Cdr. Catcop: The folling posting is of an OMNI-type nature. If you are looking for solid, hard ff information, read no furhter. WARNING: the surgeon general has determined that getting too involved in OMNI threads can seriously threaten your work productivity and/or eat away at you personal time at home. So proceed at your own risk and ultimate peril!

Thanks, Rudi...But I try to stay away from guide books (even the "good" ones) in favor of personal experience when it is available. I find travel so much more interesting that way. But I'll use it as a fall-back.

Bao, don't get me wrong! I enjoy Lucky Cheng's and Victor Victoria and probably even our own dear Marvella's show as much as anyone! So, no, I wouldn't mind a LITTLE local color. But my last time in london (for my honeymoon, of all things), we stumbled upon some chaps who were just in from a rugby tourney at a pub who decided to play a trick on us and sent us to a club in a not-so-nice part of town full of scary leather-and-chain-clad types who looked very much like they either wanted to kill or violate me. There is just something about the British sense of humor that I will never understand...

And finally, as for Meg Ryan: hubba-hubba! My dream girl ever since that deli scene in When Harry met Sally (with a scream like that, who CARES if she's faking!!!!)