Pokemon and old dead people. APRIL 14th, 2010
SQUEEZE ON IN
Up early and on the tube with my mate at 8.30am. Oh how I have forgotten how busy it gets on the small metal cylinder traveling dangerously fast so far under ground. I got off at Euston to grab a coffee and write this and was shocked about the amount of people who don’t get on each train as they are jammed-packed during rush hour. Once I was able to navigate to a safe spot with my bags without being trampled by the hurrying worker bees I pulled out my camera. London (and I assume many cities in the world) someone taking pics in certain places, like on the underground, may occur as suspicious or a weirdo or even both. This didn’t stop me, mind you, but I did decide to turn off the flash so I didn’t attract too much attention. I also shot people on the escalator, which had become a ‘stand-still’ due to so many people. Personally I don’t mind the hustle & bustle, but I think I will wait for the rush to calm a little before going on with my travels as pushing on a tube with all my bags may be somewhat difficult (I don’t want to be inside the tube and my bag outside stuck in the door – I have witnessed this and it’s no fun). I will continue to sit in this nice leather chair and sip my Americano – ahhh, now that’s a better idea.
ALL THINGS BRITISH
After I got settled at my friend’s place, my buddy (Matt), his 13 year old daughter (Emily) and I went to the British Museum.
“Founded in 1753, the British Museum’s remarkable collection spans over two million years of human history. Visitors can travel the world and experience the collections form Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Ancient World”.
London is amazing for free exhibitions and galleries – which is good as the rest of the city can be rather expensive. The Museum is rather overwhelming at times as there is so so so much history and exhibits. You could spend several days there exploring one area after another.
Everything is old. To illustrate this- it is amazing when you are looking at exhibit after exhibit that date back to 2400 BC and then when you see one from say 1850BC you think they are not so old, in fact rather modern. It’s crazy, 1850BC is still seriously old in every way, but as you are encapsulated in such rich historical artifacts it all becomes a different perspective. I wonder what a museum of similar theme would be in Vancouver or Canada. ‘Here lies the great XYZ from the late nineteenth century.
The Egyptian exhibition was overwhelmingly amazing. The detail, the scale, the language and the big question of how did they manage to build what they did. The Mummy section was an eye opener, learning how the process is completed and viewing not only ancient dummies preserved perfectly but seeing inside them using modern CT scans showing the preserved bones from thousands of years ago.
On of the most popular exhibits was the Rosetta Stone. This stone is said to have been the key to understanding the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. “The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and one in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta, and transported to England in 1802. Once in Europe, it contributed greatly to the deciphering of the principles of hieroglyph writing, through the work of the British scientist Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion”
The whole Museum had me feel awe for previous cultures and felt that ours doesn’t quite match up. When people look back at our time in thousands of years I wonder what they will be looking at. Fair, we don’t hire / make thousand of slaves build ‘great wonders’ like the pyramids etc (although this is rumoured in Dubai etc). Maybe people will remember things like the beginning of the Internet, cell phones, over population, child labour making sneakers for Nike etc. Erm, I know this is a little negative and we have actually had many amazing advances in all areas of life but I feel they wither in comparison to those of thousands of years before. Time will tell I guess.
Whilst there we had the conversation about who owned the treasures of the exhibit. Some countries like Greece want what was once ‘stolen’ (or ‘acquired’ depending on how you want to word it) back to belong in museums in their country. To be honest I can’t blame them, we did steal them as we went round the world creating the Great British Empire all those glorious years ago. If in today’s society I was to go into a shop and steal say some TV equipment and later on the Police tracked me down and found the stash, they would return them to the rightful owner. Good luck Greece (although I think there is little hope in you getting them any time soon).
On the way home that night I learnt from Emily all about Pokemon which I can say was in extreme contrast to the previous few hours exploring the wonders of Man’s other great creations. That said it was great to be genuinely interested in her world and how she ‘shined’ explaining it to me in great passionate detail.
SEE IMAGES ON FLICKR:
part 1, part 2, part 3 & part 4
