♡ London Day 2 | Natural History Museum and Many Pretty Desserts ♡

もしもし! 

Sorry that it's taking me a while to write these posts, I've just been a bit preoccupied with work/general tiredness ^^" However, I thought I'd take a bit of time to write another post for my London series! You can read about day one here, if you missed that~

Let's begin!

I confess... I woke up at 5 in the morning! I had a fairly restless sleep, and once it was finally getting light out, I couldn't stay in bed any longer ^^" However, I wasn't sleepy in the slightest, so it was nice to have a lot of time in the morning to drink some coffee, browse Instagram, read my book, and slowly get dressed for the day~ I was so excited, I could hardly believe that I was in London, at long last!

Once everyone else had woken up and gotten dressed, we headed downstairs for breakfast, since the B&B had a complimentary one (which ended up being very tasty!)

I wasn't feeling very hungry (I'm normally not in the mornings), but I saw crumpets, and I had to try one!

Sorry to those of you with trypophobia ;v;

Covered with black current jam, and accompanied by some black tea!

This was actually a thinner crumpet than usual-- my dad got one of the thicker ones, and I tried that and enjoyed it much more than this one... so I ended up getting another one hehe ( ◡‿◡ *).

I thought it would be yummy with cheese, but sadly it wasn't warm enough for the cheese to actually melt into all the nooks and crannies ^^" Oh well, it was very yummy regardless!

After that, we headed out! 

Our first stop was one of my top priorities in London... the Natural History Museum! 

Natural History Museums are one of my favourite sorts of museums-- I love the old atmosphere of them, and the architecture of the one in London was absolutely beautiful. 

^ A peek of it from the outside! The building was huge, and it was all just so gorgeous and old-looking!

The interior too, was absolutely breath-taking! I felt a bit silly constantly looking around and overhead, but I couldn't help but marvel at the place... even the ceiling was decorated! 

Huge whale skeleton hanging in the central hall!
This photo really doesn't do justice to how large the hall (or the skeleton) was ^^"

There was a cute monkey carving on one of the arches! And you can see a little bit of the beautiful panels on the ceiling here (each one had a different sort of plant on it!)

We got there quite early, so luckily I was able to get an outfit photo without having any people in the frame~

Mushroom Fairy Coord

Wig: Dream Holic

Cardigan: Liz Lisa

OP: Crucis (via Taobao)

Shoes: Nordstrom Rack

This was my first time wearing a wig out (to an event that wasn't a convention), so I was a bit anxious, but I feel as though it's a fairly natural-looking wig (Dream Holic really makes the best quality wigs) so I didn't worry too much ^^ I got this dress in my most recent Taobao Haul, and this was the first chance I had to wear it out! It's really such an adorable dress, I'm so happy I got it ♡ I thought it fit in perfectly with the theme of the museum!

The museum itself was amazing! One of my favourite bits was the "Treasures" exhibit, where they kept some of the rarer/most significant items, such as the first edition of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", a beautifully carved nautilus shell, the earliest known fossilized bird, and more! It was a fairly small room, and there were only about twenty items in it, but it was really interesting seeing the significance of them all.
(I think my favourite was this glass jellyfish though-- it looked so ethereal and delicate!)

The other exhibits were all also very nice-- in particular I liked the one with birds! There was such a pretty variety *^*

You can't see the whole thing there, but there was a very old display of hummingbirds-- I think this was from the 1800s? The colours used to be much more vibrant supposedly, however over time they faded (in my opinion they were still very bright though!)
I also saw this huge elk skeleton-- it looked so majestic!

After a few more hours of wandering around, we had gotten a bit hungry, and figured it was a good time to go for lunch! 

(Before I move on to that though, here's a quick photo of the pretty and yummy-looking sweets at the museum cafe! I only got a coffee, but these were all very pretty hehe~)

When looking for places to eat in London online, I came across a very beautiful eclair place, which happened to be very close by the museum! However first it made more sense to have a proper lunch, so we stopped into a small pizzeria. I confess I'm not terribly fond of pizza, so for me it was only okayish ^^"

The top one had mushrooms and ham (maybe?), and the bottom one had zucchini, tomatoes, prosciutto, and a whole ball of burrata! (The burrata at least, was very good).

Then it was time for the eclair place! When I saw the photos online of the eclairs they served, I was amazed, and knew I wanted to go there! The selection was so pretty ;v;

I ended up getting a pistachio one, and my sister got a raspberry one!

