Visiting a crappy fake hill with a stunning easter egg ending
Have you ever gone to a crappy place knowing it's crappy, but then got a little easter egg surprise in the end? Let me take you to one in Central London, UK.
Earlier last year, some guy/girl from the Westminster City Council in London must have got their wires crossed and had a stupid light bulb moment. How about we erect a fake mountain in the central of London, market it as the newest tourist attraction and charge visitors £4.50 to climb up it? What a brilliant idea to scrounge some money off people during Covid. And thus they began to build the mountain. This is what it looked like in June 2021.
Fast forward a month later, the Marble Arch Mound was completed.(Marble Arch being the beautiful arch on the right.) Yup this is a 22 meter high fake hill in the center of London, and it's not even as high as some of the surrounding buildings. The cost to build and manage this originally cost £2m, and it finally ballooned 3 times to £6m!!!! The reviews were so bad that many said it was the worst tourist attraction in London. What do you think?
Now you must be thinking I'm crazy to pay £4.50 to go up this pile of crap, I mean would you? Of course I didn't pay £4.50, I wouldn't even pay a penny to be honest. After the Marble Arch Mount opened, there were so many awful reviews about it, the council immediately canned the entrance fee and made it free for everyone. Thank goodness someone still has a bit of common sense. Since I had nothing better to do a couple of days ago, I figured I'd pop over to see the infamous white elephant.
Climbing up the 130 steps to the top was ok, not too strenuous and nothing to shout home about. The viewing platform wasn't too large, don't forget this is a fake mountain and it wasn't exactly overloaded with visitors. I could easily walk around and get a pretty good view of what was on offer.... you wanna see?
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This is the posh side of London, the left hand side is Mayfair, and the right hand side is the famous Hyde Park. You can also see a big ferris wheel in Hyde Park, that's part of the Winter Winderland another tourist attraction held every Christmas, same say that's a bit meh as well!!!
This is Oxford Street, the famous shopping street in London. This end of Oxford Street isn't as busy but once you go pass that red building on the right hand side is where everything happens.
The road on the right is Edgware Road and dates back to the Roman times. It's famous for being a very long 10 miles almost straight stretch of road that leads up to north of London. This initial stretch of Edgware Road from Marble Arch is famous for the concentration of middle east restaurants thus is sometimes known as Little Cariro or Little Beirut.
And that's it. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the end of your tour of the infamous Marble Arch Mount in London. What did you think? Bit of disappointment? Or a lot of disappointment? To be honest, I had no expectation at all so I guess I wasn't too disappointed. I'm glad I can be of public service so you guys don't have to waste your time coming here. Time to leave now. Walking back down was quite interesting looking at the structure.
Easter Egg
You remember I said this is a crappy place but there was an easter egg at the end? As I was leaving, I had to walk through some black heavy curtains to the exit. Or so I thought. As I walk past the curtains, I entered a pitch dark room and there were two light of balls ahead of me. It took me a while to adjust to the dark, and to figure out what I was looking at. It turns out this is a light exhibition called Lightfield.
I half stumbled into the next room as it was pitch dark and I couldn't really see where I was going. There were 12 cubes here and I think they were composed of mirrors and light which slowly moved and changed colours. It was absolutely mesmerising to watch and I spent ages walking around each cube, starring at each one in turn. I couldn't work out if each one was different, the formations kept on changing, just like magic as if it was about to suck me into the cube.
And here's a short video clip of the artwork, isn't this an absolute easter egg? I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
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Wow, that's amazing. Thanks for sharing with us. 🙂
You're welcome @trangtran23
I used to love driving into London down Edgeware Road, you get almost to the bottom and at night, it was like a thick fog as you passed by the restaurants with everyone sitting outside sucking on the hookahs!
The mound? I think someone had been smoking something rather stronger when they came up with that nonsense but damn the lights are amazing and hypnotic.
If you're got half a day to spare during your precious holiday back home you can consider it, though I'm pretty sure you have much better things to do instead 😜
I'd have to ask Mummy if I can have a day off hahahaha
The view is great as you get to see more than standing on the ground, but the rest is awful. Looking at the metal structure from inside is just not something anyone would enjoy. I suppose that space could have been used better and maybe with less money.
I think that area is normally just empty space, I forgot to mention, it's not permanent, it will come down on 9th Jan! Crazy isn't it!!??
It is crazy but I'm thinking for amortization of investment, they may set it up elsewhere as spending that much money on shits like this and then let people use it for free is not exactly a wise choice.
Those wires got crossed badly. (need to learn that expression 😜)
That mountain is quite silly really. I'm not really surprised that they went over budget by so much. Seems to always be the case when governments pay for anything. I'm surprised that they would charge 4.50 originally though. It doesn't look like its worth paying for. As a free thing it looks fine. I would probably climb it for free too. The light exhibit at the end looks really cool. That's a nice surprise.
Probably the biggest tourist attraction joke , I'm sure they could have used that £6m to do something better. In fact I'm interested to see how many visitors they ended up with. Luckily the light artwork made it so much worthwhile, didn't waste my afternoon.
Yeah they could do a lot with 6M it would seem 😆.
I do like that it's interactive. That would be one positive.
So lucky to live in a big city, we can enjoy a variety of things out of the ordinary. Hopefully in the future I'm pretty cost to travel far to enjoy the beautiful things like your city.
Once things settle down hopefully we can all travel around safely.
That is really cool. I am glad they removed the entrance fee for it. That seems just silly to me. While I appreciate the idea of adding green spaces to otherwise industrial areas, this seems like it was a bit of a miss on so many levels. Thanks for sharing this interesting place with us!
£4.50 in, London? Have you missed a 2 out somewhere? 😂
24 quid!! You're a lot generous than me!!
roflmao @livinguktaiwan
I would love to see London one day. The capital of England has always captivated me. Thanks for sharing pictures of the city and the easter egg that was really unexpected.
Have a prosperous and blessed 2022! 🙏
London is a great city but it has a stupid side as you've seen here!!
All the best for 2022 @charsdesign !
Lol 🤣🤣🤣
I would not have paid to go up to that structure either. Here in my country, on the other hand, they want everything given away and then the services are terrible and they destroy everything. 😔
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The artwork kind of reminds me of the Tron 2.0 movie. Really something else. Thanks for sharing this 👍
It reminds of the movie Cube.. Nice work!
Did you ever see the movie the man that went up a hill and came down a mountain?
This reminded me of that movie 😀 the easter egg was amazing though. Great shots. Would be great backgrounds to zoom meetings.
I can't remember if I seen the film but I definitely heard about it before, that was a fun story.
I wonder if zoom backgrounds allow videos, that would be awesome, bet people would want to listen to me talk all the time!!
You were right, there is nothing to see at the top. And I guess in the summer, when the trees are leafy, there will be even less to see, hahahah. I'm trying to imagine the area, and I don't think there was much space for building something like that...
However, what a fantastic surprise in the end. I guess your £4,50 went towards the light show 😁 Spectacular! I am glad you have added a video as well.
It's only a very small area right next to Marble Arch to build the scaffolding, guess you got to give them credit for creativity! And luckily it's not going to last till the summer as it will come down on 9th.
The light show definitely was the best part plus it didn't cost anything as they cancelled all entrance fee. Tbh, Iwouldn't mind paying to see the light show, but not the fake hill!!!!
i just saw in your comment that it would come down 9th of Jan, after spending about $6m on building and management. that's mad.
I love those cubes and the easter egg. Their views are attractive.
£6m, that's over UD$8m!!! For about half a year as well, crazy isn't it!!!
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For a ticket price, that sounds ridiculous. Idk how it could be of any importance all of sudden. Feels more like a roof top with a good garden. If it's free then I might wanna jump up & down a couple of times. Looks more to get this roof top view. So, okay if free.
But, the lighting showcase is so gorgeous.✨💫
I think it's a classic case of someone trying to be too clever and make London unique, they definitely achieved that but not in the way they intended!!
Love it!
I am a little disappointed with the fake hill because it does not look pretty from the bottom up, however the view it offers of all the avenues was worth the entrance fee. I am glad it is now free.
What I liked the most was those cubes with lights, from looking at the pictures I think I feel a little dizzy. The video completes the idea about the image.
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Happy new year to you as well Ana Marie, and wish you all the best for 2022! It's actually very mesmerising looking at them, you sort of get lost in reality, and it's lovely feeling 😊
Love the art work of lights..can’t say the same of the “artificial hill”. Thank you for sharing!
i looks like really crazy.
crazy production with a big WOW effect.