SuperLambanana

I've been touring the city (cities, Liverpool included) for the last couple of days and it occured to me that the best and probably an arguable way of describing British Culture is that it is an American version of Japan. Now, that is not encompassing by any means, nor does it favor one over the other. Remember that I've only been here for less than a week, but even then I've noticed enough to compare the two. To better illustrate, I've given my own list of the similarities and differences between UK and Japan... so far.

1) Crossover between then and now

In Japan, I remember seeing either temples or shrines virtually everywhere. Replace that with elaborate medieval and victorian architecture, you have the UK. Pictured below is the Manchester Cathedral, built around the 13th century.



The picture above is a view from the wheel (see previous entry). The triangle is actually a mall, but they kept the original structure and built into it.



That's Urbis, a museum of contemporary arts. Of all exhibits, guess what they had inside:

2) They love arts (even Manga!)



The two pictures below were taken from the Liverpool Art Museum and the Manchester Art Gallery. Free admission to a hundred years of history.



You know I'll eventually find these...


Exhibition of Matthew Williamson's 10 Years of Fashion. I didn't see any gothic lolitas or crazy Japan street fashion but I did see something totally unrelated, which brings me to my next point.

3) The Japanese and British love them some teas. And Soft Ice Cream.



4) Men are not shameful of their murses, man-purse, whatever you want to call them. They're darn useful.


5) Trains and buses are the easiest way to get around.



6) Both countries are quirky/beautiful.

Quirky. The famed Lambananas, mostly decorated by kids, scattered around the city of Liverpool.


Beautiful. Albert Dock.



7) The Japanese go crazy for baseball, the British swear by their football.

I was surprised the tour let us inside even the players' locker rooms (and showers - I thought I'd throw it in).



8) Japan's biggest boyband was SMAP. Of course, though not necessarily a cheesy boyband, the UK had...





I was hoping they had kept the Strawberry Field, well, clean, to say the least. They didn't even have anything that pointed to it aside from the map for visitors highlighting where all the "Beatles locations" are. Though there was the The Beatles Story Museum over at the Albert Docks, which was 8 pounds well spent.


There you have it! My initial comparisons between Japan and the UK. You have to realize that this is all for blogging's sake. I do believe in aspects of what I said though, about the UK being the "American" version of Japan. In case you're still buggered, both histories of England, or the UK for that matter, and Japan are deeply rooted within their cultures. Then you have modernism and technology trying to compete or stimulate it - hence, an explosion of beautiful cultural display. Other than that, just like between any cultures, everybody has their share of diversity and uniqueness. That's what makes it wonderful.

My next destination is the Isle of Man for five days. If you don't hear from me soon, that means I didn't bring my laptop - I'll say hi using my cousin's. I can't upload my pics to the computer until I get back here at Manchester. From what I've heard, I get to see some real (raw) country landscapes, meaning more photos! And it'll be nice to relax before school starts in less than two weeks.

Manchester City Centre

Allow me to correct myself: the structures aren't just victorian, they're mostly medieval. The buildings look a little similar after googling it. I realized that after seeing tons of them as I jaunted through the streets of downtown Manchester. Of course, they don't call it downtown. That's cheap and very American. It's a city centre.




Parts of the city center included this wheel, countless stores and a nice dutch bazaar.



There were also countless Starbucks-es. Surprise! It's like ASU! No, seriously, I was surprised. They did have more coffee shops like Caffee Nero and Costa Coffee. Three huge enterprises competing, but I had to be loyal so...



That's half of my very own iced, venti, 3 pump mocha, 2 splashes of strawberry syrup, soy, no whip mocha. See, you learn to make your own recipes after you've been working behind the bar for quite some time. You also learn that pastries are the devil. We never eat them, we always sample.




Check out the hard plastic iced cup for sale!



I don't think they're used to having people customize crazy drinks like Americans do. And just for the record, he didn't write it on the cup and used the personal cup post-it instead (though this is the first time I've seen people mostly drink from in-house cups), did not use proper coding (S for Soy, WC with a slash for no WC, STRB for strawberry - I'm watching), did not ask and write my name, and it wasn't called out.

