City Hall

Although we've seen it from close-up and far away many times, we've never been inside London's city hall until today, when we stopped by for one of its open weekends. Situated across the Thames from Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, the Norman Foster building is a distinctive sphere whose shape prevents it from getting as hot in the summer or cold in the winter as conventional cube-shaped buildings. The building's tilt away from the river serves two functions: each floor of offices (located at the back, non-Thames-side of the building) shades the floor beneath it, thus helping to cool the interior, and the lack of shade created on the riverside boardwalk makes for a more open space for pedestrians to enjoy the Thames.

When you enter the building, you're greeted by images of swirling spirals that hint at what's to come.
After we passed through security, we took a lift up to the ninth floor, where outdoor terraces (forming part of what's called "London's Living Room") provide spectacular views of Tower Bridge

and the City buildings across the Thames.

After taking in the scenery, we walked down the .5-kilometre spiral ramp, stopping to look north toward the Thames or south toward the offices as we descended the mesmerising staircase--it takes a lot to make a spiral staircase seem like something new, and city hall's spiral does just that:

The last bit of the spiral unwinds a poem by Ben Okri on its interior wall, although the fact that we walked down the ramp, instead of up it (the direction the poem runs), meant that we read snippets of Okri's meditation on London in distracting reverse order, rather than starting at the beginning. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to have two versions of the poem running under one another, in opposite directions?

We wanted to sit and have a coffee somewhere afterwards, and decided to head to Bermondsey Street, on which we remembered passing a packed coffee shop on a previous walk. We couldn't remember the name, which is funny considering the place turned out to be called Coffee @ Bermondsey St.

A bit overtrendy, but with good coffee and newspapers, we enjoyed our lattés while looking out onto the quiet street.

After we left the café, I noticed that the hair salon next door contained a cute doggie bed, but without its owner in sight:

After I took the photo, I turned around to catch up with Bob, who was already heading toward London Bridge station, when I heard a short, loud bark calling me to turn around. This is what I saw: