Discovering Orcs Nest - Quest for the Unusual Games

London is brimming with pubs and restaurants and events, lots of things for couples to do, but heading out every other day is quite an expensive affair. What are the fun things we could do at home, that doesn't really burn a hole in the pocket?
Ram loves playing games. But games involving some amount of creativity and strategy as opposed to just luck. So I wanted to get an interesting game, board game or cards. But where? Argos?

London has a few 'specialist' game shops. One of them is the Orcs Nest, near Holborn. Walking into the place was quite intimidating to me, it looked like a shop for serious game geeks and I felt like a lost puppy. The nest is tiny, but full of stuff, stacks and rows of board games, cards, books and magazines. A wide selection of RPG, miniature and cards games. Dungeons and Dragons and a dozen in that league.

It was interesting to see that most games have a 'Cthulhu' version!  I was happy to find some that were more 'beginner friendly'. Games involving medium amount of strategy, that did not go on for hours. Party games, and games for couples. The lady behind the counter was very helpful in suggesting and recommending games according to my 'specific' requirements.
I picked up 'Gloom'. Only because the cover said 'The sky is grey and the tea is cold, and there is a new tragedy around every corner'. And it didn't disappoint. Super fun game, (although I lost both times), but I think i'm getting better at the devious plotting. The artwork is fantastic, the cards are transparent which i thought was very cool.

I'll definitely be back here soon enough, to pick up even more wicked games.

Discovering the Hunterian

What's super awesome about the city are the free museums. I'm trying to visit as many as I can on the weekends. This Saturday we went to the Hunterian Museum. I had read about the museum on TimeOut, and it sounded interesting.

As we entered we were confronted with enormous glass displays of the weirdest specimens in jars. Animal parts to human, random stuff like an ox heart or a lizards intestines. Dissection of diseased body parts, bones affected with cancer, cross section of a foot! monkey heads, wooden planks with the nervous system, and even a skeleton of an Irish giant! What freaked me out was the foetus in different stages, looked almost alien like.

There were some sections that were truly morbid. Two headed creatures, animals with four legs, John hunter might have been a genius no doubt, but he surely was a freak. And apparently this was not even one fourth of his entire collection. The Historical Surgery Instrument display is totally worth the visit to Hunterian. There are instruments dating back to the 17th century. Some more recent used by the Japanese during the world war.

The collection is so extensive, after a while we were just skimming through the sections, but I can imagine how fascinating it would be for students of science and biology. Or perhaps Dexter.

It's definitely worth a visit once, and when it's free, why not?

 how glorious it must have been

Discovering Camden Market

Be warned: If you detest crowds, traffic, noise and narrow alleys, Camden Market is not a place you would want to be especially on a weekend.

But these are some of the things I don't mind, so we landed in Camden on a bustling Sunday afternoon. I think it's one of those streets where you have to walk down, looking at the shop facades, more than the shops themselves. 

If Brick Lane was all about the street art, Camden is all about shop fronts. It's loud, 'in-your-face', pulls your attention. There is the Camden market, which is a labyrinth of shops selling clothes, shoes and art, and it's the first 'bargain all you can' market I have been to in London. Some of the jewellery I saw looked straight out of Colaba. In fact the entire market was like a Colaba or a Chatuchak Bangkok market on acid!

I guess you need to spend a good four to five hours, to settle in and figure out this market.  Endless stalls selling unique artefacts, vintage prints, and lamps, and some of them hidden so deep you need to walk around patiently or do your research in advance. I unfortunately had to deal with a husband allergic to crowds and fast running out of patience.

http://www.camdenlockmarket.com/shops/

Street foodies will be will delighted at the stalls and variety of offerings at the Camden lock. It's quite a lovely place where you can have your lunch sitting on one of the 'scooters' overlooking the canal. Food from all over the world, fresh juice, ice creams and smoothies.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/cheap-eats-in-camden

Over all, I think Camden is worth visiting once, or maybe another 'less crowded' weekday when one doesn't have to constantly worry about being shoved aside or stamped upon. 

Discovering Housmans

Walking around King's Cross is quite a treat. As the days are getting warmer, it's nice to wander aimlessly around the neighbourhood, and on one of those occasions we happened to walk into Housmans. It is in fact London's premier radical bookshop. 

I could see why from their unusual collection of books. They have a wide range of radical literature, pamphlets and magazines dealing with political issues. Newsletters and old journals other such curious books which you would never find in regular bookstores.

I went through their website and was quite surprised to read that they had in the past faced direct physical and legal attack. In 1974 an IRA bomb blew up the pillar box directly outside the shop (which was there because the building once housed the local Kings Cross Post Office, from the late 19th Century until some time in the 1930s). The explosion in the pillar box destroyed the first issue of the Campaign Against Arms Trade's newsletter which had just been posted in it, and damaged some of the building's windows, but caused no personal injury. Four years later, a letter bomb - one of a series sent to radical and left-wing addresses - caused burns to a staff member's hands. 

In the 1990s a group of people brought long-drawn-out libel actions against the shop over anti-fascist literature that was stocked. For over sixty years, through successive waves of the peace movement, Housmans has continued to promote peace, human rights, and environmental and other radical causes, providing literature and other material over the counter, as well as at stalls and by mail-order. Despite some years of planning blight in its immediate environs, Housmans remains one of the few "alternative" bookshops in Britain, and recently, with the refurbishment of the local area, Housmans itself has had a "facelift" and looks forward to many more years of radical campaigning.

And you will not want to miss the basement, where they have an entire room of books for just a pound. From fiction novels, books on business and strategy to coffee table books and even LPs, if you spend some time browsing through the collection, you never know what you might find. They also have cool knick knacks like t shirts and campaign badges. Curios and coffee!