london now...so far...before i forget.

yes, that's right, before i forget. was wanting to keep a journal..photo journal perhaps? but its pretty troublesome..okay im just lazy..perhaps im more cut out in front of the comp..so well..here it goes!

day 1

sights:
- touched down in heathrow, nice warm weather..tubed down straight to st james park! to catch the change of guards at buckingham palace.. st james park is a beautiful place, so picturesque, and like lynn, i really wanted to jump onto the grass and lie there, baking in the sun, cept that it was pretty chilly YET VERY sunny..until col reminded me that pigeons are aplenty and so are their shit.

oh, stopped by earl's court to change trains, buy an all powerful day travel pass.. and the funniest announcement ever..brits are really funny..

"we are going to conduct an emergency drill. please disregard the following announcement"

ok..just go ahead and do your stuff lor tubies..

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, WILL EVERYBODY PLEASE, LEAVE THE STATION IMMEDIATELY"

and u hear a burst of laughter from every sounding soul at earl's court underground...

"the drill is now over. please disregard the previous announcement"

yeahh and around st james park, was my first taste of london residential houses..in fact every single house is pretty much a monument by itself..each is like a shophouse, with its quaint designs and structure, yet all fitting into place..like a nice piece of mosaics..and buckingham palace..wonder how the queen can put up with so many pple outside her gate everyday at 11am. the change of guards was just normal..pretty boring actually...guess as colin said..its prolly just the costumelah..and the high hats..which looks abit like lum's hair i gotta say..

so we headed off to imperial's after that to meet kailun, where we dumped our stuff at alvin's first..lotsa singaporeans i gotta say, lots of asians..very little...if not no pretty girls...haha..and food was..pretty ex...i paid 4.7POUNDS..that's maybe about 15sing dollars? for a bbq chicken drumstick rice with corn and apple juice. that's steep man, that's steep.

so while sebas and kailun and their counterparts sawed their gclamp at the workshop, col and i decided to take a walk around london's famous sights..

- BIG BEN..big clock..nice. the parliament house was impressive. will postup pictures
- london eye, cute, ferris wheel. saw from a distance..abit ex, so wont take. not worth it.
- westminster abbey!! very chio...queue was long to get in..reasonable at 6pounds..the architecture..is just breathtaking..so was the parliament house..will post up pictures.
- 10 downing street.. blair's place, actually can't see his house, just the street..cos its warded off to the public by a gate, with police guarding the place with machine guns..but being brits, they're pretty friendly and funny..
- trafalgar square..nice!! went there today actually
- picadilly circus.. sort of like their city hall maybe?

oh, its not worth it to call from the public fone..paid 30pence for it..and it only lasted 15seconds..so we called fern and den met her at holborn, where she stays..and we took a trip down to LSE, where we met anand and yvette and choong..headed down to leicester sq, like their orchard road lydat...china town, covent gardens..

fern's really great, brought us all over..

- HAMLEY'S!!! cool toys aplenty, but steep.
- topshop...BIG
- regent street...where all the things are at

fern, lun col and i had dinner at this place at SOHO..reputed gay street..cheap nice food..ok lah actually 5pounds..but as kailun puts it..cannot think like that.. and we had superb desert as recommended by fern..yoghurt was like towering..

it was really nice to catch up with both of them, as we talked about old times..rj, actually just about EVERYTHING! yeahh it was really fun..

by the time we got back to kai's place from fern's so shacked, col and i fell asleep watching russell peters...haha but he's freaking funny lah.

DAY 2.

we woke up pretty early, just after kailun left..
had breakfast at TESCO's, a student's shopping haven, sort of like NTUC..funny thing is they dun allow more than 5 schoolkids in the shop at one time..

cheap breakfast, about 1 pound:
- 2 cinnamon rolls
- 1 pint of semi skimmed milk
- 1 strawberry yoghurt

yummy stuff! and VERY filling too..

headed down to:
- tower bridge..famous bridge, like what u see in the story books..and today was blustery windy too, so i was dying from the cold lah..so much for summer man..
- tower of london..didnt get to see.
- london bridge..nothing like tower bridge..just a normal bridge, disappointingly.
- ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL...had holy communion service there, architecture is superb..and we visited the underground crypts, where alexander fleming and florence nightingale are buried. very cool place. pretty holy too..lots of tiny chapels in the cathedral itself.

we climbed about 530 steps..up to the higher parts of the dome, to the whispering gallery...its like a corridor around the circumference of the dome, and when u whisper from one end of the wall, the person right opposite about 70m away can actually hear u clearly!yeahh..no surprise, was eaves dropping alot..

and we climbed further up to the tip of the dome! where the winds were strong..and the view, splendid. as good as the london eye. just not higher. in 1705, THAT was the best view of the city of london..

