Man was it hot up in London today or what, especially at The London Dungeons.

My first stop in London was Bodies The Exhibition an Exhibition very like Body Worlds in which human bodies have been preserved in their flesh to be shown off to us the public so we can see what are bodies are really made of and how fragile they really are.

The technique used to preserve the bodies is called Polymer preservation, which a revolutionary technique in which human tissue is permanently preserved using liquid silicone rubber. This prevents the natural decay process, making specimens available for study for an indefinite time period. Polymer preservation provides a closer look at the skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, digestive, urinary, reproductive, endocrine and circulatory systems by unveiling the mysteries of the human anatomy.

But how is this accomplished?

• Anatomists fix a specimen with chemicals to temporarily halt the decaying process.
• They then dissect it to expose important structures.
• All of the water is removed from the specimen by replacing it with acetone.
• The specimen is placed into a liquid silicone mixture within a vacuum chamber. Under vacuum, the acetone becomes a gas that is completely replaced by the polymer mixture.
• Lastly, the silicone polymer is hardened. The end result is a dry, odorless, permanently preserved specimen containing no toxic chemicals. It retains the look of the original, but functions as if it were rubber.

Preparation time varies though as a small organ may take only a week, while a full-body specimen may take up to one year to prepare.

But what’s my overall opinion of this Exhibition, well it was very interesting to say the least, better yet it was fantastically fascinating as it’s great seeing what’s really under your skin from such a different angle view that text books or the web can give you as you can actually walk around the whole uncovered body, it’s a shame you can’t take photographs though, I guess that was probably my only disappointment with the exhibition other than that it was great and I would highly recommend going to it before it’s too late!

Also let’s just say I’ll never think about my body the same way ever again!

My second visiting place today was of course the red hot sticky London Dungeons, I’ve been before but I wanted to go again and see how it’s changed, quite a bit I must say, it’s just a real shame that you have to queue for ages to get in, even once your inside the actually building there’s still queuing to be done in stages, I guess that’s its main downfall.

But once you get past the queues you feel like it’s been worth it especially with all the interaction and fun that goes on inside, I actually got called up as a volunteer at one point at the beginning when everybody goes to the doctors to look for a cure for the black death, had to stand in front of everyone while being told I smelled of the black death, I was asked if I had tried bathing myself in my own urine to get rid of the black death, haha!

The maze of mirrors was pretty fun too; everybody was wondering where to go, so I would also like to recommend a visit to The London Dungeons, always as long you’re up for waiting in the queue for an hour or more!

Where should I go to next in London anybody want to make some recommendations?