Trafalgar Square - The London Walker

Trafalgar Square is a place I have visited often because it is right next to Priya’s office in downtown London. It is almost always filled with people many of whom are tourists. It is an open space right in front of the National Portrait Gallery, which houses portraits of famous and historically important people in British history. The square is named after the Battle of Trafalgar, which occurred in 1805. It was a British naval victory over France and Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. Nelson’s Column sits in the center of the square. It has a statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson who died in the battle of Trafalgar on the top with four large lions sitting at the base. There are other sculptures in the square as well as a numerous contemporary art displays that frequently change. Right now there is a giant blue rooster on the west side of the square.

On a sunny day the square will certainly be crowded but it is a nice place to just sit, relax and people watch. Be warned that if you are just hanging around doing nothing you will more than likely be asked to take pictures for some couple or family.

Here are some pictures I've taken of the square itself and the area surrounding it. 

Ranking My Cities: Weather

In the last 10 years I have lived in 9 different cities on 3 different continents. The constant moving brings with it many difficulties such maintaining a steady income, developing and maintaining friendships, collecting and/or keeping possessions, having the proper clothes for the weather, getting your favorite foods and many other things. But living in all these different cities also has allowed me to explore new places, meet lots of new people, experience different cultures, eat lots of different foods, learn new languages and discover all the unique things each of these cities have to offer their residence. 

I started thinking about which cities where my favorite and which ones I would prefer not to return to. As I was trying to rank them I found myself re-ranking them over and over depending on what factors I was focusing on. Some cities had better weather, while other cities had better transportation and other cities had better food. After a while I decided to rank the cities based on various individual categories rather just an overall ranking. By doing this I hoped it would help me understand why my favorite cities were in fact my favorites as well show some of the strengths and weaknesses of all the cities I've lived in.

I’m going to use multiple entries to do this. I will use each entry to explore one major factor of the cities like weather or infrastructure or culture or some other thing.  In this entry I will lay out the cities I have lived in the past 10 years and then examine and rank them based on various weather conditions like average temperature, precipitation, humidity, sunshine, etc.

So let’s start with some basic information such as what cities I have actually lived these past 10 years. Here is a list of the cities I've lived in. It is based simply on chronology, the order in which I lived these cities:

1.  Phoenix 
2. Oakland
3. Seattle
4. Los Angeles
5. Seoul
6. Sacramento
7. Denver (I’ve actually lived in Denver for short periods two or three times over the past 10 years. It’s where my family live and where I grew up)
8. Shenzhen
9. London

The next easy thing to do is list them based on the length of time I've lived there. I want to do this because obviously how long you live somewhere does affect how much you really know about the city. I am not claiming to be an expert about any of these cities except perhaps Denver but I still want to share what I know. Now two of these cities, Denver and Phoenix are ones that I not only lived in during the past 10 years but also for most of my life before that so if I included the time I had lived there during my whole life Denver would be the city I had lived in the longest (around 19 years) while Phoenix would be second (around 4.5 years). But for this list I am ranking the cities based on the amount of time I have lived there during the past 10 years. These numbers are rounded off a bit just to make it easier on me. So here’s the ordering of the cities I've lived in based on the amount of time I've lived in them during the past 10 years:

1. Los Angeles: 2.5 years
2. Oakland: 2 years
3. Phoenix: 1.5 years
4. Denver: 1 year
5. Seoul: 1 year
6. London: 9 months
7. Sacramento:  7 months
8. Shenzhen: 6 months
9. Seattle: 6 months

Generally the first thing people ask about when discussing a new city is the weather so let’s look at some basic weather stats of all the cities I've lived in.

Here are the cities I've lived in ranked based on the average amount of sunshine they receive in a year. The cities with more sunshine are ranked higher. With sunshine there is a maximum number of 4476 hours of sunshine in a year so these percentages are based off that number.

