By Alex Doey

On the 11th March 2009, eight students and Mr Clarke went on a trip to the British Museum and the Wellcome Institute. We left The John Lyon School around 9.30 am and walked down to Harrow-on-the-Hill station to take a train to Euston Square. From there we took a brisk detour around London to see some of its wonders before arriving at the British Museum.

As we entered we were amazed at all its grandeur; and we started at the famous Gallery of the British Museum with floods of light coming through the glass ceiling. We all then decided to visit the newly refurbished Egyptian exhibition. The beautifully preserved pottery and ceramics were really something; so were the sarcophaguses and the mummified organisms which used to inhabit them. Everyone then split off and saw what they wanted to see in the museum and all agreed we would meet back at the Alaskan Totem Poles at noon.

I went to see the more oriental side of the museum visiting the Japan and Korea exhibits; whilst on the way examining a variety of oriental pottery from different eras between rooms. The Japan room was exquisite and fairly large with Japanese artefacts featured from around 200 BC to the mid 1900s. Each piece done with an intricate finish only the Japanese could master. I then went on to the Korea room which was nowhere near as big as the Japan room but with a much more memorable highlight; this was the replica of a Korean household which to us would look like a hut but, in fact, was a brilliant insight into what life for Koreans would be like.

After we met back up we had lunch at a nice café about a three-minute walk away from the museum. Afterwards we walked to the Wellcome Institute near London Euston Station where we entered and explored the Medicine Man exhibition. This had many different features such as finding out your own biometric shape and many different pieces of artwork with relation to the human body. There was also another part to the exhibition which put on show many different artefacts to do with the history of the human body including brass corsets; all the tools Victorian doctor would use; graphic images of the human body during surgery; and even a mummified man from an island off the coast of South America.

The highlight of the Medicine Man exhibition was the showing of Charles Darwin’s actual Whale bone and ivory walking stick with a skull carved on its head and emeralds for eyes. That, unfortunately, was the end of the trip as we headed back to Harrow-on-the-Hill Station on the tube we all agreed the trip was a major success and was liked all round.