london part two (or the wrap up)

Due to time constraints and the impending move (must finish packing must finish packing), the rest of London will be in condensed form.

I think my first impression of London was…cold. London was cold, and I loved it. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have if I lived there, then the ten minute intervals of light pattering rain, and general all-consuming fogginess might be depressing, but when we left nyc, it was in the 90s and humid. Yep, I’ll take dreary 60s and rain please.

For some reason, I found the Asian people with English accents to be really strange, just the way they thought I was strange I’m sure. The other odd thing was that I understood the Cantonese spoken on the streets. I mean, there’s no reason I shouldn’t (even if I’m really rusty), whether in NYC or London or Hong Kong; it just surprises me sometimes that I can understand another language.

There were even a few dim sum places in London we could have tried, but come on, we’re moving to China, I think we’ll have more than enough opportunities for dim sum.

Now, speeding through the London trip in bite-sized (100 calorie pack) picture blurbs.

The highlight of day 2 was definitely watching King Lear in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. We were so close that we were spittled upon by Mr. Lear. And, as usual, it rained every ten minutes or so.

Notice how close my head is to the stage. Later on, I learned that there was a trap door right there, and when it opened, it nearly clonked down on my hands.

Theaterrific

Walking across the Millennium Bridge to the Globe Theatre. I thought this picture was funny.

 

Here the details start to blur, so the events may or may not have happened in the forthcoming order. Above is the Cloister area of Westminster Abby (incredible). The audio guide told me that for some time, the Cloisters became a place where fights were held, and a den of gambling and other unsavory activities. For us though, it was peaceful and nice.

Cloisterrific

The British Museum, and a photo that cole didn’t want me to take. The museum was…eh. After years of going to the Met, I guess the Brit Museum just didn’t hold up as well. Ce le vie.

From the Rosetta Stone. For all of you out there that have been dying to know how to say “cat” in Ancient Egyptian, I got you covered. Wouldn’t a picture sign of a cat been enough though?

I don’t remember where I spotted this, but it was the socialist bookstore. I wonder if everything inside was equally priced?

I think I found this outside of the museum. Note the shushing action. The store owner was coming by to see what I was up to, so I ran away after taking this picture. Yep.

 

Cornish Pastie and chips. I had the hardest time ordering this. First of all, I had no idea how to say “pastie.” I was saying it like “paste-eee” with a long “a”, and the counter lady had no clue what I meant. She said something quickly that sounded like “blahblahenglishaccentblahblah.”

Finally, I asked again, but this time calling it a pass-tee, and it worked! It was worth the effort too…very tasty. Full of pastie goodness. Since I’m on a food kick, here are some other things that we ate.

 

Plain yogurt with granola and raisins: our go-to breakfast. I’m still craving this. Better than the full English breakfast option, which was: fried eggs, sausage, bacon, baked beans, blood sausage, fried tomatoes.

 

From some French bakery; a banana and chocolate pastry. Too mushy and sweet.

Lasagna from an Italian restaurant run by real Italian people. The lasagna was really good, and cheap by London standards at seven pounds.

 

Diet coke, as described in the UK. Vegetable extract?

Egg and tomato sandwich from Upper Crust. Tastes exactly the way you think an egg and tomato sandwich would taste.

Random pictures, some Westminster Abby, the other a clock that has the same name as my brother.

Ok, now I’ll speed up to Kristin Henny’s wedding to Kevin Burt. Kristin is an old friend of ours, high school for me, elementary school for cole. I still remember sitting next to Kristin in AP English, and how angry she would get whenever Matt Fogel or Josh Warren said anything.

Well, Kristin decided to marry a Scottish fellow in Scotland, and her wedding was the actual reason we visited London, so thanks Kristin.

We woke up at 4am to catch the train to Scotland, and while getting ready, I discovered a couple aspects of UK television. First of all, Gordon Ramsey is not really that mean. In his show in the States, Hell’s Kitchen, he screams and shouts and curses, but suddenly, in the UK, he becomes this nice affable guy, like Emeril or something.