1. Phoenix: 86% (3872 hours a year)
2. Sacramento: 78% (3491 hours a year)
3. Los Angeles: 73% (3267 hours a year)
4. Denver: 69% (3107 hours a year)
5. Oakland: 66% (2954 hours a year)
6. Seattle: 48% (2170 hours a year)
7. Shenzhen: 47% (2120 hours a year)
8. Seoul: 46% (2066 hours a year)
9. London: 30% (1339.7 hours a year)

Now you can’t talk about sunshine and not talk about temperatures. So let’s rank the cities based on average summer temperatures using the month of July as the marker for summer. The list goes from hottest to coldest. I am also going to include the average relative humidity next to the temperatures to give one an idea of what kind of heat they’d be dealing with.  

1. Phoenix: 106-84 F (41-29 C)         Relative Humidity: 52-13%
2. Sacramento: 93-61 F (34-16 C)     Relative Humidity: 84-28%
3. Shenzhen: 90-79 F (32-26 C)        Relative Humidity: 90-62%
4. Denver: 88-56 F (31-13)                Relative Humidity: 75-22%
5. Los Angeles: 83-64 F (28-18)        Relative Humidity: 87-50%
6. Seoul:  84-71 F (29-22 C)              Relative Humidity: 96-63%
7. Seattle: 76-56 F (24-13)                 Relative Humidity: 86-42%
8. London: 73-55 F (23-13 C)            Relative Humidity: 90-48%
9. Oakland: 72-56 F (22-13)              Relative Humidity: 94-59%

Now let’s deal with the winter and rank these cities based on the average winter temperatures using the January as the marker for winter listing them from coldest to warmest.

1. Seoul: 35-21 F (2 to -5 C)               Relative Humidity: 89-41%
2. Denver: 43-16 F (6 to -9 C)            Relative Humidity 78-35%
3. London: 45-36 F (7-2 C)                 Relative Humidity: 94-69%
4. Seattle: 47-37 F (8-3 C)                  Relative Humidity: 94-60%
5. Sacramento: 54-41 F (12-5 C)       Relative Humidity: 97-58%
6. Oakland: 58-44 F (14-7 C)             Relative Humidity: 95-60%
7. Phoenix: 67-46 F (19-8 C)              Relative Humidity: 71-26%
8. Los Angeles: 68-48 F (20-9)           Relative Humidity: 82-33%
9. Shenzhen: 68-54 F (20-12 C)         Relative Humidity: 85-47%

The cities I've lived in based on annual precipitation from the wettest to driest cities:

1. Shenzhen: 77.4 inches (1966 mm)
2. Seoul:  57.11 inches (1450 mm)
3. Seattle: 38.25 inches (972 mm)
4. London: 24 inches (610 mm)
5. Oakland: 22.94 inches (583 mm)
6. Sacramento: 17.93 inches (455 mm)
7. Denver: 15.81 inches (402 mm)
8. Los Angeles: 15.14 inches (385 mm)
9. Phoenix: 8.29 inches (211 mm)

Cities I've lived in based on elevation. While these numbers are not exactly weather related they do affect the weather. Plus I just think they are fun to know. Now these numbers can vary a bit based on where you are in the city this is particularly true in cities on the coast like L.A. or Seattle, where you can be standing at sea level or up in the hills. I am just using the numbers found online most of which use either city hall or the local airport as locations from which to measure the altitude of the city:

1. Denver: 5883 ft. (1793 m)
2. Phoenix: 1132 ft. (345 m)
3. Seattle: 429 ft. (131 m)
4. Seoul: 282 ft. (86 m)
5. Los Angeles: 126 ft. (38 m)
6. London: 79 ft.  (24 m)
7. Oakland: 43 ft. (13 m)
8. Shenzhen: 40 ft. (12 m)
9. Sacramento: 30 ft. (9 m)

 So there are some of the weather statistics that go with the cities I have lived in. I will finish this entry by now ranking the cities in the order I like them based solely on the weather and no other factors. As my rankings will surly reveal I prefer hot to cold, dry to wet and sunny to cloudy.

