Bond...

..No, Not James Bond.... The OTHER Famous Bond in London.

Bond Street

OK I’m afraid this is going to be another of those picture overload posts, but I have to post this for all my Victoria’s Secret addicts, and Fashion Merchandising friends I have out there!!!

I went down and did a little window shopping on New Bond St. which is where they have most of the upper end flagship stores, including the newest addition one of the first overseas Victoria’s Secret stores.

I took the tube to Oxford Circus, which is on Oxford St, which is another big shopping street.

At first I was so confused why they called the stations or intersections circus. I did a little research and it turns out they use circus to basically mean circle, not like a three ring circus with elephants and clowns. I’ll admit to a total ditz moment and I actually thought to myself (thankfully not out loud or to anyone until now) “I wonder if they call it a circus because its so busy..?” Makes sense in my mind! Especially since Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus are two of the busiest intersections I’ve ever seen! Then I noticed both intersections are a huge circle… The blonde hair dye has obviously gone to my brain!

The most interesting thing I found about Oxford Circus was the diagonal crossing. Normally to go from one corner to the opposite corner of an intersection you’ll have to cross the street twice right? Well in London they realized how much that was holding up pedestrian traffic so they made a diagonal cross in Oxford Circus to test out the concept. The road traffic all takes its turn and then there’s a pedestrian light where you can cross diagonally across the intersection. A big time saver! Of course you can still cross the road the traditional way with the road signals too!

Oxford Street is very similar in look and feel to the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. It mostly has high street fashion shops like a 5-floor Top Shop (aka HEAVEN!), River Island, Dorothy Perkins (who just picked up “The Kardashion Kollection” that Sears has in the US), and my personal favorite New Look. There’s also some US shops, Hollister, A&F and a Forever 21.

“High Street Fashion” is similar to what we would see in our malls, however in London actual shopping malls are very rare. Most shopping is in an outdoor setting along the main street in towns, which is called High Street.

I headed over to New Bond St and made my way to Victoria’s Secret after getting totally turned around and walking past it….twice… Finally pulled out the trusty iPhone for the compass map and made my way back to my starting point on New Bond and there it was!

The windows were full of Runway outfits that the Angels had worn in previous fashion shows.

I walked in, and really it felt quite similar to other flagship Victoria’s Secret stores I had been in before, like the Chicago store on Michigan Ave, or the New York 5^th Ave shop. There was a room for each of the collections, just one room for beauty though, then you could go downstairs for the PINK store or up one floor to more lingerie, then up one more and there was a personal shopping service you could make an appointment for (I think mostly for serious VIPs)

The only real unique thing the store really had was the gorgeous glass spiral staircase at the back of the store.

I left Victoria’s Secret and headed down along New Bond St doing some window shopping, and just checking out the windows.

(Old) Bond St has a lot of more Victorian style shop fronts with the signs that post out. I especially liked this one for Hublot, a watch shop. The clock on the watch face actually works. Bond St also has a lot of little galleries that you can pop in and take a look at. There was one who had an artist on showcase who used some type of glue on top of metal to give a wet look on some of his prints, which were all of London. I found this shot which I snapped a picture of and had as the background on my phone for a bit as well. I loved the overlap of photos and the spots of color in it!

Well this didn’t turn out to be as much of a photo overload as I anticipated! I should really write these entries without access to photos or the ability to upload immediately more often! I wrote the last few blog entries while on the plane as Nick and I head to Florida for a little vaca to celebrate, and share with my best friend Dana when she gets married down in Destin.

Congratulations Dana! I can’t wait to share the day with you! And get some sweet pictures on the beach with my new camera!

However reliving my times in London has me ready to go back and explore some more so I can share more adventures with you guys! I head back on the 27^th so I’ll have more to share in November! 

All Time Favorite Day in London so far

Know Knock

Whos there? 

You know. 

You know who? 

He's dead, you can say his name now. 

Ooh Harry Potter

This might be my all time favorite entry of all time to write!!! Since getting to London this entry has been on my MUST DO list! This one is for all my fellow geeks!

