Walking Ixus

So now it’s 36 hours until I head back to the land of the limousine liberal. I’m got all my dirty laundry packed away and sealed, not to be reopened until I’m dragging it up my staircase.
Tomorrow is the big shopping day. I’ve got requests ranging from candle sconces to Burberry dog raincoats (don’t ask) as well as assorted omiyage.
Small omiyage since purchasing power here is 1/2 what it is back home. Even Tokyo is cheaper in most ways!
And Asia has all the stuff I like and can afford…

It’s a big college town, since much of the town (I mean City) is made up of the 20 something individual colleges that Oxford University is.
The best way to look at it is the University sets certain guidelines and protocols and the colleges execute them in the best way they see fit. They all have their own admissions policies and are in essence, 20 something independent schools. Kinda like the Federalist system of government that we have in the States.
Oxford is what college towns such as Davis or Cambridge (MA) or even Berkeley want to be compared to.
Davis doesn’t count because it’s not walkable. If it was, what’s the point of bringing your tricked out Honduh Accord or Toyota Camry (TRD special type) to school if you don’t need to drive it? I’d guess that they’d lose a lot of their student body if that were the case.
Berkeley and Cambridge (MA), they’re too crowded, the neighborhood isn’t consistent with the sprawl of university facilities and Oxford is way too clean and not too crowded. I didn’t see one bum, the walls were free of grafitti, I didn’t smell any pot or have to walk around anything or anyone.
What I did see were some very nice girls (younger) and some really old old old old old (way older) buildings.
The canal is pretty neat too. They landscaped part of it to look like a riverbank and there’s some history about it. Seems that the canal was dug back in the 1800s to help move coal down to London. When the railways made it here, the canal was redundant but they kept it for recreation.
Green water.
Did I mention that I think we passed a big Nuclear Power Plant on the way here? I’m researching…

Oxford. Legendary town of learning. Well, actually a city since I was told by one of the people here that since they have their own cathedral, they are considered a city.
Didn’t know that.
I took the National Rail to Oxford from Paddington Station, 5 minutes from Grim’s place. Verrrrry convenient. The ride was just about over an hour. Within 15 minutes I was asleep and within 45 minutes, the Conductor woke me up to do a ticket check.
Embarassing. But at least the mighty roar of diesel engines masked the quiet hum of my sleeping. Yes, you read right. National Rail still uses diesels just like China Railways. Except (train geek stuff coming!) that China Rail uses an engine and tows the passenger cars along, no differently than a freight train. National Rail cars have no engine, but are self contained. Imagine a Tube (or MTR or BART ) car except it runs on diesel instead of electricity. Mighty locomotive sounds like a really big MUNI bus.
Once we got out of Reading, it instantly turned into countryside. England is very green. Green trees. Green meadows (with the occasional yellow patch, what ARE those plants?). Green water. Green sky.
Ok, not green sky. Just seeing if you’re awake.

I wandered back to Picadilly and puttered about. Eventually I found my way back to St. James’ Park.
The entire park is closed off to cars on Sunday so I was able to walk from Admiralty Gate to Buckingham Palace on a road festooned with Union Jacks and people out enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.
There was still a healthy crowd at Queen Victoria’s monument directly in front of the Palace. A MetroCop told me that that’s the best place to watch the changing of the guard that happens each morning.
It was still a warm evening so I made my way to Mayfair going through the parks. Had dinner at a pub, the King’s Arms and had a proper meat pie cooked in ale (note to chef, ease off the spuds!) and a pint of London’s Finest.
And since I had all those carbs and beer in me, I thought, how about I walk back to Grim’s place? So I walked through Hyde Park and Green Park (what a redundant name, eh?) and wound up at Kensington Gardens and boy did my feet hurt.
I need new custom made boots. I’m getting too many blisters on my little right toe….

