Day at the museums…

You see what I did there? The title is the exact opposite of the ‘Nights at the museum’! Really funny… I know! (I’m so pathetic sometimes).

Anyway, this Saturday the way was fairly nice so we decided with ‘JJ’ to walk around London. We met in the tube station called ‘Embankment’ and we walked on the South Bank of the river Thames all the way to Bermondsey. It’s not that great distance but it’s a nice area to walk with great views of buildings like the ‘St. Paul’s Cathedral or the skyscrapers of the City.

Our first visit was the Gallery @OXO. There’s an exhibition there called ‘Distracting the Colour’ by a very sexy artist called Russell Scott-Skinner. I know that he’s very sexy because he was there and he greeted us while working on a painting which is going in silent auction for a charity. I find quite invigorating watching a focused passionate talented man working like this. It’s the same thing I see in ‘JJ’ when I see him painting. Russell’s work is quite interesting. You can check it out here.

After that we walked towards the ‘Shard’. That’s a new building that will occupy London’s skyline. It looks massive already and they still haven’t built it to the maximum height. I think it will be the tallest building in the city. It looks, well, interesting. When it is finished the pointy top will make it look like a broken piece of glass.

The Shard under costruction

On the way towards the ‘Shard’ we came across the ‘Old Operating Theatre Museum’. At first I wondered whether the museum was about an old theatre that was still operating or regarding an old operating theatre. There was an interesting ‘sculpture’ in the entrance as seen by the photo below, so we agreed that it was the latter. Since we both have an interest in gruesome things we decided to pay it a visit. Generally the museum is small but interesting. Its consists of two rooms, one of which is the old operating theatre. The first room is big and is separated in categories. It has old medicine bottles, pharmaceutical material, old manuals and instruments from the mid 19th century. It explains how they used to amputate patients in the old times and you can see the knives, saws and other various scary looking sharp things.

The entrance of the museum

scary / interesting stuff

The operating theatre is exactly like the ones you've seen in the movies like ‘Jack the Ripper’. It’s small but with an eerie feeling to it. The operating table itself is tiny but it’s obvious how they used to operate on people. According to sketches from that time they even allowed dogs in it to feast on the fallen organs. Generally, I have to say that the museum is interesting. It has a fake feeling to it like the organisers were trying too hard to make it scary. However, it is not bad visiting.

The operating theatre

Our last stop before heading back was the London Design Museum. JJ had never been there and I wanted to take him. The museum is right on Thames, after the ‘Tower Bridge, in a very nice area. It is not that big but it hosts some very nice exhibitions which. You can take a look at the pictures below on some stuff we saw. We ended our daily excursion having lunch in a nearby pub overlooking the bridge and the river. It was a very nice day out.

The outside of the museum

Interesting

While leaving the museum the clouds began to gather