11.04.11
Posted in Travel Log (N. America & Europe) at 10:20 am by Benjamin Ross
This is the 3rd entry from my 2011 Europe Trip.
Leeds is a classic English Rust Belt city. Though smaller than Birmingham and Manchester, Leeds also played a key role in England’s industrialization. Today it’s the UK’s largest English financial center outside of London, but much of the character of Leeds’ industrial past remains intact.
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| Leeds is the primary urban center for the region known as West Yorkshire. A small market town until the 17th Century, Leeds became a major trade and manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. |
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| Best known as the center of England’s wool industry, a wide variety of industrial activity thrived in Leeds, especially after the opening of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1816. |
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| Leeds is a pleasantly gritty town, with much of its architecture still showing a working class/industrial aesthetic. |
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| Here’s the market in the center of town. |
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| another shot of the market |
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| and some more typical Leeds-esque steetscape |
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| the pedestrian shopping district in the center of town |
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| a cleaver way to use an overhanging to adjoin two old buildings and turn the street between them into an indoor mall |
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| You can’t tell from this picture, but this street in the city centre is what appears to be the former Leeds Chinatown, now in the process of evaporating. Roughly every other storefront is a Chinese business, and it seemed as if the process of neighborhood succession was already well-advanced, with non-ethnic businesses on their way in and Chinese businesses trickling out. If anybody has more detailed info on the history of this area, please share in the comments section. |
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| Leeds has a well-defined architectural style with wide usage of brick, and most of the buildings in the city centre look something like this. |
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| Like Birmingham, Leeds is also traversed by a web of canals. Many of the old mill buildings along the canals have been converted into apartment spaces. |
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| An old friend of mine from Kansas City lives in Leeds with his British wife and children. This is their neighborhood, where I stayed. The neighborhood was uniformly laid out in these almost surreal brick housing blocks which extend for several hundred feet in each direction. |
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| I’m not sure on the date exactly, but I’m guessing they’re probably mid-19th Century and were built for middle class families looking to get away from the city centre. |
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| Leeds is small and compact, even by British standards, and the bus system is efficient for getting around. An extensie commuter rail network connects the city centre with suburban and outlying towns across West Yorkshire and beyond. |
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| Just a 15 minute train ride from the Leeds City Centre is the town of Saltaire. Founded in 1853, Saltaire claims to be the most well-intact 19th Century planned industrial village in the UK. |
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| Planned industrial villages such as these were built in both the UK and the US during the later phases of the Industrial Revolution. Typically a large company would build a production plant in a distant suburban area far from the city centre in order to take advantage of cheaper land and/or favorable transportation routes. Since workers were out of reach of most city amenities, the company would construct an entire town from scratch, including markets, schools, churches, and hospitals. The workers would then be able to carry out most regular activities without ever leaving the village. In many ways, these British industrial villages form the prototypes for those currently operating in China in which large companies (particularly in the Southeast) build all-inclusive factory campuses for their employees. |
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| Saltaire was built to house workers of Salt’s Mill (above). A major textile producing mill in its heyday, Salt’s Mill originally consisted of five separate mills which were consolidated to this site in the 1850’s. |
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| The mill remained active until it was closed in 1986, and a plan to convert it into a shopping center was begun. |
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| Today, the town of Saltaire stands in pristine condition, with the former homes of mill workers preserved and occupied by local residents, many of whom commute daily to Leeds for work. |
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| Saltaire and its uniformity have been preserved impeccably over the years. |
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| For folks on the other side of the Atlantic, a similarly planned industrial village can be found in the Pullman district of Chicago (not pictured). |
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| Although Saltaire has been weaved into the fabric of modern technology, the architectural integrity of its period of construction remains well intact. |
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| Saltaire is graced by a lush, green, backdrop of West Yorkshire hills. |
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| Considering the train ride from Leeds to Saltaire is shorter than an average inner-city trip on the London Tube, I’d recommend a visit to Saltaire for any Leeds itinerary. |
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| The following set of images are all more shots from Saltaire. |
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| What trip to England would be complete without watching a proper English football (soccer) match? It was just my luck that Manchester United was in town during my stay, playing a Carling Cup match against Leeds at Elland Road Stadium. |
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| This was my first time seeing British football live and the cultural experience in the crowd was as interesting as the game itself (Manchester obliterated Leeds 3-0 by the way). Growing up going to NFL games, I was used to the typical rabid antagonism which happens among spectators at a sporting event. But what I wasn’t totally prepared for was the authentic sense of hatred and desire to inflict bodily harm on opposing fans that permeates a British football match. |
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| The Leeds fans in my section were hurling obscenities and threats of physical violence to the players and fans of Manchester United (as well as female members of their families) throughout most of the match. |
