Shanghai Museum, Tianzifang, Yuyuan Gardens, French Concession and the Maglev :)

There are many, many milk tea shops in Shanghai, some with long queues outside. It's a little more difficult to find coffee shops (especially ones that aren't Starbucks or Costa) but we managed to find a good one near People's Square and had coffee and a muffin for breakfast on Saturday, then wandered through the park at People's Square, admiring the extremely impressive giant floral sculpture before checking out Shanghai Museum. We saw ancient bronze artefacts and jade ornaments, beautiful pottery from ancient times up until the late nineteenth century, calligraphy and lovely paintings. There was also a visiting exhibition of landscapes from the Tate Britain, so a whole range of things to see.

We found a nice restaurant and had dumplings, shallot pancakes, rice cakes and Chinese broccoli for lunch (so much food) then wandered through Tianzifang, which is an old area of former workshops, now with many small shops ranging from boutiques and art studios to souvenir shops and little craft businesses. There are winding alleys like Xintiandi, but many more of them and not so perfectly manicured, which gives it more of a charm I think.

Mr Dr L was on shopping duty at the Baby Sale to End All Baby Sales, so we had running updates through the day on the 70% off deals for baby Dr L, arriving in September. We met up with him in the evening to go to Yuyuan Gardens, where the ancient temple of the city god is, but the main attraction here was the newer streets of old-style buildings with lights on all the roofs and shops and food everywhere. The place (like most places in Shanghai) was buzzing, and we spent a while trying to find the best place to get a stone seal carved with my name in Chinese. In the end, the best price and the nicest stones were from a man at a little store, who power-drilled the characters into the stone and demonstrated the seal on gold-leaf-sprinkled rice paper.

People were wandering around with large dumplings with straws sticking out of them, which I had heard of before and wanted to try. They were sold out at one busy food court place, but we found a small restaurant that did them for 20 yuan (about $4 Australian), which Mr Dr L thought was expensive, even for a large dumpling. It was good though - crab soup inside that you suck up the straw, and then pull apart the rest with chopsticks. I also tried Nanjing rice balls with sweet sesame filling which were pretty good, served in a clear soup.

On the way back to the metro station, we passed several large groups of older people line dancing to multiple sets of loud, duelling music. Apparently this is outlawed near many residential buildings because of the noise it makes, but it's extremely popular with older generations, and the younger generations complain about the noise and people dancing late into the night...

My final day in Shanghai, we went to find the French Concession, which is actually a very large district that contains Xintiandi and Tianzifang (so we'd actually already been there multiple times). After a good brunch in Xintiandi, we walked down streets lined with plane trees and tiny shops to find a neighbourhood of some old French Concession buildings, Si Nan Mansions. There was a market on with stalls of jewellery and tea, as well as a man who was making candy floss flowers. Most of the buildings here have been converted into shops, restaurants, breweries or Starbucks/Costa, though some still seem to be lived in. We came upon Zhou En-Lai's house, which is now a museum describing the shaky times in the 1940s when the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party were vying over rule - the Kuomintang posted secret spies across the road, which the CPC guards had to keep an eye on.

After some more wandering we found Bridge 8, which is an old car factory now turned into a creative district with a huge art and design bookshop with books all up the three-storey walls, but which was invitiation only (a bit frustrating). Across the road there was an art gallery with an exhibition that Dr L said was from Korea - I didn't realise until later that she meant North Korea. The many, many paintings were beautiful, but a huge range of styles all mixed up together, with impressionist cherry blossom scenes, idyllic farmland, happy workers in a factory, stylish young women in traditional or modern dress, horses, mountains, romantically crashing waves upon cliffs... I was particularly struck by a wall-sized seemingly-dystopian painting of Blade Runner-like modern towers at the edge of a harbour with traditional fishing boats moored below, wreathed in mist, juxtaposed with a natural landscape on its adjacent wall. Definitely an experience, and one I quite enjoyed.

Next up was Fuxing Park, which is one of the oldest public parks in the city and beautifully manicured. There were lots of families running around on the main grass area and people flying kites, people sitting under wrought iron arches with ivy running over them, around fountains and the swirling rose garden beds. By this time we were getting quite tired, so we looked for a cafe that wasn't Starbucks or Costa and managed to find a beautiful one in an old house near the park, filled with interesting antiques, a verdant bricked courtyard and an upstairs with a bar, Tiffany lamps and 30s music.

Soon it was time to get my bags and make for the airport for the next leg of my trip. Dr L and Mr Dr L kindly took me to an easy transfer point for the maglev train to the airport, which takes 8 minutes to go the 30km to the airport. Some of them are express trains and go over 400km/hr, but unfortunately I didn't get one of those and we only got up to 301km/h. Amazing to see everything speeding past like you're in a plane about to lift off.

