Cyber Dog

Camden Street Market is quite a place. There are hundreds of stalls and vendors selling clothes and food. It has a distinct feel to it, a mix of classic and vintage style mixed with counter-culture and punk-culture with multiple tattoo shops, leather places, and all kinds of clothing with metal spikes in them.

The most interesting part of the Market is probably Cyber Dog – a special kind of store in the middle of the marketplace. Mix a bit of anime, robot-fetish, cyborg culture, cybergoth/cyberpunk, and you have yourself Cyber Dog. I stumbled upon it almost by accident, and it popped up out of nowhere: a large twenty-foot archway with illuminated letters of the store was centered between two larger-than life cyborgs. Walking through the open storefront, a dark ultra-violet glow greets visitors, as does a dancing highlighter-yellow-blonde man in a plastic outfit twirling some glow sticks on a string. Two professional girls were dancing on little balconies in the back of the store, where you walk through rows of expensive techno-style watches and electronics. Everything was overpriced, so I stopped looking at the tags, and made my way down the escalators where I heard the real music thumping.

The escalator is small, but serves to gradually let in the awe of the lower level. There still wasn’t any sign of florescent or tungsten lighting: all black light reacted with just about every product there. Shirts, pants, hats, glowy things, posters, and strange accessories illuminated in hot pink, lime green, and electric yellow colors. Along one wall was thirty shirts or so with electronic screens – some had scrolling words, others were graphic equalizers that thumped along to the loud bass in the store. While taking a video of a hat with pink spikes on it and panning around the room, a small girl with green hair told me to keep my camera away.

After that, we went on to yet another lower level, one that was 18+ with even stranger outfits and strange...things...in glass bubbles. This one is a little short – cause I really just needed one more thing to write about.

HEY IM HOME!

Well I'm back in the states (currently writing this from the comforts of my own bed). I cannot tell you how much nicer these pillows are than hotel pillows/plane pillows! I'm exhausted though, I've been up since 5:30AM my time so that makes it like 2:30am or so for me right now.

I'm goin to sleep... but there are still more blogs to be published from things that happened that I either forgot to post or forgot to write about.

Good Night!

War Horse: What is It Good For?

I don’t consider myself a theater person at all. I am a student of film, and find the over-acting both annoying and distracting. I understand why it is done of course, but I find that it creates a poor substitute for a movie. I love the subtleties captured on film and prefer cinematic techniques to stagehand techniques.

War Horse is probably the first professional play I have attended. The preview looked hilarious to me – you gotta see how serious the actors are taking this giant horse puppet. There were three possible scenarios for this play.

A. I would love it and appreciate the critically-acclaimed play

B. I would hate the play for being so ridiculous, but enjoy the humor in breaking it down

C. It would be in the middle, and I could not make fun of it or actually like the play

It was C. for me. It is impossible not to be impressed with the puppetry involved. The horses have a slight steam-punk motif that I can certainly get behind. Movements seemed as realizitic as you can get for being a giant puppet impressively controlled by three puppeteers.

The first 20 minutes or so were filled with boring, drawn-out scenes to establish characters and show off puppet-play. The rest of the play teertered on being a child’s tale of a boy loving his animal a little too much (cliché) and then there were adult elements like the relationship between the drunk father and his son (cliché). I also felt there was an inadequate display of why “Joey” was a special horse. The boy in the play, Albert, seemed crazy for him…almost obsessed for no good reason other than his status as a horse. The story was unoriginal and poorly developed. It also suffered from simply being a play – an animated cartoon would have sufficed just fine.

I did find humor in drawing comparisons to Forrest Gump – Albert seemed just as mentally-slow as Forrest, and whined about “Joey” just as much as “Jenny” was mentioned in the movie. In a war scene, Albert’s best friend turned out to be a black guy (Bubba?) and he died as well. (That happens in war…)

But anyway, the theater teacher said it was one of the best plays he had ever seen. If that is the case, then most plays must really suck.