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| Tickets to each match are purchased through the club to which one is a fan. For example, if you’re a Manchester United fan, and you want to see the match in Leeds, you buy tickets directly through Manchester United. This is because there are separate seating sections for the opposing fans, in order to prevent all-out brawls. As you can see above, the Manchester fans were seated in their own section, cordoned off by a veritable mechitza of police in full riot gear. When the match concludes, the home fans leave first. The visiting fans must stay in their corral until all the home fans have left in another measure to prevent an all out war between the fans of the opposing squads. |
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| Additionally, alcohol is not allowed into the viewing area of the stadium. Beer can be purchased at concession stands, but has to be finished before going back to the seating area. (I assume this is a further measure to decrease the likelihood of soccer-related violence). I was also surprised at how cheap concessions were compared with sporting events in the US. |
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| In my last few hours in Leeds, my friend Melech drove me out to this pasture just outside of Leeds. In the far distance is an old manor house, which I am guessing belongs to the owner of the land and the sheep. |
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| Leeds may no longer be the center of world wool production, but it’s still the home to lots of sheep. |
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| One of the beauties of English (compared with American) cities is that there is very little urban sprawl. On our way to these pasturelands, we were driving through city neighborhoods when all of a sudden we reached the country…no suburban “subdivisions,” no strip centers, and no office parks…just town and country. |
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| From Leeds I headed off to my final destination in the UK, Manchester. Leeds has a beaming, modern train station, and I thought I’d include a few shots. |
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| From Leeds Station, you can get just about anywhere in England in under 3 hours. |
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| For tourists interested in England’s industrial past, Leeds is a fascinating little city. Much of what I had expected to find in Birmingham, I ended up discovering in Leeds. With its central location, Leeds is within day-trip distance of both London and Manchester, but warrants more than a day of exploration, and for architecture and industrial history buffs, Saltaire is a must. Next, (and final) stop on the industrial tour through England: Manchester. |
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11.01.11
Posted in Travel Log (N. America & Europe) at 6:20 pm by Benjamin Ross
This is the 4th entry from my 2011 Europe Trip.
“Don’t go to Birmingham.” “There’s nothing to do there, it’s an industrial wasteland.” “Don’t waste your time. It’s the most boring city in England.” These were the typical responses I received from Londoners when I told them of my plan to visit Birmingham. These were also the most common responses I heard from Brummies (the colloquial term for Birmingham aka “Brum” natives) who questioned why I would ever visit such a horrendous place as their home town. In fact, outside of a few rural towns in China, I have never visited a place with such an acute sense of self-deprecation as Birmingham. That being said, I had particular reasons for including it on my itinerary. The next three stops on my trip (Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester) were all important production centers for England’s Industrial Revolution. How have these industrial hubs adapted to a post-industrial economy, and in what ways have they paralleled or diverged from post-industrial cities in the United States? This is what I hoped to shed some light upon in England’s industrial strongholds.
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| Birmingham was one of the world’s first major industrial centers, and is anchor of the second largest metropolitan region in the United Kingdom. It’s also the hometown of John Michael (aka Ozzy) Osbourne. Not to be confused with Birmingham, Alabama (the British city is pronounced “Birming’um), Birmingham is indeed quite boring in terms of culture and nightlife. With London less than 90 minutes away, and Manchester emerging as the cultural center of the North, Birmingham is England’s often forgotten second city. |
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| Like many UK cities, Birmingham’s city centre consists of a dense commercial shopping district, with several pedestrian areas closed off to vehicular traffic. While a fair amount of old industrial buildings remain around the fringes of the city centre, the majority of central Birmingham has been rehabbed and redeveloped, with few physical hints of its industrial past remaining. |
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| Here’s one of those old industrial buildings, located just between the city centre and the adjacent district of Digbeth. |
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| Several of Birmingham’s post-industrial districts are now showing the signs of gentrification. |
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| Boredom aside, Birmingham seems to still be a thriving place, with copious shopping and much new construction, especially in and near the city centre. |
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| Several of the areas surrounding the city centre still show the signs of post-industrial urban decay. |
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| Brownfields like this are abundant, where entire industrial districts have been cleared, seemingly in anticipation of future growth outward from the city centre. |
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| Inside the city centre itself, there are smatterings of older buildings, but for the most part, its older industrial architecture has been replaced by newer commercial and residential developments. |
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| There are however, a few standing relics of Birmingham’s past in the city centre. |
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| Of the 6 cities I visited in the UK, Birmingham appeared to be the most ethnically diverse. I saw large numbers of Middle Easterners, South Asians, and Chinese, among others, particularly near the city centre. |
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| At the geographic center of Birmingham, and adjoining to its pedestrian shopping malls is Victoria Square. |
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| Victoria Square is also home to Birmingham Town Hall, the main library and several museums. |
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| As the geographic center, it also serves as a convenient meeting point. |
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| another look |
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| Although much of Birmingham’s industrial past lies buried below high-rises and shopping malls, Birmingham Back-to-Backs has preserved a small sliver of the physical history of Birmingham’s industrial labor force. So called because the back of one building faces the back of another, Birmingham Back-to-Backs consists of three pairs of adjoining back-to-back houses built around a courtyard. They were built with no indoor plumbing, and residents had to use loos and washbasins located in the public courtyard. Unlike London, Glasgow, or New York, Birmingham never had vertical tenement housing. Instead, it was in adjoining back-to-backs where the majority of Birmingham’s working class families were housed. |
