Zoos and Shoes

We began our final day in London with something we've been meaning to do for a few weeks--grabbing a burger and a beer at Brewdog in Camden Town. Food and drink were both top-notch, and I got to add to my snarky vacation T-shirt collection.

This shirt is a woman's XL. I don't think they understand what sizing is.

After lunch, we went to the London Zoo. Zoos are a tricky concept. Part of me is like "OH MAN THERE'S A GIRAFFE RIGHT THERE WOW THEY ARE SO TALL AND THEIR TONGUES ARE SUPER WEIRD," but I'm also thinking, "The zebras don't look like they have a ton of space, is that enough room for them? That okapi sure is pacing a lot, don't animals in zoos pace when their mental health is deteriorating?" However, any decent zoo also does a ton of wildlife conservation, so there's that, and the London Zoo animals seemed happy enough.

Zoo highlights include the world's largest amphibian:

Chinese giant salamander! They grow up to 6 feet in length.
If you can look past the reflection of Jon taking the photo, you will see Professor Wu, the zoo's salamander. He's 4'3" from his snout to the tip of his tail.

Adorable otters:

We saw them at the beginning of the day, and they were all napping together in big pile in their darkened indoor habitat. We came back right before we left, and they were doing this!

We also saw brand new baby penguins:

They're too little to live in the exhibit.

And lemurs that you can hang out with in their enclosure!

Apparently they think humans are pretty chill. We saw one poop on somebody, but I don't think it was personal. I can't imagine an American zoo putting people in the same space as these guys; a kid would kick a lemur and then the lemur would bite the kid and then everyone would sue each other forever.

These guys are also out in the open in the rainforest exhibit, but I forget their name:

The zoo also welcomed a new baby lowland gorilla last December! She is still very tiny.

Her name is Alika! She was trying to learn how to climb. She was not very good at it.

We also learned that Calvin Coolidge had a pet pigmy hippo named William Johnson Hippopotamus. It tickles me to imagine such a stoic man nuzzling a tiny hippo.

After the zoo, we made our final stop of our vacation: the Victoria and Albert Museum.

It is a fabulous museum of art and design with a very eclectic collection. Exhibits vary from antiquities to landscape paintings to fashion.

Court mantua (back view), 1755-60
"The wide-hooped skirts of the mantua were already old fashioned in the 1750s, but women were required to wear this cumbersome style to royal assemblies and balls. It required skill to negotiate doorways and carriages while maintaining a graceful posture."
So requiring women to wear super inconvenient clothing in the name of formality is a tale as old as time.

Brass Compasses, Iran 1800-75
"The magnetic compass, a Chinese invention, had arrived in the Middle East by the 13th century. Originally employed in navigation, it was soon adapted for religious use to establish the direction of the Ka'bah in Mecca. These later examples have cases densely engraved with the coordinates for Mecca from various cities in the Islamic world."

We looked at an exhibition on the theme of luxury. My favorite item was a display of synthetic diamonds made respectively of gunpowder, roadkill, and a Superman III script. The artist (Shane Mecklenburger) made them and had them authenticated as commentary on "the relationship between value and authenticity."

One of the museum's current temporary exhibitions is Shoes: Pleasure and Pain. Shockingly, Jon was not as interested in this topic as I was, so he checked out the gift shops while I did some shoe gazing.

I actually don't think you have to be obsessed with shoes to enjoy this exhibit. A lot of the items explored cultural phenomenons through the lens of footwear or displayed interesting feats of engineering (I am so damn pleased with that pun I'm going to say it again: FEATS OF ENGINEERING!).

The exhibit included shoes worn by famous folks such as Marilyn Monroe and Queen Victoria (she had very narrow feet). There were also a few samples of collections that were borrowed from avid shoe collectors, such as Imelda Marcos (former Filipino first lady who owned over a thousand pairs of shoes) and a woman named Katie Porter who keeps her shoes displayed on bookshelves in her room and gives them all her own names.

There were no photos allowed in this exhibit, but many of the shoes (or at least the type of shoes) are also in the internet, so below are some of my favorites. If you are more of a Jon than a Hannah when it comes to shoes, you might want to just scroll down until you don't see shoes anymore.

Lovebird sandal, Jimmy Choo

Anemone shoes, Christian Louboutin

Cantiliever heels!

Iron ring pattens from the 1740s
These were worn over the shoe to elevate the wearer above mud and dirt.

Men's marbled oxfords, 1925, Coxton Shoe Co. Ltd
The description was pretty much "Nobody actually wore shoes that looked like this. They might have been marketed to Americans."

Padukas - often gifted to Indian brides.

Mojito shoes, Julian Hakes
This shoe was 3D printed! It's neat because it supports the ball of the foot and the heel but not the arch.

Manchu horse hoof shoes, Qing dynasty
They made women much taller and also required them to walk in very small steps.

Tail Light Sandals, Prada

Bath clogs from the Ottoman Empire
They protected feet from soapy dirty water in baths and made the wearer fabulously tall.

I also learned that the 1890s were known as the "naughty nineties," and one of the ways this manifested was that shoes started to be sexy things.

Before heading home to pack, we spent some time in the paintings exhibit.

Dulcinea del Toboso, Charles Robert Leslie, 1839
"This is a scene from Cervantes's comic novel Don Quixote (1605). The fanciful aristocratic name 'Dulcinea del Toboso' was given by Don Quixote to a pretty peasant women. The eccentric Don believed that he was her protector and she was a 'great lady or Princess.' She was unaware of his fantasies."

Life-Boat and Many Apparatus Going off to a Stranded Vessel Making Signal (Blue Lights) of Distress, JMW Turner, 1831
We were happy to find more Turner in the Landscapes exhibit!

The museum is quite large; we barely scratched the surface. We'll make a day of it next time!

For dinner tonight we ordered take-out from Holy Cow one last time. We're currently packing up all our stuff and watching That Mitchell and Webb Look, some excellent British sketch comedy. Our vacation's really winding down!

xo
Hannah