Bethnal Green Creatures (30 January)

Today Bob and I walked around a bit of Bethnal Green, in east London. During our wanderings, we saw more front gardens laden with quirky charm than we've seen in other London neighbourhoods. Take this motley assortment of stone characters, for example:

We spent some time in Victoria Park, gazing fondly upon our beloved orange-billed geese, and then wandered down by the canal where there were some nice-looking flats with lovely waterfront patios:

And further along our walk, we came across this clear winner in the category of "most crazy, cute/ freaky figurines"--make sure to click on the photo to get a better look at the creature-covered shed:
This piece of graffiti peeked out at us from behind a substantial green covering, almost as if we were being spied upon:
We left Bethnal Green in search of food and decided to eat at a great place that has the best veggie burgers we've ever had:
Tummies full, we ventured over to the Sir John Soane's Museum to see if it would be any less crowded during the week, and found it to be nearly empty. I don't have any photos, since photography isn't allowed inside the museum, so if you haven't been there, you'll have to take my word that it's AMAZING: a beautiful rabbit-warren of a house completely packed with sculptures, prints, and overwhelming bits and pieces everywhere you look. It's a place that has to be experienced to be understood and we may even go back during one of their Tuesday night openings, when candlelight is used in parts of the museum. (Update: for some photos of the interior, not taken by me, that will begin to give you a sense of the wonders of the museum, see here and here.) From there, we headed to the Royal Academy of Arts to see an installation that we had previously glimpsed from the street when the courtyard was closed for the day:
We then walked down to the new offshoot of the White Cube gallery at Mason's Yard to see the rest of the exhibit by the same artist. Situated right in the middle of an enclosed square, the gallery itself is quite the sight, inside and out: