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Tuesday 19th July, 2005

Europe > United Kingdom > London

(travel diary) Bus far away, Madame Tussauds

Category: London, 2005
The day started with a hunt for an area in London namned Green State. We had heard that this place should feature a great number of bengalian shops and markets. "Bigger than Brick Lane" people told us.
We asked two bengals at a bus stop about how to go there:
-"Take the bus. It departs soon. It will take you to Green State. We are also going there."
Good, we thought.
We entered the bus.
"Hm, long time. No Green state. Moinul's uncle said max 5-10 minutes and now we've been riding the bus for at least 30 minutes. When do we get there?" we thought.
The bengali people told us to step off the bus. We saw a couple of bengali shops but that was nothing compared to Brick Lane. We asked a bengal working in a key shop and he had never heard of any "bengal ghetto" in this area.. Instead, he told us about another place in zone 3 far from here.
We weren't happy at this point. According to the map we had ended up far from central London.

Oh well, we took the tube back to White Chapel close to Brick Lane where we stumbled upon a big market with bengali stuff (clothes, food, things, etc). Also many shops with similar things nearby but we found nothing interesting to buy. Instead, we walked to Brick Lane where Moinul bought some shirts. We alse ate some nice chicken here.

Next on the day schedule was the wax puppets at Madame Tussauds (MT). MT has three price levels depending on the time you enter. Before 3 PM about 22 pounds, between 3 PM and 5 PM about 18 pounds and after that 14 pounds. We arrived at 3PM so we didn't pay the maximum fee, yet we had plenty of time to see the whole thing.
The wax puppets were a dissapointment, not as real looking as we had hoped (big hype about this place). The skin looked like plastic. The puppets had a shininess that wasn't realistic.
There was also a little cog wheel train inside Taussauds where you could sit and learn about the history of London. Animated puppets and movies displayed different historical events around the track.
Thereafter, it was time for Chamber Live (also this on Taussauds). Here, we walked around in a dark and narrow path where actors dressed like zombies scared tourists. Pretty fun. Moinul took the opportunity to frighten some of the zombies!
Lastly we visited the Auditorium, a spherical cinema (like the Cosmonova in Stockholm but much smaller). The shown flic was "Journey to infinity", a film about space and universe.

After the slightly disappointing Madame Tussauds (it wasn't worth 18 pounds, but now we've been there) we decided to once again go to Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. Moinul's camera had malfunctioned the first time we visit these places so he needed a reprise.

After this walk we ate some "2 pieces fried chicken with chips" and ended the day with a little visit at the entertainment palace of Trocadero.
 

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