- harrods..jianhong didnt get my msg! so we didnt meet up in the end. OOH KRISPY KREMES!! best donuts in the world..original glazed that melts in your mouth..and gues what! ITS BUY ONE GET ONE FREE EVERYDAY AT HARRODS!! its an unspoken rule, but the krispy kremes pple give one donut free to anyone who buys it, even those who don't pay, they'll just give it to u for free! yeah..cos harrods are too rich. and their luxury bathrooms..its really called luxury bathrooms. some guy there waits on you and cleans the toilet before u use it..everything is sensor automated, even the flush. talk about luxury man. eau de toilette used to spray STRAIGHT after u shit, and there's even a water cooler in there. now how cool is that.

- went to sebas place at gloucester street, OMG, its a rich street man, BMWs, mercs, ferraris and mini coopers line the street. yeahh..his place was very nice, very cosy. very rich district.

- headed to this steak and ribs place, i forgot its name but its really cool..cost us 8pounds, but WAY WORTH IT MAN..shud check out the ribs, gigantic portions, the chicken breast as well..and lots of chips..great company, great food, what else can u ask for???

- had hoegaarden at sebas' place before we headed down to MOS!!! much awaited..it was FANTASTIC MUSIC OVER THERE MAN, and the vodka mudshakes all were one for one..superb! nice atmosphere, but the crowd just wasnt right. so we left pretty early..dam tired,

met fern and qiuyun, who finally made it here man..nice to see her, she had this 3week roadtrip at california..finally touched down but couldnt join us at MOS..but still looking good!!

conked out totally when we reached back.

DAY 3.

that's today boy. we woke up and had tesco's breakfast again. this time i had raspberry yoghurt which sucked, but treacle tarts and semi skimmed milk again..super yummy the treacle tarts..

cold again, so we decided today would be museums day...haha dam boring right it sounds..yeah pretty boring.

-sir john soane's museum...he's this architect who worked for the banks of london, and he's a collector of art pieces..the museum's actually his house at 13 lincoln's inn fields..and i would die to stay in a house like his..preserved since 1837..but everything looked splendidly well maintained..the really solid english house.

- british museum..it has everything that's NOT british. haha..the highlights were the egyptian mummies exhibition...met CLEOPATRA!! ahhah..in person..literally.. its split up into different cultures the museums..hardly anything british..the reading room is this splendour of books..and pple actually study inside..actually that's what i expect british libraries to be like...very old but VERY GRAND.

- national gallery..a showcase of art pieces from the very best, davinci, monet, manet, nothing like the louvre or italy..but it had the virgin on the rocks! like in da vinci's code..but we didnt have time to see that..only caught monet's sunflowers..nice. haha. like i can appreciate much like that. but it's really VERY VERY different seeing it in real and from pictures..the texture is totally different..like caneletto's venezia paintings...its almost 3-d and like sunflowers, its pretty obvious, those strokes, could see everything pretty clear. defintely will wanna go back there again.

we sat at trafalgar sq after that, enjoying the sights and watching the world go by..quite a few babes..and LOTS OF PIGEONS..haha..these bunch of kids were protesting around the sq "pigeos are pests" dam cute.

met fern, qiuyun, nolly and choong for dinner at misato's, a jap restaurant. basket, the servings were really HUGE man!! think i was the only one who managed to finish all my food..hahha..but it was dam nice lah!! headed over to fern's place cos they wanted to change out of their skirts..too chilly..before we headed to LSE again to show qiuyun around...

we had snakebites!! qiuyun and i ordered one each from the LSE bar (YES THEY HAVE A BAR!! AND A WEEKLY PARTY IN THE BASEMENT COMPLETE WITH DISCO LIGHTS!!) which is a cocktail of alcohol but its only available in the schools' pubs..u can't find it anywhere else along london! something like booze plus cider plus raspbeery and some stuff...sweet stuff, quite potent. gulped down mine and qiuyun's leftovers...and almost puked haha in the end i just burped a large one..

headed over to noelle's place..finally got to meet nolly today proper!!! and got to know her too, she's really a funny and cool chick man, that girl. yeah so we chilled at her place and just talked..before i headed back here..leave them to enjoy themselves..hahha..again, dinner was fantastic food and great company...nothing more that i can ask for..i just wished it was like that everyday...gonna leave them tmr...and kailun's over at sebas for mahjong...tong xiao man..cannot lah, must come back keep colin the sleepyhead company..he's oredi asleep btw.

tmr's gonna be hyde park and some portobello market? probably camden too..good night peeps. my london journey ends tmr.

oh..i almost missed the tube after getting back from nolly's..walking down london streets..finding the tube..it was so surreal. the whole feeling.

i didnt feel threatened or anything like that..london is actually pretty safe. nothing like muggers jumpiing out from the bushes or dark alleys like that..just alot of drunkards at night..
but just walking down the street with the wind blowing in your face, but with your hands tucked warmly into your sweater..seeing all these victorian houses along the way, the red buses, red postboxes..london cabs..underground signs..quirky shops with bright warm lights illuminating out..it's really a dream come true for me. it's like the mecca for hanboon. nothing beats this feeling really. and to top it off, having great friends around to share it with you.

the cool weather that doesnt allow you to sweat, the friendly pple with quirkily funny slangs, the fantastic food, when darkness falls at 10pm and light shines at 5am, this is the place to be man.