Hello UK- pt. 2 London

So 40 ounces of gin later, 4:00 am bedtime and then rising early and catching the train to Londonium gave us a great start to our trek to the North country. It was a bit of a rough journey, but we arrived more or less in one piece and caught the tube to Belsize park; a somewhat posh neighbourhood with wide tree lined boulevards and cafes.

The plan: Spend 1 day and 1 night in London and then catch the bright and somewhat early train to Edinburgh where we would enjoy 5 days of damp. We had a few tentative ideas of things we wanted to check out in London but we did not have a set itinerary and the thought was that we may head back for another day nearer to the end of the trip if we couldn't fit everthing in.



We headed to our hotel. Which was lovely, I actually stayed there for a few nights the last time was in the UK..way back in the '90s. I remember having horrible "jet lag"/catatonia - I also vaguely remember almost falling asleep in my Cauliflower cheese at some pub. Ahh the '90s. If you can remember them then I guess you didn't take a mixture of graval and muscle relaxers on the plane like I did on that particular trip. But that was how we rolled in the '90s.... I think....at least thats what I'm told.


Check us out at Dillon's




This makes me feel like I'm in a Love and Rockets Video. I can tell you- this pleased my goth self the first time I stayed here back in the day




beauty.... beauty... beauty.... beautiful.....

In lieu of museums and yarn shops, we decided to wander around camden lock in a hang-over induced haze. Even though it is quite touristy, I haven’t been there since the big fire of diggety-eight which apparently wiped out a lot of the market. So I thought it would be interesting to see how it's changed. Back in the day I loved going to CM for all my doc marten and PVC bustier/goth gear/bootleg Cds and band t-shirts that will disintegrate after 1 washing- needs.









check me out in front of the canal

We went for lunch at wagamamas This place is very accomodating for the gluten free although I would have liked something crispy and fried. I had soup. It was healthsome. After lunch we did more wandering throught the market- but didn't do much shopping besides picking up a few trinkets, tchotchkes and '80s style sunglasse.



This was the display outside a very interesting store- it was a store selling club type gear and was very dark and very loud. Couldn't hear or see much inside but the outside looked cool.




They are curerntly in the process of re-building the part of the Market that burned down, and the concept is horse-y. The market stalls are going to be in ... well horse-y stalls. and there are cast iron horse statues everywhere.




stalls



more stalls

We also went to Carnaby Street. Didn't take any pictures cause it just looked like a high end shopping street- which is what it is...Now. The first time i went there back in '87 it was pretty sketchy and the place to get mephisto jackets, bootleg sex pistol t-shirts and cheap sunglasses. Now it looks like Yorkville. One thing that I did find interesting is that the clothing looked pretty much identical to the clothing I saw on that first trip. I guess everything does come around although it would have been nice if MC Hammer pants could have stayed behind.

After our day of wandering we headed back to Belsize park, had a nice dinner at a small local bistro and then went back to the hotel to get some sleep as we had to get an early start the next day.

Next installment. The Voyage North- or Edinburgh- on 1 potato a day