Welcome to the sessions. This is a space where I will periodically journal and post updates on stuff that happens.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
~Day 4: London, Part 3~
One thing that never ceases to impress me is how vibrant and decorated the streets of London are. Just walking about and gazing around is an experience in itself. In Toronto, you can find small patches here and there, but in London, it never ends; you reach the end of a street, turn a corner, and there's more architecture, artwork, and people. This is a city that's truly alive and vibrant; this is the way a city should be.
Even still, I hate to admit it, but I'm getting a little sick of London. Well, at least the touristy parts.
I think it's just been too much in too little time, trying to cram in as many sights as possible, and we've defnitely been overdoing it with the walking. I spent most of today being pretty bored, to be honest, but that was probably because we were also going to see the stuff I was least interested in. We'd left the west side of Central London unexplored, which is where Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace, etc. were all located, so we took the train to Victoria Station and worked our way up from there. They were things that you had to see while in London, and I was hoping that being there in person was much more exciting than seeing the pictures. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite the case; I was about as bored at those sites as I had expected.
LEFT: When we reached Buckingham Palace, hordes of people had gathered behind barricades. We didn't know what was going on, but we stuck around to see. RIGHT: Turned out to be some kind of march. Don't really know what it was, and don't really care to find out either.
Decided to spend time on taking pictures of the Queen Victoria memorial instead, which had some interesting statues.
LEFT: Caught the parade as they came marching back. These guys were serious; looked like they were carrying assault rifles (HK G36C's?) with fixed bayonets. RIGHT: We walked through St. James Park to get to Hyde Park. I like animals.
I perked up as we reached the northeast corner of Hyde Park. It was labelled as "Speakers Corner" on our map, and all you Canadians are probably familiar with the CityTV concept of Speakers' Corner. Well, that's what I had in mind, and that's totally not what it is . (I was wondering why they'd put a video booth on the tourist maps =P) The idea is really interesting, and the result is even more so:
1. Clear off a large area in the corner of the park, enough to fit hundreds of people. 2. Let anyone who has anything to say about anything at all go there, stand on a stool, and start speaking to whoever's willing to listen. 3. Sit back and watch.
I could have stayed there for hours. It was just fascinating; it was a microcosm of the global political and spiritual battleground. Sadly, just like the real world, there was no room for moderate voices to be heard either. I was a bit disappointed; I was hoping for maybe a good, old-fashion Socratic debate between two intelligent people, but what it really amounted to was a lot of yelling, and the more extreme the ideas, the better.
LEFT: Some crazy Chinese guy, and I mean kah-RAZY. He was yelling abaout how we were all ignorant, all of London was ignorant, he'd read a website that talked (loosely speaking) about how we were all going to be implanted with chips. I almost felt sorry for him, because he was so aggravated, he looked like he would burst into tears at any moment. His face was all flush and he was yelling at the top of the lungs, fists clenched, and occasionally stamping his feet (most likely in frustration because we're all so ignorant). I'm betting he has something of an mental illness. RIGHT: Two guys heckling the crazy Chinese dude. They were pros, walking from group to group, hassling the speaker and seeing how many they could shut down.
LEFT: Two men preaching the Quran. RIGHT: After they had finished, this little old lady with a bible came and started debating with one of the Quran preachers. A small crowd gathered as they did battle.
LEFT: Another guy preaching something. It was pretty crackpot. RIGHT: After a while, this gospel choir from some church showed up and just started singing hymns. In true gospel fashion, one man came out and preached the gospel while the choir kept singing in the background. I appreciated the exuberant, simple hymns in the midst of all the noise and conflict of the square. In the midst of so many words, a little music is a breath of fresh air.
This man was the only speaker I saw that day that was worth listening to. That may be in part because he's a professional comic/performer, but he was quick-witted, rational, intelligent and well-spoken. He was also sarcastic, cynical and very very funny. He easily made fools of any hecklers who tried to argue against him, but he was also one of the few people who was speaking on rational, logical terms. He started with, "Look at all these crackpots here, abusing this forum. So what should we be discussing here then? What's really worth talking about? What kind of problems do we face in our city?" and the dialogue continued as he took suggestions from the crowd.
"Too much poverty in London? Alright. Why is there too much poverty? Why do we need so much money? Because you need a car? Well, why do you need a car? So you can drive to work! And why do you go to work? Because you need money? Well, why do you have so little money? Because you bought the car...I see. So you work to afford a car so you can go to work..." and then he outlined some sure-fire way to make a pile of money by betting on the next elections. We spent nearly 45 minutes listening to him talk, some of the best entertainment in London for free.
After Hyde Park, we found a coffee shop to sit around in, and I decided to just call it a day early because we had an early flight to catch. Alfred had dinner with his relatives later that night, so I headed home myself to just relax and rest up.
LEFT: A beautiful day in Hyde Park. RIGHT: An advertisement for the Hillsongs church in Embankment Station.
