There was a Japanese woman at breakfast this morning, here to attend a greeting card show.

We walked to Euston Station in the bright morning light, gathering shots of people on their way to work. The main hall of the station itself was filled with people staring, zombie-like, at the train schedule, before making sudden rushes to the gates. Apparently they have no idea from which platform the trains will leave from until the last moment, and they are frequently delayed in any case. The train we’d been hoping to take was cancelled, and so we took another without realizing that it was a really slow train. I also noticed a  large number of British women on crutches. Odd.

On board, we could spy out other people who were on their way to Hogwarts, i.e. the film sound stages, by their conversation and generally geeky demeanor.  The place itself was fascinating, with all kinds of details, the actual sets and props, and commentary. As I was walking along Diagon Alley, however, I noticed that there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t recording their experience with a mobile phone, and nobody was actually looking with their eyes at anything. It seems that the appearance of experience has superseded the experience itself.

Delays made getting back to London a bit later than we’d expected. Delays seem to happen often on the rail systems here. At least they seemed very sorry about it, if the announcements were anything to go by.  The Underground tunnels, I’ve noticed, are rather labyrinthine, much like those of Paris. This, I like; every station is different and interesting.

We went to a market. Camden Market. It was rather like the Shilin Night Market and had most of the same stuff, plus a lot of  horse statues. We had Chinese food near a canal and chatted with the staff, who are from all over Asia, as we munched on noodles and various goopy dishes.

On the way back to the subway, we passed a group of screaming girls holding a siege around a restaurant. A policeman told me that there was a famous Japanese band inside, AKB or something.

It had been raining at the market, but once we emerged at Waterloo, the sky clear once again. Across the river was the famous scene of the Parliament and Big Ben. We took the London Eye Ferris wheel, which offered a nice sunset view of the surrounding area, including the spires of famous buildings, all kinds of boats, hotels, trains, and the occasionally violent soccer fan or backpack-wearing jogger. I saw lots of DSLRs around the necks of passersby. I suspect this has precious little to do with the photography festival.

Walking back as night approached, we crossed through Picadilly Circle, with all the shows and laughing young people, and a crowd watching opera on a huge TV set in the square. I was beat by this time, though, so we took the tube back to Kings Cross. No idea what’s up ffor tomorrow. I just need some rest.

I think that the women who make and serve breakfast at the hotel every morning are Polish. Every day they ask, “English breakfast?” even though there are no other choices; it’s either an English breakfast or no breakfast. Perhaps they’ve been told to ask because it makes it seem that there are many other choices to choose from. Today I followed Chenbl’s lead in making a ham/bacon/tomato sandwich with my toast, ameliorating the salty ham with mango jelly; it wasn’t bad. We also nicked a couple of apples on our way out for later consumption.

After breakfast we walked over to the gallery where our exhibit will be held; it’s not far from the hotel, which is why we chose that location. Then we walked around the area a bit, failing to find Charles Dickens’ home, bypassing the British Museum, and stalking various well-lit corners with interesting shapes. So far nobody has had a bad reaction to being photographed. After reading so many articles on BoingBoing by Cory Doctorow, I’d though British people were a lot more paranoid; perhaps I am just meeting the wrong British people. Or perhaps just the right ones.

At Paddington Station we gave in and purchased a couple of Krispy Kreme donuts; it was inevitable. Oddly enough, there is a canal on the hill above the station. I don’t know how that works; you’d think water would generally run underneath stations, but there it is, like some dream city in Inception.

The journey out to Bath took almost two hours, and the scenery was much the same as on the way to Oxford, including the varying weather. We’d learned that you can charge batteries on the train, which is vital as my little camera sucks batteries dry surprisingly quickly.

Bath is a pleasant town during the day, though of course filled with tourists. We walked past either a crime scene or some friends having fun on the sidewalk, and then visited a completely empty Presbyterian church before making our way to the center of the old town, where a large “abbey” dominates the scene. Little flying bugs, in both green and black varieties, were EVERYWHERE, which was quite annoying, but the gentle music in the squares was pleasant. I suspect they only allow gentle music there, by law.

We joined a free walking tour held by an elderly, extremely British woman who knew quite a lot about the place and walked very quickly. She told us many interesting tidbits about the history of bath and didn’t yell at anyone for taking photos of things they oughtn’t take photos of. Two small girls who babbled nonsense throughout the tour didn’t phase her either. Along the tour I kept getting into camera battles with other members, and the result was that all of our photos have someone’s head in them. I’m not sure who won.

After the tour, we had a lunch/dinner of half-price hamburgers, and then wandered the old cobblestone streets a bit more. At one point a man with a DSLR was walking towards us with a gleam in his eye; he lifted his camera and snapped our photo on the street just as I had one eyebrow raised, Spock-like. This is how I come across, I thought; I suppose I deserve as much. Dawdling by the stone bridge looking at the waterfowl, we missed the last tour boat on the river, which is a shame; it looked lovely especially in that weather. Instead, we walked down the riverside, observing the masses of insects buzzing around the old trees (Bath could use a larger sparrow population, and/or more bats), and then back around into town, which was now deserted. All of the tourists had left at some point around 7pm, and the town assumed an empty, slightly disturbing cast. Young, hoodish men gathered in alleyways, and I began to understand why the elderly tour guide rushed quickly away afterwards, presumably for the safety of home, as all the shops closed at 5.

As we searched for a place to buy bottled water, we passed a group of young men in an alley, who called out, “Look, a couple of Chinese bastards!” I’m not sure about the “bastards” part, it could have been something else, but I’ll wager it wasn’t meant to flatter.

“Walk faster,” Chenbl told me; we headed out of town and back to the train station, where we sat in the waiting room that overlooks the main street heading into town, flanked by two ancient stone hotels. I passed the time waiting for our train by walking from one end of the platform to the other, admiring the green grass of the hills, the handsome stone houses, and a balloon. The sun was setting behind the church spires as we pulled out of the station, on our way back to London.

About an hour and a half later, we were on the tube, which is surprisingly short, due to old tunnels I suppose. The tops of the cars are rounded, including the doors and windows. I took a photo of the woman sitting across from us. She had just confirmed that we were on the right train to Kings Cross.

“Did you just take a picture of me?” she asked. Not demanding, just incredulous.

“Yes!” I said.

“Why?”

“Because all the colors work,” I said, pointing out how her red hair, her red bag and blue dress matched the Underground logo, the seat and the bars around the seat. She seemed satisfied.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we’re going to Hogwarts.

I slept as late as I possibly could this morning, but although I tried really hard to keep sleeping until a reasonable hour, I was still out of bed by 6 a.m., before the sun was more than a glow over the row houses behind the hotel that constituted our view. The light grew as we got ready to go, eventually blazing into the room, which is nice, though the bathroom is tiny with a weak toilet and shower due to low water pressure. No air conditioning either; I suppose it’s not usually needed; they just leave the windows open all the time, but I didn’t see any mosquitoes.

The underground to Paddington was crowded due to breakdowns and, well, crowds, but we got to the station with enough time to admire the curved glass ceilings. A nice balding, bespectacled man with shaky hands processed our tickets, and we avoided the station’s Krispy Kreme on the way to the platform, where I was informed in a rather rough fashion to not bother with swiping my ticket and to just walk through the bleedin’ gate damn it GO ok THANK you!

The train to Oxford took us out of the city into lush springtime countryside punctuated occasionally by construction sites. The weather, which had been brilliant, became overcast, but was brilliant again by the time we reached Oxford.

