Stalking Boujis (Day 9)

This morning we had breakfast as usual downstairs and then checked out. Marty and I said our farewells in Penge and he headed to the train and I to the bus. I took the bus up to Forest Hill, where I was going to be staying with Lizzy and Robin for tonight before jetting off tomorrow. After dumping my crap, Lizzy and I zoomed off, once again, for central London. After arriving at Charing Cross, we hopped on the bus (double-decker, natch) for a ride through Trafalgar Square…









…Picadilly Circus…



…past Green Park…



…and past the Wellington Arch.



We finally arrived in South Kensington near the Albert Memorial.


Ehh, you can’t see it well, but it’s just a giant gold statue of a man reading. This statue was commissioned by Queen Victoria to commemorate her late consort.

We also saw this fancy building…ack! I actually forget what it was. But it was nice.



By this point, we were starving. While in search of food, Lizzy was kind enough to show me the place I had only heard about in stories (about the raucous behavior of the Princes William and Harry) – the infamous Boujis.



Pronounced “Boo-geez”, this place, I understand, is the “it” place in London if you are young, hip, rich and dying to socialize with all the aforementioned (if you are not). Next time you read a story about William or Harry partying, chances it is either at Boujis or Mahiki. Now you know.

We ended up eating at a restaurant called Little Japan (which was owned by Chinese, naturally.) After lunch, we headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), where Lizzy works…colour me impressed.



The museum was quite brilliant indeed. They had many different galleries specific to different countries, as well as galleries devoted to glass, metalwork, ceramics, sculptures, and fashion. The fashion gallery was interesting as they had an extremely rare Vivienne Westwood shirt…which I had to press my face against the glass to examine.



I was pumped to see the Japanese gallery, but was somewhat disappointed by the lack of woodblock paintings.





The next best part of the museum was the area where they had the plaster-casts of various famous things around the world.
















This was a miniature sculpture which was extremely impressive. The entire thing was about the size of my hand.



We then decided to check out the cafeteria, which was very uncafeteria-like with it’s decorated ceiling, glamorous soft-lighting and stained-glass windows, and munched on some dessert.



After checking out the gift shop and discovering they sold tatebanko (hooray!), we headed over to the Science Museum on the next block. Fantastically, these museums charge no admission and this one promise an original space module (not specifying command, lunar or otherwise) from the Apollo 10 mission. Psyched as any former (or current) space nerd would be, I found no original component and was somewhat disappointed. But they had other space-related items.


Fake. Tin foil!





After we’d had enough there, we headed over to our next museum stop, the Natural History Musuem, where our only way up was through Mother Earth:



There were lots of things going on inside.






Cute.

We also got to experience a simulated earthquake in simulated Japan. They had Pocky on the shelves and everything.

Our next stop was the exclusive Fortnum & Mason’s, which we had been to earlier in our visit. This time, I actually purchased several items and felt like an upper-class citizen. This involved buying a card for $10. Yikes. At least they had cool lights on the front of the building.



Our last stop of the night was at a little joint called Pizza Express. It sounded like a fast food joint but was not. It was a cute little place where the waitresses were quite terrible. This made us very cross. The pizza was good though, and again, I had to cut it myself. Boo.





This was the end of the line for mine and Lizzy’s exciting adventures. With a bit of sleep, I was up and gone by 7:40 AM to battle rush hour on the London Underground and make my way to Heathrow. Ten hours after departure and many snoozes later, I arrived back in Vancouver in one piece.

Lizzy was as fantastic of a host and friend as I hoped she would be and hopefully it won’t be another 15 years before we meet up again…though I highly doubt it will be. Thank you so much for everything. Cheerio London.