London Trip Day 8 - Last Day

The last day of our trip. We decided to go to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of Queen's Guard. Before we visit that place, we never thought that the process would take so long, and was that magnificent.

That morning, we checked out the hotel room first. Put our suitcase to the concierge first. Then took underground to St. James Station. We got a sense that there would be lots of people gathering and waiting for the process. So we'd better be there earlier, a little bit.

Took off the underground, we had to pass through a commercial area, a park (there are so many parks in London, so good). Then reached the place. It is the entrance of the Buckingham Palace. Police were preparing for the process. Pulling out the traffic lights, setting up barriers to block people, clearing the roads.... There were so many people there already. We had to squeeze and struggled for a while to settle down and anchor a place for better view.

We waited for about an hour. Then the process came. It was so grand, actually. A lot of horses, solders with those thick furry hats. You know, black hats with red uniforms. It was actually a parade. There was a route pass the entrance of the palace. And in front of the entrance, there is a U-turn route. You can clearly see all the horses and solders marching pass by. Those horses were very pretty and well-trained. The whole process was quite long, I think around 30-45 minutes altogether. As we were quite far away from the entrance, could not see the changing moment actually. But the parade was so great that you must go to see if you are in London. There is a schedule of the process. And would be change a little bit in different seasons.

The day was hot and it was afternoon. You'd better bring along with water and sun glasses. After the parade, there were so much horse craps on the road. There were automatic cleaning device that especially for this job. It is a truck with sweepers in motors. The whole cleaning and other traffics lights restoring process was so fast. The traffic there could be resume in quite a short period. That is cool.


After that, we went to visit Victoria and Albert's Museum. I couldn't remember what were inside that museum. But I remember the lobby is so nice and modern, especially the glass sculpture under the ceiling. See. So great.

Leaving this museum, we went to the Science Museum. It is quite a good place for kids to experience science. It is absolutely bigger and better than the one in Hong Kong. So sorry.

Then we back to hotel. It was almost 4:00 pm. We took our suitcase from concierge and head to home, Hong Kong.

We took the same route as what we arrived the hotel, just in a reverse direction. We were not in a hurry to take the plane, as planned, got enough time to deal with any thing out of expected. Anyway, we still need to take the 11 hours flight to back home, of course, with our merry, pretty, satisfaction memories.

That's all for the trip to London.

There would be another trip log later, stay tune!

London Trip Day 7 - Greenwich, line on 0 degree longitude

Day 7, we went to Greenwich. It is an area at the rural border of the City of London. It looks like a literate place. Really hard to describe the feeling that it gives. Just you can really feel it.

In the early morning, we took underground to Bank Station. There we had to change another transportation mean, DLR. We walked to the nearest station and took the train. DLR is something like LRT in Hong Kong. 2 cabinets chained together as a train. And most of the rails are over ground, with flyover in some areas. We got down the train at Cutty Sark. It is the nearest station to the places that we were going.

We walked around first and met an interesting facility. Guess what it is? See, it is a toilet. It is a huge cabinet. You have to pay to open the door. And you can have 15 minutes to finish your work, or else, the door will open automatically. This facility is all way automatic. Interesting. But I was thinking that should be quite expensive to install and maintain. Anyway, after that, we walked through an area that likes a college, with different buildings and a church. That church is so magnificent. There is a huge hall with wall paintings that make it more 3D. A very interesting illusion.

That day was quite cloudy, but could not reduce my excitement. The first place that we were going was, the Royal Observatory. This is the place to define GMT 0:00. GMT is Greenwich Mean Time, which is used to define time zone all over the world, according to different longitudes. Of course, I had to record the line on the 0 degree longitude.

Inside the observatory, it is a museum. You can see the history of this place, the establishment of the observatory, and the GMT 0:00 definition, of course. It is so worth to visit. Especially for those science students, no matter in colleges or universities.

Leaving this place, we went to Queen's house and Navy Museum. I remembered that we rushed to Queen's house as it closes around 5:00pm. There is just a place for storing some of Queen's collections. Actually, I could not remember what I had seen there. Sorry.

Navy Museum is a museum that about ships, some British navy histories. And with some real size model ships. Not very interesting.