And then I was onto my 18 hour trip to Stockholm...

Amsterdam Days 5 & 6: Van Gogh, Flea Markets and Flying Back

I'm back in the UK now, and on a train to Ipswich. I like how fast the trains go, it really makes you feel as if you're getting somewhere. I got back to London on Thursday morning, and have had barely enough time to watch four movies at the cinema before going off again for a nice visit with the rellies in Ipswich.

Okay, now that I've written that, the train is going slowly. Hmm. Where's the 'faster than fairies, fast than witches/Bridges and houses and hedges and ditches'?

Anyway, I have been a bit slack (I always seem to do this with the last few days of a holiday - I think 'I will write it all up as soon as I get home!' and then I go to four movies instead). I got up to my last full day in Amsterdam, which started earlier than any other because I had an exhibition to get to. So, I left the hostel at 10am, after a nice almost-pat of the cat, who was sitting with its back to me on the table.

The sun was out, and it was almost warm. Apparently the canals freeze over later in the winter and people skate everywhere, which was hard to believe with the sun shining slants of light past the tall houses and irregular rooftops and the water sliding dreamily by. I had to keep stopping to take photos, and by the time I got to the Van Gogh exhibition (held in the world's first Stock Exchange. I think.) I thought I'd have to queue. But no! I paid my money, collected my 3D glasses and descended, at the security guard's indication, down some stairs, past the ladies loos and into the exhibition.

This seemed somewhat strange, but after the first few paintings I forgot about everything else. The idea of the exhibition is to bring together 200 works by Van Gogh and present them digitally retouched so you see the original colours, rather than the faded versions of today. This means there aren't any actual Van Gogh paintings in the exhibition, but it's still amazing to see these paintings you know so well in their full vibrancy. Van Gogh used early synthetic paints which have faded pretty badly over time, so blues and reds sometimes don't come through. As well as the remastered paintings, some of the most famous works have been interpreted through 3D animation, which was pretty cool.

The final section of the exhibition was held in the vaults of the building, which explained the location in the basement. It showcased paintings now lost, whether through fire, Nazi repossession or burglary, presented in actual safes.

After some wandering around the streets and across the bridges (sometimes rather frenzied wandering, as I got later and more lost), I met TOWSR in the main square. There was a lion dance happening, complete with extremely loud ground-level fireworks and copious clouds of smoke, so we watched that for a while before going to find the flea markets.

I had very little money on me (I was determined not to change any more pounds to euros) but we had a good time admiring the wares and checking out the lego buildings of the old Jewish quarter. Last stop on our itinerary was the supermarket, then dinner and sleep. I had to leave at 7.15 the next morning.

It was still dark, and I realised as I walked to the bus stop that I didn't actually know what a bus stop looked like. Were they in the same place as the tram stops? I didn't think they shared stops. I ended up walking well past the invisible bus stop and on through Museumplein, which I hadn't seen properly and was actually quite nice. Finally I found a bus stop (just past the tram stop, and on top of the tram lines rather than on the road) and got on the next bus to the airport.

Schipol airport is a lot like a gigantic mall, with added check-in desks and holes in the floor through which you descend to the train station. On the plane, our pilot came out of the cockpit and told us he'd be flying the plane, and if anyone wanted to get off now they could. The flight was quick, into London's sixth airport Southend, customs even quicker and then I and my new plane-buddy got a train to Stratford. Of London airports, I think it's probably the quickest and easiest, bar City. And finally, home!

Well, actually, Stratford Westfield mall, Pitch Perfect (awesome) and then home.

Turkey Days 7 and 8: Pamukkale, Night Buses and Istanbul's Grand Bazaar

I'm back in London now, and it's about twenty degrees cooler than it was in Turkey. Back to work tomorrow...

The day after Ephesus and our Turkish bath, we got a shuttle to the train station for our train to Denizli, a town further inland famous for cotton. The train was very full and we took a while to find seats, and once we did I spent the remaining three hours sleeping, or looking it the window at the tall hills and fields and towns. From Denizli we took a bus to Pamukkale, which is famous for its white terraces.

When I was tiny, we used to get pizza from a place with a poster of the terraces displayed proudly on the wall, and I always wanted to go there. I was very excited when I saw it was included on the itinerary, and it was just as amazing as I'd thought. You can see it as a white section of hill as you approach, and then as you get closer the white resolves into cliffs and terraces and tiny dots of people moving up and down. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant where the owner performed dramatic caricatures of each of our nationalities (including an attempted haka), then reapplied our sunscreen to every bit of exposed skin and walked up to the terraces.

