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Saturday started off with breakfast. Our first taste of the
famous English Bed & Breakfast fare was not bad. It consisted of bacon
(ham, really), egg, toast and cereal, but it was enough to get the day
going.
London, which is Europe's largest capital, has been there
since before 60AD, although much has changed since then. It's still a city
steeped in history and to me it is almost unimaginatively old. Chu-Wan and I
had some hard choices: there simply wasn’t enough time to go see all the
"standard" tourist attractions. Personally, I've never been big on the
standards, but at the same time, I felt somewhat obligated, having traveled
that far, to see the famous sights.
In the end, we decided to see the things that interested us,
and if we were in the area of something famous, we'd stop by and take a
"holiday snap" of it.
 Not far past Hyde Park is the British Museum of Natural
History. It has dinosaurs. I go where there are dinosaurs. The museum was our
first, absolute must-see sight in London, and so that was our chosen
destination Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon we were going to the London
Zoo, which, I understood was one of the world's few zoos with a Giant Panda,
one of my "must-see" animals. (I had already managed to see Koalas, Komodo
Dragons and Manatees at the Singapore and Taipei Zoos, leaving only the Giant
Panda on my list.)
The British Museum of Natural History is enormous! Of
course, the contents of a natural history museum are, essentially, a lot of
dead animals, which makes the whole place a bit morbid, with thousands of
animal corpses on display.
The dinosaur exhibit was quite impressive, with a lot of
excellent specimens. The exhibit is well laid-out too, with an upper and lower
gallery which allows you to stand at the feet of the dinosaurs and also stand
at about eye level to the same specimens It's certainly the most impressive
dinosaur display I've ever seen.
The museum also has a fossilized Groundsloth, which was
unbelievable! I knew that they were large, but I had no concept they stood
nearly as tall as a giraffe!
 We wandered the museum for hours, still not managing to see
everything. We stopped for lunch inside the museum and the trip took on a sad
note. There, in a display case, was Chi-Chi, the Giant Panda from the London
Zoo. She had died some years earlier and was put on display in the museum.
There she sat, staring with sad, dead eyes at the patrons of the snack bar. It
spoiled my desire to go to the zoo, and so we decided not to go.
We headed to Piccadilly Circus instead, which, in its own
way is a zoo, too. It was a packed madhouse, teaming with (mostly) foreigners.
I had already begun noticing how many non-English speakers were in London and
it was here that I began to keep track of the percentage of English speakers I
overheard. Ultimately, I concluded that less than 20% of the conversations I
overheard in London and Edinburgh were English.
Besides from being famous, I can hardly figure why anyone
would want to go there. Sure, Tower Records was there, as was a Virgin
Megastore -- both of which I spent a fair deal of money at. Otherwise, it's
just an ordinary corner with an ugly statute of Cupid that everyone seems to
get a picture with.
The crowd at Piccadilly Circus also attracts other forms of
parasites: mimes. In addition to a couple of traditional mimes, they also had a
couple who dressed up in various period costumes and acted as living statues.
(Standing in front of a box for putting money in, of course.) One fellow was
doing a pretty good Sherlock Holmes, while another had a very intricate robot
costume.
For the year 2000, British Airways has erected the London
Eye (sometimes referred to as the Millenium Eye) along the bank of the Thames
near Parliament and Big Ben. (Actually, it is in the Thames, next to the
bank) The London Eye is the worlds largest observation wheel and will only
remain standing for approximately one year. I believe it is the second or third
tallest structure in London. We could hardly miss an opportunity to go on the
wheel, despite my dislike of heights.
When we got there, the queue was enormous. Actually, with
the British's love of standing in queue it wasn't too surprising that you
actually have to stand in three of them to get on the wheel. The first to buy a
ticket, then at the appointed "pre-boarding" hour, you stand in a queue to wait
your turn to stand in the queue to board the wheel.
 We decided to come back very early the next
morning and outsmart the crowds - I get no satisfaction from standing in a
queue.
We walked across the Thames on foot. This placed us right
next to Parliament and Big Ben, which, being Saturday evening was deserted. We
walked on past a grotty little little cul-de-sac street, which was odd because
a permanent gate with police guards stationed at it. By the time we reached
Trafalgar Square I realized that had been Downing Street, where the Prime
Minister's residence is. I think Tony Blair was out of the country that week at
the G8 meeting, so there was no chance of spotting anyone "famous" anyway.
Trafalgar Square was just nasty, covered as it was in pigeon
shit and vagrants, so we made a hasty departure from there.
By this point, I had decided that the oft-quoted Dr. Samuel
Johnson was full of beans. His quote, "When you grow tired of London, you grow
tired of life" was beginning to grate on my nerves. I was tired of London. I
was not tired of life. I was just tired of spending my life in London.
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