After that we backed to City of London. That night, we bought tickets to watch an opera. The Sound of Music. It was such a beautiful experience in my life. The production was good, the actors were all good, the lighting, stage, clothes, and the songs and the music were all so amazing. The theater is not very big, but is in a real classic style. Some audiences were in formal dressing. I think that is their culture to watch opera. We were so touched while watching as this story is so familiarized. Day 7 ended with the satisfaction end of the opera. We brought this beautiful memory back to hotel, and back to Hong Kong.

London Trip Day 6 - Bath

Day 6 is another day trip outside the city. This time is Bath.
In early morning, we took underground to Paddington Station. There we took train to Bath Spa Station. The train took more than 90 minutes to bring us there.

Bath is another old town. The most famous thing is the ancient bath pool that was built by ancient Roman. The pool was left but not functional. The town, though is small, still looks wealthy and energetic. It is still a famous visiting place for tourist all over the world. There are other old buildings within the town. One of them is a bakery shop. Actually, I forgot how old it is. And it is not that old as expected. You know, old buildings are everywhere. You can hardly spot it out that it is especially old. It is now revamped as a small restaurant and keep the basement as a small museum which tells the history of this old bakery shop. I remember that there is a bun that is the bakery's icon. It is quite big and with nothing inside. Just a simple bread. You would probably not expect too much on food hundreds of years before. We did not try one or stay meal at there as you have to reserve seat for meal. And looks like no walk-in customers.

Leaving that old bakery shop, we headed to the pool, the bathing pool. It was a place for bath in ancient time. It is a hot spring, and keep emerging out bubbles. The pool is so green. That is definitely the result of the sun shining on the still water. I believe that is not that green when the pool was still function those days. The whole building, beside the uncovered pool, consist of different parts. Indoor pool, sauna room, and changing room. The style is the ancient Rome style, with sculptures around. Now, the building is enlarged. Inside is a museum that brief tourists on the history of Bath. You have to paid for the entrance. The fee includes a glass of mineral water that claims it is from the spring. That water, no taste actually, just like ordinary mineral water.

After visiting the Bath pool, we took a walk around the whole town. Hanging around those old buildings is interesting. You can see modern teens, I think they are living there, modern shops, but with old buildings. It is a pretty good examples on revamping old buildings or areas with injecting energies into it. Why not Hong Kong ask them for some lesson learns about keeping heritages? They are really doing it well.

That is all for Day 6. It was so relaxing and inspiring.

London Trip Day 5 - Salisbury

This is the best part of the whole trip. Salisbury is a small town, but from there, you can get to the Stonehenge. That is the place that I wanted to visit for a long time.

Day 5, we went to Waterloo Train Station and took a train to Salisbury Station. It took 82 minutes for the whole journey. Got down the train, we spied for a while the way to Stonehenge. There was a tour bus to the Stonehenge, started from the train station. It took half an hour to reach there.

The day was sunny, with little white clouds. With the large areas of green lands, that scene is absolutely magnificent. That area is mainly for keeping sheep, and with large farms. It is such a huge area with not much houses nearby. Stonehenge is on a side off the main road 100 meters. It is a well developed visiting sites. Lots of tourist visit there including local people. I am still wondering who made up these stones in this area. The concentric structure and the usage is still a myth for me, though there are texts, and story telling machine for you as guide while you walking around those stones. You see, those stones are huge. You can imagine how could they be moved to this continental area. It's really amazing.

In the area, there were so much bugs flying around. Some of them landed on people's bodies. See one of them.

That area is also a great place for keeping sheep. They are so innocent, but they didn't afraid of people. Maybe they got used to see people around. That place is really so great. Hanging around there would make your soul in a peaceful status. Feeling the sun, the wind, the area, the scene. It you are planning to visit Britain, I would highly recommend you to be there.

We stayed there until noon. Then took the bus back to the town, Salisbury. It was a small town but good for us to hang around there. There is a great church there. It is quite old and a renovation was in progress at that time. The town is also a old and peaceful place. Good for people to rest and relax.

