*Warning: Image heavy!*
One big item on my bucket list is to take a long Europe trip (at least a month). I've never been to Europe, except to London for only a day while doing a short exchange at Cambridge. When it came to Joel's turn to take a graduation trip, I made a strong suggestion about Europe and somehow that's the direction we went for. I'm glad that my company gives me more than enough annual leave, so I could take a month off to travel! When we planned the dates, we tried to get the timing right, factoring Joel's last exam, the most value-for-money air tickets, free accommodation in London and more importantly, Liverpool's last match of the EPL season, where they had the potential to lift the Championship trophy! (They didn't but more on that later.)
The day finally came for us to embark on our month-long trip around Europe, starting with London! Emirates was our choice of flight carrier, given my pleasant experience with them the last time and their relatively cheaper tickets ($1k SGD per person arriving at London and departing from Rome. Singapore Airlines tickets for the same route was about $2k plus.)
Took the Underground from London Heathrow to the city. We were really lucky that Joel has a colleague Samuel, who is posted to London for half a year and he graciously let us bunk in his service apartment, which is at a super good location downtown. It is a cosy yet spacious one-bedroom apartment with a living room and kitchen. (We slept on the sofa bed in the living room) I'm crossing my fingers and toes that Joel will be posted there too when the time comes! ;) NYC was my favorite city until London came along. I would be absolutely psyched to spent more than one month in London alone, living like a local!
After dropping our luggage at Samuel's and washing up, we headed on out in search of food. A gloomy and rainy London greeted us, as expected! Typical London weather. St. Paul's cathedral was just 5 minutes away by foot - which was a good indication of how close other attractions were. With the help of an app called Citymapper, we were able to navigate London quite well, to find the fastest or cheapest route - taking the bus is cheaper than the Underground.
First stop, Covent Garden! No prizes for guessing why this was our first stop.
For Shake Shack of course! Once a lover of their burgers, always a lover. Was abit turned off by the price. The prices on the menu were more almost twice that of the States'! $7 versus £8 for my usual Smoke Shack burger. Almost fainted, which is why I skipped the fries. D:
After devouring our burgers, and concluding that the standard was still pretty up there (just as what we hoped), we headed on to the outdoor area and was greeted with what looks like the English version of a pasar malam. Haha. This excited Joel, because he is totally into food markets.
After sussing out the variety offered, he consulted his stomach and decided on this curry puff looking thing from Poland(?) I was too full to try anything.
Passed by a Three mobile shop on our way to Trafalgar Square and heeded the advice of Samuel to get a data sim card for £15. Apparently this sim card works in the UK and Italy, so we thought it was a good deal because you get unlimited data for a month. We were cheated because it didn't work in Italy -_-" So £15 for a week of data was pretty ex to us.
Reached Trafalgar Square! With the Nelson Column in all its glory. Grey skies with on-off light drizzle was quite a spoiler, but somehow the streets are still bustling with activity, pedestrians undeterred.
I love how the museums are free-entry. If we had the time I would want to visit all of them. Our first choice was the National Gallery! As recommended by Joel's cousin.
This is the only picture I have inside the museum, because they have a strict no-photo policy. Wish I could though, cos the ceilings were so beautiful!
The blue rooster sculpture called Hahn/Cock, which has a back story/meaning to it but I won't digress.
Spot Big Ben in a distance!
Can't help but spam pictures of the streets of London. Timelessly beautiful architecture, pebbled streets, and the iconic red buses contrasting against the grey.
My favorite picture in London! Haha. Because we managed to get three iconic London symbols in one picture - the telephone booth, Big Ben and a peek of the top of the red bus! This is quite a popular spot to take this picture, and I've seen many shots from this angle, but surprisingly there were no other tourists taking pictures there except for us.
As it started to drizzle again, we headed back to the apartment, walking along River Thames, which would have been a rather romantic walk if not for the chilly wind and rain hitting against our faces. Walking past the London eye, fondly admiring how it was once the largest ferris wheel in the world till our Singapore flyer came along and stole the title. Kiasu right? Everything also must win.
On our way to the millennium bridge, we took a quick stop over at Shakespeare's Globe. A precious memory I had in London back in 2006 was catching a play here (Titus Andronicus), standing for 3 hours in the pit while the actors acted around us. It was an experience like no other, and I hoped that Joel could have that experience too. However, none of the timings/shows suited our itinerary given our short time in London.
