Mar 20 2009
London Town – What a Day
The day’s adventures started out much like any other, “We’re on a mission for honey.” said Craig. I reminded him that he was as sweet as honey for holding me up in his flat, but you just can’t spread that on toast unfortunately. With lesser hangovers to deal with we left for the Borough Market for sustenance, adventure, and most importantly honey.
Borough Market is London’s oldest food market. It was established on the south bank of the Thames when the Romans built the first London Bridge. It has occupied its present site for 250 years. The market is rich in variety and vendors are constantly pushing free samples at you. Despite wanting to eat every snack on offer, I settled on strawberries infused with apple juice, yum. I found some delicious, cold raspberry apple cider that complemented my Boar Sausage pretty well. The English have a thing with cutting sausages in half when they serve them, I think I like it.
Back to the honey story. That’s pretty much the end of it. You’ll notice that we never found any. Turns out half of the market is only open on weekends, and Craig’s honey supplier wasn’t in. Don’t worry, the day gets much more exciting and maybe even a bit educational.
London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down… Have you ever seen that iconic, two-towered bridge that dominates the Thames and just screams London? Well, I learned a most important bridge-identifying lesson today in that the bridge I speak of is actually Tower Bridge. We took a tour of the bridge towers including the elevated walkways, and the engine room.
After the bridge we took a stroll down Canary Wharf the fancy banking district, also where much of where the TV show Hustle is filmed. We were en route to Greenwich to see the beginning of time. The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is the centre of the universe for time-keeping. It was founded by Charles II in 1675 and is, by international decree, the official starting point for each new day, year and millennium (at the stroke of midnight GMT as measured from the Prime Meridian). Did you know that China spans 60 degrees of latitude but only uses one time-zone?
It was time for my Fish and Chips. We found something that didn’t look too much like a chain restaurant and ate at the Spanish Galleon Tavern. Upon entering we encountered a most peculiar and curious man. He would later introduce himself as Mr. Beard but first asked us if we knew of a hospital nearby that could help his case of gout. After explaining our green-ness of Greenwich and that we didn’t know and hospitals we ordered at the bar and sat down in the corner of the pub.
“May I join you gentlemen?” he inquired while approaching the table a few moments later. Never one to turn down a meeting of the minds, we invited him to join us. I shared some of my fish with him but decided against any beer after he told us that someone gets killed every time he drinks (he was a recovering alcoholic). His skills included all disciplines of martial arts and he had trained under Bruce Lee’s trainer but didn’t spar with him because it was not necessary. Those skills probably came in handy when he was kidnapped for 30 seconds in the middle east while he was not busy pleasuring a harem of 200 women.
Trying to learn of his past he told us that he lived in Greenwich which was great because we were looking for some directions around town. “I do all maps” he told us. “Could you tell us where we are on this map?”, pointing to a map on the wall. “No, I don’t do this map. I don’t waste my time with maps.” The conversation digressed into the ridiculous and soon we were being invited to fly away in a giant peach. I reminded him that a giant peach would be hard to navigate and we would likely get lost, where would we go? With such an important question to ponder, we agreed to meet back with him in 5 years at the same location to resolve this, he was grateful for the company, and the fish…
We headed down to Leicester Square to meet a University of Guelph alumni, Tony. As fate would have it there was a UK movie premiere of Fast & Furious and the square was packed. We really weren’t that interest in seeing the stars so we didn’t stay long. The stars must have been aligned because just as I started taking video Vin Diesel appeared and I caught a great video of him on the carpet. We left quickly and headed towards the Edinboro Castle, a Camden-town pub I discovered online while watching 10 quirky things to see in London. On the way to the pub, I stopped and asked directions of Suggs, the lead singer of Madness. To his credit, the directions were spot on despite not being towards his own pub.
To finish the evening off, we went back to London Bridge area to Shunt Lounge and Theatre company. If you ever get the change you should check out this establishment. It is pretty unique and very artsy. We got lost in a maze, saw a number of weird art exhibits, contributed to their limerick corner, got kicked off of an empty stage, and heard some good music all in side a series of massive underground vaults. The place is apparently shutting down in the summer so make your way there soon.
(Ed note – I’ll have to clean this article up later. Way to much to say/do with way too little time. sketchy connection at my hotel doesn’t help things either.)
Cheers
2 responses so far
wow you did a lot!!
I’ll come back with you in five years just to meet this guy. I want to be there when the peach takes off. How do you find these people Kroms? Incredible.