The British Museum & the London Philharmonic

I only have class until noon on Wednesdays, and decided to use my afternoon to check out one of London's fantastic free museums, the British Museum. 

The museum is absolutely regal looking, both inside and out. The Greek-style columns on the outside lead into the most beautiful foyer on the inside. A grand, circular staircase swirls out from the center of the room and the ceiling gives rise to a gorgeous dome with bright blue geometric window panes.

The most famous piece of history in this museum is likely the Rosetta Stone. 

However, there are pieces here that I find more interesting and certainly more beautiful, such as the Nereid Monument, the largest Lykian tomb found in Xanthos, south-west Turkey.

I climbed up what felt like forever to reach the artwork from Asia, hoping to see the Great Wave off Kanagawa painting, plastered over postcards all over the gift shop. I found out that it was unfortunately only a temporary exhibit and the painting actually hasn't been in the museum since the start of the new year, but I did see other beautiful pieces on the top floors.

A balcony overlooking the entrance provided some of the most beautiful views of the architecture of the museum.

After quenching my museum thirst, I met up with my friends at Southbank Center for a quick sushi dinner, and things may have just gotten a bit goofy...

We popped right over to the Royal Festival Hall to watch the London Philharmonic Orchestra perform.

The Philharmonic is much more low key and less formal than a night at the Symphony. They played an eclectic mix of music reminiscent of some of our crazier pieces we played back in high school (Blue Shades, anybody?). It was certainly a musical experience!

The night was beautiful, crisp and clear, and we decided to take a walk down along the Thames to pick up the tube over by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

London lit up at night is certainly a sight to see.

Notting Hill & the Kyoto Gardens

Sunday afternoon, we all found ourselves in need of getting out of East London and into the Western part of the city, itching for some London culture. We decided to check out the Japanese gardens in Holland Park, situated in the beautiful (and expensive) neighborhood of Notting Hill.

Notting Hill has got to be my favorite neighborhood in London. It's residential, but also home to tons of delicious cafe's, quaint book stores, and other cute shops.

We strolled down the wide streets into Holland Park and made our way over to the Kyoto Gardens, built in 1991 and donated by the Chamber of Commerce of Kyoto, Japan. 

We were totally surprised to see the dozen or so gorgeous peacocks who call the Kyoto Garden their home! They waddled about, completely comfortable with the humans milling around admiring their bright plumage, only interested in chasing around one another.

They turned their beaks up against human food.

After enjoying our lunches in the park, we made our way back out into Notting Hill to poke around in a bookstore and settling into a cafe for afternoon pick-me-ups. Sadly, as we all had work to get done, we had to say goodbye to Notting Hill after and return to our flats to put our noses to the books.

Hiking in Box Hill & Denbies Wine Estate

Saturday morning, Tori, Kathleen, Anna and I made our way to Victoria Station in West London to board a train to Box Hill, a summit area in West Downs, Surrey. Surrey is the county just south-west of London. It's graced with beautiful rolling green hills and vineyards, and is the perfect day break from the city.

The climb up the hill was more strenuous than we were expecting, and before even reaching the top, we found ourselves short of breath both from the climb and also from the gorgeous views.

We kept on climbing in hopes of finding a beautiful, dry spot to dig into our packed lunches.

This spot overlooking the valley, in full view of the cows grazing on the bright green grass, is where we decided to settle and tuck into lunch.

Further along was a viewing point where families were congregating and kids were making the fullest out of this gorgeous sunny English day.

We made our descent down to the meadow below.

But first got distracted by this gorgeous little footbridge that crept right out of the trees.

It brought us right over this fast-moving creek.

Which Anna decided to dip her toes into!

A meadow a few yards away served as another distraction and called for some frolicking.

We detoured by skipping around on these stepping stones before heading down the road to the Denbies Wine Estate, a vineyard visible from the top of Box Hill.

The walk through the vineyard to the winery made me feel like I had been transported out of London to a vineyard in Tuscany. The grapes were luscious and midnight blue and the vineyard seemed to stretch on for ages.

We paid a couple pounds to do a tour and tasting of the winery. Our guide showed us where the grapes are pressed, bottled, and labelled, and told us a bit about how each type of wine is crafted.

These beautiful barrels were crafted by a master in Austria and sent back to the vineyard for decoration. Soon after our time at the vineyard, we made our way back to the train station to return to London.