Good Times of All Sorts: English National Ballet, Chinatown, Camden Market, West End, Thames

This weekend, Butch, a friend of mine from Germany came over to London. It was his first time here, so we had to do a little bit of sightseeing. We arranged to meet by the Eros statue at Picadilly Circus. While waiting, I played a game of spoiling photographs that the tourists were trying to take of their friends and relatives posing with the Eros and the neon lights. I would just walk into the shot and ruin it for them. I hate tourists, sorry! There is too many of them and they walk too slow.

We kicked off with an early dinner / late lunch at Tai Kai Lok on Gerrard Street, which was actually not too bad. Picking restaurants in Chinatown at random is potential suicide, because a lot of them are really, really poo. I always try to see if there are any Chinese people inside. If it looks like it's only tourists, then run. Run fast. The buffets are best avoided, in my experience. I had a duck rice and prawn dumplings. The duck was lovely, albeit a bit cold, the rice was lovely, the dumplings were OK, but not as good as the ones at Joy King Lau.

With our bellies stuffed, we headed to Camden Town, where I discovered Cyberdog and wondered how I could have missed this place before? If you want to buy a space suit or any kind of alien accessories, THIS is the place. Like you buy that every day. Don't you? Well, you should. It's super cool.

In the evening, we decided to have some fun in the West End. First I introduced Butch to Covent Garden, because it's a touristy sort of place and he was a tourist. We sat outside and had coffee. Yes, people do that in London, even in December. We might not have the same café culture that they have in Vienna, but we do have a smoking ban in all bars and restaurants, when coffee and cigarettes go together so well! So we have to do it outside. With the outdoor heaters, it wasn't half bad and the hot chocolate at Piazza Café was very tasty. Our next stop was the Round Table, which I had mentioned on here before. It is strange how I am attracted to places I had been to before, even if they were not good at all. I suppose I enjoy the feeling of being in-the-know. All I can say is that it's a lot more packed on a Saturday night. We drank a couple of pints of Staropramen at the bar. Initially, we took a seat upstairs but we were promptly kicked out by a guy from the Soho Comedy Club who needed to set up the room for their performance. You should have seen him moving people's tables while they were still sitting, chatting and totally not understanding what the hell is happening. Especially the Chinese tourists. In the true style of dry English humour, one of the guests noted: "The comedy is meant to be done by the performers, not the organizer of the show."

And with that, we were out and onto our next stop, the Marquis of Granby pub for some more beer. The place seemed unremarkable, that is until we decided to check out the extra seating upstairs. There was no one there! Saturday night, whole big room to ourselves. Pretty bizarre! We sat there chatting for a while, until we got hungry and partied off to McDonald's in Leicester Square for many, many calories. We didn't feel up for any serious clubbing, so we went to my house and drank homemade rum cocktails while watching YouTube videos. I learnt several new things, for example that Kabul used to be a hotspot on the hippie trail in the 70s. I had heard of (and been to) Goa and Thailand but I had no idea the hippies went to Afghanistan as well! OK, so it has nothing to do with London but it's fascinating stuff.



On Sunday, we took a long walk along the Thames, from Westminster all the way to St. Paul's Cathedral. The sun was shining, which is rather unusual for December in London. It was really lovely and there weren't that many people around (especially tourists). Did I mention I hate tourists? I did. So we sat down in Starbucks near St. Paul's for some coffee and snacks. I am not going to review Starbucks for you because, well, it's Starbucks and it's the same everywhere. We parted our ways at London Bridge, after crossing the river over the Millenium Bridge, which was my first time on the bridge and Butch was proud that he could show me something new. I should hang out by the Thames more often. It's pretty cool down there.

In the afternoon, I went to the London Coliseum to see the Sleeping Beauty. It was my first time seeing the ballet in a really long time and it was sooo beautiful. The costumes were lovely - beautiful colours and very sparkly. The dancers were great, the music was great, the set was lovely and did I mention the London Coliseum is a really nice place? I loved, loved, loved it and it made me remember all those times I used to go out to the theatre and to concerts as a child and a teenager back in the Czech Republic. But for the past few years, I have been a cultural drop-out. I will definitely need to do something about it because this was so much "better for the soul" than retail binges or watching all those chavs on TV. So for January, I have booked tickets to go to see Manon. Yeeeei. Cannot wait!