Jakface in the UK: Camden Town Wins, National Express Fails

So on Tuesday I met up with Joei/Steve to go to Camden Town, which is a magical place in North London where it has tons of amazing little shops and booths with the artsiest, coolest trinkets and stuff you could possibly imagine! I must take Steph here. For serious. And any artist who likes cool stuff must go here.

We met up and walked around, I got an amazing hot chocolate from Pret A Manger, which is a chain of cafe type places, with the friendliest customer service person in London I had yet come across. His name was Tom and he was amazing and friendly. :D After checking out some of the booths and stores along the main strip that all look the same (but still cool), we go into a place called Cyberdog, which is a cyberpunk-only store. It's incredible. There's 2 enormous robots on the outside of the place (See picture) and when you go inside, you're greeted by people dressed in Cyberpunk gear, with neon blacklit stuff everywhere, robots on the walls, video game and electronic themed gagdets, then you go down an escalator downstairs and there's a DJ with a huge DJ table spinning trance/techno, with a lit up blue wall behind him that's got music level bars pulsing to the beat of the song playing. There's crazy cyber clothes EVERYWHERE, down a tunnel, in the big open area.. it was just insane. To get an idea for the kind of clothes and stuff they sell, go here: http://shop.cyberdog.net/ I looked at everything and almost bought a really cool bathing suit, but I didn't have room for it so I didn't bother.. But I DID buy an awesome Space Invaders roll up keyboard which I can put anywhere for when I'm typing, so it's more ergonomically friendly, AND I can spill stuff on it without worry because it can wipe right off :D

After visiting Cyberdog, we checked out more of the nooks and crannys of Camden, which included markets with indian restaurant/lounge type places that almost had a harem theme to it, with hookahs just chilling on some of the tables outside. It was really pretty, I took a picture. (see picture) And of course there were scary horse statues EVERYWHERE. I don't know wtf it is with London and scary horse statues, but it's like you cannot escape them. That's where I lost Steve. :{ (See picture)

I had a chillax day on Wednesday working on a commission, and I met Chris after work at this posh modern looking Indian restaurant called India India, and since it was 2 for 1 appys and entrees, we had a delicious feast that I treated us both to. It felt so hilariously bizarre, because I bought a sparkling rose wine, and the waiter kept wanting to ask Chris about pouring it and tasting it but since I was buying it I was like NO, ME, I'm THE MAN! They must have thought we were on some bizarre date XD Haha. It was funny, and delicious! I ended up drinking a bit more than I thought that night with Chris and watching Adulthood, and Chris's 2 friends from Norway came in and I was roaring tipsy, showing them the Professor Layton and the malignant tumor while laughing hysterically the entire time. PROFESSORRR!! BASEEEEBALLL!!!!

Thursday I had to get up early because I had an appointment with my Visa place in London to get my bank account set up and my National Insurance Number information posted to my aunt Shirley's place in West Yorkshire. After doing that jazz, I went to "Orange" which is one of the major phone companies here, and got a really nice phone, the Samsung Genio Qwerty. It was 110 pounds with the pay as you go plan with a 10 pound top up. :} I wanted to try to figure out how to make it work, so I had to go to the closest place with a sit down point, which on the busy Oxford street, was unfortunately McDonalds. It was a ZOO in there, like, they had people who were pushing/directing you into places in line, and I felt like I had to buy something. So I got 9 plain chicken mcnuggets with no sauce, and after trying to figure out a place to sit, manage to find a seat upstairs which was an awkwardly laid out long table. Think of a long rectangle with seats all the way around it with a low light above it.. you could breathe on the person across from you and beside you. I was trying to call Orange to get my account set up properly but it was too loud and people were staring at me when I was trying to give the lady over the phone my personal information quietly, so I had to abandon McDonalds with all my crap and settle it a more loiterous fashion. :)

After setting up the phone, I met up with Andy and the 2 lovely Norwegian girls, Ida and Stine, and Chris on his lunch break for a bit, we checked out some cute shops on Carnaby St, including a really cute Cupcake shop that had some good earl grey. We also went into this AMAZING place called Forbidden Planet, which is like a nerd's wet dream. It's got an entire bottom basement with TONS and TONS of comics and sci fi stuff, and tons of Doctor Who Stuff, and on the top floor is tons of action figures and comic toys and sci fi toys... it was literally amazing. Expensive though, didn't buy anything there (amazingly) but still had such a great time browsing! Later that night my body decided to decide I had a cold >:/ we went to Central London to go to a Wetherspoons, and we had Curry Club! Andy and I shared a apple crumble with traditional "custard" instead of "ice cream" which apparently is what you give to children to shut them up.. XD all the while Andy was explaining what "Honeymonster" was, which was not a very pleasant thing to think about while eating said dessert. :(

