Nice and cloudy

When we arrived in London ~2 months ago, it was sunny and warm.  Now it's consistently cloudy, rainy, and cold.  So far my favorite things about London are: english people are overtly polite, robust public transportation, array of delicious food (except korean), lots of cool things to see and do, relatively diverse - some 300 languages are spoken here, beer with breakfast, cabs - very comfortable like a PT cruiser.  Some things I can do without: monarchy, weather, sneaky english people/business practices (e.g. "weekly rent"), window tax - property tax based on # of windows in a house, colonialism, lack of fried chicken.  They can deep fry a cod, but no love for the bird!  Now some pictures of london...

One thing I've learned about living in london is to always bring your umbrella.  London bridge in the backdrop.

London bridge at night.  Looks pretty.  

the Ritz Hotel / Ritz Club

Cool structure at night.  It also has a casino called the Ritz Club, where an entrance fee is required.  Games are considered high stakes and minimum bets are really high.  Time to dust off my tuxedo shirt and split Aces!

Buckingham palace

It's a little underwhelming in person.  Looks like the Dept. of Education building in DC where Sang used to work.

Piccadilly circus

It's like the time square of london.  Lots of tourists, theaters, drunks, and Fast and Furious was filmed there - rip Paul Walker.  It took me a month to realize circus = circle.  Cool circle, lame circus.

Circus car.  Definitely not fast nor furious.  

Pink mini cooper with just enough leg room to comfortably fit Ken and Barbie.  Side story - I took that picture while on my way to eat fish and chips.  It was in this dark neighborhood with minimal street lighting.  As I was casually walking thru this neighborhood listening to Jay-Z, I saw 5 or 6 people approaching me that looked like ninjas speaking arabic.  I was little stunned and confused.  Middle eastern ninjas?!  However as I got closer, they were 6 females dressed in all black Burqas.  Excellent neighborhood watch gang / ninjas.

Some circus with some statue.  Check out that blue cab!

Some statue with his junk hanging out.  Nice pose fun boy.  Check out that blue cab!

Notting Hill

Besides the colorful homes, Notting Hill was home of the 1958 Notting Hill race riots.  It was a series of racially motivated riots that took place in late August to early September.  Side story - many of the blue collar / manual labor jobs are held by non british (e.g. indians, eastern europeans).  Today I witnessed an incident where this old british women berating an indian worker at Costa - coffee shop.  I overheard her saying things like "this is my country", "go back to your country" fucking bitch spitting some fucking bullshit.  Ironic and hypercritical.

The good doctor says 3-4 units a day!

Fyi, beers are sold in 4packs.  People love to drink here.  I think Koreans probably consume more, but english drink all day.  I was at a pub where they had a breakfast special, bacon sandwich + pint for 10 pounds!  You can also drink in "public places" kinda of like vegas.

 Doctors orders.  Healthy couple.

Tiki bar.  Fruit juice with alcohol.  Tasty and nutritious.

Chinatown.  Boba tea with alcohol.

Harrods - the mecca of shopping

Harrods department store is like the love child of neiman marcus and bergdorf goodman and if that love child lived in a museum.  It used to sell tigers back in the day.  Definitely a must see.  The lower level has a shrine of princess diana and mohamed al-fayed with an unwashed champagne glass.  Kinda of creepy and weird.  The store plays opera sometimes and the acoustics are amazing.  This is why...

Live opera singer, ballin!

From the set of Scareface

That's how Tony Montana do!

Tempedic dog bed for 1,600 pounds

Delicious langoustines.  It's like lobster, shrimp, crab.

Langoustines in my bouillabaisse

We couldn't afford anything at Harrods so we went shopping here.... 

$1.63

A day trip to stonehenge and Bath.  Nicolas Cage used to own a home in Bath before his IRS troubles. It was cold and windy.

Turn up the heat please

Turn on the lights please

The third rock from the left is Baltic Avenue

Roman baths.  Ancient roman bath houses.  "It stinks like sulfur up in dis bitch"

Next post, Amsterdam (~10yr anniversary), Morocco, and Spain.

Where my blog at?

Whoomp!! There It Is! Time to dust off the blog and start posting some shit.

In the background is Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.  It dominates the skyline of the city.  Archaeologists have established human occupation of the rock since at least the Iron Age (2nd century AD).

Iron for me to dominate

Shanne said I got some dirty looks from tourists.  I ain't trying to disrespect.  Just trying to shoot my load.  Scots are super friendly people and inventors.  Alexander Bell was born in Scotland.  Everyone sounds like Groundskeeper Willie, no joke.

Entrance to Edinburgh Castle.  Asian occupied since 2006.

Off to South Ayrshire, southwestern part of Scotland.  Home of the Turnberry!

 Westside! or is it right side??  Driving on the left side was trippy. 

Not Turnberry

Getting closer

Ahh Turnberry

Interesting fact about Turnberry from wiki.  It was used as an airbase during the First World War, and a landing strip built for this purpose still exists. During this period, the Royal Flying Corps trained pilots in the arts of aerial gunnery and combat, and the Turnberry Hotel was used as a hospital for the wounded.  After the war, courses 1 and 2 were rebuilt and renamed "Ailsa" and "Arran". A memorial to honour lost airmen was erected on the hill overlooking the 12th green of Ailsa and still remains.

Sang serenading Shanne and me outside our hotel room.  Beautiful music suhn!

