London Ninja

Ok, I have listed all of the places we may go to in 2008. Not all of the places will fly given my limited holiday, but we will try to hit as many as we can. The biggest trip I want to make in 2008/2009 is a trip to Africa. Yes, the Africa that may give a teacher 40 lashes, 6 months in jail, a fine, and a bowl of dog feces rubbed on her head for calling a teddy bear Muhammed. WTF. And yes, the same Africa that theatened the life of my uncle once.

The story, told many a times over some fine Taiwanese beer at family get-togethers, goes something like this: Large Taiwanese tour bus full of wealthy Taiwanese businessmen touring through Africa were pulled over by the police as they were leaving South Africa. The policemen came onboard the bus, shot rounds into the air with their AKs and told everybody to give them everything they got. They then proceeded to take all luggage on board. After they took everything, they rubbed goat feces on everybody’s face and then used a bare hand to remove the throbbing heart of a man while exclaiming “KA-LEEE-MAAAAA”. It’s all true. Oh, and they had chilled monkey brains for dinner.

2008 Travel Destinations

Europe
Paris (kind of a given, but figure I would put it here anyway)
Prague
Italy
Pisa, Tuscany, Cinque Terre
Sicily
Florence, Rome, Venice
Greece
Istanbul
Munich
Madrid [Updated: removed due to popular demand]
Sevilla, Valencia
Palermo
Croatia coast
Bordeaux, Marseille, nice (lower priority)
Amsterdam
palma

UK
Edinburgh
Lake District
Scottish highlands
Cambridge
Windsor Castle
Belfast
Cork
Wales
Brighton

Work related:
Berlin
Bern

New Adventures [Updated Nov 28 per Expat Em]
South Africa
Morrocco

These are exciting because there is a 3% chance of loss-of-life.

So what does that mean?
If you are planning on visiting the Secret Den of the Ninja, let me know if you’re interested in joining one of those trips. If you’re not visiting, I’ll take you along with me via this blog (sans the defining moments where I pass out on the street). If you think I should ex-nay a city or I should hit another, please leave it in the comments. I will read it and let you know whether I will entertain it, or just rub camel fecal matter on your face.

For Thanksgiving, because I’m not in the United States, I went to lunch at the Old Ship with some coworkers. It is a very traditional pub, full of ales and beer and old British dudes that take down pints for lunch.

What I ordered was:
Steak, mushroom, onion sandwich: 5.50
Chips: 2.50

Total price: £8.

Pretty pricey lunch in the US for that price. You would expect a decent sandwich. A good half hour later, I received my lunch. Now, I’m not expecting lightly seared kobe beef on top of mango chutney but what I got was:
1. white bread (3 pieces in a club sandwich way)
2. lettuce
3. tomato
4. cucumber
5. chopped up steak – no seasoning

I was pleasantly surprised, actually. That is, surprised that the food even arrived at all. And surprised the chopped up steak resembled any edible kind of substance at all. The good thing is that the sandwich fixings (lettuce, tomato, cucumber) was duplicated next to the sandwich to be the “salad”. GhettoFab. The sandwich was under a section called “Hot Fill”. I recommended they rename it to “Crap Fill”.(yeah, I came up with that all on my own)

May this be a lesson to those who think they can eat at any pub and get good “pub grub”. Traditional British food is crap any way you cut it…consider yourself warned if you’re in London.

Word: Press-up
Definition: British way of saying push-up
Usage: I reckon I may do some press-ups on the green after some lovely tea and biscuits.

Not sure what it’s like in other parts of the world, but London is bloody cold.

Not in Cali anymore, toto.

For some reason the UK does not celebrate the day Americans give thanks for getting the F out of the UK 300 years ago. Not sure why. Brits only seem to celebrate failed assassination attempts.

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than some good old British-bred turkey. Oh oops, turkeys are diseased like every other meat here in the UK.

If there was ever a time in my life to go vegan, this is probably it. Produce and dairy have been much better than the US but the meats have been pure shite.

Guess I’m eating yoghurt for Thanksgiving. Cheers.

Word: Tin
Definition: Can
Usage: Do you have any pumpkin in a tin?

We attempted to make pumpkin pie yesterday in celebration of Thansgiving. In doing so, we realised that we actually need pumpkin. These stores were absolutely confused on what we were asking when we asked “can of pumpkin”. Eventually someone asked, “oh, pumpkin in a tin? Never heard of that before.” The rest of the day, we were in search, in futility, for “pumpkin in a tin”.

We never found the pumpkin in a tin, but am happy to say that we enjoy tuna in a tin, peaches in a tin, mandarin oranges in a tin, and of course…kippers in a tin.

I finally used my free passes received from the first time I watched a movie in London. I decided to hit up the Odeon on High Street Kennsington. The was something very obviously different with this particular cinema. We received tickets that had a set number on it. In addition, they checked tickets at the entrance of the individual theatres. WTF? I thought the whole movie watching model was that you get checked at the door and then it’s off to the races and you get whatever seat you want based on where you think the optimal seating is. In stadium seating, it’s generally the row of seats right ahead of the path to go across in the middle. So what does all this mean? No double-features, no sitting where you want…wtf.

The first side-effect of the assigned seating is that people don’t need to get there as early as you normally would. As a matter of fact, we tried to get into our cinema 15 minutes early and couldn’t. They open the doors 10 mins before the showing. WTF. Also because I was watching Into The Wild and not Beowulf, our theatre was small. Felt like a living room or something. I don’t even want to talk about the non-THX/Dolby Digital sound system or the screen. I absolutely do not want to talk about the screen that was smaller than the plasma I wish I had.

The movie, by the way, was fantastic in spite of the viewing conditions. Go watch it….although it’s probably not even showing anymore in the US. The brits just have not invested in good movie theatres and it shows. It may have been wise because of the decline of movie-watchers, but it also means I probably won’t be watching anything any time soon.

Ok, this is part of the reason I moved to London. My office is actually quite lovely with a view of the Thames(pronounced ‘tams’, not ‘tames’). This is the picture I just took a few minutes ago.

lovely

Of course, I do not take pictures of my view during those days when it is pouring rain and you are in the sun, or….wait…I do have one:

bollocks

Grasshoppers, you can’t have ying without the yang. The true ninja accepts all with grace, dignity, and a proper ale. I leave you with a saying from the wise:

It usually rains twice a week in London. Once for 3 days, and the second time for 4 days.

Cheers.