Casino Royal - Texas Holdem British Style - Mate!

After a morning in the office I took a quick tour of London's sites. I Started with a taxi ride to Harrods, and a walking tour of the Queens Calvary, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, The National Gallery, SOHO (Theater District), Dinner at the Italian Restaurant (Ristorante Cappuccetto, a stop by the Empire Casino and a Tube (Underground) ride back to London Tower Station.

So I started with a Cab ride from the office to Harrods and got to see a lot of the historical sites of London and it started with a drive by of past the London Eye.

It's pretty amazing to see things like Big Ben and Parliament.

In between there were a lot of places that I really didn't know what they were? But I did know this was the Royal Palace.
 
Then into Harrods Department store. All of this area on the West side is quit different than the business section where the office is. I understand that this store is around 1 Million Square feet. I've been in some high end stores and this one is tops. Everything you would could think of was in there. The food market areas were pretty cool.

There was Fish, Meats, Gelato, Sushi, Chocolate, Italian and more and more and more. Everything was very pricey and pretty fun to look at.
   
 
After walking around and up and down through Harrods it was down the street to get on the underground and see more things.

All of the areas on the west side were more tourists and people from everywhere. 
 
I wasn't familiar with the area and how to find my way but I did come across some interesting  things on my way to Trafalgar Square.
 


I found the Royal Calvary grounds where I was able to take a free tour of the grounds and a little museum.


 
Can you believe I was really there, here.

There are a lot of cool statues and things all over.
 
I made it to Trafalgar square and the National Museum.
 



I will have to post all the photos on the web page, but there were a lot of nice buildings and things to see here.
I was able to take a free tour of the National Museum and they have some amazing art on display. The big thing going on is the Titans display. They are trying to raise 100 million pounds to by two paintings that are on display. The Titans.

I then ended up in SOHO that Theatre district. It is the Broadway of London. Lots of theatres and shops.

I also walked through China Town. How is it that all big cities have a China Town? You have to love the Peking Ducks in the window.


Dinner was really good, they have the marinated olives to start, then bowl of Pasta Fuggoili (Bean soup with some pasta) I really liked it. The main course was a pizza and finished off with a yummy Cappuccino.
I was by myself again and they sat a couple next to me, I was able to start a conversation and he was a very nice gentleman and his wife. they were from North West England, near the border of Wales. He was a golfer and they had been to the states and visited Zions and and things. It was nice to talk with someone. When they were leaving he said, "don't you want to take a picture of us"?  Here you go
  
Next is the Casino Royal part of things. I couldn't believe that I found a Casino so I had to take a look. As always there were a lot of Orientals. I asked if they played Texas Holdem and they pointed me through the doors. They just happen to be starting a tournament with a 20 pound buy in and 20 pound re-buys. I said to myself that I would give it a try and that I would do the re-buys.
I was a little different that Vegas, It was more like a home game and they didn't have a dealer and everybody took turn dealing, cutting and shuffling.
There were five tables and about 60 people, the blinds went up every ten minutes and after a bit there were no more re-buys. I doubled up a couple times with straights on the river and some crazy pairs. They were very good players and thought that going all in was an automatic way to win? Before I knew it we were down to one table. We moved to a center table and they had a dealer. Felt a lot more like normal at this point, I was the short stack and I wasn't getting any cards, but  some people went off  going all in and I was able to sit back and two people went out before me. I ended up in 7th place and winning 70 pounds.
I was pretty excited to win and spend some time playing.
I made to the Underground and a ride back to the hotel. It was fun to play and really  different. Glad to make it back to the hotel, my poor feet were worn out.

Thursdays Lunch: Busy and Social Time at Work

I went to lunch with Anthony to the Pizza Express which was an Italian Restaurant, I also didn't want to tell Ant that I ate Pizza last night, but I was up for it. There is the neatest covered shopping store area next to the office. It's really smart looking and they have used it in a lot of movies and such.

It's all decorated for Christmas and the holidays. There are a lot of pubs in this area so after a lunch and throughout the day the crowds start growing. Thursday is one of the busiest day's at the pubs as people take a longer lunch and are out late, because they don't want to be dragging into there weekend.

This is the clearest picture but you get the idea, inside is get so crowded and loud it's hard to have a conversation. Some how I seamed to manage.

This was the pub inside the hotel I was staying, I really liked seeing all the beer they have to pour and they pump the handles to pressure the beer out. I have to say that I didn't have a bad pint the whole trip.

The Historic Lloyds of London

So my understanding of the how the Lloyds came about is: There was a coffee shop where ship captains and owners would meet and they would  make deals on covering the ships that would be sailing out. The largest trade in the early days was slave ships. Eventually it was changed from a coffee shop and they changed location a few times?
The name Underwriter actually came about from the Lloyds as when a deal was made, who ever was covering the ship, would sign there name to a slip (a slip of paper) eventually they started having more than one person cover the deal and each person would put there name under the other along with what share of the deal they were doing. There you have it.

So on the trading floor which they have four open trading floors you can see the books that they log all the deals that completed. They call it the Diary. They have kept a diary from the start of Lloyds and they continue to do this. I had a conversation with one gentleman and he commented on how the Diary has been slow? It later made sense to what he was talking about.
 
On the middle of the trade floor is a large bell, this was rung when a ship was lost. It wasn't a good thing to hear the bell ring as it meant they had to get there wallets out.


They have a lot of silver and gold goblets, coins and plates on display that the Lloyds have bought back from the ship owners that they gave them to at one time. Lloyds would cover Merchant ships and trade ships and when one or the other would help in defending another ship battle or take over, they would reward the ship for saving them. Otherwise the Lloyds would have been paying for the loss of a ship.
I thought this was all really interesting and there is a lot more history and information on this. You can read more if you Google Lloyds of London.

Thai dinner for one in London at the Thai Square

This place is next to the Chamberlain hotel, where I'm staying. It looked like a nice place and Igor said the food was good, so I gave it a go. It's another dinner by myself which I really don't care to do and it makes me wish I was sharing the experience with my Jill.
So there is large table of people behind me and they are talking really loud and the Oriental waitress was soft spoken with a crazy mix dialog's that I could figure out what the hell she was asking or saying? Finally another person came over and I could understand enough to order a drink and get the menu. They started there Christmas List menu and once I figured it out, I made the order. (I was in a pretty daring mood I guess)
So the menu was something where I got an appetizer,  a sampler plate, a first course, a main course, a desert and filter coffee or Tea.
So here we go:

An appetizer of some type of baked chips and a hot n sweet sauce. I had a feeling that those weren't ordinary chips but some type of fish flake or something? they were ok but they weren't normal corn chips.
 
The sampler plate came out it was pretty good. I kept telling myself that everything was ok and it was. There was a basket of lettuce with carrots cut like flowers and a big pea in the middle, the whole thing was for looks. I ate the triangle thing and it something inside like cheese? The thing that looks like a meatball was some type of meat molded around something like, I don't what it was? It was white and some type of  I really don't know, I ate it and it was better with sauce on it. I had the Mini wrap and the chicken on a stick was good. there was a cup of something with the green around it that was ok and the last thing was a prawn with something stuff in it and wrapped in seaweed.

Overall the sampler was ok, I liked the sauces, Soy and onion, a curry and a hot-n-sweet.
Next was the main dish 1 called Lamb - Lamb. It was nice  little lamb chop breaded and fried, served on a bed of green with a good dipping sauce. It was good.


So it's time for the main dish which was fresh peas in the pod and baby corns and sesame seeds. Then you have the Jasmine Rice and Thai Beef, which was grilled sirloin with hot red peppers and some grilled onion and zucchini, this is finished up with a bowl of Thai
noodles.


It was getting to be a lot of food and tasted really good. The waitress asked if it was too hot, I can imagine that the locals would have to call the fire department. I was good for me.
Then the best thing so far came about, Dessert!


This was awesome, I was so full but had to eat every bit of it. It's Molten Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream, and cream and a little piece of mint. The sauce was perfect, warm, sweet, sticky. Everything was so sweet and yummy. I know Jill will love this one! I know my Girl!
Overall everything was very good but for the money I don't think it was all that? 47.00 pounds which by my mouth is about $70.00
But thanks to the company, it was a good meal, Thank You!