London’s King’s Cross

There is deep cultural influence and anthropogenic enrichment in King’s cross London.

The day after I returned to London, it was a chilly cold day, so I decided to go to the British library near the King's Cross station to do some research. 

That was Monday morning, I saw there were hundreds of people already lined up to enter the library; it would be open at 10 am rather than 9:30, like other weekdays, so the line of people had to wait longer than usual in the cold morning. As usual, all sorts of professionals or students spent hours there learning or working quietly.

A snowing afternoon in London: After lunch time I went out, took a rest. Unbelievably snowflakes danced around in the sky, the pedestrians, many of them were perhaps tourists who paced up to continue their journey in this snowing afternoon. Some of them also look excited in their faces, as there has been a lot of rain recently. It's the first time I saw snow on my visit here this winter.

King’s Cross transport/commercial hub: I hung around in the King’s Cross national and international stations in which I took my Europe journey back and forth recently. Here is not just a crucial transport hub but also a hot shopping center. The holiday lighting and decorations are still there. There were musicians playing pianos in the hallway while people sipping their coffee or tea in the cafe; walking through the shops nearby 

In fact, transportation stations are unique scenes. People come and go to continue their own journey. They come to the new place with excitement, put their hopes on to explore unknown. Some demonstrate anxiety because they are strangers here. Others get back home to relax. They become part of scenes for our dynamic world.

Besides watching over the antique look of historical buildings, I also walked around Pancras Square a couple of times, enjoying the modern sleek atmosphere with lots of cool businesses, trendy eateries and shops. Both locals and tourists enjoy hanging around there.

Ideal Beauty exhibition: Walking a bit further away, I visited the “Cult of beauty” exhibition in the collection museum again. The theme of “ideal beauty,” “heavenly beauty,” broadens our view of the human body, our physical shapes and spiritual aura.

There are sculptures and pictures about the shapes and constructions of the human body; there are anthropological instructions of how humans pursue physical beauty and spiritual harmony. There are some enlightened decorations, not just catching our eyeballs, but also awakening our consciousness of who we are, how we appreciate the beauty of being human. I also like the short movie with articulation of narratives conveying the struggling journey on how people pursue beauty and how society responds to it. Do we have common aesthetic standards, can we appreciate and understand the diversity of beauty? Although there’s only a limited collection, it evokes our imagination of human potential and our thoughts of the cult of beauty.

Charles Dickens museum: I walked around the Nearby area, Charles Dickens museum is not so far away; it took me a while to get there. Unfortunately, the museum was not open on Monday, so I was a bit disappointed. Observing the museum from the outside, it is just like Jane Austen’s museum in Bath, it is a modest town house located in a quiet nice neighborhood with the signs and instructions.

I checked the museum website; inside the museum, the audience could see the table on which Dickens wrote his books. I read through quite a few of Dickens’s 15 novels, I like “Christmas Carols” and wrote a blog about it during the Christmas time a couple of years ago; I also read “Great Expectations”; “a tale of two cities” and a few others, being impressed on Dickens insight about social phenomena, culture, traditions in England in his era. I thought his writing made a significant impact on social systems, Industrial Revolution, societal progress and children's education, as his works have been translated into different languages across the world.

On the second morning, the snow has melted away. So we didn’t have the chance to see London wrapped in the white Snow blanket, like the fantastic scenery I saw in Munich, Germany last month. The good thing about it is that the transport systems function smoothly in this commercial hub King’s Cross, and people go back and forth across the UK, Europe continent and the global world freely. There is deep cultural influence and anthropological enrichment in King’s cross London.

Posted in: culture Master,Global Trips