London

May 7-9, 2009

I arrived in London from Perth via HK, checked into The Clink Hostel on King’s Cross Road. I will not recommend it to anyone unless you don’t care about how small the room is. I waited for my three friends to arrive, and they did at about 9ish I think. After depositing the bags in the room and ranting about how claustrophobic the room made us feel, we left for Sainsbury at Angel to get supplies, i.e. water, and chocolates for the ladies, then decided to call it a night.

Observation of the day: London is dusty and really cold at night (from strong winds). All four of us had dust enter our eyes, or maybe pollen… We weren’t sure.

The next morning, we walked to the British Museum, it was Gladys’ and my second visit. She was there in 2005 while on a semester’s exchange at UCL, and I was there for Spring Break in 2007. The exhibits hadn’t changed much, probably some new exhibits here and there.

Yuanting and Gladys at the British Museum

We ambled around a little, visiting the Egyptian and Japanese galleries, as well as some others, Roman and Greek ones I believe. We were already pretty exhausted from walking (King’s Cross to the museum) and knew that we’ll see more history and art in Paris/Rome so decided to leave.

Thereafter, we strolled through Covent Garden, stopping for chocolates at Thorton’s and then to Leicester Square to buy tickets. Tickets to Les Mis were sold out so we chose Wicked, which I had watched in Chicago in 2007 but didn’t mind watching again.

We then took the underground to Oxford Street where the girls wanted to check out prices of bags and whatnot. Browsed at Zara, H&M and Topshop and some others before settling for coffee at Paul.

Kenny, Yuanting and Gladys at Paul on a coffee/tea break.

I can’t remember now what we had for meals and I’m not the type who snaps food but I will try to remember as best as I can in future cities.

The set of Wicked before showtime

Our first day in London, with many more to come at a second leg but for the next day, we were headed to Portobello Market at Notting Hill and then on a train to Luton for a flight to Paris….