Where is Phil now?

Battersea Power Station.

Tuesday 15 January 2013 – Battersea

It was a cold and reasonably clear day with no rain or snow forecasted so I took the opportunity to do a long walk down to see Battersea Power Station – the iconic London building made even more famous by Pink Floyd when it was placed on the cover of their album Animals back in 1977. It was on my London to-do list and I am trying to make the most of the clear days while I can.

I walked down through Knightsbridge and visited the Royal Geographical Society exhibition room as they had a wonderful series of photos by Basil Pao who has travelled with Micheal Palin on his journeys since 1988. I am very jealous of the opportunities he had to experience some amazing things.

I walked down through the back streets and passed the beautiful old apartments in Chelsea.

Down to the Chelsea Embankment on the Thames which overlooks the long defunct Battersea Power Station.

There are a lot of trees along the embankment so it was impossible to get the exact shot I wanted.

I crossed over Chelsea bridge to the south side of the Thames, for another angle.

Sadly the area surrounding the station is being turned into apartments so I could not wander along the Thames Path in front of the power station and had to walk around via the road. The power station itself is also being renovated with the intention of starting it up again, though not as a coal burning site. The entire site is walled off and I only managed to get one photo through a small hole in a gate were a padlocked chain passed through. A real shame !

The whole section of the Thames south bank from Chelsea to Vauxhall bridge is one massive construction site with apartment blocks being built on both sides of the road.

I caught the train from Vauxhall back to Shepherds Bush after what was close to a three hour walk. At Shepherds Bush I stopped for lunch at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, I did not realise until later in the day that A) it was a chain and B) it was owned by a New Zealander. Though it should have been obvious as I had a Kiwi Burger – it had beetroot and egg, YUM ! there was also a lovely wall size photo of Karekare Beach on Auckland’s west coast, one of my favourite places in the whole world. I got a wee bit home sick !!

The following day a helicopter crashed into a crane on the top of a tower block and crashed into the street where I had been walking. It was the first helicopter crash to ever happen in the city and unfortunately the pilot and a passerby were killed. It was the morning rush hour and could have been a lot worse.

Sleet is not snow, just wet and cold.

Monday 14 January 2013 – Bethnall Green and Shoreditch.

[edit] hmmm, I have just reviewed the entry after posting and it seems I screwed up the image sizing, not going to go back and redo it sorry ![/edit]

The weather forecast for the past couple of days has brought a promise of plummeting temperatures and snow on the ground in London. Sadly, all that has happened so far has been the plummet in temperature. A week or so ago we were averaging ten or so degrees during the day and now we are down to one to two. Wisely I had been making the most of the new year sales and had bought a few winter items, else I would be trapped indoors, and with the cold forecasted to last for a month – it would have been a real drag.

I decided to head back east and walk more of Regents Canal, take some photos of the canal boats and try to find some of the street art I did not photograph due to low light when I was last there. I tubed it to Bethnall Green station and found the canal easily enough.

Naturally soon after arrived it started to gently snow, not enough to create any sort of base, but just enough to make me cold and wet – I was not prepared for it and only had a woollen jacket on. I did not linger on the tow path in the end.

I really like the “reflecting” sign on the building, very clever !

This nearly deserted Samuel House apartment block has images of its residents on boarded up windows. It is an interesting story, and well worth a visit if you are walking Regents Canal. http://www.iamhere.org.uk

As the light snow started to change into a more steady stream of sleety rain I turned onto Kingsland Rd and headed back down towards Shoreditch and Liverpool St station, quite by chance I found Rivington St which had the two Banksy pieces I saw the other night. They are both in the garden of Cargo Bar and are covered up with screens. Sadly there was still reflection from the bar lights but here they are anyway.

This was a great and very detailed piece.

And this Banksy “copy” that I photographed nine days ago, next to its original, has gone already !

The shifting face of street art!

I stopped for a coffee and a bit of shelter before wandering a little further up Rivington St to see this cool shop front by Cranio.

And I really like this face by an artist I do not yet know….