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| In the 1800’s, thousands of these buildings were constructed to house Birmingham’s primarily immigrant labor force. As late as the 1950’s, much of Birmingham was still covered with back-to-back houses, mostly in dilapidated condition. Today, these 6 are all that remain. Birmingham Back-to-Backs provides a guided tour through the buildings which traces the histories of three different families who lived in the buildings. |
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| While the general cost of living in England is quite high, I found that on the whole, reasonably healthy and fast meals were quite cheap. Take for example this Thai chicken baguette which cost only 1 pound. Sandwich shops, especially those selling a large variety of pre-made sandwiches in plastic triangular boxes are everywhere. They’re cheaper, faster, and more portable than even a meal at McDonald’s, and make the perfect subsistence for a backpacking trip. |
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| Then there are also some culinary inventions or more questionable origin, such as the Unlimited All-You-Can-Eat East Meets West Flaming Dragon Buffet. |
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| Birmingham has a sizable Chinese population and a Chinatown, colloquially called the “Chinese Quarter,” located just south of the central pedestrian mall. It consisted primarily of restaurants, and there didn’t seem to be a large concentration of Chinese people actually living there. Instead, it appeared that the Chinese population was more dispersed around the city centre. (I could be wrong on this, so please correct me if anybody is more familiar.) On the whole though, there isn’t much in Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter that couldn’t be found in a Chinatown anywhere else on the planet. |
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| Chinatown is also straddled between some of Birmingham’s more glitzy downtown developments. I wasn’t sure how much of this was connected to Chinatown and how much was encroaching on it. |
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| Although Brummies tend to be self-deprecating when it comes to their city, one thing they are quite boastful about is their markets. |
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| Located right near the heart of the city centre, you can still buy just about any daily need (food, clothing, kitchenware, cell phone chargers) at Birmingham’s city market. |
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| In terms of relics of its industrial past, I found Birmingham is surprisingly lacking, especially compared to Leeds and Manchester. One bright spot however, was the Birmingham Canal Zone. |
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| The extensive development of a canal system in England preceded the proliferation of the railroads, and for the early part of the Industrial Revolution, it was the canals which facilitated the cheap, efficient shipping necessary for industrial production. Birmingham, one of the world’s first true industrial centers was also, not coincidentally, the center of the British canal network. |
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| Thesedays, much of Birmingham’s canal zones have been redeveloped into urban residential districts such as these. |
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| Others remain derelict and are frequent targets of vandalism and seedy activity. |
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| Also built along one of the old canals is the Birmingham National Indoor Arena, which hosts concerts and a slew of sporting events. |
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| and one final canal shot |
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| Located just south of the city centre, is Digbeth, one of Birmingham’s most interesting post-industrial neighborhoods. Digbeth first became a site of industrial activity in the mid-18th century, and there is still a significant amount of industry in the district today. |
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| Digbeth’s most noticeable feature are the ubiquitous Victorian railway viaducts, which dominate the horizon. |
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| The origins of the peculiar name “Digbeth” are debated, with some saying it’s a derivative of “dyke path” while others claiming it was originally “duck’s bath.” |
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| Unlike the city centre, most of the architecture in Digbeth still consists of 19th Century industrial buildings. |
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| In recent decades, Digbeth has been associated with the British electronic music, and has also started seeing the incipient signs of gentrification. |
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| With cheap rents, proximity to the city centre, and oodles of urban grit, Digbeth shows signs of a neighborhood potentially on the verge of urban regeneration. |
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| In other words, if I’m a Brummie, and I’m a hipster, Digbeth is definitely a place where I want to be seen. |
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| more industrial schenanigans in Digbeth |
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| a typical Digbeth storefront |
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| canal running through Digbeth factory zones |
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| Digbeth makes an ideal place for an urban hike. I spent the better part of an afternoon wandering around, following canals and railroad tracks, and snapping pictures. It isn’t pretty (in the typical aesthetic sense), but for industrial or urban enthusiasts, it’s the crown jewel of greater Birmingham. |
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| Birmingham generally isn’t high on the list of most tourist itineraries. It lacks the glamor and glitz of London, and for historical purposes Leeds and Manchester have more to offer. |
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| But as the UK’s second largest city and one of the world’s earliest industrial pioneers, Birmingham does have a story to tell which makes up for its other shortcomings. “Brum” isn’t for everybody, but if you’ve read this far and haven’t gotten bored, consider a visit if you’re ever in the UK. Next stop: Leeds |
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10.31.11
Posted in Travel Log (N. America & Europe) at 8:01 am by Benjamin Ross
This is the 3rd entry from my 2011 Europe Trip.
The third stop on my jaunt through the UK was Oxford. Getting there from Cardiff was a cinch, considering I bought my ticket half an hour before departure. A high speed train from Cardiff whisked me off to some transit point in the middle of nowhere. After a four minute wait, another high speed train picked me up and within half an hour, I was in Oxford. The entire trip took under 90 minutes.