The Tube

You have no idea how amazing the Tube system is. The Tube (The London Underground Subway) simply works. Growing up in suburbs of Chicago and going to school in Peoria really didnt require me to use public transportation often. Once in a while I hop on the Metra to Chicago, and take the “El” when I’m in the loop, but it’s not really a fantastic experience more so than a necessity.

The Tube is remarkably accessible in London – the heart of London has a stop in almost every major location. Attractions, monuments, and museums are never more than a few minutes walk from a particular station. It is impossible to feel lost in this major city, since there are signs everywhere. A sign tells you where the nearest Tube station is. A sign tells you what train you need to take and how to transfer there. A sign reminds you where attractions are when you get out of the Tube. It’s so easy getting around London – which is great, since there is so much to do. I would rather my time be well spent at a museum rather than figure out how to get there.

Hopping on the Tube is a breeze – our Oyster cards allow us to merely press it on a scanner to let us into the station. We do not even have to take it out of the protective Ikea vinyl casing. The Oyster cards are good for a week at a time, and cover stops in the Underground Zones 1 and 2 - the most major parts of London.

Right before you get on and off the train, an electronic woman’s voice reminds you to “Mind the Gap” – a national catchphrase often appearing on souvenirs from boxers to shot glasses. (That just means to watch your step). Trains are clean and comfortable, and different lines have various styled cars. All of them have nice seats and railings for standing passengers to hold on to. Maps of the line and its stops along with an overview of the entire Tube layout are posted several times throughout the cars. A scrolling LED alerts passengers what stop is next along with a vocal announcement. The Russel Square station (the one closest to our hotel) looks suspiciously like the tunnel from one of the Matrix movies…

The Lion King Musical

Like everyone else from my generation, I have quite the soft spot for Disney. My favorites are Aladdin and the Lion King – so naturally I had no objections to seeing the Broadway Musical (in London) of Lion King.

The play itself was pretty damn good. It stuck with most of the same dialogue and songs, but added a few new things. The play did a good job of putting in the best parts, while memories of the animated movie supplemented their performances.

Though I wanted to be surprised, I couldn’t help flipping through the deluxe program with big pictures of all the cool costumes. They were elaborate and highly stylized for each character – which was awesome. There was also a mixture of African art and Eastern Chinese art. Some characters had vaguely Samurai-esque costumes, and Mufassa had a pair of Shaolin(sp?) curvey swords. The actor was not nearly as powerful as James Earl Jones, but Jones is busy acting in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Pumbaa had a full-body suit that turned the actor into the warthog, and Timon’s actor was painted green to let his life-sized Timon-puppet take the focus. He wasn’t quite as great as Nathan Lane, but he did okay. Adult Simba had a strange accent that sometimes took away from the scenes of dialogue.

Zazuu was the best at vocally mimicking the cartoon counterpart, but was the strangest to watch. The actor was dressed up and had makeup and a bowler hat, but he also had a lively puppet which he controlled and sometimes put on his head. At one point, the puppet gets separated from the actor, and he says “where’s my bird?” so what the heck is that about? Is the bird the character? Is the actor the character? I thought they both together were! He broke the fourth wall (or in theater terms, the fourth curtain) and addressed the audience once in a while.

I thought the coolest costume was the giraffes, because the actors walked around on stilts. There were those annoying bird’s on sticks flying around once in a while, but there were enough impressive costumes to make up fir them. It was a million times better than War Horse, that’s for sure.

Yo! Sushi

After writing an essay for the greater part of the day, I was getting a little stir-crazy. For dinner I decided to go to YO! Sushi down the street, since I estimated that Jesse wouldn’t quite be up for that. He was at Stone Henge anyway, so I took off to the Bismark Centre, which was like an outdoor mall, or four mini-malls arranged in a square around a courtyard.

YO! Sushi requires some explanation. Upon entering, I was greeted and shown to a seat where everything was explained. In the middle of the room, chefs/preparers placed color-coded dishes onto a conveyer belt. On the other side of the conveyer belt were the seated customers who would grab dishes as they passed by. Five colors corresponded to different prices ranging from 1.70 to 6.00 pounds.

Each seat had every amenity you could really want at a sushi place. There were napkins, soy sauce, and wasabi along with a jar of shredded ginger. There were plenty of chopsticks and most impressively, both a distilled and sparkling water tap right at the seat.

