Thames and St. Paul's

Posted on 2008/10/12 12:41:17 (October 2008).

[Saturday 11th October]
Had quite a touristy day out in London today, but a very nice one nonetheless.

Chie had somehow got wind that the Sherlock Holmes film currently being made by Guy Richie would be filming in St. Paul's around this weekend. Given that she has long running obsession with Jude Law (and in her defence I'd like to add this goes back probably a decade long before his current uber-fame) she wanted to go along just on the off chance she might bump into him. So, in a similar vein to a grumpy father escorting his daughter to a pop concert, I agreed to go along as well.

Well, Chie didn't get to see Jude (it turns out his bits at St. Paul's had already been filmed the day before) but it did make for a jolly nice day out.

Given that St. Paul's is just across the Millenium Bridge from the Tate Modern, and we live within walking distance of the Tate Britain, we decided to take advantage of the "Tate to Tate" boat service was a nice alternative way of getting there. This was really nice - for a mere £4 each we had a lovely 20 minute trip along the Thames, with some great views of the Houses of Parliament etc.

As it happens a friend of ours works in St. Paul's, so we thought it would be nice to pop in to see him and go for lunch together. On this particular day as it turns out he was working in the golden gallery - the bit right at the top of the dome - which meant climbing the full 530 steps all the way up. I was a bit out of breath by the time we got to the top, but we did it in impressive time (about 10 minutes), and if anything it actualy seemed easier than last time I did it a few years ago.

We then went back down to ground level again, had another bit of a wander round the cathdral (it is really impressive isn't it?), and then met Kyle on his lunch break. We just got sandwiches from Paul, and went and sat out in the square to eat them. It was actually quite nice weather today, so this was very pleasant.

Chie and I then slowly meandered our way back home. From St. Paul's we walked down Fleet Street until it turned into the Strand, and then diverted off the Strand at Somerset House for a quick coffee on their rather nice Riverside Terrace. From there we then continued on towards Chinatown, where we popped into our usual supermarket (See Woo), packed to the gills as ever, and bought some interesting and unusual vegetarian Chinese ingredients. Including, this time, some vegetarian fish flakes (handy for Japanese food), and some strange "BBQ flavoured fried dough" bits which were sort of a vegetarian answer to pork scratchings.

Back at home we had sushi for dinner, I made inari sushi and a couple of types of maki sushi, along with a Japanese omelette, some avocado served "sashimi style" and a few other bits and pieces. All very nice.

Very nice trip - I enjoyed going along with you!! :-D Seriously, what a nice, sunny day to go sight-seeing, and I guess without the usual throng of tourists. Not that I have anything against tourism - I enjoy it myself - but at least it didn't look too crowded :-)

Posted by Nigel at 2008/10/12 22:00:55.

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