Shortly before leaving to come back home for a visit I went on a walking tour of Harry Potter spots in London. The Harry Potter Series has long been my favorite, both the books and movies. I booked the tour through the same company we used for our Beatles tour (Celebrity Tours in London) and again I was not let down. Our tour guide was super informative not just about the Harry Potter spots, or Harry Potter but made sure to point out other landmarks and gave us some more London knowledge to go along with our tour. It was because of her that I found out about going into the Memorial to the Great Fire in the last entry. I had seen it and walked past it once but had no clue that you could go up inside!

I went on the tour alone since Nick has not a clue about ANYTHING Harry Potter related. I dragged him to the final movie and he was so confused!

We started in Leicester Square near the Odeon cinema where all the films had their premiere. It’s the largest single film cinema in the world. They only play one movie at a time, usually a British film. (Most British cinemas are full of American movies!)

We walked along the route of where they had the red carpet for the final premiere which went all the way to Trafalgar Square a half mile away!. This also happens to be the place where in the fourth movie, I believe, they put the shadow of the death eaters symbol over top the square.

 

Along the way to the square we went down an alley along Charring Cross Road. When interviewed J.K. Rowling has been reported to say that she was inspired for Diagon Alley by a small alley off Charring Cross Road, which has maintained the Victorian shop fronts.

It was the cutest little alley that you would have totally just walked past if you didn’t know it existed. It had loads of old bookshops selling first editions and collectable shops with model airplanes and cars. A signed copy of a first edition of Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone just sold in the shop for over £1000!!! There was one shop which is probably the shop that the bookshop was inspired by had all sorts of odd books and a psychic in the window doing Tarrot Card & Psychic readings.

In Charring Cross Square there’s a set of arches that used to be positioned at the entrance to Buckingham Palace prior to Green Park that is now for sale if anyone has an extra £50,000 and wants to buy them for me I’d not complain ;)

We went down to Parliament Square and saw the building at the Ministry of Defense they used as the “visitor’s entrance” to the Ministry of Magic when Harry went in for his court hearing in the fifth film. They did a lot of editing to some of the scenery in London to make it more mysterious looking. Here they took out the street barricades and a telephone pole. The arch you see to the left was moved over to the right of the door and went across the street rather than across the alley. In the movie scene the red telephone box is positioned just between the window and door in the picture here.

We hopped on a ferry and went down river and got off near the Globe Theatre and headed into the Southbank side of London. Back when London was first built the City of London ended at the Thames River, so everything illegal in the city took place on the south side, like Theatre, Prostitution, Drinking and other wild activities. Because of this, the North side of the London has much wider streets as they had to make room for horse drawn carriages that the wealthy and Royalty in the city would have, and the south side has always been more brick, smaller roads with more alleys. The North side of London has that grand feel still where as the south side feels more mysterious and dark. A lot of the filming for the fourth movie on took place on the south side of London because of this.

The oldest known prison in the world is just on the Southbank near the Globe Theatre. It’s called The Clink. It was known for having the worst conditions than any other prison. They would not feed their prisoners at all. They had windows with bars, which allowed them to beg for work and for food scraps. If they were unsuccessful they starved.

When we came off the ferry we were near the “Wobbly Bridge.” This is the bridge that the Deatheaters destroyed in the last movies. The producers chose this bridge simply because it had the least amount of work to destroy it on the computer! It’s a low suspension footbridge (the only bridge without a rail line or road, simply a footbridge that crosses the Thames) that opened in the early 2000’s. The first day it opened Londoners flocked to the bridge to cross it only to discover it literally wobbled from side to side. People boycotted the bridge and it was closed and reopened two years later without the wobbles! Everyone still calls it the Wobbly Bridge though J

We went to a market just on the river to see the location of the entrance to The Leaky Cauldron from the fourth movie on.

When Warner Bros bought the movie rights to the books, J.K. Rowling was insistent that they film everything in London and keep the feel of London true. The entrance to the Leaky Cauldron sits under a rail bridge so if you listen to the scenes where Harry is staying in the room at the Leaky Cauldron you can hear the trains going by.