We stayed there till afternoon, then took train back to London. When arrived, the sun was not yet set. We went to take a ride on the London Eye. I bought the ticket before flying to London, thus no need to queue up for ticketing. It is worth to take a ride on the London Eye because you can have a wider scene to the whole city of London. London Eye is next to the river and opposite to the Big Ben. It is huge indeed. And the cabinets are quite big. Each can take 20 something people. And the whole cabinet is made with strengthened glass. You can see through under your feet. Cool.

Taking off the London Eye after a circle, we went to see the Big Ben. Woo, it is so huge and beautiful, far more than expected. And we heard the bell ring, I can still remember that was 8:00 pm. It rang 8 times. Nice bell sound. I was totally excited, like a little boy.

After that, we walked around for a while, and took bus back to hotel. That's all about Day 5. I really enjoy that day so much.

London Trip Day 4 - Windsor

Day 4, we left the town and go to a place that is a little bit further. It is Windsor. We took underground to a huge train terminus, Paddington Station. We bought train tickets from an automatic selling machine. Just wanna try the automatic system. It was quite good. You can check the train schedule there and buy tickets. Very convenient. And there are different kinds of tickets. Some are cheaper within a specific period. And we bought that kind of ticket as we knew that we would not stay long till night there.

The train started at 9:20 something. The train was quite nice and fast. It is really a mass transit system. We get down at Slough and take a transit train to Windsor & Eton Central Station. There were no direct train, so that was the only way. That day was not sunny, and was rainy actually. We took 40 mins something to Windsor.

The site we were going to visit on that day was Windsor Castle and Eton College. Windsor Castle is a nice castle and which is still a functional castle. That means some functional departments are still working inside. As the castle is a visiting site, there separated some restriction area that are not open to public. Security level is set higher obviously, when compare with that of Tower of London. The area of the castle is huge. That is the largest one that I've ever seen. (hmm, actually, I saw several castles in my life, and all of them are in London, ha ha :p) Cool!!

Finish walking in the castle after 2 hours, or more. We then took a walk around the town first. Actually, we were finding way to the Eton College. The town is small, but nice. As it was lunch time and was a bit hungrey, we went around to find a place to eat. And suddenly, we went across a street corner and saw a shop selling kebab. We haven't eat kebab for quite a long time. It is hard to find in Hong Kong now. So we ordered one and shared it. That kebab was so big. Cut into half still enough for each of us. At that time, the rain stopped. We went across a river and sitted on a bench under a big tree. We ate that large kebab there.

After recharging, we kept going to Eton College. It is not too far. Stepping into the area, I think it is residential with some shops. There are shops for taking photos for the students, stationary shops, post office and some restaurants. This college is famous because the 2 young princes from the royal family was graduated there. And it is, somehow, a designated school for royal family kids.

It is a boys school. Students there wear uniforms like tuxedo. And there are many different styles of vest. Those vests are colorful and with patterns. I have no idea how to distinguish the difference among them. Maybe something like symbols of houses or societies. Anyway, really interesting and looks really good. For the school, the building is a real old building. It gives us a feeling like Howart in the story of Harry Potter. Of course, without that huge size. But still, giving out a scent of books and studying.

After hanging around the building, we left and went into a stationary shop. Inside, there is a post office. We bought a postcard there and send back to Hong Kong as our souvenir. Then we started our journey back to London. That's all for Day 4.

London Trip Day 3 - London City

Stepping into Day 3 of the trip, the body's biological clock was tuned well. No more dizzy or sleepy. Keeping good rest at night is the most important. Watching the local TV channels in hotel, downloading photos that took at day time, charging battery for the camera and washing some thin clothes. Climate was good in June. Not very hot, or cold. It was so perfect for traveling.

Ok, Day 3. We went to the St. Paul's cathedral again. It was such a huge cathedral. We hanged around at the ground floor. That is the place for pray and other religious ceremony. But we cannot take photos there. We waited for the time that the upper stairs to be opened. When the time came, we climbed up the stair cases. There is more than 100 or something staircases. The aisle is so narrow and was allowed to be one way. That means upward and downward path are 2 separate staircases. It was quite energy consuming to climb up to the roof of the cathedral. There we could see around the whole city. It is quite tall actually.

