Mon 5 Aug - London, England

British Museum, Chinatown and SoHo... And rain...

We were initially thinking of going to Windsor today, but given the afternoon rain forecast (and our inability to get going in time) we cancelled that and we decided to do the British Museum instead. We took the tube from Shepherds Bush to Tottenham Court Road from where we were going to walk to the museum.

The everlasting Queen "opera", "We will rock you" was playing at a theatre outside Tottenham Court Road tube station, with a not very lookalike Freddie Mercury outside as a drawcard.

Around the corner was a YMCA complex, in brutalism architecture, but with "London's largest gym" downstairs. Interesting combination.

We arrived at the British Museum just as it opened at 10am and decided on a cuppa from one of the two coffee vans parked outside before going in. We figured that we would need the caffeine to "do" the museum. Somewhat surprisingly, the espresso coffee was really good. We told them that too (best coffee in the UK so far).

A self portrait before we went in...

The British Museum is free, always the best price, and huge. The Great Court appears to be a covered in courtyard between the old buildings of the museum. It works well.

Ok - where do,you start??? The British Museum is justifiably one of the world's great collections, largely because the British started collecting ancient artifacts more than 250 years ago. The museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane (another great Hans...sure...). It grew through expeditions, other collections and purchases and the amount of amazing ancient artifacts is quite overwhelming.

We started upstairs with ancient Britons and the Romans in Britain as we figured this was unique to the UK. There was a whole section dedicated to the different ways ancient Britons were dealt with on death. This one caught our eye - The Aylesford Burial Bucket - found with cremated bones in it. Not too different to a modern urn really, but nevertheless a bit... strange.

The display moved on to the time of the Romans in Britain, with quite a bit on Hadrian. We liked this huge copper likeness of him which was said to be found in the Thames, probably toppled there once the Romans left. A yesteryear parallel to the toppling of Saddam Hussein statues perhaps...

Hadrian turned out to be quite a character and perhaps the first gay ruler who openly mourned the death of his young teenage boy lover, shown here next him.

Other characters were not so easily recognizable... But of course we all know Di...

The British Museum is famous for their Egyptian artifacts. The "mummy" section was definitely the most popular area or the whole museum and we persisted with the holiday crowds to ensure we missed nothing. It really was fascinating. And again, so much of it - not just a handful of pieces but most of the time the whole "Russian Doll" set as Hans called it. In that one room alone there must have been at least 10 mummies, evidenced by X-rays and CAT scans.

Just one of the many mummies.

The fascinated crowd - including Di waving from the back. Hans was glad of his height advantage and muttered "short ass" when Di could not see.

Even when the sarcophagus were painted wood the detail was gorgeous, colors vibrant and faces very recognizably different from each other.

A example of one mummy - we don't think this was THE Cleopatra but she certainly was an early member of this collection.

Cleopatra's painted mummy casing including a painted face.

We then stumbled onto a section of mummified animal. First off, a mummified bull. A mummified Bull?

And cats? And crocs? And a fish??? We thought that people just ate the fish and threw the bones away, but clearly not always...

We just loved these characters.

Egyptology around funerals and tombs continued for many rooms, and one room showcased the tomb paintings of a wealthy person. Again the details are stunning. This was a hunting scene in a marshland and shows lots of different birds on the left, with a ginger cat in amongst them catching one of the birds.

We took another break, sitting in the Great Court for a little while - phew - our brains are getting overloaded. Another plan of attack was needed as we realized there is no way to take this all in with one visit.

Hans suggested the "1 hour highlights tour" which was the museum's suggestion of about 12 things you MUST see. Good idea. Still took nearly 2 hours but it was a great mix of really unique and interesting pieces (out of a collection of 8 million unique pieces...). Of course, along the way you do get distracted too.

First up - the Lewis Chessman. This is said to be one of the earliest remaining chess sets to have come to Britain, probably from Trondheim, Norway of all places. The pieces were beautifully carved from walrus tusk. Hans is, well was, a chess fan and loved this set.

The chess pieces all had expressive faces and positions. A little bit different to modern day standardized chess sets.

Then on to the Oxus treasures - said to be the finest ancient Iranian gold and silver collection. The workmanship is stunning.

 

This was not on the highlights tour but the story about this stela is fun - it's a piece of sculpture about 2,500 years old and the hole in the middle? It was not intended for Hans to peek through, it was used by locals up until 1910 or so as an oil press. Made probably perfect sense at the time.

This could be the oldest board game in the world called the Royal Game of Ur. The board reminded us a bit of checkers or backgammon with dice and pieces moving across a board with 2 opponents. Yep, 3,000 years old, including the rule book carved into the brown stone. They believe a version of this game is still played in Cochin, India today.

The British Museum had an unexpected temporary exhibition called "Money". This "poster" was done in 2009 as a result of the hyper inflation in Zimbabwe and contained among others a 50,000,000 note, rightest column, 5 down.

Another hyper inflation story with the German Reichs Mark and a 500,000,000 Mark note.

Then something that truly astounded us. Counterfeiting in the UK is apparently still rife. These coins are just a handful of fake £1 coins removed from circulation. The British Mint believes up to 1 of every 35 coins for £1 in the UK could be fake. That surely means that we are likely to handle one or more at some time during our UK visit.

Part 2 of our highlights tour continued downstairs...no not Hans but we did like the lady.