Channeling Tom Watson winner of 5 Opens

 

Turnberry had to be the most scenic golf course I had the privilege of hacking up.  Lost 1/2 dozen golf balls, but birdied 17th (270yd drive, 230yd 3-wood, 2 putt).  Your boy got potential.

 Em rocks used for Olympic curling originates there.  Not much more to say.

Winner of 5 Open wine bottles

Taking a train back to London - UK countryside

Keeping in real in London

8am AGAIN!! ah fuck ... sigh

We went on a couple of tours while in VN. The memorable ones were Củ Chi tunnels and Halong Bay. I will refer to wiki to provide a description of each.

Củ Chi tunnels:
"The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels located in the Củ Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The Củ Chi tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong's base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968. The tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. The role of the tunnel systems should not be underestimated in its importance to the Viet Cong in resisting American operations and protracting the war, eventually culminating in an American withdrawal."

Halong Bay:
"Ha Long Bay (literally: Descending Dragon bay; Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a popular travel destination, located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. According to local legend, when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the earth, and then decided to live here. The place where the mother dragon descended was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon's children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island, and the place where the dragon's children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vỹ island."

To summarize, Củ Chi tunnels is where Viet Cong played hide and seek with "devil Ameicans" (side note: we watched a grainy video from the 70s (or something) of straight up communist propaganda. In short the devil Americans sent bombs from Washington, DC to kill innocent women and children. We found it hilarious!) and Halong Bay is where beautiful shit is. So there you have it.

A cross section view of the elaborate Củ Chi tunnel system. These tunnels were pretty impressive and with a little redecorating and a Swifter it could be transformed to The Forum Shops at Caesars... Generally, Vietnamese are small people, but how did they fit in there? And what address did the Viet Congs use to order delivery?? Dialog of a VC ordering Papa Johns "walk along the river and after you past the third tree from the rock make a left and walk down a tunnel... ok Nguyen, we'll be there in 30mins, guaranteed or your pie is on us!".

"Oh Nguyen, do you want 3 Coca Cola light with your order of a large meat lovers pizza??"

An air hole which allowed ventilation in these tunnels. Or diarrhea poop from a dragon, if the dragon shat mud...

Mike trying to escape the smell of my fart.... These tunnels have been expanded for tourist and they were still tight for an average size guy like me. Some of the guys reading this would have no shot it hell... you know who you are! We all took a tour (imagine walking while swatting) of the tunnels and I nearly passed out of exhaustion (let's just say the tour guide was very concerned for me.). Towards the end, I had to hop like a frog (channeling inner Tadpole).


Where did Mikey go? Yo Jay-Z and TI, holla at our boy!!



Welcoming back Mikey with open arms.


A complete tour should be followed by shooting machine guns, so we decided to shoot some shit. AK-47s and M-60s in hand.

"I dare you refer to me as female Marvin Martian again, try me bitch boy!!"


"Three pigeons and counting."

"Must destroy all pleated pants and baggy jeans."

The boat we took to Halong Bay. Someone is much more relaxed after shooting shit...

Tôi là vua Halong Bay, bitches!

Planning another early morning activity, grrrrr crazy American devils (side note: the three people you see behind Mike and Nhung are Ken, Mimi, and hot Japanese girl. Ken's a retired business man that loves his wife dearly. He now travels with his wife and has played golf all over the world. Apparently his wife plans everything and his job is just to show up. Mimi is originally from Osaka but now lives in Tokyo. She's adventurous and is interviewing for a job in Indonesia. Next is the Hot Japanese girl. She's F-I-N-E-E. I think she is also fluent in Spanish)

They served us lunch and I decided to order a bottle of wine. After lunch, I took the remaining bottle of wine into our cavern tour. BYOB Well that got rejected pretty quickly. Nhung told me they said something like "what the fuck is he doing?!?". At that point we already polished off several Tiger beers. Alcohol good in belly.

"Mimi, this is my I'm a sexy pouty bitch pose...."

I was Mimi kayaking partner during our tour. I suggested to her we kayak back to Han oi. She calls my bluff and responded by saying how bout Japan? hahaha. Let's do it! Hey buddy, do you have a washer and dryer in there?? We're going to Japan and need some fresh underwear. Can we borrow that fishing net too? We gots to eat suhn.

Floating house on water with unfinished basements...

Beautiful views of Halong Bay.

Even more beautiful views of Halong Bay. woof woof!

The cavern at Halong Bay. The tour guide was telling us some of the rock formation in the cavern have meaning and are shaped like animals, people etc. This one represents virility (can you guys find the rock?). The girls in the picture above surely didn't hurt.

This one is a sitting Buddha. Use your imagination.

On our way back to Han oi, the booze kicked in and Mike had to drain the lizard. He was only at def con level 2. Nhung and I weren't really worried since he was only at def con 2. Well, Ken layed the smack down and told the bus driver to pull over. Ken ain't playin. He's O.G. bitches!

"Is that a pigeon??" Don't piss on your food suhn. Mike's piss took exactly 5 mins and 21 seconds. That boy gotta bladder on him.

Time to eat. For only 39,000 dong you can fry a friend. Which "Friend Fried" should we have with our french fries?

Fuck it, let's get bahn mi instead. Seat belts not required for baguette when riding mopeds. I would insert a joke here about the size of the baguette and Nhung, but I saw her handle that AK-47 like female Rambo. I don't wanna become the next Friend Fried.

Does this bahn mi contain Friend Fried??