We crossed the London Bridge and got to see the shots of the Tower Bridge and City Hall, which are shown throughout the series and used on the movie posters, and of course anywhere you see London! We headed back to the North side of London to the Bank area to Leadenhall Market.

The market was part of London before the Great Fire and parts of the Market were destroyed with the fire, there are marks inside with dates of rebuilding to what the market is now. The market is home to the Leaky Cauldron entrance in the first Harry Potter movie.

We hopped on the Tube at the Bank station and headed to Kings Cross! Any Potter fan knows exactly what is coming next!! However you’d be surprised to know a few things! When J.K Rowling wrote the first book and of Harry’s first experience on Platform 9 ¾ she wrote of Kings Cross even though she was picturing Euston Station, which is just down the street, an older station full of brick arches. Kings Cross had a fire, which destroyed half of the station, in the 1980’s.

When the producers began to look at filming at the station they knew the modern look of Kings Cross wouldn’t do, so for external shots they used St Pancreas station right across the street.

They were able to find just a few archways inside of Kings Cross so to keep true to the books they shot the scenes near platforms 3&4/5 & 6 

Of course the absolute highlight of my tour, and quite possibly my trip to London so far was getting the photo op at “Platform 9 ¾” with the cart going into a brick wall! They were nice enough to not put it near any actual platforms so that all tourists can get the photos without having to have a train ticket.

I need to watch the movies again so I can see all of the London spots in the movie. I catch myself more and more being able to identify where in London movies or TV shows I’ve seen since getting over there are shot. 

I'm A Spoiled Spoiled Girl

Adventures in London with my New Camera

So before we headed to England we had planned on going to the New England Patriots vs. St Louis Rams game in London on Oct 28, but we couldn't get a flight back to London for me after my best friend's wedding the 27th that would get me in early enough. It was going to be our "anniversary gift" to each other. So I got Nick something then beggggged him (Puppy dog eyes were a must here) for a new camera after seeing the pictures my friend Ashley Fox was getting with her new SLR. I did some research debating between an SLR and Bridge Camera. I ended up with the Fujifilm S2980. Basically its a camera somewhere between a point and shoot and an SLR. It doesn't have interchangeable lenses. 

The Statue of Eros

I went out in London one day to take some pictures. I went to Piccadilly to get some pictures around there of the gorgeous buildings and the Times Square style displays. It's one of my favorite areas, aside from Westminster which really has my heart. 

Piccadilly Street

Regent Street

I went on a Harry Potter Walking Tour (More on this later! This is a post of its own!) But I got to see so much of the city!

 We took a River Boat Ferry to get down the river more quickly. These pictures of Parliament and the Eye were taken on the Thames.

Random Fact: There are 32 capsules, one to represent each of the London Boroughs, and just the one red pod to represent EDF's sponsorship of the Eye.

After my walking tour, I went up in The Monument to the Great Fire. It is 202 feet tall and stands 202 feet from the baker's shop where the Great Fire is said to have started. The idea when it was built was that if it was tipped over the golden orb at the top would be where there fire started. There is a viewing tower at the top of the pedestal (the big flat square at the top) which is accessible only by stairs.

By the time you reach the top you're so worn out its almost hard to enjoy the view!! It was gorgeous at the top though!

The Tower Bridge from the Top

A view down the river to the Eye

This building is called "The Shard"which is the tallest building in Europe

City Hall, where Boris Johnson works. Evidently there is no limit to time you can be elected as mayor!

View of the city down river

A shot down so you can see how high up it was!

The London Bridge area. 

Bank area

I ended my London Photo shoot day at Buckingham Palace. I thought I should hit it on my last day out in London juuuuust in case I didn't make it back in the country again!

Messing around with the panorama setting on my camera LOOOOOVE

& the self timer

The Monument to Victoria in front of the palace

The new camera takes some pretty awesome pictures and I'm enjoying taking them! Having this time has really given me time to get back into photography!