Welcome to the diary of model Ash Walker and photographer Corey Tenold. As this is the first of many entries, let me tell you a little about us.
We are starting this diary as we have just arrived in London from The States. Ash recently returned home from working in New Zealand and Sydney with Clyne and Priscilla’s respectively, and has just signed with Premier Model Management in London. This time, I’m tagging along to do my own thing, and to help make life easier for both of us.
We got off the plane at LHR, spotted a man in a suit holding a white sign with “Ash Walker” displayed on it, and followed him to our car. The first thing that I noticed, besides the accents of course, was the driver being on the right side of the car. It was odd opening up the driver’s passenger’s side door and throwing our backpacks in the front seat. Another thing that I noticed was the weather. It was dreary and in the 60s and since we had just flown in from the beach where it was consistently in the upper 80s, it was a tad chilly.
Next we weaved our way from the airport, which is on the west side of London, to the place that we will call home for the next 6 weeks, on the east side of London in a borough called Hackney. During the over-an-hour car ride, we attempted not to doze in and out of sleep as it was about 4am in the timezone that we flew from, but about 9am London time. During the times that our eyes were open, we took in our surroundings, which we noticed where largely orangish and made of brick, and chatted with the driver. He is from the Philippines and has lived in london for about 5 years, so it was cool to be able to chat with him on how he transitioned to the city. Basically being our tour guide, he told us of the areas that we passed as we zipped across town narrowly missing pedestrians, motorcycles and buses. Finally, we arrived, and instantly fell asleep due to almost 24 hours of traveling and jet lag.
After our naps, the rest of the day was spent doing things like getting our mind wrapped around the maze of the London Underground (and Overground… and the bus system), scheduling out some routes that we would be using a lot (like back and forth between home, the agency, and the supermarket), buying some international SIM cards for our iPhones, and grabbing a bite to eat.
We ate at a place called Itsu, which is basically modern Asian fusion. We chose there because it was close to the agency and we spotted the word “health” in the window. The menu consisted of mostly noodle and rice bowls, soups, salads and sushi. I was just happy that they had one of my favorite beers, Asahi.
That wrapped up our first day in London. We called this The Love Diary because we like to try to find the things we love in every day. So to incorporate that into this diary, we will write one thing that we each loved about the day.
Today’s Love
Ash
The one thing that I loved today was the fact that I had my sweetheart Corey with me instead of arriving in a foreign country alone, not having castings or a photo shoot right as I landed, oh and sleep!
Corey
This was tough one to start on because the day was filled with travel, so sleep was definitely nice. Despite that fact, I loved hearing everyone speak to each other with their English accents. Do they realize that to Americans it makes them sound smart and sophisticated? That it makes them sound like they are from a book or a movie? I especially loved hearing kids with their English accents. If I closed my eyes I was in James and the Giant Peach.