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12월 20일 The Monopoly London TourLondon was fantastic!!! Be warned, long blog posting ahead! If you want the short version, scroll to the last paragraph.
Thursday
I arrived at London Stansted airport late thursday night. Flew with easyjet where there are no allocated seating, so if you check-in earlier you're in the first group (A). So all the A people rush in a grab the good seats and those left in group C or D have to find the left-overs. Other than, its quite the same as Virgin Blue, but not as good service or good looking Flight Attendants. Walked out of immigration and baggage collection where my Uncle Vinh and Aunty Khanh met me. Jumped into the hired car and drove into the city. Where my whirlwind tour starts.
Thurs night was pretty much Vinhy just driving around with Khanhy pointing things out and me straining my neck to see from the back seat. I saw soo many sights soo quickly that I can't even remember what I saw to tell you now... but I do remember... OXO Tower, Tate Modern and of course Tower Bridge since they live 10min walk from there. My aunty conducted her Monopoly tour.. anything she would point out would either be "thats xxx which is yellow in Monopoly" or "thats yy which is not on the Monopoly board so you don't have to worry about it" By the end of the weekend, I think I completed most of the board including the Train stations and one of the Utilities!! hehehe what an achievement!
Anyways got home later that night, checked emails, ate instant noodles (yum!) and then slept.
Friday
Slept in (it was sooo nice to sleep in a double bed again.. soo much room!!! A lot better than my tiny single bed back in CPH...though it does help when you're cuddling someone hehe). Walked with Vinhy to the southside of Tower Bridge to find a place for an English breakfast. So we were walking around the area that Jack the Ripper prowled around in. And i must admit that some of the alley ways there can be quite scary at night. Discovered that the place wasn't open for breakfast yet so we crossed the bridge to the financial district to a place near where Vinhy works for sausages and eggs in white bread (like a McMuffin but with white bread, actual sasuages and egg).
Vinh went off to work at 11am (hahahha) and I walked to Bank (banking district) which had really nice buildings and prestigious banks (like the Bank of India). Didn't take any photos there though. Walked down Cheapside st to get to St Paul's cathedral.
Walked through the gardens from the back, saw a statue of St Paul. Made my way to the front and took some pics there as well as one of the old gates into London. Tried to be an amatuer photographer by mucking aorund with some of the settings hehhehe not sure if they will be ok. Went inside St Paul's where the revolving doors said "This is the gate into heaven" or something like that. Walked all the way up to the part where you have to pay, turned around and walked out!! hahahaha I have this thing of taking photos of outside of buildings (i love architecture) but I never go into a building. In fact St Pauls is only 1 of 2 buildings/sights that I actually walked into!
From St Pauls walked down towards Millenium Bridge and took a few photos there including the London City school. Imagine how you're stuck in a maths class and you look out the window and its the Thames and you can see Tate Modern!!! How cool is that.. a LOT better then staring at the crappy pond Mazenod has. So I crossed the bridge, took some photos of the surrounding area (sorry about the pictures, I have no optical zoom on my camera).
Walked passed Blackfriars Bridge to Gabriel's Whark lookout. Walked to Waterloo train station which is absoloutely humungous! Grabed a map of the Tube system which I needed later that night. Walked out of waterloo to the London Eye, crossed the Thames over Westminster Bridge. Took heaps of photos around Wesminster including Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Walked to the Churchwill War Rooms, Horse Guards Parade and entered St James Park. Was really really tired by then so had to stop twice to admire the pond and birds and drink some hot chocolate. Walked through the park towards Buckingham Palace which was soo boring. The Guards were in their winter grey coats and tourits were happily snapping away. I thought it was waste of my energy to walk so far. My auntie warned me, but I had the time... not the energy though!! hahaha
Stumbled/hobbled my way to St James tube station. Took the smelly tube to Tower Hill... saw a Fish and Chips store and couldn't resist (yes mum I am looking after myself). Walked around the outside of Tower of London reading some panels about the history of it. Quite interesting, though I kind of thought a 'tower' would be much taller. Walked to Tower Bridge where this time I had more time to admire it and take photos (you'll notice that the photos are quite dark now since the light was fading). Also saw City Hall and HMS Belfast from the bridge (no photos). Walked home and collapsed.
Friday Night
Took a nap for 30min and then had to get ready for a Christmas Dinner. My really really good friend Monica has a friend named Van living in London. She's been there for a 1yr and 8 or so months. We've met before she left and she was kind enough to invite me to a Christmas Dinner that her friends had organised. So it was a great chance to meet some new people. So took the really smelly tube from Bermondsey to Baker Street. Walked to Van's friends place where we had Turkey, duck, this French style Pate (i know i'm not supposed to call it Pate but I can't remember the name of it... its this fattened up duck's liver paste?), salmon and some other stuff... so great food!!!