As I was getting damper from the drizzling sleet I started to get a bit cool so headed back to the warmth of the flat – and another couple of episodes of Game of Thrones, my new favourite TV series – into season two, awesome.

It was good to get out, even if the sleet was wet and cold.

Six months in Europe, March 2013 – anyone interested ?

The hunt for a contract job here in London is not going as well as I anticipated, not at all well in fact. I have applied for numerous roles and with one exception have not heard anything from the recruitment agencies. The one exception did put me forward for a role that I quite liked the sound of; but I was not successful unfortunately. There has not been one job advertised in the last week that suits my skills and experience – which is pretty bad, and the economic news is getting drearier by the day.

I am going to stick to the plan I decided on when I arrived in England in early December. If I have not found a job by the time I move out of the flat in Kensington on Jan 24 then I will start actioning plan B. What is plan B ? you may ask.

Well, I have no plan B. I do have a bunch of ideas and thoughts though, which is a start. I bought myself an A4 notepad at the weekend so I could scribble all sorts of things down. From the absurd to the realistic; what I like, what I don’t like, what I want to do, what I don’t want to do, where I want to live and where I don’t. If it is my head I want to try and remember to write it down. Once I move to London Bridge I will spend some time making sense of it all and will come up with a plan.

One option I am considering is saying to hell with my savings, spend the money and do Europe instead of getting a job – and then settling down after – probably 🙂

As I said in a post a while back, I do not want to do Europe on my own. If this interests you or you know of anyone who might be keen here is my current thinking;

I will buy a vehicle and want someone to share the driving and road costs.
I aim to free camp and use campsites as much as possible, occasionally staying in guest houses. I will sleep in a tent or the vehicle if free camping.
This will be a budgetish trip.
I want to do the more out of the way places first, for instance; if we run out of time then I would rather skip Rome than Tallinn.
I like history, architecture and big landscapes over beaches and bars – though I do like those as well 🙂
I aim to do as much as possible over six to seven months, at this stage I have no time restriction.
Destinations and time frames would be mutually agreed, this won’t just be my trip.
I am thinking of starting in March/April as I want to go to New Zealand for a visit first.

I am not going to invest a huge amount of time in planning this unless it becomes a reality, so please do not ask for detail as I do not have any. If you are interested I want your input into the plan. Well sort of plan – maybe all we need is a start date, I am not huge on plans !

I want someone for the whole thing, so you will need time and lots of money, Europe is not cheap !

If you or someone you know is interested in doing this, then please email or FaceBook message me rather than leave a comment. If you do not have my details then please leave a comment with your contact details and I will contact you without publishing the comment.

As I said at the start, this is an option I am considering, it is not a definite. There is a way to go before making it happen and heck, you never know I may land the perfect contract in the next couple of weeks !

Please wait here until you are useful. Thank you.

Saturday 05 January 2013 – Hackney, Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Brick Lane – London

London’s run of not too awful weather continued for a few more days so Saturday afternoon I met a friend up in Hackney to go hunt for some of the great street art that has been made in the area.

My friend knows the area quite well so it was more like a guided walk for me and it was a lot of fun – though I will never find some of the places we visited again, I should have paid more attention 🙂

We started in Hackney Central and walked down through London Fields to Broadway Market. The market is open on a Saturday and mainly sells food and drink, I had a nice risotto for lunch followed by a really nice proper Vietnamese coffee – complete with condensed milk, yum. The market and surrounding area is hipster central. Loads of skinny jeans, short beards and checked shirts, single speed bikes all over the place. Book shops and second hand shops lined the street around the market. I loved it here, in fact I was pretty much in love with all the places we passed, I could easily live here!

Now I have described it as hipster central, my photos show other wise, always happens.

There was a Stik next to the Vietnamese coffee stall.

The next stop was Regents Canal, there is a lot art and plain old graf along the tow path, it was a nice walk down to Victoria Park, the area has a kind of post-commercial bleakness to it, maybe bleakness is a bit strong, but it is a bit run down in parts, just my sort of thing. There were an awful lot of house barges as well, which will be a whole photo essay by itself one day.

I really like these small pieces by Bortusk Leer, there are loads of them all around here.

