Open House London 2014 Day 2 Part 3

My next destination was THE MIDDLE OF FRICKING NOWHERE, or as close as you can get to the middle of nowhere in London (and you can, trust me on this one, I'm good at finding places like this). 

I went out to Trinity Buoy Wharf/Container City, first going to East India DLR and then following the signs (the signage was SUPER helpful, bless them) to Orchard Place. 

The first thing that greets you is this: 

which is nice. 

Just round the corner is this:

And then further down the road is a weird mishmash of artists' studios (Container City), a diner, a boat painted red, the only lighthouse in London and some art installations. And of course there are amazing views over the river. 

It is a really interesting site to wander around, especially if you like the aesthetics of containers (I do!). The installations are pretty interesting and tend to relate to the river:

Alunatime is London's first moon and tide clock and is a graphical notation of time in light (from photos it looks like this is better at night)

Floodtide is tidal sonification, which is to say it makes sounds depending on what the tides are doing.  

Inside the lighthouse was the most exciting thing - Longplayer. Longplayer is an installation I'd heard about somewhere and read about in one of my London books (I think it was Secret London). Longplayer is a song made with Tibetan singing bowls which is designed to play without repetition for 1000 years.

You can listen live! http://longplayer.org/listen/live-stream/

To finish, two views from the site. And the boat. 

In this one you can see the sculpture Quantum Cloud by Anthony Gormley. The darker shape in the middle looks like a human figure if you see it from the right angle (more info - http://www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/item-view/id/269).

Next post: last visit of the weekend! 

Bank of the Thames

One of my favourite things about living in London is how easy it is to go out and do something I've never done before, even in an area I know pretty well.

On Sunday I went for a walk on the bank of the Thames!

Crishna and I were up in town for a wander and I noticed one of those people who goes down onto the banks of the Thames and makes big sand sculptures (he was making a horse), and there were some other people wandering about, so we decided to go down as well :D

As you can tell from the pictures we were coming up to Blackfriars Bridge on the South side of the river - in the photos you can see Unilever House, Sion Hall, the old City of London Girls' School building, and obviously St Paul's Cathedral, the NatWest building and the Gherkin.

I did pick up a few little shells as well :)