 

Secondly, deaf people in London must be insomniacs, because in the wee hours of the morning, every channel has sign language. In the first picture above, a woman is signing a slow jam, complete with swaying dance and facial expressions (she got really into it). The other is a sports telecast. Intense.

Tube ride to King’s Cross station, where we caught the rail to Aviemore.

Countryside literally a few minutes outside of London.

Blurry sheep. They were everywhere, though not always blurry.

Nicole fixing Kristin’s hair.

Bathroom at the Hennys’ rented lodge. The water pressure only lasted a few seconds with each push, like the sinks at public restrooms, and there wasn’t a tub, hence the floor wipey thing. I was able to finish a shower in only three pushes of the water.

The happy couple.

Sausages at the reception, yum.

Crisps. Salt and vinegar.

Reception. In nod to our wedding, Kristin named her tables after books too, except hers were Dr. Seuss books. The reception was held up this mountain in a national park, beautiful.

The dinner menu. I tried a little bit of everything.

Clockwise from the left. Salmon, mashed potatoes, more potatoes, haggis, neeps, and lots of venison. The salmon was good, the neeps interesting, the venison gamier than expected, and the haggis was…I think I called it liver meatloaf.

Close up of haggis with whiskey sauce. It was ok, but I wouldn’t have it often. It was served in a buffet bin so I missed out on seeing the stuffed sheep’s stomach.

Raspberry dessert.

Toasting whiskey. It was probably good, but I couldn’t tell, since all strong liqueurs taste like turpentine to me. 

Tablets of sugar and butter.

I took a brief video of the kind of Scottish dancing we were doing. Cole and I tried a few of the dances, but I was knocked out of the fray for awhile because of a few misplaced steps by my partner (in other words, nicole stepped on me a few times).

We danced late into the night, and by the time they carted us off the mountain, we were all exhausted. I think we finally went to bed around 4am.

The morning after, on the way to the train station. It was cold, in the 40s. Cole wore shorts.

On the train back to London, we saw this pastoral scene of cows and power plant.

Alright, last full day…

By this point we’re both beyond tired, even more so than when we first arrived, but the Tower of London was waiting.

Me.

Where they keep the crown jewels…hahaha…oh, not that funny.

Our beefeater guide.

Medieval toilet! The waste falls down a chute into the moat. We were told that the moat also served as the local dump. Innovative defense system.

Lunch at the popular noodle chain Wagamama. Sadly, their idea of ramen isn’t all that similar to real ramen. I would call this chili noodle as opposed to miso ramen. 

And that’s all I have. There were a few more bits, like watching the play Woman in Black, which was not all frightening or as amazing as the reviews claimed. Walking through Covent Garden was neat, as was Regeant Park and the Queen’s Garden. But, packing calls. I’m hoping that cole will fill in the holes in the trip. All in all London was the way I’ve always it imagined it being, like a quieter, older, more quaint New York (not to mention sootier, but with China I guess I better get used to it).

I would definitely go back, but next time we’ll try to take it easy, since we both got a little sick from all the traveling. A lesson that we’ll take with us to Japan.

Next up moving, good-bye party, and…Japan!

London calling part one

Preparing and leaving for London put me and cole into some kind of weird time warp, meaning that somewhere along the way we either lost or gained a day. Of course, we didn’t plan any of the trip until the night before leaving. By the time we were done, it was already way too late.

Lucky for us, the flight over on Virgin Atlantic was great (though as a warning to hungry travelers, the terminal with Virgin has no food at all). Everything else went smoothly, and since the plane was small, there were only two seats to each side, so cole and I had our own row.

cole with noise-cancelling headphones on, perfect for blocking out the piercing cries of babies.

I fell in love a bit with the tiny coke can they gave me. I think my exact words were, “this can is so cute, I just can’t take it.” In the background is the movie I ended up watching. There were 64 movies to choose from (64!) so it was hard a decision, fraught with emotion, but I finally picked No Country For Old Men, which was chock full of random violence. I can’t say it was a good movie, but I’ll remember it. I paused it at the best scene: when a coin is flipped for the shop clerk’s life, but he doesn’t realize the significance.

Little coke can, gotta love it.

My in-flight dinner. This was served at about 4:00am NYC time. The brown stuff is pot roast, next to mashed potatoes; suprisingly good. Note my second can of coke.

