Ladies and Gentlemen,
*drum roll please* Here's the over-due photo compostion of my 1st trip down to London!
Basically my journey brought me to : Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Some shops selling royal merchandise (talk about over commercialisation! Lol), Westminister Cathederal, Westminister Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, London Eye, Some artsy centres(there were some cool baskers there!), Trafagar Square, the National Arts Museum and ended up at a Subway for dinner.
(Pardon the pseudo-funky hair) Ahh.. yes..Justin and me(bursting with excitement as you can see!) are posing in the train. That nice book on London(compliments of my dad) was like Holy Scriptures for the trip down. It helped me to play tour guide for our small trio. Lol.
We got a nice man sitting opposite us to take this pic of us. Seng, Wee Vien, Justin and Me. My laptop served as a source of entertainment throughout the trip. Nice of the train company to include power points on the train. Once we got off the train, Seng then parted ways to join his friends and the remaing 3 of us set off to sight-see as much as we could!
We got off at King's Cross (yeah! Like the monopoly board! Lol) Our 1st stop was Hyde Park which was where we had our lunch. It was nice weather except that it was really cold. I had a few morsels from some biscuits and I threw them down and the pigeons surrounding us increased exponentially over time! (sorry.. you can take the boy out of maths but you can't the maths out of him. Lol) This pic is modelled by the gracious owner of the camera which took all the pictures on this photo composition.
P.S. I really need to get a digi cam for myself! *hint* *wink* X'mas is coming... Lol.
Background: Achilles statue in Hyde park
The three of us are posing in fhront of this impressive arc on the way from Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace. It was drizzling slightly but that didn't harm our trio's sight-seeing too much! A note for those who come to these areas: Look where you're walking! Massive horse manure everywhere! Lol. Kinda spoils the "atmosphere" but I guess that's London for you.
Buckingham palace!! The very gates of it! There was no change of guard that day as it only takes place in the morning and in the evening. We were there around 1-ish. If you're wondering where those guards with the funny red hats, they're inside the gates. (well protected from the prodding and potential abuse of the tourists..Lol)
Another pic of me and Justin at the gates. Wonder whether those yellow shiny wreaths are made of gold. Hmm...
After quite a walk and a drop by a gift shop, we reached Westminister Cathedral. It's a Catholic Church with a high tower. At that tower, you can see quite nice scenary from the top. But you would need to pay to get up there. The cathedral was very well decorated with marble pillars and intricate statues. The next day, I came here for mass. Sections of the cathedral had been dedicated to different Saints or for different reasons.
Next stop: Westminister! The Adminstrative District of London you can say.
Westminister Parliament! Really impressive. Loads of pedestrians walking arounds. It's like you've got to stop the flow of pedestrians just to get a pic! Lol. And you have to dodge and weave through the people who are trying to take a picture of the building!
Big Ben! Well, not that Big Ben. I was kinda dissapointed. I thought it looked bigger in the movies! *sigh*
After crossing the bridge, we took this pic. The story behind this pic was that there was this group of European tourist women who wanted to take a pic.. so i offered to take a pic for them and they took ours! Nice pic, huh?
The London Eye! It's basically a giant ferris wheel which takes 30 minutes to make one revolution. From afar, it doesn't look like it's moving but upclose, you can see it's moving slowly. A ride on the wheel is more than 15 quid i think.
Yet another bridge over the Thames! We took a look at the London Eye and some other artsy buildings (National Arts Theatre) and there were like some people skate-boarding, basking and selling 2nd-hand stuff along the river banks. Then, we decided to cross the river to head to Trafagar square. As you can see, I was getting more bum-med out as the day went by. Lol. I was having a flu and didn't feel too well.
A pic on the bridge! Me making a goofy smile. *shudder*
Trafagar Square! Yeap.. the yellow piece of property on the Monopoly Board.. Lol. The building in the background is the National Art Museum. Some famous painting are in there.. but basically we went in and sat down and chatted instead. Heheh. It was warm and cozy in there! Didn't take much of a look at the paintings. They had paintings from the renaissance, the romantic period, pre-renaissance and modern pieces. I will look forward one day to going back there to take a better look around.
Ah.. That's it folks! That's all for my photo composition. Thanks to Wee Vien for the pics!
To sum it all up, London's a errr... nice old city. It's not ultra-modern but you get this classy, old feeling when you're in it. Rich with it's own culture and history.
'Till next time.. God Bless..
