The Bodies Exhibition

While we were in New York we saw the Bodies Exhibition advertised and Louise really wanted to go. Real human bodies are immersed in acetone, which removes the water, then they are placed in a large bath of silicon in a vacuum chamber. The acetone vapourises and the silicon replaces it, hardens and preserves the body. It sounds a bit gross but it is really informative (check out www.bodiestheexhibition.com/bodies.html) Time ran out in New York so we were pleased to see that it was showing in London’s Earls Court Exhibition Centre.

It was interesting to see muscles separated from bone, fat etc. It made me think about sports injuries –knees, arms etc that my friends have had and how if affects the body eg when I did my Achilles you could see the other connected muscles it affected. It had a hip replacement shown and a metal rod in a broken arm. It was good to see how everything was connected, muscles, stomach, heart, liver. The exhibition also showed disease-affected parts of the body (eg lung cancer) so you could compare it to a normal part. The brain affected by stroke was interesting too. There was a box next to the diseased lung for people to put their cigarettes in and it was quite full. If I were a smoker, I would have chucked my smokes in there too! Louise liked the displays showing all the veins and capillaries. It’s astounding to see what a huge networked array of veins we have. The little 2 week embryos were interesting too.

In case you are wondering where the bodies come from, in China if a body is not claimed within 30 days it belongs to the State and these unfortunate people became science specimens.

There was a peculiar smell their and Louise found it slightly nauseating but it was still really interesting and well worth the visit.

Cornwall and Devon- part 2

Day 2 con'td
Along the way to St Ives we had our notorious ‘toilet stop’. What was meant to be a 5 min stop ended up taking over an hour. We stopped at a Cider Farm where they had free samples of jams, pickles, juices and ciders. They had some exceptionally tasty apple juice and raspberry jam. Just around the corner there was a Cornish Ice Cream farm so we stopped there too. Cornish Ice Cream is made with clotted cream and egg yolks and is just as rich and creamy as it sounds. All the ice cream was made right there on site so tasted nice and fresh. After being on the road again for about 15 minutes, Louise suddenly announced to stop the car as she was going to be sick. She looked yellow and was not in a good way. Not being able to throw up, she got back in the car and fortunately Warren found a plastic bag in time but she needed a toilet- and fast. Half an hour later, with all Cornish Ice Cream purged from her system, she perked up again and we continued to St Ives. We still had quite a bit of travelling to do to get to Plymouth so we couldn’t stay for long here but if we were to go back again to anywhere from our trip, St Ives would be the place. It was such a cool little city with narrow alleyways, cool shops and beautiful beaches. The extremely narrow roads which could literally only really fit 1 car (and a small car at that) weaved in and around houses and shops with people walking to and fro. They seemed more like cobbled footpaths than roads and houses opened right out onto them.

After one more stop to admire the outside of the beautiful 1880 Gothic Cathedral of Truro, (photo above) we arrived at our Plymouth Backpackers at around 8. The place was a strange 1800’s house teeming with foreigners in their early 20’s. Fortunately our rooms were on the quieter top floor, although it did mean Warren had to lug our suitcase up about 4 flights of a narrow spiral staircase. Louise asked the owner if he could recommend anywhere for dinner, to which he replied “yes, good, always ask a fat man where to eat”. He spieled off a list of restaurants and their directions with the end result being complete confusion by all of us so that we couldn’t find any of them. The search for a meal in Plymouth was a frustrating one. We were on a quest for the Mediterranean restaurant. Hayley and Louise were sure he said to turn right, but Kirk thought he said to turn left. Instead we came across a very appealing Spanish Tapas bar/restaurant. But they didn’t have a chef or any waiting staff. Not being able to see any other restaurants in the vicinity, we headed for Pizza Hut, but they were closing. Walking on a bit further we came to Café Rouge – an overpriced French restaurant where a very flustered waiter told us there would be a 40 minute wait on food. Not seeing any other restaurants around, we opted for the wait. Did nobody tell the service industry of Plymouth that it was Bank Holiday Weekend?? Walking around the city centre with all the drunks we concluded that Plymouth was kind of creepy and none of us were particularly impressed by it.

Day 3
Plymouth didn’t offer too many places for breakfast so we were forced to visit the Golden Arches. Full up on Oats and McMuffins (strange but true – McDonalds in England serves porridge!) we set off to explore some sights of Plymouth. The walk along the harbour, called the Hoe, was quite interesting. It was from here that the Mayflower set sail to America in 1620. There was even a plaque on the wall commemorating a fleet of 6 ships that left Plymouth’s harbour in the 1800’s and founded the settlement of New Plymouth. There were plaques on the wall of all the seamen who had been lost at sea. I was surprised to see that some of these plaques were as recent as 2002. The Barbican area had some cool Tudor and Jacobean buildings and gave us an entirely different impression from what we gained the previous night. If only we had stumbled across this area in our search for a restaurant. That's Hayley above looking at the old houses in the Barbican area of Plymouth and Kirk is reading about the naval history on the Hoe.

