Cocktails and a Chinese Meal in London’s West End

Last Saturday took us into London’s west end for a bit of shopping and more importantly a slap up feast at Wong Kei in China Town, but first we took a diversion to the old Simpsons of Piccadilly (203-205 Piccadilly) for cocktails on the 5thView cocktail lounge.

View from the Cocktail Lounge at the Waterstones bookshop

The old Simpsons is now a monster huge Waterstone’s Bookshop with the 5th floor converted to a cocktail lounge. the photo above was taken back in 20011, the present view is blighted by a bunch of cranes. To be honest the cocktail lounge seems a bit blighted too, the decor is looking decidedly shabby, despite the website’s claims of refurbishment and the service is slow and unknowledgable. As to the cocktails they are I suppose average priced for London at between £7 and £11, but the snacks (£3 for a tiny bowl of nuts) are a bit of a rip. I had a gin sour, it was nothing special, but the £40 bill for the four of us left me feeling a bit sour too.

Wong Kei (41-43 Wardour Street) is a bit of a Soho legend. It’s one of the largest Chinese restaurants in the UK with seating for 500 guests and a reputation for having some of the rudest waiting staff in the UK. Oddly enough this is one of the things that drags people in and although service is shall we say a little brusque it is quick and efficient as diners are processed as quickly as possible to make way for more customers. Personally I found that most welcome, as there is nothing I hate more than having to hang around for the bill and my change. If you are dining as a couple or a small group, be warned that you may end up sharing a table with other diners, a bit like Chartier in Paris.

Wong Kei

There are some odd things on the menu including deep-fried intestines and chicken with jellyfish, but I went for the vegetarian pancake rolls to start followed by the Sweet and sour chicken with rice. The pancake rolls were delicious, especially with the lethally hot chili and black bean sauce and the chicken was pretty good too. What with a bottle of Pinot Grigio I liked the bill too, when it only came to £58 for the four of us (Cash only no cards).

The building Wong Kei is situated in has an interesting history as it used to belong to theatrical wig maker and costumier Willy Clarkson (1861-1934). You can if you look up to the clock see the words costumier and perruquier on its face. Designed by the architect H M Wakeley, plaques by the restaurant’s door attest to the foundation stone being laid by  Sarah Bernhardt in 1904 and the coping stone by sir Henry Irving the following year. Clarkson occupied the premises until 1940.

Classic London Underground Locomotive at the Epping and Ongar Railway

Back in 1994 London Transport closed down the Ongar extension of the Central Line from Epping station, so it wasn’t without a little sense of  irony that we found that the Epping and Ongar Railway, who now operate a heritage railway on the track, had got together with the London Transport Museum to run some very special trains to celebrate the 150th anniversary of London Underground.

Metropolitan No.1 built in 1898

We’d visited the Epping and Ongar Railway before (read about it here) but the opportunity to ride in a real piece of London’s history was too good to miss. Lots of people had had the same idea and the railway’s fleet of historic buses were all busy moving people from Epping Underground Station to the railway’s start point at North Weald Station.

Classic London Transport RT buses at North Weald Station

Ready and waiting on the platform wee a variety of historic Metropolitan Line carriages that used to run on the tracks between central London  and stations out in Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Vintage Metropolitan Line carriages

The star of the show was carriage No.353 which was built in 1892 and ran on the line up to 1906 when it was sold to the Weston, Clevedon  and Portishead Railway.

Carriage 353

It eventually ended up as a a military tailors workshop before being lovingly restored by the London Transport Museum. We paid a £5 supplement on the day ticket price of £20 to ride in the plush velvet First Class luxury of  what we were told was the Queen’s carriage of No. 353.

Plush velvet interior of Carriage 353

Taking us to Ongar was an old British Railways locomotive,

British Railways steam locomotive

but waiting for us at the other end was Metropolitan No.1, which was going to pull us back to North Weald.

Metropolitan No.1 steams back to link up with our train

Metropolitan No. 1 was built in 1898 and it is the oldest surviving locomotive from the age of steam on London Underground’s Metropolitan Line. We had to change carriages as our special red ticket upgrade was only valid one way and our carriage for the return leg had an interior restored back to World War II complete with air raid instructions.

Air raid instructions

and a pre Harry Beck (the guy who designed the classic tube map) map of the Metropolitan Railway.

