So today is our first full day in London and I dub this day crown jewels and east London, which is the area of focus for today and some of it’s surroundings. Pretty tired but I think we can manage after yesterday’s journeys, it will be a day with a lot of walking so let’s see if we don’t die.

We begin by starting off our nearest underground station, Holborn station as we will need to use to to get to our first location for the day. It’s rush our right now and it’s very busy on the streets around the station.

It’s always interesting seeing the inside of a subway car, especially if it’s crowded inside, you can get to see the different kinds of people who are here on a daily basis.

After a short underground ride we exit the station and we already see our first destination, tower of London, one of the most bait and popular tourist attractions in London. I just have to you know, hence npc pose.

Tower of London is very close to Tower bridge, which is often mistaken as London bridge, they are different things. I think Tower bridge looks much better, ace photo spot here too.

Proof of tower bridge existence, photo by some random old white guy we asked who for some reason can’t focus on shit and makes the background kind of washed out? Why? compared to the photo I took myself, why is it so shit? Some other random Chinese women asked me to take a photo of their group too and they commented, wow, you take such good photos, can you take some more photos of us? I guess I can take good photos I guess?

First thing inside in the morning at around 9:30pm, everyone heads straight to the main attraction, the crown jewels to see the gems and crown shit. Good shit.

We are not allowed to take photos or videos inside of the crown jewels so here is a proof of existence photo. I wonder why they don’t allow it? Maybe because if they did it would get too crowded or they are afraid people will make bootlegs of the crown with such good photos these days. Overall the exhibit was pretty good, I saw nice crowns and jewels as advertised, so I can’t complain, I got exactly what I wanted and it was cool. Good shit. Onward.

After seeing the crown jewels we go into the main central tower which displays a whole bunch of weapons and armor from the old days of the towers past, which apparently even for a few hundred years ago, was already a museum as traditional plate armor made way for guns and swords.

This display had a comparison of one of the largest armors ever found and the shortest smallest one, the giant and the dwarf as they were labels. I overheard some paid tour guy say, well if they were made, I guess they were rich then, especially the tall guy, since armor like this isn’t cheap.

The tower has multiple levels and you have to climb a number of stairs, with each having different themes and weapons of the time, on this floor however they had some fun and made a dragon out of random armor pieces they had. Nice.

After we finished the tower and it’s relics we headed outside and walked the tower bridge to get to the other side. It’s a pretty nice bridge yes, lots of people on it with great views.

And here we are inside Borough Market, one of the most popular market in London with lots of food and other market goods. As you can see, it’s super busy as we arrived at like 12:30pmish, prime lunch time.

One of the most popular and highly rated shops was this place, The Ginger Pig which sells mainly sausage rolls, which is it’s main thing. There was a line, waited for roughly 15-20 minutes before it was our turn. They only accept contactless payment, no cash, which is a common trend that I have noticed in the city.

At about $7 pounds each, shit is a bit expensive but overall I would say it was totally worth it, the sausage roll is fairly large and can fill you up and tastes pretty damn good, most of it is filled with sausage. Would again, me and my sister had one each. My sister was full after she ate hers.

I on the other had, wanted to try another dish that was also hyped a lot online and seen in many youtube videos, this bomba seafood paella. They had three tiers with varying degrees of seafood included. I think the most expensive tier had lobster and two giant prawns and regular shrimp and mussels for $27 pounds while the cheapest option is the same but just one prawn for $19 pounds.

Lest to say, I opted for the cheapest option, the $19 pound one with one prawn. Overall I enjoyed this paella as I am someone who never really had this dish outside of someone’s house trying to make it themselves and I think it’s worth it. Expensive but worth it, at least for me since after finishing this I was pretty full, since rice after all. Good shit.

From the outside of the market looks nice, super busy super popular spot for I think both locals and tourists which make it super crowded. If you dislike crowds, avoid because you are going to have a bad time if you hate waiting in line for food.

After our lunch at Borough Market we walk more along the riverside seeing more bridges and shit but we get to our next destination, the Tate modern art museum.

Inside the Tate Modern main hall is this giant spider like metal installation, pretty cool. The museum itself is free which is also a huge bonus.

I heard on youtube that on the 10th floor of the Tate modern museum there is a good free view of the city, and yes there was as illustrated by the photo above but it’s not what I had in mind in the fact that this view is from behind glass, they have a open air viewing area but for some reason it was closed, so this was behind the glass. Despite being glass there is still good views, just not great for photos. Doh, ahwell, we tried, this photo turned out ok tho.