Sir Francis Drak was supposedly playing a game of bowls on Plymouths Hoe in 1588 when the Spanish Armada invaded and there now stands a statue of him commemorating his deeds (he received Knighthood from sailing around the world form Plymouth in 1577). We decided that despite his girly, frilly pantaloons he didn’t look like a man to be messed with. The city is home to a huge navy base which might explain the many drunken laraks we saw on the town the night before. From here we thought we’d drive along the Devon coast. There was an accident on the road so the journey was pretty slow going but we did pass through a few nice looking beaches and villages. Our lunch stop was at Paignton, one of three villages which supposedly make up the English Riviera. The place seemed to be catered towards families and was smothered in cheesey tourism evident in its many noisy arcade joints, donkey rides in the park and entertainment facilities such as ‘crazy ball’ (the pool equivalent to mini-putt). The beach itself was quite unimpressive with coarse red sand and no waves. (Photo above) Tourquay was 5 mins up the road and looked to be a bit more upmarket and perhaps a better destination for a lunch stop. Tourquay is where ‘Fawlty Towers’ was filmed. None of us are in much of a hurry to see the French Rivieria after seeing England’s equivalent.

A few more hours on the road and we hit Exeter, home of the Exeter Cathedral (pictured above and to the right) which has parts dating back to the 1100s. The Cathedral was absolutely awesome and we spent a good hour in there looking around and taking photos. There was so much history in there, from the tomb-like etchings of the dearly departed on the ground to tapestries and sculptures along the walls. The Cathedral boasted the world’s largest gothic rib vaulting and a 14th century stained glass window. From the cathedral we checked out the waterfront and the remains of a medieval bridge. Back on the road we decided to risk the A303 so the journey back to London was pretty slow going. On the spur of the moment we decided to take a quick detour to Stonehenge. Hayley and Kirk’s previous Stonehenge visit was a drive-by in the rain. Our expectations were pretty low as everyone told us that you couldn’t get very close because of a fence. But you were still only about 15 metres away from the rocks and when Warren lifted me up onto his shoulders I was able to get some pretty cool shots. So that’s another landmark place to tick off the list.

Apart from the Cornish Ice Cream episode, it was a fantastic weekend and Cornwall was definitely worth the visit.

Cornwall and Devon- part 1

After being in London for about 7 weeks, we are finally getting out and seeing some countryside! Our original plan for bank holiday weekend was to go and check out the festival in Edinburgh but we left it a bit late for that and couldn't find any accomodation (unless we wanted to share a single bed!) So instead we are doing a bit of a road trip to the SouthWest of the UK with our friends Hayley and Kirk from NZ.

Day 1
Louise had been coping a fair bit of mockery from her English colleagues who couldn’t believe we were actually considering driving all the way to Cornwall in Bank Holiday traffic. She was warned that the only sights we would see would be those of the cars in front of us. And for the first few hours, this wasn’t far from the truth. The most direct route to our destination was with the A303 but this wasn’t moving anyway in a hurry so we took a detour down the coast. Here, the smell of the country was evident but the traffic moved a lot faster. Kirk and Warren were keen to catch the All Black’s game so we stopped in a town in Dorset and drove around a bit looking for a pub, but as you could probably guess, they were only showing Football. Where’s a ‘Walkabout’ when you need it? We even stopped at a petrol station and were told that we might find the game playing at the Castle and Horse. After doing a few more circuits of the town and stopping for directions again, we gave up and continued on with our journey on the ‘B’ roads. These roads are quite unlike anything I’ve seen. They are lined with hedges and are super narrow. Despite being 2-way roads there is no way 2 cars could fit side by side on these roads. Hayley commented that the tracks on their farm were wider. Luckily we had a small car (a Fiat that made a loud clicking noise when the air con was on.)

