Chorsu Bazaar

Tashkent has old style markets all over the city, places to buy produce, meat, eggs, spices straight from local vendors at their stalls. Sometimes the iconic Silk Road is much in the present.

If you're a tourist with only a day or so to hop around Tashkent, the market bazaar to see is Chorsu. It is the biggest, baddest, most striking shopping mecca in the city. Big on the outside.

Bigger on the inside. The blue dome building is the center of the market, certainly not all of the market. You want lemons? Two blocks down, on the right.

Everything you could need for a funky dinner, served up on a tray. Onions are in, get your 25kg bag of onions.

They eat horses, don't they? They most certainly do. What cut of an equine for which you are hankering, pardner?

Everything comes in multiples. A party mix, supercharged. Non being made non-stop. Henry Ford would have been impressed.

Bread runneth over.

You can get your birthday cake weighed down with candy and toys. Great graphics, in case you forget what you are buying.

Back to the big room, bones to clean up.

Back To Yangiobod, Again

Yangiobod is open every day, a bit slower and empty during the week. No matter, there are always things to see, items for haggling.

Slow corner.

A babushka with humble stock. Old theater, movie lights? You buy it, you label it.

Women warfare at a fabric booth, warning to all silver mannequins.

Russian version of the game Operation. Anesthetic not included. How about some hardcore pest poison?

Mr. High Fashion selling plastic flowers. You can't top wearing some sort of New York Yankees, Gucci jacket mashup with a Porsche belt buckle. Not even mentioning the tiger shirt. Bravo, you have done you.

Back To Yangiobod Market

Visiting flea markets isn't a one time thing. The inventory turns over, right? Beyond discovering that one unique, lost treasure, Yangiobod will always offer pure mayhem spectacle. It's horseradish for the eyes.

Heading in. You can't really drive into the market. Unless you decide to drive into the market.

You can get everything at Yangiobod. You may not want everything at Yangiobod. How about a shirt with a mashup of the official crest and some sort of MMA growl? A tree grows in Yangiobod? Wishful thinking. Plastic works.

Fixing what, exactly? A tribute to this Paul Strand image.

It's a dirty business at the market, you'd better have your gloves and soap handy. Strange table fellows.

The place is so dense, sometimes you're not sure at what (or whom) one is looking. 

Doing A Little Time At The Clink Prison Museum

Part historical museum, part wax curiosity, part horror show, London's Clink Prison Museum has plenty of something for some people. The place is located on the south bank of the River Thames and it's a re-creation of a real prison. Pay your money and do some time.

There are plenty of old artifacts and wordy descriptions of old prison life. The highlights are the weird wax figures, most of them related to an actual story, crime.

All hail the blacksmith, maker of all things restraining. "Next wrist, please!"

Drinking at the stockade. Here's Ellen Butler, employed as a maid, beaten and imprisoned when she found out the house was a bordello.

Locked up and chained. Red is the new black.

Henry Broncker, imprisoned for debt, became the "Ratman." Getting ghoulish, a scene that would bring pride to Sam Raimi. Groovy.

Henry of Bois, Bishop of Windsor. He started the prison in 1144. Dress for the job you want to have.

Learning Of London With Queenhithe Mosaic

There's a beautiful, interesting romp of a 30m wall mosaic next to the Thames in central London, a great way to do a Cliff's Notes version of the history of the place.

Honey, I found a history lesson.

Things get going early with Romans in the area. And then the bubonic plague comes for the semi-stick people.

Queen Victoria arrives, just in time to smell the Big Stink.

Giants of the English arts.

A curious mix of modern achievements, a big war, a pedestrian bridge and some fish.

Cambridge, Pretty As A Postcard

Sometimes you get lucky in the UK and the rain stays away, clouds billow by, the air is fresh, the scenery looks its best. Hello Cambridge!

Where there's a lawn, there's a lounge.

Mathematical Bridge. You try measuring those interlocking pieces. One of the brick cupcakes at Trinity College.

Keeping it tidy at Corpus Christi College.

Punting on the River Cam. Typical street scene, good for any century.

The chapel at King's College with newly-planted wildflower field. Absurd beauty.

Hunkering Down In The Churchill War Rooms

Definitely rooms without a view. The Churchill War Rooms, underneath the Treasury building in central London, were the headquarters, bunker for the UK government during WWII. Decommissioned in 1945, the rooms opened to the public in 1984. The web of spaces is half historical artifact, half wax museum re-creation.

One of the meeting rooms. Probably not holding a grocery list.

Churchill's personal kitchen. The big dog eats best. Mrs Churchill's cozy confines.

House phone, cigar lounge.

The typing pool room. Gotta present well. In the map room, always plotting.

Churchill's bedroom. Wallpaper as geography lesson.