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| Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world with roots going as far back as the 11th Century. It’s the prototype to which all “college towns” can trace at least some roots back to. |
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| Unlike most American college towns which have well-defined campus areas, Oxford University’s buildings are scattered throughout the town, blurring the boundaries between the city and the campus. |
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| The university itself is broken into roughly 40 different “colleges” with each student belonging to one of the colleges in addition to the university umbrella. |
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| Architecturally, Oxford is a treat to explore. |
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| The town of Oxford itself is very much a college town, with most local businesses catered towards a student clientele. |
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| Oxford is a fantastic city to be a pedestrian, and a complete pain in the arse to drive through. Streets are narrow, parking is difficult or non-existent, and flocks of pedestrians often crowd the street (which you don’t see here since this was taken at 8 in the morning). While most North American cities have spent the greater part of the last half century facilitating drivers, many English towns, even the small ones, remain centered on the pedestrian paradigm. Oxford is a fine example of this. |
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| What’s behind this door? |
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| The University Church of St. Mary |
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| This is All Souls College, one of Oxford’s most exclusive colleges. Every year students compete for automatic 7-year fellowships to All Souls in what’s dubbed “the hardest exam in the world.” The exam lasts 3-6 hours and recent questions have reportedly been as obscure as “Water, discuss.” |
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| and another |
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| Oxford colleges each have their own mini-campuses which are closed to the general public. One of my classmates in Chicago had previously spent some time at Trinity College, and was able to arrange for me to take a tour with one of his old friends. |
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| When you talk to students of Oxford, past and present, they will often identify themselves with whichever college they attended. College function as mini-universities within Oxford, with each having its own residence hall, dining hall, and library, and holding its own exclusive social functions. |
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| I don’t think I saw better manicured grass anywhere else on my trip. |
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| Trinity Chapel |
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| Now back in public grounds. This the famous Hertford Bride aka “The Bridge of Sighs.” |
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| The Radcam Theater |
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| The Bodleian library aka “The Bod” |
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| more old cobblestone Oxford streets |
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| and another view of the University Church (I think) |
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| One of Oxford’s more recent tourist landmarks, the Turf Tavern secured its place in Oxford lore when Bill Clinton smoked pot (but didn’t inhale) on this very spot, the back patio. |
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| Oxford also seems to be high on the wrung of Chinese tourist destinations. There were few sites I saw which weren’t surrounded with SLR-camera-wielding Chinese tour groups. |
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| Oxford is also home to some of the best landscaping I saw anywhere in the UK. |
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| Oxford is a fine place to visit, and like Cardiff, is an easy day-trip from London. With a history predating Harvard by roughly half a millennium, Oxford is the place to go to explore the history and development of the “college town.” (I’m told Cambridge is as well, but I don’t want to start a war here). It’s also fine town to take a relaxing urban walk, throw back a few pints at the pub, and bask in the company of some of the world’s brightest intellectuals. Next stop: Birmingham |
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10.27.11
Posted in Travel Log (N. America & Europe) at 4:47 pm by Benjamin Ross
This is the 2nd entry from my 2011 Europe Trip.
Cardiff is the largest city and chief economic and cultural center of Wales. That’s all I knew about it before making it the second stop on my trip.
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| Getting anywhere in England is easy. With the high speed rail system, you’re never more than a 3 or 4 hour reach of any major city. And with Megabus and National Express Coach, you’re hardly ever more than 20 pounds from your destination either. My Megabus ticket from London to Cardiff, booked less than 24 hours in advance, cost a walloping 13 GBP. |
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| Like most mid-sized UK cities, the core of Cardiff’s city centre consists of a pedestrian mall which serves as the metro region’s primary shopping district. |
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| Although 21% of the Welsh population allegedly speaks the Welsh language, the only Welsh I heard during my day in Cardiff was on broadcast announcements at the train station. |
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| While conspicuous symbols of Welsh national pride were abundant, for all intents and purposes, Cardiff felt very much like an English city. |
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| Cardiff isn’t usually a place people visit for the architecture, but there are a few aesthetically pleasing older buildings. |
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| …and a soccer stadium |
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| While taking a walk through the park, I inadvertently ran into a cricket match between India and England. I don’t know the first thing about cricket, but from what I could see and hear, it seemed like quite a party, especially among the Indian fans. |
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| Cardiff’s most famous tourist attraction is Cardiff Castle. |
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| The oldest extant section, the Norman “keep” (pictured above from the inside) dates back to 1091. |
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| Cardiff Castle isn’t so much a castle per se as it is a campus of buildings and green space enclosed by an old cement wall. Here’s a view from the keep, which is perched on a hill in the center of the “castle.” In the background is the city centre. |
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| …and an up-close view at some of the castle architecture |
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| …and another view from the side |
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| …and here’s a shot of the keep, perched on its mound overlooking the rest of the castle |
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| some interesting signage |
