Blog of James Goodhead

Instead of observing the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, I decided to visit an old-friend and his girlfriend in London. We met at 1pm at Leicester Square so China town was the first destination and naturally Luncheon was our first priority. Having a knowledge deficiency of the area relative to my friends, I wisely let them decide on the restaurant. After ordering, I was quickly informed my selection was typically English due to my reluctance to explore anything too exotic. In authentic Chinese restaurants, it always amazes me the amount and diversity of dishes one can have. Thirty minutes into the meal, I was trying to juggle about seven different main meals into a small bowl with chopsticks. Luckily, I have had experience of this challenge (a three week stay in Beijing in 2004) so by the end my stomach certainly was satisfied.

After the meal, we had a task to find a typical Buckingham Palace guardsman souvenir of intricate design. To our utter disbelief, after looking in a good number of tourist shops, the best we found was a cartoon guardsman of obviously low quality. Therefore, if anyone knows where to find a better alternative I would be delighted to know!

Baker Street was our next destination and we went to Madame Tussauds. The experience starts with a trip to Hollywood where there are many wax models of various actors and actresses. I must confess of knowing very few of the personalities so I quickly moved on. The next section had various political wax models from a very young Tony Blair to George W Bush. Never to avoid controversy, models of Hitler and Hussein were there and Mugabe also made an appearance. Slightly too close for my comfort to these wax models were the Royal Family with the Queen, Prince Charles, William and Harry along with Princess Diana appeared but there was no place yet for The Duchess of Cornwall.

You would be hard pushed to find a more exhilirating and terrifying experience than The Live Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds. On entering a pitched-black room, four to five actors with appropriate clothing and face-paint swarm around you making high pitched and deranged noises. One of my friends sprinted - at the speed of light - out of the Chamber, whereas I courageously (or somewhat foolishly carried on). More of the same was to follow with many actors appearing from the celing, behind and to the side of unsuspecting visitors right up to the exit. It was worth doing and will be an experience to remember.

To finish the day, we visited Buckingham Palace and strolled through St James’ Park back to Westminster. The grandeur and opulence of the area is always lovely to experience and was a perfect way to finish a most enjoyable day.