July 31, 2008

We went into London today to meet up with some old friends of G's from undergrad, and had an interesting adventure in the midst of it. We gained a new level of appreciate for the Tube trains (the Underground=subway=Tube train) and rode on at least 3 new lines. We also enjoyed some fab food in Chinatown. London is a crazy place, as you'll see from the photos. :)

We decided to checkout a part of London known as Camden Town. At one point I expect Camden Town was it's own town, outside of the city of London, but as London has grown ever outward from it's starting point on the Thames, many places that are mentioned as villages in Jane Austen's books, as being 16 miles from London, now ARE London. I think Camden Town was one of those places. Anyway it's a very strange place- cool, but strange. :) There are tons of great little open air markets (which score very highly in my book of "is this a cool place or not") and loads of interesting shops. Tatoo parlors, Chinese restaurants, a million shops selling hats, Doc Martens, Goth clothing, girly clothing, and who knows what else. There's also a lock there for boats which are travelling up and down the Thames- it's only big enough for riverboats really. My favorite thing about Camden Town is the strange artlike sculptures on the buildings...everything from giant tarantulas, goldfish, and dragons to playing cards and clothing. Camden Town is a photographer's paradise- strangely dressed people of all cultures mingled together with strange buildings, tourists, police officers, and who knows what else. It's a real cornucopia. :)

Camden Town's "downtown" area.

Full of little market stalls like this one- anyone for a pink hat?

Where scorpions hold shoes and dragons perch on the wall about to eat you. :)

This is a Chinese restaurant, and the dragon's head has glowing eyes, and it moves from side to side like it's about to eat you- as if it was a human restaurant for dragons. :)

These ladies must get stared at all the time- they were chatting away on their cellphones, shopping for lingerie and clothes, and doing the same sorts of things as everyone else. Except they also wore burkhas. I'd have thought if you could wear a burkha anywhere and not get stared at it'd have been Camden Town. But apparently not.

I'm calling this photo "We're normal women with normal lives"

Every single store down here claims to have the Original Dr. Martens. In addition this store caters to the Goth and Sexy crowds apparently. :)

This is my personal favorite- Punkyfish. I think it must be selling piercing jewelry, but Punkyfish doesn't seem too happy about living on the side of the building, and definitely is not approving of the directions these 2 policemen are giving that lady in the front. :)

G's friends have 4 children, and are on their way to Tanzania where they will be doing IT work with Wycliffe. They had a 12 hour layover in London, and decided to get one of those little rooms that you can rent at the airport (they're called Yotels, as in Yo-tells) and try to get some sleep. Well they ended up oversleeping, leaving them scrambling to try to get into London, and us wondering what happened to them, but eventually with some dvine intervention we managed to find them. :) We rode back to Heathrow with them as well, to give them a hand with their luggage and stuff. Given that there are 6 of them, and they're moving to Tanzania where they expect to be for 3-4 years, they had more than the usual amount of luggage. :) And kudos to G for fast thinking when his friend realized his wallet had fallen out on the Tube train out to Heathrow- G ran all the way back to our train car and found it! Fortunately we didn't have to stop the train, which I was preparing to do by standing in the doorway of the nearest train car. :)

After seeing them off we went to Chinatown for some wonderful jaotse (Chinese dumplings) and then we went to the London Eye, the HUGE ferris wheel (500ft high!) right on the river Thames that was built in celebration of the millenium. The view is amazing from up there. On our way to get to the Eye we had a little excitement, in that we followed the proper signs to leave the train station, they just took us all the way around the building first. Things were fine until we started heading toward what they call here a "subway" which means a walking path under a highway. My "is this a good idea?" alarm went off the closer we got, but we decided we'd just poke our heads in a bit, and if it was dodgy we'd go back the other way. The graffiti on the sign pointing into the walkway was NOT encouraging. :) Anyway it was a pretty much deserted road/walkway under the train station, but it was covered in the most amazing graffiti- it seemed safe, and we decided to maintain our vigilance and keep the cameras hidden just in case. Well it turns out that it's actually a designated graffiti area for graffiti artists- there's nothing dodgy about it at all! But you can never be too careful from my point of view. :) In any case when we got to the end and it was clearly signed as a special graffiti project we were like "Oh! Couldn't you have marked that way back at the beginning?!" So we took some photos of the graffiti, and I may go back again on my own to photograph some more- I wish I could get some photographs of them actually painting, but that's not likely because there is no way I am going there at night alone. :) I'm thinking of contacting the organization that runs the wall to see if any of the graffiti folks might like some nice photos of their artwork.

Have you ever seen Anime graffiti before? This guy is really good! Or it could be a girl for all I know. :)

You can see why we might feel a little creepy walking into a street like this. But still, quite amazing skill levels these people have I think.

Anyway after the graffiti row we made it to the London Eye- it is impossible to describe just how big this thing is. You can see if from all over the city, but until you're standing right under it you just don't know how huge it is. It's a bit expensive to ride, but well worth it- it's a 30 min ride, and you can see 26 miles on a clear day from the very top. We didn't have very sunny weather but we did end up with a great sunset that evening.

The famous Houses of Parliament. That's a very teeny looking
red doubledecker bus on the bridge as well.
The river is the Thames (pronounced mysteriously as Temms)
and I don't recommend swimming in it- it's pretty disgusting. :P

A random view of the skyline of London. The building that
looks like a missile is called The Gherkin because
it supposedly looks like a giant pickle.
I feel like it looks like a missile launch site. :)

There are lots of interesting architectural styles on the riverside.

These are the glass pods you ride in. They have a bench and will
fit about 20 people comfortably.

It looks just like a gigantic bicycle wheel actually. :)

All in all our time in London was good. We loved spending time with G's friends, and I particularly enjoyed the photography to be had in such an urban environment. I'm not a city person, and I really can't imagine what would possess a person to want to live forever in a place like this, but I can appreciate that it's very interesting for a short time. If you really want to see London I recommend staying in London for about a week.

The London Eye looking out over the Thames at sunset.

The Clock Tower (mistakenly called Big Ben by everyone around the world)
in which the bell called Big Ben resides.