This is how the inside of the globe looks btw. Taken off Google. (Credits to the owner!)
Met up with Samuel after he ended work and we headed to Gold Mine to have their famous duck (which I heard is yummier than Four Seasons a few doors down.)
Starters was duck meat wrapped in popiah skin and super yummy sweet sauce.
The star of the night was the roast duck which was out of this world, and the best I've ever had. I even ate the fatty portions, which normally I would totally not consume. A great way to end our first night in London.
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Woke the next day bright and early, ready to tackle another day of activities. Made prior reservations to have breakfast at Bread Street Kitchen. When in London you really have to at least dine at one of Chef Gordon Ramsay's establishments yes? As travellers on a budget (we had to make our funds stretch for a month) we decided on the most inexpensive of the lot. We'll be back to this fine city definitely, possibly in 2016, and we will be able to splurge on fine-dining then!
Bread Street Kitchen is coming to Singapore, and it was a coincidence that we chose to patronise the original outlet.
Portions were small, but priced under £8 per dish. For the price point, the quality was honestly pretty worth it! The Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon was above average, but the honeycomb butter on the Ricotta hotcakes were absolutely dancing on my taste palette.
Lo and behold, we concluded our breakfast to be greeted with blue skies! Without a doubt, our moods were lifted almost instantly. A sky like this makes for beautiful pictures. St. Paul's again from a different angle.
From the entrance.
After a train ride and some walking, we reached the Buckingham Palace, and it was already packed with crowds gathering for the changing of guards parade!
It was over pretty quickly. I reckon that I'm taller than average in my country for a female, but there I'm just a puny Asian being drowned out by the large angmohs. So besides tiptoeing for the most part and catching glimpses, I managed to catch the parade while I was videoing it on my iPhone, by watching it on screen. :/ Still, this is a must-experience when you're in London anyway!
Blue skies left almost immediately after the first part of the parade ended. ): Gold monument at the right of the picture is the Victoria Memorial.
The Wellington Arch, built to commemorate Britain's victories in the Napoleonic Wars.
Walked down Knightsbridge, somewhat an area with atas shops and fancy hotels.
We reached Harrods! (Orange building on the right with flags.) Yup we stood on the divider in the middle of the street like real #asian #tourists.
After buying some chocolates and typical Harrods souvenirs, we continued down the street to our next destination.
Victoria and Albert Museum, which we would have visited had we had more time.
We chose the Natural History Museum instead!
Escalator to the section on geology, which I didn't fancy, so we did a quick glance-through and headed to the zoology section.
Loads of taxidermy going on...
And fossils!
I have a thing for museums with a large prehistoric skeletal centerpiece.
Love how the museum lets natural lighting in using the glass panes on the ceiling. So much character!
Probably my favorite room of the lot, with true-to-life sized animal structures placed side by side to help you see how big they are compared to other animals in the animal kingdom!
After feeding our minds with knowledge, it was time to feed our tummies! Explored what seemed to be a residential area, with a few art schools.
Convinced Joel to detour to make a quick cupcake run at the Hummingbird Bakery which was somewhat nearby. Such a cute cafe!
The cafe was adorned in bright hues of my favorite pink!
And their desserts were mouthwateringly calling out to me. I wanted to buy everything!!! #fatdieme
Decided to takeaway some cupcakes to enjoy at Hyde Park.
Hyde Park sits opposite Royal Albert Hall.
The Albert Memorial, which was pretty grand in real life so we spent some time admiring it.
I will always get the usual red velvet as a basis of comparison against other famous cupcake shops such as Magnolia Bakery (USA), and this stacked better than the latter! The cheese cream was to die for, but the base itself was a tad too crumbly for me. The other choices were salted caramel to the extreme right, and the middle one must have been a peanut-butter based one (cos that flavor is the go-to flavor for Joel).
Enjoying the cooling weather and cupcakes!
Met Samuel and a few other Singaporeans for dinner at Ceviche, a peruvian restaurant. It was my first time trying this cuisine and the portions were similar to Spanish tapas - small portions to be shared. We had planned for Burger and Lobster but we were told that the wait would be rather long. So we settled for this instead.
Ordered quite a few dishes but the lighting was bad I gave up taking pictures. Among the dishes ordered were rabbit meat, raw prawns in a cocktail, etc. Basically not the usual way of cooking we were used to. Still good nonetheless!
Ended the night early while the rest went to club. We had an early start the next day - heading to Liverpool!
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