London Tour: 4 Museums

Wuhu !!! weekend again ... time to see London again. Got out of the hotel at 10:15 ... bought the day pass from Aldgate East and took the District line tube to South Kensington station. When I got off the tube and was about to get out of the station, I saw a subway which had the street signs of all the three museums (Natural History, Science, and Victoria & Albert Museums). First, I visited the Natural History museum. Standing at the door ... I was just blown away by the massiveness of the building ... also it was so darn beautiful. The architecture ... aahh ... you got to see it to believe it. Just as I entered, I was greeted by a dinosaur skeleton ... it was hugeeee. The museum had the biggest, tallest, and rarest animals in the world – in stuffed form obviously ... ahahahaha. I tried to see everything as fast as possible because I had planned to visit 6 museums. However, snapping pics ... seeing the stuff ... time just flew. So I stuck to the main areas of the museum and got out at around noon.
 
 Victoria and Albert museum was just across the road. Again the architecture ... simply superb !!! V&A is dedicated to arts. The museum was organized into 5 main areas – Asia, Europe, Modern, Materials, and Exhibitions. Since I was short of time, I stuck to Asia, Europe, and Materials sections. The museum was like a montage of all the best art artifacts of all the major civilizations. Like the Arabic section was heavy on carpets, China had chinaware and Japan had all daggers as main attractions. Europe was full of all the paintings, statues, royal rooms and dresses. The museum had an amazing collection of jewellery. All in all ... the museum was dedicated to richness and good things in life ... and my my ... it had some stuff.
 
 
Again crossed the road and got to Science museum. The area is like museum mushroom ... LOL. You turn around and baamm ... you are on the doorsteps of some museum. But I was not complaining. Even though my back and legs were hurting ... I was just in museum seeing trance. Just as I entered, I picked up the museum map booklet to plan out my visit. After visiting two history and culture heavy museum, science museum came as a welcome change. It was based on contemporary stuff and was much more interactive. Must say it was fun to see the evolution of such mundane stuff like washing machines, microwave oven, radio, vacuum cleaner, music and video players, computers, etc. There were plenty of interactive activities for kids ... well many of them were lame and childish. I had my lunch inside the museum ... when I saw the watch ... it was 2 already and I was not thru with the museum. Damn !!!
 

 Got out of the museum at 3 pm. I knew it that I won’t be able to see the rest of the 3 museums. So I had to drop 2 museums – British Museum and National Gallery. I thought that since I would be going to visit Westminster on Sunday, I would take out time to visit British museum. National Gallery ... well ... may be next time. So Tate Modern was the left on my list of museum to visit ... I quickly got to the tube station. On reaching the station, I came to know that the Southwark (Jubilee line) tube was closed for the weekend. So I came back to Westminster and then changed the tube and got to Waterloo station. Came out of the station and got a bus to Tate Modern. This museum was dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Just as I entered the museum, I saw a giant spider sculpture. However the museum turned out to be bit disappointing ... partly because I just couldn’t appreciate most of the art pieces.
 

Anyhoo ... got out of the museum at 6 pm and took the bus to get to the tube station. The bus was a double decker. So I got to the upper deck ... and saw London. Beautiful I must say. Another great day of touring London ... and another one to come.

Lunch at Gherkin top

Just came back from lunch at Gherkin top. My London team mates told me about it ... they said it was a great view and you can have lunch as well ... so today after the morning training ... went there with the team. Chris (my team mate) told me that the place is little expensive but the view is nice ... especially the view of river Thames and the bridges (London and the famous Tower Bridge). Since it wasn’t raining and weather was somewhat nice, the view was good. He also told me that not everyone is allowed to have food over there because of some membership rules. You gotta be working in Gherkin or need to be a member of some club (forgot the club name) for eating out there. They don’t even allow general public to come up and see the view. If you are a member of Gherkin building then you can bring 5 other people. Me being a curious traveler ... decided not to miss this exclusive thingy ... cause you never know when you be able to get back again ... if ever.
 Since I’m a vegetarian, there wasn’t much to eat. I asked the waiter to bring me anything which doesn’t have meat/fish or egg in it. He suggested the side menu and told me that I can have Roaster Potato along with Rocket Parmesan salad. I also ordered the Tiger beer ... must say it was really good. The potatoes were good ... not too sure about the salad though. To my surprise, it did not cost that much ... just £10. Whenever I am out of the country, I find it hard to get nice veggie meal. Sometimes I wish I can eat meat ... but then ... you always tend to find alternative food to survive. So as long as I can find something veggie to eat ... I would stick to it.