Ranking cities I've lived in based on weather: 

1. Los Angeles:
   
   LA is just the perfect combination of temperature, humidity and sun. It’s rarely too hot and almost never cold. There can be variations on the weather based on where you are in the city. Generally speaking the further you get from the ocean the hotter and dryer it gets. There are some hot summer days and even a few humid ones but they are worth it considering how few cold days there are. The constant sunshine is something that just makes life feel a bit better. And anytime you want the sandy beaches and nice ocean are right there for the visiting. The weather really is one of L.A.’s greatest strengths as a city.
2. Sacramento:
   
   I like Sacramento for the mild, dry winters. It certainly gets hot during the summer but it isn’t very humid so it doesn’t bother me too much. It’s the type of place where you won’t need to pack away winter clothes to make room from summer clothes you can just wear the same stuff pretty much year round.
3. Phoenix:
   
   Phoenix is hot, there is no denying that but it is almost always sunny and it’s not humid. Now when it’s a 116 degrees and you say “at least it’s a dry heat” that doesn’t help stop the sweating but when compared to more tropical locations like Shenzhen one discovers that there really is a big difference between humid and dry heat. Plus with Phoenix being in the USA almost everywhere you go has air conditioning so the heat can be dealt with. The most miserable times are when you go to the car in the summer and it has been baking in the sun for hours and your seats are scalding hot. Phoenix is not a place to have leather seats in your car yet tons of people still do.
4. Oakland:
   
   Oakland offers very mild weather. It is a bit cooler than LA and it really isn’t that wet of a place. San Francisco blocks a lot of the precipitation that might otherwise come into Oakland. It is the type of weather that almost anyone can live with. It’s rarely very hot and almost never cold it just sits right in the middle. For me I prefer a bit more heat than Oakland can provide but really it’s not a place that offers too much to complain about concerning the weather.
5. Denver:
   
   One of the great things about Denver is the sun. You get a lot of sunshine in Denver even in the winter. So whether the temperature is cold or hot it is usually sunny. One of the best places to be in Denver on a cold winter day is in your car because it will be nice and toasty inside from sitting in the sun. Most people think of Denver as a place that gets buried in snow in the winter but that just isn’t the case. It does snow during the winter but it can be quite sporadic and the snow that comes has often melted away only days after it has fallen. Now the summers can get hot but unlike many other cities Denver cools down a lot during the night so you never feel stuck in the heat they way you might in Phoenix or Shenzhen or even Sacramento. I spent most of my life in Denver so I am just used to the weather and overall it really isn’t that bad but despite all the sun it still gets colder than I like in the winter.
6. Shenzhen:
   
   Shenzhen takes some getting used to. During the summer it is hot and it is wet and when I say wet I mean really wet. You get real tropical rain storms in Shenzhen. Now while I don’t generally like rain I do prefer rain in Shenzhen to the other cities I have lived in because it is a warm rain. There were times that I would actually go outside and just walk around in the rain in a t-shirt and shorts just because it was like being in a warm shower. The winters are quite nice and mild though it can still be pretty humid. The other downside to living in Shenzhen is that numerous places don’t have air conditioning. Most of the new stores, restaurants and apartments have it but there are a lot of older buildings that don’t and that can be hard if you are used to always being able to get out of the heat and to a nice cool air conditioned room. But I would take Shenzhen in an instant over any city that has predominately cold weather.
7. Seattle:
   
   Now Seattle is often dark, wet and cold but probably not as much as people think. There is more sun there than I expected when I got there though most of it comes in the afternoon. You have to deal with cold, foggy mornings in the winter, which I just did not like. It did rain frequently sometimes hard but most often it was just a constant drizzling. I did not like the weather but it was never super hot or freezing cold so I could live with it if I had to.
8. London:
   
   I don’t like the weather here. Too much of the year is just wet and cold with very little sunshine. Of all the places I've lived London has the least amount of sunshine and it isn't even close. I didn't realize how sad it can be just to have nothing but clouds and fog to look at every day. Now the summers are okay. There is more sun and it warms up a bit but for me it is still too mild. The problem with heat here in London is when it does come around for that week or two in the summer there is almost nowhere here that has air conditioning. This is most noticeable in the tube (subway) were the cars are just boiling with no air flow. And the smells created by that heat box with all the raised arms are just not pleasant. So even when it was hot outside like I like this is not the city to be hot in because there really is nowhere to go to escape that feeling at any point. Overall the weather has to be one of London’s greatest weaknesses as a city.
9. Seoul:
   
   Seoul is a city whose weather brings with it all the extremes that are possible. It gets extremely hot during the summer and freezing cold in the winter. You have to deal with heavy rain and snow as well as boiling heat. There really are only a few times a year where the weather was what I would call nice. This is the only city where I felt I needed completely different clothes for different seasons. I of course didn't have those different clothes so I spent a lot of time wearing the same two large jackets covering up the clothes I did have most of which are best suited to California weather. Seoul was the first city I had to carry an umbrella around with me and it was not something that I liked doing. If you take one small enough to fit in a bag it usually ends up being too small to really keep you dry whereas if you take an umbrella big enough to keep you dry it ends up being this huge pole you have to carry around all day. Seoul is a place where you could suffer from a heat stroke and frost bite in the same year. There was a lot I like about Seoul but the weather is not one of those things.

So that is the ranking of the cities I've lived in based on weather. Feel free to add your own opinions on the weather in any of these cities or about the weather in your own city.

Next time I will rank the cities based on each cities infrastructure, things like the transportation systems, waste management, public parks, communications and stuff like that. 

Burrito Quest - The Breakfast Club

A couple of Fridays ago Priya had a half day from work and she invited me to come downtown to have lunch with her and some of her coworkers. I love having lunch with Priya so it was an easy decision for me to go, even though I was a little worried because I had been having numerous seizures the previous couple of days and I knew I might have another one while I was out. Still I couldn't let that stop me from going to hang out with my wife and thankfully that didn't end up happening. I got downtown about an hour before I actually needed to be there so what could I do? Well I could walk around, like I often do or I could do what I chose to do which is go to Burger King and buy a soda. While it may sound silly to most I just can’t help it I love having a nice, cold and most importantly refillable soda and Burger King is one of the only places that is possible around here. I knew no matter where we ended up going to lunch it wouldn't likely be a place where I could get more than a can of coke so I went ahead and stocked up while I could. I sat in Burger King for about half an hour enjoying my refillable coke and listening to my iPod. Finally it was time to go and I went down to meet up with Priya and her friends. We met at Embankment Station and took the Circle line over to Liverpool Street station. From there we went to a restaurant nearby called The Breakfast Club.

When I saw the menu at The Breakfast Club I admit I was pretty surprised because it read like an average American menu at this type of place. Based on the name I was expecting a place that served breakfast and lunch food but I thought it would be a more British version of them. Now don’t get me wrong they had British dishes but I was just surprised to find out how many non-British dishes they had. These included items like Huevos Rancheros, chorizo, a breakfast burrito and yes a real burrito. (You may have noticed that all the things I listed are items associated with Mexican food, I point those out because they are quite common on an American menu but very rare here. There were other items that seemed American as well but they just didn't matter as much to me). Now it was almost 2 pm but the restaurant served their breakfast menu all day so everything on the menu was in play. I was examining the menu quite closely until I saw that they had a breakfast burrito. I almost stopped there and ordered but luckily I looked over at the lunch foods and saw they also had a real burrito and right then I knew what I was going for. Everyone else got breakfast food but I just couldn't do it not when a real burrito was sitting there just asking me to eat it.

