Coolness cont. and Docklands walk

Happy Woman's Day!

After many days of blogging hiatus (due to overtime and me being ill and grumpy) I am back!

The results for the Cool post (see below it's not late to add your comment!) are in.
I asked many people at work, family, friends, people on the streets, at the pubs, in the public toilets (ok, not really at the last three places...)
Anyway, the results I got varied. First of all, my lovely follower France from FranceRants wrote a comment that Eminem is cool. Well, indeed he is! I'm not crazy about his songs, but I love Stan and I think he's pretty cool too.
A few colleagues told me being able to succeed is cool. I agreed. And I added
"painlessly"!
My sister told me that Clive Owen is cool. My nephew thinks Jason Statham is cool.
My best friend thinks her husband is cool. And my goddaughter thinks Madonna is cool.
I agreed to all of the above!

The conclusion is that everyone has their own definition and perspective of coolness.
I noticed that not a lot of people have mentioned women, except Madge.
Quite disappointing. Aren't women cool?  Keira Knightley seems quite cool to me.

So be cool and enjoy your coolness, no matter how you define it, that's what I say!
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Today was a glorious sunny, warm day in London.  I was lucky to have a day off, so I decided to grab my iPod and go for a walk.
I have downloaded a podcast called "London Walks", which every time takes me to places in London I didn't know they existed. Today I decided to follow him down the Docklands, a once ill-reputed area full of druggies and prostitutes. Now it's considered hip, trendy and cool (there we go) as it is by the river, with gorgeous converted wharfs and houses.

It is quite easy from where I live to get to the Docklands and extremely pleasant too.
I take a bus (from the same bus stop where Samuel Guidera was stabbed, where people have laid dozens of flowers - it is quite moving) and go to Lewisham to take the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). I adore riding on the DLR it is like a mild roller coaster ride and the views are spectacular, especially as we approach Canary Wharf.

So I managed to get a front seat (the DLR trains have no driver!) and take pictures along the way.

I arrived at Shadwell station and put the podcast on.  For the first time after a very long time I had such fun!  I got lost a few times, because Richard Wright (who is a priest by the way) who does these podcast walks really fast and he goes to one place while I'm still at another.
So a couple of times I missed a turn and I had to go back, pause, rewind, replay the podcast until I got synchronised with him again.

I didn't mind while it was daylight, but after some time I was looking for a street called Rainer street and could not find it! Well, that got me annoyed! I walked up and down the same road twice, I went into streets and there was no sign, there was no one around and it was getting dark.  After I came out of a small street to the same street I was before for the second time (I was going around in circles with no results) I decided to try my Blackberry GPS. I input "Rainer Street, Docklands, London, UK" and the reply was "No Result"!
I started to get a bit desperate.  I tried again with "Rainer Street, London, UK" and boom! It gave me the directions. I finally found it, I went in put the podcast on again, only to find out that Mr Wright just wanted to show us a building in the street and then he walked back to the main street I was before! Thanks a bunch, I've just lost 45 minutes and now it's dark.

All this time he was saying that we are going to walk along the river.  I had not seen the river as yet.  I came to a gate that was leading to Thames Path, but because it was after sunset they had closed the gate and I couldn't go to see the river view, which he described as amazing. Boohoo!
I decided there and then to call it a day. I will do part II another sunny day, and maybe when my mom comes.
I took a bus to the nearest DLR station and started my way home. I had taken plenty of photos and I really had a great time, but maybe I should have started earlier (lesson learned) so that I could enjoy the whole walk. And next time, I'll carry a map as well!

Here is the slideshow from the pictures I've taken. If you'd like to read the comments I wrote about each picture you can go to the photostream on Flickr.