The London Eye and the Aquarium

The London Eye is something I had to do while I was here. Well, I couldn't go home and say I hadn't done it. Plus, I did, just a little bit, want to see what it was like up there. Today I finally forced myself to get it knocked out. Standing at a solid 442 ft., hanging out into the water (with a a base on the land), and with basically big glass bubbles that allow you to lean out a little and see straight down, it was not built with me in mind. I am glad that it doesn't shoot you straight up to that height, but I wouldn't have minded a little more speed, considering it gave me a lot of time to worry about being up so high. I should say that I had trouble even getting myself on it, I practically got vertigo just looking up at the thing. But, I bought my ticket for the Eye, and for the Aquarium located right nearby.

The majority of the time inside I sat on the bench in the middle and nervously looked around as it slowly moved upwards. Most of my thoughts on the way up were a variation of "Man was not meant to do this, or at least I'm not meant to do this." I cannot deny that the views were great, even on a cloudier day. It really reminds you that London is not a skyscraper city and there aren't many buildings (a few exceptions of course, especially around Canary Wharf) that go way way up. It also gives you a great view of Parliament, located right across the water and the trains stations around the area. I'm glad I did it, it was worth it, but I wouldn't do it again, purely because of my fear of heights.

Do I really want to go up that high?

The capsule:

On the way up:

Admittedly not the best picture in the world, but you can get a sense of what it was like going up, and how it hung out over the water:

Nice view of Parliament:

You get a good feel of just how high up were are with this one, as well as the previous one:

On the way down:

So that was the Eye. Then, I went on to the Aquarium. Now, people--or at least one person--mentioned that it wasn't that great. I see their point, but I enjoyed it. They had one of those tunnels that goes through a tank, so I had sharks and rays swimming right above me. They had other places to view from where I had sharks swim right past me, and later even a sea turtle. I spent about an hour there, but it was an hour filled with some cool sea creatures, a lot of little kids, and some awesome views of the animals (like looking down through glass and seeing sharks swimming below.

I mainly took videos here, the low light made it hard to take individual photos, but here's one:

And a slightly blurry one that gets the point across: