Fun in London

Last night I went to dinner with some friends from work – one guy from the Utah office, two guys from the UK office. We had a lovely time. We found a fantastic little dim sum, Asian mix restaurant (called dim t, in case you’re ever in London and are looking for a good place to eat). The menu described the dim sum as “three items per basket.” So Gavin ordered the three different varieties of dim sum that he wanted in his one 3-piece basket. Ken then ordered the three kinds he wanted in his single basket of three. I had an inkling that this wasn’t correct, as I’ve ordered dim sum before, but I was the foreigner here – maybe things are done differently in London. So I ordered the three kinds that I wanted. This is what arrived at our table (and these were just our appetizers – our main courses were still to come):


In case you failed to count, that’s NINE baskets of dim sum, each containing three dumplings. Ah, we laughed hard and long…

Shouldn’t the waiter have noticed the oddity of our order and thus explained how the dim sum worked? Or should we have just known? It makes a great story, though. ☺ And I am quite impressed with how much we actually ate. Ken and Gavin even finished their main courses as well. Jon was the odd one out and ordered 3 skewers of chicken satay as his appetizer… and guess what? He only got three skewers. When the table next to us ordered a measly 3 baskets of dim sum, Jon and Gavin looked at each other and whispered “wimps!”

Tonight I left work early – the other company on the same floor as the one I’m working for (same parent company) was having their Christmas party – there was music, food and alcohol to be had by all (starting at 1:00 p.m.) – they kindly invited those of us from my office to join in. An example of the different work culture: I had to train a couple of gents at 2:00 p.m. As I was starting class, Chris, the Editor-In-Chief, brought all three of us a glass of champagne “to help the training along.” I graciously thanked him, and then gave my glass to Julian (after Chris had left the room, of course). But I digress - at 5 p.m the other company wanted to turn out the lights so they could dance. Since working in the dark can be difficult, we were excused. Since I left earlier than the usual 6:30 or so, I decided to go by Big Ben and the London Eye and try to take some nice night photos – this is what I came up with. Not quite as nice as I’d like, but…