When in England...There's Always A Chinatown to Be Found!

I've been holding off on talking about Chinatown, until Chinese New Year passed, and I had some substantial things to write. Of course, as you guys well know me, despite being in a completely new continent with tons of exciting new museums and buildings and foods to taste, one of the most exciting things was exploring a new Chinatown. I love comparing different Chinatowns I've been to on their similarities and differences.

Now, London's Chinatown, I quite like. It's a fifteen minute walk from me, which is very exciting, but unfortunately, prices are not as consistently cheaper at these Chinese restaurants like they are in American Chinatowns. Or maybe it's just me griping about the pound. It is a little commercialized, but overall, I still feel very Chinese whenever I go there, so the authenticity still holds. Some people have said it's small, and maybe I've never been to the biggest ones, but I think it's quite large. In terms of official closed-off (no cars) areas, there's only a block and a half, but I find Chinese restaurants and stores (and some Korean and Japanese ones as well!) extending over several streets outside of that main area.

This last Sunday, they had the official Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown, and a huge area was set aside for the festival--all of Chinatown and its nearby streets and Trafalgar Sq for the main stage event and Leicester Sq. for the fireworks. The hosts of the show said about 20k people were in the area, and I'm not surprised, given how packed the place was.

The event at Trafalgar Sq, and a glimpse of the crowds.

This was the main area of Chinatown, well-decorated for the Year of the Ox!

It was freezing, but I stayed the entire day, froze my joints in place and lost feeling in my toes. In exchange, I got to see an amazing lion dance--it's taped and you can see the link here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8917214490266021952&hl=en Lion Dance pt 1
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8723039517392716780&hl=en Lion Dance pt 2

as well as Qinghai and Yunnan dance troupes perform

the Qinghai dance troupe giving their final bows...

one of the Qinghai singers jumped off stage to sing with the crowd (about half way through, I had managed to edge my way through the crowd to the front row so I had a really good view)
Another Lion Dance occurring on the streets instead on stage--the lion was going door to door, getting fed by the people in the stores.

Fireworks in Leicester Sq. at the end of the festival


One of the many stalls along the street selling random Chinese stuff.

Another glimpse of the massive amount of people there were--these were all waiting for the fireworks.


One of the dances performed by the Yunnan dance troupe.

So, that was my Sunday, and I'm glad I went. The dances were extremely well done, the food was great (esp. the dumplings and steamed pork buns I bought from an outside stall in Chinatown!) and the crowd cheer and atmosphere was everywhere!

When in England...It's Red, Yellow, Green, not Green, Yellow, Red.

Did you know that in England, the yellow light comes after the green light, to tell drivers that they're almost ready to go, rather than warning they have to stop soon? Someone also decided that pedestrians needed the help (I do!) and on many streets, they wrote 'Look Right', 'Look Left', or 'Look both ways' to tell us where to direct our head to observe for oncoming cars.

Classes start tomorrow, and I still have no internet in my room--I'm currently at the British Library using their wireless. The British Library is HUGE, and perhaps when I start actually taking pictures, I'll put one up. I've also discovered that my username and password is not working, so I can't even sign up for the courses I am interested in.

I've figured out most of my classes, but there's a conflict between two courses I'm interested in, and I'm so conflicted! Choosing courses is so complicated.

When in England…Order Drinks at the Bar, not the Table

I’ve been in London for two days, and it’s been eventful.

The flight itself over the Atlantic was fabulous—there were a million movies on the little screen in front of me, and several new releases, so I finally got to watch Eagle Eye, which I’ve wanted to watch the entirety of last semester. Between flights was sort of boring, and the public transportation in London was new and overwhelming, though I made it safely through, though I had two slight bumps: Great Portland Square in an American accent sounds like some other place on the outside of London and NOT where I was aiming to go in a British accent; trying to grab the attention of a taxi cab driver on the street is scary when you’re not used to anything other than calling a cab by phone.

My residence is so-so. The room’s fairly nice--it's sweet having my own sink and a supplied fridge, there’s one working shower in the girl’s bathroom (only two normally—the third is a bath!) and the kitchen closest to me is infested with flies, but the kitchen further from me is where everyone hangs out anyways. There’s like 15 other American study abroad students on this hall, and the regular students we’ve met are really social, so the hall’s pretty lively.

Orientation felt like the beginning of freshman year all over again—awkwardly looking at other people trying to figure out whether I should just go forward and introduce myself, a series of lectures from various administration telling us things that went in one ear and out the other, and a party in the evening, where people mingled from group to group, asking the same series of questions. Well, one thing was different—they served red and white wine to everyone at the party, and I don’t remember that in freshman orientation.

I planned on retiring early, but one freshman on my hall said they were going out to a pub, and I decided being antisocial so soon into the semester wasn’t cool, so I joined the group of partly freshman, partly study abroad students (about 85% of all the study abroad kids were from the U.S.) who were going to the pub, and had my first taste of a drink called…Snakefight? Snakebite? It was yummy, a mix of cider and beer and grenadine, but far too sweet for me to have more than a cup. Tomorrow morning, I have an early morning lecture on “How to Study Successfully at UCL.” Joy. Night, everyone.