There was also an old Eric Monopoly as well.

After stopping for more coffee at another very hipster cafe we strolled down and around Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, Brick Lane and Shoreditch – I will confess to having no idea where one bit started and another stopped as I was too busy chatting and looking around at the sights – and spotting things to photograph.

I had one of lifes weird little experiences as we walked. A couple of years ago Sam, a friend of my daughter from Bristol came and stayed at my place in NZ while he was on his travels. He has been living in London for a while now and we have talked about catching up one day. I ran into him on the street. Very nice to see him and totally weird !!

There is some really good street art here, the area around Brick Lane is especially vibrant, I liked that some of the new boutiques have not cleaned up their walls.

Unfortunately we ran out of daylight so I didn’t get to photograph a ton of good stuff, but it does mean I get to go back sooner rather than later. It was a good afternoon !

After a quite delicious Vietnamese meal we went to look at a couple of Banksy’s and saw a guy painting on a wall outside a shop. We stopped to watch and say hello and it was Paul Don Smith, I said I had seen some of his work in Portobello Rd and we chatted for a while. He had recently been doing graffiti on a movie set for a coming Brad Pitt zombie movie – World War Z and was doing a small stencil for it. It was interesting to watch him at work.

I will be back for sure. A few of my favourite pieces.

This is my favourite ! Jana and JS

Ben Eine – according to a graffiti tour guide we overheard as he was leading a tour in Brick Lane he is the only British artist to ever have work hung in the White House…

Jimmy C, there was one amazing Jimmy C that was too dark to photograph – I just need to be able to find it again. His pictures are very detailed.

More street art. [edit] Hmmm, seems WordPress has changed and I cannot do a slide show any more. I don’t like the “gallery” mode, oh well. m[end edit]

Temples of Mammon

Thursday 03 January 2013 – London.

It was another reasonably fine day so it was a day to get out and explore a bit more of London. I decided to visit Canary Wharf; firstly as I thought it would be quieter on New Years week and secondly it is the centre for a lot of big business and a potential place of any future employment . So it seemed a good time to check it out, plus I have never been on the Docklands Light Railway!

I was completely wrong with “it would be quieter” ! Maybe not completely wrong, but the mall area where the lunch bars are located was just heaving with prople and as chaotic as any mall with New Year sales on. Ugly ! I did have a very nice laksa for lunch at Eat. I have lunched at three different Eats in the past couple of weeks and had three different types of international soup and they have all been pretty good value and very nice indeed. I think I will have a go at making laksa in the next few days.

Canary Wharf is a relatively new development, by that I mean it was built in the last twenty-thirty years and houses a lot of the big banks in its glass towers. From a distance it looks pretty good and it was not too bad close up either. What I like about it the most is rather than stick a whole bunch of modern high rises in the lovely low rise centre of London they have built it a few kilometres away and left the centre with its mainly old stone buildings alone. Wonderful forethought in central planning, something that Auckland City Council totally suck at !

One of the other council initiatives I like is “Boris’s Bikes”, Boris Johnson is the current mayor of London, love him or hate him, but he is into bicycles and was instrumental in the setting up of a hire bike system in London, which is loudly sponsored by Barclays Bank. There are bike racks everywhere and the bikes are cheap(ish) to rent. This is the first time I have seen a full rack.

I had a good walk around the area for an hour or so, it is not large, but it has been well designed and there is plenty of space between the towers and it is surrounded by water, from the Thames and canals. I could work there.

The temples of Mammon !

Back to the Tate Modern !

Wednesday 02 January 2013, London.

Wow, two posts in a row in a supposed period when not much was happening. Not that I did anything particularly post worthy, though I did leave the house with the trusty Canon in my bag and that is always a good start.

I wandered along the South Bank for a bit.

Found one piece of street art, not the most likely place for it, so a pleasant surprise.

And this very cool sculpture called “under the baobab tree”.

Of course a walk along the South Bank has to include a visit to the Tate Modern, and I was pleased to see some things I had missed last time I visited, or the permanent collection had changed a bit.

There are a few nice Picasso’s here and I particularly liked “Bowl of fruit, violin and bottle”.