They gave each other KK presents. Thanks Van for getting me a present!! (she didn't want me to feel left out.. but now i feel guilty hehehe). Van got me this .. cute thing that bobs its head all day long using solar power. I will take a photo, its quite cute and all it does is bob its head! So cool!
Somone got a Poker set.. hehehehehehhehee
On TV there was this show called Space Cadets. Where four people were selected to fly to Russia to get training and then actually fly into Space. Of course it was fake!! One of the four was an actor but the rest actually believed they were in space. They had their doubts but the actors "in the spaceship" put their fears to rest. It was quite funny the stuff they did... like to 'fly' to russia the plane just lifted off and circled around England!! So they were in England all a long. They also showed a view of the earth from the cockpit which was created using 47 computers. And they were awe struck!!! They started writing down their life plans and what they wanted to achieve after seeing that. The funniest was at the end when the doors opened into a TV studio and the three astronaughts were inside dumbstruck. But the lucky people got 5,000 pounds each day there were 'up in space' (5 days) and they will actually go to Russia to go on one of those zero gravity flights. So to look stupid on TV thats a pretty good prize.
Got home late that night and crashed.
(phew, this is going to be really long... i'm getting super tired writing this so you must be tired just reading it!)
So we interrupt this blog with a few short messages from our sponsors:
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Saturday
Saturday's a shopping day!! I don't think it is.. I can't remember "Monday's a Happy Day" but anyways. Woke up late, had a semi healthy breakfast (Semi because I had sausages, healthy because there was fruit). We took ages to get out of the house (No thanks to Khanhy). Drove to Borough Market which is this really great fresh food market. Vinh and Khanh only eat organic stuff from a market so they bought some food for themselves and I got to see the market, a tall ship and a the ruins of a cathedral. We didn't have much time so we literally stood at the ruins for one second and then moved on. It was quite funny because Khanhy dragged me to the ruins we stood there and she said "thats it" and we left laughing so i had to go back and take a photo.
From there we parked near OXO Tower and Waterloo trainstation. Walked over Hungerford Bridge towards Charing Cross train station (Monopoly Board). Took photos at Trafalgar Square including the one of me with the lion. Nature called so I actually went into the National Gallery.. well just the foyer hehehe. Walked passed Leicester Square on the way to Covent gardens to do some shopping. Had lunch in Chinatown.. finally had some YUM CHA!!! Walked to Picadilly Circus, Regeant Street and Pall Mall.. i think. The only thing I rember is the crowds!! There were heaps of people and Khany said that was the usual shopping crowd!! And there was a line to get in to one of the department stores!!
Got tired of it all so took a Black Cab (very nice and comfy) back to the car. Went to OXO Tower for some quick shopping then on to Chelsea for some more shopping. Finally had enough to had a dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant where I had some Pho and Com Tam (Broken Rice.. wasn't really broken rice). We stunk of asian food but still went out for a drink. Not sure where.
Sunday
Had some Vietnamese food for breakfast (YUM!) then went to Greenwich famous for its market and timezones. When I have more time, I will go there and ask them how the measure time and then synchronise my watch there so it will be perfect. Greenwich has a great market!! Really cool and interesting stuff. Then we went to Fulham so I could meet up with Heidi. If you read her blog (see my blog list) you can hear about how cold she was. Which was understandable since the silly girl (yup you're silly Heidi) didn't have a scarf or a thicker jacket! Luckily we were in the car most of the time finding a cafe near by. So after all the asian food we went to an Italian place where I had (drum roll....) a chicken Caesar Salad!!! Mum will be sooo proud hehehe I was feeling guilty because Khanh and Vinhy eat really healthy so I have learnt the error of my ways.
But it was great to catch up with Heidi, sharing stories and tips for travelling. She'll be here for a few months so we're planning on meeting up again sometime in late Jan. Lucky girl will see more of Europe than I will by the end of Jan since she is travelling with her sister and her sister's friends.
After dropping off Heidi we had to rush back to the airport where I got there with 10min to spare, so I was cutting it close because these discount airlines get pretty narky and charge heaps if you're late. And thats another thing, the traffic in London is horrendous at ANY time of the day. No matter what day or what time, there was always traffic and traffic jams.. even at 1am!!! Crazy!! So when I love here, I will go by tube and bus I think!
Short Version
Well I think this is long enough so I will cut it here. But in summary, I loved every minute. My uncle and aunty were sorry that they were dragging me around in a rush and to do Christmas shopping but i still loved it. I saw non-touristy areas because of that. Plus I plan to live here, so i will have all the time in the world to see the sights. Its a very very very busy city. Like Sydney on New Years Eve everyday. but its a a beautiful city and I was blessed with (although very cold) very sunny days!!! 댓글 (9개)
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