Repeat of email again
Time for another update! The two major things since you last heard from me were visiting Brick Lane in the East End and Chinese New Year. The whole Brick Lane area is interesting because of the large immigrant population, currently mostly Bangladeshi and famous for all the curry restaurants. Though I haven't eaten there yet, it looked like a place for future exploration. So much of East End bordering the actual City of London (London is technically two cities; London and Westminster) is under renovation and/or restoration at the moment because of expanded need for housing. Rowhouses and former tenaments you could have bought for between £10,000 and £50,000 now cost a few million. Talk about an investment.
But the major thing was that Catherine came this weekend! And we had a blast romping around the city together. The highlight (or disaster depending on how you see it) was Chinese New Year. Now, the actual New Year was in the middle of last week, but to make things easier (and of course more lucrative) the City decided to organise festivities for Sunday. There wasn't really that much to do, surprisingly. They had two stages set up, one in Trafalgar and one in Leicester that featured Chinese artists throughout the afternoon, but not the huge mix of shops and stalls I was expecting. But the sheer number of people wandering around was insane.
When we tried to get through the main strip of Chinatown, which is only about a block, block-and-a-half long, we encountered a problem. An equally huge mass of people was coming into the strip from the other end. And when the groups met, you basically had a mass of hundreds of people in a very small space and no clear direction on where to move to get out. The police weren't extremely helpful either as they only realised the problem after it happened and THEN stopped letting people in. (Things were complicated by the fact that some of the restaurants in a publicity stunt brought out costumes etc, which basically put MORE people in the street and caused mayhem when all the tourists stopped to watch). I had to play shepherd with Catherine and Heather to keep the crowd from separating us, which was actually a lot more difficult than it sounds considering my arms started off pinned at my side. Eventually though the crowd got moving and, very tired, we made our way to a more out-of-the-way Chinese restaurant. Where the food was fantastic, LOL. All in good fun in retrospect.
But the major thing was that Catherine came this weekend! And we had a blast romping around the city together. The highlight (or disaster depending on how you see it) was Chinese New Year. Now, the actual New Year was in the middle of last week, but to make things easier (and of course more lucrative) the City decided to organise festivities for Sunday. There wasn't really that much to do, surprisingly. They had two stages set up, one in Trafalgar and one in Leicester that featured Chinese artists throughout the afternoon, but not the huge mix of shops and stalls I was expecting. But the sheer number of people wandering around was insane.
When we tried to get through the main strip of Chinatown, which is only about a block, block-and-a-half long, we encountered a problem. An equally huge mass of people was coming into the strip from the other end. And when the groups met, you basically had a mass of hundreds of people in a very small space and no clear direction on where to move to get out. The police weren't extremely helpful either as they only realised the problem after it happened and THEN stopped letting people in. (Things were complicated by the fact that some of the restaurants in a publicity stunt brought out costumes etc, which basically put MORE people in the street and caused mayhem when all the tourists stopped to watch). I had to play shepherd with Catherine and Heather to keep the crowd from separating us, which was actually a lot more difficult than it sounds considering my arms started off pinned at my side. Eventually though the crowd got moving and, very tired, we made our way to a more out-of-the-way Chinese restaurant. Where the food was fantastic, LOL. All in good fun in retrospect.