Skip to main content

A little bit of Britain

Britain, Britain, Britain. Or at least the little bit of it called London. To me it's not the mother country, not a spiritual home. Just a place that makes some damn fine comedy and the occasional great science fiction drama. Speaking of which, there is a TARDIS in front of Earl Court Station.



Walking through London is more an exercise in time travel than in an Australian city. There is much history and many stories everywhere you go. It is also a very cosmopolitan city. It often feels like the recent immigrants outnumber the locals, who themselves may have come from many ethnic backgrounds.


Chinatown

London is without doubt one of the world's great cities. Yet, it feels rather dysfunctional, in the same way that Sydney does. Cancelled rail services, entertainment streets that are eyesores, young males who roam the streets oozing violence.


Your typical British hoon

I do not feel comfortable here, despite the shared language and heritage. There are so many Australians here that we are just part of the landscape. As such, I too am expected to be part of the city instead of a detached observer. There is no language barrier to hide behind.

One of the most important behaviours to learn when visiting a new country is to work out which side of the footpath and escalator to walk on. In Britain escalators are the opposite of Australia: stand on the right, walk on the left. So far as the street goes, I think that you are supposed to walk on the right, the opposite of Australia, despite us both driving on the same side of the road.

It's very confusing.

I'm not a beer drinker, but my friends tell me that Fosters Lager is crap. It's advertised heavily here with the line "Put a bit of Australia into you." Right... are they saying that drinking Fosters is like having good sex?

I had a simpl day today, which my feet greatly appreciated. My Plone course began today, but Jorgen, the tutor, had to fly in from Sweden this morning, so we didn't start until 11am. It turns out that I am the only student, the others pulling out for reasons related to the economic crisis.

That suits me fine. Already I have used the knowledge gained today to resolve a few issues with our website.

The teaching room is in a shared office facility on Oxford Street. I arrived early under sunny skies and walked around this dingy street of souvenir shops for tasteless tourists. There are even a couple of Japanese chain stores: Muji and Uni Qlo.



After the course finished for the day I decided to take a train from a different station to return to the hotel. I had arrived at Leicester Square, so I picked Piccadilly Circus to join the ride back to Earls Court.

As I walked down Dean Street I came across Nusa Dua, an Indonesian Restaurant that was cheap but actually quite nice inside. The cheerful Indonesian waitress chattered away about her sister, while I had a tasty meal of snapper with a curry sauce. Made a nice change from sandwiches.

I think somebody had fallen on the tracks, because all trains were cancelled along a stretch of the Piccadilly line. Fortunately, many stations are served by multiple lines, so I instead caught a train to Embankment and changed for the District line to Earls Court instead.



It was pleasant to arrive back early without feeling absolutely exhausted. I felt like watching some television, but the choices are dreadful! I think we tend to get the best of British television in Australia because much of what is available here is crap.



Being summer in the higher latitudes the sky is light until quite late. At 8:30pm it is only now giving the hint of an approaching dusk. Must take advantage of that before I leave, but right now I will enjoy my rest.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Kamioka mines: from silver to supernovas

Part of the Kamioka zinc mining and smelter complex Just after posting about the Kamioka Railway another photo from that 2006 set piqued my interest. Up there in the mountains the landscape looked blasted not just by winter but by something more. It was the kind of lonely place where you would not expect to find major industry, so this sight was quite surprising. Even more surprising is the history associated with this photo. According to some sources mining and refining of ores in Kamioka dates back to 710 AD  and only closed in 2001. Undoubtedly the mine was a major reason for the existence of the Kamioka Railway. Refining of zinc still continues to this day under the parent Mitsui Kenzoku zaibatsu . Gold, silver, copper, zinc and lead were all dug out of the rock here. Unfortunately, the process released cadmium into the river, which, when taken up by the rice that was grown in the river, caused the terrible itai-itai disease  - meaning "It hurts! It hurts". Cadm...

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

To Melbourne on the XPT sleeper

Excited by the prospect of reliving the experience of seeing my very first movie and hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform it I bought tickets to The Empire Strikes Back in Concert in Melbourne back in February. Then I did nothing about actually getting there. Much as I love Melbourne, due to family commitments I didn't want to spend more than the Sunday away. Flights there and back made sense, but  my flight down to Melbourne in late October reiterated the fact that I usually don't enjoy descending into the city. And the concert was in December, a season of summer storms. I really didn't feel like driving the whole route alone and in a hurry, so that left one choice. The train. My very first trip up to Sydney from Melbourne was aboard the luxury Southern Aurora. Or it was supposed to be luxury. I wouldn't know because I spent the whole ride up very sick with the flu lying in the top bunk, unable to stay awake for my whole of night vigil. Now only...