Europe/UK Day 1 - London

In case you haven't noticed.. Our trip was greatly influenced by Frank Sinatra. We can't agree more with him that it's oh so nice to go travelling to London Paris and Rome. In that order of course. It's also much nicer to come home to my hokkien mee stingray and laksa. So that's one person we have to thank for our fabulous trip.

This was a 18 day trip. Yes, had to scrimp and save annual leave the whole year for this!

Our itinerary:

UK
8th August 2008 - London (3 days)

France
12th August 2008 - Paris (4 days)
14th August 2008 - Versailles (0.5 day)

Italy
15th August 2008 - Venice (1.5 day)
18th August 2008 - Dolomiti (Italian Alps, 1 day)
19th August 2008 - Pisa (0.5 day)
19th August 2008 - Florence (0.5 day)
20th August 2008 - Rome (2 days)
21st August 2008 - Vatican City (0.5 day)
23rd August 2008 - Pompeii (0.5 day)
23rd August 2008 - Sorrento (0.5 day)
24th August 2008 - Isle of Capri (0.5 day)
25th August 2008 - Amalfi Coast, Ravello (1 day)
26th August 2008 - Naples

Friday, 8th August, 2008 (08 08 08!)

Still at changi airport, waiting for our flight to Paris at 10+pm. Sat down at Toastbox over a cup of coffee and called home to check Toto results. No S$8 million for us.. Well, have to wait for 09 09 09?


Caught Kung Fu panda. Ok only lah.

The plane we were in was pretty cool, it had microsoft office functionality in the screen.. and there are these USB ports where u can plug in ur thumbdrive so that you can work on your documents! But the leg space was quite bad and we couldn't recline the seats much.. Not as comfortable as the ones to Newark.

And. There was this crying toddler. And she cried. non. stop.

That was really horrible.. Actually she was very cute, but.. urgh. Wailing at the top of your lungs, non stop on a 13 hour overnight flight is not gonna earn you many supporters. Really hated the parents for not being able to control her. We thought that she probably wasn't used to the darkness.. cos everytime they brought her to a brighter place (toilets or whatever) she stopped for a while.. Bloody hell, they should just sit in the toilet then.

Saturday, 9th August, 2008

sunrise.. my lousiest sleepless flight ever.

Bonjour! We've reached Paris Charles De Gaulle airport!! Time to practise my french! Which is actually limited to

"Je m'appelle ___"
"Je ne comprend pas francais, parlez anglais, sil vous plait?"
Oh, and "confit de canard". That's very important.

my samsung phone tells me where I am. They chose the Arc de Triomphe to represent Paris.

Had the suitcase vs backpack debate with myself for a long time prior to the trip. We would have loved so much to carry our samsonite spinners.. but everytime we encountered stairs in the tube/train/airports/bridges, and the cobblestoned pathways of italy, we ignored the weight on our shoulders and thanked my great foresight to carry backpacks instead.

Here he is adjusting the waist support.. ready to invade Paris!

Oh. Not quite. Have to figure out how to buy a train ticket from the CDG airport into Paris first.


Mission accomplished. 8.40 Euros per ticket.

Gare Du Nord train station

There. Managed to reach Gare Du Nord train station quite early. Had about 2 hours to spare before our 11.15am train.


Popped out for some picture taking.. and breakfast.


the facade of the train station

The whole street was filled with touristy cafes. You know that they are touristy because they have freaking menus according country/language.. with the country's flag on the front for reference. I really wanted to avoid them but the waiter from this cafe was really friendly, and we didn't have too much time to wander. So we settled.

Luckily the food was yummy!

Took a short walk in the vicinity after breakfast. Almost got knocked down by a bicycle cos us idiotic chinese didn't see the bicycle tracks. Luckily a kind lady pointed it out to us and warned us to get out of the way b4 the bicycle approached. The bicycles generally go quite fast, cos the lane is specially built for them. I wish Singapore had more space for bicycle tracks.

It was finally time to board our Eurostar train towards London! This is the legendary train that travels below the English Channel (or Chunnel) and it takes just 2+ hours to reach London from Paris.