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum today.
It’s a museum about the decorative arts. Iron works, jewelry, interior design, furniture, statues, body armor, katanas and the like.
It has exhibits covering Chinese, British, Japanese, South Asian, Indian, Italian, various European and even American items.
But the museum is confusing because not all the staircases reach all the floors so you need to follow your map.
They used to have an exhibit on arms and weapons but that’s been taken down in favor of expanding the miniatures exhibit.
Political Correctness? Who knows?
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Before the museum, I had a snack at Oriental Canteen, the closest thing I’ve had to hawker food. Red chopsticks and red spoons? Basic decor? Sounds like Maxwell’s to me!
But, �3.5 for wontonmein? That’s not Maxwell’s prices!
After escaping the V&A (as they like to call it), I went to Cafe Creperie de Hampstead for a Ham & Cheese crepe snack. It was pretty good.
And you’ll have no trouble finding it, it’s on the road to the Museum from the Tube and they’re next door to each other. (!)

Today is Sunday, a verrry lazy day for me. I got out of the house around 1300 and decided to take the bus to Citibank via Oxford Street.
Half of the basi was filled with Filipino amahs on Sunday holiday. They had their kids with them and they looked like they just got out of church and they were talking a lot (gossiping?).
Then they reached their stop and they all got off.
I had a Hong Kong flashback for a minute. Just a minute though.
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Some words of advice for those who are reading this and contemplating a visit to London. Learn these words.
Tesco
Sainsbury’s
Marks and Spencer
These are grocery stores, cheepest to not so cheep. They also have daily made ready to eat wraps and salads and sandwiches. Since you’re taking it to go, there’s no VAT, unlike eating in a restaurant. Remember VAT is 14.5% plus usually a 10-12% service charge. Bleech!
If you’re going to be here (Dean) and want to watch your spending, this is the best way short of being at a place with a proper stove and oven.
And I’ve not seen a lot of instant noodles here either…

Aaack.
72 hours before I return to “the world”.
That means I have to write down everything that I’d like to do before I leave.
And run all the errands I promised friends I’d do (all shopping).
72 hours! And then a non stop UA flight back to SFO. EASTBOUND (it takes longer)! And in steerage (self explainatory). And it’s not that kind of fun steerage like in Titanic, the movie.
Ohhhh the horror

Well, I finally made it to the Tate Modern.
I got there about 1800. Left at 2200. Yes, 4 hours in a museum/power station.
Conceptual art. Not too crazy about it. Here’s some of the more “conceptual” exhibits:
Yoko Ono coughing (I am NOT making this up)
A big empty room with 20 coats of white paint and a dead sparrow between double paned glass
An old telephone with a lobster glued to the receiver with its genitals where the mouth goes to the mouthpiece.
That last exhibit was a Salvador Dali piece so in that context, it actually makes sense.
However, they did have some Monets, Matisses, Warhols and the like. Even some photography from Henri Cartier-Bresson.
And that building! The scale of it! The architect was said to have designed cathedrals. In its past life, the Tate Modern, according to the tour, was a cathedral of power.
The building itself is art. Beats an upside down toilet and a bicycle wheel.

If you have time to putter, take the Tube to Hampstead. It’s off the Northern Line in Zone 2. Budget about 4 hours for puttering.
It’s very old school village-like. Very small and very quaint. Whatever you see in your mind’s eye when you hear the words “small English town”, this is pretty much it.
It’s real nice and real quiet, unlike, saaay, the rest of London! And the Heath, which is open space and lawns and paths on the top of a hill.
I went looking for a pub at the top and found out it was closed for two years and the building has been converted into condos. Nice condos though.
Grimley says that Hampstead is hella expensive. Figures.
I’ll post the pix in a couple of days.

…and NOT that asanine movie.
When I had my bus adventure earlier in the week, the Greek Grad Student who knew her Night Buses recommended I visit Notting Hill’s street market on Saturday.
Grimley said the same thing and when I mentioned something about the Tube, he said “walk”. So I walked. Through Kensington Gardens to the end and down Bayside Street for a bit.
It was sunny and warm (23C) so the walk wasn’t too bad. Then I found the market.
It’s called the Portobello Market and it goes for about 20 blocks. The first thing you see is the antiques dealers. They go on for about 8 blocks. There’s all kinds of stuff. Silver. Old wood and old posters. Lots of stuff I’m sure I missed. Even old china serving dishes and silverware off Concorde. Antiques!
Then it decends into a common flea market, with the last few blocks resembling a market in mainland China. Kinda sad really.
There were a lot of people there. Mostly for the antiques because as soon as that and the food section ended, the crowd thinned considerably.
If I need old stuff for the house, I know where to go now…