Sightseeing, London Edition

Welcome to 221b Baker Street

Does this address sound familiar to you? “221b Baker Street”

How about this name? “Dr. Watson”

No? Then… “SHERLOCK HOLMES”

Yes! We all know the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and the fabulous tales of solving crimes and kicking criminals’ a**. We have seen the movie with Robert Downey, Jr., and we know the books written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Subsequently, we now make the connection, Sherlock Holmes lived in London. On Baker Street. Right by the Baker Street tube. Indeed, extremely close to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum.

Oh. There he is! Obviously, I HAD to visit this museum. To me, it was already pretty awesome walking around Central London pointing out all the places I remember from the movie. I thereby wanted to see the actual house where Holmes lived.

221b Baker Street, a surprisingly small, narrow building, stands next to a Beatles store and Subway (…Eat Fresh!)

When Jack and I arrived at the museum, many people were already lined up to go inside. Because of its size, they only let about 10 people in at a time. Kind of annoying, but preserving the building and NOT letting it collapse may have been a good priority.

And voila! We finally entered the building. A bit amusing, but none other than Dr. Watson himself greeted us.

“Welcome! Welcome to the modest little place that I share with Sherlock!”

How cute is he?

After a little chat and a little photo sesh with Dr. Watson, we made our way through the tiny apartment. The study room… Sherlock’s room with all his handy dandy detective gear…

A letter Sherlock wrote to Watson also on display…

Then upstairs, suddenly the exhibit turned into a wax museum. They had recreated scenes from each Sherlock Holmes book.

Engaged in a serious staring contest… But those wax figures did look extremely real. When I first walked in and saw the “people” hanging from the roof, I almost let out a small scream.

Though 6 pounds for entry, I thought this visit to the museum was definitely worthwhile. Though not a place I would see multiple times, I had a great time walking up and down the narrow stairs and looking at all the furniture, artifacts and memorabilia dedicated to this “fictional” character.

http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/

Picnic at Greenwich Park

The weather in London finally decided to let some sun into the England sky the last week of my semester abroad — which means we ditched studying for finals and went for a picnic in Greenwich Park instead. Obviously, what else is there to do when the sun is shining for the first time in four months? 😉

Technically Greenwich is located about 30-40 minutes of a tube ride on Jubilee line, but thanks to the pre-Olympics construction on London’s public transportation, we had to hop on the ferry from Embankment, down Thames River to East London.

Greenwich is home to the Royal Naval College, which totally beats BU in location, beauty and the view, PRIME MERIDIAN LINE, the Royal Observatory and the National Maritime Museum. While I didn’t have time to browse around the museum, I did have plenty of time to stand in two different time zones at the same time, enjoy some wine and cheese and reflect on my Berlin trip while eating Currywursts at the market.

The picture depicts the Naval College’s quad. The grassy field overlooking the Canary Wharf invites passersby to sit down for a bit, read a little and relax in the sun.

Just look at me, magical. That is…Drumroll please…PRIME MERIDIAN! Am I the only one this excited to take a picture with this marker?

Hill/grass filled with people loving the weather and their picnic. Good to know we weren’t the only ones procrastinating?

In the main part of Greenwich you can find pubs, McDonald’s (without a fail in any city), restaurants and best of all, markets. The indoor market, though I don’t have a picture of it, offered many different kinds of souvenirs, drinks and food. The outdoor market – right by the dock – featured the biggest PICK & MIX collection, Currywursts and Paella. Seriously, can Greenwich get any better than that?

Oh wait, I think it just did. 🙂 What a great photo – courtesy of Madelyn and Christina. And what a wonderful day in the sun with awesome friends.

That's Art? – Pop Life @ Tate Modern

As you can imagine, London is a BIG city. That means there is just so much to do and so little time. While I’m here, I would like to do all sorts of “tourist-y” thing there is, so last weekend, Jack and I decided to start with something basic – Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, HARRY POTTER BRIDGE and Tate Modern Museum.

On Saturday (16 Jan) we woke up even before the sun came up – fine, exaggerated, but early enough – to get out to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards. So Robert, Jack and I simply hopped on the tube, which, by the way, is so fancy compared to the glorious T back in Boston, at around 10:45 a.m. We honestly thought the ceremony started at 11:30, but when we actually got there at around 11:10, we realized we were wrong. The new set of guards were already marching into the palace and starting the whole process.

So yes, we saw these people in funny furry hats and gray winter coats playing music, including a bit of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, marching around for about an hour and successfully switching their guard shifts. It took just about an hour, and I couldn’t believe how many people there were to see this. Despite the rain, many were gathered around. More importantly, the number of different languages I heard around me was even more impressive. London is indeed a very diverse city.