Metropolitan Line Map

Arriving back at North Weald we also got to see the other London Transport steam locomotive L.150 as it got up steam to take the train back up the line, before heading off to Theydon Bois for a few drinks at The Queen Victoria and a curry at the Theydon Bois Balti House.

London Transport L.150 getting up steam

It was a fabulous day out so a big thank you to the volunteers at the Epping and Ongar Railway and the people from the London Transport Museum who made this trip back into history possible.

Photos copyright QueenMab/Shipscook Photographic. contact simon.ball3@btopenworld.com for commercial reuse

Edinburgh – We hit the Road to Portobello

There can’t be many of the world’s capitals that can boast of a beach looking like this.

Portobello Beach

Naturally being in Scotland, Edinburgh’s suburb of Portobello isn’t exactly a tropical paradise, but there were a few brave souls splashing about in the water even if most of those had four legs and a cold wet nose! Portobello is about five miles from the centre of Edinburgh and easily accessible by a number of buses from the city centre (£1.50 each way).

Originally known as Friggate Muir, it used to be hangout for smugglers and other miscreants, but in 1742 George Hamilton a former sailor who had served under Admiral Edward Vernan at the capture of Panama’s Porto Bello in 1739, built a cottage on the high street, named it Portobello Hut after the victory and the name stuck.

In the early 19th century Sir Walter Scott used to drill with the Edinburgh Light Horse on the beach at Portobello and it was here that he finished The Lay of the Last Minstrel after being kicked by a horse and confined to bed.

By the middle of the 19th century Portobello had developed into an industrial town and then later into tourist resort, a sort of Scottish Southend with similar amusements and a pier.

Portobello’s Gothic Police Station – originally the town hall

Most of the amusement arcades and the pier are long gone now but the town does still have some splendid 19th Century buildings like the Police Station (built in 1878) and this rather nice, if a little bit pricy boozer on the sea front, the Dalriada where I enjoyed a nice pint of hand drawn Macbeth bitter.

The Dalriada

Another local landmark is a small community garden on the seafront promenade. Within the garden three coade stone pillars rescued from the garden of Portobello’s Argyle House stand. Coade stone is an artificial ceramic material  containing crushed flint which can be moulded before firing to produce quite exquisite results. It was perfected by Eleanor Coade in the 18th century, but fell out of use with the invention of Portland cement.

Coade Stone pillars – Portobello Beach

Portobello’s most famous son was the entertainer Harry Lauder, who was born there in 1870, and an aspiring actor from Edinburgh, one Sean Connery no less, used to be a lifeguard at the now demolished outdoor swimming pool. The floodlit football match in the film Trainspotting was filmed on the site of Portobello’s former Lido. Also gone is the original Arcari’s ice cream parlour where the 99 ice cream cone, the one with a chocolate flake stuffed into it is said to have been invented.

Photos copyright QueenMab/Shipscook Photographic. contact simon.ball3@btopenworld.com for commercial reuse

Chuffin Puffins at Planet Gannet – The Return to Bass Rock

Just off the east coast of Scotland and only a few miles from the centre of Edinburgh is the largest breeding colony of Atlantic Gannets in the world.

Bass Rock

Bass Rock is one of a group of volcanic islands  off the coast of North Berwick that also include Fidra and Craigleith and during the spring they are host to 300,000 pairs of nesting seabirds. On a previous visit I joined the Scottish Sea Bird Centre’s RIB boat excursion out to the island (read about it here), which was pretty exciting, but now the RIB has been joined by a high-speed catamaran which gets you as close to the birds as the RIB, but in much more comfort and with no need for those alluring oilskins! It’s also cheaper at £16 per adult.

It only took a few minutes to speed out to Craigleith where the puffins were perched along the heights, just like Red Indians in a Western movie,

Puffins

while out on the sea rafts of puffins were fishing for sand eels

Puffins all at sea

to take back to their island burrows and feed their young.

Puffins Craigleith

Further down the rock face guillemots were nesting upon the precarious cliff face,

Gillemotts, Craigleith

along with kittiwakes, fulmar, cormarants, eider ducks and shags.

Shag, Craigleith

From Craigleith it was about ten minutes to Bass Rock.

Bass Rock

As I’ve said before there is something pretty primal about Bass Rock. Every space on the rock surface is occupied by these majestic seabirds.

Gannets Bass Rock

The noise of 300,000 birds is incredible, (as is the smell of their fishy poo).

Nice bit of seaweed for the home

The catamaran was soon surrounded by birds searching for nesting material and fishing. Gannets are Britain’s largest seabird with an eight foot wingspan and you really get to appreciate the size of these birds as they take to the air around you.

Gannets Bass Rock

As we rounded the island a small voice piped up ‘seals’ and there in a cave were a group of around five or six grey seals bobbing around in the water.

Seal

It was the icing on the cake for our trip and to think it was only half an hour from the centre of Edinburgh. (off peak Scotrail Day Return from Edinburgh Waverley £6.80)

Photos copyright QueenMab/Shipscook Photographic. contact simon.ball3@btopenworld.com for commercial reuse

Tenerife 2013 – Whales

While the performance of the killer whales at Loro Parque’s Orca Ocean was pretty spectacular.

Killer Whale – Loro Parque

It was precisely that a performance by captive animals. However just off the coast of Tenerife, where the volcanic undersea vents warm the cold waters of the deeps, pilot whales feed on the squid. And you can’t blame them because when I tried the squid it was pretty tasty.

The Must Cat

Now our tour operator had whale watching trips including an open bar and lunch on the boat, for €50. We booked our trip from Rab at the Ticketbox who did us a deal with Must Cat an alternative fully licensed and insured operator,for €25 per person. For that we got a three-hour cruise that also included transfer from Los Christianos to the fishing village of Las Galletas, as much beer, wine, cava or soft drinks as you could drink and a sandwich for lunch too.

Basalt Columns – Las Galletas

Setting out from Las Galletas you get a good look at the volcanic basalt that formed during one of the island’s past volcanic eruptions, but the main event occurs when the skipper cut the engine and lets the catamaran drift.

A fin breaks the water

suddenly you see a fin break the water. It’s a pilot whale, then there are more.

Pilot whales

Some of the whales get quite curious to see their visitors.

What’s going on here?

And get up close to the boat. According to the skipper there was a 90 per cent chance that we’d see the pilot whales and a 40 per cent chance of seeing dolphins too.

OK it’s not a squid

It’s hard to describe what it’s like being surrounded by these curious creatures , listening to them squeak and blow. There is something very tranquil about it. We also got to see some bottle nosed dolphins, who were perusing the menu at a fish farm, but they were just too quick to get a decent snap. My tuna sandwich was pretty good too!

Tenerife 2013 – A Tale of Two Parks

Being an old hand at the Canary Island of Tenerife I had a pretty good idea about what trips we should do once we arrived. Now two of the top attractions fall under the same management, so as someone with an eye for a bargain we saved a few Euros by purchasing twin tickets for the Siam Park waterpark and the Loro Parque zoo.

One of the Loros of Loro Parque

We saved even more by buying them from Rab at the TicketBox. Rab was able to do us a deal on the twin ticket with coach transfer for Loro Parque for €70 per person. This saved €5.95 each over our tour operator’s price for an identical product, thus proving that it’s well worth shopping around for excursions, even if the admission prices had gone up quite a bit since our last visit.

Siam Park

Siam Park is nestled in the hills above Los Christianos. Fortunately there is a free open top courtesy bus from the town centre and Playa de Las Americas. That’s about your only freebie as your baggage will be searched for contraband picnic items before they let you in. As we had twin tickets we were also thumb printed to prevent us trying to sell on our discounted Loro Parque admissions, all a bit 1984 if you ask me!

Monster Wave Pool – Siam Park

Siam Park has plenty of things to keep the adventurous happy with various water rides and an amazing wave pool capable of producing breakers big enough for a spot of exhibition surfing. Not really my scene, but the Powder Monkey had a great time splashing about as I got stuck into Varney the Vampire on the artificial beach made from imported Portuguese sand. The Thai themed park also has beautifully landscaped gardens, but be warned, take plenty of cash as refreshments are a bit steep. I paid €3 for a small tin of lager and a whopping €5 for an indifferent burger. They even charge for sachets of ketchup or mayonnaise which is downright mean in my opinion.

Roseate Cockatoo at Loro Parque

Loro Parque of course means parrot park and that is what it was when it first opened many years ago. We generally make a point of taking the bus (included in Loro Parque ticket) over the island to Puerto de La Cruz in te north to visit Loro Parque every time we are in Tenerife as there is usually something new to see there.

