Update City, Part Four: Celebrating February

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Seeing as China is hosting this year's summer Olympics, and London the next (2012), Mayor Ken Livingstone wanted to pump up Chinese New Year Celebrations this Year of the Rat. Unfortunately, that meant that everyone and his dog (rat?) were out, and this is all I could see of the parade...
Three hours later, when we finally made it to Chinatown (it usually takes about 15 minutes on foot on a regular day) we got a little bit of food in our system... but to get this street stall food, we basically had to push and shove, which meant that all five of us took little bites from one Oyster pancake...
However, it was quite exciting to see Chinatown all dolled up in lanterns - even if it did take hours to push through the crowds!
And whaddaya know, they even had fireworks during the day! A definite first! Unfortunately, with the crowds (and the daylight) we only saw this:
... it was more of an acoustic show.

And speaking of acoustic shows... Valentine's Day was a musical one this year. We headed to a club near Kilburn station called the Luminaire, for a Valentine's gig featuring the Heartstrings http://www.theheartstrings.com/ (how Valentine's appropriate!)

The first 25 singles got in for a reduced cover price, and the first 25 hand-holding couples got in for free! Plus, if you kissed each other and declared your love for one another, you got two free "buy one, get one free" drinks tickets!

Unfortunately, the only beer on that you could get with the ticket was Foster's, so we had to pre-medicate with some real beer (Cronenberg). Result: well... I think these pictures will give you an idea...

(Genie is wearing her beer goggles)

(This is what she saw with her beer goggles on)

(Team X-pat)

Okay - updates are OVER, friends. If you want more updates, keep commenting so I know you are reading! And Happy Valentine's Day to our friends at home, in Japan, in the States, in Dubai, and wherever else you may be!

Update City, Part Three: Playing Host

Come one, come all to visit us in London! Only two have been brave enough to take us up on this offer so far... but I am hoping to entice you on the Raw Banana walking tour bus with this posting. We not only provide your transportation (telling you to bring good walking shoes) and take you to the best [read: cheapest] places to eat, we also add historical commentary to the tour. Here is a just a taste of what we can provide.

Rob's sister, Kathryn, and her boyfriend Andre had a 9-hour stop-over London on their way to Dubai. So, we were up for 5:30, and on our way to the airport by 6:00 (what service!). Although it was an earlier than usual start to the day, it was a great way to sight-see. No other tourists were up and at it at 7am on a Wednesday, so we got in a whole day's worth of sight-seeing in just one morning!

9:00
Fill on a good breakfast and get ready to tackle Green Park, Buckingham Palace, and St. James' Park. The Queen was home that day, as indicated by the Union Jack flying at the Palace. (Interesting historical fact Number one.)

9:30
Walk past No.10 Downing Street, old Scotland Yard, various legal buildings, watch teenaged French students do mortifyingly embarassing things to the Horse guards, and make it to Big Ben in time to hear it strike 10:00! Interesting Historical fact number two: the Houses of Parliament (just to the right in the picture below) are the buildings on the HP sauce label. (You don't get that kind of commentary on the double-decker bus tour, even if they do provide the tour in eight languages...)

10:20
Buy a ticket for the London Eye the world's largest observation wheel. Watch a little kid in the queue pretend to bean a wax statue of Pierce Brosnan (as James Bond) in the goolies. Laugh at the dad, but inside, quietly worry for the future of Britain's children (not only because of the child's violent tendencies, but also because all men of Pierce Brosnan height are at risk of losing child-bearing potential from this young lad).

Intersting fact Number Three: Did you know that the wheel is designed so that if it ever falls over, the pods will pop off of the wheel and float along the surface of the Thames? (These are just small samples of the kinds of amazing knowledge we can share about London - you will come away chock-a-bloc with good stuff like this!)

The Weston "children" on the London Eye

Not only is the London Eye a great way to see all of the sights of London in one go - you also can take family photos (see above) and you get to watch London's anti-terrorism in action! Before you enter the pod, a guard will ask you if you are carrying scissors in your purse. Anti-terrorism! In action! ... Maybe they should have been more concerned about the briefcase-toting, uber-serious gentleman who arrived with no friends or family, didn't take a single picture during the whole ride, smile, or comment on the sights, but who just stared at the ground, as if searching for a person on the run.

Speaking of searching the ground...

11:30
Go to the Tate Modern museum, and stare at a giant crack in the floor and debate about whether or not it is "art", and how the heck they made a big crack in the floor! Get utterly lost in the maze of escalators which skip floors.