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| Cardiff is geographically small and compact, but there were a few old industrial neighborhoods I wanted to stroll through such at Butetown, just south of the city centre. Located in the vicinity of Cardiff’s docks, Butetown became one of the UK’s first multi-cultural districts around the time of World War I. Today it’s home to large communities, of Yemenis, Greeks, and Somalis. Butetown shows signs of decay, including vacated and poorly maintained buildings. Several locals advised me against walking around there at night. |
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| What’s interesting from an American perspective is that the areas, locally defined as “slums” in the UK, are like a walk through the suburbs compared to many neighborhoods in say, the South Side of Chicago or North Philly. There are certainly historical, economic, and sociological reasons for this, but part of the reason (I would posit) that the UK’s streets are safer is the high levels of urban density which allow for more informal social control and more efficient policing. In very few places did I encounter urban blight and sparseness in levels similar to that of most post-industrial American cities. |
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| Just south of Butetown are the Cardiff docks district, which unlike Butetown, have seen a fair share of gentrification and redevelopment in recent years. |
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| Here are the docks themselves, (schnazzy commercial developments not pictured) |
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| more docks |
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| Throughout much of the UK, South Asian culture has permeated in similar fashion to how Latin American culture has become part of the general culture in the US. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the culinary realm, where even multinational fast food chains are quick to localize. |
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| more old industrial Cardiff streetscape |
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| UK cities, and European cities in general, have done a more effective job of embracing the social, economic, and environmental advantages of urban density, than has been the case in North America. Cardiff is a prime example of this, exemplified by these newer residential developments, built up rather than out. |
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| looking just down the river from the new mid-rises |
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| another old neighborhood with dense housing blocks |
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| and a view of the city centre from afar |
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| more city centre |
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| older mixed-use commercial/residential buildings in the city centre |
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| and finally off to Oxford on the high speed train |
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| Cardiff is an interesting town, and with its compactness and proximity to London, it makes an ideal spot for a day trip. If you’re looking for an authentically Welsh cultural experience, Cardiff probably isn’t the place to find it. From what I gathered, the smaller towns have retained more of the Welsh culture, while Cardiff has served as the de facto gateway to England. Nonetheless, it was one of the more livable cities I saw in the UK, and was well worth the day trip. Next stop: Oxford |
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Posted in Travel Log (N. America & Europe) at 4:44 pm by Benjamin Ross
This is the 1st entry from my 2011 Europe Trip.
London! The economic capital of Europe, the gateway to the Western Hemisphere, the center of the Industrial Age’s most powerful empire. Fittingly, London seemed like the ideal starting point for my 18 day tour through Europe, although I was corrected several times by Brits that England is in fact not part of Europe by their definition. So here’s part 1 of a 14 part series on my recent trip through Europe…and the UK.
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| London is simply fabulous! At first I thought it was jitters from finally landing in Europe, but London is truly one of the most exciting cities on the planet. |
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| With the mix of new and old, of English and foreign, and of wealth and squalor, London just about has it all. |
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| In total, I visited 14 European cities, and when all was said and done, London takes the cake when it comes to architecture. Walking through the West End (the de facto city centre), you can feel the monetary spoils of the Industrial Revolution flowing through veins of the Victorian housing and commercial blocks. |
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| London is touristy, very touristy. But it’s one of those cities where most of the tourist attractions are well worth the visit, both old… |
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| …and new |
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| …and somewhat old |
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| …and royal. |
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| The changing of the guard is the big draw to Buckingham Palace, but after warnings of crowds so big I wouldn’t be able to see the changing, let alone the guard himself, I opted to view the guard in his unchanged state. |
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| London is one of those cities where you can wander around in any direction and inevitably run into something majestic, old, and famous without ever even knowing it was there. The entire city is overflowing with history, and after checking 6 or 7 monuments off my travel notes, I gave up trying to figure out what was what. |
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| Possibly the most famous tourist attraction in town is the Tower of London. |
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| With a slew of museums and neighborhoods I wanted to see, I didn’t end up going inside. |
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| The view is indeed quite nice from outside though. |
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| Here’s Trafalgar Square, another major West End landmark. |
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| Compared with its West End environs, there isn’t anything extraordinary about Trafalgar Square at first glance. But something about this square just works. |
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| I can’t put a finger on it exactly, but the more I passed through Trafalgar, the more I wanted to take a break, relax, eat one of those pre-packaged plastic triangle sandwiches, hacky sack, people watch, or a combination of the above. |
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| It also helped that it was 70 degrees and sunny for the full two days I was in London. Apparently, this never happens. |
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| London is the host of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. But if not for this sign in Trafalgar Square, I would have never even noticed. This was quite the contrast to China in the years leading up to 2008. You couldn’t go anywhere in Beijing (let alone the entire country) without overhearing the Beijing 2008 brew-haha. |
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| St. Paul’s Cathedral is another one of Central London’s masterpieces of architecture. |
