|
Woking Woking is a really nice little town. There are several good restaurants (nothing too fancy that I saw, but good), and a few pubs, which generally also serve decent food (the place to get fish & chips). There's an ample shopping mall, and surprisingly, a lot of American stores and fast food places...and very cool (and so unlike Atlanta), the center of town is nearly all pedestrian walkways with shops, etc., and it is not the least bit touristy (the convenience is for the residents). If Woking is known for anything (and I would never have know this had I not visited there), it is for being the home of the famous sci-fi writer H.G. Wells, author of "The Time Machine", "The Invisible Man", and "The War of the Worlds" among others. Just off the town square is a statue of one of the "Martians" from "The War of the Worlds", however in my opinion, it's bright chromed finish, to me anyway, made it not very recognizable as that...or have I forgotten the movie? Okay, enough text, and on to some pictures. Keep in mind that I was working a lot, so I really didn't have time to wander around to find interesting things to take pictures of....and at the moment, I'm creating this page while I'm still in Woking, so maybe I'll get some better ones before I leave here in a week.
|
||
 |
 |
|
|
The Holiday Inn, where
I stayed, the view from my window, and the view from the other side
of the building |
||
 |
 |
|
|
The MARTIAN I mentioned. |
||
 |
 |
|
|
What the Marian is looking at, a further
view of it, and a canister it dropped. |
||
|
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
Me on a bench near the Martian, a cool gate near the town square, and a sign...Everything apparently is to the right. |
||
|
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
To the far left, a covered walkway for
outdoor shops, near left, a passageway leading to the building I was
working in (the tall one in the background), and straight ahead,
"The Peacocks", a three-level, very nice shopping mall. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
On the far right of the square, the
Library. A close-up of the movies showing (had I had time, I
could have seen the re-release of War of the Worlds while in the
home of the author!) and an interesting sign that a co-worker
noticed and photographed. Look closely at the lettering. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
A walkway with shops,
a co-worker who stopped to look at house prices in a window...and
some of those houses. |
||
 |
 |
 |
| One of
the several pubs, the building I was working in, and one of the
shop-lined streets. |
||
 |
 |
 |
| Another
street near the Martian, a small canal (where there is a walking
path), and the canal in the other direction. |
||
 |
 |
 |
| A wall
painting that looks real at a distance, an obviously 2-d shot of
it... and a coworker taking a picture..."No, Shuhua, that thing to your left is the Martian." ;-) |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
A rather cool-looking building being
built...A pub with a terrible marketing name (at least it wasn't
"Rat & Roach"), and an interesting building on the other edge of the
main town area. (Note: That's actually the back of the Rat &
Parrot pub...the front was nicer, but I forgot to take a picture
when I was on that street.) |
||
 |
 |
 |
| Do more
signals make it easier to know what to do? Or is it more
confusing to know which to look at? The pedestrian path has little fences around it. Even this crazy intersection is pedestrian friendly. ...and just in case you were wondering how far it was to Ottershaw or Chertsey. |
||
 |
 |
 |
| After
lunch one day we wandered a little away from the center of town just
to look at one of the residential neighborhoods. These are a few of the homes. Tiny lots. Single car garage at most. Generally cute and quaint. |
||
|
|
||
|
I kept noticing signs like this on the street, and at a glance, for some reason my brain kept reading "toilet", not "for rent". Speaking of toilets, just about everything in England is small compared to here in the U.S. The elevator at the hotel was about the size of an average bathroom stall, doors are narrower, and (laptop case left in for dimensions), would you ever find urinals this close to the sinks here? If someone was using both, they would practically be rubbing butts! Well, I found it interesting, even if you didn't. |
||
Woking Weekend Nightlife.
 |
 |
 |
|
The first weekend I was there, I went
with a few guys to a club that wasn't what I would call a typical
dance club. The upstairs was basically a pub, with a D.J. and
dancing in the basement...and bongos. There appeared to be a
couple of "main" players, but others would just walk up and
play...so I did, too. There was also someone that occasionally
started playing a trumpet. Like I said, not your "typical"
club. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
Look how low the
ceiling is! I think these two women were friends of the DJ &
bongo dude...and here's me and Damon. |
||
|
|
|
|
|
A large group of people from my company at an Indian restaurant the final Friday night I was there....and the outside of another pub we ate at a couple of times. After that dinner, it
was time to check out another club... |
||
 |
||
|
No, not this one....but I guess if you have a schoolgirl uniform fetish, this might be the place for you. We went to another place on the next block. We went in briefly the following weekend, but left. Damon thought it looked like a meat market / pick-up place. We found it really wasn't so. In fact, it seemed like people really weren't mixing at all. There were groups women dancing, women dancing alone, and quite a few groups of guys, some dancing by themselves (not something you really see in the U.S.) People looked like they mostly stuck with those they came in with. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
Various views of the bar. The bar
tenders all had those little yellow portable things that they held
up to show you the exact cost of what you ordered. Also,
everything, everywhere was an exact measurement. No
"eyeballing" shots in drinks, and wine glasses had a line marking
the exact volume. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
Balaji and me...Mohan and a cute blonde in the background...Me (and I really don't know what those women are doing.) |
||
|
|
|
|
|
For some reason, this couple(left) asked
Balaji to take their picture on his camera. Funny.
Obviously they weren't going to get a copy...but I thought it only
fitting to put their picture on the web. When he then took the
picture of me and Mohan (right), that woman stuck her head up in
front of the camera. I guess she really likes to be in
pictures. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
Random pictures of the
crowd. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
Mohan and Balaji....Balaji
and Mohan...and me. |
||
 |
 |
 |
| A woman dancing by herself...Balaji dancing (I think), and this guy with the purses cracked me up. He looked funny enough with the purses around his neck, but this picture is even funnier. I'm not sure what he did just as I snapped the picture, but it looks like he's staring at his woman friend's chest, and she's screaming "get away!". ;-) | ||
Well, that's about it for Woking. There really isn't anything else here to take a picture of...or to do for that matter...but it's a nice little town.
WHAT ABOUT LONDON? Well, the weekend I was in England, it rained, so going into London didn't make a whole lot of sense. I was hoping to get into London on my last day there by leaving work early and going in for the afternoon. The bombings that happened while I was there sort of put the nix on that. By the time I could leave for London on Friday afternoon, it was just after 4pm, my company had forbidden everyone from taking public mass-transit while in England (due to the recent terrorist activity) and I found out that a taxi at that time of the day (approaching Friday afternoon rush hour) would have taken 1.5 to 2 hours to get into London. A train would have taken about 30 minutes. I really didn't feel like sitting in a taxi for that long...and at that price.
HOWEVER, I do have London
pictures that a co-worker, Damon, took the weekend before I arrived in England.
When he went it was before the second bombings and before the company
travel restrictions were put in place. So, if you're interested in
those pictures, here is:
"my" trip
to London as done vicariously through Damon's pictures.