At first it looks a lot like a ski slope, but when you get right on the travertines you feel the rough calcium beneath your feet and see the rivulets of water and patterns in the stone. I decided the texture was most like dragon skin, and if anyone ever needs to take a plaster cast of a material for a movie or some such thing, they should go to Pamukkale.

In the eighties the terraces had hotels built on top of them and a road following them up (actually on the travertines. Can't quite believe it) but when they became a World Heritage Site they demolished the hotels and replaced the road with artificial pools. The pools still look particularly man-made, but I guess they're a lot better than the road and the hotels. You're still allowed to walk on the travertines as long as you don't wear shoes, but you're not really supposed to swim in the pools because it contaminates the water that should be forming the travertines. Lots of people do, however, and I wondered if they had some kind of system in place so that the water is directed over the natural travertines when the tourists aren't there, and over the man-made parts (which don't matter so much in my opinion) when they aren't. The natural pools didn't have any water running over them when we were there, so hopefully they're doing something like that.

By the time we reached the top my feet were a bit raw and everyone was very hot. There are ruins of the ancient city of Hieropolis at the top, as well as a swimming pool with real ancient columns in it and a place where you can have Doctor Fish 'give you a pedicure' (eat dead skin off your feet). Five of us tried the Doctor Fish and spent the first few minutes squealing and clutching at the sides of the tank as all the other customers sat looking sophisticated. It got better after that, and after the fish and the Turkish bath we were confident there was no dead skin anywhere on our bodies.

We wandered around the ruins a bit and then made our way back down the travertines, which I think was better than coming up with the whole white expanse spread before you and the plains below and the mountains in the distance. Absolutely incredible.

We had our last group dinner on the roof of a hotel beneath grape vines and left the Aqueduchess to continue her journeys in Cappadoccia, where they filmed the cave-house bits of Star Wars. The rest if us took a bus back to Denizli before getting a luxury night bus all the way to Istanbul. I managed to sleep about half the way, but by the time we got to Istanbul I was very tired. Our airport shuttle didn't leave until 1pm, so we spent the morning wandering the Grand Bazaar and using up most (or in my case, all) of our money. I think I got some good deals - best was 75% off, but that was more because I didn't have the correct change than because of my skill in bargaining.

It was sad to say goodbye to our group, but I think we'll stay in touch. Glamgirl and I were on the same flight back to London. We ate far too much free sample Turkish Delight in Istanbul Airport and searched for chocolate and Swiss army knives on our stop in Zurich airport. I found chocolate in the shape of a Swiss army knife, and then we boarded the plane with the least hassle I've ever encountered - no lines, just scan your own ticket, show your passport and walk onto the plane where everyone was very calm and reserved. I was amazed by the flight attendants' ability to switch immediately between French and English and German.

Now considering a trip to Barcelona. Hmmm.

 

 

Istanbul Day 2: Mosques, Spice Markets and the Aya Sofya

I've had about five hours sleep and I don't do very well on five hours sleep so I'm not sure how coherent this post will be. I apologise in advance.

So. After a nice Turkish breakfast we set out on a walking tour of old Istanbul. Our first visit was to the Blue Mosque, which was just as crowded as the day before, and quite noisy. We recovered in a cafe in the square near the sixteenth-century university, where I tried Turkish coffee for the first time. It is thick, though possibly not quite thick enough to stand your spoon up in (I'd heard you could do this) and comes in a small cup. The coffee is ground up very fine and stirred in so you drink quite a lot of grounds, but it's not as unpleasant as when you drink normal coffee grounds - in fact it's quite nice. At the end you're left with about a centimetre of coffee grounds in the bottom, which you can use to tell fortunes.

The next stop was the Sulaimayne Mosque, which I enjoyed a lot more than the Blue Mosque - far fewer people and richer, more vibrant decorations. The architect considered this mosque his master work and spent a lot of time getting the acoustics right, so when you speak the sound softly echoes around the building. Even with people talking it's very peaceful and you just have to sit and gaze and take it all in. The windows high up around the dome throw light on the gold, red and blue paintwork and white walls, and electric lights glow gold on high ledges and low chandeliers. The garden of the mosque looks out over the city and harbour, and I was amazed at how high we'd climbed.

Back out on the streets we wound through lots of little alleyways and streets with steps. We saw one building covered completely in colourful randomly-applied mosaic tiles, which gave an interesting inside-out bathroom feel, and many ancient-looking walls with ivy holding higgledy-piggledy stones together. Our third mosque of the day was quite small (compared to the previous ones) and reached through a winding medieval staircase. It's called the Rustem Pasa Mosque and is, I think, more deserving of the name Blue Mosque than the Blue Mosque is. The blue tiles in this one are a deep royal blue and come right down to the ground, whereas the ones in the other mosques began above eye-level, I guess to lead your thoughts towards the heavens.

A few more turns through the cobblestones streets and we were at sea level again. Our guide suggested fish-in-bread for lunch, so we picked a brightly painted and gilded boat at the dock and got our fish-in-bread for five lira (a little less than three pounds). The boat was wildly rocking on the wakes of ships going past, to the point it almost looked like it might tip over, and service had to stop until the water calmed again. You'd have to have very good balance to work in that fast-food place. The fish was pretty good, though I seemed to have received the entire group's share of bones and spent a lot of time picking them out from between my teeth.

We had an afternoon full of free time, so we split up. My roommate Kiwi Glamgirl and I took a wander through the spice market and spent a lot of time in one shop where the man poured spices into our hands to sample and let us smell all the beautiful teas. We came out with quite a bit of tea, some spices, Turkish delight and a pepper grinder apiece, and could have bought a lot more (the man told us we were shopping like students when we kept saying 'no! That's enough! Enough!').

We dropped our purchases at the hotel and followed the tram line up to the Aya Sofya, which is the former church-mosque-now-museum straight across from the Blue Mosque. It was built in the fifth century, if my memory's giving me the right info, and is absolutely huge. It's still in the top five biggest religious buildings in the world. The interior was originally covered in mosaics but then plastered over when it became a mosque, but they've uncovered some of them so you can see. The entire building seems to be made of marble and the domed ceiling soars above you - it's so high they had to build it three times before it would stay up. There are lots of Roman arched everywhere, and it was incredible to think that the reason you only see round Roman arches is that they hadn't yet invented pointed arches when they built the Aya Sofya.

We climbed up stone ramps, round and round and round, to get to the gallery where most of the mosaics were and to look down on the vast floor below. As in the other mosques, low-hanging wrought iron frames held sparkling lights and the walls were decorated with flowers and Arabic calligraphy. I tried to get some pictures of the vibrant stained glass windows, but they never seem to show up properly on my camera.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the surrounding parks and shops (we were given some apple tea by one of the shopkeepers) and sitting on the grass outside Topkapi Palace. We met up with the rest of the group for dinner at a fill-a-plate style cafe, where I had a very rich moussaka, and then walked across the bridge and took pictures of the sunset and peach-lit mosques.

Our guide was very enthusiastic about taking the second-oldest metro on the world up to Taksim. The metro, unlike the oldest metro in London, actually looks like it was built in the nineteenth century, with brick walls and only one carriage. It reminded me very much of the Wellington cable car, because it runs on the same principle: two cars on cables that start at either end of the track and cross in the middle.

This side of the river is more where everyday Istanbulites spend their time, away from the tourists. The are seventeen million people in Istanbul, and while the streets weren't that crowded (I.e. you could walk in a straight line without banging into anyone for most of the time) there were still so many more people than you might expect at nine o'clock on a Sunday night. Most of the people at the cafes and restaurants and bars were men, so I guess the women mostly stay at home.

We climbed many flights of a spiral staircase to get to a roof terrace open to the night sky and had a good time chatting and getting to know our group better. I ordered a mojito in a bottle, expecting it to be mixed with rum or vodka, but it turned out to be a mojito-flavoured beer. I do not like beer. I managed to get through about half of it, concentrating on the mojito taste and not the beer.

By the time we got back to the hostel it was nearing midnight and we had to catch a bus at six-thirty a.m., hence my five hours sleep. I'm now writing this on the bus to Gallipoli (probably should be using this time to sleep... Meh...) and looking out the window at the very New Zealand-esque landscape. Sunnier and drier, though.

(Are we nearly there yet?)

London Dungeon

Yesterday was a day for shopping and being tried for murder. Shopping was at Westfield Shepherds Bush, which I've decided I rather like. Unfortunately, the Central Line was closed at the station where i wanted to change to it, so I had to get out and brave the human obstacle course that is Oxford St to get to a station where the Central Line was running.

A girl handing out calico bags informed me that her shop had a half-price sale that I should check out. I went to find it. It had a grand piano at the entrance with someone playing Chopin, and I decided that, even if it was 50% off, it probably wasn't my kind of shop.

Later, I met a few friends at the London Dungeon, which is under London Bridge. It has a slight historic element to it, in that there's a section on the fire of London and on the Plague and on Jack the Ripper, but mostly it's just about people dressing up in costumes and scaring you. The actors were really good, jumping out and terrifying people by yelling at inopportune moments and ganging up on involuntary volunteers. One of my friends had his arm cut off by a seventeenth century surgeon, while another was burnt at the stake for heresy. The experience ended with being hanged, and then we were allowed to exit through the gift shop.

