London Adventures #7 - Soho, So good.

IT'S THE WEEKEND! and I've got nothing to do.

Today, I had a huge lye in and left the house for pretty much dead on mid-day. I left with the idea I'd find Soho and explore it's 'modern-bohemium' wonders. Turns out it's not as wild as I may have thought; I was expecting baggy floral trousers, the constant taint of weed in the air and just flowers everywhere! and instead I was confronted with a sickening amount of beards and it really hit me that it was no longer the 60's.

This isn't putting it down in any way, because although my expectations were really ostentatious and odd, the place is bloody brilliant—and it's not much of an accolade, it's definitely my favourite place in London. As I walk around, I can see shop after shop with gilded windows and hand painted signs, I can smell cafe's cooking up some delicious lunch but most importantly I can hear all the record stores blasting out some seriously good soul tunes.

The area is just so nice, I only passed a few shops that weren't beautiful or selling beautiful things and most importantly, I found all the people that were walking around weren't dicks and just constantly trying to walk right through me (which was a nice change). The main thing about Soho that confused me was the huge amount of money that it had residing in those streets—I expected people making great things out of minimum means, but instead I saw Prada bags and builders working in Stone Island clothing.

Some kind of crazy shopping place, thing.

I was originally going to Soho to meet my friend Lewis, as I knew there were record shops galore in Soho and I think mine and Lewis' main shared hobby would be incessantly collecting sound waves pressed onto plastic, stored in printed pieces card. 

We met in the infamous Sister Ray, and I quickly realised that all the prices were either completely ridiculous or just above the actual value, so although it was a marvel to see how much rare and new vinyl they had, it was just to expensive for me. I also went to Reckless Records, which although I didn't look around much, they have a large range of really cheaply priced Blue Note records. (I had to leave before I became bankrupt)

I then went in another three record shops, of which I cannot remember the names of; but one was an old, run down, 'real' record shop and totally my style. It was brilliant and although compared the the prices of my local record shop it was a little expensive, the stock was bloody brilliant.

Vin's Pro Tip: Look in the smaller and more run down stores, better records and bargains to be found.

Look at this bloody thing! I bought myself, a rather expensive, really, really, really rare LP.
Like, this thing is a rare release of early Miles Davis, then released in Japan on the label's splinter company—and on that released it because extended, hard bound on the spine and a double LP booklet. I am so happy to get this, and it's going straight on the turntable when I get home.

So with record in hand, I had to bid Lewis goodbye because he was off somewhere else and I thought I'd go for a wander to find a good bookshop to burn a few hours away, pressing my nose into an old book. I was not disappointed, but as far as bookshops go, they aren't that exciting and I imagine they'd be even less exciting to read about on a poorly written blog post; so I won't go on.

So as a final note, I'll go a little more serious. As I walked around the enormous crowds in the areas of Coven Garden and Leicester Square, I noticed myself feeling more and more lonely. I felt that as I wandered around, with my thoughts as my only companionship, even in a city with millions of people and thousands of cultures, I've never really felt more alone.

It may be because I'm away from my home but  I just didn't feel that even when masked by a crown of people, I just didn't fit in. I felt like the footstep in a patch of virgin snow. I felt like, when the snow is all together it looks correct, peaceful and harmonious—but when the footstep is there, it's not any less what it was, but there is still something slightly missing and it's no longer truly 100%.

Basically, I miss my family, I miss my cats, I miss my girl. But I'm okay, and still smiling so I'll just look forward to them next week.