Piccadilly, Pigeons, and People

Well, I think we got off to a good start on our first full day in London. Some people might think we wasted our time, but we had a grand time walking around central London exploring the sights and getting our bearings.

After getting up and eating our free and delicious light breakfast, we left the hotel for Old Street Station which, much to our chagrin was closed until noon! A friendly woman at the station suggested we take the bus and pointed us in the right direction. After bothering a bus driver we managed to get on the correct side of the road and on to a bus to King's Cross station. Again, I can not get over how much better public transit is here, there are buses almost constantly!

So from King's Cross we take the tube to Piccadilly Circus and pop up to street level. I didn't mention it at this point but it was raining lightly so taking pictures was somewhat annoying as I didn't want to get my camera wet. Luckily at one point I devised some impromptu rain shielding by stuffing the barrel of my lens into my jacket sleeve. Annoying but effective. Anyway, there was hardly anyone around as it was pretty early and wet, but it was still pretty cool seeing the place in person. Before taking off we bought a few souvenirs.

Our intent was to find the The Britain and London Visitor's Centre to load up on pamphlets and whatnot. We failed in our original attempt as we went the wrong way down Regent Street, but we did find quite a few interesting shops. After turning around and going back through the Circus we found the Centre and got what we needed.

At this point we decided to head and find a Jessops camera store so I could get some Rainsleeves (cheap and cool rain protection for SLRs). On the way we happily stumbled upon Trafalgar Square, where there was some sort of Indian festival being set up... or ending... or something. It was still pretty interesting.

After finding that the Jessops had no Rainsleeves (subsequently discovered there's like only one camera store in London that sells them) we passed by a Currys Digital who's very friendly staff (at least 5 people asked us if we needed anything) said that we might have better luck getting a Rainsleeve at the Jessops Pro Store or the Jacobs Digital across the way on New Oxford Street. This was perfect because this is just around the corner from the British Museum which we wanted to check out as our next stop!

We walked the whole way up Tottenham Court Road, checking out shops along the way. Eva managed to find a new bag to help hold the vast quantities of crap we were accumulating so our hands weren't full. We arrived on New Oxford Street only to discover that the Jacobs was closed and that the Jessops was also without Rainsleeves. Oh well, it was off to the museum!

When we arrived at the British Museum there was an astonishing number of people there, it was like a vast sea of humanity in some areas. The Rosetta Stone was as if it were surrounded by a school of pihrana eating some poor unfortunate that fell into a jungle river. We managed to see most of the Egypt section, some of the Greek & Roman section, checked out an exhibit on Islam that they had, went through a temporary exhibit about Death and Dying and then started in on the Asian section.

After all this walking around we were nearly beat so we decided to go to the Cafe and have a quick bite to eat. We had some delicious iced tea and Scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam... mmmmmm. Wait, what was I saying... right. Suffice it to say it was very good. We decided at this point to try and get to Camden Lock before the market closed for day.

Camden Lock is another place where you get a feel for just how many people must be living in London. There were thousands of people around to be sure. All walks of life, all sorts of unusual characters, everything imaginable for sale. Lots of tattoo parlors... yeah I dunno what's up with that. So anyway, we explored the labyrinthine Camden Lock market. Lots of sights and sounds. Almost every other stall was playing different music. Food everywhere. It was getting near on supper time at this point so it wasn't helping matters. We decided to drop off our stuff at the hotel and go get some food before finally crashing for the night.

After the hotel we headed towards Bishopsgate which is really rather close. We got a better view of the Gherkin and found a few places to eat that were either too expensive or closed (unfortunately) until we stumbled upon a small chain pub/eatery called Woodins Shades, it seemed alright and the prices outside were reasonable. Eva ended up having Bangers and Mash (and salt!) and I had what they called a Toad in the Hole (I thought this was fried toast and egg) which was a sausage with mashed potatos and vegetables covered in gravy inside this massive Yorkshire pudding... oh my god was it ever good!

Anyways our second day is wasting so we're going to get going!