Oxford is, we were told by a free tour guide who fancied himself not only an expert on the city and the university, but a standup comic as well, a collection of 38 completely independent colleges, many of which were monasteries before those were outlawed by Henry VIII. We saw the lamp post, lion head figure, and satyr decorations on a pub that supposedly inspired CS Lewis to write The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe. We passed ornate gates of and carefully manicured emerald lawn of All Souls College, supposedly the most exclusive of the colleges, where they hunt imaginary waterfowl and give tests on a single word (a major in blogging being the result, I imagine). We got about halfway through that tour before losing them, so we walked around on our own a bit. I saw quite a few places I recognized from movies, and I even spied a village from the train that I’m sure was featured in Band of Brothers. Many of the Harry Potter movies features bits of Oxford scenes, as well as the Golden Compass.

We lunched on chicken sandwiches on rye bread at what was supposedly the site of the first coffee house ever (circa 1650), before purchasing tickets for the actual tour, by real Oxford Experts. Our Real Oxford Expert was an older Italian woman whose husband went to Oxford, and she spent much of the tour trying to convince us the Italy’s educational tradition was older and finer than that of England. She also got angry at Chenbl, who was falling behind to take photos and had the audacity to actually set foot on the dais of one of the colleges’ dining halls. “If you do not behave I will throw you out!” she glared at us, demanding that I keep Chenbl’s antics under control. I wondered briefly if it was part of an act to make us feel like part of the college we were touring, wayward students cowed by the severe headmistress or something, but I suspected she was serious; it was hard to tell as her English wasn’t exactly native-level.

After that tour we headed over to the Christ Church College, where they filmed the Hogwarts entrance hall and on whose dining hall they based the great hall, as it seems to be the largest college in Oxford. Every college is a kind of secret world, each has its fancy dining hall, church, and library; many are not open to visitors. It’s no surprise that the Harry Potter stories are based on such a tradition, but I wonder if the American fraternity system is as well. I actually did an interview for a Rhodes Scholarship when I was in college at Washington & Lee University, but my mention of an interest in filmmaking was ill-received and deemed “trendy”. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had I been more discreet. If I’d studied at Oxford I would have returned to Taiwan much later than I originally did, if I didn’t do something else.

We walked around a few more streets by more colleges, apparently very wealthy students popping in and out of ivy-hidden doors now and then, before going back to Christ Church for the service they hold, just to sit down in the lovely cathedral and listen to the choir and priest singing and chanting. It was very pleasant, and we got to walk again across the lovely green grounds, which by then were glowing in the late afternoon sun.

We wandered through the town a bit more as the sun moved towards the green horizon before we caught a mostly empty train back to London; we were virtually the only passengers. The sun sets so late here that it was still light out at 9:30.

Back in London, we found Platform 9 and three quarters at Kings Cross after Chenbl convinced me to actually ask one of the station staff. I half expected him to say, “Think you’re being funny, do you?” But he didn’t even think it was a silly question.

Tomorrow we’re going to Bath.

I woke up, exhausted, at the Pudong Airport Hotel. We had the usual Chinese hotel breakfast downstairs in the atrium, and then spent the next couple of hours casually taking photos of people in the terminal. It was a fine day to be sitting in a light-filled airport lounge. I sat in the lounge, closed my eyes and just listened to the conversations and announcements going on around me as I took advantage of a charging station to fill up my camera batteries.

The flight was long. Though I’d snagged a window seat, there wasn’t much to see. Luckily, it was a new plane, an Airbus with entertainment systems. I watched The Artist, which held my interest fairly well, though it frequently had me wanting to shout, “WHAT DID HE JUST SAY!” And a few other movies. Got up to walk around a bit. No map system on the plane, so no idea what lands we flew over. All I knew was we were over Siberia, or possibly Mongolia. Disappointing.

London was bathed in the light of the afternoon sun as we approached, crossing the paths of several other jets on our way in a slightly disconcerting fashion. I was a bit nervous in the immigration line, which seemed to be occupied mostly by people of South Asian origin, but we got a pair of reasonable officials, one training the other, so a lot of “Oops I didn’t mean to key THAT in!” but no real hassles.

