British Museum, August 24 2007

Another event filled day in London. It finally stopped rainning, but still very overcast, just light in Seattle. Our sights were a little scattered acrossed the town but mostly in the north part of the city. We started at the Kings Cross Train station to pay pilgrimage to Harry Potter. The supposed 9 3/4 platform was filmed at Kings Cross Station in the first Pottr film. We emerged from the underground, and a little lost because the marked platform only stopped at #6. So I simply asked an attendant where platform 9 3/4 was. He was probably asked this questions hundreds of time as he told me where it's located. We followed his direction and there it was. It was actually not a platform, simply an old wall with brick arched over it. And on the wall it's marked simply 9 3/4 platform. It even had a half of the luggage cart stuck on the wall as if it's going into the wall. We thought that was hilarious. I think Laurie and Megan really got a kick out of this.

British Library is just down two blocks from the station. It houses many treasured manuscripts from ancient time to modern. The main attraction is the Magna Carta. Laurie's class study medieval history last year and it was nice that she saw that actual documents. There were several different ones drawn up, the displayed one were in cased in the glass, very faded ink in Latin and the original wax seal in place, stating the rights of king and nobles. The beginning of democracy. Other highlights were musci manuscripts from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt. Beethoven's scores with many corrections and rewrites. Mozart's was neat and clean. Felt like he just wrote down whatever was in his head, just transcribing. Chopin has very delicate penmanship. Lots of medieval manuscripts with painstakingly detailed painted by monks over years. Ancient Hindu, Musilum and Chinese books.



While in London, doing the theater was another must. We've already seen Lion King. So today we tried to get tickets Wicked. We went to the discount tkx booth. Wicked tkx are not on sale as it is still a very new show. We bought Phamton tickets instead. Laurie's been wanting to see it. The time was approaching 11. We took underground to see Buckingham Palace, hopping to see the changing of the guards. It wasn't today. Of course this is where all the tourists congregate in London. The union flag waving on top of the palace, so the quuen is out. Otherwise her standard would be up. We sat on the base of the Queen Victoria Statue just taking in the site. People talking in foreign languages that we don't understand. After the guards came out to confirm that there was not guard changing ceremony, we struck out to find lunch.



My original plan was to go to St Martin in the square and lunch in the crypt. The church is at the Trafalger square. It was a very busy square with cars coming and going during lunch time. Sir Nelson stood tall on top of the column looking down at the city that he saved and died for. The church was under renovation. ( this will be a continuing recurrence thru out trip). So quick change of plan, we found a family friendly British pub for lunch. It was the first time I've been in a pub, took us a while to figure out the legistics. So we found our own table, the watiress brought menu, we have to go up to the bar to oder food, and the watress will bring our food. It was an interesting experience.



Then we took underground to the British Museum. It was a lot older and umkept as i tought, But inside it's ancient treasure galore. It was big and sprawling. We wanted to see the Egytian and near Eastern collections the most. The rooms were crammed with objects from thousands of year ago, we were able to take many pitures inside. About two hours inside the museum, we've had enough antiquities. Before Phantom showtime, we have time for a detour. We headed to Harrods. It was simply amazing in there. The high end of everything. Part of the department store has this Egyptian motif. And despite the designer prices, lots of people walked out with Harrod shopping bag. We went to the food court in the basement. It actually got a section for fresh produce, sea foods and meat. Pastries, candies, all sorts of deli meats. We found a corner gilling bar and had dinner there. And during dinner, there was a belly dancer dancing down the ille with live music. People stopped shopping and started clapping and joined the dancer. We've never seen anything like that. Too bad we didn't have enough time to explore the rest of Harrods.



The day ended with the show of Phamton of the Opera. Lee and I had all see it many many times. It was good to see it again with our kids. Laurie's orchestra played some tunes from it last year, so she could relate to it more than Megan. Then we took the double decker city bus home. Sitting on the top level, we got a short night tour of the city from Covent Garden, thru Tragalger square, Westminster abbey, Big Ben and the parliament. This become our favoite bus at night as it driopped us off almost right in front of our hotel.