Europe/UK Day 3 - London

Monday, 11th August, 2008

Last day in London.. Well, can't afford to stay here for too long anyway. 2.77sgd to the pound vs 2.22 sgd to the euro.. Europe should be less pricey..

We had breakfast in a chic cafe near our hotel.

My daily cappucino


Concoct your own breakfast..


very good stuff, and nice service staff.


omg I just realized our breakfast cost us 28 bucks. Well, at least it was good!

The Mall is not a shopping mall, but the name of the road that leads from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace. This is the road the Queen takes in royal ceremonies.

Admiralty Arch at one end of the Mall



Buckingham Palace, with the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of it.

We were there for the Changing of the Guards ceremony which everyone says is overrated but everyone still crowds here to watch anyway. This is only a Monday morning but there are still so many people around.

see more people than guards-a-changing


them!! If only I had a chance to take a photo with them and their furry hats



St James Park is right next to the Buckingham Palace.



Views of the London Eye from here


Samsung's version of London : Westminster Abbey

We wanted to meet chye for lunch at his workplace which we assumed was in the financial district which we wanted to visit anyway. His workplace is at Canary Wharf and I stupidly went to ask the tube guy which station I should alight if I wanted to go to Canary Wharf. "It's Canary Wharf." Oh. Turned out there WAS a canary wharf station. But it was too far from where we wanted to go so too bad lah. No fate to meet the chye.

London's Financial District

londoners also crazy over iphone





30 St Mary Axe Street building, or The Gherkin. To me, this is the most striking and characteristic building in the London city skyline.


Lloyd's of London building. Also another building that has been appearing in the news as a result of the global economic downturn.


Wah. got Singapura restaurant here.


We were actually looking for his company's headquarters. Kinda like how I went to Milwaukee to search for mine. Turned out it wasn't in this district, so we headed towards the tube to get there.

This, is the London Bridge which pb insisted on seeing. They really should build one that is more glam, since about everyone asks about it and whether it really is falling down. I suppose they have rebuilt it numerous times over the years, so it has fell/sunk many times! London sold one version of the bridge to some guy in the US who rebuilt it at Lake Havasu, Arizona. There are also rumours that the US thought they were buying the much prettier Tower Bridge instead. Kinda loserish.

lunch at Pret A Manger

And a couple of train stations away.. Holborn Bars, the traditional home of his company. It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, whose brother is yes, none other than the co founder of PriceWaterHouseCoopers! "(Alfred) studied architecture under Richard Lane in Manchester, and spent much of his youth travelling in Europe and studying in France, Italy and Germany. Upon his return to England, Alfred set up his own architectural practice in Manchester." Wah lau eh. lucky guy.

It dates back to 1879.. and Charles Dickens used to stay in this area before this was built! Very pretty building. I always wonder if 100 years later, people would look at our minimalist rectangular blocky buildings and say 'Wow.. architectural wonders..'

Time to walk towards Covent Garden.. and we came by this retro looking ice cream truck outside Lincoln's Inn Fields garden.


=)

Enjoyed our ice cream cone in Lincoln's Inn Fields garden. I love how this garden/park is where the locals go to to have a quick sandwich lunch, or just to read a book. If only our weather was nice and cold, then it could happen to Singapore too.

Walked a bit more and reached Covent Garden. There is a flea market here but on Mondays they sell antiques which is = any rubbish you can find at home so it was quite boring for us. Otherwise it's a pretty crowded place ideal for people watching. One crazy street performer did attract lots of viewers:

Too bad we didn't have the time to stop and stare. It was about time to go back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and head for Paris on our 6pm Eurostar train!

Before we leave London, may I add that the Oyster card, our ez-link card equivalent is really cool. You know how we have to read up about whether a day pass or a 3 day tourist pass, or no pass works better for you everytime we visit a new city? The oyster card does that automatically for you and makes sure you get the best deal. If it does not, you get a refund. Ok we didn't really calculate exactly but it did help us cap our daily transport expenditure at about 5 pounds each. Pretty good! We donated it (the deposit) to charity as we left London.

