to the place where time begins...

every single day. time is a strange concept. how can one actually decide where time begins? i can't even begin to fathom what a genius God must be, to even create time. when He created it, how did every place on earth start with a different time and then starts to run non-stop till the end of its course?

anyway.

a compulsory day of community service in the south-eastern village of charlton brought me close to the borough of Greenwich, home to the prime meridian of the world, established in 1884.

Some background info if you're actually interested:

What is a meridian?

A meridian is an arbitrary north-south line used by an astronomer as a zero point from where to take measurements. By comparing thousands of observations taken from the same meridian it is possible to build up an accurate map of the night sky. The meridian line in Greenwich represents the Prime Meridian of the world, Longitude Zero (0° 0' 0"). Every place on the Earth is measured in terms of its angle east or west from this line.

The creation of Standard Time
Since the late 19th century, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich has served as the reference line for Greenwich Mean Time. Before this, almost every town in the world kept its own local time. There were no national or international conventions which set how time should be measured, or when the day would begin and end, or what length an hour might be. However, with the vast expansion of the railway and communications networks during the 1850s and 1860s, the worldwide need for an international time standard became imperative.

Why Greenwich?
There were two main reasons for the choice. The first was the fact that the USA had already chosen Greenwich as the basis for its own national time zone system. The second was that in the late 19th century, 72% of the world's commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian. The decision, essentially, was based on the argument that by naming Greenwich as Longitude 0º, it would be advantageous to the largest number of people. Therefore the Prime Meridian at Greenwich became the centre of world time, and will be the official starting point for the new Millennium.

Anyway, let me first talk about the day of comm service. As part of the internship, we had to contribut to CSR (corporate social responsibility). All 200+ of us were split up into 3 groups to go to 3 separate venues - i got to go to a special school at Charlton, and the work there was really really physical. the plan looked like it was drawn for some major construction work that would take professionals about 3 weeks to finish. "The challenge mainly involces transforming an outside area into a sensory garden. The work will range from the construction of a timber pathway, removal of Tarmac path, removal of a very large area of turf, construction of a timber pagoda, concreting an area of ground in preparation or a shed and constructing a raised wheelchair accessible flower bed, work at the riding stables, etc etc." sounded quite crazy to me. and it was. i was part of the group that had to remove a very large area of turf. we were armed with spades, shovels and gloves. it was tough, took about 9 of us to literally dig up an area of about 100 sq metres of grass, weed, whatever was on it. there was also a metal slide that was fixed on a slope which had to first be removed, and some huge metal beams with concrete slabs below- too heavy for anyone to carry, so some of them had to drill away the concrete and free the slide first. the idea was to create a completely blank canvas for the special children to decide what they want to do.... heh. at the end of it my hands and back were completely aching. it was a lot harder than last year's comm service- bringing some special children to sentosa for a day (but i didn't even go for that heh). but it was quite fun, the group of people i worked with were really funny. there was a couple of english, some irish, a canadian, and i dunno what nationality the rest were. but they were talking about history and geography (as we removed the turf we left some plots to resemble countries in continental europe). i learnt quite a big deal about european history and geography haha.

So, after a day of back-breaking work (such that i'm still aching 2 days later), i decided to take a trip to Greenwich, since everyone tells me that it's really nice there. no one else wanted to come with me. everyone just wanted to go home and shower, and my friends were assigned to another group in another location.

I was quite scared once i was alone. it was the first time in a long time i was venturing into an unknown place alone- and it was already evening. i hopped on the bus, flipped open my map (courtesy of juline) and tried to locate where to alight. where i alighted was some ulu place. when i alighted and the bus pulled away from the busstop i felt like i was just abandoned in a vast field. there was no one around. so i used the map and walked towards the famous Longitude 0º that was shown on the map. i came into the grounds of the royal gardens (the royal palace used to be here a long time ago) and slowly some people appeared in my field of vision, lying on the grass just busking in the sun and reading or sleeping. i was tempted to do the same but i had quite enough of the sun for one day (they must have chosen the hottest day of the year to make us sweat!) and besides, i had a higher purpose - to search out that prime meridian. and, i was getting this familiar feeling in my head. the kind i used to get every saturday after frisbee training. i think i'm allergic to the sun. it gives me headache. and it's so not because i don't drink enough water- i hydrated myself quite well (mainly to get away to take breaks. haha). so my walk around the most beautiful borough of london was rather short-lived. i'll let the pictures do the talking...


the view from the top of the hill. (thank God i started my walk at the top of the hill, not from the bottom, for once...)
that's the royal naval college and the old queen's house. today, it is home to the trinity music college (you know, the alternative to ABRSM) and the national maritime museum. the tall building in the backgroud is canary wharf, the newly developed 'shenton way' of london, where i work.

another UNESCO heritage site. it's the 2398745th i've been to in europe already. ok, i exaggerate, but you get the idea. almost every old touristy place is a UNESCO heritage site.

after crossing the gardens, i found the royal observatory, where the english astronomers used to work. it's now a museum, and it was free. i'm not that interested in astronomy, plus i was quite eager to go home and shower, but i had to go in cos the courtyard was where the official clock was located.

some other meridian's used by other astronomers in the past...

but there's only one in use today:

ta-dah! (yeah i'm referring to that red line thingy in the sign...) this was where the 3rd millenium AD began. the digital clock under it used to countdown to the millenium, but it now records the time that has elapsed since then, to the millisecond, or something precise like that.

you actually have to queue up to take a picture on the line. and while queuing,
i found singapore, at latitude 103 degrees.

there, my obligatory tourist photo of me standing with one leg in the western hemisphere and one in the east. it'll be a lot cooler to be there with at least 1 other person, at least you can do something more creative...

this is the official clock that first showed the official GMT to the public since 1884. too bad i had no watch to align my time with. then again, i trust microsoft. when mr gates says its 10.59 (as it is now), i take it as that.

after getting over all the excitement, i decided to go down to the village to look-see. it actually does look a bit like the greenwich village in new york cos it's a little out of the city and strangely quaint and slow-paced (or i'm just anyhow associating because i assume that the americans must have copied something more than just the name.)

this is the verse than adorns one of the entraces to the famous greenwich market. how apt.

shops around try to ride on the GMT fame...

and greenwich has its own eye - called the greenwich wheel, quite a recent addition to the traditional village.

like i said, it was a terribly hot day. so i went into an air-conditioned bookshop, cooled down a bit, and headed for the train station, across the Thames and back into busy busy London.

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crossing over, back to the eastern hemisphere- soon, soon! :)