Tuesday 18th March: Oxford Sreet, Mr. Bassey, Waterloo Station and the London Eye

Evelyn got us switched to a bigger room yesterday, so now we have a nearly king size bed and more storage in a larger armoir, with a window to the front street--although it's a floor to ceiling window, it will not open for a little air.

Larger room at Grand Royale

A few things I've noted so far:
The toilets have two nested buttons on top,  one smaller with a single dot, the other larger,, with two dots.  You can guess what they do! It is a water saving device that I'm surprised hasn't been introduced in California at least!

Also, the wall plugs, which are 240 Volts and with much bigger pugs, all have an on-off switch next to them!  When I plug my converter to USB charger device, you still have to turn the plug on!  How wierd is that!

Tuesday morning we took the bus from the hotel, straight across Bayswater and got off at Selfridges, the department store popularized just recently in the PBS series. We took pictures out front, then walked through the place, but when I saw a normal pair of jeans for L150, I realized that I didn't want to buy anything in that store!

Selfridge's Dept. Store

Me out front of famous department store

Then we continued on that line to the same train station we came into last night, directly underneath the Shard.

The Shard, this time from directly below.

We checked out the lobby of the skyscraper and found that it costs over L20 each to take the elevator (or "lift" in England) to the top.  I'm sure the view would have been great, but it seemed an expensive ride and we declined (having already purchased tickets for the London Eye). We found out that the the observation deck, on the 72nd floor is 804' from the ground, surpassing the London Eye (at a little over half that) as the highest public viewing point in the city, and it was completed only a little over a year ago (February, 2013).

We then boarded a train and headed south.

One of the many styles of surface trains, for local travel

Evie on board the trrain

This time our journey was to the former village, now suburb, of Dulwich (pronounced "Dullidge") in order to visit another one of Evie's friends, this time an long-time friend of her parents, a gentleman by the name of Ted Bassey, long retired and in his 80's. We walked to his house from the station, only about 5 minutes, and after the a pleasant tea and talk, he drove us in his car to the golf club for lunch.

It was very elegant, perched up on a hill providing all a view across to downtown London off in the distance and golfers  walking on the course; no one had golf carts and strolled around in the on/off light drizzle.

The golf course with barely visible downtown

Evie and Mr. Bassey

I chose a very unusual option from the menu, pork belly.  I've had lots of versions of pork before but never that.  It was a little fatty but featured baked potatoes, beans and carrots and a nice gravy which was was quite good.

Pork belly at the country club

Mr. Bassey kindly dropped us at the station afterwards and we headed back into town. The trains are clean, frequent, on time, and very fast. We got off at the last stop, right underneath the Shard once again, took the tube from there to Waterloo station, immortalized for me in several Kinks songs ("Waterloo Sunset", and "Return to Waterloo"), and certainly one of the places I wanted to see. It was yet another magnificent station, huge glass ceilings arching overhead, a huge electronic message board listing all the schedules, restaurants, shops, and lots of people. It is said to be Britain's busiest station, with over 92 million passengers a year. It has more platforms (21)and a greater floor area (more than 800 feet in length) than any other station in the United Kingdom. I read that a station was opened on the site in 1848, named after the site of Napoleon's defeat, a huge and much celebrated British victory--and a subsequent local area name, major street and even a bridge. The current building dates to 1922.  The main pedestrian entrance has a large arch, called the Victory Arch, dedicated to train employees killed during the first war.

Part of the concourse

The Victory Arch at Waterloo Station

A close up of sculpture above the Arch (from the web)

A large four-faced clock hangs in the middle of the main concourse. Meeting "under the clock at Waterloo" is a considered a traditional rendezvous spot.

The clock in Waterloo station (from the web)

One of many platforms at London Waterloo (web photo)

I took some pictures inside, but certainly didn't explore the entire complex, which includes the tube station underground and a smaller station next door called Waterloo East, and even 5 more platforms that until recently hosted the Eurostar express, called Waterloo International, but that was transferred to St. Pancras in 2007.

In addition to being the subject of several of Ray Davies' tunes (the Kinks), it has been used in many movies, including "The Bourne Ultimatum" among many others, and even TV, including "Waking the Dead" and our favorite, the BBC series called "MI5" here, but originally "Spooks" in England. 

After the tour of Waterloo Station, we then exited through the north walkway, and passed the huge Imax theater across the street, then wandered the several blocks back to the river where we found ourselves at the London Eye, the huge ferris wheel type viewing device erected for the Millenium celebration in 2000 and also referred to as "The Millennium Wheel".

 

One the way we encountered one of the great information signs that are found throughout London, showing you not only where you are, with a detail inset, but a circle showing a five minute walk radius.  This one shows the Waterloo complex, the London eye, and three of the bridges.

Approaching the London Eye. The building on the left houses the Lambeth County Hall, two hotels, and an aquarium!

The London Eye was the tallest Observation Wheel in the world when it was completed in 1999, but has been surpassed twice since, although none has the cantilevered design that makes this one unique, and it is still the tallest such viewing platform in all of Europe at 443 feet!  It serves a little like the Eiffel Tower does for Paris, a symbol and place to view the city, although I imagine mostly foreign tourists like us utilize it. It has a predecessor, the Great Wheel, built for the Empire of India Exhibition in London, opened to the public in 1895, and at 308' was a real whopper for its day.  Unfortunately it was a wooden Ferris Wheel, and only lasted until 1906.  This one is all steel, with parts of its construction meted out to various countries in Europe, and has already outlasted the earlier wheel, and should stand for a long time.

My river view of the Eye.  Note the cantilever support, unlike most Ferris Wheels, supported on both sides.

 It has 32 air-conditioned cabins, each can hold some 25 people when necessary, although we were lucky and had no wait and only a half dozen passengers sharing the cabin. It keeps the cabins stable through an ingenious device, always horizontal no swaying, and takes you up over 400 feet--very scary if you look down, and I could hardly bring myself to stand while it was at the top, but for the rest of the ride, which takes about a half hour,I was able to tolerate the heigth pretty well..  Very good views all over London, although looking into the sunny side wasn't optimal. The weather was good, so it was a nice ride. The wheel doesn't stop--it goes slow enough that people can get on and off quite easily.

Evie on the Eye

View to northeast from the Eye

View to southeast, featuring Waterloo station at lower right

   After completing the 30 minute revolution, we walked along the river's edge, called the Albert Embankment on this stretch of the river, and bought some postcards at a stall.

Evie at British souvenir stand on the Embankment

 We then continued on foot over the Westminster Bridge to the famous house of Parliament with Big Ben chiming as we got there.

House of Parliament from the Westminster Bridge

Big Ben, with nice late afternoon sun!

I got my required photos, tourist snaps of course, but the light was nice and I think they turned out better than I expected.

We finally mounted another bus that took us back to the hotel for a rest before our date with another of Evie's old friends, Angie and her son Jeremy.  After an hour's rest, we made it back to the tube for the journey north to the suburb of Kilbern.

Jeremy and Angie were waiting for us at a pub a block from the underground. We had a drink and talked a bit, then headed over to an Indian restaurant that they frequented, where we enjoyed a nice long meal.  Jeremy's wife Grace showed up--she had to drop their daughter at school or something--and it was so much fun that they invited us to have a Sunday Roast at their house when we return to London, so we set a date and headed back to the hotel by 11PM for another long day!