| Guards playing the star wars title track. We were first shocked and then thrilled that they were playing Star wars..so it took long to react and hence the video is only the ending of the performance | |
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Change of guard ceremony @ Buckingham Palace
Monday, September 18, 2006
LONDON
Just came back after a wonderful week in London. We had a "lovely" time. Lots of pictures even though they do not allow you to take pictures in most of the places and tons to write and talk about.
The best part about london is that it has still maintained the beauty of the Victorian/Georgian ages..Infact sometimes when you see the taxis going on a street you feel like you have gone back in time to the early 1900's or something.
(Click on images for larger view)
Can you believe this is London today??
Instructions/Warnings in Hindi :)
Here are the most memorable ones (our favorites)...
Burger King: the veggie burger and the spicy bean burger absolutely rocks!!!...Kind of weird to start with this as the first highlight but we do not get any good veggie burgers here :(
Afternoon tea: Cream tea and freshly made scone with clotted cream and jam..umm..umm!!
Greenwich: The city of Greenwich is really nice..about 30 mins from London. There are lots of nice shops and ofcourse the Greenwich market which has small stores with fantastic food, fresh food, clothes, art, etc.etc. Ofcourse the reason we went to Greenwich was to visit the royal observatory and the Prime Meridian (zero deg Longitude). It is situated on top of a hill in their main park. There is also a museum that explains how they came about with the concepts of latitude and longitude..very nice. It was also fun to just sit on top of the hill with a view of greenwich and london in the distance.
Greenwich Prime Meridian (Zero deg Longitude)
DP and me hemispheres apart but still together!!
Houses of Parliament: For about a month in summer (Aug-Sep), they open the palace and the mews and the houses of parliament for public viewing. So we got lucky and could actually go inside them. The Parliament building along with the Big ben are absolutely breathtaking from the outside, day or night. Inside too, it is really nice. It was a palace originally, so it still retains all the grandeur of one. We could visit the Westminster hall, the house of commons and the lords. There is a stark difference between the house of lords and commons, one very grand with intricate golden carvings and the other more like a working parliament. We sat one row away from where Tony Blair sits...Oh..so cool!! (Irrespective of what the brits say, he is pretty cool..not sure why he got involved in the war. But if you ignore that ..). The tour guide explained the history and the working of the parliament and all about the state opening of the parliament ceremony. Their parliamentary system is still undergoing changes. The house of lords was their supreme court equivalent till now, but now they are going to separate the judicial system from the house of lords. Really fantastic tour overall.
Houses of Parloament and Big Ben
Lord's: This was the best tour I have been on. We took the 10 am tour that takes you to the pavillion from where the players come out and the dressing room for the teams and where the players watch from. The tour is very comprehensive and you cover the entire stadium and the press box and also get to go till the edge of the field. And we got lucky to even watch a game between two local teams. It was a lot of fun. Absolutely loved it. The stadium is really lovely. We also visited the museum that had scorecards from the world cup India won, the ashes trophy etc. etc. a haven for cricket lovers.
Cricket match in progress at Lord's with pavillion in the background
Scorecard of the 1983 World Cup that India won
Oxford and bollywood ;) A really nice university city. We didn't go inside any of the colleges, just walked around the city. The architecture is very lovely. But the highlight of the trip was a bollywood movie shooting. They were shooting the movie Salaam E Ishq which is apparently a remake of Love Actually. Saw Priyanka Chopra getting ready to start dancing ;)
Priyanka Chopra during the shooting of Salaam-E-Ishq at Oxford
Bath: This is a Georgian/Roman town about 1.5 hours away from London. The town is very unigue, it has still preserved all the architecture. As the name suggests, it is famous for the Roman baths. The Bath Abbey is also really amazing..very similar to the Westminster Abbey. It was the hometown of Jane Austen (I bought the entire collection of Jane Austen for a really good deal :). One more unique thing to Bath is the Roman Crescent. Building shaped as a crescent...extremely lovely. We just walked around exploring the city and enjoying what we saw. And ofcourse, who can forget Sally Lunn Buns. Oh such soft melting in the mouth bun. Really nice.
The Roman Crescent in Bath (unable to capture the entire building in one picture..such a massive crescent shaped building)
Bath Abbey at Night
Bath
Changing of the Guard: It is so crowded. People line up and hold places to watch it over 3 hours before it starts. We got there about 15 mins before it started..so we did not have the greatest unblocked view. But it was fun neverthless. It went on for about 45 mins. In the middle they also had a music peformance by the guards...and guess what they played (besides other songs)...THE STAR WARS..!!! How cool!!
Change of Guard at Buckingham Palace
Some other highlights:
Notting Hill Carnival: It is a carribean festival and happens once a year and is attended by over a million londoners. Very cool..they had a parade and food stalls with carribean food..corn, tamale type veggie patties and ofcourse coconut water/nariyal pani..authentic style and they would even remove the malai once you are done drinking the water. They also had different "sound stages" for music..rap, techno and the carribean style music (reggae ??)and the amazing part was junta dancing carefree on the streets...something very uniquie to london/europe..:)
Entire london at beautiful Notting hill for the annual carribean carnival
St. Paul's Catherdral: Very impressive cathedral by Christopher Wren. The cathedral was destroyed many times - fire/war. The amazing part is the concept of a dome within a dome. this was the church where Diana married Prince Charles. And the views from the top are great. You get to see the tower bridge.
Tower of London: Really huge. We walked through the various towers. Understood the history of the various kings. Man.... their lives were ghory..with kings killing young princes, imprisioning their own sister and mother, etc..etc..for the sake of becoming the king. We also saw the crown jewels and the famous kohinoor diamond. It is so funny, they have a moving walkway in the room storing the jewels..so you can't really hang around for long around them. So we did the pradakshina multiple times :) And ofcourse ..no pictures!!
Tower of London from the South bank
Tower Bridge: Absolutely gorgeous..looks even lovelier at night.
Tower Bridge
Buckingham Palace and the royal Mews: It is absolutely breathtaking - The grand staircase, the huge staterooms, the high ceiling, the large windows overlooking acres and acres of well manicured gardens, the ballrooms etc. And the amazing part is that unlike a lot of other palaces, this one is a real working one with a real queen. They also had on display some 80 gowns and jewelry worn by the queen over the last 60 years. The royal mews was nice too..We saw the various horse carriages used by the royal family and their guests and ofcourse their rolls royce.
Buckingham Palace backyard
Westminster Abbey: The place famous for the coronation of the monarchs, their weddings and ofcourse where the royal burrials. The place is huge and is gothic style. We saw the coronation chair that looks really sad but it has been used since 1066. This is also the place where famous poets, writers, scientists, etc are buried or have their memorial eg: newton (Da Vinci code fame ;), jane austen, shakespeare, william wordsworth...etc...etc
Westminster Abbey
Harrods: This is the famous store by Mr Al-Fayed. It started as a grocery store and now you get anything and everything there. They have an entire floor on just sports stuff. Pretty cool. They had a memorial for Diana and Dodi since we were there around the anniversary of their tragic accident. The grocery section was really cool and we bought tons of things. The other memorable part of Harrods was the cars parked around it..bentleys, the most expensive mercs, rolls royce, etc. etc..(and ofcourse all chauffer driven)..
London Eye: The giant wheel on the Thames installed by British airways. The views are nice..but disappointed that you do not get to see the tower bridge or tower of london. The ideal time would be as the lights are just about to turn on.
Windsor Castle: This is another working castle used by the monrach for staying, hosting state events and functions like the "Order of the Garter". The castle is huge, kind of like a self-sufficient village. Saw some artifacts from India and ofcourse Queen Mary's doll house. WE missed the St. George's Chapel because they were conducting an event for a real Knight.
Windsor Castle
Stonehenge and Avebury henge: What can I say.. a bunch of stones lying around since 3000 BC ;). A lot of the stone circle has been destroyed but the amazing part is how they dragged such huge heavy stones from so many miles. Another thing is how they used these stone structures to figure out eclipses etc..lot of progress in astronomy. The drive was really nice since we went through towns/villages in the famous Cotswolds. It was a true british countryside experience with sheep and all..Reminded us of Jeeves and Wooster.
Stonehenge
Wimbledon: The tour is really nice. It would have been much nicer if we had gotten to see the centre court. It has currently been stripped completely for renovation to add a new much needed retractable roof. The courts were looking really lovely...with the grass all green and lovely. We visited the cafeteria where the players eat, the changing rooms, press box, etc. The museum is ok..not as great. The highlight of the museum was seeing the trophy with the names of the winners on it.