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| The front steps of St. Paul’s is another classic London public space. At mid-day, it was full of office workers on lunch break and tourists snapping photos. |
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| …and a view of St. Paul’s from the side |
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| …and a view across the street from St. Paul’s. Central London is one of those places where every building looks different, yet somehow matches perfectly within the architectural theme. |
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| Moving outward now…London has one of the world’s most efficient public transit systems, and getting almost anywhere is cake. London was also a pioneer in public transportation branding. It’s “roundel” is one of the most widely-recognized symbols in the world, and its system map, using color-coded lines and a non-geographic layout has become the template for public transit maps across the world. |
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| The backbone of the system is the London Underground, or as it’s colloquially called “The Tube.” With the first line opening in 1863, the Tube is the oldest underground railroad in the world. |
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| In addition to the Tube, London has several lines of elevated mass transit, appropriately dubbed “The London Overground.” |
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| And the newest addition to London’s mass transit network is the Docklands Light Rail (DLR), covering the vast Dockland’s district (more on that below), formerly not connected to the public transit grid. All 3 systems (Underground, Overground, and DLR) work in conjunction with one another with free transfers from system to system. |
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| London also has a dense network of buses with many of them running in dedicated bus lanes. As a response to growing congestion, London became one of the first major cities to introduce “congestion charges” in 2003. Private vehicles wishing to enter Central London between 7 am and 6 pm Monday through Friday are charged a 10 Pound congestion charge for each entrance, easing congestion for bus transit. |
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| A web of commuter rail also surrounds London providing convenient transport from surrounding suburbs and towns to the city centre. |
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| Attempting to navigate London with a map is a hopeless exercise in futility. Even with a compass in hand, the simple act figuring out which direction you are headed is enough to make the head spin. But London does have some of the most informative public signage I’ve ever encountered. Unfortunately I didn’t snap a picture, but street signs are flanked with arrows pointing in every direction to landmarks, districts, and virtually anything else a tourist would want to locate. Just follow the signage, and you can find just about anything, even without a map. London’s hyper-informative signage even extends to casual reminders of which direction the traffic flows. |
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| can’t remember the last time I used one of these |
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| Or how about this “authentic Canadian-style” sports bar and grill. |
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| more random architecture shots from the West End |
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| rush hour |
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| The city area of London is bisected by the Thames River. Most of the river crossings are underwhelming, except for the illustrious Tower Bridge, constructed between 1886 and 1894 |
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| In addition to the bridge itself, crossing it on foot allows for some of the most scenic views of London skyline. |
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| Much of London’s modern architecture is located along the bank south of the river. |
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| With street grids and traffic patterns laid out long before the advent of steel, London has few skyscrapers compared with other world financial centers such as New York and Tokyo. But a sizable chunk of the more recent office development, especially those areas just south of the Thames, seems to be employing the high-rise paradigm. |
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| Here’s another shot of the Tower Bridge, looking north from the south bank of the river. |
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| …and a final view of the bridge from the South |
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| With my first day in London devoted primarily to exploring the more posh districts in the West End and just south of the river, I spent my second day exploring several of London’s ethnic as well as outerlying neighborhoods. The first was Brick Lane, London’s Little Bangladesh. |
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| Brick Lane was more disneyfied than I had expected, but still housed several streets worth of South Asian shops and eateries. |
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| … |
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| London is also home to a sizable Chinatown. For a city its size, London’s Chinatown was mostly a disappointment. It’s highly disneyfied and has all the characteristics of a downtown tourist trap. With most of the restaurants and businesses catering to a non-Chinese clientele, I was led to believe that there are probably additional satellite Chinatown in the London metro area, with “Chinatown” now functioning primarily as an economic rather than residential district. Anybody have any more info on this? |
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| One pleasant surprise of Chinatown was this delicious Lanzhou “pulled noodles” restaurant I found. You can hardly walk 10 minutes in any Chinese city without bumping into one of them, but in North American Chinatowns they can be surprisingly elusive. |
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| Like most disneyfied Chinatowns, the conspicuous symbols of Chinese culture are everywhere in London’s Chinatown. By my count, the red-lanterns-per-Chinese-resident ratio was hovering somewhere around 1:1. |
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| The Chinese characters in this sign read “Old Hunan Village, Hunan Food.” Gotta love deceptive advertising. |
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| Moving on to the East End, which has traditionally been home to London’s working class masses. |
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| Famously the origin of London’s Cockney population, the East End is now inhabited in large part by immigrants from across the globe. Pictured here is the Middle Eastern market in Whitechapel. |
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| In all my travels, the Whitechapel market is the only shopping district I have encountered where buqas and lingerie can be purchased from adjoining stalls. |
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| And here’s the Spitalfields Market, one of the more gentrified parts of East London. |
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| These next few pics are from the neighborhood of Hackney. Hackney was originally an independent town just down the road from London, but with urban expansion in the 19th Century, it was swallowed up into the greater metropolis. Hackney is also one of the few spots in the East End where I heard mutterings of Cockney still being spoken. |
