The Tower & The Thames

Sandy was off for an adventure to the Tower of London earlier. He's been to the Tower once before (in January) so rather felt like an old hand at this whole Tower thing. Mind you... the Tower Bridge was a bit different... having the Olympic logo hanging off of it.

Because even though the Olympics are over - the Para-lympics are still coming! Which means, Sandy bumped into a dressed up version of Mandeville (one of the mascots) outside the Tower... appropriately dressed up as a Yeoman Warder (a.k.a. Beefeater).

Sandy did manage to see the Crown Jewels this time, but they have a very strict no-photography policy... so Sandy only got to take pictures of the Queen later.

But it looks like she didn't have any jewels on anyhow... plus she wasn't really into making eye-contact with a backwoods bear from Canada!

So Sandy roamed the Tower and tried to think of interesting things to take pictures of... that not everyone might think to take pictures of... like an old-fashioned indoor-outhouse...

Nice... even nicer was where the stuff would go afterwards. Because this indoor-outhouse was right on the edge of the White Tower and so everything would just slide out and down the side of the Tower.

Ewww... hope there weren't any gardeners working out there in the olden days! Mind you - from the outside, you can't even see it...

Maybe it's too small and the photo is too far away...

Sandy also saw some Guards in their uniforms, guarding the Crown Jewels and stuff...

These guys were off-duty and ready to head out for a pint of bitter.

Let's see... what else did Sandy do... oh yes, find nice little alcoves and niches where he could lie in wait for unsuspecting tourists....

Here he is in, lying in wait, and ready to startle someone with his world-famous karate chop/kick combo... but the tourists didn't shriek in horror, but giggled instead. Poor Sandy, he commands no respect... unlike Henry VIII - everybody wanted to go and see his armour and stuff instead of a little Canadian Bear.

After toddling around the Tower, Sandy decided he wanted to take a river cruise up to Westminster... that was beary exciting!!

'Are we going? Are we there yet?' Nope... we're still here...

"Ohhh... there we go... bye everybody!!!

There are many interesting sights along the river...

There are some beary big ships - like this one - HMS Belfast - a cruise-ship... (no... a cruiser!!) from World War 2.

And little ships - like this tiny little thing which was waiting for our boat to go by.

Next came a big honey-coloured building...

Which had nothing to do with honey, but was the Old Billingsgate Fish Market for many many years - but is no longer. And next door was this one...

The crew-member who narrated a tour of the river said it was the UWW - University for Window Washers - which made Sandy go "ooooohhhhhh"... but the crew guy was just pulling our legs. It's actually a newspaper building!

There were many other things to see but lots of them were on the other side of the boat!! So... that was the end of the boat ride... and this was the end of the boat (ha-ha!)