Our Whale is Better

Thursday 19th Jan - Natural History Museum

To round out my last week in London I headed back to the Natural History Museum (I say back because it is directly across the road from the V and A). And this is what I saw...

The Natural History Museum and the V and A

Oh, hello Hogwarts

Now, onto the exhibits...

Not the most kid-friendly display

The Primates hall

I spent far too long loitering around the opal displays

The Mammals Room

The Mammals room was definitely my favourite, mostly because it was dominated by Cetacean displays. The Blue whale was rather impressive, but I do love our (Brisbane's) Humpback Whale.

The rare double horns of a Narwhal (they usually only have one)

The Marsupial display was interesting, as in, none of the marsupials actually looked like real marsupials. Case in point: Koalas don't look like this...

And apparently this is a Tasmanian wolf...sorry dudes, that's a Tasmanian Tiger*.

I took a stupid number of photos in the Museum but I might leave it here for now - I can sense your boredom is slowly growing. That, and I really want to go frolick in the snow.

Stay tuned for posts on all things regarding Manchester United, Snow Patrol, and snow.  

* Yes, I realise they go by both names but seriously who has ever called it a wolf??

Victoria and Albert

Wednesday 18th Jan:

I really am oblivious. I had absolutely no idea just how massive this museum was before I arrived. This place will eat you up if you are not careful. The upside is, there is so much amazingness inside that you won't even know it's happening.

The photo above is actually the courtyard in the middle of the museum. In spite of the rain, it was rather lovely.

These were two of my favourite sculptures, particularly the second one as it is unusual to see carved busts of children.

I know this photo isn't the best quality but this dress is part of Alexander McQueen's last collection; it is called 'Plato's Atlantis'. Can you see the dress behind it...

It is a Giles Deacon and is called the Pacman dress. How appropriate.

This was one of my favourite rooms. Not because I'm particularly interested in sculpture but because of the how the room looked when you stood at one end and looked to the other. Almost reminds me of the witch's courtyard in Narnia, only with the noticeable absence of James McAvoy shaped Fauns.

I really try to avoid taking photos with random tourists in them so I didn't manage to get a decent photo of this room from ground level. Well I did but they have been ruined by people. I did, however, snap this...

This is the ceiling in the hall of one of the Museum's entrances. A view from the bottom...

and a view from the top...

I found this room a bit creepy, to be honest. I think it was all the tomb scupltures that did it. It kind of felt like a storage room with all the left over bits they couldn't figure out what to do with. These Roman columns were fairly spectacular though.

The spaces of the museum I loved the most weren't necessarily the exhibit rooms but the joining spaces, like the hallways and staircases. Like this...

This is the china room (as in crockery, not the country).

This is a really creepy sculpture that, once again, made no sense to me but was strangley engaging (the gold has dripped onto her hands as well, that is what she is looking at).

The same goes for this one...

The entrance hall.

I think I'll leave it there as you are probably sick of all the photos. These photos don't really do this museum justice, in terms of scale or quality of exhibits. There is enough to see and do to last a good few days, I'd say. I'll be back tomorrow to finish off the week with the Natural History Museum.