All in all, an interesting day.

Pizza, Shopping and Toadstools

I went on a mission to Shepherd's Bush on Saturday, for shopping and pizza. I failed, pretty much, at shopping (though I've earmarked a few things for later consideration), and trekked for ages to get special NZ pizza from Hell with chicken, cranberry and camembert. Mmmm.

There were a lot of people at the mall, being Saturday afternoon. I was in the midst of a moving crowd of people when I saw a poster in a shop window with a man digging up a giant toadstool on top of a hill.

I stopped dead. I stared. People had to move around me.

(This needs back story. When I was quite young, I went on holiday to Auckland, NZ, and slid down the side of a volcano with giant metal/concrete toadstools on top of it. I have never been able to find this particular volcano again [there are 50 volcanoes in Auckland] and everyone I ask stares at me when I talk about giant toadstools. I was beginning to think I'd imagined it.)

But there it was, in full colour on a poster in a mall in England!

I took a picture. I think everyone else thought I was weird.

Adventures in Ikea and a meal in GBK

Today I went to Ikea.

It was my first time. I had heard of Ikea, seen it in movies, but we do not have them in NZ and I had never actually been to one. I insisted on entering through the exit, then spent quite a while wandering around the self-serve area and wondering what the fuss was all about. Sure, they had pretty pictures of beds and wardrobes that you had to strain your neck to look at, but otherwise it was just a huge warehouse full of boxes.

Then I realised that, as the aisle I was in was labelled 53, the store must be quite a lot bigger than I'd first thought. I followed the aisles around and around, and, low and behold, mirrors! And plants! And travelators! (Going down to my floor, with none to get me upstairs. They seem determined to guide customers in one direction. There are even arrow painted on the floor. Of course, having come in at the exit, I determinedly ignored the arrows throughout my visit).

On the next floor was the Market Hall, with just about any smallish household thing you could think of (not the kitchen sink - that was the next section). I went past candles and vases and photo presentation solutions and sheets and pillows and curtains and cups and plates, until finally I saw a map.

Maps in Ikea seem only to show the section you are in. Thus, if you are in the Market Hall, a map will show you only the Market Hall. If you are in the Showroom, it will show you only the Showroom. There may have been hints as to how to get from one to the other, but I wasn't really paying attention, so I kept wandering and finally entered the Showroom.

My goal was to find a bookcase/bedside table that I would be able to carry home on public transport. This proved difficult, probably in large part because I wanted my exact previous bedside table, bright blue and NZ$10 at The Warehouse several years ago. I wound my way through the living room section, some of the bedroom section and the kid's section, against the arrows, and didn't find anything that was exactly right.

At one point I found myself standing in front of a bookshelf four times too big and more suited to dividing a room, but that really was a very good price and I'd kinda always wanted one and it would be quite nice... I could use it to divide my bedroom!

In the words of a guy to his girlfriend (overheard while I considered a stuffed toy broccoli sitting on a shelf) "Step away from the exciting storage solutions." My bedroom, while reasonably big, does not need dividing.

There were some scary things too: cupboard doors that opened and closed every two seconds in an exhibit about quality testing, and a bedside table thing that looked like it could be used to imprison someone (imagine one of those tea-trays with legs that sits over your lap for breakfast in bed. Now imagine it GIGANTIC and touching the floor on both sides of the double bed).

In the end I found a kitchen cabinet thing that seemed to do the job, so I got it and some pretty stick-on mirrors. I've now assembled it and placed it beside my bed, ignoring many of the instructions because I am not using it as a kitchen cabinet, and I'm quite pleased with it. Must find some way to brace it, though, because not attaching the backboard means it doesn't have anything but screws to keep it square...

Ikea is where you mix and match your life.

My next stop was Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which is a chain started by Kiwis. This was immediately apparent on walking in - tomato sauce bottles in the shape of tomatoes at each table, retro-bach-mismatch-chic chairs and a huge bowl of Minties on the counter. It was understated, nostalgic kiwiana, and it worked really well.

My burger was very good, and came with the skinniest fries I have ever seen. They were just about Borrower size. My L&P (World-Famous in NZ) was also very good, and the milkshakes they were serving came out in silver metal cups. The chill factor looked satisfactory - the metal was all misty up the side. If only I drank milk...

Anyway, a good day. I've decide I like Ikea and GBK. Next time I will try the Wellington burger and report back.

Weird Christmas shopping :)

I've had an awful cold this week, which kept me within a radius of a metre from the tissues and made me sleep a large amount of Friday. The UK has a whole different set of bugs to the ones I've built up immunity to so things affect me more.

That is my theory. Yes.

Anyway, when I haven't been in bed, I've been out Christmas shopping. I'm doing it a bit before the Christmas crowds, which is nice, but there were still lots of people struggling through the shops and dodging the salespeople who stand in the middle of the mall and try to attack you with hand lotion. I went to the new Westfield within spitting distance of the 2012 Olympic stadium and checked out the wares, which included Marmite chocolate, real elephant poo and advent calendars for cats (with little cat treats behind each window).

I wondered if they'd let elephant poo through customs, even if it was properly labeled and came from the National Geographic shop.

I think I like the design of the Shepherd's Bush Westfield better, but this one was a bit easier to find your way around. There were a few sales on, and I was sucked into one store to buy a half-price Electric Blue coat (cut like a soldier's uniform, where you can't lift your arms to surrender. I suppose I could have got the size up, but this one looked better). It is nice and warm and does up all the way to my neck, which is an improvement over the black and red Camden coat.

Now I just need to package everything up and send it halfway around the world...

Have a good week!

A post of two halves: Rugby and Shopping

For those of you who don't know, New Zealand beat France in an International Tournament of the Oddly Shaped Ball match this morning/last night (apparently you're not allowed to say the forbidden words Rug. Wold Cup). I haven't been paying that much attention to the Cup, so I thought I'd rectify this and go and watch the game.

Where to see it, though? I figured a pub in Shepherd's Bush would be a good bet (round where lots of Kiwis and Aussies live), and there was also the added plus of a huge shopping mall five minutes walk away. I wanted new shoes, so I decided to kill two birds with one (or three...) tube journeys (track and station closures make things difficult) and go to the rugby and the mall.

First off, I'll admit that I don't know that much about rugby. I enjoy watching it. I know about tries and conversions and line-outs and penalties, and I can do my rugby maths. But every so often the ref will do something seemingly at random, and I just have to accept that I'm missing something. For this reason, I will not attempt to describe the game itself. I'd probably bore those of you who don't know rugby, and infuriate those who do.

I didn't actually get there in time for kick-off (sleep seemed more important when my alarm went off), but there was still most of the first half left. They had a bouncer who ID'd people at the door, which felt strange at 9.45 in the morning, and I nabbed a spot behind some not-too-tall people to watch. There were lots of people in black clothes and All Blacks jerseys, the smell of stale beer, and multitudes of television screens.

I was wearing my 'home' T-shirt that has a map of NZ on it (given to me by the lovely Kaleidoscopic PhD Star Girl), and since I wasn't too keen on a beer this early in the day, I asked for a coke. Half-pint or pint? asked the barman. Uh.... I said. A pint?

Never had a pint of coke before.

And almost everyone spoke New Zild! I could hear the accent for a bit, but then I got used to it and began to feel as if I might be back home. The game was exciting, and there's something about being squashed into a room with a couple of hundred other people, staring up at a huge screen and screaming or groaning or going silent in unison. Some girls screamed in excitement when Sonny Bill Williams came on, and some guys rolled their eyes. A few times a cheer went up, but I'm not sure what it was for, especially as everyone seemed to be looking away from the screen.

Apparently, people see beauty in difficult things that are done well. I really like watching the players throw the ball to each other as they run down the field, and catch it as if their hands are covered with glue.

I trust that their hands are not covered in glue.

The English commentator kept talking about a previous French comeback in a Cup game, and how it could all turn round in the last twenty minutes. We waited with anxious breath, but when the final whistle blew the game went to the All Blacks.

Then it was time for Shopping.

The mall reminded me of Charles de Gaulle airport - huge white struts and a soaring irregular roof, everything white and modern and upmarket. I collected cinnamon pretzel samples and wandered the shops, which included a Pumpkin Patch and a Lego store, and searched for shoes and the Perfect Sixties Dress.

Fashion in London is bold, with bright colours and patterns and sometimes-strange styles. I have seen purple Leiderhosen, pastel rose-covered jeans and garish tops. Disneyland Tax Girl wanted to know if people actually wore this stuff. The answer is yes.

There is some really nice stuff too, though. I quite enjoy seeing what people wear, and I'm tempted to amass a wardrobe of clothes that I wouldn't wear in New Zealand. I saw a girl on the tube yesterday wearing a pearl necklace to make Lisa Simpson jealous, and a woman in the supermarket with makeup and hair done like Amy Winehouse.

I admired some clothes in one window and considered entering the shop, but then realised it was Armani, and thus not within my price range. In the end, I couldn't find the Perfect Sixties Dress, but I found some quite nice shoes. So it was a successful trip :)

I feel this post has been more than half about rugby. Ah well.