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| Old Hackney flats like these provided housing to the vast pool of human labor which flocked to the East End during the Industrial Revolution. |
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| more flats |
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| a small creek running through Hackney |
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| recreational boats |
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| more boats |
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| Now shifting to the Docklands. Located in East London, along the Thames, the Docklands were once home to the largest port in the world. It was mainly from this port that raw materials from across the British Empire were shipped in, and manufactured goods were transported around the world. |
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| As England deindustrialized, the port shrunk, until finally by 1980 all of the docks had been closed. The 8 square mile swath of land lay derelict as crime and poverty set in. As soon as the docks were closed, redevelopment plans were begun, which have turned the Docklands into a thriving high-rise financial, commercial, and residential district. |
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| As you can see, very little physical remnants of the district’s past remain. |
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| I should also mention, there is a free Docklands Museum housed in an old warehouse along the river, which was the most interesting museum I visited in London. So much of London’s history revolved around the history of the docks, and the museum does an excellent job of putting it in perspective, as well as documenting the changes in the Docklands occurring in present times. |
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| Another major recent development has been the Docklands Light Rail (pictured about 50 slides up). Previously, the Docklands had been entirely cut off from the London Underground, but when the DLR first opened in 1987, the Docklands became conveniently linked to the rest of the city’s transit grid. |
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| London is a magnificent array of lighting arrangements at night. One regret I have from my visit is that I didn’t spend more time bumbling around at night and taking pictures. This one is from Piccadilly Circus, London’s Times Square of sorts. |
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| Victoria Station, one of London’s many commuter transit terminals. |
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| glitzy shopping |
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| Big Ben |
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| up close |
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| The London Eye |
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| Westminster Abbey |
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| …and a couple more random night shots from the West End |
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| London is one of those destinations which receives an ungodly amount of hype on the travel circuit. And it’s one of those unique places where the plethora of hype is well-justified. Due to the time constraints of my trip, I only budgeted 2 days to explore this city of endless intrigue and excitement. But even 2 weeks probably wouldn’t have been enough to take in all London has to offer. With 18 days and 4 countries on the itinerary, I had a schedule to keep, so the rest of London will have to wait for another trip. Next stop: Cardiff, Wales. |
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10.03.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:07 am by Benjamin Ross
Rotterdam was completely flattened by World War II. The city centre is entirely modern, and thus completely different from Amsterdam and Utrecht. With its high-rise office towers and modern shopping centers, Rotterdam feels more like a modern metropolis than the former two cities. It’s also the busiest port in Europe.
On the ground, Rotterdam feels much bigger than Amsterdam. Had I not known otherwise, I would have guessed Rotterdam was Holland’s largest city.
From what I saw (which was admittedly quite limited), Rotterdam was the most multi-ethnic of the Dutch cities. Lots of Africans, Middle Easterners, and a sizable Chinatown as well.
As I mentioned in my last droppings, English proficiency outside Amsterdam is still good, but not spot-on like it is in the capital. One little quirk of Dutch people outside Amsterdam is that I’ve noticed is that sometimes when you ask them a question in English, which they understand completely, they will reply in Dutch, and continue speaking in Dutch, assuming that you understand what they are talking about. It isn’t the sny “don’t speak English in my county,” and there is no hint of resentment. Rather I think it’s just an honest reaction from a people who are just used to a bilingual environment.
The Dutch inter-city train system is phenomenal. Trains running to all 4 cities in the Ranstad (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Den Haag) on the half hour, tickets are cheap and can be purchased last minute, and the trains are clean and futuristic looking. You could feasibly live in one of the 4 cities and commute to one of the others on a daily basis without major inconvenience.
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09.29.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:40 pm by Benjamin Ross
Noticeable drop off in English skills once outside of Amsterdam. And by “noticeable dropoff,” I mean English skills are still overall quite proficient, but not like Amsterdam where it’s seamless.
Utrecht is like a smaller version of Amsterdam, but probably 5% of the tourism Amsterdam has. It has canals, quaint old architecture, coffee shops that sell marijuana, and red light districts, but more of a local Dutch feel.
Utrecht’s city center is stunningly beautiful. I spent a good chunk of time meandering through the canal-lined main street which runs right through. Lots of outdoor eating and drinking establishments right up against the old canals.
Utrecht’s red light district is literally on a canal, with prostitutes stationed in house boats (pictures to come once I get back to Chicago).
Transportation between the 4 cities in the Ranstad (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag, and Rotterdam) is like gravy. Trains run on the half hour, and journeys are under an hour. You could easily stay in one city, and day trip to the other. Or likewise, live in one and commute to the other.
One reason the overall English skills are so good in Holland is that English TV shows aren’t overdubbed. So for example, if you watch “Family Guy” in Holland, there will be Dutch subtitles, but the audio is all in English. In the few bits and pieces of Dutch TV I caught, I noticed many commercials are partially in English as well. Thus, from a young age, the Dutch (at least those who have television sets) grow up constantly bombarded with the sounds of the English language.
Been seeing a lot of Chicago Bulls hats in the Netherlands. Not sure what that’s all about.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:38 pm by Benjamin Ross
English proficiency here is rampant. Have yet to encounter anybody in Amsterdam who cannot converse in English. Pretty sure the percentage of people who don’t speak English is higher in Chicago than it is in Amsterdam.
