I'm a Tourist

The Star Kebab House, the local curry place

Being the last full day visiting London and now with all my London Fashion Week shooting complete I decided to spend the day walking around. You might say that today was my official sightseeing day. To start off, I walked west along the street from the hotel (located near Earl's Court) to grab some food at a local curry place. It's the same curry place, the Star Kebab House, that I frequented last season. I found out that it's been in operation for more than 30 years.

From the curry place I walked up past the local super Tesco to a bridge, took some uninteresting pictures (which is why they are not on this blog) of railroad tracks, then slowly made my way toward Oxford Circus where I'd eventually meet up with Derya (although when I started trek I didn't know that's where I would end up).

It's interesting to point out that most people I talked to about walking this distance (including Enzo a few days earlier) thought this was nutty.


Congestion charges going into effect February 19th, 2007

On my way from the bridge I noticed some signs indicating to drivers that there would be a new service charge for using the roads in town. I heard they wanted to do something like this in Toronto. While it's a great idea to decrease the amount of car emissions within the city, Toronto in my opinion, does not have the intricate transit system or suburban parking lots to support this idea at this time.


Stopping to 'smell' the flowers. It's still snowing in Toronto?


A crime stoppers ad

I thought this was interesting. The sign tells you what kind of crime was commited and obviously where it took place is specified by where the sign was placed. "Armed Robbery"? Sheesh.


The museum entrance

The first official stop on my tour was a museum, any museum. This being the third time I've been in London I had never stopped into any of the museums for more than 10 minutes. During my first trip I stopped in the Science museum long enough to point at a large dinosaur skeleton while Angie took a picture of me. Because of the tight schedule we had to run out of the building in order to cover other parts of the city in our 45 minutes of rushing around.

While waiting for a catwalk to start, earlier on in the week, I had met a London photographer named Patrick who told me "This is the worst time to go to museums.". When I asked "Why?", his answer was that kids are now out from school, something equivalent to spring break in North America. It figures. Note: Toronto Fashion week also takes place during spring break. Coincidence?

There was a long winding line that came out of the Natural History Museum. Despite this, I was determined to get in, to see something, anything. It is important fact that the reader know that to visit most museums in London the admission price is 0. Yes, that's right, free. When comparing the cost to the tiny Toronto based Royal Ontario Museum with it's exorbitant admission of $18.00, seeing museums in London is great! This also explains the grief of not seeing any of the museums during the last two visits.


The escalator into the "Molten Earth"


A big fat rock. So okay I forgot what the little label said that was placed under the rock. (Quartz?)

The next stop was a building that reminded me of the Ontario Science Centre. There were a bunch of nifty gadgety things with hands on items that kids could play/interact with.


A two and a half story circle lined with Light Emitting Diodes


"You've driving me up the wall"

I suppose the thing that impressed me was this car bolted somehow to the ceiling. It reminded me of those fake movie sets that are made upside down so when the camera is flipped over it looks like someone is walking on the ceiling.


A jacket made from steel wool


I liked the micro net

After the museums I walked over to Hyde Park. There were people playing hockey of all things. The hockey night in canada theme played in my head while I took some pictures.


The Albert Memorial


Entering into Hyde Park


A bird that looks like it's starting to doze off.


A statue of Peter Pan


Bird sitting on a post


A tree that has fallen over


Bear Hug fountain


"Feeding Pigeons is not permitted"


Sunset in Hyde Park


The subway map

In case you hadn't picked this up from previous blog entries, it's interesting to note that a subway in London is a underground walkway for pedestrians. Unlike the subway, or public train system here in Toronto the train in London is referred to as the tube.


A subway entrance


A subway exit

Exiting the park on the north east corner I made my way over to Oxford Circus via Oxford street. Traffic lanes are a lot more narrow in this city, yet they're way more congested. I'm not really sure how the bus drivers do such a great job of navigating without causing accidents.


Fruit stand


An accessory store with Lily Cole plastered all over their display.


Gearing up for Chinese New Year, the year of the "golden" pig.


Tap dancing for money

While waiting for Derya across the street from the Topshop department store I noticed these tap dancers. They were pretty good but were eventually shooed away by a police officer.


Topshop window display

After a barrage of text messaging Derya and I finally met up. I don't use text messaging in Toronto so much but in London it seemed second nature. We ended up eating at a Thai buffet restaurant. We were drawn in by a coupon some guy down the street was waving at us.


Thai buffet


Derya foreign news corespondent


Derya with a copy of the newspaper she writes for.