After the visit, we went across the Millenium Bridge to the other bank of the river. And headed to the Shakespeare's Globe. That Globe is a theatre and also a museum. There were no play to be performed on that day. So we could go inside and take a look. To go inside, we had to use the London Pass. Inside is the museum. There is exhibition hall that tells the story of the globe, like when it was built, how it was built and the purpose of the Globe. Of course with some history of the Globe. The Globe that is standing at the bank side today is the third version. The first and the second one were taken down due to some incidents.

There was a scheduled tour for the visitors. We joined in and walked along with the tour guide. We saw around inside the Globe, and listened to the guide's story telling. Similar to those exhibition information, but much more interesting. Today, the Globe is still functioning. Some plays of Shakespeare are being scheduled to be perform there. Actually, the stage is not big. The distance between audiences' cubicles is quite little. The Globe is in a concentric design. The performing area and the stage is mainly in the middle and the lower quarter of the circle. The other 3 quarters are audiences seats. There are 3 storeies. I think can hold 200 something audiences.

Left the Globe, we took a bus to Buckingham Palace. There are 2 visiting sites that could use the London Pass. One is the Queen's Gallery, and the other one is the Royal Mews. We went to the Queen's Gallery first. Cameras are prohibited there. Inside are some of the collections from the Queen. Some painting's masterpieces, some scrulptures. Then we walked out the gallery. It was drizzling. We put on rain coat and walked to the Royal Mews.

Royal Mews keeps all Royal carts, and some horses. Those carts were used by the Royal family for some time. The one used by the Queen, the one used in Princess Diana's wedding, and also a car that was used lately by the Queen. Those carts are so glamorous, and luxurious. There are guides that would drive tours. They would tell you the history of the carts, stories related, who used them before...etc. Quite interesting.

Leaving the Royal Mews, still raining. We took Underground to Kensington Palace. It was the Palace that Princess Diana was living before she left the Royal family. It looks not very good for a healthy person to be living. Maybe that day was not sunny and gave me that feeling. The palace now acts as a museum that shows Princess Diana's belongings, clothes, and the information at the time she was living there. Thus, a memorial museum. The gardens around are nice. The gardens are large and linked with a large park (couldn't remember which one!). There is a lake near by. Still, a nice place to visit. After that, we left and went back to hotel for recharging... ourselves.

London Trip Day 2 - London City - Part 2

Rested for a while along the bankside, we headed to the next visiting place, the Tower Bridge. Before we visited this bridge, we thought it was London Bridge. Because this bridge is a real icon of London. Actually, London Bridge is a real old bridge that is not that iconic as that of Tower Bridge. And at the time we walked along the bankside, we did pass by London Bridge. The bridge was under maintenance. Thus, we did not go up and take a look.

Now back to the Tower Bridge. I think the bridge was named as is because it connects to the Tower of London. The bridge is quite nice and huge. It acts as a gate and is firmly fixed by 2 towers. This 2 towers are the visiting sites for tourists. We could use London Pass to get in. There is another ironic bridge links the upper part of the 2 towers. Tourists can pass through and oversee the whole London city. It's really a nice place to go. There is an exhibition room that shows a huge bump that is responsible to control the bridge to open and close like a gate. Of course that bump is a replica. It gives us a feel like a product after industrial revolution.

Walked through the bridge, we headed to Tower of London. It is an old castle that is not functional now. It acts as a museum of ancient British military. Also, London Pass would let you in. Before we enter the castle, we had to eat something as it was after lunch time. We bought a pie from the chained pie and cake shop 'Paul'. Yes, my name, but not my chain store. We found a bench, sat and ate there. The pie was not that good. Maybe it was not reheated. Anyway, just a lunch. We then entered the castle.

There were huge number of tourists inside. There provided guides to tell visitors stories about the castle. We did not join any of them. Since we got not much time as the castle would be closed at 5:00pm. We only got 2 to 3 hours left. The castle is quite large and got several sections. Each section is separated by a tower. And each tower got its own exhibition hall with different theme. I couldn't remember all of them. The most impressive one is the 5 storeys tall tower in the middle of the castle. It was an arsenal in the ancient time. It is now a huge exhibition hall that demonstrate different purposes of each storey. Very interesting and worth to see. I was the first time to see so much weapons and they all are made with fine details decorations. Some of them are scary. Still, very interesting for me.