12:30
Head over The Wobbly Bridge with hundreds of joggers, and take a gander at St. Paul's Cathedral before hopping on the tube to Covent Garden, where we can eat lunch and begin to watch a street performer, but leave because he has spent more than 30 minutes just trying to get people to form a neat circle around his space, and hasn't done anything interesting the whole time.
2:30
Meet old friends, because everyone knows someone in London (Andre's someone was his childhood friend Richard, who came up from Brighton!) and spend a couple of hours in a pub drinking beer and demanding scientific knowledge of British beer from the barmen. Interesting fact Number Four: Beers like Guiness and Caffrey's get their disctinctive thick, foamy head from a particular tip on the beer tap. It is a tiny, fine-meshed tip, which causes the beer to come out extra foamy. Wait a few minutes for the beer to settle, and enjoy!

5:30
Say goodbye at Piccadilly Circus, a single train away from Heathrow Airport. For a little extra, we can arrange a little bit of "adventure" like forgetting your passport in our bag, so that we chase you in the next train to the airport, only to find out you didn't need that passport anyway... something like that.

So what do you think - sightseeing, good company, and "Interesting Facts". What more could you ask for? Who's next??

Thanks for coming, Kathryn and Andre!
(06 Feb, 2008: Statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus)

Update City, Part Two: Score One for Football!

Every other week, I come home from work to find the tube station packed to the gills with people donning red scarves and smelling of beer and fried food, on their way to an Arsenal football match at the nearby Emirates Stadium.

On these days, I am bumped along with the crowd out toward the street, where we are all directed across the roads by the oodles of police on every corner who are out, no doubt, to keep the hooliganism to a minimum and the drunken fans from running out into traffic whenever there is a small gap in cars (as is the usual practice of crossing roads in London).

Usually, I try and avoid the vomiters and head directly for home, but on January 23rd, I donned my own red scarf and joined the beer-swilling crowd, thanks to Robert's godfather, Allan, who procured three tickets to an Arsenal vs. Newcastle game!

Those of you who have known me since my youth, and have maybe even joined me [read: put up with my whining and complaining] at live sporting events in the past may be wondering how I fared at an English football match. Well, friends, here are the reasons why this was the best sporting event I have ever attended:

1) We arrived at the Emirates Stadium to find that it is new, shiny, organized, large, and there isn't a bad seat in the house!

...we could clearly see our home team, Arsenal (above, in red) kicking the pants off of Newcastle (in black). Plus, the seats were really comfortable!

2) To combat hooliganism, the away fans are all seated in one area, and beer is not allowed in the stands (you must consume it in the concessions area). This stops the fist-fights, but still gets the fans "relaxed" enough to:

a) shout at the players to shoot (even when they are nowhere near the goal)
b) sing songs of support for Arsenal ("We love you Arsenal... you know we do-oo!")
c) sing songs to slag rival teams ("If you ain't Tottenham, stand up!")
d) call the refs dirty names (my favourite was a young Asian woman's grovelly and heartfelt "the ref's a F*&%-ing donkey!")
e) keep the tourists generally entertained with shenanigans

3) It was a good game. You can see the tense expectation on Robert's face.

4) We won! Arsenal: 3, Newcastle: nil.

I completely recommend attending a game at the Emirates Stadium. When you go, give us a call, and we'll join you! And next time, we may even buy the self-produced CD from the guy who mixed all of the Arsenal songs on his home keyboard for our listening pleasure ;)

Thank you, Allan, for our English football initiation!

Update City, Part One: Spain

Allright, allright, Valentine's Day has passed and I haven't even posted pictures from Christmas yet... I'm sorry!! (A combination of busy-ness, laziness, and general avoidance of the computer outside of work hours has contributed to my poor blogging record.)

So for those of you e-mailing me to update the ol' bloggerino, here is the first in a series of snapshots of what has happened in the past two months, illustrated with (appropriately)... snapshots.

Here is the first shot: Nana and me in Downtown Madrid! Nana was an excellent tour guide. She showed us all sorts of things in Madrid. Here is what we saw:

1. Calamari Sandwiches: Deep-fried squid, covered in salt and squished into a buttered white roll. Mmmmmmmmm... grease, salt and butter... Madrid is delicious!

2. Spanish lunches: Lunch is the biggest meal in Spain. Restaurants often have a set lunch (called a "menu") which offers three courses. This is the second course of one of the best meals I've ever eaten. An entire fish. After this course, we ate fried milk for dessert. Yum!

3. Paella: Jose gave us a lesson in how to make seafood paella. Now we can bring Spain home with us!

4. Spanish sweets: We took a day-trip to Segovia, home to (a gorgeous cathedral and the castle of King Alfonso VI, a real Roman aqueduct... and) these sweeties!

5. Christmas Sweets: Spanish grocery stores sell large platters of traditional Spanish sweets to ensure a Feliz Navidad!

We certainly enjoyed our trip to Spain. Thank you, Nana y Jose! Next time, maybe we'll even step away from the table long enough to see some sights! Or, we could move to Madrid and teach useful English phrases like...