Halloween in London

Last year, I didn't really celebrate Halloween here. In all honestly, I escaped back to Toronto for a quick pit stop visit to settle my house and missed out on Halloween altogether, in both cities.

I was determined to do some fun Halloween-ish activities this year that didn't involve dressing up in a skimpy outfit or spend a ridiculous amount of money on a costume (ahem, fancy dress here in the UK) or going out on the town and dealing with other drunken yahoos in terrible outfits.

So I picked something obscure and something super touristy. On the southeast coast of England, is the sleepy seaside town of Margate. It used to be a vacation destination during the Victorian era, and now, there are parts of it stuck in the past including the boardwalk full of arcades and fish and chip shops. Margate is also home to a weird little secret - a shell grotto discovered in 1835 and opened to the public to see since 1838. No one knows who built it, no one knows when it was made and no one knows why it was made. Containing over 4.6 million shells from oysters to cockles, historians theorise that this was the work of pagans or druids who used the symbolism of flowers and other simple shapes like stars and hearts to pay tribute to nature and their gods. Me thinks it might have been a hoarder who had too much time on their hands. The tour lasts all of 20 mins, two very small chambers and while it might seem like traveling an hour and a half outside of London wasn't worth it, it was surprisingly breathtaking and one does appreciate the level of OCD detail that went into each of the 20+ panels of mural work.

The dome leading up to a small opening to the sky.  

Shelled heart. 

The winding tunnels of the grotto.

Following a Sunday on the coast, I decided to do a tour with friends on the sickening and scandalous case of Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer who terrorised East London in the late 1880s. As we decided to do the tour two days before Halloween, the Ripper Vision tour was very much in demand. Well over 200 people showed up and we were lucky enough to score Jamie as our tour guide - his East London accent along with his acerbic wit and biting humour added a nice touch of authenticity to the terrible stories of the murders and the sad fate of Jack the Ripper's victims.

To add to the authenticity, the evening was rainy, dark and damp, and this tour, touted as the only tour with projectors, showed the then/now sites of the murders, the gorey autopsy photos and finally sketches of who the real killer could be. It was a nice laugh at times, incredibly educational of a dark part of London's history and a nice loop of Whitechapel. If you ever go on the tour, make sure to grab a well deserved pint at the Ten Bells as a reward for all the walking on the hour and a half tour.

The poorly lit alleyways of East London provide the perfect playground for Jack the Ripper to strike without being found.

 Our great guide Jamie who kept our attention at every stop.

The famous pub, The Ten Bells, where a few of the victims of Jack the Ripper had a pint of gin before they died. Yes, I said a pint of gin.

And after all of that, I did decide to be a joiner and head out for Halloween, even after promising myself a quiet night in. But what does one do for a last minute costume? Well, thankfully, I have an uncanny resemblance to a beloved cartoon character and just so happened to have a red striped shirt and toque lying around.

Where's Terence? Instead of Waldo, here in the UK, he's known as Wally.

Happy end of October everyone!