The London Underground (plus Jack the Ripper and Harrods)

I keep thinking I'll have one nice post with one nice topic in it, and then things happen and I think oh! I have to put that in as well. So you are treated/made to suffer multiple topics in a post.

So! The Underground was my planned main topic, because I was stuck for ten minutes just outside Victoria Station earlier this week. I'd spent five minutes trying to catch a Victoria line train, because the platform was so full and the trains were so full that three went past before I could squeeze my way on. Lucky the trains run every minute or so - I counted between one train leaving and the next arriving, and got to 22 seconds.

There were a lot of people on the platform, as afore-mentioned, and they were all trying to get the best spots to board the trains. This meant that people were standing right on the yellow line about a foot from the edge of the platform, and didn't tend to move when the train roared past them at high speed. Near the end of my stay on the platform, I ended up in this position, and had to will myself not to fall forward as the train blurred past just inches from my nose.

I boarded a train at last, and stood pressed up against the doors before getting to the tunnel outside Oxford Circus, where I've spent many a bored minute on my way to work (you often stop here while you wait for the previous train to leave the platform). The driver informed us that this was the case. We waited. The driver informed us that some of the doors on the next train would not close, and they were trying to fix the problem. For a second I thought - why not just go without the doors? - but then realised that probably wasn't very safe.

We waited. And waited a bit more. The driver of our train was very good and updated us regularly. Multiple official people were unable to close the doors, so the train had to be 'detrained'. Imagine an entire train, full to bursting with passengers, getting off at an already-full platform. This took a while. Finally the broken train moved off and our train was on its way again. There were now 'severe delays on the Victoria Line'. I was extremely glad I hadn't been able to get onto the previous train, as we went past all its former occupants on the Oxford Circus platform who couldn't fit onto our train, and probably not the next ten trains backed up behind us either (one a minute, remember).

On Friday night Disneyland Tax Girl, Disneyland Tax Guy and I went on a Jack the Ripper tour, visiting most of the scenes of the Jack the Ripper murders. It was extremely creepy listening to the guide in the old streets in the dusk and the rain, and imagining/trying not to imagine what it would have been like to live in Whitechapel, one of the worst slums of London, 120 years ago. I'm quite tempted to go and read up on Jack the Ripper now, but I think I might do it in daylight. Lots of fun, anyway.

Today was set aside by DTG as Shopping day, starting at Harrods and finishing in Oxford St. Harrods was impressive, as were the Saturday crowds, and we spent a few hours wandering around and staring at bags and shoes and confectionery and the building itself. We rode the Egyptian Escalator, which runs down the middle of the building in a shaft lined with Egyptian statues and carvings and paintings and mosaics.We admired the Gucci gumboots (wellingtons) and the great slabs of chocolate and fudge and the creme brulees and the caviar. I hadn't realised that you could, if so inclined, do your grocery shopping at Harrods, and I'm pretty sure I saw a girl who was doing so.

In other news, I now have a guitar. It is a mini guitar from the supermarket and I am dubious about its tuning, but it is a guitar and it is blue so I'm happy.

Have a good week!

Shadows of riots in London, shopping and tubes

Okay, so I have managed to stay out of the way of riots this week, which has been good. On Monday I was in Oxford Circus the night after some rioters were there (of course I didn't know this at the time) and there were a few police around. On Tuesday at lunchtime I saw nine police vans speed past towards the city with their sirens on and their lights flashing, and a few minutes later four police vans from Wales drove at normal speed away from the city. On Thursday at lunchtime I saw seven police vans with lights flashing and sirens going, this time over the Thames south-bound. Each time I checked the BBC to see if something was happening, but no clues as to why so many police vans were in such a hurry in the middle of the day.

Everything seems to be a bit quieter now, so hopefully it'll stay that way.

In other news, I have been enjoying having a bit of money to spend. As previously mentioned (in a post ages ago), one can not fit that much into a suitcase and keep it under 23kg, so I arrived in the UK with a total of two pairs of footwear, a few select pieces of casual wear and a few more select pieces of work wear. Recently I have realised that, somehow, much of my casual wear is grey, so I'll have to rectify that at some point. More important at the moment is work wear, and fortunately there are lots of sales on.

I spent rather longer at the mall today than I had planned, but made some good purchases including a pair of shoe/sandal things that I love, and which brings my total number of shoes up to six. Shopping at a major mall on a Saturday during sales probably wasn't the best idea, but I'm still in a phase where I'm awed and excited by lots of people, which you really don't get in New Zealand. Of course the crowds didn't really compare to Tokyo, where you had to make strategic moves across the footpath so you were in the best pedestrian flow.