I was handed a menu, since the color-coded bowls were unmarked, it was impossible to know what exactly kind of sushi was on each one. As the pieces fly past you, you remember what it kind of looked like along with the color bowl, and flip through the menu hoping the picture looks like the conveyer belt counterpart.

The first one I grabbed looked like a good one to me – two large rolls of sushi. I looked them up after snatching it up to find out what it was before eating it - some chicken thing. Then I began to study the menu to pick what I wanted to eat next. I grabbed the octopus – It was real good. Soft and chewy (obviously) but it was almost refreshing. Not at all fishy. I got some of the tamago-sushi – a yolk-based topping on rice, and a special shredded duck roll (I cannot get enough duck!) For desert, I ate a custard-filled Japanese pancake with raspberry dipping sauce.

The meal was fantastic and fun to pick and eat, but it wound up being very expensive. It’s not too filling, but perhaps because it was my first time I didn’t know which foods to get to maximize my meal. They also charged for that water spigot at each seat, which seemed odd to me…

The Staple

Though I am not the protagonist of this story, (Jesse is) I was there with him at the time that this tale took place. With his permission, I have taken the liberty of recounting his experience from his own eyes. Therefore, the narrator from this point forward refer to Jesse.

There was nowhere else to eat on a Sunday night besides more tourist-friendly chains since traditional British pubs were closed early. Khalil and I walked by Ultimate Burger once already that night, but ignored it since we ate there on our first night in England. Khalil insisted on trying new things, but all I really wanted was another good bacon cheeseburger, so I convinced him to try Ultimate Burger again (since it was a sure thing. I reminded him of the large menu and with little resistance, he caved in. It was nice to eat at a more familiar and American-like as to the dark and foreign pubs.

I stuck with the old favorite – a bacon cheeseburger – despite the wide selection of sandwiches ranging from intricately topped beef burgers to no-less than three kinds of lamb burgers. Khalil got onion rings and a peanut-satay burger. Good thing Kim wasn’t around – I like my girlfriend and everything, but she just cant handle the peanuts well…

The meal was eaten in our typical way – we ate, talked, but I did deviate from my usual beverage of the free distilled tap water and ordered a Sprite. I was almost done with my burger, about two bites worth away, and I stopped chewing. Khalil was droning on and on about God knows what (probably art) and I instantly tuned him out and focused inward, concentrating on the bite in my mouth.

Something was wrong. There was a different feeling in my mouth from the previous bites. I felt a slight pinch, something hard amidst the ground beef and cheddar cheese and English bacon (trust me, its not like American bacon). Was that pinching sensation a fluke? I explored my mouth and felt it again. I began to isolate and separate what seemed to be the problem from the rest of my food. I felt my eyes glaze over and was vaguely aware that Khalil stopped talking and was probably watching me, watiging for an explanation for my detached stare. Careful not to swallow anything, I reached inside my mouth to pull out a surprisingly long, thin piece of what looked like metal. I looked around for anything that could have broken off into my food but found nothing.

Khalil was staring with a look of growing concern as If he were imagining the possible journey the mystery metal could have taken. We both lightened up after a while – because I had caught it in time and was perfectly fine. We decided that it was a metal staple from the slightly bent middle and pinched endpoint. The waitress eventually came over to ask how our food was, and I had to respond. I simply informed her of my stapled-food and she said I wouldn’t have to pay for my burger as she walked away. In her absense, I asked Khalil if that meant I still had to pay for my Sprite – and he said probably not, since there were no staples in there.

We began our scenario game, trying to figure out exactly what happened for this staple to find its way into my mouth. Maybe the chef kept his office supplies close to the grill and was flamboyantly flipping his burgers when he knocked the jar of loose staples into the meat. Maybe the chef was seasoning the burgers and has a salt shaker, pepper shaker, and then a staple shaker. Maybe he wasn’t a real chef at all- and maybe he was just some guy who cooks on a George Foreman grill at his desk job.

Oh well. I figure I’m okay now, and since then I have had several staple-free meals.