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I forgot a bit in my previous post. No bookstores before, right. But in the same street as the antiquity stores, a narrow way with a fully separated bike lane, was store for the London Review. Don't get much more bookish than that.
The British Library yesterday had a little store of its own. Iain Banks (no M) was in the fiction section. And later I saw some woman reading one of his books on the Tube.
On the Neverwhere geeky front, they do often say "Mind the Gap" on trains. And I recognize a lot of the station names. Including the spooky Blackfriars. (Undr renovation until 2011 apparently.)
Currently in Ah King, the dim sum place. Only a few varieties of dim sum, actually, more of a Chinese bar and restaurant. Time between menu and placing my order was rather long. But it's full of Chinese people, actually I'm nearly the only white person I see.
Hey, my dim sum sampler came quickly. I've had better, had worse. The potsticker was very bland by itself but meant to go with chili sauce. All the pieces came on giant carrot slices instead of the traditional square paper, except for the pork bun - no carrot big enough for that. :)
Still, it's already my best meal in England.
Oh yeah, the museum
That was fun big overwhelming. 3+ hours and I didn't see much of it at my pace. There's a big room to the Enlightenment, not so much about it as how they tried to make sense of the world. History of museuming, sort of. A little library, and a Museum gallery book I found there on Chinese printing. (The oldest surviving work is rather sophisticated; they were as good at color woodblocks as the Japanese and maybe earlier.) Chinese jades special gallery, then the main one on their history and art techniques. (Cloisonné enamels techniques were imported from Byzantium.) Repeat for India and SE Asia. Special gallery of Chinese ceramics. A bit of Japan, Egypt and Assyria and hey, they're kicking me out.
Lots of photos but I'm too skeptical of my battery to upload them now. Of note were shiny multi-color porcelain and enamels, Gandharan vs. Indian art, a very few photos of strikingly different South Indian art.
I heard a very British voice over my shoulder, a customer by the door ordering to go. I didn't expect him to look totally Chinese.
Hey, my duck is here. BBQ pork slices, some greens, and some rice with a spoon. Which IMO it needs, chopsticks aren't cutting. I wonder if Asians stay thin partly because it's too much of a pain to eat enough to get fat.
I kind of think I'm seeing different styles of Chinese faces in here. It'd make sense - big country! But not something I've noticed seeing before. Alternately, I should be seeing some cross-breeds at some point.
Speaking of ethnicity, yesterday had a bunch of redheads in Euston rail station, while Pancras had a Benugo Belgian chain cafe with the most exotic looking yet completely European faces behind the counter. You can tell who didn't bother emigrating to the US much. Also who hasn't watched nearly as many European movies as his parents would have liked.
And a couple of women at a table behind me... I can't tell if they look exotically European or exotically Chinese, or if they're speaking French or Chinese. (It's very noisy in here. But sometimes I'd swear it's European, sometimes Chinese tones. Though I now recall Swedish having a very 'Asian' sound on a San Francisco bus.)
The British Library yesterday had a little store of its own. Iain Banks (no M) was in the fiction section. And later I saw some woman reading one of his books on the Tube.
On the Neverwhere geeky front, they do often say "Mind the Gap" on trains. And I recognize a lot of the station names. Including the spooky Blackfriars. (Undr renovation until 2011 apparently.)
Currently in Ah King, the dim sum place. Only a few varieties of dim sum, actually, more of a Chinese bar and restaurant. Time between menu and placing my order was rather long. But it's full of Chinese people, actually I'm nearly the only white person I see.
Hey, my dim sum sampler came quickly. I've had better, had worse. The potsticker was very bland by itself but meant to go with chili sauce. All the pieces came on giant carrot slices instead of the traditional square paper, except for the pork bun - no carrot big enough for that. :)
Still, it's already my best meal in England.
Oh yeah, the museum
That was fun big overwhelming. 3+ hours and I didn't see much of it at my pace. There's a big room to the Enlightenment, not so much about it as how they tried to make sense of the world. History of museuming, sort of. A little library, and a Museum gallery book I found there on Chinese printing. (The oldest surviving work is rather sophisticated; they were as good at color woodblocks as the Japanese and maybe earlier.) Chinese jades special gallery, then the main one on their history and art techniques. (Cloisonné enamels techniques were imported from Byzantium.) Repeat for India and SE Asia. Special gallery of Chinese ceramics. A bit of Japan, Egypt and Assyria and hey, they're kicking me out.
Lots of photos but I'm too skeptical of my battery to upload them now. Of note were shiny multi-color porcelain and enamels, Gandharan vs. Indian art, a very few photos of strikingly different South Indian art.
I heard a very British voice over my shoulder, a customer by the door ordering to go. I didn't expect him to look totally Chinese.
Hey, my duck is here. BBQ pork slices, some greens, and some rice with a spoon. Which IMO it needs, chopsticks aren't cutting. I wonder if Asians stay thin partly because it's too much of a pain to eat enough to get fat.
I kind of think I'm seeing different styles of Chinese faces in here. It'd make sense - big country! But not something I've noticed seeing before. Alternately, I should be seeing some cross-breeds at some point.
Speaking of ethnicity, yesterday had a bunch of redheads in Euston rail station, while Pancras had a Benugo Belgian chain cafe with the most exotic looking yet completely European faces behind the counter. You can tell who didn't bother emigrating to the US much. Also who hasn't watched nearly as many European movies as his parents would have liked.
And a couple of women at a table behind me... I can't tell if they look exotically European or exotically Chinese, or if they're speaking French or Chinese. (It's very noisy in here. But sometimes I'd swear it's European, sometimes Chinese tones. Though I now recall Swedish having a very 'Asian' sound on a San Francisco bus.)