London-14-17th July ‘05

14th July
I headed off to London in the wee hours on the 14th of July and reached there at around 1230pm ( London time) where I met up with 2 of my friends from Rousset.
They reached an hour earlier and had to wait for me coz my flight was delayed.

We reached our hostel at the borough station to unload our stuff before heading to our first destination which was the London bridge.
Thereafter, we walked to tower bridge where we were lucky enough to witness the lifting of the tower bridge. We circled around the area to look for London dungeon before setting off to Leicester square where I was supposed to meet up with Irene.

We had our dinner at Chinatown after visiting the hard rock casino where I bought a blouse. The dinner was not so delicious – it is a Chinese cuisine where we had 7 dishes. We had to rush through the dinner because our Les Miserables was scheduled at 730pm.
Les Miserables was held at the queen theatre and the show was wonderful. The casting, sets, costumes and etc, were impressive but of course, the sets were the best.
After this show, I parted with Irene and all of 3 of us went to shop around the Leicester square before heading back to hostel at around 1130 pm.

15th July
We started off at 7 am and skipped our hostel breakfast to head to Trafalgar square. We took some great pictures before visiting a café to have an English breakfast which consisted the orange juice, tea/ coffee, scrambled eggs, sausages, baked red beans, and toasted bread.
After this hearty breakfast, we headed to big ben, house of parliament and Westminster abbey. Thereafter, we went to Buckingham palace to witness the changing of guards which took about an hour under the scorching sun.

We went to the national gallery and british museum before heading to Harrods and Hard Rock café. These places were near the Hyde park which was quite far off from where we were.
Anyway, there after we head to London eye to buy the tickets. We took our dinner at the restaurant before sitting the London eye capsules to capture the night scene ~ 930 pm.

After this, we headed back to our hostel- yup, my legs were wobbling at the end of the day.

16th July
We visited the St paul’s cathedral before heading back again to hostel for breakfast.
The breakfast was not wonderful as we were limited to only 2 toasted bread, one bowl of cereal and one cup of orange juice.

After this breakfast, we went to waterloo station to go to Salisbury town before heading to Stonehenge.
We joined the tour which took us around Salisbury town and finally to Stonehenge.
Stonehenge- indeed it is a few stone in an open field. I was not disappointed at all as my cousin had warned me about being disappointed.
Nonetheless, I still wanted to pay a visit to this wonderful sight.
We visited the Salisbury town – market square, Salisbury church, st paul’s church and the famous chocoloate shop before heading back to waterloo station.
We split at this point as I had to join my cousins for dinner while my 2 friends went to Greenwich for a visit.

My cousins took me to covent garden, marble arch, oxford streets and finally hyde park where the live aid concert is held there. Yupz, we sat down on the park to relax and pose for pictures.

There after, we headed to the red light district for dinner – one of my cousins work there.We had authentic Malaysian dishses- laksa, sambal crabs,sambal kangkung, and fried banana ice cream plus of course numerous juices- pineapple, mango and lemonade.
Basically, I was so bloated. We had a great time together since we had not meet each other for almost 10 years plus.
After the dinner, we walked around the red light district area to look for pubs to drink while I was trying to figure out where the underground was located.
I needed to get up at 330am the next day , and it was already 12am.
This is the end of my trip account- companions are great and I had a wonderful trip!