London Day 5: August 6, 2014

Today, we got up early to get to "Platform 9 3/4" at King's Cross. We arrived around 8:30am so there was only a very short line and we got our pictures taken :) You can choose the scarf for your house affiliation and we were the first two Hufflepuffs of the day! It sounds like very few people wear the Hufflepuff or Slytherin scarves :P Everyone is a Gryffindor or Ravenclaw! The staff at the nearby Platform 9 3/4 will help make it appear as if your scarf is flowing and they will take a picture for you to purchase as well as help you take your own for free.

Then we met up with James again, who traveled from Burnham-on-Crouch to spend a day in London with us. We first went to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich which was really cool. We took a picture on a labeled part of the Prime Meridian, which was cool, even though we crossed it several times just to get to the Observatory!

 Thanks to James for the photo!

Next, we had lunch at a fake French cafe and visited the Tower of London. It was extremely crowded so it was hard to see very many things. I learned some things about British money and we saw the legendary ravens! The legend is that if the ravens leave, the Tower would fall and London with it. The ravens' wings are clipped and they are sometimes caged though :( We also thought the Tower of London was just a tower! But it turns out to be a whole fort, silly us. 

We then walked across the Tower Bridge before heading to the British Museum just before it closed to see the Rosetta Stone and other cool things like a bunch of mummies and a statute from Easter Island.

It was very fun to adventure around London with James! Thank you James. We parted ways before dinner so James could get back to Burnham-on-Crouch. Laura and I tried a Northern Indian place closer to where we were staying and it was very good. 

DRAO, Osoyoos, Mini Golf

Day 3 -- Penticton, BC

Google Earth measurements (straight line between locations)
Distance from Vancouver: 255 km
Distance from Kingston: 3285 km

Today we visited the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, which is about 20 km south of Penticton. We parked outside and walked in because the telescopes are very sensitive to radio interference. Only self-guided tours were available on weekdays -- at each telescope there was a button that we could press to hear a recording. Unfortunately, the recordings were really boring even for me!

 We did not encounter any wild rattlesnakes (or Ekans*) in the tall grass.
*a pokemon

Eigensaur considers the 26-m telescope puny!

Since we were already south of Penticton to visit DRAO and we already had a packed lunch, we decided to keep on driving to see the Southern Okanagan region. We drove all the way to Osoyoos, near the US border, and had a picnic by the beach. On the way back, we visited two big wineries: Inniskillin and Jackson-Triggs, and brought our total wine count to 7 bottles (3 of which are dessert wines).

A view along Highway 97S between Penticton and Osoyoos.

We also played a round of mini golf. The weather has been really warm here, reaching the mid-30s! We heard it is pretty hot in Vancouver too. Tomorrow is our last day in Penticton and we hope to get to the beach since it will be the hottest day yet, but there is a chance of thundershowers!

The Mini-Golf is run out of a boat at "Loco Landing". We did not
go into the "Fun Zone" though we still had lots of fun.