Back again!!

So, as promised here are more pictures of London.
Me in front of the St. Margaret's Church on Westminster Abbey.
Another panoramic view of London near Westminster Abbey.
The famous Bayswater duck.
That's London bridge...
Me on the bridge.
Me in front of the entrance near Tower of London.
Well, when you see this, you know you are in London. This is the Tower Bridge. Contrary to popular belief, it's no London Bridge.
Another view of it.
London Chinatown. Pretty nicely decorated for the CNY. Wanted to take more shots, but that's when my batteries went dead.

So, it's Saturday night (2nd night in London). We went to Bayswater for dinner, in Gold Mine restaurant. The food was really good. Later, Chee Han and Zhi Hui brought me to the Thames in London. That's where I took the photos of the London Bridge, the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge.


Later, we went to Chinatown for dessert. Then, on the way back, it started raining heavily. Downpour. After seeing Zhi Hui at the bus stop, Chee Han and I ran to another bus stop to catch a bus back to his apartment at about 1+am. It was kinda fun, to run in the rain, with lotsa people tipsy and all. London is really a city that never sleeps.

The next day, woke up at about noon, and went to Camden town (pictures in previous post), and then, had a great dinner that night too, where I finally met up with Wuan Zhu. That night, after packing and all, I went to bed kinda early because well, I'll be leaving London for Dublin, Ireland the next day.

The next day, I woke up at about 8am, and then after brushing up and everything, I was ready to go at 9ish (i think). Really a million thanks to Chee Han's great hospitality. And not sure when we will see each other again. Until then!

So, I took a bus to the Victoria train station, where from there, I walked to the Victoria coach station that will take me to the Gatwick Airport, where I will depart to Dublin, Ireland. As I had few hours to kill, I walked around the Victoria train station area, particularly, to the Buckingham palace.
My coach ticket to Gatwick Airport from London
Snapping pictures around the Victoria station area
Buckingham Palace Mews (The Royal Mews - situated just beside the Buckingham Palace). If you look hard enough, you can see a horse walking through the arch (you can only see its arse)
Me on the coach, on the way to London Gatwick Airport.

Alright, this kinda marks the end of my trip in London. Next stop, Dublin, Ireland!!!

I'm back!

So guys, I'm finally back from my trip to Europe (England and Ireland). It'd been eventful, fun, soul-healing, eye-opening. It's really great to meet up with friends far away from home. I don't know why, but I'm doing that more often than I should not. Meeting up with old friends thousand of miles away from home when there was opportunity to hang out more. It's true that I take things for granted too much for my good. Sorry guys. I try to care but well, maybe my heart is only that big.

So, this will be a post(maybe will be separated into several posts so that it won't be information overwhelming and all.) Maybe I'll split them by locations (most logical selection i guess).

It started on Feb 22nd. I left my room at 3.40pm. Shouldering my 9.2kg backpack (I got to know this when I checked in my luggage at the airport. I didn't dare to pack much because I don't want to pay for excess luggage charges while traveling in Europe.) So, my flight is not until 8pm at night, but because I had an exam at 4pm til 5.30pm, and then, I needed to rush to the airport to catch my flight, my best option was to carry my backpack with me, and to go straight to the airport right after the exam. So, it wasn't the smartest thing to do to schedule something of such extremes back to back. Jumping out of an exam room, and ran straight to the bus stop (I had 9 minutes time to do so), to catch the 'airBus' to the airport. The exam was a bad one. Must be the worst I had here at the University of Michigan. But well, who can care so much when there's a flight to catch, a trip to look forward to, and a lot to put behind?

So, I got to the airport at 6.15pm. I went to the counter to check-in and everything. I overheard that there was strong wind in Chicago, and damn, flights to Chicago were canceled. Damn. This will affect my flight too, since my original flight was from Detroit to Chicago, and then from Chicago to London. But, well, what can I do? Pray to the rain god? Wind god? weather god? God no! So, when it was my turn to check-in. I presented my confirmation number and well the usual. I was told that I was rebook on another flight, on British Airways, from Detroit to London DIRECT! Well, when booking for my flight in December last year, I opted for the non-direct flight because it will save me $50. Since this change was free of charge, why not. GOOD NEWS!