After 5:00pm, the castle closed. We walked towards the center of commercial area. There is a magnificent building that was designed by an British architect, Norman Forster. Mr. Forster designed lots of modern buildings including the previous HSBC headquarter tower in Hong Kong and the Hong Kong International Airport. The building that is standing in the London's commercial area is another commercial building. Something different from Mr. Forster's usual style. It appears as a bullet, which is pointing up into the sky. The outline is quite curvy. Still, when you see it's detail outlines, it was consisted by lots of triangles. This makes it look very modern and charming. That's why I decided to walk into the center of the commercial area and have a closer look to it. It is really an amazing masterpiece. The building names Gherkin, locates in St Mary Axe street.

Luckily, that day was a Sunday. Not much people in the commercial area. Walking there was quite comfortable. Although it is a commercial area, there were not much tall buildings. That is very different from that of Hong Kong. That's why we said it was comfortable to walk around there. After that, we took bus back to hotel and ended the tour in Day 2.

London Trip Day 2 - London City - Part 1

Day 2 of the London trip. I planned to start using the London pass. That means to visit hundreds of famous visiting sites. Actually, only went for several. You'll see in the coming articles.

Day 2 was a Sunday, we planned to visit St. Paul's Cathedral in the early morning. (Not that early actually). We took underground from Oxford Circus to St. Paul's Cathedral via the Central Line. When we went up the street from the station, there was an event for charity. It was a running event, I think it was not as long as a Marathon distance. But it was a circular track around the area. There were so much people in that event. All the participants were ladies, and with interesting costumes. All were in pink color. The event seems so much fun. All people were enjoyable and playful everywhere. We knew that was something like breast cancer charity event afterward at night from the TV.

We then went straight to St. Paul's Cathedral. However, we did not have any concern that it was a Sunday. The fact is, the Cathedral would not be open for visit on Sunday as there would be a pray in the morning. It was out of expected.

Time for a change management. We kept on our plan, head to the 2nd visiting site of Day 2, Millennium Bridge. It is so close to the St. Paul's Cathedral. We walked to there in less than 10 minutes. This bridge was established in 2000 to celebrate the entry to Millennium. It is a bridge over the River Thames. The bridge was not in the original form now. From a documentary program, it was modified after the launch as it was so fragile and was dangerous for people to pass through. Just like walking over some floating wooden bridge. Scary, isn't it. Now, the bridge is so rigid, thousands of people would use it per day.

On that day, we headed on the HK Financial Secretary Mr. John Tsang. We didn't know what to say at that moment. We didn't say Hi to him as we were shocked. Mr. Tsang saw us. I think he knew we are Hong Kong people, somehow. We saw each other for several seconds, and went away.

Down the bridge, to the other shore. We went to the 3rd site, the Shakespeare's Globe. It was a theatre for classic operas, of course, for Shakespeare's operas. Unfortunately, that day the theatre was reserved for a play. We could not go inside for a visit. Thus, we kept going for the other sites. Another change mangement. The plan on Day 3 would be a bit modified.

Then, we walked along the river bankside to other places. There are so many things worth to see along the way. We ate very delicious ice-cream on the way. Don't know why the ice-cream in London were all so delicious. The scent of milk was so strong and the flavour was so nice, yummy.

There is a building that is so eye-catching. It is something like the City Hall of London. The area is so spacious. That building is just like a helmet. So nice. Lots of people were sitting there, resting, eating and feeding pigeons. We also took some rest there and then headed to the next visiting site.

London Trip Day 1 - London City

Finished wandering at Notting Hill, we were so exhausted and the jet lag effect was emerging. But at that time, still good. We left Notting Hill, took Underground back to station Oxford Circus. We had to collect our London Pass at Regent Street. We bought a 3 days London Pass. This pass is a kind of smartcard with chips embedded, which allows people to visit a bunch of sites at a quite cheap price. Visting sites are all charged. And for every single site, the ticket fee is quite high. With a London Pass, you can visit those bunch of sites that indicated on a list within a certain period. Our pass could just last for 3 days. So need to use it wisely (at least I thought I am using it wisely, ha ha :p).

