Blossoming Seoul: What's a girl to do?

This practice of traveling on my own is new so I had some trouble deciding what the heck to do with myself on my first real day spent in London. With nobody requiring me to wake up early, I rolled out of bed around 8:30am, showered, and made it down to breakfast around 9:30. As I ate I allowed Rick Steves to help me plan my day and decided to take a morning jaunt out to Greenwich. My handy London Pass got me a free ticket down the river and I sat back and enjoyed watching the city pass by as I cruised down the Thames.

"Action Figure Jane" joined me on the river cruise. Here she is with the Houses of Parliament in the background.

Three trips to London and I still haven't taken a spin on The Eye.

Cleopatra's Needle

Three red buses crossing the real London Bridge.

St. Paul's as seen from the River Thames.

The Tower of London

Tower Bridge lifting to allow a ship to pass beneath.

The merry ship filled with teenage train-ees hanging from the masts.

Once in Greenwich I did what every good science teacher does…headed for the observatory. It was a good hike up to the top of a hill, which was made longer by the closure of the park that usually serves as a short cut of sorts (they are already making preparations for the equestrian events that will be held there during the 2012 Olympic Games). Unfortunately I missed seeing the official time ball drop at precisely 1:00pm, but I did get to stand with one foot in the eastern hemisphere and the other in the western hemisphere at the same time. Yep, the Prime Meridian runs straight through Greenwich and this little town has the distinction of regulating world time. I got the privilege of watching a group of boys from a school group all making nice and standing with smiles on their faces as their teacher tried to coax them all into one big line for a photo. As I waited in the queue I made small talk with another British young man who looked to be about middle school age who was planning to shock his teacher by “planking” the prime meridian while she filmed him.

Yep, I'm in Greenwich!

Standards of time and measure.

The official "time ball" which rises, then drops at precisely 1pm GMT each day.

Standing on the Prime Meridian!

Amusing schoolboys...

View of London from Greenwich.

Standing directly on the dividing line between the Eastern and Western hemispheres!

After exploring the observatory exhibits I decided I couldn’t leave without visiting the brand new planetarium. I joined two groups of school children (the woman who sold me the ticket felt the need to warn me before I purchased the £6 ticket to which I answered, “I’m a teacher, I think I can handle it”) to watch the 25-minute show. To be honest, I don’t know how much of the show I actually managed to stay awake for, but what I did see was pretty cool. Still travel weary, I skipped the Maritime and Military museums and opted not to visit the Queen’s House. On my way to find the DLR I came across the daily market—if you know me, I’m a shopper at heart and I love finding cool and unique things, so I was in heaven. There were several funky stalls and I made a few small purchases to bring home before grabbing the train back into the city.

A cute little garden store in Greenwich.

Before returning to my hotel for the day I decided to check out the Tower Bridge Experience. I’ve photographed and driven across the bridge before but I really wanted to take in the view from the pedestrian walkways that were built to allow people access across the bridge during a lift. I have to say, it wasn’t the phenomenal view I was hoping for, but it was still pretty neat to walk across the bridge high above the other pedestrians and cars. It still amazes me how humans managed to engineer such things when technology was much more primitive than what we have today.

A view from the pedestrian walkway of Tower Bridge.

Imagine being the men who hammered in all of those rivets!

Inside the engine room where the bridge mechanism used to be steam powered.

Just in case you get a hankering to wrench on the old bridge mechanism.

I need one of these signs for my classroom--hehe!

From the bridge I could see the Tate Modern Museum, which stands directly in front of my hotel, so I walked along the Thames nearly the entire way back. As always, the distance was a bit longer than it appeared but I discovered several restaurants to check out during my stay. I forced myself out of the hotel for dinner with the laptop in tow to do a bit of homework before heading to bed. More fun awaits tomorrow and hopefully some sunny weather to go with it!