Sunday in London - part 1

We had quite a few things planned for Sunday in London. First on the calendar was to visit Central Baptist Church (Bloomsbury) for Sunday services.

We decided to try taking a bus -- walking to the bus stop, Carl took a picture of an interesting high rise building.

We knew that the bus stop was on a specific street a little south of our hotel, and we found a stop with that name on that street pretty quickly. If we'd been in the US, the bus would have been traveling in the direction that we wanted to go (west), but since we're in the UK, and they drive on the left, the buses stopping there went east, so we determined that we had to cross the street. 

I had told Carl that I tend to avoid taking buses over subways/tube/trains because the subways/tube/trains have specific places to stop and are going a way that is well marked, while, if I'm told that the bus stops at the corner of "1st and Main" -- there are at least 8 places (by my counting) where the bus might actually stop. I will say though, in London, the GPS directions provide the stop name, bus number and final destination; the stop names are very clearly marked on the awning over the waiting area ("Old Street Station"); the buses that stop there are clearly identified on a sign that gives the bus number; the buses themselves have the bus number and final destination clearly showing on the front and side; when riding on the bus, there are illuminated signs telling the number and final destination of the bus as well as the next stop and whether someone has already requested that the bus should actually stop there.

We got to the right location for buses going west. Across the street was the local fire station.

A picture of a bus going east -- lots of double decker buses.

It took a very long time for a bus with the number we wanted (55) to come. A few came that would have required us to make a longer walk at the end to get to the church... we should have taken one of them, but my phone kept on indicating that a bus 55 was coming soon. Not sure what happened. By the time bus 55 came, there were quite a number of folks waiting for that specific bus, and it already had quite a number of folks on it.

We didn't see any seats downstairs, so we headed up to the second level. Not many seats up there either, but we eventually both got a seat.

When we went downstairs to prepare to exit at the next stop, I saw this young lady sketching in her book -- I don't know how she could do it, the bus was bumping and swaying!

We were about 5 minutes late getting to the church. We missed the beginning prayer, but were able to join in for the service.

I had attended this church probably 30 years ago when I was in London for a work trip.

Though the attendance was quite small, the singing was amazing. We weren't sure whether it was due to professional quality in the voices of the congregation, or acoustics in the sanctuary, or what, but regardless, the singing was beautiful! 

When we left the church, we were heading toward Westminster. We planned to visit a couple of organ recitals in the afternoon. We decided to walk, and within the first block, saw a Forbidden Planet London Megastore. Carl had to go in... he took pictures of a few items in the shop...

Model of the Enterprise

One of the models in the front of the store

The Phantom Menace 1:6 scale static figure

Continuing on, we passed The Palace Theater where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is currently playing.

We had routed our walk to take us near Chinatown, and Carl spotted this side street with lanterns decorating between the buildings...

... so we decided that we needed to check it out!

There were a lot of restaurants and shops on this street.

We stopped to eat at Feng Shui Inn -- this was on one of the pages in the menu. It reminded us of our friend Kim giving Carl Sichuan peppercorns and telling us that US visitors to their home in China called them "numb-y bits". (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/07/visiting-friends.html)

We stopped in a grocery store and saw this fruit for sale (Google AI has this to say: "The Black Thorn durian (D200 or Duri Hitam) is a highly prized premium Malaysian cultivar originating from Penang. It is celebrated for its deep golden-orange flesh, rich creamy texture, and complex flavor profile that balances intense sweetness with a subtle, nutty bitterness.")

Selfie as we exited through the southern gate of Chinatown

Just outside Chinatown, this Swiss Glockenspiel was in a courtyard (it was playing and the figures were moving).

Carl went into the phone booth to change into his Superman costume -- whoops, he came out in his Clark Kent attire!

We passed His Majesty's Theater where Phantom of the Opera is playing.

Continuing on our walk toward Westminster, we saw this statue identified as "Man Blinded by the Flag". 

I looked this up after I got back to the hotel and found:

You are likely referring to the mysterious statue by street artist Banksy, which appeared in central London on April 29, 2026.The resin and fiberglass sculpture depicts a man in a suit marching forward while holding a massive, billowing flag that completely covers his face and blinds him as he unknowingly steps off the edge of a tall plinth. 

It was installed in the dead of night using a low-loader and a swift crew in Waterloo Place, St. James's (just steps away from Pall Mall in the N1 / Central London area). The specific location is highly symbolic, as Waterloo Place is an area dominated by monuments celebrating British imperialism and military dominance. 

Banksy officially confirmed the piece on his social media. While the artist has not explicitly detailed the meaning of the work, crowds and art critics widely interpret the piece as a sharp satire of blind patriotism, extreme nationalism, and politicians being "blindsided" by their own agendas while leading the public into danger. 

As we crossed Pall Mall, we looked to the west and saw Buckingham Palace (about 1/2 mile away).

Horse Guards (building) viewed across Horse Guards Parade (ground) with London Eye in the background

We were walking along St James's Park.

I had to restrain Carl from kicking a goose (just kidding!).

