A trip to London Sea Life Aquarium and Greenwich Royal Observatory : 19-Jun-2010

Our trip journey continues today.. We started @ 8.30 in the morning and reached Stratford by national rail @ 9.00 am. We boarded the train to Waterloo @ 9.40. The jubilee line in Stratford station has a rich and new look compared to the other lines.

This trip was more interesting , as couple of Sathish's colleagues with their family joined us. The total number was 9 including kids, Prithvi (age 5), Bharath (age 4) and Surya(age 1). So, it was fun all the way in train and we reached our destination point Waterloo @ 10.30 am.

Sea life aquarium

Sea life aquarium is very close to the London eye. In fact, it was managed by the same Merlin entertainment that operates the London Eye. I was not very much excited about this trip , as I am not much fascinated by aquariums. But this one was quite different. The arrangement was like that of a tunnel and some of the fish tanks were so tall and huge that it spanned across many levels of the aquarium. This helped in getting a view of the fishes from different angles, which made it more interesting. It also gave the feel of touching the fish directly when we touched the glass. So, the kids were too scared to touch the glass.

When we were enjoying seeing the colorful fishes in one side of the tank, we felt something fishy (!!) on the other side. A giant sized lobster, which was almost hiding under the rock, started moving. Then , there were lot of colorful sea anemones and star fish , which were really beautiful.

Then came the Ray fish , which is a type of bat fish but was huge in size. It was looking very normal until we saw its back closer. For a moment, i got frightened.. it was looking like a white ghost in the movie 'Jagan mogini'.

Just contrary to this was the Jelly fish, which still lingers in my mind. As the tank was illuminated with colored lights that kept changing colours, the fish looked awesome. It was too good to be described in words and we did not feel like moving to the next.. I was reminded of the shiny and glowing creatures shown in 'Avatar' movie. When I saw the movie, I thought those creatures were animated ones but now have a feeling that they could be real.

Next were the biggies, sharks and the big Ray fishes. The sharks were really big and about 10 ft long. It looked very shiny but the fact is, its skin is so rough like a salt paper. As we saw them very close from different angles and from different floors, Surya kutty also enjoyed and started making ooh aah sounds.

We moved on to some colorful ones as shown in the movie 'Finding Nemo'. There were some funny looking fishes like the giraffe faced fish and the stone fish. The stone fish exactly looked liked a stone. It was hard to believe it to be a fish, until it made some movements. The stone and sand arrangements were such that it resembled exactly as the fish colours... Sea horses and turtles were also nice to watch.

Finally , it was time to move out. The only disappointment was that there were no dolphins and dolphin shows. But, overall we enjoyed the aquarium.

We got hungry.. so we went to the Subway to have a quick lunch. After lunch, came the exciting part for the kids.. boat ride to Greenwich. Boat is another means of transport for London. We got the tickets and boarded the boat. The seats inside the boat were just like in an airplane and there were few seats outside just open to sky. We took the outer ones for sight seeing. The boat was going so fast, that it splashed water on us. As it was a windy day, we felt very cold. London's weather is very unpredictable. It is very hot on one day and the very next day it swings to the other extreme. Even the forecasts are not very accurate. So, it is always better to go out with winter clothing and an umbrella.

Prime Meridian

Finally we reached Greenwich Royal observatory... This houses the Greenwich mean time and prime meridian , which separates the East from the West just like the equator separates the North and the South.

The Observatory was mainly built to improve navigation at sea and 'find the so-much desired longitude of places' – one's exact position east and west – while at sea and out of sight of land, by astronomical means. King Charles II appointed John Flamsteed as his first Astronomer Royal in March 1675, who did his research here. Finding the longitude @ sea proved to be a major challenge in those days and due to which there were many disasters in sea. Finally the clock invented by John Harrison to find the local time @ sea helped in calculating the longitude , which changed navigation forever. The clocks by Harrison were in display and the longitude /latitude calculations and different time zones of different countries based on longitude were displayed and explained.

We had to wait in a long queue to take a photo on the line with one foot on the Eastern and another on western hemisphere.

Telescopes and clocks used in ancient times to measure time and longitude were present. Dolphin sundial is one. There are 2 dolphins facing each other and the exact location where their tail end of the fins shadows meet give the actual time.. We checked the time and oh yeah.. it was accurate.

If you have a thirst for astronomical science , this observatory is a must visit for you. There are also other museums and parks in the surroundings.

As it started raining , we could not sit in the nearby park. So, we headed straight to East Ham for our dinner. We chose East Ham as this is the place where there are many South Indian restaurants. We took a train to Canary Wharf from Greenwich, from where we took the Jubilee line to West ham. Unfortunately trains to East ham got cancelled suddenly. So, we had to take 2 buses to reach East ham. By the time we reached East ham it was already 8 pm. We chose Ananda Bhavan as our restaurant for dinner as suggested by our friends. We had South Indian Buffet meal that was good except for the rice, which felt semi cooked. One thing , I wanted to highlight here is the food in London. When I was in the US, I used to yearn for Dosas and other Indian food, as it was very rare to find any Indian restaurant. In fact, many Indian vegetables are a rare find in the US markets. However, the situation could be different now as it was a long time back. But, here in London, there are many Indian restaurants and all veggies are available. So, I really don't miss any Indian food here.

After dinner , we took buses to reach home @ 10 pm. As we got very tired, we drifted to sleep immediately.

See you again with more trip experience...........