London Trip: Day 2

I woke up early in the morning, showered and went to get a proper English breakfast. In case anyone’s wondering what an English breakfast consists of with cold items: canned fruits like the peaches found in a fruit cocktail, grapefruit, mandarin oranges, and prunes with yogurt, granola, crossients and jam etc. (I had a bowl of mixed fruits and crossients with nutella spread.) AMAZING. What I so far described was the cold breakfast component. The other components: black pudding (sadly there wasn’t any), bacon (ham), sausage, fried egg, baked beans, sauted mushrooms, and fried toast.  Drink wise: black currant juice, tomato juice, orange juice, apple juice, milk, English tea, or coffee. After eating my fill, I walked to buy an oyster card. An oyster card is a card you can use to travel around London. It costs 5 pounds to get and 2.20-2.70 pounds / ride depending on the time. The travelcard on the other hand is a card for a day that costs 8.90 pounds but it lets you travel anywhere using the tube for that particular day till 4:30AM the next morning. I honestly wished I got the travelcard instead of the oystercard but oh well.

English Breakfasts are better than American Breakfasts

Anyways, after getting lost on a few lines, I arrived at the City of London in front of London Tower. For those who have no idea: The City of London is not London, and is a city within a city (London) within a country (England) within a larger country (United Kingdom). Place-ception anyone? After walking around London Tower, and taking pictures of the Shard, the Gherzit, and other views of the city I found myself at the Tower Bridge exhibition. Since it was 5.60 pounds I ended up going through the exhibition. After taking a lift up to the top of the bridge I entered a dark room. The first room had a gigantic TV screen with Queen Victoria I, the creator of the bridge (can’t remember name), and a scientist all discussing the overall bridge function and random facts about the bridge. For example, I learned that the bridge was operated by steam and hydrolic power. The second room was a photo exhibition about the bridges in the world as well as the history of the bridge creators. The third room was another photo exhibition though it had scenes from “This is London” and information about how suspension bridges worked. The fourth room was a hand drawn animation about the construction of the bridge, and finally the steam room on the lower level showed replicas of how the bridge’s internal functions worked. Needless to say I was amused. 

The City of London is NOT London. It is a separate entity that is older than London because of conquest + Roman Empire.

After the bridges exhibition, I proceeded to walk to the London monument passed the London Bridge. Maybe because I really thought it would be good to optimise the 5.60 pounds for the Tower Bridge and London Monument ticket, I ended up climbing to the top of the London monument....up all 311 steps. Not the smartest thing I did considering the view from the top reminded me that I am insanely terrified of flights but it was still amazing. 

The London Monument

Random fact about the monument: it was designed by Christopher Wren to commemorate those who died in the London Fire. Christopher Wren is also the designer of Pembroke College cathedral and West Minster Abbey.

The Blue Cock in Trafalgar Square

Anyways after the monument and bridge, I used the tube to get to Leicester square and proceeded to get a quick dimsum lunch. I ended up getting eggrolls and changfun since those two things were honestly foods I really missed quite a lot.  After lunch, I ended up buying milk tea and passed by a William Shakespeare statue while walking to Trafalgar square. Since I had an hour to kill before going to Parliament, I ended up going into the National Gallery and re-looking at works by Rembrandt, Titian, and other great artists. After my visit, I saw a gigantic blue cock (rooster) outside the museum, and proceeded to walk to Parliament. I stopped by the Covent museum and took a few pictures, but did not get near the soldiers with horses because I was afraid the horse was going to bite me. Afterwards, I saw a large mob of people at Downing Street. For those who do not know, Downing Street is the street where Prime Minister David Cameron lives in. I’m not sure what was going on, but I did take a picture of the street sign because it’s Downing Street. 

The National Gallery

Random fact: There is an official royal position in the UK government called “The Chief Mouser of the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain ….so in short: Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office for cats.

Larry the Chief Mouser of the Cabinet Office.

I honestly had no idea where Portcullis House was, and missed it until my friend called me. Portcullis House is like the place where MPS meet, or the Garden lobby of the Scottish Parliament. The security though is worse than airport security. At least with airport security there’s no need to take off your belt. In Portcullis House, the security is ridiculous that you might be subjected to multiple body scans. I ended up learning more about MPS and the UK political system in a nutshell. Random facts about Parliament:  UK Parliament is made of the House of Lords, Commons, and monarch. Monarch’s purpose is mainly ceremonial though she does have a lot of power. (I’ll write another blog about this another day.) 

