(half) a day at the Southbank (日)

I got up at 8, which felt a bit criminal on a Sunday morning, and walked into Welling. On the way an old man said "good morning"; a greeting which I reciprocated and felt lift my spirits.

Most of the Southeastern train network was broken for some reason, so we met at the station as planned, then walked back to the high street to catch a rail replacement bus. It took quite a while but it was probably quicker than walking. In Lewisham we hopped on a train to London Bridge, which was fairly uneventful, then alighted at London Bridge and asked the man at the information desk for directions to the Tate Modern.

After a couple of false alarms and a lot of walking we found the Tate's back entrance, where we were ushered to the front by a chubby, Italian accented worker. We went in and all ignored the recommended donation of £3, and chose to replace it with a combined donation of 11 pence. Oops.

The adult playground installation (Bodyspacemotionthings by Robert Morris), our intended destination, was awesome. There were several slides, climbing walls, balancing blocks, tubes and balls to interact with, all of which were inventive and fun (and swarmed with little kids). Naturally we went on everything, in order to get our full money's worth.

We left the exhibit after about an hour to cool down, then found our way outside (harder than a sounds) for a well deserved sit down. We threw bread at pigeons and watched them moronically eating it, then walked further down the Southbank. One of my favourite things about London is the weirdos you see there; on our walk we saw a man building sand sofas, drunks on giant grass sofas, a street magician, several guitarists, a pavement artist, two 8 year old buskers, and several freerunning teenagers doing dangerous gymnastics.

At about 2 o'clock, after a cheap and cheerful lunch from Sainsbury's, me and Mark headed home (Em and Mike stayed in London for a bit longer). Our combined intelligence saved us the walk back to London Bridge (about 25 minutes (we got the train home from Waterloo)). I had to get off in Lewisham and get the aforementioned replacement bus, which was dull, but on the bus I managed to give a European girl directions to where she was going. Another good deed for the day :)