London: Nov 6: Guy Fawkes Fireworks

November 5th is Guy Fawkes day, a London holiday celebrated with fireworks. It's in remembrance of the day Guy Fawkes tried and failed to blow up parliament.

But, on the evening of the 5th, the forecast was predicting thick clouds and heavy rain. Di Yin and I decided not to do anything.

On Saturday, November 6, however, the forecast was good, and, as about half the fireworks were scheduled for Friday and half on Saturday, we still had the opportunity to participate in the festivities.

Before the evening, we did one other thing worth mentioning: lunch. We decided to go out for lunch, ending up at a little cafe (sandwiches, salads, brunch), Jack's, on the high street somewhat near us (Salusbury Road by the Queen's Park station). I had a panini with diced chicken, roasted vegetables, and mozzarella. Di Yin said she liked the smoky taste to the vegetables. I thought the sandwich was fairly good. Di Yin had a hot pastrami which, though made with much less pastrami than in U.S. pastrami sandwiches, was much better quality than I expected. The couple next to us had very diverse spreads of English breakfast. Their plates looked good, and didn't appear to be too much food. I would've taken pictures on this trip but I forgot to put batteries in my camera.

In the evening, Di Yin, I, and a friend, B, who was crashing at our place, ventured out to Battersea Park for its fireworks. Though the closest Saturday fireworks to us, it was a bit of a journey to get there. (It's across the Thames.)

It was a fun excursion, and I'm glad I got to participate in this British holiday. Battersea Park was packed with people. There was a huge bonfire (another tradition for Guy Fawkes night), a number of food booths (mostly selling hamburgers and hot dogs), and of course fireworks. The bonfire was so large that at some points we had to turn our backs to it because it was roasting our faces. (This was despite us being more than fifty feet away.) The fireworks show was pretty good and coordinated with music. I particularly liked the fireworks with flares that zig-zagged after exploding.

I remembered to bring camera batteries on our evening outing and took some pictures and movies.