One funny thing I’ve noticed about the Dutch (and I like this) is that when as a tourist, you do something completely ridiculous or stupid, they aren’t shy about telling you. They don’t sugarcoat it (like we do in the US), and they don’t get angry, but they politely inform you that you are a moron, and point out the obvious solution to your simple problem.
Amsterdam is one of the most picturesque walking cities I’ve ever been to. Spent the first day, just meandering around all the canal zones.
When traveling, I generally try to avoid those places heavily trafficked on the tourist route, however Amsterdam is a great spot to be a tourist. Lots of museums, everything costs money to get into, but nothing was overpriced. Amsterdam History Museum was a good way to start the visit with background. Van Gogh Museum was well worth the paltry 14 Euro entrance fee. I was somewhat disappointed with the Anne Frank Huis. It has been converted into a museum with little feeling of what the house was like after the war. There is a many informative exhibits, but not a whole lot of new information for anybody who has a) read the book and b) has a basic understanding of Holocaust history, which is presumably the exact demographic visiting the museum.
There’s a sizable Chinatown in Amsterdam, but it is quite touristy and like all the Chinatowns I saw on the UK, doesn’t have much to offer. This is one thing (Chinatowns) which I have decided N. America definitely does better than Europe. I did meet a Chinese couple from Wenzhou who were running a falafel shop in the city centre though and had a chat about Chinese life in the Netherlands. The falafel was surprisingly good as well.
Saw a Japanese guy wearing a Kansas Jayhawks hat. Rock Chalk!
Dutch tap water is possibly the cleanest I’ve ever tasted.
In Holland, trams and buses are used for travel within the city centre. Subways are used to get in and out of the suburbs. Spending a day riding around the subways is a good way to obtain a feel for the non-touristed parts of Amsterdam.
Mystery of the trip thus far: How Dutch people manage to stay thin. Yes, they ride bikes everywhere, and yes they seem to maintain fit, active lifestyles, but the food I’ve had thus far is some of the richest, creamiest, high-fructose-corn-syrupy deliciousness I’ve ever eaten. Oh, and everything has sprinkles. Also, rule of thumb: If it looks like a waffle, eat it.
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09.24.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:55 pm by Benjamin Ross
Manchester is possibly the hippest city in England, London included. London is posh, trendy, and expensive, and Manchester seems to be the spot for those with angst against the bustling capital (or who are inherently too cool).
Center of Manchester’s hipness seems to be the Northern Quarter, which feels like the Brooklyn of England, if you will.
Although Manchester is dark and cloudy and post-industrial (like the rest of Northern England), it has a vibrancy to it which I didn’t feel in Birmingham or Leeds.
Manchester also has my favorite of the 3 Chinatowns I visited (the others being London and Birmingham). While the latter have an overboard Disneyland, touristy feel (everything red, lanterns everywhere etc.) Manchester’s Chinatown is simply a couple blocks of the city center which happen to be inhabited by Chinese people.
Ate my first fish and chips in Manchester. It’s over-hyped, but a tasty entrée nonetheless. Washed it down with a Guinness, which was surprisingly chilled.
Like Leeds, Manchester was full of interesting stuff for industrial history buffs. Lots of old mill buildings and canals to explore. The city has done a fine job converting its old industrial infrastructure into residential and commercial space and incorporating it into the modern landscape.
One random convenience of England is that just about everything (sandwiches, beer, airline tickets) comes tax included. The price advertised (or on the menu) is the price you pay.
Next stop: Amsterdam
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09.23.11
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:57 pm by Benjamin Ross
Leeds is pretty small. You can walk across the city center in well under half an hour. It’s all very compact and walkable.
I found that Leeds has considerably more remnants of England’s industrial past than Birmingham. Lots of old mills and industrial buildings now converted into housing and commercial use.
Leeds Armoury is a fantastic collection of historical weapons, armor, and other objects of war. I’m not a big weapons buff, but it was quite engaging regardless. If you are a weapons buff, I’d make a special trip to Leeds to see this collection.
Not to be over-judgmental, but Northern England can be a depressing place. Lots of clouds covering post-industrial landscapes. Locals seemed to feel the same way.
I got a chance to see Leeds play Manchester United at Elland Road Stadium in Leeds. It was my first proper English football match. Lots of droppings…
While there is much animosity among American sports fans (don’t get me started on those Raiders), the English have an authentic hatred towards the fans of opposing teams which extends well beyond the superficialities of the game. (The Leeds fan next to me was screaming “Fuck you, you fucking cunts!” the entire first half without any hint of irony).
The stadiums are also flanked with riot police with full helmet and gear. Opposing team fans have to sit in a cordoned off area, and can’t leave the match until the home fans have all cleared out. This is done to prevent riots.
Presumably also to prevent riots, alcohol is not allowed into the stands. You can buy beer in the concession area, but you need to drink it before returning to your seats.
Concessions (food, drink, beer) are modestly priced. No price gouging as they do in the US. A solid pint of decent beer went for 3.5 pounds. I’ve been to sporting events in the US where 10 oz cups of Bud Light go for $9.50
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