The Bottom Line

Issue date: 9/20/06 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: LondonBrad

Getting off the Underground and walking up the incredibly steep concrete stairwell, I looked around and it finally hit me. I was back in London. Ah, the brilliant sites! The smell of fresh coffee and tea from the local coffeehouses filled the air. Ah, it was so nice to be outside after having been trapped on a plane for seven and a half hours, an airport/customs/immigration office for two hours and on the Underground for yet another two hours. Yes, being outside was incredibly refreshing.

Now that everything important I needed to do was over with, I still had six hours before I got on the bus to Bideford. My dilemma now was figuring out what to do for six hours in EC1 which is not exactly an exciting part of London.

Believe it or not, London isn't just a giant city filled with fish n' chip shops where one's main nourishment is lager. London is probably the most un-English place in all of England. It's incredibly diverse and you can find more kinds of cultures in London than you probably could in all of the United States. There are a ton of coffeehouses (especially Starbucks) but there are a lot of independent coffeehouses around London as well. Different kinds of shops from souvenirs to clothing from other countries, flea markets, food from all around the world and (my favorite place) the bohemian village.

OK, so what should I do? Deciding to walk aimlessly around EC1 for a while, I thought either eventually something would catch my eye or the fact that England is 5 hours ahead of the US and I haven't slept in over 24 hours will sink in and…well. Let's not think about that!

Walking down the high street, there were many buildings under construction. Eventually something did catch my eye: SUSHI! Funnily enough, the place was called 'Yo! Sushi' and it was like no sushi place I had ever seen before. Then again, I must admit I had only begun eating sushi recently because my sister forced it down my throat. It was her only act of violence I love her for. Anyway, I hadn't seen very many sushi places.

This was a place where there was a giant conveyer belt in the middle of a large, round table which the sushi chefs put many different kinds of sushi on and the conveyer belt transported it around the table. In the middle of the table there was an opening where the chefs stood in front of you and made all of the sushi.

You could basically pick from all of these different kinds of sushi and take as many as you wanted. The bad part is that they charged by the plate, so it could get pretty expensive pretty fast. Their sushi was good, except for the fact they made their sushi with some kind of horseradish sauce. At least that's what I thought it was. All I know is that it was a white sauce. Just for clarification, it was not the salty kind of white sauce. Everything is made in the middle of the round table by the sushi chefs.

Continued...

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