Category Archives: Tourist Attractions and Days Out

Teesh’s London Day 03

Posted on by

It was a rather long day on our feet today despite the fact it was nearly noon by the time we left the shoebox. We were both exhausted from last night!

We started with a visit to Portobello Road Markets, as you do. As I expected the time of day we were setting of from home meant we ran into a lot of other tourists also visiting Portobello Road Markets. Even though you can never really say that there is an off-peak time on a Saturday in Notting Hill we probably couldn’t have picked a more peak time! Weaving and ducking our way past people we came across the funniest shop window display ever – funny because they used actual real live bunnies as part of the display. I don’t know if it was animal cruelty or not because the bunnies seemed happy enough to be in the display but it was utterly cute! They were so fluffy!

Teesh and I took our time making our way down Portobello Road. She took quite a liking to the antique section of the markets actually and by the time we made it to the Hummingbird Bakery we were more than ready for a break and a sugar rush! The line, though extended out the door and then some, wasn’t as long as normal so we decided it was worth the wait for the delicious cupcakes that the Hummingbird Bakery is famous for. As cute as some of the designed cupcakes were (Teesh went for one with a giraffe on it) I couldn’t resist a red velvet number. Yum.

After that we picked up our speed a bit as we had an appointment at the British Museum for one of their highlight tours. Quickly downing a gorgeous chicken schnitzel sandwich for lunch from the german meat barbecue van we rushed, as much as one can rush through the Notting Hill crowds, over to the British Museum. The British Museum was very busy when we got there but we only had about 15 people on our tour. Probably due to the fact that you had to pay £9 for the 90 minute tour.

We were wondering how they would stop interlopers from joining the tour gratis and they do this by giving you bright yellow badges to wear. That didn’t stop people joining us but interestingly if they did join us they didn’t stay around for very long – I’m not sure why because our tour guide was brilliant.

We had the most amazing tour guide – a guy called William Forrester. I think he said he’d being doing these sorts of tours with the British Museum for at least 15 years so he certainly knew his stuff. William took us around to see the Rosetta Stone, Mexican carvings, the Easter Island statue, Ptahshepses’ tomb, the winged bulls from Khorsabad, the lion hunt reliefs from Nineveh and the Parthenon sculptures. I would like to spend pages and pages re-telling the stories that William told us but I’d be here all day. In my view the £9 was totally worth it for the tour. William is the best kind of tour guide – someone who inspires me to go out and read up more on what we learned today. I just can’t say enough how interesting his interpretations were. Teesh and I later ran into him at the bookshop and he was even then still asking how he could help us. A nicer man you couldn’t meet.

Once the British Museum closed we headed over to Harrods to hunt down some souvenirs. The best thing about Harrods has to be its Food Halls. You could probably spend hours gazing at all the goods on display. Teesh was absolutely outstanded by them. I must admit they are very attractive and as it was nearing closing time we could walk around in almost peace. Though that’s not to say that the tourists were particularly calm around the Diana and Dodi memorial. It was madness and I felt rather disrespectful.

By the time we were done in Harrods we’d been on our feet non-stop for nearly nine hours and our feet were done in so we headed to my local Zizzi’s for some delicious lasagna and baked pasta. Mmm …

The Museums

Posted on by

So, Akhlaq and I were trying to decide what we could do on Easter weekend and we decided to do what it seemed many other people thought would be a good activity on an Easter weekend where the weather was a bit blah – and that was to head to the Science Museum. I was supposed to meet Akhlaq, Batool and Bob (Batool’s sister) in the early afternoon but as usual, partly the fault of the demonstrations at Hyde Park and partly, from what the girls said, Akh taking so long to get ready – ha ha, they were over two hours late so I ended up taking a tour of a couple of the other museums in the area – the V&A (Victoria & Albert) Museum and the Natural History Museum.

To say that the two museums were busy was an understatement. It also didn’t help that each of the museums had security checks on all bags going into them.

The V&A was buzzing in the reception area but as I made my way up to the higher floors there was a noticeable drop in the crowd level which made it quite comfortable to walk around and explore. The V&A is a museum for decorative arts and design so holding all sorts of pieces of works from ceramics to furniture, and textiles to photographs. You could get lost in a museum the size of the V&A (with over 4.5 million objects!) so I limited my visit to only a few of the galleries like the Fashion and Jewellery, some of the British Galleries and Textiles.

