Traveling to the UK - Canterbury and a steampunk Cafe

poet (55)in #travel • 6 years ago (edited)

If you checked out the url of my previous post you noticed that it had steampunk cafe in the title. That post just got way too long, so decided to split it in two.

Wednesday

I started the day by getting a Thai Massage at 11am. I love Thai Massages. It's a sort of combination of a massage and stretches. I also have a lot of respect for the technique that allows 50 kilo women to bend me, a 90 kilo person into back cracking positions.

They also had a nice rest area to relax afterwards, that even had a fruits and nuts mix.

My mom met me there, and we walked back through Cowley road, which is a downtown sort of main road with shops and restaurants. One of the shops is a board game store, which I come to every time I visit. It was actually the first board game store I've ever visited. I went there to buy Robo Rally, which I played before, and ended up also getting Carcassonne, which was my first euro game, that also started a long lasting hobby.

Unfortunately, it was closed.

We called the number, and it turns out the nice elderly couple that used to run the store handed the keys to someone younger, and he just didn't bother to show up. Home we went.

I didn't sleep well the night before, so we decided on a nap. We planned for this to be a rest day after Camden, so took advantage.

We got up, and decided to head to the gamekeeper again to see if he showed up, and he did! The store was a bit of a mess, and they didn't have anything too appealing. I did want to get a word game to play with @Techslut (she said she'd beat me at scrabble, and I said I don't like scrabble, but I'll get a word game we can play). So asked for a word game, and they recommended Snatch it. It sounded pretty fun, so I grabbed it and we headed for tk-max. I highly recommend this store if you're in the UK, it's basically an outlet for clothes, household items, stuff like that.

The only picture I took inside the store was of a bag.

Fairly random picture.

Among the items I got at tk-max:
Suitcase - Because we need one for the trip to Japan in 2 months, and it was getting clear I won't be able to put all my shopping in one bag.
Kipling backpack - For @Techslut
Coffee flavoring - Something tasty to add to coffee when you don't want to get drunk at 10 am (Talking Baily's)
Bodum - @Techslut wants to try cold press coffee.
Water bottle - We looked at like 50 of them, and my mom asked me why I didn't pick one that looked fairly good. I responded that it was distinctly not pink. Eventually found a pink one.

Anyway, the aftermath:

We were still under the illusion we could fit everything in the small suitcase, and the small one into the big one. Nope.

We ended the day with a delicious Ramen. Not Japan quality, but better than I've had anywhere outside of Japan.

Sorry for crappy quality.

Thursday

We headed out to Canterbury, which is an extremely nice town. I'd live there.
There are a lot of pictures, so I'm just going to link to the imgur album and put a few highlight pictures here. Also, one more albums coming later.

We walked a little around the center, which was lovely, an noted that the are lots of barbers. I didn't bring any shaving utensils, so decided to shave at a barber's the next morning.

I really needed to have some Indian food. Indian food in Israel is atrocious, and I love it. So we found a nice restaurant, and headed in that direction, which also happened to have a farmer's marker. Bought some cheese, then headed in for dinner.

Again crappy quality :(

It was getting apparent I'm not going to find the Doc Martens I wanted, so I looked up where I could get them. Found that a store in Bluewater shopping mall had them. Decided we'll go there tomorrow instead of Dover.

Friday

Last day.
Woke up, headed down for breakfast. They had Eggs Benedict and English Breakfast on the menu. I debated between them, then chose Eggs Benedict. They ran out of muffins. Guess it was a sign I need to have an English Breakfast in England.

I don't really get this style of sausage, it's barely edible.

Then I headed to the barber. Strangely, it didn't feel like a gendered experience to me. Also, I expected a much closer shave from a professional with a straight razor. Was fun though.

Nice and warm and silly looking.

We walked some more around town, and what do you know, we ran into another board game store!

Now I'm happy!

And the biggest surprise was they had Fog of Love which is a Walmart exclusive. I also got an RPG book for @mrlightning.

Walking around town, we hit a steampunk cafe called Creams. I had to go in. They were nice enough to turn on the lights on the second floor so I could take pictures. We had Victoria Sponge cake, which was great.

Sample picture. Rest in this Album

Lastly, we headed to Bluewater, where I finally got my Doc Martens, yey!

Happy dance.

Then we headed to the airport. We already knew that the flight was going to be delayed, but British Airways asked we be on time, because they might manage to move it ahead. Kind of a dick move, if you ask me. Just set a new time you can adhere to instead of having me wait in the airport for an extra three hours.

Me in line for tax refund. I was there with 2 receipts. New rocks and Doc Martens. Other people had hundreds of them.