So, I checked in my luggage in British Airways, but, I had to wait til ~11pm for the flight. But, well, just a 4-hour wait. Much better than having your flights canceled and all. So, I started reading Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors: A Memoir. It was a painfully funny, too graphic, vulgar and i-can't-believe-he-wrote-that memoir. A fast read. On top of that, I killed my time by solving Sudoku puzzles I cut from the daily newspaper. I collected more than 20 of them for the trip. So, I was well prepared for all the waiting times. Also, for the trip, I went to exchange for 150 GB Pounds, and 150 Euro Dollars.

So, after an about 7+ hours flight. I arrived in London Heathrow International Airport at 11am. The flight was good. Well, free beer + wine (only had 1 Heineken and 1 red wine), FREE being the keyword in the sentence.

After collecting my luggage and through with the custom and immigration, it was 10 past noon. Then, I took the subway to Glouchester Road Station (On Piccadilly line) to meet up with Chee Han. It had been more than 2 years since we last see each other. As I was dead tired from the flight and also for not been sleeping much for the past 4 days (4 exams in 3 days, and needing to pack for the trip) and I can rarely sleep on planes, so I watched 2 movies (The Departed and Man of the Year). So, after meeting up with Chee Han, and went to his apartment(where I'll be bunking for 3 nights), after checking my emails and all (i'm really addicted to checking emails), I took a nap for about 2 hours while he went back to attend classes. For dinner, I joined the CNY dinner organized by the Imperial College Malaysian Student Society. It was a 10-course dinner. Cost me 17 pounds, and the food was bad. There, I met Chee Han's friends too(Dave, Andy, Logan, E-Pien...) After dinner, it started drizzling, WELCOME TO LONDON! Still, we met up with Zhi Hui at Starbucks for coffee. Starbucks in London = Starbucks in the States. The deco, the menu. Other than the price tag, everything is pretty much identical.

Later that night, I went to Chee Han friend's place for their CNY party. Well, I was just the observer there, watching others smoking sheesha (hookah) and play blackjack and poker.

Went back really late (about 5am), and went to bed soon after. So much for rest on holidays, I think I sleep less when I can afford to, see, I'm really taking things for granted.

Woke up late the next day. Chee Han brought me around London sightseeing. I'm really bad with names, so, other than the few really popular places, I can't really remember much.
Err... which park was this? (Corrections: Not Green Park as previously stated...) It's Hyde Park!!! Nice swans and seagulls and ducks... The park closes at 6pm. So, in order to go to Bayswater for food (duck), we climbed through the fence, common thing, saw many people doing that too.
One thing in London, and also in Dublin, I noticed that they have signs telling you which direction to look out for traffic.
Imperial College London
Buckingham Palace... Too bad, there wasn't a change of guards session that day...

Big Ben(The Clock Tower), and the red double decker bus.
London Eye...
Proud to be Malaysian. In front of Trafalgar Square, there's an Tourism Malaysia office there... and the flag behind was actually a Malaysia Flag - Jalur Gemilang.
Fooling in front of Trafalgar Square. There was actually a rally there earlier in the day.
Still at Trafalgar Square.
Near Piccadilly Circus. I like the effect of the long exposure of the photo.
At Piccadilly Circus - "TimesSquare of London" :)

London in Panaromic.
At night in London, HMS Belfast, with Tower Bridge as background.
The next day, went to Camden Town with Zhi Hui and Chee Han.
Camden town is about 20 minutes bus ride away. It's a melting pot of walks of life, and also, like a Chow Kit road in KL kinda place.
Yumchaa.... in Camden Town

The ever-famous red telephone booth.

More photos of me in London, need more time to sort them out and everything. Woah, I spent about an hour writing this post. Well, need to go to work, and have lunch soon. Will try to post on Dublin, Ireland and also Manchester, and Southampton soon.