On my trip to London I saw some interesting stuff that I’d like to briefly talk about, but aren’t interesting enough for their own articles. I’ve listed them here!!

🛸Woking’s Martian Tripod Statue

The town of Woking, in addition to its mosque, is also famous as the area where HG Wells had Martians crash land in The War of the Worlds. This huge statue of one of the Martian tripods was built to acknowledge that.

I took a slight detour to see this while walking back from the Islamic Peace Garden. I think this is probably the only public monument to an extraterrestrials in Britain, unless there’s one I’m missing??

☄️Winchcombe Meteorite

This space rock has recently gone on display at the Natural History Museum, one of very few meteorites to fall in Britain (at least that we know about). As of this spring it’s just gone on display in the Geology Hall. Crowds at the museum currently aren’t too bad as they’re limiting the number of people allowed in, so now’s a good time to see it before lockdown restrictions are lifted.

It’s a rock! It’s from space! It’s new! Yeah that’s all I have to say about it

🇫🇰Falkland House

The Falkland Islands only have about two thousand people, but after the Argentinian invasion it was decided to build closer links with the UK. As they’re a territory and not a formal nation state, the Falklands don’t have an embassy – instead they have an official building in central London that’s the next best thing.

I didn’t realize the building was open to the public, and apparently has a tourist information centre! However when we walked past it in the evening the Falklands House was closed for the day 😞 if I ever stop by when it’s open I’ll do a longer write up.

🪶Pelicans!

These huge birds aren’t native to the UK, but a small colony has lived in a central London park for hundreds if years. The most recent pelicans have been brought over from Prague Zoo.

We bumped into these amazing creatures in St James’ Park after coming out of the Churchill War Rooms. Unfortunately they were too far away to take good pictures, but it’s possible to get up close during their daily afternoon feeding. Sadly they’re currently being fed away from the public due to covid restrictions, but you can still see them from afar.

🦍Guy the Gorilla memorial

Guy was a silverback gorilla who lived at London Zoo for many years. Arriving in 1946, Guy became very popular with the British public as a sort of gentle giant – in the 1960s a statue if him was commissioned, which still stands in Crystal Palace Park. Guy sadly died in 1978, at which point further statues were made in his memory – probably making him the most memorialised non-human primate in Britain.

My favourite thing about this statue is that his name is absent – the base simply states “GORILLA”, which I suppose is technically accurate.

Places I also visited but were too obvious to be worth writing about

• 🦤 The Natural History Museum (cool as always but some of the exhibits were outdated)
• 🧑‍🎨 Tate Modern (I didn’t get it at all sorry)
• 🏛️ The British Museum (I spent five hours looking at EVERYTHING then had to go and buy new shoes because my feet were dying)
• 🚬 The Churchill War Rooms (Fun to see Churchill’s underground dining room and the guides were great but £22 is still really steep)
• 🏮China Town (pretty lanterns!)
• 🚠 Emirates Air Line Cable Car (I still can’t believe this got built but it’s only £5)
• 🚤 Uber Boat (it’s fun but I can’t believe this was being proposed as an actual way to commute to work)

Places I couldn’t visit this time around

• ⛪ LDS Hyde Park Chapel – they have a visitor centre explaining the Mormon faith, but unfortunately it was still closed when I tried to visit.
• 🦓 Powell-Cotton Museum – they have some huge Victorian era taxidermy dioramas that I was really excited to see, but unfortunately they’re currently closed for renovation. I’m a bit scared they might try and update the displays 😟
• 🇨🇴 Seven Sisters Indoor Market – Apparently Tottenham had probably the only Latin American market in the UK, with some amazing coffee, but by the time I’d arrived it had closed down for good. Rats. Costa just isn’t the same.
• ☠️ Grant Museum of Zoology – a less famous natural history museum that’s close to its larger counterpart. Unfortunately the opening hours are a bit erratic and I wasn’t able to get a ticket.
• 💰 The Church of Scientology/Dianetics Life Improvement Centre – apparently they’re used to knuckleheads like me visiting so they have very strict rules on taking photographs. I imagine new converts have dried up, so they’d quickly suss out that I’m not interested in becoming a Scientologist. I think they’d only stick to a certain script and wouldn’t offer any interesting insight – however if it later turns out they’re welcome to discuss their beliefs, I’m happy to reconsider.
• ⛴️ Portsmouth – Yeah like the city as a whole. I’d planned a day trip to ride a hovercraft and see some unusual places of interest, but the Creationism museum (my main reason for going) there is currently closed for renovation. Fortunately it’ll reopen in a few months, so when it’s back I’ll go down and let you know what it’s like. And ride a hovercraft.

Thank you for reading! This blog will probably now go into hiatus until I visit somewhere worth talking about. Follow me for updates, I think that’s how WordPress works!!!