After years and years of having this gap year plan in the back of my mind the right time for that has finally come. I first lay eye on that idea back in the day when I first left University. But I soon realised that this isn't worth working at a job I hate to enable the funding. Not that it wasn't a valuable experience, but what I mainly learned was that I can't live in a rich and posh surrounding because I do not understand the mindset of those people. I am sure they aren't all like that but Knightsbridge, London, definitely showed me what I didn't want in life.

While it may not have worked out back then, I never completely forgot about it and made it now very easy to plan it because the rough plan has been there all along.

In a way I am glad I didn't get a permanent teaching job last summer because it allowed me to venture out and do different things. After all German teaching jobs in the UK are a dying art and it's therefore essential to look for other options and my CV needs a bit more variety for that.

So thank you Australia and the Working Holiday Visa for letting me work under the sun.

Still walking along the Thames River one last time for the foreseeable future I did feel sad. After all I have called London home for the last 5 years so a bit of sentiment when recalling all those memories at different spots in London does not come to much surprise.

When I come back, London will have prettied itself up again with flowers decorating the parks in town, people enjoying the sunshine along the river and parks and all the construction gone - ready for the London 2012 Games. Or so one hopes, after all we want to represent ourselves in the best possible way. We may not be able to improve much underground where tunnels restrict expansion but we can at least show the world how great London is over ground.

London might even have had its first heat wave of the year, when the temperature is rising up 23 degrees C (73F). Now you might laugh but for the small Island that is actually something special because it doesn't get much better than that in the UK (average temperature is closer to 15 degrees (59F). And after a week like that you get suspicious as to where the catch is because the grey clouds are way over due. Yet it is wrong to say it's always raining, at least in South East England. In fact, it is very dry and the discussion on water shortage is quite common. Just today before my flight I listened to the news talking about how London will cope if we don't get rain soon. We might have to borrow some water from the Scots - after all they still owe us from bailing out their biggest bank. Worse, we are still paying for them, Sir Fred Goodwin in particular. It still amazes me that we are paying him his huge pension, when really all he did was got the bank into bankruptcy in the first place. I wonder if anybody would ever pay me for breaking something...now wouldn't that be something.

My flight was at 10:10pm and was going all the way to Sydney with a stopover in Bangkok, where for now I would get off.

As expected there were no problems at all at the check-in and flight. Though for some reason Qantas did not allow me to check-in online this was very surprising considering you can these days even check in on your phone and get a boarding card via your phone. When I then checked in at one of the self check-in terminals at Heathrow Airport, it did not work because my passport did not get scanned so I ended up doing it the old fashioned way. Those self check in desks hardly ever work when I use them, maybe I should take the hint.

While waiting to board the plane I had a close look at the Airbus A380 standing at the gate next to us. It is definitely a big plane. On one side it is really impressive and amazing yet I am glad I did not have to board that plane quite yet. I simply do not really trust this whole idea of heaving those massive, heavy things in the air. It seems against nature, but I guess sometimes you have to over come a fear to be able to do the things you want to do.

I slept through most of my flight and it felt like early morning when I arrived in Bangkok, yet thanks to the time difference it was already late afternoon. I am still surprised about myself for coping with the jet lag so well. Every time I felt "lost" in time, coming home from the USA I felt out of rhythm for a week or so.

Once I walked the streets near the airport hotel in Bangkok it came naturally to me that it was evening due to the setting sun and early evening feel hanging in the air. At the same time I felt more as if I was in the US than Thailand. So far whenever I stepped out of an Airport feeling a wave of heat and humidity hitting me I was at JFK Airport in New York. Generally the climate felt just like in New Orleans but with the evening breeze it as much nicer. Moreover I am simply excited about wearing shorts and t-shirts again. I don't think I have ever done that in February.

The first surprise I had when leaving the airport was that I expected cars coming from the left not right. I never really thought about this but I did not expect Thailand to drive on the left. While researching a reason for this I also learned that most Thais, especially in rural areas, simply choose the side of the road that makes driving the straightest/quickest to them. Which means they might drive on any part of the road. Not sure if that is increasing the road safety, more likely it confirms the suspicions I already had about driving in Thailand.

The area near the airport is not the most beautiful but it seems to show the typical Thailand suburban life - not rich but not complete poverty either.

The hotel is a short drive from the airport in an alley off the main street. I had to walk back to the main street to reach the more interesting part of the area. It was by then already close to sunset and with the street lights off the main road rather a rare occasion I only had a short walk around. A short walk from the hotel was a little strip mall like shopping centre. It also had market stands in the centre's driveways and parking lots.

My first buy though involved bottles of water to avoid dehydration and learned that UK's supermarket giant Tesco is just as present in Thailand. Half way around the world and I still do my shopping at Tesco - every little helps, wherever you are.

I have to admit my dinner was not anymore experimental either. From all the options I saw I went to Mc Donald. It was cheaper and better than KFC. Thinking about it, there weren't too many real Thai options and Sushi is not my thing either.

Tomorrow is going to be an early one to catch a plane to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with Jonathan (a flatmate) and stay there until Friday. It has it advantages to have friends who work around the globe and stay in nice hotels...