From the top of the museum we began to work our way downwards to see the various installations and modern art. This one was interesting, dude was all about circles in natures and shit, saying it was special if you did it. I see.

I am not sure but this face monster thing is cool funny.

A famous piece by the man known for painting melting clocks, Salvador Dali. There was a few Asian Chinese people sitting right beside it with portable stools talking about it, like sure? I guess so but bringing stools is a bit much I think.

They also had this famous piece, the Fountain, by dada artist Marcel Duchamp. Very famous and very controversial at the time since it was just a urinal sideways with R.Mutt signed on it. The original wast lost/destroyed but there have been several replicates by the original artist years after the fact, this one is one of them I guess.

Wow, this installation piece was so ace. Make up of old radios and shit from old to new. Artist was talking about media and communication and affecting society, too much noise to understand anything. In many ways, this piece still is relevant today, even more so than ever.

Another ace installation piece which had rotating clear drums that had stuff drawn on it. They had light projected through them and they displayed on the walls which was overplayed with video and other music/sounds. The artist was brown so it was all about hindu gods and shit or something, nice, top tier installation.

Nice, another famous piece by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, noice.

Oh shit, they also had a Piet Mondrian, the famous abstract artist. Good shit.

They also had an exhibt featuring ‘art in 2050’ which is a futurist centered exhibt showcasing what artists thought what future art was going to be and interestingly enough, they took this huge wall to display some korean Yuri web novel that is from webtoons lol. The video playing is some piece the artist used to showcase a future of gig jobs and motor cycle driving in a super futuristic Seoul, interesting. I guess they don’t have a problem with anime as long as it has deeper art meaning, like Yuri.

Proof of artist statement, because Korean webtoon manwha stories are serious business.

The name of the painting behind me is called “the peasant”, what a baller, artist and subject didn’t give a shit. Look at that face, could be a modern profile pic for autists. Good shit.

In one of the numerous gift shops, they had some nice how to draw anime/manga art books. I like how they are not snobs and don’t stop this kind of thing in a fine art gift store, gotta attract all people of all sorts I guess. You would never ever find this kind of thing in a art museum in north American gift shop for a art museum.

We roughly covered about half of the Tate modern art museum before it was almost closing hour, we spent the last hour before closing checking out their gift shops, which are not bad. They also have an official collab with Uniqlo with some of the museum’s art pieces on them but I didn’t buy anything there, all white t shirts, not my thing. We decided to cross this Black Friars bridge to get to the underground subway to get back to our hotel area. They really like using the word Black in British things I guess.

Near our hotel there is a shady small underground anime shop with this sign/board advertising it. Wow, very BL focused store indeed, I guess British people like anime after all too.

After resting for a bit back at our hotel, we decided to head out for dinner. We went to Punjab’s, the oldest Indian restaurant in the UK, founded in 1946. It was very close to our hotel and I had seen in mentioned several times in some youtube videos about what to eat for Indian food in  the city so why not.

Ordered some apps, tandoori chicken wings and samosas. Pretty good but nothing exceptional, good shit overall here.

Our main curries and dishes came, Chicken Tikka Masala, the popular British/Indian curry, the national dish of England and Saag Paneer, some garlic naan and some pulao rice.

My sister gives her seal of approval for the chicken tikka masala, ‘yea this is good, better than at home, also homemade coming from a jar’. I would also agree, it’s pretty good shit. The garlic naan was very good too, so was the saag paneer, which as pretty solid. The rice was just ok, just a vessel for the curries. Is this the best Indian food that I have ever had? Probably not, but it’s up there I think in terms of accessibility, it’s so close and the service was so good, it’s very good. Would again if I lived here and was nearby.

Nearby the restaurant was this anime store called Animetal. Wow, I guess British people like anime too,pretty bait with they have big statues to attract customers so that’s cool. They were closed already but had their lights on on display which is kind of weird but sure. Might check them out on another day to see what anime shit British people like.

With that we headed back to our hotel and begin resting for the next day already tomorrow. We had a pretty busy jammed packed day of activities today with alot of walking so we are pretty dead, especially with walking over the two bridges and shit. Let’s hope that tomorrow is less walking but I doubt it.