London Day Six
Friday morning we set out for the office at a normal time. A quick croissant and a coffee and we were happily typing away at our desks when a co-worker from our Chicago offices popped up near our desks. He’d moved to the Tokyo offices, but it was grand to see him in London.
Am I that global? Do I know people in Tokyo, London, Chicago, and beyond? It made me pause for a moment.
The day was unremarkable. We ended up going to lunch with said co-worker and having Japanese from a small take-away (not to-go) place in Liverpool station called Moshi Moshi Sushi. I chose Oyako Don.
The words Oya and ko mean parent and child. Oyako Don is a mixture of chicken in sauce over rice, with an egg cracked over the hot bowl so it cooks instantly. It’s quite delicious and I loved eating it in Kyoto when I was last there.
The office was then set into a state of frenzy. Apparently there was a large desk move over the weekend (of course it was the weekend where we had vital business to carry out) and we decided to sneak out a bit early. Everyone was packing things up and such, so the timing seemed right.
The Victoria & Albert museum was our destination for the evening. It was a stunning museum with some very well kept pieces. We mostly had it to ourselves because we arrived there near to 5:30. There weren’t a lot of people, and we happily snapped away flash-free photographs of Chinese art, beautiful plaster casts of art from around the globe, and much more.
The whole plaster cast thing was a bit lost on me at first, but I soon read a plaque that explained it. Apparently in the 19th century, it was quite common for museums to exhibit plaster casts of famous places and items. Sort of a way to bring the world to the museum, and thus the public. Seeing some of the gigantic columns shocked me to no end. To imagine not only taking a cast of such an item, but then transporting the mouldings (note the U.K. spelling) back to wherever you needed to get them was amazing.
It makes you think.
Here are some of the notable photos:
After the museum we’d worked up quite an appetite, so we headed back to the South Bank to find a restaurant to dine at. We ended up at a chain called Pizza Express for some flat pizzas and lemonade, which is really Sprite. Apparently you have to specify something like Italian Lemonade, or hope they list a branded bottled kind on the menu and hope for the best.
Back to the hotel and back to sleep. The British Museum waits tomorrow.