Unfurling like a sequence of frames in an English television show, think The Vicar of Dibley, the views from our carriage on board the Stanstead Airport Express train into London's Liverpool Street Station seem oddly familiar.
Manors and churches composed picturesquely across the verdant landscape gradually form clusters that thicken until we reach the great brown-brick metropolis of London, about 45 
minutes away.
Five years ago, British working visa in hand, I decided not to enter the United Kingdom, worried that the notorious costs of visiting the Monarch would mean reigning in a planned six month trip into two months. But recently, an opportunity to travel to the Western European nation of about 51 million people came to pass, and while the costs of living in the famed capital city, London can be high, there are also countless ways for guests with less to spend to experience the city and its many offerings.
Knotted with villages, historical sites, galleries and museums around the River Thames, London is said to have been founded more than 2,000 years ago by the Roman consul Brutus of Troy. Seeping through accretions of brick and mortar that appear to stretch as far as the low-rise horizon, the city's history is palpable.
Possessing only scant knowledge of the city, we decide that the safest spot to start our visit is on the London Underground, better known as "The Tube", itself an awe-inspiring structure and the world's oldest below ground public transportation system.
"The life of the city flows through these arteries, channels and conduits. Lifting the lid on this subterranean world can be a fascinating insight on what makes a city function", write Jackson Hunt, Andrew Scoones and Meghan Fernandes in their introduction to the 2008 exhibition catalogue Underground: London's Hidden Infrastructure.
Amid vast unseen networks of underground tributaries, catacombs and platform-cum-air-raid shelters among other things, The Tube brings us to London Bridge Station, one of the main terminals for out-of-town train services and the departure point for London's famed south-eastern district, Greenwich.
minutes away.Five years ago, British working visa in hand, I decided not to enter the United Kingdom, worried that the notorious costs of visiting the Monarch would mean reigning in a planned six month trip into two months. But recently, an opportunity to travel to the Western European nation of about 51 million people came to pass, and while the costs of living in the famed capital city, London can be high, there are also countless ways for guests with less to spend to experience the city and its many offerings.
Knotted with villages, historical sites, galleries and museums around the River Thames, London is said to have been founded more than 2,000 years ago by the Roman consul Brutus of Troy. Seeping through accretions of brick and mortar that appear to stretch as far as the low-rise horizon, the city's history is palpable.
Possessing only scant knowledge of the city, we decide that the safest spot to start our visit is on the London Underground, better known as "The Tube", itself an awe-inspiring structure and the world's oldest below ground public transportation system.
"The life of the city flows through these arteries, channels and conduits. Lifting the lid on this subterranean world can be a fascinating insight on what makes a city function", write Jackson Hunt, Andrew Scoones and Meghan Fernandes in their introduction to the 2008 exhibition catalogue Underground: London's Hidden Infrastructure.
Amid vast unseen networks of underground tributaries, catacombs and platform-cum-air-raid shelters among other things, The Tube brings us to London Bridge Station, one of the main terminals for out-of-town train services and the departure point for London's famed south-eastern district, Greenwich.
Twenty minutes along the line, the maritime town's Royal Observatory, the setting of the creation of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) comes into view. Eyeballing skyward from atop the contours of Greenwich Park, the observatory, which was established to assist with Britain's seafaring activities in 1675, has been UNESCO-listed since 1997.
Seen to be of huge historic and scientific value, the monumental time machine -- where days officially begin and the Eas
tern and Western hemispheres are defined by the Prime Meridian -- also has great cultural value, perhaps even notoriety. "I hadn't realized it was such a colonizing machine," observes our companion, Bianca, referring to the tactical precision and scope of early maritime exploration.
Drawing swarms of onlookers, the English inventor John Harrison's four meticulously engineered and crafted prototype time-keepers tick fastidiously inside their glass cabinets. Winners of the British Government's coveted "Longitude Prize" of 1714, offered for the design of an effective Longitude measuring device, the legendary clocks seem to attest to the urgency of Britain's expansion at the time.