And “nude woman with necklace”.

While I really enjoy all the carvings and sculptures I have seen in temples and cathedrals I have never been a fan of sculpture in a museum setting. However I did really like this Matisse, I am wondering if it is because of the Picasso influence on my tastes ?

Sadly the weather had turned when I left and I had a damp walk across the Millennium Bridge over the Thames in search of soup for lunch and a train home.

It was another good day !

A new year street art hunt

Tuesday 01 January 2013, London

Posting will be really sporadic for a while, I will only post when I have taken some photos or done anything that is even remotely interesting.

I guess the rolling over of another year, especially the successful rolling over of another year when the world was supposed to end, is worth recording.

New years eve was not exactly riveting, not that the last few have been either! I had been pondering walking down to one of the bridges over the Thames to watch the fireworks, but lost interest as it got closer to midnight and the thought of a forty five minute walk there and back in the cold just was not tempting enough. So I spent the night in as usual, though I did make it to midnight and watched the spectacular ten minute fireworks display on TV.

So, it is another new year, what does it hold for me ? at this stage who knows !

The first day of 2013 was by English winter standards, lovely, clear skies and not too cold – to start with anyway. I decided I had to go out and do something so caught the tube up to central London to watch the London New Year parade. I managed to get an OK spot, though the guy next to me kept up a non-stop inane monologue to his family that finally drove me to leave – and I had headphones on, he was loud too ! As it turned out virtually all my photos were crap, I was shooting at far too low a speed to get anything good and I deleted most of them as soon as I got home. A beginners mistake and I should have known better.

I loved this wee steam truck.

On my way out of the parades route and away from the supposed 500,000 people who came to see it, I came across this marching band getting ready to merge in, they played a more funky style of music to the traditional English style and were quite good.

I had decided to walk home via Portobello Rd.

I had visited there on a rainy Boxing Day to try and find the Rough Trade record store that is a feature in a book I bought myself with some money from my mum (thanks mum 🙂 ), however it had moved. So I did the smart thing and looked up the address this time and found it easily. Unfortunately it was closed !

The second reason I visited the area was to try and find some street art, as the west of London is slowly being gentrified the street art is slowly disappearing and is quite rare. I knew there were a couple of pieces around so was keen to find them, and I found more than I expected, including this lovely wall at Notting Hill, I do not know who the artist is but I loved it.

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Up Portobello Rd I found

A Banksy, yay 🙂

A CODE FC

An Alec Monopoly

A couple of Paul Don Smiths

This one commemorating the slaying of two police women last year.

And some others.

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I enjoyed the hunt, and seeing some of these pieces as I am sure they will not be there for long !

St Albans – A day trip

Monday 17 December 2012, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.

Well, I know I sort of wrapped up most of December in one post earlier in the week and hinted that I had not actually done a heck of a lot since, but I have not been a complete bed potato – I have no couch, so no couch potatoing!

Jackie was one of the great people I met on the Cape Town to Livingstone leg of my recent Africa trip and lives not too far from London. We had arranged to meet in the historic town of St Albans for a walk around and lunch.

One of thing I hadn’t mentioned in my wrap up was I had a bad head cold for most of a week, and the start of it was this day ! I work up with a very sore throat and had to spend some of my dwindling funds on various medicines as the cold worked its way from being a sore throat, through a very runny nose and down to a horrible chest cough. One medicine does not conquer all anymore !

I got the direct train from St Pancras to St Albans, very fast and very smooth, and only twenty or so minutes. St Albans is twenty or so miles from London and, I have said this before, I cannot believe how much green space there is between the city and the surrounding towns, for such a crowded country it is incredibly rich in green space – long may it continue!

Jackie picked me up from the station and we drove into town and a bit closer to the cathedral, it is a lovely clear day but quite cool.

We had a brief walk around some of the older parts of town and stopped for a look at the old clock tower, built in the early 1400’s, I loved the side door : )

Some of the houses are incredibly old, but still in use today, I have no idea of the history of this building but I really liked the way if kinda sags in the middle – I know how it feels, it must be middle aged !

