The Northern London(?)

 Hello, once again. There were other topics I intended to discuss for this month. However, since I've recently returned from a short vacation in what I would roughly say is my second favourite location in England behind Skegness, those topics will be brought up another time. Note that I'm not limiting it down to a maximum of one post per month. The minimum of one post per month is the intended target.

Leeds is currently the most populated city in Yorkshire which is the largest English county. But when I was a kid, and before I conducted general research, I had always assumed that it was York. Maybe it's because the county is known as York-Shire, like my hometown, Leicester being in Leicester-Shire and Derby being in Derby-shire. It was also because York was the most talked about Yorkshire-based town during my youth, which comes to no surprise, due to the many historical aspects associated with the location. 

As a matter of fact, this was the second time I visited York. The first time was one weekend when I was nine and I went with my parents and older brother. I do have some fond memories of my visit and I could remember our wanders through the narrow streets, some of which were very Victorian-like. This is one of the reasons why I sometimes compare York to London. But we'll get there in a bit. Every largely populated city has its street performer and I vaguely remember seeing a mime artist who for some reason was blue all over - and I mean, he was literally painted blue. I can also recall some of the museums we visited including one with wax models and of course the National Railway Museum.

Because my previous visit took place over two decades ago, it was likely that things would've looked different since then. Though the outside of the York Minister cathedral remained recognisable as did the corner located near one of the bridges crossing the river, which included an art museum. The latter was one of the places I visited this year and it had some of the most beautiful Japanese paintings hanging up. The York Minister was another landmark I visited. It was on that day when I originally planned to visit Jorvik, but the museum was closed for a few hours, so the Minister became an option until then.

As mentioned, York is known for its historical aspects. So I didn't complete the vacation without a visit to some of its landmarks, including parts of the medieval wall, Jorvik, the York Dungeon and a Ghost bus tour. One really cool thing about Jorvik was the effort that was made on constructing the robots and the sets used to recreate the Viking age, plus the car ride that took us through the tour. There was a lot of mention about Guy Fawkes at the Dungeon, during the bus tour and even a cruise tour that I took which I'll get to later. But of course, he did grow up in York. If I had to have one nit-pick with some of the visits, it would be to do with the fact that sometimes, the tour guide brought up the subject of bodily-functions. I found the subject to be rather off-putting. I do know that years ago, we never used to have actual lavatories and excretion was done in different ways compared to those living in the modern era and I do know that many of us filmmakers need as much research as possible if they're producing historical movies. But for instance, did Jorvik really have to include a recreation of a Viking man using the outhouse and include the groaning sounds? Apart of the subject, those places were worth the visit.

The top priority though during my time in York was the trip to the National Railway Museum. For some reason, I had originally planned to visit the museum last year on my way home from Blackpool, but due to the travelling distances and predicted time taken to get there, it wouldn't have been practical. As you can imagine, I observed the many locomotives stored inside the museum. Whoever built this museum must've had a lot of guts to construct the building and make it as large as possible considering the engines rounded around the turntable. And of course, Mallard, the fastest steam locomotive, was one of them. Here am I posing in front of the train below.

Speaking of Mallard, there was also an attraction known as the Mallard Experience - it was like a bucking bronco except that you could go inside it and watch a small movie screen. On the outside, it was the same colour as the original engine. Only the train ride machine looked more like a futuristic train - like something out of Thunderbirds or Blade Runner. It was still awesome when we were shown the short animation film, indicating Mallard's driver and other crew members feeling the excitement of the engine's speed increasing and breaking the world record. If any members of Juice Productions are reading this, all credit to you guys for the production and I hope to work with you someday.

The reason why I described the Railway Museum as the top priority was because even though this was meant to be a vacation, I intended to conduct some in depth research. Later, I'm planning to write a movie which is a sort of diesel-punk version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and it involves a flying diesel train. This is why I mostly analysed the diesel trains and the information about them. I would've like to have seen parts of the inside gadgets used to operate the trains, but there's always other opportunities.

Before I close this article, there's one piece of advice I should give to those planning a visit to York. If you're planning to take a cruising tour, I'd suggest booking it near the start of your vacation. I had booked mine during the last few hours that I had left before getting the coach back to Leicester. The information that the tour guide provided was very much like an introduction to York. I can remember him recommending us some of the places he spoke about. That's why it's usually better to take the cruise near the start rather than towards the end.

Is York the Northern London? Well, the two cities do have their differences. York roughly has more historical buildings. London has a subway station. But they do have some quite narrow streets and are fairly populated and some Victorian-style locations. That would be an interesting debate regarding which city in the north one could compare to London and whether it's York. Either way, York is one of the cities in England that I'd most recommend visiting.