Bottoms Up

This time it was the new walk through aviary, where it was possible to get up close to many of the parrots and other birds that live there. Fortunately this chap was out of reach though.

Emu

Out and about in the park, typically the jaguars were behaving just like any other cat enjoying the Sun.

Jaguar

While I was so taken by this snoozing gorilla

Time for a nap

that he is now my Facebook avatar. We stopped for a very good lunch at the Casa Pepe Tapas Bar, which is Loro Parque’s hidden gem. I’m glad not too many folks know about it because, unlike the other self-service restaurants and fast food joints, it is a small haven of peace, even if you do get the odd visitor eyeing up your lunch.

Crowned Crane

I think he particularly fancied the boquerones which were very good but the octopus vinaigrette, Spanish omelette , stuffed peppers and Canarian potatoes baked in sea salt were also quite delicious (tapas for four with beer, coffee and water €59)

My favourite exhibit at Loro Parque has to be Planet Penguin, a climatically controlled Antarctic environment complete with overhead snow machine.

View from the moving sidewalk at Planet Penguin

There are four species of penguin living together in Planet Penguin;

King penguins

king, gentoo, rockhopper and chinstrap.

Chinstrap penguins

There’s also a very good aquarium with various marine and fresh water creatures and a fantastic shark tunnel.

We are about to launch Stingray

Not to mention sea lions, anteaters, chimpanzees, white tigers, alligators and dolphins

Mind you the animals that make the biggest splash at Loro Parque are the killer whales at Orca Ocean.

Killer whale

The killer whales do put on a very good show and they are obviously well cared for by their trainers, judging by the evident love shown to them by the whales, but I have to admit that I have very mixed feelings about keeping cetaceans like whales and dolphins in captivity.

Killer salute

Probably more so about killer whales (I’m not going to call them orcas, they are not fluffy little critters that only eat greens!) than dolphins because they are so large and really need lots of space. Still Loro Parque’s killers are breeding so they must be doing something right.

Go on Give us a fish

 

Photos copyright QueenMab/Shipscook Photographic. contact simon.ball3@btopenworld.com for commercial reuse

Lisbon – Westward Ho to Belem

Some of Lisbon’s most popular and iconic tourist attractions are in its western suburb of Belem.

Dragon Gargoyle, Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

So day two of our Lisbon adventure took us down to Cais do Sodre station where we boarded the train to Belem (and yes it was included on our Lisbon Card Huzzah!). Now before we left the UK we had been given lots of recommendations about the most important thing to do there and it had nothing to do with the region’s history.

Custard tarts and samosas at Pasteis de Belem

No it was cakes. Pasteis de Belem (Rua de Belem) looks like a small pastry shop from the outside, but inside it opens out into a vast cavern of blue tiled dining rooms where locals jostle with tourists for tables. Even at 10am it was packed, but we managed to get a table and were soon tucking in to spicy samosas (a legacy of Portugal’s Indian colony at Goa I imagine) and exquisitely gooey custard tarts with excellent coffee (have to say we never had a bad cup of coffee in Lisbon) and a half bottle of wine. Considering there were four of us the bill came to a crazy €16, how brilliant is that?

Gimme Cakes – Pasteis de Belem

Suitably fortified we went to explore the Jardim Botanico Tropical. These splendidly decayed botanical gardens were not included on our Lisbon Cards so we had to fork out €2 to get in and explore the themed areas based upon Portugal’s colonial past. Despite the run down appearance of many of the buildings, a peak through the broken window panes of the central greenhouse revealed that research is still being carried out inside. If Dracula had ever wanted to take up horticulture he’d have been right at home here.

The Hammer Greenhouse of Horror? – Jardim Botanico Tropical

By the time we had finished in the Jardim it was starting to get a bit overcast so we made a dash for the Mosteiro dos Jeronmos. Construction of the monastery and church began in 1501 funded by King Manuel I’s taxes on goods from Africa and Asia and the opulence of its late Gothic (AKA Manueline) architecture is testimony of to the wealth derived from the new sea routes opened up to the east by Portuguese explorers like Vasco de Gama, who is buried in the church here.

Tomb of Vasco de Gama – Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

There is no charge for visiting the church itself, but to get the best view of the interior you have to see it from the balcony that is only accessible from the monastery itself. (admission €7 or free with the Lisbon Card)

Church – Mosteiro dos Jeroniomos

Within the monastery cloisters there is a wealth of carvings of strange beasts and monsters.