Now there was only one burrito on the menu and it’s called the Big Bad Burrito. You can get chicken, pulled pork or roasted vegetables with rice, refried beans, salsa, jalapenos, cheddar, guacamole, sour cream and spicy pepper sauce. I went for the chicken version of this burrito. I also removed the guacamole and sour cream. Now before I go on let me recap how I judge the burritos. I do it based on eight categories. First is the quantity of available options on the menu. Second is the quality of the individual ingredients. Third is the ratio of those ingredients in the burrito basically how much of each ingredient is there. Forth is the strength and execution of the wrap, does the tortilla tear easily or fall apart in my hand? Fifth is the size of the burrito bigger is usually better. Sixth is the overall taste of the burrito. Seventh is the price of the burrito. I’m willing to pay for quality. Eighth and lastly is what I call the two hour tummy factor. Meaning how does the burrito makes me feel a few hours later because it can be great in your mouth but not so great in your digestive system especially if you are walking home, which I almost always am. Now the other variable that is much harder to take into account is that of the individual server who is helping you. Often when a burrito is made it is difficult to know if the ratios of each ingredient given to you are those that the restaurant wants or just those that the server feels like giving. Similarly when it comes to the strength of the wrap it often comes down to the skill and experience of the person wrapping the burrito rather than just the quality of the tortilla. Due to this is can be hard to properly judge a place without going there a few times unless the food is just horrible than what’s the point, right? So I try to be fair to all the places I go especially the first time and focus more on the food rather than the service.

So first the quantity of choices. When looking at the quantity of available choices one can see that the selection is quite limited. You can have chicken, pork or veggies but beyond that they fill all their burritos with the same ingredients. Obviously you can tell them to subtract any of the other ingredients listed that you wouldn't like but the fact remains the choices are pretty limited. There are no options on beans, rice or salsa you just got what they had. With the salsa they don’t even tell you what kind it is on the menu. Not surprisingly it turns out to be a red tomato based salsa that is a bit spicier than a normal pico de gallo salsa but not much. Now this restaurant was not a Mexican restaurant so the surprise was not that their burrito options were limited but the fact that they actually had a burrito to begin with so I won’t hold their limitations against them that much.

Second is the quality of the individual ingredients. Here I can say the individual ingredients themselves were okay but certainly not the best for a burrito. The chicken was cooked well. It was soft and moist but it was also kind of flavorless. Clearly no spices had been added to the chicken. The rice was also bland. It lacked any flavor on its own it was just plain, wholegrain rice. The jalapenos were quite mild, which I’m sure some people would like but I wanted some that were a bit spicier. The salsa was actually served on the side rather than in the burrito, which I was not a big fan of. They gave me enough but I did not like having to put salsa onto my burrito before each bite. Another thing I didn't like about the salsa was that it was served cold, right out of a cooler or fridge. Obviously the inside of the burrito is hot and I prefer those temperatures to intact with each other inside the tortilla rather than having the extreme contrast of taking a bite into cold salsa followed by hot meat, rice and beans. The biggest problem with the salsa was the fact that it just was not very good. You could tell it was not made in the restaurant but rather came out of a can or bottle. Now the refried beans were quite good as was the cheddar cheese. Also what they called their pepper sauce was very good, it was one of my favorite parts of the burrito but it felt like the bad outweighed the good.

Third is ratio. As I just said they served the salsa on the outside of the burrito so that is a big strike against this burrito for me. The first few bites I had were dominated by chicken and I got a little worried that it was going to be too meaty but after those first few bites things evened out and were fine. The refried beans, rice and cheese mixed together well and they were the ingredients that dominated the burrito. Their pepper sauce, while delicious was used far too sparingly. If I have this burrito again I will definitely be asking for more of the pepper sauce. Also the jalapenos were too rare if they had included more of those it would certainly have helped add more flavor to the burrito.

Forth, the wrap. This was one of the burrito’s greatest strengths. When I received the burrito I was a little worried because one end was already opened pretty widely. At first I couldn't tell if the opening was actually intentional but I’m fairly sure it wasn't. Also they toasted the burrito leaving grill marks on it, which I don’t usually like because toasting often leads the tortilla to become very brittle and thus easy to break.  But as I ate the burrito I was very pleased to find that it stayed together very well and I made it all the way to the last two bites without having anything drip or spill onto my hands. Now I will say part of the reason for this was due to the fact that the salsa was served on the side and they used so little of their spicy sauce, this made for a fairly dry burrito on the inside, which of course tends to stay together better than a wetter burrito.

Fifth, the size of the burrito is a place where this burrito excelled. Of all the restaurants I've been to this was one of the largest and thickest burritos I have had. It was wide and long making for a very filling meal. If you want a large burrito in London this is definitely a place to check out.