After learning a bit about the UK Parliament, I was able to step into the House of Commons and House of Lords. I thought Westminster Hall was breathtaking because it looks like the great hall from Harry Potter, but after seeing the central room where the House of Lords and House of Commons meet I have to stand corrected. That central room is like entering the Versailles Palace in the sense that it’s ornate to the point that the Baroque style isn’t even overwhelming anymore It’s basically like the French came in and decorated that room with the Rococo style, furnishing it with paintings, intricate designs, ornate chandeliers, etc.  Anyways, so I watched the House of Lords debate and honestly I could not pay attention. If it wasn’t bad enough that the microphones are hanging from the ceiling, it’s worse that the speakers are so soft spoken that it’s actually hard to understand what is being said. After 15 minutes of that I ended up going to the House of Commons and watching that debate. Thankfully the speaker system was much better and I was able to listen to the Conservatives and the minister of pensions from the Labour Party argue about pension amendments.

At 6:00 PM I ended up leaving and getting Chinese food of xiaolongbao, szchuan dry noodles, and honey garlic pork. Delicious. I then ran and rushed to see Les Miserables on broadway. The singing was amazing and honestly, I was almost in tears by the end of the play. 

It's a MUST watch when you're in London.

After the play, I ended up walking around to Big Ben and proceeded to walk down the River Thames (though in the wrong direction and ended up at Chelsea instead of Tower Bridge). I also did walk to the London Eye, and I must say it is incredibly beautiful, though it is not worth 30 pounds to ride on the London Eye. Afterwards, I ended up exploring the tube station, going to Baker’s Street and taking pictures of the Sherlock Holmes Mosaic in Baker’s street.  Then I got lost on Russell’s Square trying to find my way back to the Harlingford Hotel. Thankfully a kind Londoner was able to help me get back home at 1AM. 

Overall, I must say it was the most productive travelling day, and I find it ironic that it’s easy for me to navigate the tube, but not to my hotel which was only one street down (going straight.) Oh well. That’s life.

London Trip: One day before and first day of the UCEAP :)

One day before London Trip:  I spent a majority of my time “googling locations” and attractions of what to do. I know it’s a strange habit of mine but I tend to like having a hand written goal list sloppily written out even if I don’t do everything on the list. The satisfaction of crossing off and adding things on that list is perhaps a bit amusing and satisfying to say the least. In no particular order I wrote down: Victoria Albert Museum, Sherlock Holmes Museum (8 pounds), Wellington Arch, Tate Britain, Les Miserables Broadway, Tower of London, Tower bridge from London Bridge, meet up with a friend of mine: Daniel.

Big Ben Clock tower.

Day of trip: I woke up and printed out everything, but realized I was running incredibly late. I ended up running up the Royal mile and taking a cab to Waverly station, fortunately arriving at 9:07AM 23 minutes before my train departure.  After meeting up with fellow interns James and Derek, we ended up walking into the wrong compartments to find our spots. Unlike the tickets in Scotland, the tickets to London have specific seat destinations, so unfortunately I could not sit anywhere I wanted to. This didn’t occur to me till later I realized I was sitting in another person’s spot. Besides that, the train was delayed for 2 hours because a tree fell on the rails in Scotland. This was slightly irritating, but on the bright side I can now refund my ticket so yay free ticket to London? 

UCEAP Selfie with Derek on the train to London

Upon arrival, I realised I did not have time to do much considering it was 4:05 PM, and most museums I wanted to go to close at 5PM. Fortunately the Sherlock Holmes Museum was open so I ended up running to 221 B Baker Street to do that. After paying 8 pounds, and getting my ticket verified by the Scotland Yard guard, I proceeded to enter 221B Baker’s Street. Wow. So there are about 4-5 floors and 2-3 rooms per floor. From the narrow hallways with wooden framed pictures of Sir Conan Doyle to a English classic fireplace, it was as though I had entered Mr. Doyle’s books. Dim lights, warm fire places, pipes, cocaine and antique chemistry glassware neatly placed in leather boxes, cursive hand written notes laid upon tables, exhibitions of evidence from previous cases, and much more- Honestly, my description of what I saw doesn’t even do justice to just how brilliant and spectacular the museum is as an attraction. Personally it’s one of those you just have to go there to see it for yourself. Just be prepared to be Sherlocked into London 1880s.

Sherlock's Arch nemisis: Moriarty!

Here's a snippet of the Sherlock Holmes Museum :)

After the museum, I went back to charge my phone and ended up meeting one of my good friends Mai. We ended up randomly getting lost and settling for Japanese food run by Chinese Londoners. I personally found it hilarious how the one street we were on had everything from Vietnamese food to Lebanese food, but the one food it did not have was Chinese food, the one that we were craving. We both ordered ramen (a rich tonkotsu ramen and a peppered beef ramen) Both were delicious. Additionally, I ordered a fried tempera-like roll: a tuna maki roll covered in tempera batter drizzled with a spicy hot pepper and garlic aioli. I already knew it would be texturally crunchy and taste amazing, but perhaps my biggest surprise was the fact that the tuna was not cooked after the roll was fried. After that, I went back and still charged my phone, and decided to call it a night. Not really ideal, but I did not want to get lost considering I had drained my phone after taking a bunch of pictures in the museum. 

Overall though, it was a good day.