Cloisters – Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

Whether these creatures were derived from reports of the far off lands opened up by the Portuguese merchants or drawn from the inner recesses of the Medieval mind are open to question, but the imaginations of the masons involved must have been quite scary places.

Gargoyles – Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

I was particularly taken by the gargoyles, there were all kinds of creatures, including dragons, wild boar, sheep, monkeys and even a grasshopper.

Grasshopper Gargoyle – Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

Opposite the monastery, on the bank of the River Tagus is a more modern monument to Portugal’s seafaring explorers, the Padrao dos Descobrimentos

Padrao dos Descobrimentos

The Padrao dos Descobrimentos was built in 1960 to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator, who bravely stayed in Lisbon while people like Bartolomea Dias did the dangerous sailing over the edge of the world thing. The monument is in the shape of a ship with Henry at the prow.

Prince Henry at the prow – Padrao dos Descobrimentos

It’s a fair walk along the windy banks of the Tagus to the Tower of Belem (Admission €5 or free with the Lisbon Card).

Tower of Belem

This Gothic pile was also built on the orders of Manuel I to protect the river mouth from invaders. The architect was Francisco de Arruda and the tower was completed in 1519. I think the batteries last fired in anger at the French fleet supporting the claim of Maria II to the throne of Portugal during the Liberal Wars of 1828 to 1834. We had a poke around the batteries, dungeons and climbed the tower before heading back towards the station.

On the way we stopped to admire this replica of the Fairey seaplane the Santa Cruz that made the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic in 1922,

Santa Cruz Seaplane- Belem

and to have coffee, beer and more cakes at Pasteis de Belem, before catching the no 15 tram back into Lisbon.

The Tolbooth, The People’s Story and the Museum of Edinburgh

About two thirds of the way down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile in Canongate is the Tolbooth Tavern.

Tolbooth Tavern and the People’s Story

It’s one of our regular Edinburgh boozers and you can read more about the Tolbooth’s history here. The pub only occupies part of the building. Sharing the former tax office and jail is The People’s Story (163 Canongate), a museum that celebrates the lives of ordinary Edinburgh folk.

The People’s Story

Oddly enough we had never strayed inside the museum until last week, but it was quite an interesting way to spend an hour or so. Inside there are a number of displays  illustrating the city’s trades and social activities from the 1700s right up to the present: everything from bookbinders and fishwives to Trade Unions, the foundation of the Labour Party and life in the worker’s hostels is neatly brought to life. Some of the exhibits could do with a bit of loving care and some clearer labels, but it is free to get in.

And while we are on the subject of free stuff, on the opposite side of the road is The Museum of Edinburgh (142 Canongate).

The Museum of Edinburgh

This is another place we hadn’t got around to visiting before the weekend, but I’m really glad we did. Although it doesn’t look that impressive from the front it does extend quite a long way back through a maze of 16th to 18th century buildings set around a central court. In Victorian times over 300 people lived within what is now the museum in very cramped conditions. Today it is home to an eclectic collection of things from the historical to the decorative.

Charles Bellfield Arts and Crafts Ceramics

I was impressed by the collection of 19th century ceramic ware from local potteries like Wemyss Ware from Fife. This fabulous carp tureen is very rare particularly because it still has its lid.

Wemyss Ware Carp Tureen

Amongst the historical displays we were horrified to discover that Greyfriars Bobby, far from being the wee dog who pined over his owner’s grave was actually a mutt trained to turn up at Mr Trial’s Coffee House for his lunch when the Edinburgh midday gun went off, what’s more the first Bobby was such a tourist draw that when he died a second lookalike was secretly procured to carry on the tradition! See the shocking fibs here.

I think my favourite set of exhibits were in the gallery devoted to Britain’s World War One General, Earl Douglas Haig. Set amongst his uniforms, trophies and photos was a fabulous set of Toby Jugs featuring the Allied war leaders.

Lloyd George and Admiral Jelicoe

Naturally King George V took pride of place in the centre.