Hayley and Kirk had a BBQ a few weeks previously when their friend Patty talked about this huge giant in Dorset that we should go and see. Hayley was imagining a statue in rock and wasn’t too impressed to discover that the Cerne Giant is actually an ancient etching of a man in a chalk mountain. Apparently it is one of Britain’s best known chalk figures. It stands at 55m tall and is between a few hundred and a couple of thousand years old. So we took our photo then drove back to the town of Cerne Abbas for lunch. The town was quite small and quaint. As we stopped outside an old church to look at some houses that could have been on the set of Lord of the Rings, a black Labrador befriended us and followed us inside a restaurant. It was kind of strange to be served a Meatball sub by a 14-year-old American boy in a small English town but it was tasty. As was the mushroom Hayley had for lunch. J

We decided to drive through Dartmoor National Park, which didn’t really feel like a National Park at all. There were small towns in the park and like Desert Rd, parts of it are used for military training. The only thing which gave it it’s parky feeling were the sheep which were free to roam, even on the roads. We stopped at Postbridge, a tiny village with a granite clapper bridge across the river Dart dating from the 13th century. That's Warren standing on the bridge to the left. We stopped again another hour or so onwards but didn’t stay long as the hypothermia was beginning to kick in. That's us freezing our butts off in the photo below. It was easy to see why the park is known for its wild, bleak countryside and is the home to Sherlock Holmes’ notorious foe – the Hound of Baskerville. We drove through Princetown, England’s highest town and home of Dartmoor prison, built in 1809 to house French and American prisoners of war. It is now one of Britain’s most infamous high security jails. The dreary building surrounded by high barbed wire fences was surprisingly centrally located and gave the town a foreboding, depressed kind of feeling.

We arrived at Lauceston at 8.15pm to a somewhat flustered B&B host who told us she almost relet our room (woops – guess we should have called). After a brief chat when she mentioned that none of us sounded like New Zealanders (could be explained by the Schwezfin family who were the last ‘NZers’ to sign the visitors book) and not to expect to see her smiling in the morning after getting up at 7 to make us breakfast, we headed into Lauceston town centre. We chose Lauceston (pronounced ‘Lawn-sin’ not ‘Lawn-ces-ton’ as we were all calling it) for its location only, not because it really had anything going for it. We found a café for dinner and somehow must have managed to offend the host because his service was terrible and he bordered on being rude, but the food was OK.

Day 2
As anticipated from all the comments in the visitor’s book, the full English breakfast that our host had to get up so early to make, was delicious. Well, Warren thought it was, but it was a bit too ‘fried’ for Louise. The sausages, locally made by the butcher, and the bacon were favourites with Kirk and Warren. After farewelling the English version of Grandma Strother we tackled some more back roads to Boscastle. At one stage the road got so narrow that Kirk was able to wind down the window and pick some blackberries from the hedge on the opposite side of the road. That's a picture of one of the roads to the right. It took 2 of us reading maps and all of us on ‘sign watchout’ to navigate these roads but we made it. On the road we saw heaps of really old yet modern homes with range rovers parked outside. There were heaps of massive wind turbines on the fields, like what they will have in Wellington soon.

Boscastle was a small, quaint fishing village with lots of character. (Photo below) The village still looked to be asleep when we arrived and sadly, the witch museum was closed. There was a little sheltered port with small fishing boats with what looked like crayfish or lobster pots. It was icy cold but we got great views of the celtic sea. An essential part of tourism for Warren is tasting the local foods so we bought a few Cornwall Damsons which dispelled the notion that all things purple are tasty. (Damsons looked to be a cross between a grape and a plum).

From Boscastle (which doesn’t actually have a castle) we headed to Tintagel, supposedly the town where King Arthur was born or at least his legend was created. Tintagel is famous for its castle ruins, dating back to Arthur’s times. The ruins were really interesting and located on an island with great views of the ocean. But great views means heights were involved and there were a few stairs to climb. Then the sun came out, and being dressed for London weather not Cornwall weather, we were roasting. The castle and settlement ruins had ledges that went right out to the ocean. As we hadn’t seen any castles or English ruins we spent quite a while here exploring. On our way out of Cornwall, Kirk asked a local guide where we could sample a true Cornish pasty. Cornish Pasties are available everywhere, but surely you have to experience a food at its place of birth? Now for a short detour on the history of the pasty. The pasty dates back to the tin mining era of Cornwall. A true traditional pasty would have meat and potatoes at one end and jam or fruit at the other. The end of the pasty would be stamped with the initials of the miner and this would be the last part to be eaten, so if you wanted to save some for later, you could identify your pasty. But legend tells that the initialled corner would be dropped in the mine for the gremlins to eat for good luck. It probably did bring the miners ‘good luck’ too because by not eating the pastry that they had handled, they were reducing their arsenic intake.
Anyway, the traditional sweet and savoury pasty is no longer available, but as recommended by our local guide we ordered a steak pasty at the local bakery. It was so delicious, filled with thinly sliced meat, onions and swede in a soft pastry that wasn’t greasy like the London ones. Judging from the comments Hayley and Kirk looked to be regretting their decision to share one and Warren too was tempted to go back and get another one. The photo to the left is the Historic Post Office of Tintagel, very cool looking place but we didn't have a chance to check out the inside.

