Juice Merchant: Main Line Philly's Awesome New Vegan Restaurantby Randi / November 24, 2017
After our terrifying border crossing experience from Kazakhstan, we arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It was blindingly sunny and dry. Like…really dry. Like Kashgar levels of dryness. I’m literally in a desert on a horse with no name or something I guess not literally but I was all a mess because my eyes are so dry! It may have been the climate (I mean it definitely was) but it also could have been due to the extensive construction projects happening all over town. Seriously was it just the season of construction works in this region? Everywhere we went we were stymied by drilling and jackhammering and dust flying errrwhere. So much dust and rubble! Despite all the dust and rubble, we had a decent time exploring Tashkent’s mosques, museums, markets, and other m words. But my strongest memory will always be of something that starts not with ‘m’ but with an upside down ‘m’, a ‘w’! (For watermelon.)
After our idiot driver from the border dropped us at the Sunshine Caravan Stay guest house, we waited a few more hours till our room was ready (I’m really soo over lodgings that make you wait until 2pm to check in, like, be ready in the morning or don’t be in this business okay) and planned our next few days of sightseeing on the wifi. The guest house had a communal dining/kitchen/breakfast area (I think it might have also been a restaurant) that we sat in while we waited for some much needed showers.
Our guesthouse’s communal dining area
The communal dining room had a water cooler, so +1 to them, but it was off a courtyard patio area that was always full of random Uzbeks smoking, so -1. The room, when we finally saw it, was pretty nice! As was the bathroom. The only real problem with this place, besides the smokiness and the random men everywhere (I’m not sure if they were workers or locals or what, they definitely weren’t fellow guests) was that the heat and the wifi both failed at night. My two favorite things, guys. And yeah, we needed the heat at night! It was getting to be fall!
the courtyard area I couldn’t enjoy because sigarettos exist
i love bed
The shared bathroom at the Caravan Stay featured the OG Uzbek Schuyler Sisters, if I had to guess?
and peggy
Aside from the Uzbek power trio (Elizaaaa), the vibe around the city was kind of hard for me to get a handle on. There was a sense of general nothingness, plus a bank here, a convenience store there, a milk cart on the corner that for some reason (I’m so tired) I thought might have vegan ice cream seriously I was losing my mind. But once we got out of the ‘center’ to see the sights, it felt more like the Uzbekistan I was ready for: full of mosques and dust aaaand space.
Pictured above is what I call Mosque Central, a square with like 8 mosques and madrassahs and more mosques and a few imams, which I thought were people but I guess can also be buildings. Like transformers can be people and cars? Anyway the pretty blue building is the Teleshayakh Mosque, which is home to the Osman Koran, or one of the versions of it. It’s hard to find believable information (#allreligion) but it seems like the Osman Cometh, a 7th century Muslim relic, was the first written Quran! There was no need for a written Quran before because first when Mohammed was around he just had it in his noggin, and anyone who had a question just like gave Mohammed a call. And then I guess he lived for a lot of hundos of years and then he had sons or baby prophets or whatever and they would be the ones you shouted out to if you had questions about the rules. But then baby prophets started to disagree with each other and you know how humans are, no one tells the truth or believes the truth so they were like, we gotta write this shit down! So they did, I guess they got a guy called Harry Osman (Donny?) to write it and thus we have the Osman Quran. Or Qurans, really, because we went to several places in Uzbekistan, heck even in Tashkent alone, that claimed to have the og OQ. I think there were several copies made by the caliphs and whose-nots in 650 a.d. since it was such an important creation. Smort. Noice.
We also saw one – I think the ‘realest’ one – at the Amir Temur Museum, a surprisingly great museum off the main garden-y square area called Amir Temur Khioboni, so pretty and green. It’s where the giant Soviet Hotel Uzbekistan stands. Pretty nice square.
this fucking hat’s back
Wait so Amir Temur – also known as Tamerlane, which you might be more familiar with (nerds) – let’s talk about him because HOO BOY, he’s big here and he’s gonna come up a lot in this country (we have like 5 more stops). Amir Temur was a Mongol warlord/conqueror guy in the 1300s who founded the Timurid empire in Persia and Central Asia and was the first ruler of said empire which like come on he better be, how much would it suck to found something and then NOT get to be the leader. According to wikipedia, “Timur’s background was Iranized and not steppe nomadic” and according to me, if you can explain to me wtf that means (comments below) then I will send you cookies. The Amir Temur museum was quiet (like everything here!) but full of fun information about Temur and Uzbekistan and stuff. The central hall was beautiful but no pictures were allowed because the Osman Quran (#201A?) was on display. So cool!
here’s that fucking hat in front of the Amir Temur museum
But I had to sneak photos of one part of the museum. I just had to break the law. Because the best part of the museum – hell, the best part of maybe all of Uzbekistan, MAYBE the best thing I’ve ever seen in a museum ever anywhere – was the section that listed important historical figures and gave a paragraph of information about their lives and then ended with a short description of how they died. I know what you’re thinking, that that doesn’t sound as amazing as I’m making it out to be. JUST YOU LOOK:
DIED OF ARROW!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
GUYS I CAN’T!!!! Do you see how Mirzo died? I almost got kicked out, I fell to the floor from laughing so hard. We were CRYING. So inappropriate. I’m so sorry to all the ghosts who were watching.
The museum was definitely a high point, restoring my ability to go to museums. Also it had a toilet, which was actually hard to find out and about in the city. I think it was one of the hardest places for me because there weren’t cafes or more museums I could pee in, it was all mosques that didn’t have bathrooms and madrassahs that I wasn’t allowed in. Darn. Luckily on one stretch of busy road from the Mosque Central Square back down to the regular center of the city, we chanced upon a sort of mall. It was DESERTED, but open and it had a bathroom. But like…it was deserted. We were the only people in there and every storefront was shuttered. Soooo weird.
The deserted mall-like building had weird freaky statues in small fountains, like the above. I was so sure we were in a movie. By far, the best part of it was the below sign I saw that made NO SENSE but of course put “All I Do Is Win” in my head for a good solid week.
“LIKE STRIPPERS’ BOOTIES GO”
(Possibly the best caption ever.)
Chorsu Bazaar
PUNKIN CHUNKIN
Our top experience in Tashkent, besides finding pretzels (they were a little stale but hey I found pretzels!), was our morning at the Chorsu Bazaar, the big central farmers market where all the locals and then some come to buy and sell their goods. I love all the local markets we visit when we travel, especially on this trip, but this bazaar experience was the most memorable yet. See, I really wanted watermelon. The beyond incredible watermelons of western China and Kyrgyzstan spoiled me for some serious quality watermelon and I was jonesing for it but good. I thought we’d definitely find some at the bazaar! As usual, we found an impressive array of spices that we couldn’t buy but wanted to, lots and lots of bread that we ate of course because fresh market bread is the best, and lots of gorgeous vegetables I wanted to bring to restaurants and say ‘cook these for me please!’ And of course there was a tonne of fruit, but no one was selling watermelon to eat immediately, like slices of it, like they sold in China markets, handing you a piece and watching you finish so they could collect the rind. We walked round and round the white buildings with the green domed roof and finally decided that our best bet was to just ask a regular watermelon seller if they could cut it up for us. Fun problem: the seller had no idea what we were asking. I kept making chopping motions with my hand, over and over like I was a nutcracker. The guy was just so confused. Finally his wife made a face like something clicked and she said the word for ‘now’, so we were like ‘da da yes for now! we want to eat it now can you make it so we can?” We didn’t know the word for cut, p.s. So the lady took a watermelon, one we had pointed to because it was the smallest one we could see, and took in onto a stump to cut. Note, the ‘smallest’ watermelon we could see was still the biggest one I’ve ever bought. It was a good 12 pounds, I’d say. So I’m all excited to finally eat some good fresh watermelon and the lady comes back with a bag…full of two giant halves. They looked so proud for doing what we ‘asked’ that we just couldn’t tell them that nooo, cutting it in half doesn’t reeeeally help that much, we wanted it cut into slices! So we smiled and thanked them and walked to a little grassy patch outside where we sat…with our two giant halves of watermelon, six pounds each. This would have been a good time to have one of our pocket knives on us, but of course the one time in our entire trip that we’d need them, they were back in the room. I tried diving headfirst into the cut side and trying to eat some like a wild f-ing animal. That didn’t work and my shirt got messy. So instead we both garnered all of our rage and anger in the world (#trump) and kind of just TORE THE WATERMELON APART with our bare hands, ripping the rind while screaming in order to make it work it doesn’t work if you don’t scream. We were A MESS. There was watermelon juice EVERYWHERE, all over the ground near us, the pavement, ourselves, Everyone was watching us, these two pasty white westerners trying to destroy and devour an entire uncut watermelon with pure brute strength. It was RIDICULOUS. We were clawing into the fruit like we were lions doing whatever it is lions do. Just a mess. We actually managed to finish an entire half. We felt simultaneously proud, strong, sticky, and kind of nauseous. There was no way we could finish another entire half, and this was morning, so we were stuck carrying the sticky other half in the sticky disgusting bag for the entire rest of the day.
Luckily that wasn’t the only food I could eat in Tashkent. It was a decent city with a few options on HappyCow. We of course went to a Georgian restaurant, always a favorite and always great for vegans, although this place didn’t have the best service. My next HappyCow choice was the restaurant Jumanji, because the movie terrifies me and I had this theory that if I had a decent meal at the restaurant of the same name, I would conquer the movie’s terror. Or something.
Just in case you had gotten to Tashkent without noticing the vibrant copyright infringement trade in all of Asia, they made it very clear here that they were talking bout the Robin Williams’ movie by using the exact font from the film. (See the very end of this post for my favorite Tashkent copyright infringement.) Things are so weird. Luckily, the food was good and guess what, they had tofu. I missed tofu so much after always being able to get it in China! And vegetables ! And juice with vegetables in it!
TOFUUUUUS
BIG OLE PLATE OF BROCCOLI
BIG OLE PLATE OF CUCUMBER
It might look pretty basic but it was a great big satisfying meal. I even enjoyed the huge cucumber plate (that crap all over it was RG). Jumanji kind of represented what Tashkent was like in general – kind of boring but pretty satisfying, and while I’m not itching to go there again, I had a decent experience. I felt that Tashkent was such a mixed bag. It had areas that were really built up and somewhat modern, and then parts that were bare and dust and so old-fashioned it was like stepping back in time. Little did I know that it would be the most modern part of Uzbekistan, and our next stop would teach me what stepping back in time really looked like.
These looked like flowers we had at our wedding! I don’t know what they’re called but they were all over the country
yup this is a Hogwarts themed children’s center or daycare prob. I mean. ILLEGAL.
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From Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan: The Hardest Border Crossing Yet
After our perfectly lovely time in Almaty, Kazakhstan, it was time to cross into our final ‘stan, the one most believed of Herman Cain: Uzbekistan. There was no easy direct way to go from Almaty to our first destination in Uzbekistan – Tashkent – so we had to take an overnight train (but of course!) to Shymkent, Kazakhstan first, then get a taxi to the border, cross the border, and then get another taxi from the other side of the border to Tashkent. It was exhausting just to think about, but considering how relatively well our travels had gone so far, I was optimistic that it wouldn’t be too troublesome. I think I’ve previously shared on this blog that IQ quote about being an optimist and fool? Yeah.
To relish our final moments of Almaty’s modernity, we got an Uber to the train station instead of arguing with taxi drivers. We would have enough of that the next day, oh boy, would we have enough of that. When the car was due to arrive I shut down the little baby laptop and prepared to put it away and get my giant pack on…and true to chitty, chitty form, Windows decided to install updates then. DO NOT SHUT OFF YOUR COMPUTER. You think that maybe it was one of those quick ones since they didn’t ask first? Here’s the picture I took.
150 UPDATES. What in tarnation is that about! This is the kind of bullshit that can put me off Windows forever. I had to hold my computer open in the car, in the train station, as we waited for and then boarded the train. Can you even picture how ridiculous this crap made me look? I had a giant backpack on my back, my stuffed daypack slung on one arm, my ticket in one hand, my passport open in the other, my purse hanging cross-body, and the laptop nested in the crook of my elbow. If I thought people had stared at me before in these parts just for being a Western female traveler, hoo boy, was I in for some learnin’.
Fortunately, this train helped to balance out the fury that the computer caused me. Because of some of the less-than-stellar experiences endured on the Chinese overnight trains, we decided that our first night back on the rails after so many weeks merited an upgrade! We got a private berth instead of sharing with 2+ randos (not to be confused with randis which are usually good) and it was GREAT. And clean! The little compartment had one set of bunk beds against one wall and a little vanity table with a (clean!) mirror and small table on the other side. I thought there was a closet but the inside door was a connecting one to the next compartment, for families I guess. Our neighbors were none-too-pleased when they realized someone was trying to open the door but they had a crying baby so it’s a draw. This little room was so nice, as was the train in general. The bathrooms weren’t horrifying, AND – there was a water cooler! Guysssss! I could refill my bottles with potable water! My baby nephew says to me “drink agua!” every time he sees my water bottle and you know what Huddybear? I did!
We placed the still-updating computer on that little table and left it to finish. When we went to sleep, it was at number 9. Of 150. In the morning, when it was at 33, we just shut it down and used up ALL of our restraint to not smash it into a thousand pieces.
As we waved goodbye to the European-style cosmopolitan vibe of Almaty, we knew we were saying goodbye to civilization in general for a good while. Our time in Uzbekistan would comprise experiences on the more raw, less modern side of things, as our itinerary tracked ancient Silk Road stops and historically important towns and landmarks that are more or less untouched since the old days. Meaning, it would be like stepping back in time, especially considering how modern the city we were coming from was. Bye civilization!
But we didn’t realize at first just how drastic the contrast would be and how quickly it would materialize. When we got off the train in Shymkent, we needed to get a taxi to the border with Uzbekistan, and it was quite the ordeal. We asked several drivers for prices but all were oodles more than they should have been according to literally every piece of information – internet, books, hostel employees, previous travelers. We talked to a woman at an information desk by the side of the road (I don’t know if it was official; it looked like the Bluth banana stand without bananas, which I wanted even more than information) who told us in Russian to take this bus that was there and that would do the job. We were about to board but with a little more questioning, we figured out that that bus just would take us into the city center, where we would have to find the bus that would actually take us to the border, or get a taxi. The extra step seemed incredibly unnecessary and unwanted, especially if we would end up needing to negotiate with a taxi there anyway. We might as well just do that now, we thought. So back we went to argue with taxi drivers. Finally we found one who offered a not too bad price, so we agreed and unloaded our stuff and got in and…didn’t leave. The driver instead started filling the other seats with other people. We sighed but this was to be expected, right. Finally the car was full and the driver starting driving and took us to…the other side of the train station. What’s going on, we asked, not actually wanting the answer because we knew there was some bullshit about to come our way. The driver indeed spewed some bullshit, telling us to get into this other van that was there, already full of people. So this driver we had found wasn’t actually going to ever take us to the border. He was taking us to his friend with a van. He actually had the gall to agree to something he was never intending to do and then DRIVE US 15 SECONDS TO ANOTHER PART OF THE STATION.
Oh man this shit was just the beginning.
We said are you kidding me, no f-ing way, we are not getting into another stuffed mashrutka and paying the price we agreed on as if we were getting a private taxi. So we went back to the front of the station and started all over again negotiating with drivers in Russian the best we could. One driver promised he would just take us and not fill the car with others and we said great let’s do it. We left the station, drove for five minutes down the main road…AND THEN TURNED BACK TO GO TO THE STATION. What the HELL is going on, we asked? OH – he had to pick up another person. At the station. That we had left. You said it would just be us and ALSO WTF, we said. That’s it just this one more, the driver promised. JFC, fine, we said, come on let’s go. We again left the station, and then the driver stopped the car along the side of the main road where a crowd of people were standing. He wanted to pick up another person from this crowd! And not someone he knew about, he was just going to ask if anyone needed a ride. FFS. We yelled HELL NO! Just take us to the f-ing border right now! He reluctantly left and started driving the three of us to the border — at the fastest speed I’ve EVER witnessed any car go, race cars in Talladega Nights included. I was petrified. This guy was such an asshole AND he was a dangerous driver?? Oh my god. We sped down the roads passing every car and weaving through lanes and cutting off EVERYONE else on the road and just holding on as tight as we could, terrified.
When we were sufficiently in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near anything we could see or walk to besides highway and desert, the driver pulled into a gas station along the side of the highway. He said he needed gas, and didn’t have money to pay for it, so we had to pay for it. Are you KIDDING ME? I started screaming at him in English, I knew he could understand my hatred and disgust at him even if he didn’t know every amazing curse word I used. We are not paying for your gas, you crook! But then he popped the trunk and started pulling our bags out, threatening to strand us along this highway in the middle of nowhere if we didn’t pay up. As much as I despise giving in to people like this, we really had no choice, so I gave him a little money. But no, that wasn’t enough. Apparently gas is very expensive in Uzbekistan or something because he kept asking for more. I really didn’t want to give any more and set a dangerous precedent in case he kept stopping along the way and demanding more money, but luckily that didn’t happen. Just this one instance of extortion so I guess we were lucky. He got back in the car — I don’t even remember if he actually pumped any gas — and flewww down the highway for another hour while I sent him death ray stares from the back seat. He drove mostly in between the two lanes, stopping anyone who dared even think about passing him. I continue to wish him very ill thoughts, naming him like Arya except I don’t know his name but the universe knows who I mean. Get ‘em.
Finally, finally, he dropped us near the border. We walked up to the gate, took a deep breath to get over the horrible experience we just miraculously survived, and then another deep breath to prepare for one we expected to be equally terrifying. See, the Uzbek border brings with it a lot of rules, and a lot of horror stories. We never heard anything as strict and scary as the stories about Uzbek border guards. They can delay travelers for hours, going through every single nook and cranny of their luggage, opening every container, going through pockets, everything. Worst of all, Uzbekistan has a VERY STRICT and VERY SERIOUS no-drug policy, and their list of banned substances includes things that we can get over the counter in many Western countries. So we had to be careful about every substance we were bringing in, and make sure we had prescriptions ready to show. But the banned substance list is serious, and it’s not something you can get around with a prescription. If you try to bring any of them in, you could go to jail. One of the substances on the banned list? Ativan. I know. Because we did our homework (do your homework!), we knew about this trouble before we left for the summer, so I only packed about as much Ativan as I thought I’d need up until this day, so I wouldn’t have to throw much out. I still had a few extra I had to toss back in Kazakhstan, but nothing worth crying over. It’s just so funny and perfect that the one thing that would have helped me deal with the shitshow that was this country was the one thing I had that they outlaw. COOL GUYS.
When we got through Kazakh exit, we were given the forms. We knew we had to declare every kind of currency we had on us and in what amounts, so we had counted up all our shiz on the train. This is more annoying than it sounds when you have traveled to 10 countries! We had dollars, we had euros, we had pounds, we had soooo much Chinese yuan that converted to like just a few dollars but takes up so much space, we had Mongolian money, we had roubles (a significant amount since we would return to Russia after Uzbekistan), we had Kyrgyz money, Kazakh money. Man alive this really makes one appreciate the euro zone. We wrote everything down and then had to declare our valuables, including our phones, readers, and the baby laptop. We had read about other white travelers who had to unpack everything and who were detained for hours so we were super nervous. But, luckily, the border guards on duty for us were SO excited to meet Western tourists that they were pretty much just friendly and trying to ask us all sorts of questions, not about what we were carrying but about us and the west and whatever. We SO lucked out. I mean there were no toilets anywhere to be found but still, quite lucky. I guess I could have brought my Ativan in after all but better to be safe than to end up in an Uzbek prison in the driest desert with no toilets, right.
Oh but then we had to find another taxi to take us to Tashkent. Guyssss. I never want to take a taxi again. But there are no buses! There’s no other way! You just find a guy with a car and you hope that they are trustworthy. Ish. We found an old man with an old car and mistakenly thought ‘hey maybe this old guy will be more legit and somewhat decent than the younger asshat men are.’ We showed him the name of our guest house in Tashkent and he said ‘oh yes I know that place!’ We were relieved. The guy drove us through the nothingness and into the city, where he immediately stopped, got out, and started chatting with two young women. What is going on NOW, we wondered. Then the two women got in the car with us. I know. What’s going on, we asked?? One of the women spoke a little bit of English and she explained that the driver didn’t know where the hostel was, so they were going to help them. Let’s go over this again. The man who told us he was familiar with the hostel not only lied about that and didn’t know it, but DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THE ROAD IT WAS ON. And here’s the kicker – neither did the two women. They were just helping by using their phone maps –WHICH WE HAD TOO. And they showed us that they didn’t know how to read their phone maps, because WE were the ones who ended up instructing the driver on where to turn and how to f-ing drive. It was ludicrous and so frustrating and like, are there ANY taxi drivers in central Asia who aren’t complete assholes?
Finally, after we screamed NO, LEFT – NO YOUR OTHER LEFT about 40 times, we found our guest house, yelled at the driver to get out of our sight for ever and never come back here again, and entered the house eager to shower and relax. Naturally, the room wasn’t ready yet.
We’ll talk about that guest house and about the rest of Tashkent in the next post. Until then, I need to go take an ativan.
24 Hours in Liverpool: A Quick Tour of Beatlemania, Museums, and Other Sights
Almost one year ago, as we traveled across China by train, we were arriving in Xi’an to see the famed Terracotta Army and its thousands of impressive underground Warriors. If you followed along that journey, or just read that post, you know that seeing the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, although clearly amazing, was quite the harrowing experience. See, China has a lot of people. And most of those people were also trying to look into the excavated pits to see some of the Warriors when we were. To be fair that was our fault for going in August. We didn’t get the best view, and it was probably the most stressed out I’ve ever been. Haha that’s not true I’m stressed out all the time but still, wow. So when we heard that the Terracotta warriors (not all; there are thousands) were going on tour, and one of those tour stops would be Liverpool, we thought 1) jfc we went all the way to Xi’an to see them and they are coming a mere two hours from home?? 1b) it’s okay Xi’an was amazing and it was worth going, and 2) we should go to Liverpool and see our old friends again! So we did. And we liked it, and we loved it.
We made a weekend out of the visit, and we really enjoyed ourselves more than we expected. Liverpool (pronounced LIV POOOO) is way on the opposite side of the country; here in London we’re in the southeast bit and Liverpool is all the way up on the northwest coast. It looks like it should be a pretty substantial journey to get there, but it’s a 2 1/2 hour train. Lol England is baby sized.
We had our Terracotta Take 2 Tickets booked for Saturday afternoon, so we had time to stroll around and get a feel for the city first. I was a little biased towards liking it even before we explored, though, because I recently learned that the Liverpool football club’s team song is “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, as in the big song from “Carousel”. See, sports fans can be musical theatre fans too! I love that so much and I wonder if LFC fans are extra keen to see “Carousel” when it plays (side note you have until September 16 to catch the current Broadway revival!). We arrived the day of Liverpool’s Pride parade, so the city center was extra crowded (like Xi’an!) and extra colorful for us. We found ourselves on the famous Mathew street (one t for real), where we instantly became two of many tourists taking pictures of Beatles statues outside the famous Cavern Club, where the Beatles first became popular, playing super long sets during almost 300 appearances there. Of course, they were known as the Quarrymen at that time, and the position of Ringo was being filled by Pete Best. (I’ll tell you how I learned things infra.)
would legit die laughing if fancy singing was liverpool for opera
The Cavern Club is where Brian Epstein, who would become the Beatles manager, first saw the group perform. During their performances in the early years, the boys would wear jeans and leather jackets, and they would smoke and drink the whole time. Omg and the stage was in the basement and there was no ventilation. Seeing the early Beatles is probably every person’s dream but it sounds like my nightmare. The fans were already rabid in these early years, so even though I find young fanatics of any era supes annoying, it annoys me extra when older people complain about young fans today, because like, that was you with the Beatles, dog. Anyway, Epstein is the one that made them start wearing suits, which elevated their whole vibe and coincidentally brought in a higher fee. Beatlemania soon broke out nationwide, and then they took over the entire world.
Epstein also signed Cilla Black, who was the hat check girl at the Cavern. Do Brits really say hat-check instead of coat-check? Because everyone is wearing funny hats? LOVES IT
I could tell you more about the Beatles right now, since 24 hours in Liverpool makes one quite the expert, but we’re going to take a short break to see the big f-ing thing we came for, the Terracotta Warriors.
The exhibition, on until October, is located in the city center at the World Museum, and tickets are going fast so book online way ahead of time.
As you probably remember from the OG Terracotta Warriors post, this huge statuary army is some A-level grave robbing. Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China, ordered all of these figures – warriors, chariots, horses – to be built and buried with him in a huge secret underground city of a grave in order to protect him in the afterlife. Wasn’t HE surprised! Work on the army began when the wee emperor was only 13 years old, in 246 BCE, so they’re hella old, and there’s hella lots of them – approximately 8,000 soldiers were buried with the emperor. Eventually, 700,000 workers were involved with this project in some capacity.
This touring exhibit only has about 8 or so of the soldiers on display, so, a good deal less than you’d see in the gigantic excavated pits of Xi’an. But the exhibit has a good deal more information explaining the significance of the army and the historical relevance of the time period, so we actually learned more than we did in China – probably because all the signs were in Chinese and/or unable to be reached. This museum did a nice job putting together a complete exhibit even though nothing can rival seeing the thousands of statues in the pits.
my favorite sign outside of China
Although, the museum did try to rival the pits. Above is THE BEST INFORMATION SIGN EVER. Let’s break it down paragraph by paragraph, because each one has absolute GOLD, JERRY! First, we freaking died laughing (I’m sorry it was and still is very inappropriate NEVER LAUGH AT DEATH) that the emperor thought ‘hmm maybe I’ll drink this terrifying shape-shifting metal that when mixed with aluminum COMPLETELY FUCKS YOUR SHIT UP [have you seen that video?] to try to attain immortality OH NO WAIT I DIED FROM IT.’ It’s pretty funny.
It’s smart of him to think of plants and herbs to do the trick too, since mercury probably wasn’t so fun to eat, and I absolutely adore the idea of him sending out a crack team of his ‘trusted magician’ plus THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN to find some magic plants on secret beautiful islands. Um, WHY the children? What on earth was his thought process? Besides the obvious “oh i’m so forked up on mercury rn.” Was he like, oh the spirits of the hidden islands probably won’t show their magical lands to anyone but innocent children, so let’s round up thousands and send them into the sea. I GUARANTEE that that magician, if he was worth his salt, took the kids and found an island refuge and was like ‘we are NEVER going back to that lunatic, he will kill us all at some point.’ “Sadly they never return” = “thank god Xu Fu decided to save those kids.”
And lastly, hoo boy, HOW MANY MAGICIANS DID THIS GUY HAVE? I guess if he had 3,000 spare kids to send off on an island-finding adventure, he had more than his fair share of magicians to send hither and thither looking for, ostensibly, weed, but I just love that all these signs kept referring to more and more of his endless supply of magicians. I mean, someone holler at this boy that if sooo many people are claiming to be magicians, it’s just math that some of them are lying. But my favorite part is that he and the fam sought immortality so hard that they tried to ensure it even after they died. ‘Oh let’s put these symbols of immortal beings in our tombs for when we die so maybe they will grant us immortality.’ Guys, did noooo one hear themselves?
One of my favorite parts of the exhibit was a gorgeous suit made entirely of jade tiles. It was for one of the emperor’s family members, to be buried in…inside his tomb…after his death…in order to ensure immortality. Oh it’s TOO GOOD. But at least all their superstitions about the afterlife paid off for us! It was cool to see our old warrior friends again and remember all the good times we had in Xi’an.
Next, more Beatles.
Everywhere you go in Liverpool, you’ll either see a pub with a Beatly name (e.g. The Sergeant Pepper), or hear Beatles music playing from somewhere, or see Beatles gift shops, or statues, or all of them at once, usually. But the official, actually great Beatles museum is called The Beatles Story, and it’s near the river (which is called the Mersey, which is what you will be asking for after you hear ‘Help!’ 5 times in a row in certain pubs). Entry to the Beatles Story is $17 (that’s pounddollars), which seems like a lot if you’re someone like me who is like ‘eh yeah I guess the Beatles were good’, but it’s actually well worth it. This is one of the most entertaining, informative museums. I think the key to enjoying yourself is timing – we arrived at about 6:30pm on a Saturday night, pre-dinner. It closes at 8pm, but we were assured we’d have time to finish the whole thing. When we arrived, the staff was honestly so happy for us. They all kind of exclaimed, “Wow you are brilliant for coming here now!” Apparently, at all other hours, especially on weekends, the place is packed to the gills with people. And since we returned the next morning to visit the gift shop, we saw how true this was. Just the line for tickets alone snaked around and around the entry hall, packed with school groups and visitors from all over Europe. In contrast, on this Saturday evening, we were the only people in that entryway. Amazing tip I just gave you. It was a little tight to finish in time (they let us stay till about 8:15pm), but overall it was great.
The museum takes you through the entirety of their lives – starting with their childhoods, families, and when they first started playing instruments, going through their early Quarrymen years, the Epstein partnership, the albums, the movies, the world takeover, and the deaths/later years. All of it. There’s an audioguide that is included with the ticket price, and it’s very good. Sometimes it doesn’t quite match up with the order of the rooms, but the information is really interesting and helpful.
The coolest part is that the basement is a recreated version of the Cavern Club – so you’d go down the rickety steps into the completely unventilated basement room and see the bar, the stage, and the chairs lined up for the audience. It was very cool, and there was tons of information everywhere about how Epstein took over management, how he and the rest of the band asked Pete Best to leave and Ringo Starr to join, how their early devout fans rioted about the change, &c.
hot tip: when you take your picture in front of this stage, as you will inevitably do, the lighting is such that you will look like a deformed wax figure
When you leave the stage and enter the next room, be warned that the ventilation status (i.e. there is none) gets a whole lot worse and kind of smelly. It was like being behind a restaurant with all that weird hot exhaust blowing out. So hurry on through and get to the more fun times, like the magical mystery tour bus!
not a real bus
Real submarine though!
Move along the halls and get all your timeframes mixed up (this is where the signage and audio started to get confused a bit, prob from all the LSD) and soon you’ll run into the yellow submarine! Guests can enter the sub and take pictures inside, which we did obviously. It was good silly fun to break up all the sad stories before and after, like about Epstein, and Lennon, and George, and America I guess.
We learned a good deal about each of the men (and Yoko too), especially Paul and John since they were the starriest of them. John’s activism was pretty weird. There were lots of pictures of him and Yoko sitting in bed with paper bags over their heads. Not really sure what they were going for but it was anti-war, which is good. My favorite bit of information is that Paul now owns a publishing company, MPL Communications, and they own the rights to Grease, A Chorus Line, and Guys & Dolls. I think it is hilarious that little community theatres putting on these shows are paying Paul McCartney.
John’s white piano
I definitely recommend paying a visit to the Beatles Story Museum, which taught me 99% of everything I know about the Beatles (I didn’t know much before). They have a great gift shop too, with lots of fun shirts and pieces of crap that no one needs but everyone really wants. The shop is open to the (non-ticketed) public.
As a final stop on our Beatles Tour of Liverpool, we drove down Penny Lane. Yes it’s an actual road they wrote the song about. It’s nowhere close to the city center, however. We saw a few black cabs bringing tourists over here to take their pictures, which is probably the easiest option for visitors. There were also giant tour buses but they can’t actually make the turn onto the narrow road. We had the good fortune of being driven down the lane by our friend’s parents. (Thanks again!)
If you came here for the Beatles tourism information, that’s where we end, unforch. But we have a few more famous Liverpool sights to look at. First up, the Bombed Out Church. I KNOW. That’s literally its name.
it’s weird to call it that guys
The Bombed Out Church, named by stoned people?, was once called St. Luke’s Church but then it got bombed in World War II, in 1941 during the Liverpool Blitz, and it has been a ruin and a memorial to those lost in the war ever since. It looks down Bold Street, which is Liverpool center’s most famous/happening/hip af street, so I guess it needed a really cool name. Cool name, guys.
While it was a still functioning church, it was also intended to be used as a venue for ceremonial worship and as a concert venue. I bet whoever set those original usage restrictions had no idea what would happen in 2018:
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I find these posters kind of hilarious, the Gin Party one in a ‘wow even churches in England are alcoholics’ kind of way and the comedy one in ‘hooooly, TOO SOON!’ kind of way. I mean come on, “explosive” comedy? at the Bombed Out church? TOO SOON. So funny.
The last sight we had to see (and had time to see) (time to see what we had time to see! turn the projector on!) was the Three Graces. These are three landmark buildings along the Mersey waterfront, and I have no idea why they are called the Graces and not just like Nice Historic Buildings but maybe someone out there does. The three buildings are: the Royal Liver Building, which opened in 1911 to be the home of the Royal Liver Assurance group and was one of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete; the Cunard Building, built between 1914-1917 as the headquarters of the Cunard Line, the cruise line that built the Lusitania (the White Star Line, the makers of the Titanic, were across the street at the time); and the Port of Liverpool Building, constructed between 1904-1907 and the headquarters of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board for 87 years. The Three Graces are part of Liverpool’s UNESCO-designated World Heritage Maritime Mercantile City.
Here are pictures of the Three Graces with the Four Beatles in front.
Graces #1&2
Grace #3
It’s a lovely walk along the Mersey waterfront to see the Three Graces and the whole Mercantile City as you make your way over to Royal Albert Dock. The RAD (so rad) is a complex of docks and warehouse-y buildings that now house chain restaurants, Beatles gift shops, and the Beatles Story. They also are, of course, working docks, and we were lucky enough to arrive the day the famous Clipper Race was returning to the docks. The Clipper Race, or the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, is a year-long sailing race around the world – 40,000 nautical miles – that uses ‘trained’ but amateur crew members. The sailors onboard are regular people like you and me, except crazy like Husbo P because even though they aren’t professional sailors or really getting enough training (because enough training = you’d be professional), they’re like ‘sure I’ll sail around the world on this wee boat for a year WHAT COULD GO WRONG’. A qualified skipper leads each boat crew but like, what if he dies, Jill? The crazy ass civilians can sign on for the whole year or for one of the eight legs of the journey. The race has always begun somewhere in England, and this past one started and ended in Liverpool at Royal Albert Dock. So weird, right? And we were there for their triumphant return. This whole thing sounds like my absolute nightmare.
please don’t make me do this
Anyway, I’m happy to report that Australian Wendy Tuck was the winning skipper this year, the first woman to win. Yay for you, Wendy! And yay for me never having to do this, please.
As you can see, even just 24 hours in Liverpool can be full of lots of fun, lots of arts, lots of culture (‘that’s Petah Tikva!’), and reminders of your nightmares. I would not be opposed to returning to this great city, even though I was there on a Saturday night in the summertime – which means I saw no less than FIFTY suuuuper drunken hen dos (bachelorette parties) with brides-to-be in bright pink sashes in like a 3-block radius. They really pack in the hen dos in this town, jee oh boy. We also saw a few of the stereotypical stag dos (bachelor parties), where they make the groom-to-be dress like a baby and walk around town in a giant diaper. If I can get through that and be happy to return, that must mean it’s a pretty cool city.
It also had some incredible vegan food; I was shocked at the number of signs in restaurant windows I saw advertising their vegan options. You can read about our fancy lunch at the Art School here, and here for a look at the best dinner ever (, one of).
