Chinatown

Chinatown was amazing to be in one place and to feel you have stepped off the continent into another. As Cedar Rapids isn't an incredibly diverse place, having neighborhoods dominated by one specific ethnic group is a strange concept. The moment we stepped into Chinatown we felt alien with our light skin and hair. The lights and signs blinked characters we couldn't understand. Were we really still in London?
Chinatown was originally in the East End of London, but due to the prosperity of the Chinese postWW2, it later moved west to SoHo. The area is mainly commercial and very few people reside there. Also, it is known that the Triads are operating there, highlighted by a shooting in broad daylight in June 2003 in the "brb bar" on Gerrard Street (for link see Chinatown1). Naturally, these do not happen very often and Chinatown is a relatively safe area of London.


















We stopped at a tea shop before our show and I had a drink, 'Bubble Tea' that was very unusual. It was the Mango Pearl Drink. It came with very thick mango juice with dark gummy tapioca balls floating at the bottom. The straw that accompanied it was huge so the balls wouldn't block the straw. It took some getting used to.. having black balls sliding up the straw. I choked down a few before I had the brilliant idea of chewing them while I drank.