London - Day 5

In my desire to visit less touristy type of places, my 5th day was devoted to visiting places of more 'local' interest. First stop of the day was to tour the BBC in London.



Here's a view of the main courtyard. Hard to tell from this vantage point, but the entire BBC facility is designed as a question mark. And no, it wasn't built that way for Doctor Who.



But Doctor Who is the most notable show (especially for Americans) to come from the BBC. As we are about to head in for our tour, we were allowed quick photos with the Tardis.



Certain shows with celebrity guests have 'green rooms' where they wait before being called onto stage. This was a view of the green room at the London location.



Here is a view of the green room from the other side of the room.



Once the tour of the BBC was over, I spied a mall a block down. I'm a mall rat so I was anxious to check out the Westfield Mall. The mall is bigger than what it looks like here, this is just an open court area.



A view of a second level. Notice the VUE, it's essentially a cinema inside the mall.



I'm not generally one for eating inside malls but this time I had to. In the US I'm used to seeing McDonalds, Arby's and other fast food restaurants, but this was fancier. I probably paid a bit extra, but it was still cheaper than take-away.



In a way I'm glad I didn't rent a car. For the short time I was in London it was so much cheaper and more convenient to take the Underground. Here is one of the few stations where the Underground platform was outside.



Okay local UK'ers. Explanation please.



On my way home I passed the 'Queen's Market'. Try as hard as I might, I never did run in to the Queen shopping. We must have kept missing each other. As the theme of my day went, this certainly didn't look like it was being over-run with tourists. Still it was interesting to check out.



A long hard day of trying NOT to be a typical tourist, I finally arrived back home. This is one of the few shots I took of the Falcon Hotel. Some would call it and the rooms tiny. I called it quaint and I'd stay here again.