Moving on to the Natural History Museum two long queues greeted me. As a hint for those trying to get in a bit quicker – today there were two entrances open – the obvious one out the front of the museum which snaked all over the place and was extremely long and there was one on the side, I think its called the Exhibition Road entrance, which was much much shorter. Having said that the lines moved fairly quickly and I think the wait was mainly due to security. Not sure if they were operating a 1 in 1 out policy though I imagine they wouldn’t want too many people in the museum all at once.

Once I got inside the NHM it was a madhouse with people absolutely everywhere. I did a quick run through the “space” gallery (love the big escalator up into the big ball or planet or whatever it is) but then got a bit annoyed with all the people so decided to hit the lower ground floor with “Investigate”. Open for everyone it well suited for the little ones because it was all about the hand-on approach – touching things, looking at things under microscopes, putting things together, drawing etc.

My favourite part of the NHM was going back into the main hall (where there is a giant dinosaur skeleton) and climbing up a couple of floors to look back down at all the people moving about the museum like ants. It was crazy!

By the time I was done with the V&A and the NHM Akhlaq and Co still hadn’t turned up so I headed over to the Science Museum to start having a quick look around as the day was getting on. On the way I saw this big crowd and went to investigate and it was a dude eating fire. Always entertaining for a few seconds of thrills.

I absolutely love the Science Museum – its just so much more interactive and cool and engaging than any other museum. Its no wonder that there was so many people, children and adults alike, who were here today. I didn’t get to see the Wallace & Gromit exhibition (something for next time) only because I didn’t know if we would have time to do it but its here until end of October so I still have some time. The other aspect of the museum which is pleasing is that its just nice to look at – everything has this cool factor that makes it just a fascinating place to be in. The Secret Life of the Home is a particularly interesting gallery where you can find out how ordinary things in the home actually work. Watch out for the poo in the toilet! LOL.

When Akhlaq, Batool and Bob finally made it we had about an hour left until closing (although advertised as open at 6pm the museum starts shutting down at 5.30 to get people physically out of the building by 6 …) so we immediately hopped into a simulator ride (nothing too exciting but okay) and then spent the rest of the time in the interactive Launch Pad.

Love the Science Museum!

A Tale of Four Parks

Posted on by

Early in the week BBC had forecast that today would bring Heavy Rain but this was downgraded to Light Showers late last night. To my surprise today’s weather couldn’t have been more perfect for a Spring day. Inspired by the great weather I decided to walk home through St James’ Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. A glorious walk.

St James’s Park

Green Park

In Green Park I came across my idea of doggy heaven – Pugs, Pugs, Pugs everywhere! It was absolutely fantastic. They were absolutely adorable though I think the funniest pugs had to be the two extremely horny ones that were humping everything they possibly could including legs and pug heads! They weren’t discriminate about which end they were humping!

Hyde Park

Kensington Gardens

Café in the Crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields

Posted on by

It must have been a couple of years ago that Pat told me about Café in the Crypt but due to bad timing on my part and an insatiable hunger for dim sum I hadn’t been to the Café until just this past weekend. Bad timing because not long after Pat told me about the café, St Martin-in-the-Fields then embarked on to what turned out to be an over two year refurbishment programme. The £36m refurbishment was finally completed in November last year and though a visit to the café was high on my agenda opportunities since then have seen me going for dim sum instead. Darn that insatiable hunger! But finally last Saturday I ventured in.

Café in the Crypt is a canteen-style café located underneath St Martin-in-the-Fields serving mainly British food from full English Breakfasts to lunch to afternoon teas. The floor is apparently lined with gravestones (hence the crypt) and with the brick-vaulted ceiling above you it certainly makes for a quite an attractive, atmospheric and unique meal venue. Strangely considering you’re dining with dead people around you its not creepy at all! Its a surprising hidden gem that is somewhat of an oasis in the buzzing West End. However, that’s not to say its quiet and tranquil like the church next door. Enough people know about the Café to make it quite a buzzing venue itself though I do have to note that today most of the clientele seemed to be of, shall we say, the more elderly persuasion!

At lunch today the Café offered a selection of hot lunch dishes (veg, chicken, beef, pasta options) but there are also sandwiches and baps (fresh and also some packed), salads, soups (which seemed to be the popular choice of the day) and a whole hosts of desserts. Think a brasserie and that’s what you have at the Café. The Café also provide you all the condiments you could imagine (free of charge) plus there is a large tabled filled with jug of water if you want to skip buying a drink. The desserts looked very good and included pudding and custard, crumble, chocolate cakes and crème brulee. I succumbed to temptation and for £3.50 picked up a large fantastic-tasting crème brulee. It was more than enough to share between two. For my main meal I had a beef stew which, for about £7, was quite good value and came with potatoes and leek. Tasty and filling.

As the Café is buffe-style, if there is a negative to Café in the Crypt is that you have to fend for yourself in finding a seat to enjoy your meal. With a partner as least you can “reserve” the seat but if you’re on your own you will have to gamble that you will eventually find a seat to sit down. However, most diners here don’t tend to linger too long so turnover is pretty quick and the staff in the Café seemed quite good at clearing the tables. Also, what better way is there to make friends than to share a meal? 🙂

If you’re after something basic (think meat and two veg) but filling and wholesome and decent value for money then the Crypt is something for you. Be warned, however, that more and more people are finding out every day about this little gem so don’t be surprised if when you next venture down that the line snakes out the door! Try the crème brulee – you won’t regret it!

London Ice Sculpting Festival

Posted on by

London hosted its first Ice Sculpting Festival this weekend. This international festival featured a competition between five teams of ice sculptors with each having to carve their own interpretation of the theme: ‘Wildlife in the City’. Hosted at the Natural History Muesum and located next to the ice-rink you couldn’t ask for a more picturesque setting.

I first visited them last night to see how the teams were progressing:

Then decided to check it out again tonight. I was joined by heaps more people this time:

Skating at Natural History Museum and Strawberry Moons

Posted on by

Social ice skating I guess is a typically girlie thing to do. Admittedly there are quite a few guys out there strutting their stuff but for some reason most of the guys I know are just not into it with most of them citing a fear of getting their fingers sliced off as their reason for not coming! So, tonight a bunch of us girls including Rita, Caz, Leah, a few of Rita’s girlfriends and one token male (Werner from Austria not Australia) ventured out to the Natural History Museum.

It’s a beautiful venue for skating with the twinkling fairy lights in the surround trees and the gorgeous building of the museum itself in the background. Quite magical.

For the most part getting our skates was relatively straight-forward though getting served was a bit haphazard with some staff handing out skates only and one member of staff doing the coat/bag checks which made queuing and orderly progression a bit haphazard. The good thing was that the coat/bag check guy was really good and we were able to check in at least four items for the price of one!

The vibrant blue skates for hire were a bit more painful than I’ve had in the past. As usual sizing was a bit of a quandary for me and I had to exchange my size 6 boots (normally I think I’m a UK size 5 in shoes) for a size 7 (fairly easy to do) to get something remotely resembling comfortable. I knew I was in for a world of pain though as soon as I stood up I could already feel an ache in my arches.

We got out on to the ice fairly quickly after the zambonie had done its task of re-melting and smoothing the ice out and it was darn slippery at first. After a very scary wobble when I thought I was going to go down I managed to recover and things after that were fairly smooth sailing. That is, if you don’t count Caz zooming around trying to take us all down! Ha ha. Rita proved to be the expert on the ice with Caz just behind her. Both could seriously motor around the rink whereas I resorted to mainly skating very close to the wall.

Showing once again that the world really is a small place one of Rita’s girlfriend’s girlfriend was a girl who’d gone to school with one of my brothers and who’d been a couple of grades behind me at school so it was good to see and catch up with her.

We all had a great time out on the ice and only one casualty really and that was Caz who took a dive early on. Unfortunately the photographic evidence of this fall was on her camera! LOL

After the ice skating we headed on to Strawberry Moons to dance off more of our energy. We didn’t think it would have a cover charge as we got there for just before 10pm but they were charging £8! It was pretty crowded on the dance floor with lots of Christmas parties and hen does. One group in particular was really getting into it with their very elaborate costumes – Strawberry Moons just seems to attract this type of clientele.

Fat Pig and Christmas Lights

Posted on by

Rehana was finally able to come out and play with me in London so I thought it would be nice to get some dinner and catch a show. Fat Pig was a comedy that James had recommended to me so I thought why not.