Sixth is the overall taste. Overall I found the burrito to be good. In a way the whole burrito ended up being better than its individual parts. Despite the lack of flavor in some of the individual ingredients everything came together quite well and made for a very tasty burrito. Now I would call this a very Americanized burrito (yes I use that term even though I’m in the UK) in that a lot of the flavor was connected to the cheese and beans rather than the salsas or jalapenos. In a way it was kind of like a good sandwich rolled in a tortilla where if you took the tortilla out of the equation you might not even label what you were eating as Mexican food. Now while I wouldn't necessarily tell people to go out of their way to have this burrito I still liked it and would recommend it to anyone who is at this restaurant especially people who prefer mild flavors to spicy ones. 

When it comes to price, number seven, this place was on the expensive side. The burrito was just under 9 pounds add onto that any sort of drink and you are going to end up paying at least 11 pounds for your meal. Now that wasn't really a surprise given that it is a sit down type of restaurant rather than a fast food type of restaurant like most of the other places I've gone. So while it was more than I would like to spend on a burrito the price was comparable to everything else on the menu so I wouldn't complain about it being overpriced rather I would say it was worth having if you are already at that restaurant. 

Lastly is the two hour tummy factor. Here I gave the burrito a real test. Priya and I had some walking to do. After we left the restaurant we had to go over by London Bridge to pick up tickets for a Shakespeare play we went to see after which we went back up to Oxford Circus to do some shopping. For those unfamiliar with London that will obviously not mean much but overall we did 4 to 5 miles of walking after lunch. And going back to the size of the burrito I can say I was quite full when we finished, in fact I probably should have stopped a few bites short of finishing it. My walking speed certainly suffered due to this burrito but I will say that while I was extremely full I did not end up developing any sort of cramps or aches and I didn't have any bad experiences surrounding the bathroom. So I would rate this burrito pretty high when it comes to how it treats your digestive system. I’m sure the lack of spices has something to do with that. Still I gave the burrito plenty of chances to come back to haunt me but it didn't so that was a big plus for this place.

So overall I would give this burrito a 5 out of 10. That might seem a little low given what I've said about the burrito but the 5 is due to the fact that as far as burritos go this one is nothing special. Now just as a meal it was a very good meal and it was certainly something I would rather have than pancakes or an omelet or the other things on the menu. But again this burrito is just not tasty enough or spicy enough to get very high marks from me. As I've said already if you are in this restaurant and you like burritos than go ahead and give it a try but I wouldn't tell anyone to go out of their way to have this burrito. 

My burrito

Name Your Five Movies

So the other day Priya and I were fairly bored and just started doing some of those “stranded on a desert island” type of questions. Like if you were stranded on a desert island and only got to have one thing to eat for the rest of your life what would it be? One of the questions that I found the most fun and the most difficult surrounded the issue of movies. Basically if you could only have one movie to watch for the rest of your life what would it be? After a lot of thinking I just found this question too difficult so we changed it to say if you could only have five movies to watch the rest of your life what would they be? Now after even more taking and thought we decided that one of the five movies we picked could be a trilogy. So Priya took the Lord of the Ring trilogy and that only counted as one of her five movies rather than three of them.  After a lot more time talking and thinking I decided we could add one TV show to the mix and that is where we finally stopped: five movies (one of which could be a trilogy) and one TV show to watch for the rest of our lives.

This was just so much fun that I thought it was worth throwing up on the blog and presenting the same question to other people. I’d love to hear answers from anyone else out there who sees this.

Our answers were as follows:

For Priya

• Trilogy: Lord of the Rings
• Step Brothers
• Dogfight
• Monsters University
• The Burbs
• TV: 3^rd Rock from the Sun

For Zach

• Trilogy: Batman-Dark Knight Series
• Die Hard
• Gladiator
• The Fugitive
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• TV: Scrubs

Even now I find myself wanted to change my answers as if this might actually happen and the answers I put on this list will forever determine my movie watching future. Again please share your answers to the question. I just love seeing what movies people like.