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London 19 March 2006 - 27 March 2006 |
airlai.com ericlai.com |
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18-19 March 2006: SFO
to Heathrow; Alperton; London walk; Belgo 20 March 2006: Harrod's; Imperial War Museum; [Saatchi Gallery]; Wagamama 21 March 2006: Notting Hill; British Museum; National Gallery; [Covent Garden]; Jindalle 22 March 2006: Natural History Museum; Science Museum; Al-Dar 23 March 2006: Tas Pide; Tate Modern; St. Paul's Cathedral; Covent Garden; Southall 24 March 2006: London Aquarium; Westminster Abbey; Harrod's; Belgo 25 March 2006: Brighton (Beach + Pier); Jindalle 26-27 March 2006: Oxford (Cafe Opium); Tee Kung back to the AirLai.com homepage |
Wednesday, 22
March 2006 It turned out that Ishaan would be working from home Wednesday, so we had the chance to grab lunch and check out a couple nearby museums during the day. We hadn't had Indian food since the first day of the trip, so I consulted my Knopf mapguide and came up with a promising Chelsea-area possibility: Chutney Mary. We walked about half an hour down King's Road, excited at the prospect of an Indian lunch. It should perhaps come as a surprise to no one, then, that when we finally arrived at Chutney Mary, it was dark and empty inside -- inexplicably closed at noon on a Wednesday! Mildly disappointed, we walked back up King's Road to another Indian restaurant we had passed on the way. We walked down the entry stairs and found one person inside -- who proceeded to let us know that this place, too, was closed! Between this and the Covent Garden attempt of the previous evening, I was getting the sense that a lot of businesses just don't bother to open half the time. How do they make money? The futile search for Indian food on
King's Road wasn't all a waste of time. We saw some fairly
entertaining stuff en route: Finally, we settled for a place called Emperor Chinese, which offered up dim sum in addition to its regular menu. I had turnip cake, fish dumplings, and (my all-time favorite Chinese dish) pan fried seafood noodles. The fare compared quite favorably to the food from back home, so definitely no disappointment here. After lunch, we went back to Ishaan's
place for a while, before embarking on the short ten-minute walk to the
Natural History Museum.
I guess all natural history museums are
sort of like this, but it was basically a zoo with dead animals, plastic animals, bad artwork, and vegetarians. After checking out the Natural History
Museum, we headed next door to the
Science Museum.
Among its exhibits were fancy vehicles controversial technology, and an attempt at modern art (yes, you
were supposed to touch this). Ultimately, the Natural History and Science museums offered up some interesting exhibits, but neither was terribly impressive. We headed home -- I grabbed a chicken samosa on the way -- and hung out for a couple hours before heading back to King's Road for dinner at Al-Dar, a Lebanese restaurant that Ishaan recommended. It turned out to be excellent; I had the chicken shawarma and the "hommos" (hummus), and washed it down with a Lebanese beer. Good food, good times. The trip had reached its halfway point. |
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