The reference to Fat Pig could be a reference to Helen, the plus-sized woman that Tom cannot help falling for, to Carter, Tom’s “friend” at the office who is not backwards in being forward in his opinion on all things shallow, to Jeannie, Tom’s ex-girlfriend who becomes an angry, obsessed, bitter woman on finding out that Tom has kicked her to the curb for the more curve-friendly Helen, to Tom himself who cannot help but crumble under the current expectations, shallow surface-only value that society places on people where only looks matter. Whatever the case treading on this kind of ground can be uncomfortable for the audience but author Neil LaBute is for the most part able to tread this line carefully enough to allow the audience to enjoy a few laughs.

My favourite scene, and I think the strongest in the whole play, is the opening scene where Helen is at her most charming and sexy and Tom is at his most humble and generous. The witty banter and one-liners during this scene had Rehana and I laughing our heads off. Moving on to the second scene we are suddenly introduced to probably the most offensive character, Carter, who proceeds to spew forth a number of insults and digs at Tom, Helen and the world in general. Though you may hate this guy at least you know what you see is what you get and he doesn’t hide anything.

Jeannie, played by Kelly Brook, too is introduced and what we see is not particularly attractive under the surface even if what we see before our eyes is gorgeous. The character is terribly whiny and naggy and though in the end she seems to have come to some sort of peace with the whole Tom not being able to make up his mind situation her position might have been stronger had she stood up for herself at the beginning and written Tom off rather that constantly coming across as stalkerish and needy.

The comedy has its great moments and its low moments. For the most part I enjoyed it as too the audience around me. I really liked the ending too which, if not exactly Hollywood, was at least a reflection of real life and as a result you didn’t walk out feeling betrayed.

The night was still young when we came out of the theatre so Rehana and I continued to have our chit chat with a walk up Regent Street. I’d not realised it before but the strange Christmas lights on Regent Street actually formed very pretty stars when evening falls!

National Geographic Store

Posted on by

National Geographic have recently opened a store on Regent Street and its totally amazing. I guess a lot of companies are multi-tasking these days and probably National Geographic have moved beyond just magazines for a number of years now.

The store on Regent Street sells everything from clothes, to cameras, to pictures, to gifts and it even has a cafe. It’s a beautiful store and absolutely massive – I wonder how long it will last in this current economic climate.

The Greeks descend – Part 2

Posted on by

After the Good Food Show I caught up with Mirela and co for drinks before Mirela headed off to pick up her boyfriend from Victoria. Whilst she took him back to Sabrina’s house to settle in and for some dinner I went for a walk with Mirela’s Mum, sister and Aunt from Westminster to Trafalgar Square. It was a beautiful evening for a walk if a bit nippy.

Currently at Trafalgar Square they have a new art installation called under scan which runs from dusk until midnight.

The concept behind the installation is that motion detectors will sense whenever someone is standing within the installation and this will trigger a very life-like projection of video portraits on to the ground that will “shadow” you. It was pretty cool and the projects were very effective.

Some video footage here:

After this little walk (which ended up being a couple of hours) I met up with Mirela and Enrique again for a drink at Eclipse in South Kensington. Mirela’s cousin Harry also joined us. Eclipse wasn’t a very big bar/club (not sure what it was) but it was pretty busy for a Sunday evening. It seemed to be split into two rooms – one side filled with dancers and the others with sitters. By the time it was all done I got home for 2. Thank goodness Harry drove me home otherwise I may have been asleep on a London night bus somewhere. I think I’m going to be a little tired tomorrow!

The Greeks descend

Posted on by

With Mirela’s graduation on Monday all her family are slowly arriving in London. Late late last night Mirela’s Mum, sister and Aunt arrived tomorrow it will be her father and boyfriend. They’ve all been here numerous times before so it wouldn’t seem there is much left for them to sight see. After a bit of a sleep in we ended up at Primark, walking down to Trafalgar Square, having linner (it was kind of like lunch/dinner at about 5pm) at my local chinese (again! Told you Mirela loves the hoisin sauce) before meeting up with Sabrina early in the evening at Sloane Square for another long walk all the way to South Kensington and the Natural History Museum (too tired to ice skate.) Being a Londoner I’m used to all the walking but I’m afraid it really tired the greek contingent out! They were wiped out by about 10pm ….