We next had a look at the old great gateway of the long gone monastery, the gate was built in the 1360’s and has been used as a monastery, has housed the third oldest printing press, was a prison for three hundred years and has been part of a school since 1871. Amazing, I just so love these things.

From there we walked up to the cathedral and spent a good thirty or so minutes looking around. The cathedral was started in 1077 (Man that is old !!!) and has been in constant use ever since, it is a stunning building with some very well preserved sections. One of the things I do love about some of these old buildings, especially the churches / temples/ mosques, is that they have never stopped being used for their original purpose and visitors are welcomed.

The cathedral is huge, and standing in the oldest section and looking up the length I again marvelled at how places like this were built before the age of large cranes and other machinery.

There was some good detail in the cathedral, including some old wall paintings that I liked as they had not been restored, though I guess they will have to be at some stage !

I really liked this eighteen century poor box – that is of course, still in use.

After the cathedral we took a walk around the outside, Jackie had recently done a guided night walk here and pointed out some of the haunted houses, like this one next to the graveyard….

After a walk up to St Peters church at the other end of town we stopped in for a drink in a pub and then lunch at an Italian place before Jackie dropped me back off at the station and I returned home.

It was a really good outing, nice to catch up with Jackie and see somewhere new.

Mono @ The Village Underground in Shoreditch

I have been a fan of the Japanese post-rock band, Mono for quite a while now and have a few of their albums. They are currently touring their latest album “for my parents” which I own on lovely vinyl – though I have seen it yet as it was delivered to my nephew in New Zealand. I do of course have the download and while it is not my favourite album, I still love it and it got played an awful lot while I was on the truck in Africa.So, I was very excited to see that they were playing in London a couple of days after I arrived.

So, on 8 December I went to see them perform at The Village Underground in Shoreditch. I arrived at the venue about thirty minutes after the doors opened and was disappointed to see there was already a good sized crowd in front of the stage, which meant I was going to be a good five rows back, which also meant it would suck for photos. This was a lesson learnt, get to a gig on time. In fact a further lesson was learnt the following week when I decided to go and see another band, Male Bonding at a pub in Hackney – it was sold out! I am glad I checked first, but from now on I will book tickets first and then get there early.

The venue itself is fabulous, I would estimate it held about three hundred, high ceilings and brick walls with arched entrances to the bar area. I loved it. The sound was not too bad at the front, but very good at the back, it was sold out.

I bought a drink and made my way as close as I could get to the stage to see the support band, “Physics House Band. There were not really my style, like Mono they were an instrumental act, but too funky for my liking. Though the drummer was phenomenal.

Mono played for about an hour and a half and a mix of tracks off of “for my parents” and the previous album “hymn to the immortal wind”. They did not play either of my two most liked songs “com(?)” or “16.12”, but they did play “pure as snow” which is close behind.

Someone who got there before me, and had his camera in front of me all night, you can see him in some of my photos. I could not get a shot of the far guitarist as there were some tall people in the way, gutting. Not bad video though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQajzFOlhq4

It was all lit in red or blue with strong down spots so I shot everything in B and W. Being five rows back and to one side was pretty hopeless, and there was no way I was going to get any closer. I took a few photos and then put my camera away after Pure as Snow and went to the back and stood on some steps and just enjoyed the music.

They were really good, a great show !

A year on the road, wrapped up.

Thursday 27 December 2012 – Kensington, London

I am pretty sure that when I started my travels twelve months ago today I was not expecting to be still on the road, at the time I remember thinking that I would be home well inside a year, even though I was planning on a two year trip. Though, I guess in some ways I am not really on the road anymore, and some could argue that I am home – considering I was born here in England. However, as the old adage goes, “home is where the heart is” and as far as countries go that will always be New Zealand. It is also where most of my family are and they are always in my heart, I miss my boys and my mum and my sisters and their families. But, I have elected to stay in London for a while, try to find a six month contract job and then a year later than planned tour Europe next summer, so yeah I guess still on the road is a slight exaggeration!

I can definitely say I have had the most awesome year, not too many lows and I won’t go into them here, but so many highs. I have seen and experienced so many things, some on my must do list and some that just happened because, well because they happened, the beauty of not having a plan.

