my 1st weekend getaway from notts... and here i come london!=D
the london trip was terrific. first of all i have to thank my friend jian yuan for letting me and my friends stay at his place! haha... and his apartment was in an u;tra prime location! just opposite Harrods... how cool can that be?! anyway it was quite a comfy stay... haha.. with 4 guys sharing the living room, with my friend and 6 others living in their respective rooms in the apartment who are all studying in imperial college.
took a train down to st pancras international station. then we roamed about the streets while waiting for jelvin to reach. london is still very much alive during the dark, unlike nottingham which effectively goes into resting mode after 4.30pm cuz all the shops will shut down and people will go back to their homes... and the good thing about london is that its temperature is much warmer... probably about 5 degrees? so i don't have to freeze!=D
anyway much of our london trip was on foot! cuz the places of attractions in central london were rather close to each other and walking london on foot got me closer to the life of the londoners too!=)
So on our first night there (we arrived at night time=)), we went to this singaporean restaurant called Rasa Sayang to have our supper there! haha... ok... the price is exorbitant.. at 6.60gbp for a plate of hor fun. BUT! if i were to continue converting each and every one of my purchase back to sgd i would die starving! haha=D the plate of hor fun was kinda large in portion, and it really tasted good! with loads of seafood in it!
a good english breakfast - really greasy though!
Day 1 of london kicked off with a morning english breakfast at Covent Garden, this touristy flea market place. Then went for a walk along River Thames... just a really short portion of it. Managed to catch some sights of the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament House, and the Westminister Abbey, a church just behind the big ben=)
the House of Parliament and Big Ben
the Buckingham Palace
and off we go to St. James Park... a good park to go for a morning walk or jog, during summer and definitely not in this winter cold =S saw many big fat ducklings and pretty white swans swimming along the river in the park... and we walked through the park to the Buckingham Palace, the residence of the English royal family... and there's this poor guard standing outside the gates of the Palace, who attracted loads of tourists taking pic with him! he was not even in the ceremonial uniform! which made us quite tickled by the fact that people ran up to him to take pics with him... and if everyone were to tag him on facebook he would be the most tagged person on earth! we figured he took about 20 pics over a span of 10 mins there! and of course we couldn't resist it and johnston and daniel went to take a pic with him with funny poses! haha=D hilarious!
and every singaporean in london can never resist the temptation of the ever famous Four Seasons Duck Rice in Chinatown! it tasted like the authentic dish you would find on the streets of Hong Kong, perhaps even better! i had a 3 combination rice (char siew, crispy pork, roasted duck) and i give it 2 thumbs up!
and the rest of the day was spent around the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Spent a couple of hours admiring the fantastic artwork housed in the National Gallery... haha... then we proceeded on to the shopping strip at Oxford Street, where the Topshop/ Topman HQ is located! 3 storeys high!! u'll never get this in Singapore! and H&M, which is way larger than the one in Notts... and many other shops, including those selling fantastic looking loafers, ted baker and fred perry shoes! haha... gonna get one for myself when i return in month end!=)
finally we ended the day at North Sea Restaurant where we had fish and chips! did a take away instead of dining in at the posh restaurant setting cuz the price difference is way too much! take away is only 4.80gbp whereas dining in costs 13+gbp! almost 3 times more!!!! so we stood around at the takeaway counter and tucked into our battered cod, grilled cod and haddock, and the huge heap of chips we have... yum yum...
and that marks the end of day 1 in london=)
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