Truth be told, I could not care less for the life of me. I just need to bitch about it because 1) this is corporate (the hell with our licensed stores) and second, I paid 3.70 pounds for that f*ckin' drink! That's 7.40 dollars - holy crap. It's not even 24oz! Their iced venti was only 20oz (which makes total sense.. venti=20 in Italian). It's good, service wasn't legendary, ridiculously overpriced and I will end up ordering it again.

On a more positive note, I got asked about what I do because i was seen flashing my camera. I guess she got disappointed, realizing that she wasn't getting published - she was still nice, nonetheless. We both agreed that 64F weather (18C) with some sunshine is pretty and fairly warm. And I got to take more pictures.






I'm going back tomorrow (not to Starbucks) to walk around a bit more and go inside those museums. It's 11:05 pm but the sky is still dimly lit. Goodnight!

Stretford and Trafford

After an emotionally charged exit from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, a train ride from London Heathrow to Northampton, a bus detour to Birmingham and another two hour train ride to Manchester, alas, I am finally in... front of my laptop, once again.

Lounging in my room with a cloudy 57 degree weather outside, it's not all that bad now is it? My second day here in the UK and I'm not struggling with a jet lag. As a matter of fact, I was able to sleep pretty tight under layers of sheets, waking up to the smell of baked bread and an English breakfast of sausage, eggs and ham prepared by my cousin. Of course, you're not here to read about how awesome it was, rather, to see pictures.

The neighborhood: Stretford Street in Manchester.


This is about 10 minutes away from the airport and I'd say about the same to downtown Manchester. With red bricks and washed, worn-out picket fences, I was truly in England. Not that we won't find those in parts of the US but I feel it makes them more legit over here. You know what I'm saying? It's England!



They have back alleys! People walk through it constantly, unlike where I live, because it separates the back patio to their gardens. I felt bad taking this picture because I made somebody walk the other way around when he saw me with my camera and tripod.



That was the view from my room, of which I'm not taking a picture because it's literally littered (say it!) with crap. I didn't realize how much stuff I brought from the US! I had to take them all out because apparently, they inspected it in Phoenix. Everything's in there, just placed the opposite of how I remembered packing it. I don't know how that happened. I do know that I somehow have to get rid of some before my trip to Cambridge. It's not helping that my cousin brought me to the mall either.





That is not a hotel, but Trafford Center. They say it's the largest shopping area around here. Right when you go up the stairs you see this food court.



And the actual mall looks like this.




We walked around for a bit so I got a taste of UK clothing. There's a this place called Zara, like a Windsor for men (and oh yeah, women). They weren't giving sh*t when they said that UK fashion is very forward, or, I'm sorry, very posh. I could have easily spent hundreds of dollars... ok, maybe not... yet.

The funny thing is it's stuff that I actually would not be able to wear in Arizona weather. Maybe during winter.





That's me taking my shameless-ghetto pic inside the fitting room. Awesome jacket, what can I say? And yes, my girl friends, you will be broke too (I know you guys are reading). You've seen UK fashion on TV and it's very dressy or stuff that young people in the US would wear when they go to bars on a December night, my friends at least. In my mind, there were two things as I looked at the couture clothing (apparently a term closely associated to 'casual'). One was "photoshoot...", and the other one when looking at the price tag, "times two, times two".

They had this label called Juicy Couture for kids (yep, you guessed it), something that still amuses me.

Now, I felt like part of why everything is so expensive here in the UK was because people are paying the government to keep it as beautiful as it is. I noticed how clean it was too.









These were taken over at one of their public parks and the bridge towards the Lowry Center. They're not very far from what we see in places like Seattle, or anywhere north of California for that matter. I just felt everything, and everyone was more sophisticated because of their British accents. Oh, and they have aged cathedrals and victorian structures everywhere too. Like if I look outside my window, I see a classic church's bell tower just across the street. It rang a couple of hours ago, I kid you not.

I had time to play with my camera, so here's me. I figured I've already posted way too many pictures to my benefit so why not.



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