Day 2 - Visit to Greenwich

Brief Introduction of our Day!

Today we went to the Greenwich and visited the Royal Observatory, the Maritime Museum, The Queen's Palace and Cuttysark. We then headed back to London to visit the very famous Oxford Street before having dinner and calling it a night! Read more to find out!

Day 2

At the Royal Observatory, we learnt that GMT means Greenwich Mean Time and that the observatory played a major role in the history of astronomy, time and navy navigation. A total of 10 royal astronomers lived in the observatory with their families, one even had 9 children!

Enjoying the weather in Greenwich

"At the very top of the Royal Observatory high on a hill, there is a big red ball. This ball would drop whenever it’s 1 o’clock so that anyone or any ship that saw it would know that it is precisely 1 o'clock. This made me think that even though people had very few machinery in the past, they were still able to find innovative ways to tell time and to complete difficult tasks like clock making. It also made me wonder how people in tribal areas tell the time since they don’t have access to the technology that we have today." - Benjamin

Looking up at the Royal Observatory

Exploring the Observatory

So in the past, people only knew about Latitude, i.e. how far we were North and South based on the stars and the sun. As a result, many sailors were lost at sea because they couldn't tell where they were East or West. So they had to solve the Longitude problem. And they did! Since the Earth Rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours, every hour the Earth rotates 15 degrees so that was how Longitudes were found and used to help Sailors find their way at sea! 

"On display were many instruments used in the past to show time before there were clocks. People use to tell time manually by using a set square looking tool to measure the angle of the sun. We also learnt that the pendulum in a clock had an important role in clocks and was not there just for show or for the fun tick-tock sounds. I wonder how life was like without a precise method of telling time and how people just depended on sunrises and sunsets to tell time." - Aminah

"I have been wondering why numbers were used to represent time and not letters. The visit make me realised how we all take time for granted and never really appreciated it, we can just look to our phones to tell time but in the past they had to use complicated tools. If they did not decide to invent clocks, I wonder what we will be looking at now to tell time!" - Siyu

The highlight was seeing the Prime Meridian line that divides the East and the West!

The Prime Meridian

Look! Singapore!

The view of Canary Wharf from the Royal Observatory

After that, we went to the Maritime Museum and the first thing we saw was Nelson’s Ship in a bottle. We also saw Admiral Nelson’s uniform that he wore when he was shot and it still had the bullet hole that killed him.

The HMS Victory

Admiral Nelson was a intelligent young man with a missing right arm and he was blind in his right eye. He hated listening to commands and used the excuses of him not being able to hold the binoculars with his right arm and look through it with his right eye to make his own decisions. He was a very powerful sailor who won many battles. Unfortunately, he was sniped by a Frenchman and he died after he got wound on this left shoulder. Since he was on the ship, his body could not be buried immediately so he was preserved in alcohol for months. Although he died, his men won the battle.  All his life, he had never lost any battle, from the age of 18 to around 47 years old.

There was also a large figure head collection for the front of ships.

Figureheads for the front of ships

Next, we went to the Cuttysark. Cuttysark was the fastest ship in the world without an engine, it took only 70 days to return back to London from China to import tea, and 70 days was considered very fast in the past! However, when steamships were invented, it was no longer that fastest ship. So it went to Australia to import wool instead. The Cuttysark was burnt twice, however the vast majority of the ship survived and it is now restored for visitors to visit.

"The story goes, Robbert Burns was whistling to a lady in a short dress who got annoyed and started chasing him. She pulled his horse's tail off but he escaped so he named the boat Cuttysark, which refers to the lady's short dress, implying that the boat was to be the fastest in the world! I wonder if the lady knows that the boat was named after her." - Siyu

Cuttysark

Going in!

Titanic feels

A serious geographic discussion

"We also went up to the sailors' bunks that were located on the top deck of the ship and I realised that the bunks has no mattress or cushions and were made of just plain wood. They were also pretty small! Maybe this was because people were much shorter in those days.

Trying out the bunks for size

Overall our experience in Greenwich was amazing, we learnt a lot of things we would have never learnt in Singapore." - Benjamin

Lastly, we went to Oxford street and had dinner nearby! It was an eye opening experience to see that each building was for one shop only, unlike the giant shopping malls we have in Singapore. Some shops were really expensive and some shops had cheap affordable clothing and gifts.

Scrumptuous Dinner

Sunset at 10pm

We really enjoyed our second day!! Off to bed now!