King George V and Earl Haig

Saturday on the South Bank

London’s South Bank has moved on a long way since I were a lad. Back when everything was in black and white it didn’t really matter that the Brutalist structures of the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth hall and the Hayward Gallery (which were about the only leisure developments on the south side of the river) were a drab grey. It sort of matched the monochrome world of the early sixties. Forget about the Beatles, David Hemmings and the Shrimp, this was the London of decaying warehouses and bomb damage.

It’s much more fun now, so with a few spare hours I took a wander down from Waterloo past the South Bank Centre, the National Theatre and the Oxo Tower to the Tate Modern.

The Tate Modern

I have said before that for the architects of the modern era power stations fulfilled the role of the cathedral in terms of grandeur and spectacle. The Bankside Power station that now houses the Tate Modern’s collection is no exception to that, despite being designed as late as the 1950s. Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott had a bit of previous here, he had designed Liverpool Cathedral and the rather magnificent Battersea Power Station that is finally being redeveloped a bit further down the Thames. Scott who also designed the classic red GPO phone booth, died in 1960 so he didn’t get to see the building he designed finished. Power generation ended here in 1981 and I do think that the idea to convert the old temple of power into a modern temple of art was really quite brilliant.

I was toying with the idea of visiting the Lichtenstein exhibition that had just opened there, but the queues were so massive that I think I will put that off for another day, maybe midweek to avoid the crowds. The galleries were still pretty busy, with Guardianista parents allowing their little Brunos and Kumquats, who are evidently bored stupid, to express themselves  everywhere. Still I had a good wander around enjoying the Dalis, Ernsts and the odd Gilbert and George. I didn’t bother with any photos as the reproductions in art books are so much better, but the view over the Thames from the coffee shop terrace is pretty cool.

St Paul’s and the wobbly Bridge from the Tate Modern

There is a fancy restaurant on the top floor overlooking the Thames which I must try sometime.

Having had my fill of art I wandered back towards the South Bank’s Wahaca to meet, Mab, the Captain and the Powder Monkey. By the National theatre I discovered this bronze statue of Laurence Olivier as Hamlet. Having just written an article about his tempestuous relationship with the lovely Vivien Leigh I had to take a snap despite the poor light.

Laurence Olivier by Connor

And best of all he didn’t want a fiver unlike the living statues who were frightening the kids further on down the bank.

The South Bank Wahaca has been built out of old shipping containers  and provides a welcome splash of colour against the drab concrete of the National Theatre.

Wahaca South Bank

The menu is a bit more limited that the branches in Soho, Fitzrovia and Docklands, but we still had a great meal. The only things that let this branch down in my opinion were the lack of the usual tortilla chips and salsa garnish with the main courses and the fact that the Reza Lasagna from the specials board, despite being very tasty came in a positively tiny portion for something that cost over a fiver.

Something Fishy on the South Bank

Okay the glass used to build the tanks must be able to withstand the weight of several tons of water, but somehow the idea that the only thing between you and the nine foot of shark circling below your feet

Look out below

is a pane of glass is still pretty disturbing. This is of course once you have negotiated the scrum of families engaged in the post-cold war arms race to see who has the largest SUV sized pushchair at the cashdesk of London’s Sea Life Centre on the south bank. The Shark Reef Encounter tank

Shark Reef Encounter

rises through all three floors of the London Sea Life Centre and is home to sixteen rather large sharks. Funny thing is viewed from below, the notion that the huge quantity of water pressing against the enormous tank’s side weighs far more than you do never enters your mind, as you watch the sharks with their beady little eyes,

Brown Shark

and mouths full of sharp teeth sweeping through the water. The sharks share their environment with a number of other creatures including the guitar fish,

Guitar Fish

which with its flattened shape is somewhere betweeen a shark and a ray.

As we explored the Sea Life Centre we encountered the denizens of the Atlantic,

Everybody say hello to Ray

the tropical reefs,

Turtle

the rain forest

Crocodile

and the River Thames itself. There is even an Antarctic penguin environment.

Penguins

Smaller visitors can meet some of the Sea Life Centre’s denizens in touch pools, but touching is very much out-of-order for others.

Red Bellied Piranha

Aside from the hordes of OPKs (Other People’s Kids) who’s only objective seemed to be getting under our feet in their frantic search for Nemo, I enjoyed my visit to the London Sea Life Centre, but at £20.70 to get in it is actually more expensive than a visit to London Zoo, which if you only have limited time in the capital has an excellent aquarium as well of lots of other animals.

Who wanted chips with this?