We did not use the pass right away. We planned to start using it on second day of our trip. So what we did after collecting the pass was to visit places that are free of charge. Actually, around the place that we collected the pass, there are so many famous sites to go. The most important thing is that they are free to go in. They are National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, British Museum. I longed to visit those places for quite a long time. I was so exciting at that time.

However, maybe starting sleepy, when walking around inside National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, the feeling is, not that interesting. There are quite a lot of artistic masterpieces, paintings, crafts...etc. Just not very good. Maybe I didn't know much about them. The feeling is not as good as the time I went to an exhibition of Impressionism Paintings that was held in Hong Kong. Or, maybe those things are not my cup of tea.

Here are 2 pictures of the outside of National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.

There was a big square outside the Gallery. Fountains, benches, big staircases everywhere. An interesting thing is that there are so much people gathering. Most of them laid down or sat down relaxing, chatting with each other. There was a fat guy singing a song of Micheal Jackson. He was so enjoying. He did not care the surroundings. His ear set was on and following the music inside his ears, and sang. I was thinking that the world is so interesting. There were so much amazing things happening just you never knew.

The British Museum is worth to take a walk. You know there are so much ancient things from different countries, including China, Egypt...etc. And those ancient things could only be found in British Museum.

Visiting these places took another 2 hours. Maybe shorter. Then we walked around for a while and left, headed to Hayde Park, one of the most famous park in London.

While walking around, we found the Royal Post Letter box on a street. So antique. We cannot find one in Hong Kong since 1997, as Hong Kong is no longer a colony of UK. It is now a Special Administration Region of China and keep on influencing the world in many aspects.

At the time we were heading to Hayde Park, the day was getting late, but the sky was still bright. Sun set in London is usually at 9:00pm. Thus, we planned all the activities would be stopped before 8:30pm.

Hayde Park is a large park in London. There are many large parks in London. All are covered with grass and huge trees. I was so envy when walking in such parks. I was always thinking that, a city should have a big lung to filter away the crowded and polluted air. In Hong Kong, the lung is the country parks and they are getting smaller....sigh...

Hayde Park give you a peaceful and joyful feelings. People jogging, playing with dogs, kids, cycling everywhere. The atmosphere is so nice that we could never forget. Just at that time, started sun set. We could not stay longer there. Then we left and took bus back to our hotel.

That is the Day 1. Quite exhausted, but so exciting. That night, we took a real rest and was so prepared for the Day 2.

London Trip Day 1 - Notting Hill

It was a night flight, started at 23:25 from HK International Airport. Arrived London Heathrow Airport at 05:25. It took 11 hours! What a long flight! Though not as long as the time taken from Hong Kong to US, still long enough. On the plane, tried hard to tune the bio-clock of ourselves. Stayed awake as long as we can. Try the best to sleep before landing in 8 hours. You know, there would be some meal serving periods, some movies to watched so that you can keep awake. We were good after landing.

We took Underground to the down town from Heathrow. It was the cheapest way, of course not the fastest way. But we got plenty of time, still in an early morning.

We took the Piccadily line, transitted at Piccadily Circus and took the Bakerloo line. Got off at Oxford Circus, where our booked hotel locates. It was not yet the time to check in. Lucky that an early check in was allowed. Maybe not that much people at that period.

Again, took the underground, Central line this time, to Notting Hill.

There is an early market at Notting Hill every Saturaday morning. You can imagine it as the Stanley Market in Hong Kong. Of course, the size and scale is much larger.

It is a really beautiful place. It looks like a residential area with lots of short houses. In London, you seldom see high buildings except in the commercial areas. The market is composed by several long streets. The market was called Portobello Market. There were lots of people, visitors at the time we arrived. It is a very famous visiting site indeed. There are many shops for souvenir. Very crowded, but joyful and peaceful.


 

 





Shops are very interesting, selling antique games, cameras. Some are selling food, fruit, and vegetables. The market is so large that it took us several hours to finish the walk. We also tried German hot dogs as lunch there. Very delicious. It was quite exhausted to finish the walk. With the effect of jet lag, this made us so hard to stand for the coming visiting sites for the first day trip.