The London Trip: A Grand and Ancient Place

It's London! It is here that countless years
have passed and made this city very rich -
not just in pounds, but culturally too.

When I got off the coach, a river flowed
and I looked in the map to find its name.
And lo! Behold the mighty Thames ahead!
Across the river stood a Ferris Wheel -
the London Eye, or else, the London Wheel.
I tagged with Shihai and his other friends
and Big Ben loomed before our very eyes.
Onwards we went, and here I stopped a bit
and took a photograph or two. Once done,
I turned and found that I had lost my group.
So once again, I found myself alone
inside a sprawling city I knew not.

London Eye

Big Ben

 Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster

But luckily, I had a map - so then
I pulled it out to plan where I would go.
First stop - I headed to Trafalgar Square
where I saw Nelson's Column and a ship
enclosed within a bottle, and the steps
that led to Britain's Portrait Gallery.
From there, I took the tube from Charing Cross
and found myself afoot at Baker Street -
where Holmes, the master sleuth, had lived.
Of course I walked the wronger way
and though I saw a hotel with his name
I did not see his "house", or where he lived.
It's later that I found my poor mistake.

HMS Victory in a bottle

 Baker Street station. The Sherlock Holmes is made of thousands of small ones

I then rode out a path to see King's Cross -
to see where Harry Potter left for school.
They'd set a little enclave with a sign
that proudly showed the platform number there
in all its glory, fraction though it be.
A trolley set inside the wall was there
to make it seem as if it's disappeared
so you could try and push the rest of it
and see if you got through. I did not try.

Platform 9 3/4

From here I took the subway south and west
to Russell Square; a tourist place was near
whose name is featured right below this line.

The British Museum

Inside, I saw so many artifacts.

The things they have quite make me shake and weep

A thousand years or more of history

all sat within this one tremendous place!

I saw some sculptures Egypt made long back,

and many more that Greece and Rome had made.

I saw a hall that was entirely

a place to learn about Enlightenment.

I saw all Europe's treasures at a stretch

and many that were found far east of there -

from India and Eastern Asia, too.

Below's a tiny sample of it all.

Horus

Venus

Something Greco-Roman

 Hercules

 Buddha

 Shakespeare, Charles I, and Cromwell

An antique clock

And then it closed. It's just as well, because

I'd have to find the Globe Theatre soon.

And I was hungry - chicken pad see ew

became my dinner, with a glass of tea.

Chicken Pad See Ew and Thai Iced Tea

And then I had to hurry to the Globe.

Well-versed I was by now to ride the Tube,

and I crossed Southwark Bridge quite in a rush,

although I truly marveled that I just

had walked across the Thames in all my rush!

So all's well that end's well, it is true.

And that in fact was what we watched

inside the Globe! But my poor knees

did ache from standing fully through the play,

for we were standing yard, just like old days!

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

The stage

The final bow of the cast of All's Well That Ends Well

And that was really all I did that day

I knew I must come back; for how could I

consent to dream of seeing all this land

in all its stately splendor, in a day?

But that will be for yet another day

for I am far too tired for that now.

- originally written August 1