Tuesday 26 April 2011

Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes and returning home

In the end we went for Indian and not teppanyaki. Our friends' neighbours had this sign on their garage. Explain the exclamation mark, please.


For our last day we wanted to do the nerdy stuff. I wanted to go to King's Cross to see what they had done for platform 9 3/4 and Love wanted to go to 221b Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes is said to live in the stories.

First we wanted to go and have lunch at a Dutch pancake place we found our very first day. However we couldn't find it again. So we walked around for ages trying to find a place to eat that was cheap and sounded good and in the end we went inside a bar. Love had a burger and I had some pasta dish that was really good. After lunch we headed to King's Cross and although I thought what they had made for platform 9 3/4 was quite dreadful, I had to take a picture ;)


Then we went to Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes museum. It was quite cool stepping off the train at Baker Street Station. Baker Street is one of the stations from the original Victorian underground called the Metropolitan line and the station was very 19th century. It was really cool! Stepping outside the first thing we see is a huge statue of Sherlock Holmes pointing us in the right direction. The museum tickets were £6 each so we decided not to go and only had a look around the souvenir shop, which was quite nice in itself. We bought a sign saying Baker Street with a small Sherlock Holmes icon in the topmost right corner :)


For dinner we went to that same pub we went to on our first night. After returning the time was about 9pm and we said goodnight and went to bed. The alarm went off at 4am. We got up, got dressed and walked to the tube station in Acton Town. Turned out we had misread the time by 30 minutes - to our advantage. We had to wait around for 25 minutes before we could go down to the platform and take the train to Victoria. At Victoria we had to run to catch the Gatwick Express and then we were on our way. We had breakfast at the airport after security and before going to our gate. Both of us slept the 1½ hours on the plane.

Got home. Got unpacked. Now everything's back to normal. It's nice going away but it feels good to be back home again :)

Sunday 24 April 2011

Camden Market, Chinatown and Buckingham Palace

We had a slow start today since the plan was to meet up with Tiffany at 2pm at Camden Town Station to have a look at the market. So we didn't go out until it was time to go meet up with her.

Camden Market was cool. Huge crowd and loads of interesting things on sale. Love got himself a pair of Batman Converse shoes :P I was too busy looking to take pictures and with all the people it would've been pretty hard stopping to take a picture and at the same time keep up with Love and Tiffany. We had lunch at one of the food stands there and continued our walk down Camden Market afterwards.

When we got tired of all the people there we took the tube to Covent Garden. Tiffany had said that she knew the best cupcake place there and ofc she had to take us ;) So she had a vanilla one, Love had a caramel one and I had a banoffee one. Banana Toffee.

After sitting down and eating cupcakes and talking about whatever she had to get going to get started on a school assignment and we walked down the street, headed for Chinatown. In Chinatown there were mostly restaurants, but we found one sweets shop where we went in and I immediately started looking for things I ate in Tokyo. Unfortunately I didn't find much except Pocky and the lovely Calpis Water. I also bought a Hello Kitty tin can with fruit drops in it. Because I liked the design and I like hard candy.

Chinatown ended up not being that big and at the end was Piccadilly Cricus. From there we picked a direction and started walking. We ended up in St. James's Park and then we found Buckingham Palace :)



Now we're going out to eat teppanyaki at a new Japanese restaurant in Ealing Broadway :)

London Aquarium, London Dungeons and a walk along the River Thames

For yesterday we had combined tickets to London Aquarium and London Dungeons. I looked up how to get there and then we took the tube to the aquarium. We had priority entrance tickets and got to skip most of the queue, but still we had to queue a lot inside. There was a really big fuss about the shark tank that in the end wasn't that fantastic. There was the standard underwater tunnel in the tank with sharks and rays and a pair of sea turtles. It was really really short but that was the best of the aquarium. I was kind of disappointed. Although it was nice and I had a good time it wasn't as great as the one in Seoul, which was ginormous and had pretty much every kind of sea animal there is.


The first thing we did after exiting the aquarium was to find Wagamama at the South Bank and once again have some Japanese food. The Japanese really know their food and everything is delicious. After lunch we started to look for the dungeons. On the map they had looked quite close, but it was actually really far. We got a nice walk along the South Bank, from Westminster Bridge to London Bridge. It was beautiful weather and we passed St. Paul's cathedral and the area we had walked around in the day before.


On our way to the dungeons we saw a ship. Like an old 16th century ship. It turned out to be a reconstruction of Sir Francis Drake's galleon. Francis Drake was a pirate and privateer under Elizabeth I and he gave her so much money that she knighted him. I wanted to go aboard and still I didn't. If it hadn't been a reconstruction but the real thing from the 16th century I wouldn't have hesitated.


But we were in a hurry. At 4pm we finally arrived at the dungeons and started queueing to get inside. We didn't have priority entrance to the dungeons. 45 minutes later we got in and had our picture taking; me holding an axe over Love's neck ^^

Then the tour started. The actors were great and it wasn't really scary. I felt a little uneasy, but not scared. So we passed through the Crypt, the Labyrinth of Lost Souls and the Plague, and then we got to the Great Fire of London. That was the first interesting moment. We were all standing in a room where they had a film going with some of the actors acting out the horrors of the night when all of medieval London burned down, caused by a spark from the local bakery. Over 300 houses. By the end of the film there was smoke coming from the door we were supposed to continue through.

After that came the Surgeon, telling us of how many surgeons gave in to grave robbery to learn anatomy. Here the actress picked one from the audience to assist her. After going through lobotomy and blood letting on him she came to amputation. The whole room went dark and we were sprayed with something wet (only water) while a recorded man's voice screamed :P That was a lot of fun. The Torture room had a very fun actress who left us laughing. We entered the Judgement which had us laugh even more as the presenter of the case was a very young and happy girl and the judge was a complete drunkard. Here they had three people from the audience being judged for different crimes.

We continued through the Madhouse in Bedlam and then got on our first ride; a boat ride to Hell. After which we ended up visiting Mrs Lovett and Sweeney Todd and then we arrived at the new show of 2011; Jack the Ripper. This was the scariest moment ever. The actors repeatedly told the women to cover their necks and throats and stay close to a man. We were invited into a bar by an actor who told us that it was the 10th anniversary of Jack the Ripper's murders. No one knew where he went and everyone was scared he'd come back. There was a fictional storm while we where there and the lights went out. When thunder lighted up the bar we saw a cloaked figure with a top hat slicing for the closest woman.

A little shaky we continued to the next room where a film, similar to the one of the Great Fire of London, told us of Jack the Ripper. It depicted his murders in detail and showed us old 19th century pictrues of the victims. Beneath the screen was a reconstruction of the final victim and everything he had done to her. That was horrid and gross.

Next room was Bloody Mary the Queen. The daughter of Henry VIII who convicted loads of people of heresy and hanged them. We were all judged as heretics and sent to the gallows. This was the second ride. We all sat down and had the protectors down. Then we were hoist up into the air were there were dolls who did the ceremonial judging and then the hangman moved and we were dropped to the floor. It was a very small free fall kind of ride but it was fun. That's where it all ended.

When we got out the time was 6.30pm and we decided to return home. It was raining and it was a really nice change from all the sun. No cameras were allowed in the dungeons.

Friday 22 April 2011

[Edited] Kensington Park, Mary Poppins and shopping

Today we were going to make a park round. The guy we live with told us that if we start at Kensington Park we can go through Hyde Park, Green Park and St James's park too. So we took the tube and logically we got off at South Kensington. There we got lost for about half an hour in the scorching heat before we actually found the entrance to Kensington Park. When we found it we were so exhausted and worn out from the heat that we lay down in the grass in the shadow of a tree.


When we got up again after about 15 minutes we took the Flower Path, cause it looked nice. And smelled nice. And there were loads of squirrels, obviously used to being fed by humans and thus were very friendly and unafraid. They got up real close!


We continued to walk and found some monument. We are not really sure whom or what it's for. Then we walked further into the middle of the park where we found a huge pond filled with ducks and swans, but luckily no geese. Those birds were also very used to being fed by humans and got up real close, but without leaving the water. I kind of envied them. Water is so nice when it's so hot. I wanted to wet my feet but not even the children there were doing it so I resisted.


After getting some soft ice we took the tube to St. Paul's because I wanted to see the cathedral from Mary Poppins in person. While there we also took a detour to the Bank of London where the dad worked in Mary Poppins. Seeing the cathedral made me think a lot about this clip from the film.

Then we got back on the tube for Russell Square where we had found an okonomiyaki place on our first day. After lunch we took the tube to Oxford Circus to continue our walk along Oxford Street, where we had walked on our first day. That got me buying a new pair of shoes (Converse) and three new T-shirts from Uniqlo :) I also gave in to the sun and bought myself an after sun lotion. I got burned pretty badly...

