Day 8 - London Part II

I’ve almost given up this futile effort of keeping everyone completely filled in of previous exploits, but since I have a three hour train ride ahead of me, back to Leeds from Scotland, I shall see how much I can accomplish in this time.  I’ll begin by recounting the second half of the day of our return to London.


Day 8 – London   Part II

I felt slightly dizzy leaving Holland and Holland, the experience was rather overwhelming.  As a comic relief, I promptly walked by some fancy art gallery, which had this as its prominent display. 

Naturally I walked past, paused, backed up, and peered in, in the cartoon double-take fashion.  I walk up to the door, and ask the door-holder-person if I may enter.  I can, to get a better look at this homoerotic beast.  Yup, it was pretty much what I thought it was, and all the bit fantastic.  I took a quick tour of what else was on display, and found this glittery sequin-covered model of an AK-47.

I don’t get art.

It was a fair distance to Camden market, my next stop, (as recommended by Austin), so I look for buses that are heading that way.  I forgot that the bus stop I originally wanted to take was right across from Holland and Holland in my daze, and I was already a few blocks away from there.  I ask a lady at a bus stop, who happened to be American in origin, but has lived in London for 10 years. She was happy to help me find my way, and apparently lives near Camden market.  She shows me the way, and thank goodness for it, because there is a small flea market titled, “Camden Market” that I might have mistaken for the actual thing, and would have been promptly disappointed.

Camden Market is to the right

 I crossed a bridge, and took this little picture because I thought the canal was cute.

I enter the market alone.  It is predominately indoors, which creates a confining shell of this euphoria of overwhelming sensations.  Camden Market is a sensory overload.  It is a plethora of small booths all crammed close to each other.  Each booth is completely overfilled with products as the vendors shove as much Chinese factory made merchandise as they possibly can into their allotted space, giving you far too much to look at, (sight).  Bright colours everywhere, while the market place itself is dimly lit (sight).  Every third booth or so has a different type of music playing (sound). Every fourth or fifth booth is burning a different type of incense (smell).  Naturally, at the clothing booths I’m interested in, I need to touch the fabrics of all the pieces to feel the materials (touch).  People are smoking hookas (smell).  The place is filled with talking, chattering and shouting (sound).  Passing through the food vendors, aromas of Chinese, and Indian dominate (smell).  The food vendors shout at me specifically to test and buy their food products (sound).  After shouting “Vegetarian!” at two food vendors who are offering me mystery-meat Chinese products, I enter a vortex of three other food vendors shouting at me from different directions at the same time, and I end up (literally) running through that area to get away from them.

Camden Market is the exact opposite of Holland and Holland, in every way, while both manage to create the similar overloading anxieties within me.

Um, OK then.

I read this sign (shown left) at a military style vendor, and I’m still not entirely sure what it’s referring to

I am very delighted, however, by the quantity and variety of gothic clothing vendors available.  We have four, maybe five places that sell these things in all of Vancouver (if I’m wrong, please let me know where else to shop!) , while I walked past half a dozen here within one block of each other.  The prices were all very reasonable too, making me partially relieved that I had no money on me, least I have spent my living/food money on corsets.  I did get the business cards of a couple places, so I might browse them online when I’m more settled down in Leeds.  (Although, I have a sneaking suspicion that some of those vendors imported from the same Asian factories).

I explained my surprise about the quantity of these shops to one of the gentlemen running one of the gothic booths, saying, “there’s only about two places like this in my entire city!” (incorrect in hindsight), and he responds, “let me guess what city, Toronto?”  I’m a little surprised, and ask, “No, Vancouver, but how did you know I’m Canadian?” and he claims that our accent is softer than that of Americans, and we can be differentiated by that.  Cool!  Not even most Canadians or Americans can do that.

And such concludes the evening of day 8, and I head back to the B&B in Barnes.

You know you’re in England when:

YOUR NAME IS WALDO, AND YOU KNOW IT!

Is it too late for me to go through a Gothic phase?  I really regret not doing this in high school, and I LOVE the clothing styles