We had to clear customs here first, but it was quite fast.

It was quite a comfortable ride..


The view from the train. Quite boring cos you see this the whole time.. So we took a crying-baby-free nap.


And that was it! We reached London's Kings Cross St Pancras station. Woohoo. Finally see English signs. First.. take the tube to Waterloo where our hotel was.


very crowded tube. Carrying lots of luggage didn't help.

First thing we did was to check if our charity shield tickets had arrived at our hotel, and whether they were genuine [heard of cases where such online-bought tickets were fake] Look at how excited pb is to receive the genuine looking tickets.. =)

We quickly changed and got back on the tube towards the Tower of London to catch their last tour at 3+pm.

Taking public transport, or driving in other countries is always very interesting, cos that's when you get to compare with what you thought was good/bad enough in your own country. I thought London's underground system was extremely efficient. Every time we missed a train, the next would come in within 2 minutes! And the train stations are very near one another. This makes allocating time for travel very easy because the time spent waiting for the train is negligible, unlike in spore where it could range from 1 to 8 minutes? Also, although extensive, it was not difficult to figure out how to get to where we wanted to.

There were some getting used to though, such as being able to eat/drink on the train. To a Londoner who has been doing this all their lives, it may sound like we are damn deprived. But when I see potato chip wrappers on the train floor, and even an apple core on a train seat, I feel proud of our cleanliness standards in our trains.

the tube map, sponsored by ikea

They are really obedient and they all adhere very much to the 'Please stand on the right' rule, unlike our 'Keep Left is the Right thing to do' which is more like a voluntary thing. In fact, even when there's a bottleneck situation at the bottom of the escalator, they would queue up to keep on the right. Which is not very efficient in my opinion.

Tower of London

We finally reached the Tower of London! The tower has been a prison, a palace and a fortress, and has been around since 1078!

It was raining so we bought a 5 pound umbrella..

hungry pb. fish and chips, 5 pounds.


Traitor's Gate, the Tower's water entrance where prisoners accused of treason passed through.

these are torture devices:

The Beauchamp tower, where original graffiti and inscriptions left by prisoners are still intact. The prisoners were damn artistic! If I were to be kept in this prison.. at the very most I would only be able to sprawl some rubbish.

This is one of the nicest and most famous, by/for John Dudley. The floral border is a play upon the Dudley brothers' names, known as a rebus. Oak leaves and acorns mant Robert, as the Latin for oak is 'Quercus Robur', honeysuckle is for Henry, roses for Ambrose and gillyflowers for Lord Guildford.

a memorial to those who were executed here.. Many were beheaded in front of the public at this very spot.

These guys are called Yeoman Warders (which totally reminds me of yaohui and chye). Or, Beefeaters. We were trying to catch a tour by them [which are supposed to be really good], but because it was raining, one of them simply brought us into the chapel and rambled on.. I couldn't catch his accent so didn't know what was going on.

This is where the Crown Jewels are kept. No photos allowed inside, but like the Yeoman Warden suggested to all ladies.. Look at the crown jewels, look at the ring on your finger. Then look at your husband.

I was quite excited to see a moat here. Too bad it has been drained. This is like, a real castle with a moat! Makes me start to imagine crocodiles, knights in armor, princes, princesses in tall towers and fire breathing dragons. Oh, and shrek.

Tower bridge.

Oxford Street

That was all we scheduled for the day. Popped by to Oxford street next. This is like, Orchard road. Too bad we missed the July sales.. Heard that zara had super cheap shirts and jeans. Boo.

this telephone booth reeked of pee

Our first day abroad, and we already started eating asian food. Haha, it was the novelty of finding this 'Indonesian and Singaporean cuisine' Nusa Dua restaurant near Oxford Street that lured us in. Well to their credit there were candles on each table so the ambience was quite good.. and they even served us a pot of warm hot water.

The food was different, but quite ok. They did sell Laksa (description said 'singaporean vermicelli in coconut gravy') too and I was quite tempted to try it.. but the prices were too crazy.