With pasties in hand, we continued on to Newquay – the surfing capital of the UK. It took about 2 hours to get there and had the feel of the Mt at summer. It was relaxed but busy and shirtless brits and bikini clad girls walked through the town (even though it wasn’t really that hot). It was surprised how appealing the beach actually looked (Louise was picturing a shingle beach from a Mr Bean summer special I saw a few years back). The beach was very English- it was bizarre. There were these little huts with umbrellas on them-see the photo to the left. People were swimming and Warren reckoned he would have had a swim too but after driving around for 20 mins we couldn’t find a park (a reoccurring theme of our short break) so continued on our journey to St Ives.

Update on life in London

As everyone had told us, finding work in London wasn’t a hard thing. Before getting job offers, Warren had 4 interviews and I had one.Warren has a 6 month contract as a Marketing Manager for Waltham Forest council. He is responsible for activities in Environmental Services including launching a compulsory recycling programme in the Borough and organising a marketing plan for the area. He is essentially managing 3 people to work on marketing communication. In the first month he managed advertising for a campaign to show how the Council and the community are all together and can support each others beliefs etc. Work for him has been busy as most of the terrorist suspects that were arrested and charged as part of the alledged bomb threats on the London flights to the US are from Waltham. The council has the highest proportion of Muslims in London. One of the houses involved is a 5 minute walk from his work. So they have had all of the world's media wanting to meet with the Leader of the Council (like the mayor) and the team has been managing this. It has been stressful but interesting at the same time. He helped to organise the Council's tent at a large local Festival a few weekends back as there were fears that some Muslims were going to have a protest march during the Festival but nothing happened. So work will be interesting for him for a while longer.

I have a 6 month contract as a Quality Control Chemist for Glaxo Smith Kline, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The factory is in Beckenham, Kent. It’s a bit of a mission to get to work, involving 15 minutes walking, 3 trains and a tram. But when it’s all running smoothly it only takes me an hour to get to work and 1 hr 15 to get home.The site is mostly an R&D one, but I work in the manufacturing sector where we make a heart drug. My role is in the raw materials department where we test all the raw materials used to manufacture the drug and also some materials for R&D. The systems are similar to Colgate but Glaxo gets audited by the FDA so their rules are a lot stricter. You have to pay a lot of attention to detail as the smallest mistake picked up by the QA department who review our results can delay the release of materials to production. So far, it’s been fairly relaxed as I haven’t been trained in all the test methods but the department is under strict deadlines and being short staffed, things might get a bit pressured once I’m fully trained.

So once we had contracts we could move out of Jacinda’s basement! We were very grateful to Jacinda and her flatmates Kate and Darren for letting us take over their music room for a month but with all 5 of us crammed around the table of their small combined lounge/kitchen/dining room, things got pretty crowded. That's us at dinner in Putney a few days after we arrived. The flat hunt wasn’t too difficult; we only looked at 4 places and had moved in 2 weeks after we started looking. We are in Putney, about a 10-minute walk away from Jacinda’s place. We have a view of the Thames river but no outdoor living or sun- which might take a bit of getting used to considering how I lived in our conservatory in Wgtn. But the good news is the central heating – yay no more waking up to a 4 degree house and wrapping up in scarves and beanies just to watch tv. Putney is populated by Kiwis, Aussies and Sth Africans so it is a lot like home. We like the area as its 20mins to the city but quiet and safe and the shopping is pretty good. (Not so quiet on Friday and Saturday night though) We looked at areas that had a better commute to work – Brighton would have only been 15 mins to work for me and 30 for Warren but it’s known for it’s drugs and crime so we opted for the longer commutes. We live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 Australian’s, Sean (IT Professional in mid 20’s) and Karen (teacher in early 30s). They are both easy going and really nice and the flat is clean, tidy and modern. We have the end room right away from the living room so it’s really quiet (apart from the noise from Heathrow but there’s no avoiding that). We also have a giant room and a king size bed which is unheard of over here. So we're all settled now so hopefully we can get a bit of travelling in before the dark and dreary London winter sets in.

New York - The Good, Bad and Weird

Numbers of NewYork

1 = Restaurants where the staff actually smiled and were friendly

2= Crazy people seen ranting to themselves (quite impressed as thought it would be a lot higherthan this. NY definitely seems a lot more sane than San Francisco)

3= Homeless people who came onto our carriage on the subway begging

4=Blisters on feet after walking up and down the streets of Manhattan in a pair of heels in search of the Taj Salsa club.