Heron in St James's Park Lake

Pelican in the garden next to St James's Park Lake

That's probably enough for one blog post -- more later!

A very long day!

We traveled to London starting on Friday afternoon (Phoenix time) which was about 2-3am London time. Our friend, Linda, took us to the airport. We turned our checked luggage in, and had our boarding passes. We headed to the gate, and got there about 90 minutes before boarding time. About 40 minutes before boarding time, we got text messages on our phones that our flight had changed to a new gate -- but the gate agent assured us it was not the case. A few minutes later, the gate agent said, yes, the gate had changed -- we were at the very end of one concourse, and we had to go back to the center and all the way out to the end of the next concourse. Oh well, it is good to get some walking in before we get on a long flight. We got to the new gate, had barely gotten seated in the waiting area, and a customer service representative got on the microphone at the new gate to tell us that we were moving back to the first gate! We continued our exercise routine with another walk! The airplane was still at the second gate, but eventually they got it moved over to the first gate and eventually we got on.

On the flight -- we were in "Main Cabin Extra" which was supposed to give us slightly more leg room, which I guess it did. We also had the whole row of 3 seats (the aisle seat didn't have an assigned passenger). Regardless, we didn't get much sleep on the overnight flight.

Our flight path

I would think that the people in England would be terrified that an airplane the size of 1/2 the country was about to land!

After landing, we easily made it through immigration (it was all automated - put your passport on a device, look into a camera, get the green light and go through the gate). Then we picked up our luggage and headed out through customs. A customs/immigration officer stopped the guy in front of us, but we made it through with no problem. We then made our way to the train station...

I had decided to take the Elizabeth line train into London from Heathrow Airport. The Heathrow Express train came first, but the Elizabeth Line train came soon after (it would get us closer to our hotel without having to change trains).

On the Elizabeth Line train (with all our luggage)

We got off at Liverpool Street -- we followed signs to eventually get up to street level...

... where we found the taxi ranks to get a black cab to take us to our hotel. All our luggage stacked up in the large passenger compartment with us.

Selfie in a London black cab

View out the roof of the black cab

The taxi driver got us directly to our hotel for our stay in London, Hampton by Hilton Old Street.

Art on the walls includes a framed Shirley Bassey LP  (25th Anniversary Album - including Goldfinger - Carl is impressed)

We decided to visit a pub, The Eagle, around the corner from our hotel for lunch/dinner...

... inside The Eagle...

.... one of the items on Carl's "list of things to do in London" was to have fish and chips (which he had). I got salmon. The green thing on Carl's plate is mashed peas. All parts of our meals were very delicious!

We headed back to our hotel for a few minutes, and then left to walk to St Paul's Cathedral for evensong. It was about a 1.5 mile walk, but we figured we could use the exercise!

Along our walk - a building along the way...

... a coffee shop...

... a defibrillator along the street...

... a view of St Paul's as we got closer!

We arrived in time to join the Evensong service. They asked that no photos or videos be taken during the service (we complied, some of the others in the congregation with us did not). We had read that it was okay to take pictures after the end of the organ voluntary at the end of the service...

Looking up toward the altar -- the choir sat on the sideways facing benches inside the chancel. The choir for this service was Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Looking up at the inner dome -- 225 feet tall

Looking west, toward the doors in the back

There were two crosses in the nave of the church with something that looked like buildings on them (the picture is of one of them)...

I looked up information on what they are to depict and found (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gerry-judahs-world-war-one-memorial-at-st-pauls-cathedral-is-haunting-and-beautiful-9997):

Two sculptures by Gerry Judah commemorating World War I have been installed in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, reports the BBC. The twin crosses by the artist, each 20 feet tall, dramatically flank the nave of the church.

Judah has linked the 100-year-old war to modern-day conflict by carefully embellishing each cross with tiny models of today’s war-torn cities and towns, recalling the ongoing struggle in places such as Afghanistan and Syria. 

When we left the church, a group of folks in similar teeshirts and carrying drums were lining up outside...

Carl got a picture of the west side (main entrance) of the cathedral.

Statue of Queen Anne outside St Paul's

As the clock finished chiming the 6 o'clock hour...

... a group of the drummers started playing (video here).

A food truck in the plaza outside St Paul's

We decided to walk back to our hotel. We took a different route (we like going different paths, but this was because we didn't quite understand the directions and may have gotten a little lost erh, creative in our path-taking...).

Along the way, we came across a remnant of the Roman Wall that had been built around London. From what I read, it was built around AD200!

Nearby was the ruined 14th-century church tower of Elsyng Spital - "...founded by merchant William Elsyng in 1330 to care for homeless blind people, it was damaged by the Great Fire, the Blitz, and now sits amid modern skyscrapers."

We continued on our walk back to our hotel, finding a Subway sandwich shop where we got sandwiches to eat back at our room. One thing interesting was that they had kernel corn as an optional topping on the subs... we tried it, but didn't find that it added much to the taste.

We finally got to bed about 9pm London time - after a very small amount of sleep on the airplane and quite a bit of walking -- we were exhausted!