My Return to London - 2004

November 22, 2004

I'm six days into my London stay and I'm just getting around to creating this website. So much for my goal of doing a daily travel blog. The day is ending now for me, and Tom has been asleep for the last hour. Today was also my birthday and once again, it was low-key. I've had a lifelong problem with my birthday--I think my expectations for this day have always been too high, and all attempts in recent years to downplay this day have, more often than not, failed.

In general, it was a good day, but there were times that seemed a little sad. I decided to use this day to retrace my steps from 1995. Tom and I took the Underground to Brixton (a major South London neighborhood with lots of dance clubs and a large Afro-Carribean population) and then took a bus to my last residential neighborhood, Streatham Hill. I saw the old building where I lived in a flat with Chris, who is now in her late 40's. Unfortunately, Chris and I never kept in touch. She was a very nice, sweet woman, but at the time I lived with her, she was having a major personal crisis--she was in the middle of an ugly divorce. I sent her a postcard to let her know I returned to the U.S. safely, then sent her a Christmas card that year. I never heard back and she probably no longer lives in London, or at least not in the flat, which she owned with her then-estranged husband and was in the process of selling when I lived with her.

Streatham Hill (a South London neighborhood) and my old building, Christchurch House, both looked much more run-down than I recall. Streatham Hill was not exactly a prestigious place back in 1995 and appeared much more tattered and torn. Tom and I then walked a block down to my first residence in London, just a mile away on Christchurch Road, down to Tulse Hill, another South London neighborhood. The old house, which was probably a mansion back in the days when Tulse Hill and Streatham Hill were more upscale (in the late 19th/early 20th century), hadn't changed much except for a new gate. It's now for sale--the owner had been leasing out the house as three separate flats.

Tom and I then traveled to Knightsbridge (back in central London) where we ate at Wagamama, a popular chain of Japanese noodle houses, in the basement of the Harvey Nichols department store. Back in 1995, I worked at the Jerry's Home Store concession on the fourth floor of Harvey Nicks, and the current Wagamama location used to house a cafe. The food was good, but pricey according to American standards and cheap for London. Afterwards, we went to Harrod's, where we easily spent hours looking everything in this massive department store. I could have walked away with quite a few Harrod's label food items, but resisted the temptation and bought only a Harrod's/Ty Beanie Baby.

I tired Tom out by making him walk along Brompton Road to South Kensington (another fashionable London neighborhood). Once we reached the South Kensington Tube station, I completely got lost and confused. I was trying to find the old location of the Jerry's Home Store flagship location/head office, but kept walking down the wrong streets. The old store, on Fulham Road, was so close, and I ended up asking a young American mother, who happened to be walking with her baby in a pram (that's a stroller in American English), for directions. After a slight detour to the Conran Shop, I ended up at the destination. The old Jerry's store's windows were still covered up with paper and seemingly had no new prospects to take over the space. Jerry's was bought up by a young company called Confetti, which specializes in wedding accessories, particularly cards, wedding favors, invitations, and other paper-based special occasion needs. Confetti took over a Jerry's location on Tottenham Court Road and I paid it a visit on Friday. It was sad--nothing at Confetti that reminded me of Jerry's at all. And then there was the original Jerry's location that I found today, a dark, cold, and abandoned shell of what it used to be. Even the NatWest bank where I cashed my paychecks that used to be kitty-corner from the Jerry's flagship store is gone, taken over by an HSBC branch. I believe it's been a year or two since Confetti bought out Jerry's.

Exhausted and hungry, Tom and I took the Tube back to Knightsbridge and returned to Harvey Nichols, where I explored the fourth and fifth floors. The fourth floor, the home furnishings floor, looks nothing like I remembered it. It was much brighter, much more modern-looking, with only two concessions (Ralph Lauren and Sue Walker) remaining from the old days. The fifth floor, which holds a bar, a restaurant, a cafe, a food hall, and a Yo!Sushi conveyor belt sushi bar, is much more crammed than it used to be. Back in 1995, the Harvey Nicks fifth floor cafe was extremely trendy and my co-workers and I would frequent it after work at least once a week. I always looked forward to the post-work capucchino or latte. (I didn't do the pub thing much when I lived in London--it was only an occasional thing and was always most memorable and dangerous when a young man named Jeremy, who worked at the flagship location, would supply everyone who met up at the local pub after work with beers, ciders, and various mixed drinks.) I'd heard that the Harvey Nicks cafe was no longer the place to be, and I could see why. There was really nothing much enticing or exciting about it anymore.

Anyway, Tom and I ate dinner at Yo!Sushi and found ourselves a bit disappointed. The service was awful and the food barely passable. They served the weakest wasabi I'd ever had in my life. I swear, I put a meatball-sized dollop of wasabi and mixed it with soy sauce and all it tasted was salty. There was wasabi on the sushi--I saw it but it certainly didn't taste like it. The staff doesn't seem like they can hear or understand you if you try to call them for help or a request, so to get their attention, there are these red buttons installed at the bar counter that you push when you want something. As soon as you press this button, you hear a loud, recorded voice scream, "Yo! Yo! Yo!" The couple sitting next to me and Tom tried this and it didn't seem to do any good. They ended up just asking for the check and leaving without getting what they really wanted. And get this--I had two pieces of saba (mackerel) nigiri sushi, and I believe that the fish was PICKLED. I know the Brits like pickled fish and pickled items, but pickled mackerel sushi?! Then I recalled that someone, in 1995, told me never to eat sushi in London because of London's lack of proximity to the Pacific Ocean. "How good can sushi possibly be all the way in London," this person said back then. I wish I could remember who told me this.

I could have used a coffee and a dessert, but I'd managed to poop out Tom throughout the day with my historical retracing, so we went back to our room at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum near the Gloucester Road Tube Station. At the moment, I'm watching a Channel 4 special called, "I Won't Marry White." It's about three Indian British people who are very Westernized and have not dated other Indians nor necessarily found other Indians attractive, yet their wish is to marry someone of their own race. Here's a funny thing I'd either never knew or forgotten..."Asians" in the UK refer to people of Indian ancestry while "Oriental" refers to people of East Asian descent. As we all know, "Oriental" is a frowner-upon term in the U.S. and I always cringe when someone (usually either from the Midwest and/or at least a septagenarian) uses it to describe me. Here's where it gets more complicated--since I'm from the U.S., I'm just an American. But if I were British, I would be "Oriental." Back in 1995, I thought I was just "black." The general thought was that if you're not white, then you're black. An old friend of mine, Deepak, a man of South Asian descent who I worked with in Santa Clara a few years ago, used to talk about our "black" status in London and laugh about this.

Either I'm jaded by television, no matter where I am in the world, or the quality of British television has truly declined. There are only a few funny British comedies, but a lot of bad reality shows. Much fewer American shows now than back in 1995. The Holiday Inn throws in international channels for Japanese, German, French, Italian, and Arabic guests, plus MTV Europe, which played literally nothing but Eminem this morning for at least an hour or so. Anne Robinson still hosts "The Weakest Link" here, and there was a good game show on Saturday night--it aired live, and Lenny Kravitz not only performed live on the show--he was also the subject of a lot of game questions. Tom's taken to watching the UK Snooker Championship at times. Sometimes, BBC News will have somewhat interesting news stories (for instance, about how tweens are becoming greater determining factors in how people spend money and how businesses market and sell goods) and at other times, it's really way out there (for example, a story about how the Bush family and the U.S. military rely on psychics to determine policies and actions...ok, so maybe it's not so far out there after all and there may be some truth...there were former military advisors interviewed and they claimed their higher-ups were consulting psychics and paying them good U.S. taxpayer money for their visions).

So far, the Brits that I've met automatically assume that since I'm from California, I therefore am anti-Bush and anti-war, which is fine because it's true. They've had no problem telling me that Bush is an idiot and that the U.S. media is horribly biased. The funny thing is that they assume first that I'm from New York before I tell them I'm from California. Very different from 1995, where people assumed I was Japanese and that I learned English while studying in America. Now, I just speak a few words and I get asked, "Are you from New York?" Well, New York is only a five-hour plane ride away and I'm sure quite a few New Yorkans visit London frequently and the reverse is true, that Londoners visit New York often. The Brits I talked to are completely aware of what red and blue states are, and which states are which. They are completely convinced that the red states are full of Bible-thumping religious fanatics and cannot understand how 50 million people could willingly choose Bush for a second term as president. I'm still baffled about this myself.

I should turn in for now. Tom and I are probably going to go to Hampton Court Palace tomorrow, then return to London and go shopping for shoes at Covent Garden, and (finally) have a drink at a pub before going to see "The Producers." Afterwards, we're going to have a post-theatre dinner at Rules, London's oldest restaurant. Tom's been complaining of blisters and sore feet, and the shoes here are quite a few steps ahead (no pun intended) of the fashion curve. And we get to see Nathan Lane perform!

I'll try to post photos (yes, I have taken some photos) and recall the past days' events. As some of you may know, Tom spent 1.5 days camped out in front of the new Apple Store on Regent Street with two other Americans to be among the first to enter the store. When we first arrived, Tom and I walked along Regent Street, Oxford Street, SoHo, and Chinatown. While Tom spent almost all of Friday camped out under a tent on Regent Street (he spent a few hours sleeping at our first hotel room near Piccadilly Circus to escape the cold at one point), I played tourist on Friday--I walked to Trafalgar Square, then walked along Whitehall to Downing Street, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the back of Westminster Abbey. The weekend was spent pretty much on getting Tom to recover from jet lag and camping out, but we managed short trips to Covent Garden, Leicester Square, and the Camden Market.