Thursday, August 09, 2012

Europe CNY 2012 - Day 3, Part 1 - Hampstead Heath

Europe CNY 2012
Day 3 - 21st January - Hampstead Heath
(Part 1)

I started the day by heading to Hampstead Heath, though I was told only Americans went there.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Bacon Books, with a book that's the Winner of the Gourmand Prize 2008

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Men's salon with a price for "long hair". I went in to ask if i'd qualify, and they looked suspicious. They might've Lebanese.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
King's Cross, under renovation

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"Free Samples. Stop Smoking Instantly. LiQuit."
Presumably they could've put a sign: "no willpower required"

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
""Being able to talk English fluently and being able to speak all languages, communicate with everyone in the universe"
1 of 800 daydreams reported by Jubilee line customers in a recent survey
Image: Detail of Signmund Freud's desk. Courtesy Freud Museum London"
So this means the person wants to have sex with everyone.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"This stairway has over 320 steps
Do not use except in an emergency"
Differently situated, I might've climbed this. However among other things I had a large backpack on my shoulders.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Heath Street Baptist Church Hampstead

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"Thames Water"
I assume it's treated

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Cuisine
India - Singapore"

From the website, they are "affiliated with the famous Woodlands Restaurants in India which have been established since 1938 with over 40 branches". I have written to them to ask where their Singapore branch is; as you can imagine, it is not easy to find which "Woodlands" Indian restaurant in Singapore is affiliated to them.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"Trust"
"I trusted you not to show the nude sketch of me to anyone"

Then I got to the heath itself.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Vegetation

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

The Heath was nice enough but inside signage was non-existent. There was supposed to be a house with a Vermeer and writings from Marx but I gave up looking for it (and anyway had something more exciting to do later).

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
I was expecting the leaves of fall to have decomposed by now (it was January)


Hampstead Heath Panorama

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Exercising chaps

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Mom, girl, dog

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Dangerous lake

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"No dogs (not even yours)"

Next door was Golders Hill Park.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Golders Hill Park

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Playing with dog

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"Fallow Deer. Conservation status: Least concern
These European mammals were believed to have been introduced from mainland Europe to Britain by the Normans. They are now the UK's most common deer"

Notice that even the UK's most common deer is of "least concern" conservation-wise. In other words, it still merits some concern. "Least concern" is ICUN's most optimistic classification, which belies the moral panic of conservation rhetoric. Perhaps by engendering a crisis mentality conservationists are trying to draw attention to their cause, but really this is like the boy who cried wolf and can only serve to discredit valid conservation concerns.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Deer we should worry about, and the Greater Rhea
Notice that they are behind 2 fences - maybe because people feed them

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Sacred Ibis, Cattle Egret (last photo)
The Cattle Egret, of "Least Concern", "has undergone one of the most widespread and rapid natural expansions of any bird species"

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Little Egret

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Little Egret, Cattle Egret

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
More deer


Girl and deer
The father came by later. I was considering asking him to teach his daughter that the plural of deer is deer.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Map of Hampstead Heath
You'd expect they'd give out these things, but this was behind glass. A fat lot of good it did - but at least I now knew how to get out.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
One entrance to the Heath. This was the first sign for the Heath I'd seen - and I saw it when I left

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"S5MRT" license plate for a SMART car

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
PRC Cultural Office
I'd have imagined it'd look grander
This is probably their spy headquarters

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Heath

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
House

I was very excited about lunch:

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Chicken Legend with Bacon meal, from McDonald's
"Juicy chicken breast fillet in a golden crispy coating, Batavia lettuce, a choice of cool creamy mayo or spicy tomato salsa, a warm toasted bakehouse roll - and for a short time only, delicious streaky bacon. It's legendary"

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
Chicken Legend with Bacon

The medium fries were like large in Singapore.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
BACON

There weren't many food places at Hampstead or, I imagined, the place I was going later.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
I don't know why I took this

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
This is damn cheap for unlimited data. £15 for unlimited data, 300 mins and 3000 texts - for 30 days.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
"Take care not to activate alarm button
This is an alarm button. PLEASE DO NOT PRESS to operate the lift"

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us
War Horse poster: "This is vintage Spielberg: powerful, courageous and honest"
Presumably modern Spielberg is none of those things.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us


French was the most common language I heard after English, by a huge margin. I'd expected Mandarin. This was, I suppose, proof of the large French expatriate community escaping high taxes.

The Rough Guide had no Tube map. How dumb. This in itself wasn't that bad, but they didn't say where to get off. So for example it wasn't clear to go to Hampstead Heath going to the "Hampstead" station would work (if you went to the station with the same name, it'd be a huge detour - confusingly)

Le Nozze di Figaro was also showing as part of the Mozart-Da Ponte cycle.

One reason European churches might be more liberal (at least outside of Southern Europe): if not nobody would go, so you need to cast a huge net.
blog comments powered by Disqus