The underground was located, appropriately, under the airport, and after obtaining Oyster cards from a bored official, we took the hour-long train in and found our hostel near Kings Cross, which doesn’t seem as prostitute-infused as I’d been led to believe. The hotel is an old three-storey building, with creaky stairs and worn carpets, and our room holds two metal-framed twin beds and a tiny bathroom. Sufficient for our needs, and the location is quite convenient.

It’s late and I’m tired. Tomorrow we’re going to Oxford.

It was supposed to be a leisurely morning, as our flight was in the afternoon, but that didn’t stop me from rushing out the door, late at 11. The weather was fine, and I halfway wished I had the weekend free. But no, I had better plans. I was off to the airport, to catch a flight to Shanghai.

After Chenbl’s customary scolding over my predilection for tardiness, we caught the airport bus and arrived in due time despite some congestion caused by construction. Window seats were gladfully approved after noting some similarities between the check-in woman and Lin Chi-ling, and lunch was had at a swank airport lounge overlooking a departing Singapore Airliner pulling away from the terminal as we consumed sandwiches and listened to airport announcements. It was very 1963.

Our flight was normal; we descended into the white mist of Shanghai over glassy waters and groups of shiny-roofed houses. The woman at immigration was sharp and angry. “Get over here! Now! Do you have an ROC passport? Well, don’t just stand there, show it to me! What was your flight number? What do you mean you don’t remember? Look at your ticket stub! Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

We hoisted our stuff up to the airport hotel. Well, “hoisted” is a bit of a stretch, as we’re traveling light. This is the first trip in years on which I haven’t bought a big camera with me. Yes, the Invincible Rabbit is sitting this one out, and I’m using a compact camera instead. We’ll see how it works, though so far I foresee battery life will be a significant problem. The Rabbit would go forever on one battery; this one runs out after only a few hours.

We were meeting up with John Pasden of Sinosplice fame at a restaurant off the Bund at 7pm. Unfortunately, I’d lost the address, and nobody seemed to have heard of the restaurant; The taxi driver certainly didn’t. We got out and walked around for a bit, periodically being accosted by touts asking if we wanted girls/sex/massages/digital watches, until I finally got John on the phone, and he told me the address. Turned out it was just around the corner.

We joined John and his wife at a trendy place called Lost Heaven, where we had a delicious meal and a great conversation. Afterwards we walked down the Bund to the old Waldorf-Astoria, full of ghosts from the 1930s. We sat and talked until midnight in one of the old building’s coves overlooking the street outside. It was great, but I was tired and nearly fell asleep in the taxi back to the airport hotel.  The taxi driver had no idea how to actually get to the hotel, and let us out on the highway to find the entrance for ourselves. Nice.

Tomorrow we’re flying to London. I’ve never been, and our hotel is located in a reportedly alarming place, but we’ll see, I guess.

Invitation to the London Festival of Photography

Some of my photos are going to be shown at the London Festival of Photography as part of our Burn My Eye exhibition starting on June 1. I wasn’t planning to go originally, as I just got back from Korea not long ago and have already used up most of my vacation time, funds and the goodwill of my various bosses, but then I thought, hey, I’ve never been to the UK, and this probably a much better excuse than I could ever come up with on my own, so why not take advantage of it?

So I managed to find some cheap tickets on a mainland Chinese airline that stops over in Shanghai, booked a cheap hotel in London that hopefully includes a bathroom of my own and isn’t right above a discotheque or whatever they have there for dancing purposes, and of course I’ve reserved a place on the Harry Potter tour (ooh I hope I’m in Slytherin!) for the end of May/beginning of July. The exhibit runs for the entire month of June, but I’ll be leaving London on the 2nd, so just enough time to pop in and see anyone who has wandered into the gallery by mistake and hasn’t figured out that it’s not an artsy bed & breakfast.

Just kidding. I’m honored to be part of this, as well as the BME collective, which features some very fine photographer, many of whom will be attending, and I look forward to meeting them as well as seeing a bit of the city during my time there, maybe even taking a snapshot or two if that sort of thing is still allowed there.

Hope you like it.