My crappy makeshift dinner on the Eurostar back to Paris. Actually today is our 6th year anniv and I was expecting a romantic wine dine carats flowers and proposal by the Eiffel Tower. Instead we spent the night lugging our backpacks across the English Channel, bashing through the subways of Paris and towards our Parisien hotel. Oh well, maybe next time. =)

Europe/UK Day 2 - London

Sunday, 10th August, 2008

10 August, also known as Charity Shield Day!! The match was at 3pm so we had a whole morning to walk about leisurely.

In our excitement to get out, we had forgotten the most important thing.. the tickets! Thank goodness he remembered before we reached the tube station, and ran back to get them. We were on our way to Kensington station to meet Chye for breakfast.

So he bought his 2 pounds news paper (sgd$5+) just because it had some charity shield news. So we were on this train and as we reached St James Station, Chye called and we find out that he has just woken up and cannot meet us for breakfast. Yes, very lousy. But never mind. pb says St James Park has a football stadium (See why pb wants to come to London?) and so we alighted.

Worst sandwich I've ever tasted. Some ham thing and mustard. BLech.



Ok, turns out the football stadium he was referring to, is not here, but in Newcastle. Anyhow smoke me. But, it is a nice park!


Haven't seen squirrels in a long time. Dont we miss the furry critters!

We walked a bit more and reached Westminster Abbey. Pancakes!!!


Ham, cheese and mushroom. Plus chiobu.


London Eye


Big Ben


Lu bian tan! Too bad these yummy looking hotdogs and onions are sold in Pounds

Walked over to the London Eye area.. and there was a Dali exhibit



Considered going up the Eye.. Actually we did wanna do that, but the queue was soo long that we decided against it.


Enjoyed the atmosphere along the eye. Lots of buskers doing crazy things


This guy lagi best. Just cycle like crazy when anyone throws him some $.


engrossed in his football news by the River Thames.



Next, we walked over to Whitehall road. London is a super walkable city, most of the important sights can be reached by walking.


bmw police cars


horseguard

this heavily barricaded area is the entrance (or backdoor?) of Downing Street. 10 Downing street is where the Prime Minister stays.. The place looks like a construction site though, and everyone is just peering through the gates, although we can't really see anything.

Walked towards Trafalgar Square



bought some souvenirs

And it was time for lunch at a traditional (so we think) English pub!


fantastic beer



steak and kidney pie

The food was alright, though it did feel a little queasy eating food that looks like dog food. Then again, dog food does look quite good to me. Especially those bacon treat things. Hah.

Finally it was time to set off towards Wembley Stadium!

Trains were crowded. As we got off our train at Baker Street station to change trains, there were already security personnel guiding us to the right trains. And when we got off at Wembley Park, we could hear fans shouting and cheering in the train station already!


The atmosphere was fantastic!





Make sure you go by the right bridge..



priceless


these guys were jeering the other team's fans across this barricade, while the neon policemen on horses looked on, ready to stop any fights.


I'm not quite sure how they do their job.. Isn't it kinda cumbersome to be riding a horse? Didn't get to see them in action.. I suppose they just kinda oversee stuff cos they're higher up there.




lots of security everywhere!






We had to hold this up in the beginning.. to form the word 'Respect'. Otherwise it served as a good clapper/noisemaker thing.

We had pretty awesome seats! Even though it was behind the goal [kena cheated, the description said along the side], it was damn near and we could almost see their facial expressions. =) Oh, our seats were also not together (there was one guy in between us) but luckily we managed to displace him to the side so that we could sit together. Whew, luckily our seats were near each other's.

This guy keeps standing up to lead everyone in cheer.. And everyone stands up whenever anything becomes exciting. Kinda irritating cos then I would have to stand up too. Too bad we didn't really know the chants and songs, or we would have loved to join in!

this guy chao geng!






ok, i think van der sar is very friendly. Cos he's quite near us, he always waves and says hi!




this guy fell asleep!! Check out the orange security guy behind laughing at him. It was hilarious. I guess that's what beer does to you. That guy was hauled out later by the security guards.


Not over yet. There was still a long long way to reach our train cos of the number of people. But we truly enjoyed our first (and probably last?) live football match.. The people there really made it loads of fun for us, and this is definitely one of the highlights of our whole trip. =)



Tubed to Picadilly Circus [where there were still guys in red/blue shouting/singing], and had dinner at Garfunkels.