DP in the official press conference room at Wimbledon promising to beat Roger Federer next year :)
And more....
Madame Tussauds: Interesting..some of the models are very good while some not as great.
DP with Captain Jack Sparrow
221b Baker Street: The home of Sherlock homes. Did not visit the museum..just checked out the shop
British Musem: It is amazing..very huge. Some very nice exhibits on greece, italy and egypt. We spent about 2hours there...and one can clearly spend a whole day and still have things to explore.
Inside british museum - amazing all natural lighting
Library at British Museum. The ceiling is a beautiful dome
Trafalgar square: They had some musical performances but missed. Aweseome place to just hang around and just watch people...
Piccadily circus: Again just a place to hang around/shop etc. There was a spanish festival on Regent street on Sep 3. We got to catch that as well. And ofcourse this was where we had the Burger king where we ate like pigs....
Covent Garden: Not really a garden..a happening place like Quincy Market in Boston (or rather quincy was probably based on covent garden)
St. James Park: One really nice thing about London is the presence of huge parks (Hyde park, green park, kensington gardens, st. james park and ofcourse regent park) in the middle of the city. We need to thank the monarchy for not letting the city convert all this green area into concrete buildings. St. James park is lovely with a pond in the middle. There are about 30 different kinds of birds that you can see there. They have chairs for people to relax on. We just chilled on the lawns....
Was a great trip..but feels good to be back to water fountains and dollar prices ;)
The best part about london is that it has still maintained the beauty of the Victorian/Georgian ages..Infact sometimes when you see the taxis going on a street you feel like you have gone back in time to the early 1900's or something.
(Click on images for larger view)
Can you believe this is London today??
Instructions/Warnings in Hindi :)
Here are the most memorable ones (our favorites)...
Burger King: the veggie burger and the spicy bean burger absolutely rocks!!!...Kind of weird to start with this as the first highlight but we do not get any good veggie burgers here :(
Afternoon tea: Cream tea and freshly made scone with clotted cream and jam..umm..umm!!
Greenwich: The city of Greenwich is really nice..about 30 mins from London. There are lots of nice shops and ofcourse the Greenwich market which has small stores with fantastic food, fresh food, clothes, art, etc.etc. Ofcourse the reason we went to Greenwich was to visit the royal observatory and the Prime Meridian (zero deg Longitude). It is situated on top of a hill in their main park. There is also a museum that explains how they came about with the concepts of latitude and longitude..very nice. It was also fun to just sit on top of the hill with a view of greenwich and london in the distance.
Greenwich Prime Meridian (Zero deg Longitude)
DP and me hemispheres apart but still together!!
Houses of Parliament: For about a month in summer (Aug-Sep), they open the palace and the mews and the houses of parliament for public viewing. So we got lucky and could actually go inside them. The Parliament building along with the Big ben are absolutely breathtaking from the outside, day or night. Inside too, it is really nice. It was a palace originally, so it still retains all the grandeur of one. We could visit the Westminster hall, the house of commons and the lords. There is a stark difference between the house of lords and commons, one very grand with intricate golden carvings and the other more like a working parliament. We sat one row away from where Tony Blair sits...Oh..so cool!! (Irrespective of what the brits say, he is pretty cool..not sure why he got involved in the war. But if you ignore that ..). The tour guide explained the history and the working of the parliament and all about the state opening of the parliament ceremony. Their parliamentary system is still undergoing changes. The house of lords was their supreme court equivalent till now, but now they are going to separate the judicial system from the house of lords. Really fantastic tour overall.
Houses of Parloament and Big Ben
Lord's: This was the best tour I have been on. We took the 10 am tour that takes you to the pavillion from where the players come out and the dressing room for the teams and where the players watch from. The tour is very comprehensive and you cover the entire stadium and the press box and also get to go till the edge of the field. And we got lucky to even watch a game between two local teams. It was a lot of fun. Absolutely loved it. The stadium is really lovely. We also visited the museum that had scorecards from the world cup India won, the ashes trophy etc. etc. a haven for cricket lovers.