London Tour: Tussauds and Dungeon

First day I reached office little late because I didn't knew the exact way to the office. Even though, my office is in one of the most famous building of London (The Gherkin), it took me a while. Actually I was moving in complete opposite direction and I realized it when I asked a road service woman; she told me to turn around and go all the way back ... damn. Anyhoo ... when I reached office, I realized that its just 5 mins walk from my hotel. Niceeee !!! The first two days at office were full of training sessions and meetings. Kinda boring ... ahahahaha

London is really expensive ... everything costs double than what I would pay in New York ... and that says a lot because NY is not the cheapest city in the world. I bought a pack of juice from the nearby Tesco shop. Now the problem was how would I keep it in cool place since my hotel room do not have fridge. Being an Indian, I came up with a jugad (out of the box way to accomplish a task). I opened the window and kept the bottle on the edge (it was 6-7 inches wide). The cold weather of London kept my bottle chilled thru the night. Now that I have successfully tested this I am using that window space for keeping my stuff cold and fresh. LOL.

Saturday came and I was ready to see the city. Like every other western city, London too slows down in weekends. The tube/buses/DLR etc cut down on its services. So I got to the nearby tube station and enquired at the information counter about how to reach Greenwich. The lady there told me that I need to take a bus and then need to ride the DLR. OK ... like I know every freakin bus and DLR route in London ... huh!!!. Anyways, I bought the day pass (£5.60) which was valid in all public transportation in Zone 1 and Zone 2. The thing is if you have a pass for particular zones, you can travel anywhere (within that zone), anyhow (tube/bus/DLR). With the pass in my hand I rode Bus # 100 from Aldgate, which took me to Shadwell. From there I took the DLR to Greenwich. It was fun .. I saw the National Maritime Museum, Queen’s House and Royal Observatory.
 
 
 All right, Saturday gone ... came Sunday. The plan was to see Madame Tussauds. My planning was immaculate. On Friday, I checked out the weather forecast for the weekend. Saturday was all sunshine ... Sunday was wet and wild. You should always check the weather in unknown cities before venturing out. As a result, I planned Greenwich on Saturday because it was all outdoors and planned Tussauds because its indoors. Again I bought the day pass and took the Metropolitan tube to the Baker street. Madame Tussauds is just near the tube station. At the ticket counter I came to know that there was some bulk deal ... so I took the £50 ticket which would enable me to visit Tussauds, London Dungeon, and London Eye. Even though it seemed kinda steep ... but who said that visiting a European city would be cheap. Saw all the world famous wax figures .... man it was fun.
 
 
  
 
 Came back to hotel ... rested for a while and then got out again for the London Dungeon. Reaching there was bit tricky as I had to change couple of tubes ... took the train to Mooregate and from there took the Northern line to London Bridge station. Like Madame Tussauds, Dungeon was also adjacent to the station. Since I had the ticket beforehand, I avoided the queue. Like its name ... Dungeon was an ode to gore ....
 
 Oh ... want a fun ... two days of city roaming ... wow.

Reached London

I got out of the house little late (9 AM). I thought that I would reach the airport 2 hours before the scheduled departure time (12:30 PM). However I was so wrong ... got stuck in the flyover before Naraina and to avoid the infamous Naraina traffic, I took the Hari Nagar route. Darn luck ... got stuck in horrendous traffic and finally reached airport at 11:15. However, once I entered the airport, things went pretty smoothly and I was done with all the formalities in about 15 minutes. That was fast !!!

Boarded the plane at 12:20 PM ... the British Airways flight was huge (Boeing 747 – 2 storied aircraft). I got the aisle seat (even though it was in the middle section). However, no one was in my adjacent 2 seats ... so got the much needed space. The aircraft had decent leg space, OK food, and a very nice support staff. The in-flight entertainment too was good. To kill time, I watched many comedy episodes in the TV section. I also watched a movie ... Rock-n-Rolla. It was a usual Guy Ritchie movie with all the “trying to be cool” sequences.

When I got down at Heathrow, I was taken aback by the sheer massive scale of it. I took the train to reach the Arrivals/Luggage section ... weird. I’ve seen few airports, but none of them have a train to take the passengers to different areas of the airport. Again, the things went smoothly and got out of the airport in about 30 minutes. I checked my phone and was surprised to see it working since I did not expected it to access any network. I guess my connection had auto ISD roaming capabilities. I never took my phone outside India, so I never knew about this feature. Nice !!! The driver (he was pre-booked by my office) was waiting for us at the gate. It took an hour to reach the hotel ... on the way we saw the city. It looked a lot like NYC ... the roads, people, houses, lanes and alleys, the distinct smell.

On reaching the hotel, I got to know that the room is not equipped with Internet. Since it was a budget hotel, I expected it. When I enquired about the Internet, the receptionist told me that they have a multimedia package which includes Internet, paid TV, movies on demand, games, etc. But it would cost £10 per day, which my company won’t pay/reimburse. Since the per-diem is not huge, I didn’t found it worth having it. The room was nice though ... neat and clean. Since I was feeling tired, I slept pretty early. Big day coming tomorrow ... the first day at office ...