For tomorrow we have combined tickets for Sea Life London Aquarium and London Dungeons!

Thursday 21 April 2011

The Tower of London

After sleeping for too long we went out around noon. Today was another well over 20 degrees day and sunny. We had decided yesterday to go to the Tower of London today and see the Crown Jewels. It was extremely hot and the air conditioning don't seem to work on any of the underground trains, thus not enough oxygen. We arrived and there was a huge crowd. Lots of people, but we decided to go anyway. The first queue seemed very long and tedious at first sight but passed through surprisingly quick. I thought it was interesting and I found myself knowing way more about the British royalties than I first thought. Love found himself with a free History lesson.


Except for the Crown Jewels we entered the Torture Chamber, which was a big disappointment. It was only one room with only three devices and then it was finished. We also entered the White Tower and saw the armoury.


After those three buildings we were quite hungry and decided to leave the Tower to find something to eat. We exited the fortress and the first thing we see is Tower Bridge and the River Thames. The blue ornaments on Tower Bridge are eyesores to me. They look hideous!



Just opposite the Tower of London we found a Japanese restaurant called Wagamama and there we had our lunch. After lunch we took the tube a few stations to Westminister. The exit to Houses of Parliament have you coming out of the underground right at the foot of Big Ben. It was pretty cool.


We crossed Westminister Bridge and arrived on the South Bank with the London Eye. From there we picked a direction and then we walked. At that direction we accidentally found Waterloo Station, the Imperial Court and a WWII Monument. We followed Kennington Lane all the way back to the Thames and then we took the tube back home from Vauxhall.



That's enough adventure for one day.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

British Museum

First day in London ended up being great. It's pretty much summer here. Today it was well above 20 degrees and sunny. For our first day we decided that the British Museum would be nice so we took the tube to Russell Square and walked from there. I had never been there and after Love mentioned something about mummies I wanted to go.


Our first thought was to go through all of it, but after going through the 12th room full of decorated rocks we started to get tired of seeing all these rocks and statues and decided to fast forward to what we thought was the most interesting. Obviously the first stop fast forwarding was the mummies. That ended up being only an exhibition of the mummifying procedure and one single dried up mummy. I looked upon him and said: "I don't think this is how he pictured his afterlife." The Mummy room was also the most popular room. Extremely crowded. I ended up getting approval for my theory that all people are morbid, although maybe not everyone would agree to it. But if you go to a museum to see thousands of years old dried up dead people you have to be pretty morbid, right?


Next stop was Asia. China and Japan. To me China and Egypt are the two most original cultures in the world and then pretty much everyone copied parts of it and adopted it to be their own. I liked this part very much, especially the part with Chinese jade and those extremely intricate designs. In the Japanese section however it bothered me to pieces that they kept calling the shinto deities buddhist. I also liked the part where we walked into one room and before us is a huge stone statue originating from Easter Island (I think).


The most excited I was at the museum was to see the Rosetta stone. The stone where the same text is written in Egyptian, Ancient Greek and Babylonian. This stone helped translate the old languages thanks to the Ancient Greek and what's really great about this stone is that the text contains all of the letters from that language. It's really something. However it was hard to get a good picture since the stone was in a glass monter. Without flash you could hardly see the stone cause all the people around you was reflected in the glass and with flash you could hardly see the stone cause the flash was reflected in the glass. But I was happy to have seen it anyway.


After the museum we had fish n chips for lunch and then we just walked. I have no idea where we walked and how but around 4pm we had arrived at Oxford Circus and decided that it was time to head back. By then I know we had walked on both Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. When we got home we both showered and then took a nap for about 30 minutes. Both totally exhausted!

Tomorrow I think The Towern is up.

Friday 8 April 2011

Dead Boy's Poem

"If you read this line, remember not the hand that wrote it
Remember only the verse, songmaker's cry, the one without tears
For I've given this its strength and it has become my only strength
Comforting home, mother's lap, chance for immortality
Where being wanted became a thrill I never knew
The sweet piano writing down my life

Teach me passion, for I fear it's gone
Show me love, hold the lorn
So much more I wanted to give to the ones who loved me
I'm sorry
Time will tell, this bitter farewell
I live no more to shame nor me nor you

And you... I wish I didn't feel for you anymore."

- Nightwish

So insanely beautiful. It gets me every time.