London
A few weeks ago while we were in New Zealand, I found out that I would have to take a detour from our travels to help out with a glider deployment in Svalbard, Norway – the Arctic. Although it’s not ideal to have to cut short my time in China, the combination of my obligation to our lab and the fact that I’ve wanted to get up to the Arctic. Getting to be in both the Antarctic and Arctic in the same year sounds like a cool gig. And, since my flight from Hong Kong to the Arctic would require stops in London and Oslo, I figured I should spend a couple of nights in London visiting Couchsurfers (Tim and Joyce) who had visited us in NYC. Elizabeth and her sister left me at the train station in Guilin before they went on their way to explore more of the Chinese countryside. From Guilin I took the overnight train back to Shenzhen and then on to Hong Kong where I caught my overnight flight to London.
I haven’t spent time in London since I was 19, so I was pretty excited to get to see the city that many people feel has eclipsed NYC as the world’s financial center. Tim and Joyce’s neighborhood did not disappoint. They live on Surry Quay near the Canada Water tube stop.
Overlooking Surrey Quay in London from Tim and Joyce's flat.
As it happens, my 4 days in London coincided with the Wimbledon Tennis tournament. TIm and Joyce are big tennis fans, so they managed to take the afternoon off one day and the three of us went to get into the evening matches on standby. Although we had to wait in a long line for about 3 hours we ended up getting in a watching some tennis.
Line for standby tickets for Wimbledon.
Various courts at Wimbledon
Wimbledon Center court
Being a geography geek I also wanted to get to Greenwich and check out the Royal Observatory and straddle the Prime Meridian. Similar to NYC, 4 days is not nearly enough time to see much of the city. But after having not been to London for some time, it was wonderful to see some friends and spend the days running through various neighborhoods followed up with evenings at local pubs drinking British ales from the cask.
Prime Meridian in Greenwich.