Friday was a fun day, involved hanging out with Ida and Stine, walking around Harrod's (which I felt so out of place, it's all expensive stuff, like Sak's fifth avenue) but they had the most AMAZING food displays... a Sandwich cost 15 pounds in this place!! It's very swanky, but since it was expensive we escaped and walked around a lot to find a place called "Thai Corner" or something, it was awful. I ordered "Iced Tea" and got some sort of horrid sugary ginger lemon crap that I couldn't drink, and the waiter was semi retarded, he only had to take care of 4 tables but it took him 5 minutes to get a glass of water which was RIGHT behind us. And it cost like, 10 pounds for my drink, 5 small chicken skewers with half a small cup of peanut sauce (I asked for extra peanut sauce and they only filled half the already tiny tin. Nice.) and a lame bowl of unflavored rice noodles. Fffff. >:|

We headed to the Science Museum and hit up an IMAX "Deep Sea" which was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and music by Danny Elfman.. it was in 3d! :O My eyes had trouble adjusting to some parts, but all in all it was cooool. We escaped to meet up with some people later, at the Trocadero, (see picture) which is like a huge arcade mixed with the cool parts of Metrotown. It's loud and obnoxiously tacky, crowded, and tall. I had the most expensive Sprite of my life in the bar there (it was 2.75 for a large sprite. Which is 4.75 canadian. :|) We checked out the arcade, and we played some oldschool DDR 3rd mix, and when I got off the machine K-dogg was right behind me. XD I almost had a heart attack, I laughed so hard. (He's some sort of DDR legend and the BBC had a spot about him called Lord of the Dance Machine, which Chris made me watch. It's really weird I saw him in person not even a week later randomly.) He was probably there for the DDR tournament at the Anime/Game Expo that was going on this weekend. Annnnyhoo.

We leave to check out Chinatown at night, which was SUPER cool, the atmosphere was great!! Lots of people out and it was so bright and colorful! We went to an expensive Japanese/Thai restaurant, where I decided to get a Chicken teriyaki bento box for 10.90 (which is about 18.00 canadian :|) It was pretty and delicious though. On the way home we got some snacks and watched Kiki's delivery service, and played Lips/SingStar until 4am. XD;

I got up at 10 am today, Saturday, to pack and get ready to catch my 1:40pm bus at Earl's Court.

The bad thing about today was that half the trains, including all the ones we needed to take, were shut down for maintenance. :| So Chris nicely went with me carrying my 20kg laptop bag, to Northfields station, me carrying my enormous backpack, purse and camera case, I topped up my Oyster card, got on the "Replacement bus" which was smelly and packed, it took us to Hammersmith where we went a couple stops to Earl's Court, walked around until we found the National Express stop I needed to get on at. I was an hour early and the bus was late when it finally arrived... except I got a nasty surprise.

Apparently, the lady told me the "bad news" that she couldn't let me on because I had a bag. I could only get on with a bag at the Victoria station because she couldn't open the compartment to put my bag in.

.......

What?!?!?!?

It never said that on the website. So she just shrugged her shoulders and said "sorry" and drove off. So there goes 19 pounds (35 dollars) wasted for nothing.

So poor Chris. He nicely went along with me BACK to Earl's Court, to figure out how the hell to get to Victoria station, after huffing and puffing upstairs (me, lol, out of shape) with my aching back, I'm literally dripping with sweat, walking fast after Chris to the Coach area of Victoria station which was a good 10 minute walk from the tube station, had to wait in line for 25 minutes to buy another 21 pound ticket, and just managed to get on, no thanks to the jerk bus driver when I asked him "did people board yet", he said "well people are on the bus, aren't they!?!?" >:|

When I finally got on the bus and settled down to listen to my iPod for the 3 hour trip, my iPod crashed in my bag, and doesn't work, and won't work until it dies and I recharge it.

Sigh.

Well at least I was greeted at the Cheltenham Spa station by Troy, who is awesome, and now I am in his tiny student house on a lovely couch, already enjoyed 2 cups of tea and an orange juice, and had spaghetti with a pork and creamy gravy sauce Sabine (his girlfriend) and I concocted, we played some Ghostbusters, watched some Batman animated series, and now, since I am extremely tired, am going to bed.

Good night, and god speed. Will update eventually! WITH STUFF!