Cricket match in progress at Lord's with pavillion in the background
Scorecard of the 1983 World Cup that India won
Oxford and bollywood ;) A really nice university city. We didn't go inside any of the colleges, just walked around the city. The architecture is very lovely. But the highlight of the trip was a bollywood movie shooting. They were shooting the movie Salaam E Ishq which is apparently a remake of Love Actually. Saw Priyanka Chopra getting ready to start dancing ;)
Priyanka Chopra during the shooting of Salaam-E-Ishq at Oxford
Bath: This is a Georgian/Roman town about 1.5 hours away from London. The town is very unigue, it has still preserved all the architecture. As the name suggests, it is famous for the Roman baths. The Bath Abbey is also really amazing..very similar to the Westminster Abbey. It was the hometown of Jane Austen (I bought the entire collection of Jane Austen for a really good deal :). One more unique thing to Bath is the Roman Crescent. Building shaped as a crescent...extremely lovely. We just walked around exploring the city and enjoying what we saw. And ofcourse, who can forget Sally Lunn Buns. Oh such soft melting in the mouth bun. Really nice.
The Roman Crescent in Bath (unable to capture the entire building in one picture..such a massive crescent shaped building)
Bath Abbey at Night
Bath
Changing of the Guard: It is so crowded. People line up and hold places to watch it over 3 hours before it starts. We got there about 15 mins before it started..so we did not have the greatest unblocked view. But it was fun neverthless. It went on for about 45 mins. In the middle they also had a music peformance by the guards...and guess what they played (besides other songs)...THE STAR WARS..!!! How cool!!
Change of Guard at Buckingham Palace
Some other highlights:
Notting Hill Carnival: It is a carribean festival and happens once a year and is attended by over a million londoners. Very cool..they had a parade and food stalls with carribean food..corn, tamale type veggie patties and ofcourse coconut water/nariyal pani..authentic style and they would even remove the malai once you are done drinking the water. They also had different "sound stages" for music..rap, techno and the carribean style music (reggae ??)and the amazing part was junta dancing carefree on the streets...something very uniquie to london/europe..:)
Entire london at beautiful Notting hill for the annual carribean carnival
St. Paul's Catherdral: Very impressive cathedral by Christopher Wren. The cathedral was destroyed many times - fire/war. The amazing part is the concept of a dome within a dome. this was the church where Diana married Prince Charles. And the views from the top are great. You get to see the tower bridge.
Tower of London: Really huge. We walked through the various towers. Understood the history of the various kings. Man.... their lives were ghory..with kings killing young princes, imprisioning their own sister and mother, etc..etc..for the sake of becoming the king. We also saw the crown jewels and the famous kohinoor diamond. It is so funny, they have a moving walkway in the room storing the jewels..so you can't really hang around for long around them. So we did the pradakshina multiple times :) And ofcourse ..no pictures!!
Tower of London from the South bank
Tower Bridge: Absolutely gorgeous..looks even lovelier at night.
Tower Bridge
Buckingham Palace and the royal Mews: It is absolutely breathtaking - The grand staircase, the huge staterooms, the high ceiling, the large windows overlooking acres and acres of well manicured gardens, the ballrooms etc. And the amazing part is that unlike a lot of other palaces, this one is a real working one with a real queen. They also had on display some 80 gowns and jewelry worn by the queen over the last 60 years. The royal mews was nice too..We saw the various horse carriages used by the royal family and their guests and ofcourse their rolls royce.
Buckingham Palace backyard
Westminster Abbey: The place famous for the coronation of the monarchs, their weddings and ofcourse where the royal burrials. The place is huge and is gothic style. We saw the coronation chair that looks really sad but it has been used since 1066. This is also the place where famous poets, writers, scientists, etc are buried or have their memorial eg: newton (Da Vinci code fame ;), jane austen, shakespeare, william wordsworth...etc...etc
Westminster Abbey
Harrods: This is the famous store by Mr Al-Fayed. It started as a grocery store and now you get anything and everything there. They have an entire floor on just sports stuff. Pretty cool. They had a memorial for Diana and Dodi since we were there around the anniversary of their tragic accident. The grocery section was really cool and we bought tons of things. The other memorable part of Harrods was the cars parked around it..bentleys, the most expensive mercs, rolls royce, etc. etc..(and ofcourse all chauffer driven)..
London Eye: The giant wheel on the Thames installed by British airways. The views are nice..but disappointed that you do not get to see the tower bridge or tower of london. The ideal time would be as the lights are just about to turn on.
Windsor Castle: This is another working castle used by the monrach for staying, hosting state events and functions like the "Order of the Garter". The castle is huge, kind of like a self-sufficient village. Saw some artifacts from India and ofcourse Queen Mary's doll house. WE missed the St. George's Chapel because they were conducting an event for a real Knight.
Windsor Castle
Stonehenge and Avebury henge: What can I say.. a bunch of stones lying around since 3000 BC ;). A lot of the stone circle has been destroyed but the amazing part is how they dragged such huge heavy stones from so many miles. Another thing is how they used these stone structures to figure out eclipses etc..lot of progress in astronomy. The drive was really nice since we went through towns/villages in the famous Cotswolds. It was a true british countryside experience with sheep and all..Reminded us of Jeeves and Wooster.
Stonehenge
Wimbledon: The tour is really nice. It would have been much nicer if we had gotten to see the centre court. It has currently been stripped completely for renovation to add a new much needed retractable roof. The courts were looking really lovely...with the grass all green and lovely. We visited the cafeteria where the players eat, the changing rooms, press box, etc. The museum is ok..not as great. The highlight of the museum was seeing the trophy with the names of the winners on it.
DP in the official press conference room at Wimbledon promising to beat Roger Federer next year :)
And more....
Madame Tussauds: Interesting..some of the models are very good while some not as great.
DP with Captain Jack Sparrow
221b Baker Street: The home of Sherlock homes. Did not visit the museum..just checked out the shop
British Musem: It is amazing..very huge. Some very nice exhibits on greece, italy and egypt. We spent about 2hours there...and one can clearly spend a whole day and still have things to explore.
Inside british museum - amazing all natural lighting
Library at British Museum. The ceiling is a beautiful dome
Trafalgar square: They had some musical performances but missed. Aweseome place to just hang around and just watch people...
Piccadily circus: Again just a place to hang around/shop etc. There was a spanish festival on Regent street on Sep 3. We got to catch that as well. And ofcourse this was where we had the Burger king where we ate like pigs....
Covent Garden: Not really a garden..a happening place like Quincy Market in Boston (or rather quincy was probably based on covent garden)
St. James Park: One really nice thing about London is the presence of huge parks (Hyde park, green park, kensington gardens, st. james park and ofcourse regent park) in the middle of the city. We need to thank the monarchy for not letting the city convert all this green area into concrete buildings. St. James park is lovely with a pond in the middle. There are about 30 different kinds of birds that you can see there. They have chairs for people to relax on. We just chilled on the lawns....
Was a great trip..but feels good to be back to water fountains and dollar prices ;)
Friday, September 15, 2006
Random thoughts - Sep 15
My dad sent a picture of the 1994 pulitzer prize winning photograph a couple of days back. I have seen this before, but seeing it again just made me realize that how some people are deprived some of the most basic necessities in life while we spend hours depressed and cribbing about high house prices, falling stocks, etc..etc. We should realize how fortunate we are and be thankful that atleast we don't have to worry whether we will get anything to eat within the next week. Secondly we should all take a vow that we will not waste a single morsel of food. I also always wondered why someone would even think about clicking a picture in such a scenario instead of just going and picking up the child and giving some food.
Last week the americans celebrated Katie Couric hosting the evening news. It is the first time that a woman is hosting solo, the evening news on the national channels...oh my god how can a woman report news in a crisis situation. Such a pity..makes you wonder how much more longer it will be before the country will even consider (let alone vote) a woman as President.
The governator signed a bill today banning the use of cell phones while driving. It took them 5 years...5 years, to create the bill. My God...is it lack of common sense or just a way of ensuring job security. And it is going to be in effect only 2 years from now (2008).
On the funny side:
- A man was forced to marry a goat in Sudan ;)
- Read this article about elephants and birth control ;). If only they could enforce it on humans !!
Last week the americans celebrated Katie Couric hosting the evening news. It is the first time that a woman is hosting solo, the evening news on the national channels...oh my god how can a woman report news in a crisis situation. Such a pity..makes you wonder how much more longer it will be before the country will even consider (let alone vote) a woman as President.
The governator signed a bill today banning the use of cell phones while driving. It took them 5 years...5 years, to create the bill. My God...is it lack of common sense or just a way of ensuring job security. And it is going to be in effect only 2 years from now (2008).
On the funny side:
- A man was forced to marry a goat in Sudan ;)
- Read this article about elephants and birth control ;). If only they could enforce it on humans !!
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