 

By the time we got to our hotel in Paddington (via an hour long tube ride), we were beyond tired. Walking carcesses basically. The hotel was located on a quiet residential street. Very quaint.

Our room proved to be the smallest hotel room ever! (ok ok, I know there are those coffin hotel places in Japan, but this was the smallest room I’ve ever stayed in). It consisted of a narrow walkway, a bathroom where you could touch both sides of the walls if you stretched your arms out, and a bed, which also served as the living room/desk area. We were lucky that the room was clean and comfortable though. In fact, we tested out the bed right away by passing out on it for four hours upon arriving.

   

After we woke up and rubbed the drool of our faces (or maybe it was just my face), we made our way over to nearby Hyde Park. We found all sorts of funny fowl, including inbred friends (for explanation, visit cole’s site). The park was exactly what we needed to feel slightly alive again.

For dinner, I dragged cole to this Indian chain I looked up before leaving, The Masala Zone.

We both had some form of chicken curry, mine was Mangalore and hers was the butter chicken. Both were tasty but a lot spicier than the curry we get back home.

On the way to dinner, I spotted this door promising “extreme information.” I did not enter the door, and now I’ll never know how extreme their information could have been. Quite extreme I’m sure.

The rest of the night, we decided to do what came most naturally to two literary geeks…hanging out in a bookstore.

I had heard about the London Borders back in those long ago college years, when I used to work at the Bridgewater location, and I’ve always wondered what an English Borders would be like. 

The West End store was actually similar to the old World Trade Center one; lots of levels with interesting corners. In general, the Brits seem to have fewer hardcovers than we do, and their books are much cheaper. The average trade paperback is like 8 pounds. That might be $16 for us because of the crappy exchange rate, but for them it’s not that bad at all. Um…sorry about all the book talk, old publishing habits and such.

The first books I looked for were those of my favorite author, Haruki Murakami. I was all excited when I found out that he’s as popular in London as he is in the US; I thought that maybe I’ll score some UK versions for my library…then I saw the covers and my heart broke a little.

Yep, that’s right. To the Brits, Murakami = trashy Japanese erotica.

Seriously, look at those covers. They make no sense at all relative to the novels. I can hear the cover design meeting: “Literary merit? Bah, who needs that? Just stick a naked Japanese girl on the cover, that’ll sell.”

 

Compare that to our versions. Sigh…

Anyway, that was the first night.

We survived the cross-Atlantic trip.

Part two coming up.

Beijing exercising

A brief article about another American transport (via a shady Parisian pub) to China…pole dancing for exercising. Hmm, I’ll stick with running.

London round-up coming soon.

Other places we will miss

Continuing our tour of favorite places, this past Thursday cole and I tackled the Met and Central Park. I’ve always loved the Met, from school field trips to eventually proposing to cole in the American Wing cafe; the Met’s just one of those places that I never get tired of (except when I do, you know, actually get physically tired, more on that later).

Usually, when we make a Met trip, cole and I have a specific exhibit or wing in mind (otherwise we would wander for days), this time though, since it was a farewell visit, the two of us took our time, and found a few areas and items that we don’t normally see.

    

Phallic much?

Can’t escape China: a little foreshadowing.

Cole being upset that we can’t figure out how to use the new cam.

One of the places we saw for the first time was the rooftop deck, where I originally planned to make my proposal back in the day. But, since I could never find the darn place, I changed it to the American Wing. It worked out for the better anyway, since the rooftop wasn’t really the most romantic place in the world.

View from the roof

I asked her to kneel there….Sorry, didn’t realize they were naked.

One of the coping methods that we’ve developed for any long activity (especially museum trips) is the pit stop, which often includes food, diet coke, and whenever possible, some kind of chocolate. Hungry us equals bad times, so regular feedings are essentially. This pit stop was in the museum cafeteria, where they have a very tasty pasta with marinara sauce, and this incredibly good chocolate tart.

Yum

The current Met special exhibit is superheroes. I was expecting more of a history of, with examples of art and comic books, but the exhibit was really about superhero fashion. Does this mean I can wear my spider-man pjs again? (just like our 90s faded ripped jeans are in again, right? you know, the pair of jeans we all had that were so thin that there was barely any fabric left, with holes in both knees and likely one in the crotchal region as well? Um..no, I guess not).

I was scolded for taking this picture.

After the Met, we decided to walk through the park. Being in the park made me wonder how the botanical gardens in Shanghai will be, since we’ll be living right next to them. Will we find places to run? What about scary mimes? Where will we find them? And a convienent area to stash dead bodies, that will be missed.

The cutest ducks ever…really, zoom in and take a look.

Days like Thursday made me realize how much I’ll miss NYC. I mean, I’ve always known I’ll miss it, but the fact that we won’t be back for at least a year, probably two, is finally sinking in.

The next day, I had lunch in the 2nd Ave Deli with former Tor co-workers Mel W, Sarah L, and Linda F. It was a little odd because the 2nd Ave Deli is no longer on 2nd Ave, but rather 3rd, and in midtown instead of the LES. That old school charm was definitely missing. Still, the menu seemed about right (a bit overpriced at around $15 a sandwich, but I guess that’s what you can do when you’re the 2nd ave deli), all the classics were there. I figured that since I was at a Jewish deli, I might as well order the matza ball soup and corned beef sandwhich. Both standards were better than average, almost great.

At the end of the meal they gave us shots of some sort of chocolate soda. It tasted exactly like…carbonated chocolate milk. I finished it, but you can make your own conclusions.

It was sad knowing that I wouldn’t be seeing my tor buddies in awhile, though I tried not to focus on that. I don’t want every get together to be one long goodbye, even if that’s what it is. I can pretend at least.

In any case, seeing them was a nice break from the packing. Oh, the packing.

Next up, bloody London.

The Dolphin Hotel

There’s this part in Murakami’s Wild Sheep Chase where the main protagonist and his girlfriend visit The Dolphin Hotel. It’s this small, slightly run-down place in the country side, on the part of a Japanese island known mostly for its sheep. To sum it up, the couple stays in the hotel and has a peaceful night, and the next morning, the girlfriend disappears. We never find out where she ends up; she’s gone and that’s it. Nothing you can do about it.

What does this have to do with leaving for China? Er, not sure yet. But I do know that our wall of boxes keeps on growing and our shelves are just about empty. 

 

We’re half disappearing and half transporting I guess. Most of our stuff will eventually be moved into this tiny storage place in Mahwah, New Jersey. All those knick-knacks that build up over the years, like our collection of magnets. (this is just a small sample…really, it’s kinda out of control, like our mug collection).

Not saying that we’ll fall off the face of the earth, but maybe we will, just a little bit. Then again, it’s almost to the point where if I think about it too much, I won’t sleep because of all the excitement/nervousness.

 Looking at the calender, it’s a week before the traveling starts with England. Crazy.

On another note, during another visit to my parents’ house in Queens, I found out that mosquitoes like cole a lot more than they like me. Her blood is just tastier than mine.

And for kicks, here’s a photo of my mom rubbing cole with anti-itch cream.

Mmm, Mopiko.

We almost did book a hotel on that sheep island (northern Hokkaido), but decided against it at the last moment because it was far out of the way. We’ll get there eventually, and hopefully neither one of us will disappear.

Yi to nets

I forgot to mention how excited I am about Yi Jianlian’s trade to the Nets. Sure, the Nets had to get rid of Jefferson and any chances of a winning season to get him, but now that Yi is on the team, there’s one clear positive…and that is that I get to watch Nets games while in China!

There’s a more than likely possibility though considering the roster, that I might wish that the games weren’t broadcasted. Also, the fact that there’ll be millions of new Nets fans that probably have no clue where East Rutherford is will be a little annoying, but having the words “fans” and “Nets” in the same sentence is rare enough, unless they’re combined with “lack of”. I’m sure the new Chinese fans will get indoctrinated in the yearly suffering that comes with watching the Nets soon enough. Oh, how I long for those Sherman Douglas, Johnny Newman, Jim McIIviane days…

I’ll make sure to score myself a Yi Chinese national team jersey.