11/2/2014
While in France, Dad read online (the first thing he does when he gets into the hotel room is boot up the computer to read newspapers online) that the Tower of London would have a ceramic poppy display to commemorate the fallen soldiers of WWI. He suggested we should go, so thanks, Dad, for the tip. If he hadn't read about it, we wouldn't have even known, because there aren't a lot of advertisements in London about it. Every ad we see pertains to West End shows.
We ate a piping hot beef & onion pasty smothered with cheese in the comforts of our hotel room (yay microwave!). Angel got really hot eating it, which was perfect because once we stepped out of the hotel, it was raining and pretty damn cold. From our window, I couldn't tell it was raining. Yes, the ground was wet but we thought the rain had stopped. Nope. Just very invisible rain drops >.<
The Circle line from St. Pancras to Tower Hill is supposed to be a smooth, continuous journey.
That didn't happen.
The tube stopped at Aldgate station (one stop away from Tower Hill). An announcement was made that, due to engineering works, Tower Hill would be closed today. So anyone who wants to go to the Tower of London ON A SUNDAY would need to get out at Aldgate and walk to Tower Hill.
Well, this is a first.
We got out and it seemed everybody was going to Tower of London. The flow of people was like one I've never seen before--I mean, there's tourist flows, and there's tourist flows. This was on a massive scale of exodus. There were signs right out of Aldgate directing you to Tower Hill, but you really didn't need it because you just follow everybody else.
Once there:
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| Tower of London with ceramic red poppies |
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| Tower Bridge |
They really should have made the signs better once you get to Tower of London. We followed everyone else to the front entrance where they sell tickets, but there's 3 Tower workers standing on platforms with bullhorns announcing that if you want to see the poppies, this isn't the place for the greatest view. You need to cross the street and go right. Hunh?
So, like most people, we turned back around, walked the length of the Tower of London to where we started from. I'd seen people going down steps over there when we first got here, but because it wasn't the "front entrance," I just followed everyone else. Turns out, the stairs is the starting point for viewing the red poppies.
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| The starting point |
It was raining pretty hard at this point and most people were soaking wet. A lot of people had ponchos, which we've been eyeing at Primark. We couldn't justify buying it at the time (9 pounds each), but comes in handy here, doesn't it? Everyone was squeezing by each other, but everyone was rather cordial to each other. Hey, everyone's in the same boat, right?
You just have to wait for someone to leave the railing so you can squeeze in to take pictures. People will ask you politely if you're done, so they can take your spot after you leave.
One elderly lady was chatting with her friend and (yes, we eavesdropped--can't help it cuz they were literally 2 inches away from us) she commented that the newspapers had warned people to stay away from the Tower of London this weekend because they anticipated there would be waaaay too many people.
They weren't kidding.
The display is rather magnificent. Angel said it reminds her of Monet, where individually, the flowers (or strokes, in the Monet analogy) don't seem like much. But as a whole, the display is breathtaking.
The red poppy display is by Paul Cummins. It's called "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red."
In total, there are 888,246 poppies covering the lawn of the Tower of London, one for every British military death during WWI.
The last poppy will be "planted" on November 11, 2014.
You can buy a ceramic poppy for 25 pounds each, of which 10% of profits will go to charity.
We got lucky and saw the volunteers installing the individual poppies. They first pound the black stick into the ground, then they attach the red poppy on top.
Even the military joined in to help:
The individual poppies pre-"planting." Because it was raining so heavily (my shoes, socks, jeans and purse got all soaked), the paint on the poppies started bleeding into the white packaging;
Kinda like painting the roses red, no? :)
I really liked how they made the poppies cascade out of a window:
The weather forecast (from 2 different sources: Google and BBC) said that there would be rain overnight, but the rain should stop by 1pm. They were pretty on the mark. By the time we waded out of the Tower of London crowd, it was noon. We originally thought the whole display would take 10 minutes to view, but because of so much foot traffic, we ended up being there for over 2 hours.
From Tower of London to Petticoat Lane is a 5-10 minute walk, and this was our ultimate destination of the day. We bought so many clothes from Petticoat last time, and I love, love, love the jacket I bought from there. The stuff is cheap (relatively) and most of the stalls sell overstock clothes from big name brands, like Zara, Primark, Marks & Spencer.
One stall sold all these pretty dresses for 2 pounds each, because there's a bit something off on each one and the retailers couldn't sell them. But, as Baby is one freakin' awesome seamstress, this stuff is right up her alley. Especially since the price of these fabrics would normally cost an arm and a leg.
Our haul of the day:
So. London on a Sunday night. If you're not into pubs and restaurants, then it's pretty much dead. We were strolling around, la-di-da-ing through Marks & Spencer's food hall. We then went into Primark. Right when we stepped into the store, there was an announcement to please finish your purchases, as the store would be closing in 20 minutes. Say what??? It's not even 6pm yet!
Well, as it turns out, just about every store closes at 6pm on Sunday night. >.< We'd planned to go to Sainsbury's after Primark to get some more curry and those deliciously yummy flapjacks and caramel squares.
Thank God we bought extra curry yesterday!
So Sunday night is a very good night to book shows to musicals, operas, ballets and the like, cuz there ain't anything else to do.
It's crazy in the UK, how many pubs are all full of people. Even on Halloween, when we thought people would go to Halloween parties, a lot of people showed up in costumes at the pubs. I do wonder the percentage of Brits' income that goes toward beer per annum?
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