Also the distinguished subjects of American author Dava Sobel's 1995 novel Longitude: The Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, it seems that despite their sometimes touchy subtext, the devices still inspire awe.
Night arrives, London's sky lit like an aurora by the city below, and we head back into The Tube. Emerging soon after, our arrival in Chinatown is signaled by the pulse-raising glow of up-sized fairy lights beaming one another through a chorus of walkers, rickshaws, bicycles and autos; cinema after cinema, entertainment complexes and eateries extending as far as the eye can see.
Seen to be of huge historic and scientific value, the monumental time machine -- where days officially begin and the Eas
tern and Western hemispheres are defined by the Prime Meridian -- also has great cultural value, perhaps even notoriety. "I hadn't realized it was such a colonizing machine," observes our companion, Bianca, referring to the tactical precision and scope of early maritime exploration.Drawing swarms of onlookers, the English inventor John Harrison's four meticulously engineered and crafted prototype time-keepers tick fastidiously inside their glass cabinets. Winners of the British Government's coveted "Longitude Prize" of 1714, offered for the design of an effective Longitude measuring device, the legendary clocks seem to attest to the urgency of Britain's expansion at the time.
Also the distinguished subjects of American author Dava Sobel's 1995 novel Longitude: The Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, it seems that despite their sometimes touchy subtext, the devices still inspire awe.
Night arrives, London's sky lit like an aurora by the city below, and we head back into The Tube. Emerging soon after, our arrival in Chinatown is signaled by the pulse-raising glow of up-sized fairy lights beaming one another through a chorus of walkers, rickshaws, bicycles and autos; cinema after cinema, entertainment complexes and eateries extending as far as the eye can see.
At once brilliant and a little disconcerting, Chinese imagery spills acro
ss several city streets rendering a picture of Hong Kong, the pawn in early Sino-British relations, which was handed back to China at the end of Britain's negotiated 99 year lease on July 1st, 1997. But just another part of the city's complexity, our attention is soon diverted by signage on a Chinese Medicine shop window reading "Massage here". After some well deserved respite from the all-go city, it's time to hit the hay.Long before arriving, we trawled the internet for low-cost lodgings and among a list too long to count; we stumbled upon The Wardonia Hotel in King's Cross, which had garnered a bunch of great reviews and proved to be spotless, cheap and right in the center of town.
We are roused early the next day by the summoning hum of the city and make our way to Brick Lane, a long time migrant and low-income area of East London that has morphed in recent years to form the setting of innumerable art galleries, bars and cafes.
With its vibrant village atmosphere, it's a great place to grab a coffee before setting out for the day. A little more familiar with the city, following the previous day of Tube rides we continue on foot; our moseying tourist tempo revealing by contrast the quick pace of the city and some of the local rituals; resting on a deck chair in "Green Park", perhaps the most seductive.
Meandering on, we chance upon the River Thames and a bunch of the must-see sights that dot its Northern promenade. Perched, set-like over the waterway; Tower Bridge, seemingly named for its two grand structural towers joined by a delicate fretwork of suspension cable, is perhaps one of the city's most elegant structures. Built in 1894, the crossing is one of dozens bridging the city's North and South banks.
A little further along, we reach the unmistakable Tate Modern Art Gallery, an immense former Power Station, which was reopened as a gallery in 2000 after a refurbishment by the prolific Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. A city within a building, the gallery is laden with education programs, talks and symposia creating unconventionally upbeat qualities for a museum, boasting some of the 20th century's seminal ideas in art, architecture and performance.
Commissioning temporary art installations by some of the world's most adept contemporary artists, the sublime ground level "Turbine Hall" was recently the subject of Colombian artist Doris Salcedo's work. An insidiously snaking fault-line was cut into the gallery's concrete floor, revealing glimpses of the historic building's underbelly; just one more reminder of London's brimming history. Galleries, museums, historical sites and events abounding, London is a living Museum.
Source: The Jakarta Post, Sunday, 04/27/2008
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