Visiting London

Hello,

My name is Alias. I'm a polo player from Washington, D.C., USA. I will be in London April 14th-18th on vacation. I will have my polo bike with me, and I'm hoping to have the opportunity to play with your club while I'm in town. Please help me with locations and directions.

My partner and I are staying in an AirBnB in King's Cross. I'm also looking for any good vegan dining suggestions for our visit to your city.

Thanks,
Alias Tagami

Also, I collect cycling caps when I travel, so if there is a good bike shop that I can buy a cool London cycling cap, I'd love to buy one!

Hey man most of the locations n times are on forum chats,, jus gotta check if it's on by reading the latest updates on the day of play,,, hackney , elephant and castle(newington gardens) and herne hill( weekends) are within reasonable distance of kings cross!! Check a London Underground tube map ,,, may giv u an idea?!?

Mani

Lfgss do a cycling cap!!

Hi brick lane bikes haz lots of really nice cycling caps also condor cycles have a really nice sale going on

@user54048 look mum no hands isn't too far, has some unique caps, I think they have some vegan food too but I'm not vegan so didn't look into that much.

http://shop.lookmumnohands.com/collections/caps-hats

If you read through the most recent few pages of this thread then there are several decent recommendations for vegan dining. There was even a specific chat about places near King's Cross but I don't remember where they mentioned... https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/159475/?offset=2100#comment12160320

As for cycle caps, Brixton Cycles do their own one and if you can get yourself organised then perhaps order one from the LCEF as well (https://lcef.wordpress.com/merchandise/)?

And finally polo; during your visit, there are likely to be 4 sessions:
14th & 15th, 7pm-9:30pm at Newington Gardens, Harper Road (5 mins South of London Bridge)
Possibly on the 16th at the court on Mitchinson Road (North London)
and finally people will probably be playing on the 18th at Herne Hill Velodrome which you gain access to from Burbage Rd (down in the deep South of London).

April 15th, polo at Newington Gardens, Harper Road, SE1
April 16th polo at Mitchison Baxter Park, Mitchison Road, N1
edit: yes what Sam says

Near Kings X: http://www.itadakizen-uk.com/
Mildreds in Soho - http://www.mildreds.co.uk/
Rasa N16 in Stoke Newington - http://www.rasarestaurants.com/rasa_n16.php
Amico Bio in the City - http://www.amicobio.co.uk/

Thanks for the info everyone. This will make planning with my partner much easier. Looking forward to meeting you all.

Good recs, Kev.

Alias: The game at Mitchison is closest to King's X, but each is a mostly different crew and I recommend you try both if you can. I'll be it Mitch on Thurs.

What London does best for veg/vegan is Asian food -- Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc. It is about 20 years behind American cities when it comes modern and creative uses of vegetable protein. Very few restaurants have tofu, none outside of Asian have seitan, and none at all have Tempeh.

In addition to what Kev said, try the following.

VX near King's X (mainly a store, but has sandwiches; first and only place in LDN to have Field Roast): http://www.vegancross.com/
Shacklewell Arms (my local pub in Dalston; best veggie dogs in London (Vegusto) but the buns aren't vegan): http://www.shacklewellarms.com/
Black Cat Cafe (anarchist collective) in Hackney: http://blackcatcafe.co.uk/
Amico Bio at Holborn
Mien Tay in Shoreditch: http://mientay.co.uk/
Aobaba (vegan banh mi, three kinds of fake meat) in Hoxton: http://www.aobaba.com/branches
Tibits in central LDN: http://www.tibits.ch/en/home.html
Chinese in NE, might deliver to King's X: http://localfriends.co.uk//

No one mentioned HH on the 18th?

+1 to getting a lcef london cap.

and finally people will probably be playing on the 18th at Herne Hill Velodrome which you gain access to from Burbage Rd (down in the deep South of London).

Oops sorry sam.

A small bit of help from another newbie to the city.

If you can grab a pocket size A-Z where you are (i managed to pick up a new york one where i was out in the sticks years ago) thats handy, if your not a gadget person and not using a smartphone to get round with........ if you nip over to Kings cross station and look for the Travel Information booth in there somewhere, not sure exactly where as i haven't found it myself yet (use St Pancs station)
Anyways, they should have the TFL santander/boris bike maps, these are free maps of the city and a great back up or overview when using a gps/smartphone or small pocket A-Z

I find the tfl cycle map 14 covers most central stuff well. Kings Cross should have them but being a large station it might be hard to find the travel information center place. They can be uber slow posting them out so 2 weeks might not be long enough for them to arrive at hotel/friends/whatever.

https://www.tfl.gov.uk/forms/12419.aspx

Oh and while thinking of tfl, buses no longer take cash so if you aren't riding around all the time you might need to get an oyster card(prepaid wireless card thing you wave at sensors on buses/tube/trains). Any tube station will have them, think they have a £5 deposit for the card, really sucks for a couple of days.

What's the wifi situation like in London? For places of business, restaurants, coffee shops, etc it varies country to country. I'll probably have my phone for my information and camera, but I don't know how I should plan for when I will and won't have data for things like maps, social media, and so on.

Thanks for the link on the maps, BTW. We'll definitely use those, and we collect bike maps for the cities we visit, so this is very relevant to my interests.

Even out in the sticks the chain stores and pubs/hotels have free wifi.
Most large chain coffee shops and burger joints should have it, waterstones book shops with coffee shop inside have it, some supermarkets with a cafe inside have it
I would wait for a London local to chime in to confirm though.

parts of london underground now have wifi.... nutz!!

Think theres still a few on dial up where i am, you fancy city types with your underground netz, or is it just because everyones digging basement extensions and you get to latch onto the signal because they dug a bit close to the tunnel........ :)

There's wifi everywhere. Most Londoners don't bother because public wifi is usually slower than 3G/4g. But if it's your only option, all macdonalds, Starbucks, nero's, most pubs, all hostels hotels and motels, train stations... The list goes on... The whole of the city of London is covered by Wifi part funded by bt and O2: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business/commercial-property/utilities-and-infrastructure-/Pages/wi-fi.aspx
Seriously, it's hard to find places that aren't within sight of a wifi point.

That's excellent news. I try not to assume when I'm travelling. Japan was super hard, so I just rented a portable MiFi hotspot.

Coach & Horses vegetarian & vegan pub, Greek St, Soho
On the menu they have tofush & chips and they also have Sunday roasts
http://www.thecoachandhorsessoho.co.uk/index

Just arrived to Kings Cross and put my bags down. Looking forward to meeting you all. Games tomorrow, yes?

Yeap! Newington Gardens SE1

Polo siii