For more information – i.e. history, time, place etc. – check out their website: http://www.changing-the-guard.com/

After, we walked through St. James’ Park toward Westminster tube station. I have been saying over and over again London is a BIG city, but the truth is, once you get to one area of the city, within certain areas, it is definitely walkable. For example, from Westminster station, if you’re up for it, you can walk all the way to Tate Modern, located across the river from St. Paul’s Cathedral, and on your way over, you’ll see the Aquarium, Movieum, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and National Theatre Gallery.

BUT we actually decided to be lazy and utilize the great public transportation system. For a good reason though; it started pouring, and thankfully, the #11 Bus took us directly to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Upon our arrival, we did find out it would cost us 9 pounds (student rate) to see the inside of this magnificent church.

Our thought process was this: St. Paul’s Cathedral isn’t exactly going anywhere. In the meantime, we’ve already burnt through a good portion of our budget. Unfortunately, the dollar/pound exchange rate isn’t exactly in our favor. Therefore, if we have money left over at the end of the semester, we’ll come back for the interior tour. For now, skip!

We grabbed a quick lunch at a small place called Fresh Italy. (http://www.fresh-italy.com/aboutus.aspx). To our surprise, for only £5.50, we had a huge portion of pasta and a cup of tea. What a great deal!

Now, probably the most important question ever, do you recognize this bridge?

If you don’t, SHAME ON YOU! We are no longer friends.

Alright, just kidding. But seriously, this bridge’s formal name is Milenium Bridge. If you’re a Harry Potter lover like I am, you’ll know this as The Bridge That was in the Sixth Movie. Mmhmm, that’s more like it. After all, the deatheaters didn’t destroy it. Thank goodness. As you can see, on the north side of Thames is St. Paul’s Cathedral, so if you cross the bridge, you stand right in front of Tate Modern on the south side.

Tate is a modern art museum. The building used to be a warehouse. All museums in London are FREE. There you go, cool enough reasons for me to visit and learn about modern art. As a modern art museum, Tate houses contemporary paintings, sculptures, videos and any other form of art created by imaginative minds, such as Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Picasso and Mario Merz. Honestly, I am not an expert, so I can’t really tell you what their artworks are like. One thing I can say though is if you ever do go to the Tate and decide to see Paul McCarthy’s video, well, don’t. Semi-disturbing. Not sure what he was trying to say through a naked man dancing around with a mask on, but I didn’t really get it.

Besides those collections, the Tate does have special exhibits – and you do have to pay admission for those. When I went, Pop Life was the main attraction. Pop Life was a display of various works by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.

And I will let these articles do the review of the exhibit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/29/pop-life-tate-pop-art AND http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6852784.ece

This is a fairly lengthy recap of my last Saturday. I know I still have so much to catch up on – pubs in South Kensington, Notting Hill Arts Club, Soho and Brick Lane.

More to come very very soon!

-Yoojin

Windsor Castle & Eton College

It’s already been two weeks! WOW. More accurately about 11 days, but who cares… Same difference, right? This week was filled with lectures and orientation events, including Imperial College pub night and start of the semester party at Langley. I have so much to say about both places – and of course about Tate Modern Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral and generally being Harry Potter, but I am going to try to keep this entry focused on the daytrip I went on today.

That, my friends, is WINDSOR CASTLE – the place where past kings and queens of England have used. Most importantly, it is the oldest occupied castle and Queen’s official residence. The castle is absolutely gorgeous, especially the front entrance used by the Queen. It is just like what you see in fairytale where there is a long walkway leading up to the gate where you’re greeted by those guard with funny hats. And only after that, you enter a majestic courtyard, and up on the second floor is the Queen’s hall.

The tour of Windsor was very simple. All there was to do was circling around the circle, seeing the chapel where the Order of the Garters met and admiring the gorgeous garden. But, the most impressive and possibly the most popular feature was Queen Mary’s Dollhouse. Honestly, those dolls have it so much better that us normal folks would ever be able to afford. So. Jealous. It was fascinating to see an elaborate dollhouse that was taller than I. PS, the dollhouse is equipped with perfectly working electricity and plumbing. Why is that necessary? Not sure, but it’s SO COOL! Unfortunately photographing inside the exhibit was not allowed, but here is the taste:

That is the living room… Really, NBD.

Another site we visited was Eton College. Don’t let the name “college” deceive you. It is simply an all boys boarding school where Price William & Harry spent their high school years. Once again, really NBD. Eton is right next to Windsor Castle (only about 15 minutes of a walk), situated very nicely along Thames River. While the campus is really pretty, and according to our awesome tour guide Penny, the education the boys receive is superb, you do have to be able to pay close to 10,000 pounds per term – and there are 3 terms a year – to attend this school. Wow.

Windsor & Eton was a nice short getaway from the little bubble called South Kensington, but I’m not sure if I can ever afford to actually live in the area. It is indeed a nice little village that I enjoyed visiting.

Next up – hopefully very very soon – is my thoughts on some London explorations I’ve done so far, such as pubs around the area, Buckingham Palace, Tate Modern, etc.

PS. Today was the first sunny day in London. What a miracle!

-Yoojin