Yo!

Last Saturday, or was it the Saturday before...anyway, Janilee and I went to the Manchester viewing wheel (the official name of the ferris wheel I've mentioned before). We also saw the cathedral together, and I took more pictures.

Just to the right of this picture is a sign stating that the cathedral has been used in videos, documentaries, and, oddly enough, video games.  I'd sure like to know which ones...

And of course, there are always interesting gargoyles and grotesques.

The quire is part of the oldest section of the building, with misericords that date to the first decade of the 1500's.  For those of you who don't know what a misericord is, it is the underside of a wooden seat, that when folded into the wall, can be leaned on to rest when the mass requires long periods of standing.  Here are a few of the more interesting ones:

I always find it interesting that the carvings are almost never of a religious nature, considering that they are inside of churches.

Some of the oldest carvings are missing pieces and/or no longer have faces.

The cathedral also displays military flags from the Manchester units.  The oldest are more than 100 years old, having been on display since right after WWII.

The oldest mortuary brasses have been taken off the floor to preserve what is left of them.

And some of the more modern sarcophagi surprised me.  This gentleman is done in the costume of the day.  For some reason, I don't think about sarcophagi as anything later than the High Middle ages...

After touring the cathedral, we went to Selfridges, the American goods store.  Here is the Wonder Woman window painting, I mentioned earlier.  I wonder why they decided this image as representing an American store?

Inside the store, in the basement, is an internal but separate food shop called Yo!, hence the title of this entry.  Yo! is a modern Japanese 'fast food' restaurant, where the prepared dishes go by on a conveyor belt.  Near your bar stool seats is a small area with water taps, having clear or sparkling water, chopsticks, napkins
and the condiments.  You choose which dishes you want to try, and at the end of the meal, the waitress counts up the bowls according to color, and you pay based on how many bowls of which color.  The cooks are in the center, surrounded by these conveyor belts, so they can put up new dishes as needed.

One of the cooks was a black man (no racism intended, just a description), who was singing rap.  It was a surreal experience.  A black man, singing rap, in a Japanese restaurant, in an American store, in the medieval section of an English town.

Life is always interesting, if you keep your eyes open!