They also included four small free choux bites, which certainly didn't compare to the eclairs themselves, but they were pretty good nonetheless~

A better closeup of mine! Inside there was pistachio cream~ 

After having our lunch and eclairs, we were ready to head out again! My dad and sister were a bit tired and wanted to rest, so my mum and I split off from them, and headed to the Victoria and Albert Design museum! It was quite nearby, so luckily we didn't have to walk far~
I was really impressed by it! It was such a huge museum with a really big variety of exhibits; old religious works, Korean pottery, paintings, fashion-- they even had a fairly large section dedicated to locks and keys! 
They had a really interesting looking Frida Kahlo exhibit going on (she's my favourite artist), but it wasn't free so I ended up not going ;-; The museum was massive though; I wish I had more time to see it! But after a few hours we were quite exhausted and were barely stumbling around ^^"
I didn't get very many photos from this museum, but here are a few!

Part of a huge altar-- it was so breathtaking! 

This dress was so pretty, I think it was from the Edwardian era..?

An old wedding gown! It looked so elegant ;v;

So ridiculously exquisite! 

I mostly just got photos of the clothes hehe... but they were all so pretty! It was interesting seeing the different fashions throughout the centuries.

After we left the museum, we quickly popped into a drugstore to refill on water (and headache pills... dehydration isn't fun ><). We felt a bit less tired, and headed to our next stop: Harrods!
Harrods is a designer department store, however what interested me most about them was their Food Halls! They had several huge rooms filled with gourmet chocolates, teas, cheeses, pastries, seafood, fruits, ready-made food... pretty much anything you could think of! (Including incredibly pricey things like foie gras, caviar, $300+ cakes, and very expensive bouquets of flowers)
Naturally, I was most interested in the baked goods hehe~

^ So many cronuts! They all looked so delicious... but I had something else in mind that I wanted...

Caneles! 
Caneles are one of my favourite desserts-- they're quite simple, but so delicious. The interior is sort of custardy and soft, and the outside is caramelized and crunchy (they're baked in copper molds coated with beeswax, so they caramelize beautifully!) I've only ever had plain vanilla caneles, but they had a really big variety of flavours here~ I chose four for that night's dessert! But more about those later on~

Some more pretty cakes that I saw ^^

After a bit more wandering around, we finally met back up with my dad and sister!
We were all quite tired and didn't have much else planned for the day, since it was already evening. We headed to the gardens nearby Buckingham Palace-- they were so beautiful! I'm still amazed by all the beautiful gardens I saw in London, from the small ones I saw the day previous, to these! 
There was a huge flower garden full of the most beautiful blossoms, as well as an archway made of roses! It was all so majestic and fairy-like ♡

Featuring a very tired but very happy Milkii

(I ended up having to change shoes fairly quickly into the day, since the heels I was wearing before were so uncomfortable... which was quite unfortunate ;-; )

After the gardens we began making our journey back home. Along the way, we passed by Buckingham Palace, which was quite cool! (I didn't get any photos though orz)

For dinner we didn't go anywhere particularly interesting, we just stopped into Tesco! If you're not familiar with them, Tesco is one of the main supermarkets in London, and they actually have a really amazing selection *^* Including their ready made foods! 

We got a crayfish and mango salad, spiralized vegetable and chicken salad, as well as a smoked salmon and prawn sandwich-- it was all so tasty! I wish the supermarkets here had such yummy food ;v; In addition to that, we got some very delicious and fresh strawberries ♡ (The produce in London was seriously so good ahhh *^* Everything was so incredibly fresh and tasty!)

After dinner, we had the caneles that I got at Harrods!

Not the best photo, but they came in such a pretty box ;v;

The flavours I chose were salted caramel, strawberry, passion fruit, and nutella! They were all so amazing-- nothing like any of the ones I had before! The caramelized edges were actually crunchy, and the flavours were absolutely divine... they were everything a canele should be ♡ These ended up being one of my favourite desserts that I had while in London!

And that was pretty much everything for day two! ♡ I was quite worn out from all the walking, and as such fell asleep very quickly, and very happily ♡

I hope you enjoyed reading about my second day in London!
Day 3 will feature afternoon tea at sketch, which I'm incredibly excited to write about, since it was my favourite thing I did in London! So I hope you look forward to that ♡
Thank you for reading! Bye-bye ♡