London - Day 4

St. Paul's, Tate Modern, Niko, the TARDIS, the Clock Tower, Tower Bridge.

Day 4 - Monday

We started the day by all going to St. Paul's Cathedral, where only Knut was willing to pay the fee to enter. The rest of us sat down at a Starbucks nearby and had some coffee/tea. We bought some lunch at the shop next to it, and when Knut came back we started walking towards the Thames. We then split up, once again, and Nikoline, Lene, Margrethe and I continued on our quest to find a river bus/boat tour. After a bit of walking, reaching the river, crossing Blackfriars Bridge, and walking further down the river (past the Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe), we finally found a port that was open for business. We took the boat a bit downstream to the St. Katharine's Pier, and then up to Westminster Pier. On our way there we passed under Tower Bridge, London Bridge and Waterloo Bridge (among others) and sailed past the HMS Belfast and The London Eye, before ending up right below the Clock Tower (also mistakenly called Big Ben, which is in fact the bell within). We snapped some pictures and then set off to Leicester Square to find some cool shops and a purikuri machine near Chinatown.

We found a total of three cool and nerdy shops (Orbital Comics & Collectibles, The Cinema Store and Forbidden Planet), with a variety of fun stuff. My favourite was Forbidden Planet, simply because it had a TARDIS replica inside, and also a great selection of Doctor Who merch. I ended up only buying a TARDIS mug (no, it wasn't bigger on the inside), which made me giddy with excitement and also proud since I spent less than £15 in the shop.

After fulfilling our nerdy needs, we had a snack at a cupcake shop, and then went to look for the purikuri machine. It was well hidden, but at last we found it, and after a lot of talking from the Chinese lady in charge of the machine, we got to take some pictures and decorate them. When we had spent more than enough time editing our pictures, we headed downstairs to look at a very Chinese/Japanese shop, and I bought a tiny Totoro figurine. Finally, we walked into Chinatown, and had Japanese(!!!) curry for dinner. Great service, decent value for money and delicious food.

Next blog post (day 5) soon.
DFTBA!