Tuesday, November 16, 2010

[November 6] London: Harrod's, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Burma Rally, & Guy Fawkes Night @ Battersea Park

Today was a very memorable day in London! I started off by heading to Harrod's, because after my first time visiting it I decided that I hadn't seen enough of that fantastic place. Harrod's takes up 5-acres and is one million square feet! On peak shopping days up to 300,000 people visit the store! Well that's what wikipedia says at least, ha ha. The outside of the store alone is impressive:

I love looking at the designer clothing but I think my favorite place in the store is the Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate room in the food hall. Yes... a huge room just full of Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate! I know—I can't believe it either. And it's actually affordable! (Some of it). 

Only a small portion of the tea selection:

HARROD'S:

A view of Knightsbridge, the street that Harrod's is on:

After being overwhelmed at Harrod's and buying some tea, I took the bus to Trafalgar Square. I love the word 'Trafalgar' and how my mouth feels when I say it. Ha ha.

On this particular Saturday, as I approached the Square, I saw a group of people wearing red, and from afar I thought "Hmm! British soliders! I wonder what's going on?" And as I approached the scene I discovered it was a rally for Burma! I was really excited to see this! They were calling for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released from house arrest and for FAIR elections in Burma.




That's the National Gallery in the background:


A man was giving a very passionate speech:






I watched the rally for awhile. It was pretty quiet and peaceful which I think most Burmese people have a knack for! Ha, ha. I went into the National Gallery to get some lunch. For dessert, I had an apple tart which was DELICIOUS but as I was sitting on the steps near the rally eating it a pigeon walked up to me... and I tried to shooooo it away... but it didn't care. It just kept getting closer. I thought it was kinda weird looking... missing some feathers and it just didn't look like the other pigeons! But I smiled at it because I didn't know what else to do. Sounds kinda stupid, I know... Then suddenly it jumped up into my face and was flapping it's wings everywhere and I jumped up and yelled. I was so mad because I had to throw my tart away after the incident. Then a man came and kicked the pigeon. Ha ha! I was so angry at that pigeon though... ! GROSS, too! But it's ten days later as I write this and I'm still alive... Surprisingly...

The pigeons really are a problem and there's a huge fine if you feed one.

My delicious tart:

After this incident, I spent some time inside the national Gallery looking at paintings. The place is HUGE! My favorite part are the Impressionist paintings. A lot of the realistic portraits and scenes just don't appeal to me. Although they're clearly well-done, it's just boring to me. I much prefer the Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas, Monet, and Manet that I saw! I can really stare at one of those for a long time! However... the thing about museums is that I get really dizzy in them from walking around and looking at so many things all at once!


It was also Guy Fawke's weekend, which is a 'celebration' of when Guy Fawke's attempted to blow up Parliament. He did not succeed. And for some reason there are fireworks on Friday and Saturday night on this particular weekend! I don't really understand it, but humans love an excuse for a celebration, right? On Friday night from my 10th floor window, I could see fireworks going on in at least 5 different places. Wow! It was really fantastic and impressive. Then Saturday night, I walked with a group of friends to Battersea Park where they had a HUGE bonfire:


And a great firework show!




1 comment:

  1. The word 'trafalgar' also tickles my fancy. Your fireworks shots are insane!

    ReplyDelete