Of course - the Rosetta Stone. What can we say? This handy piece of translation was first uncovered by Napoleon and then captured by the British, and was key to unlocking the hieroglyphics of Egypt.

A synopsis...

Ramses II seemed quite vain and his image was the most common within the British Museum.

Seriously, how did they get these pieces intact back to England some 150 years ago?

No, Hans did not give a helping hand...

Aphrodite was gorgeous (on the left). The statue lady to the right looked good too.

And Hans took a keen interest in her... Hmmm, not bad...
And the last highlight for our tour...the Pantheon panels and sculptures. What a waste that so many were beheaded and destroyed. The display room was still very impressive.

Including the hard working snorting horse.

It was now 1.30pm and our brains have seized up on the tiny fraction of the British Museum that we had seen. We decided to head outdoors, of course exiting through the gift shop. Ok, this made us laugh but we still were not going to part with £5 for a rubber ducky.

Back onto the London streets and we headed south west. The buildings heading into Soho were pretty cool and we were impressed by the longevity of a business dedicated to umbrellas... and sticks. It is England after all...

We found a cheap lunch deal on the edge of Chinatown. Outside they promoted a £5.80 lunch but once inside seemed reluctant to give us this cheap option. We got a normal menu until we specifically mentioned and asked for the lunch deal. Gotta love the Chinese mercenary nature (seriously we do, it is a constant throughout the world).

Golden Day reminded Hans of his favorite Stockholm pub in his youth called Golden Days, or GD for short...

The food was pretty good, not a huge amount, but we loved being the only non-Asians in the place. That is always good karma.

Di enjoyed the atmosphere and watched the world go by. Or is she just bored with the company...?

We zig zagged through Soho as we both remembered it being a gritty part of London. It certainly had changed. A vegetarian pub? With a secret tea room? Not so secret anymore given the sign...

Gentrification of SoHo was evident around each corner.

Soho Square seemed cleaned up and well used by lunchtime punters.

We searched for smaller back lane ways - some were still old and interesting. Where does this door go?

This road originated from 1732 and is one of the oldest remaining roads in London.

But really - a fancy frozen yogurt place with an interesting name does not bring back the old SoHo.

Nor does a Michelin rated Gelato shop (although we tried both and they were both excellent).
Hans chose the dark chocolate, espresso and pistachio flavours for his gelato. Good, but Michelin standard...?

A funny moment while walking through Soho - we passed 2 parking officers who had just issued a car with a ticket. A fiery young guy arrived back at that moment and did such a childish tantrum about getting the ticket that we had to laugh...he ripped the ticket from the window, threw it in the gutter, stomped his feet on it and all the while waving his arms around. Very expressive!

It didn't appear that a lot of old sinful SoHo is left. When Hans was here back in 1981, from what he could recall, SoHo looked a lot more seedy. There now seems to be only this little strip with a few shops on either side that provided for red light entertainment.

Still, some shops did surprise. A "Blow Up Barack"...? Note that the lady at the top right has nothing to do with this industry... she's focused on her Snog!

SoHo seems to still offer gentlemen products and services in some places...

The clouds started to close in as we continued to stroll. Shaftesbury Avenue looking east close to corner of Great Windmill Street.

Piccadilly Circus looks like a mini Times Square in New York or Dundas Square in Toronto. Last time we were here in 2010, several of the buildings had awnings outside due to renovations and the same was true this time around. We didn't linger as this is not really to our taste.

Although we liked this guy. Well, the English can be a bit fanatic about their country at times...

Well, we could feel the temperature dropping at the same time as clouds started to darken, and given that it was around 3.30pm or so and rain was forecast from around 3pm, we decided to find a bus home. Pall Mall is just down the street from Piccadilly Circus and our favorite bus number 9 passes there. We didn't completely avoid the rain, but most of it came down while we already were on the bus.

The rain stopped as we got off the bus, but started again shortly after we arrived back at London Visitors Hotel just before 5pm. A cup of tea was in order and then a bit of chilling.

The rain stopped and the sun returned around 7pm. Dinner... Di had read good things about Miran Masala, a Punjabi restaurant just around the corner from us on Hammersmith Road. So, off we go.

We swung by our local corner store and picked up a bottle of Australian d'Arenburg Shiraz from McLaren Vale, a vineyard that we visited at the end of last year during our campervanning trip.

The pub next door to the restaurant, called "The Hand and Flower" was very busy for a Monday night. We may try it out...

Miran Masala was great. Of course, the signs you look for in an ethnic restaurant is whether the same ethnic group go there to dine. Yes, they did, as well as lots of honkys. In fact, the place was positively buzzing and remember again that this is Monday night in suburbian London. Di looked pleased.

And Hans was enjoying the Indian / Punjabi food and, of course, a d'Arenburg Shiraz. Nice...

The food was excellent. We were positively full after our meal, and still we found that any other food that came out from the kitchen after we finished our meals smelled absolutely delicious. The bill came to £19 including a 12.5% service charge but no corkage fee. Definitely worth the money. We were very pleased when we left...

Di popped into the Persian fruit and veggie shop next door for some healthy stuff for breakfast.

Back to London Visitors Hotel around 9.30pm and we bumped into Anna, our propretiness, who said that she also enjoyed the same Indian / Punjabi restaurant.

Di did a bit of underwear washing and Hans a bit of wringing before we call it a day. Good night.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment