Buck House, Museums and Sushi

Today we set out to do the most touristy thing imaginable: watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We did want to see the palace, but we weren't sure we were interested in fighting our way through a few thousand other tourists to watch some guards marching up and down the square. Okay, it's probably pretty interesting to see... except that it was canceled due to the threat of rain. It never did actually rain, but the show was canceled none the less. An hour or more sitting around very nearly wasted! Luckily the crowd was pretty interesting and we did get to see the palace.

Did I mention Eva almost got eaten by a Police horse? Okay... maybe not eaten... but he did take an interest in the zipper on her jacket as he proceeded to chew on it. Alfie was the horse's name, though his officer said he had a few other choice names for him, presumably because of similar behavior.

From the palace we walked to Wellington Arch. We had no idea there was an inside to this place but apparently there is. However much like a lot of things in London this year it seems, bits and pieces of it were undergoing renovations or repairs. Supposedly you can go all the way up to the top and look out over the area, so not being able to was a bit of a let-down.

At this point we headed from the nearby Hyde Park Corner station to Victoria Station to inquire about train tickets to Bath. I'm still amused by the Pigeons inside the station here. Honestly it's not surprising given that there are about 5 pigeons in London for every man, woman and child, it's just weird seeing birds flying around "indoors" like that. After grabbing some sandwiches and crisps from the Marks and Spencer we got our advance tickets to Bath and headed off back the way we came so we could check out some museums.

The first museum that was up was the Natural History Museum. Like most everything else in London, this place is absolutely vast. We spent about 2 hours here and didn't get a chance to see everything though we did go through the human oven that was the Dinosaur exhibit. It was well worth it though. One thing I did notice was that the NHM was far more orderly and organized than the British Museum, but it was necessary with the massive queue going through this particular exhibit. We also checked out the Mammal, and the Human Biology sections. We got lost trying to find the section on Geology, though we did manage to see the Nature section. After all this we figured we should move on and see the Science Museum.

In the Science Museum we checked out the Space exhibit and their temporary exhibit about Energy. As well we saw some of the Aviation area and took a ride on one of those silly 3D roller-coaster simulators as it looked like too much fun. We stayed almost until closing though like the NHM we didn't really have enough time to see everything. I really think each of these Museums could be a day in and of themselves sadly.

We knew that Harrod's was just down the road, so we figured we should get some pictures of the outside at least though Eva felt that entering would be a detriment to our vacation fund. We spot a Yo! Sushi across the street and realize that, hey, it's pretty much supper time. Having wanted to eat here at some point it was pretty much no argument. The little conveyor belts are pretty neat, carrying all these multi-colored sushi dishes around the entire bar. We ate a fair bit and ordered some hot stuff off the menu too. Yes, I had Inari... two plates of it in fact. After eating we walked around for a while just exploring the area, eventually walking towards Hyde Park.

Did I mention everything in London is big? Hyde Park is no exception. It's very beautiful and peaceful. Definitely a good place to go to escape the hustle and the bustle of the city. They have a Peter Pan statue that is identical to the one we have in Bowring Park in St. John's, that was pretty neat. Tried to get a shot similar to the one that's in my Flickr stream just cause it would be amusing. We eventually made our way to the station and then to the Hotel so we could get packing for today's trip to Edinburgh.

Anyway we're off to the airport now!