Art and Markets

Today we really wanted to go to the National Gallery. It is a giant museum of art. But we especially wanted to go because they have a temporary exhibit on Leonardo Da Vinci. All the reviews say this exhibit is incredible because it has numerous rare and beautiful paintings. It has been super popular and it has been at the National Gallery for a while...but it will only be there until February 4th. So we really wanted to go today! The problem is that all of the online tickets have been sold months ago. But the gallery still has between 500-600 tickets daily to sell on a first come first serve basis. Since the gallery does not open until 10am, we decided to get there an hour and a half early in order to wait in line and get a ticket. We arrived at 8:30 am but realized that the line was already huge! Then we asked a guard, who told us that all of the tickets were sold by 7:00am. In fact he said, a lot of people arrive as early as 6am to get a ticket. We were very disappointed because we really wanted to see it. But we decided to stay anyway to see the rest of the galleries, which has a free admission.

The National Gallery

Since we had some time before they opened, we walked around the area called Trafalgar Square. It is very pretty and has some other interesting monuments. Afterwards, we headed up the square to Leicester Square. Besides nightlife and bars, this square is home to many cinemas, theaters, and a giant M&M store :) It is an interesting place to walk around. I definitely want to go back to see a play. My first choice would be Les Miserables because I have yet to see it. So that is now on my list of things to do.

We also walked to an area close of Leicester Square that is basically chinatown. Many of the stores and businesses were Chinese (I saw some Korean and Japanese places too). It was all decorated because next weekend, there will be a New Year's celebration. I also thought this place was very interesting. It is basically a microcosm within London. Angie was super excited because she loves sushi and there were many good places to eat there. But after walking around we headed back to the National Gallery to see some paintings.

Getting ready for Chinese New Year

I absolutely loved the National Gallery! It was so many incredible pieces of art! Just to name a few artists whose work is displayed: Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Van Eyk, Manet, Murillo, and Rousseau. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, but I bought some postcards of my favorite paintings from the gift store.
[all of the pictures below are pictures of the postcards, not of the actual paintings]

"The Virgin in Prayer" 1640-50, Sassoferrato

"The Toilet of Venus" 1647-51, Diego Velazquez

"The Themes Below Westminster" 1871, Claud-Oscar Monet

"Sunflowers" 1888, Vincent Van Gogh

"The Lady with an Ermine" 1489-90, Leonardo da Vinci

Afterwards, we headed back to chinatown to find a sushi place for lunch. Since I don't like sushi, I stopped at a deli to get a roastbeef sandwich and a coke :) The sushi place we found was really cool...very modern...but with very legitimate sushi according to Angie. I did not try it. Maybe one day I will get over my fear and dislike of raw fish and seaweed.

So after lunch, we took the tube to CAPA because we wanted to go on a guided tour of Imperial College. (That's the college next door to the museums...the MIT of England supposedly) The tour was led by a graduate who now works at CAPA. I thought the college was nice and had modern architecture. We had already been there for lunch a few times, so we were more familiar with it than the rest of our companions. Also, I didn't like the tour very much. Unfortunately the guy was a horrible tour guide and he didn't really give us any good information about Imperial College. Or maybe I just criticized him a lot because as tour guide chair of Rice...I felt that I could have given him a few pointers. Haha.

SO...our day was not over yet!
After the tour of Imperial College, we decided to go to Camden Market. We had missed the tour with the CAPA people (we slept in) and we still wanted to see it. So we headed off on the tube again.
As it turns out, Camden Market is actually like a "mercado." It reminded me of the mercado de dulces in Morelia, Michoacan. There was so much to see! There were lines and lines of clothing stalls, lines and lines of jewelry, purses, scarves, and food of all different sorts. There was Indian food, Thai food, Japanese food, and even gross looking Mexican food. It was quite overwhelming. There was even a store called CyberDog...which sold neon, techno, kind of 80's stuff. It was pretty cool. It was definitely an interesting place to visit and to see the types of different people and communities that one can find in London.

Food from al over the world

So many things to buy!

Needless to say, we had a busy day :) It was exciting and I got to see so many different neighborhoods of London. London is definitely more diverse than I imagined.