JANUARY 9, 2011
So, after a pleasant afternoon of brisk touring, ending in my Academy Award-winning turn as Guy Fawkes' buddy, Billy No-Head, we decide to go and check out the one and only Harrods. Wikipedia describes Harrods as a high-end department store covering about five acres of land, with over a million square-feet of shops through 330 separate department. I'd describe it as the bee's knees for someone who can afford to buy bee's knees (..couldn't find a price on eBay, but let's say for the sake of the metaphor that they're expensive and completely impractical). Granted, the majority of amazingly pricey items deserve to be: we're talking about diamond-encrusted EVERYTHING and ₤9,000 (figured out the pound sign! sort of..) gold watches. There are literally entire rooms and departments showcasing diamonds, gold, and silver; the rooms glow, and your eyes water. It's pretty cool, even as someone who doesn't necessarily enjoy shopping. But there's really no shopping to be done here - it's become just as much of a tourist attraction as some of the places we saw earlier, and I treat it as such; don't touch it, you'll break it and there goes your whole budget. To be fair, with over 330 departments there are certainly the sections with affordable and practical merchandise. But we're not interested in those mundane knick-knacks. Let's see the good stuff:
Oh, there it is, I found it! And there's a sale!
Chocolate shoes?! I'm sold.
Marzipan fruit. It was so realistic!
Of course, I couldn't resist temptation and paid 70p (pence, like cents) for a delicious Dark Chocolate Ganache truffle from one of the vendors. Yum! Then, we went towards their Food Hall. And it changed my idea of a 'food court' forever. You walk in and it's not the size that impresses you (it was surprisingly quite small, even though it tool up two sections), but it's the several miniature restaurant-like places where you sit at a counter and order from a menu. There was a sushi place, a sandwich place, and a dessert place that looked like it made absolutely brilliant ice cream sundaes, among other things.
I think this was one of the meat sections.. Doesn't really capture the essence, but at least you can see the size and the workers funny little carnival hats. They were all wearing them!
Then there were the entire display cases of hundreds of cheeses, meats, fruits, vegetables, chocolates, and candies. It was awesome. Food heaven. Everything from the hanging shanks of meat to the giant wheels of cheese was displayed so beautifully and just looked as if it was the freshest that could be found.
Mmmmm cheese..
Sadly moving away from the food, we went towards the glow.. and found department upon department of incredibly expensive jewelry, watches, and anything else they could slap a couple giant diamonds of crystals on or inlay with gold. I SWEAR I took pictures, but my camera seems to have forgotten. Sad face. Maybe the shine was so bright that my camera just said "I am not worthy!" and gave up. Anyway, then we went up the famous Egyptian Escalator that rises through the center of the building. It's called an Egyptian Escalator because of the way it zig-zags upwards, sort of like how they imagine the Egyptians built the pyramids.
Walk like an Egyptian..
Seriously no idea what my camera is doing here. I'm sending this to the Tate.
THE. SOFTEST. THING. IN. EVER. Made of chinchilla fur, runs about ₤2,000
Carpets 'n Stuff
Gold-inlaid, or diamond-studded pillows, for about ₤1,000. You'd think that'd be uncomfortable to lay on..
Gold silverware
Everything was so shiny
Biggest pepper-grinder ever!
Sorry about the blurriness. These are supposed to be some more cool gold things. I think they were figurines and statues and stuff.
Again, blurry.. My camera was drunk.
This was pretty - just chilling in the back of a department
Then came my favorite couple of sections: the music ones.
So many awesome guitars!
Andrew playing on one of the 15 baby grands
Speakers as big as me! Awesome.
Straight 'Minority Report' stuff - touchscreen tabletop
Then we got kicked out because they close early on Sundays. Goodnight, Harrods. I'll be back.
Their music and entertainment sections were legit. The room with the speakers was also full of HUGE flat-screen TV's. They even had a 3D TV, which was pretty cool, but the glasses looked a bit ridiculous. If I had money, that's probably one of the only departments I would actually spend it for practical reasons. Nothing like playing my new Fender Strat through some big-ass speakers, while I've got Star Wars rocking on the big screen and surround-sound. Unreal.
After Harrods, we went to a pub called 'The Old Explorer', where I had a pretty good Bacon Chicken Club, then headed home for the night. Another fine day in London..
Good music I'd rock those speakers out to:
Broken Bells - "The High Road", off their fantastic self-titled album
The Shin's James Mercer and the producer of the Gorillaz? I'm sold. Great song and album.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm still trying to catch up to today so stay posted.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment