventure.

Finally arrived at London from Paris’ 2.5 hours EuroStar express train, right off to the streets I needed internet access to get the Naval and Military club address, I was lucky to locate a local library at Lamberth near the London Waterloo train station where internet is free. Across the street is a local diner, Steve’s, where I got my belated breakfast-lunch; I got into a conversation with the son of the diner owner, Chris, who lived in New York for a while. Later Chris friends (and their friends) walked in, his wife walked in, and in a few minutes a quite dinner erupted into a very loud lively chatter. Chris father owns a plot of land in Greece and with his friend developed properties on it, and it sold very well in London.  Afterwards, I took the tube to Piccadilly Circus, where the Naval Club is located at the St. James sq; the building is old and the patrons are all elderly man dressed in suit and speaks a very heavy accent. My reservation was never confirmed, I had to wait a bit and was later offered a twin bed room for 130 pounds a night! Thats 275 dollars!!!! I was of course devastated but given little alternatives and I was exhausted, I went ahead with it. After settling down at my dingy and odored room, I called up Richard, a dear friend of mine back in Summer School at Harvard 2005 and was invited to joined Richard with his friends at a Japanese restaurant near LSE at Holborn station. They are all part of the MSc Finance and Economics program, a highly selective program with very high standards; although I am told the professors do tend to overload students with very advance concepts without thorough explanations–make the academic journey rather a personal effort of self-revision. After dinner, I visited Richard’s room with Charles, and we all played pingpon and pool at the lounge downstairs. It was mega fun although I was a loser in both game, I did manage to unleash some of my natural talent (endowed by birth for being Chinese) in pingpon and served up a few impressive high spin shots. After staying up till 2am planning for my glasgow trip, I got my tickets and accommodation lined up and I am now heading to HSBC to get my emergency credit card, before heading to London Victoria to take the Garwick express to the Garwick airport for the 5pm flight to Glasgow!