But firstly, in case no-one makes it the end of the post, I want to say thanks to a few people….

Alex who, firstly – made me do my dive certificate before I left NZ – very good advice!, secondly – introduced me to Borneo, Malay food and really to Asia and thirdly – told me about the Thaipusam festival.

To all the people I travelled with or shared a meal and drinks with, Jay (Jerome) in Borneo and Cheeba in Cambodia. Giovanni ( who I first met at Thaipusam), Bob, Paulo, Richard and Blathnaid in Myanmar and the bug eating in Bangkok. Daniella, Laura and Mike in Pakse, Laos, David and Debbie in other parts of Laos and Catherine and Daniel on Perhentian Kecil. A massive thanks to Mike who I spent most of a month travelling with in Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, we had so many good times ! In many ways you all saved/made the trip for me, occasionally I really struggled travelling on my own and hanging out with you guys was such good fun and saved me from going crazy…

To Dan and Van for inviting me to the wedding in Vietnam, that was one fun week! Leonie for good times in HMC and Africa.

To my family in England who put me up for a few nights, fed me and listened to my stories between trips.

Emily for the week in Paris, the massive walks and all that eating.

To Ian who let me stay for so long in Spain and for the house painting work, a much needed respite from travel and much appreciated.

To Mal and Sal, the Bland family and Garry and Chris. Mal, for asking me to be the support person for his epic epic 1014km Coastal Path Run – I was chuffed to be asked. And to the others who I met and spent some considerable time with on the way. Double thanks to Tom and Garry for giving their time and resources to support me on my 50th birthday run, which was really appreciated.

To my daughter Mel and her awesome friends and flatmates who made me so welcome, and not made me feel like a fusty old man, when I went to Bristol, especially my birthday dinner- that was choice !

To Will, Brett, Ebron and all my tour mates on the good truck Malakai over my nine weeks in Africa.

To Kevin and Phil for helping me out with accommodation now I have arrived back in London.

To all the people in NZ who I think about all the time, who send me emails and messages and remind me about what I miss about home the most.

Sorry if I have forgotten anyone else, it has been a big year.

So finally to some of the highlights, in no particular order.

Diving and snorkelling – everywhere, but especially Semporna in Borneo, El Nido and Malapascua in the Philippines and Perhentian Kecil in Malaysia.

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Seeing my two favourite animals, orang-utans in Borneo right at the start and gorillas in Rwanda, right at the end.

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Plus all the other animals I have seen.

The people, Thaipusam in Kuala Lumpur, the most intense place I have ever been, especially the night session.

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The kids all over Africa.

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Coast Path run with Mal and Tom. Two incredible men doing an incredible feat – running 1014kms in 17 days.

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Achieving my own incredible feat of running 55kms for my 50th birthday, and the training in the hills above Alcaucin in southern Spain.

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Bowling with David and Debbie in Vientiane, Laos – an unexpected thing to do and a good night out.

Some of the most fabulous places,

U Beins bridge in Mandalay, Myanmar

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Bagan in Myanmar and riding bikes around all the temples.

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Never being templed out in Siem Reap, even after six days, so many highlights, Beng Mealea.

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Taking a day trip up to Preah Vehear in Cambodia, a disputed temple on the Thai border and being shown around by soldiers.

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I have even thought about the amazing working temples I have seen everywhere in SE Asia, nor the stunning mosques in Brunei and Malaysia and the castles and churches in England and Europe, crikey!

Diving in the Perhentians and the beach bum lifestyle.

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A week in Paris and seeing the Mona Lisa – from a distance..

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Wandering the alleys of Barcelona.

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Wandering the deserts of Namibia.

Running the hills above Alcaucin in Spain.

Eating everywhere !

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So many things, I am sure I have missed a hundred great experiences in this quick wrap up.

It has been a fabulous year, I have seen so much, experienced so much, met so many challenges, conquered a couple of fears and met some awesome people. My one regret was doing so much of it on my own, next time I travel I want to do it with a companion, I just need to meet one!