5=Honks of horns in any 10 second period

6= Hot dogs eaten from street vendors before getting food poisoning

12=Nights spent in NY

35=Temperature on 4th July

53 ¾=Number of American Hot dogs eaten by the winner of the national hot dog eating comp

86=Floors to the viewing platform of the Empire State Building

688= Photos I took in NY

3056= Kilojoules in a Cinnabon (the most delicious cinnamon roll ever!)

New York – The Good, the Bad and the Weird

The Good

• Fresh out of the oven raspberry filled Krispy Kreme Donuts. Mmmmmm
• Devils Food Cheesecake at Juniors – layers of chocolate mousse, chocolate cake and cheesecake
• Cinnamon and sugar dusted Pretzels
• Never going hungry – you can’t take more than 10 steps without hitting a hotdog/pretzel vendor
• Giving out free samples at the Food Courts. A few circuits and you don’t need lunch anymore!
• Wearing shorts and singlets in the middle of June
• Being surrounded by tall buildings with concrete in every direction but still being able to chill under a tree in a nearby park
• Strangers. Rich and poor, black and white; coming together to enjoy a game of chess in a park
• Entertainment everywhere – gymnasts, breakdancers, musicians…or even just watching people
• Lots of street cleaners (both the vehicles with the sweepers on the side and people with the rubbish-picking up sticks) meant the streets were generally clean and the odour of stale urine, vomit and alcohol wasn’t nearly as pungent as in San Francisco
• Stomp – awesome show, shame you had to be under 5ft tall to fit in the theatre seats

The Bad

• Paying for trolleys at the airport – Welcome to America – either struggle through the airport laden down with 92kg of luggage plus a laptop and camera bag or hand over your money for a trolley
• Security and bag checks everywhere from going to a Museum to getting on a Ferry
• Waiting in a que for everything from using a toilet to buying a pretzel. I became the master of ‘holding on’ when seeing the length of the queues to use the women’s bathrooms.
• The worst customer service you will ever receive
• Having to phone the Mexican Takeaways 3 times before they understand you enough to take your order – then when it comes it’s still wrong!
• Constant honking and sirens. There mustn’t be more than 3 seconds between the sounds of an irate taxi driver warning pedestrians to move or become road kill
• Going out for dinner at 11.30pm and still having to wait 20 minutes for a table.
• The button popping on your shorts after scoffing too many hot dogs, donuts and pretzels.
• Waiting 2 hours in a queue at Central Park for Macbeth tickets, only to miss out by 4 people (see photo to right)
• Getting an arm caught in subway door. Fortunately they aren’t as vicious as the Underground so I got away with minor bruising rather than losing a limb
• Chinese obscenities being hurled at me after having my camera pointed in the direction of an old Chinese lady rummaging through rubbish bins collecting aluminium cans. (Warren thought she put a curse on me- but I’m still here so it must’ve been a mild one)

The Weird

• 6 seater bikes, not in one big line but in a circle. And driving on the road (see photo)
• Chinese people running a Mexican Fastfood joint- and it actually tasted really good. Maybe that’s stereotypical of me but I kinda expected Chinese people to run the Chinese Takeaways and Mexican people to run the Mexican Takeaways.
• Crossing the road. It may have painted white stripes on it which you would think is a pedestrian crossing but step onto one of these and you will be flattened by a taxi in seconds.
• Being the minority race and not being able to understand the language being spoken (as was the case in Chinatown, Coney Island and many of the subways in Brooklyn)
• Watching a guy weave in and out of traffic on Time’s Square on rollerblades without so much as a knee pad. The man obviously had a death wish
• Security guards in clothing and shoe shops. They don’t like it much when you ask them if this sandal comes in brown either
• Guys with guns guarding banks and national parks
• A clothes store with no changing rooms (the ultimate in inconvenience yet the shop was still crowded)
• The toilets. Flushing means the contents (which are much bigger than in NZ) are whirled around and around 5 or 6 times then the entire bowl is completely emptied. After a few seconds, water then squirts in from the bottom of the bowl and fills it up again. I even saw a toilet that when you pressed a button, plastic toilet seat liner emerged and covered the seat.
• An shabby looking 70 year old guy packing your groceries at ‘Metfoods’ for tips
• American flags everywhere. We get it America, you love your country, we don’t need to see the star spangled banner on every corner to be reminded of this
• Having to stand on one spot and tip your head back as far as it will go in order to see the top of a building