Working means I've been taking the tube lots, and while there are masses of people at rush hour, it's nowhere near what it is in Tokyo. In Tokyo, I boarded a train where people were running at the doors and forcing themselves on with sheer momentum, because there was such a squash inside. Most of the trains here are smaller, too - they have to fit inside the small tunnels - but people have their own little bubbles, even when other people are waiting to board. I think the English just like their personal space.

Another random fact about the Underground: no rubbish bins. For obvious reasons.

Have a good week people!

Durham and Camden Markets

Soooo... Still haven't seen a squirrel. I've been told I should go and stand in a park with a handful of nuts. I might try that, when I really get desperate. I would love a pet squirrel, though apparently they're not very trainable. At the moment I suppose I can settle for an acrobatic hamster that hides under floorboards.

My lovely hostess was driving up to Durham on Monday to retrieve Indiana Jane, and I was invited along. In four hours we were most of the way to Scotland, and drawing into Durham (which is much smaller than I thought, with most of the population being students).

Durham has an amazing castle and cathedral together on a hill above the river, and most of the streets are winding and cobbled with no cars allowed. We took a walk into town and crossed a stone bridge built in 1160, then made our way up to the Norman cathedral (1080). Indiana Jane mentioned that the side aisles had been used as backdrops for the Harry Potter movies, and I took another look at them. Yes, the carvings did look very Harry Potter-ish. You can look right up into the echoing bell tower, and the ropes for the bells were hanging right there in the corner. I must admit I thought about pulling them...

Indiana Jane was great, being very knowledgable about the cathedral and other such archaeological/historical things. Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, the cathedral was covered in incredible painting, bright colours and gold leaf splashed across the walls, and icons in the alcoves. It must have looked absolutely incredible (not that it isn't incredible even now). Most of the paint and sculptures were scraped away from the stone and destroyed, which explains the gouges in the interior walls, but there's one wall below the bishop's seat that was only whitewashed. The whitewash has been stripped away, and you can see the most amazing colours and detail beneath. So much work by so many people so long ago.

We had a few minutes before the castle tour started, so Indiana Jane took me into the cloisters. She didn't warn me that these also had been used as sets in Harry Potter, so I stood stunned in the doorway for a few seconds before following her. Years ago, I'm pretty sure I spent hours flying a broomstick around this space in a Playstation game, and it was surreal to actually be there.

The castle tour was just about to start, so we went back across the green and through the castle gate. The castle is currently being used as student accomodation (imagine living there!) so we passed lots of people enjoying their freedom after exams. As we went past the great hall, there was an orchestra in it playing themes from Star Trek. Again, surreal. We saw the kitchens with the original Norman fireplaces, ancient treasure chests and horse saddles, and climbed up the Black Stairs. These were originally a flying staircase, which means that they were supported only by the tower wall inside which they spiral, but they started to sag and supports had to be added. The stairs still sag towards the middle, which makes walking up them a bit scary. I kept thinking they'd collapse beneath me.

We finished the tour in the Norman Chapel, which was dark and atmospheric and happened to contain the earliest portrayal of a mermaid in Britain.

It's incredible to think of generations of people coming through these places, sitting in services and staring about them in awe. So many memories, so many lives lived that we'll never know about.

I had a great time in Durham. This post is getting rather long. I also want to talk about the Camden markets, so hang in there.

I got the tube and was a bit worried to hear the PA system advising everyone to get out of Camden station as quickly as possible - was there a bomb? a fire? No, there were just so many people that they had to get out pretty quick so the next load of tube-crawlers could fit into the station. The escalators had all been commandeered for up-duty, and if you were leaving Camden you had to take the spiral stairs down to the platform.

I'd been expecting a market. There were multiple. Each with so many stalls you got lost wandering through them, and food everywhere and bricks and hidey-holes and soo many people. At every corner I saw something I wanted, or I wanted to get for someone else. Dresses and bags and leather-bound books and hats and t-shirts and coats and everything was so pretty or wry or just eye-popping. I am so doing my Christmas shopping here.

There seems to be a theme of giant statues. I saw giant Native Americans, giant dragons, giant robots (awesome awesome shop with flashing lights and UV and dancers on balconies) and some kind of jetfighter half-buried in a building. I'd forgotten to take my camera, but I got few shots on my phone. I am definitely coming back here, and I hope the stalls I've earmarked don't change position too much in the time I'm gone.

I got a skewer of strawberries dipped in chocolate and covered in almonds, which made passersby stop and say 'yum, did you see that?!', and watched a canal boat from the bridge over the canal. Some guys on bicycles went past, dressed in berets and white face paint and striped jerseys. Their accents were English, but one of them said 'bonjour' to a girl going past, and she said 'ohh, they're French' as if that explained everything.

I will have you know that this post is under a thousand words. Have a good week!