Pandarific!!

Finally i'm gonna start blogging about my trip to london.

The taxi man came early so i had to get up, get dressed, pack and get out. I thought that maybe i could slowly do those things, but no, he had to come early. goody.Reached the airport earlier than expected, so we were on the FIRST flight to London for Airasia, which they kept on saying is a historical event, blah blah, first time a low cost airplane company is doing this and all. They of course had a press event where they had people dressed up as the guards at buckingham palace (unfortunately they're malaysians and so it looked really fake) and played the drums and that blowpipe thing together, then they served free food! yay! (i'm so malaysian).

Now on the airplane it was ok at first, then i realized i couldn't read in the plane, too high pressure and so uncomfortable. So gave up on that, the good thing then was, the lady next to me moved away somewhere( until today i don't know where she moved to, lol no she did not disappear i'm sure of that) and we got an extra free space!! so more space to stretch our legs and we took turns using that space. But it was kinda boring, my bro's got the tv thing but were using it most of the time. So i got up walked around, stood up, listened in on the airstewardess conversation...and finally it was time to land!! woot! since it was a historical event and all, they had the firtrucks lined up at both sides and sprayed water on the plane as it was going to the terminal.

ok, sot that's all about the plane. Now a few things i just wanna say. London pubic transport is SO convinient!! seriously! you buy a travelcard for like 5.60 pounds and you get to use the tube, overground trains and busses. their busses practically has a stop like 5 minutes away from each other (in bus time, not walking time). And it's realy easy to travel using the tube (underground), directions are everywhere, plus if you're tkaing like for example the district line (green) the handle bars in the train will be green! (well this is not necessarily for every train line, but the ones i went into seemed to have this colour thing going on) one things you have to look out for is where the train is going, like if you want to go to tower hill, but the sign says barking, then it's ok, because barking is on the same line, just that it's the last stop and as long as you're in the right direction the train will pass tower hill. And some trains end before your stop so make sure. {just a little info for you people thinking of travelling to london} Well we bought the travelcard because we were only staying there for a few days, but i see most of the locals using the oyster card it's a lot like the touch and go we have here, just that, with the oyster, everything you use with it is cheaper. Yea. So enough of the sidetrack info.

First day in london, took the bus to stratford and then took the tube. My goodness. we arrived at rush hour and the place was packed! and the people there, once they come through the gates it's like water flowing out of a dam. It's hard to get through, everyone's walking so fast and if you're a new arrival, and don't know much about the way around, it's scary. i had to go and look for cover as we tried to figure out which train to take. Well a nice man helped us and so we reached our lodge really easily. We booked travelodge which was a really good deal. Real cheap but yet it covers your basic neccesities. Then, being all enthusiastic and all, and it was still kinda early, we got out, went back into central london to piccadilly circus. To see the night life there, it was fun, but we soon got really tired and went back.

Day 2

Woke up at 5 a.m in the morning, jetlag i tell you, jetlag. So cooked noodles and watched tv. BBC is like a huge channel there, more like our free access cable tv, they even have cbbc (children's bbc) So we got out and wow, at our dorstep was the morning market, absolutely unexpected. It had loads of stuff, they even sold you computers! (not bad!) we walked around. oh yeah, i forgot to tell you, we stayed in a place called BArking, and i kept on telling my friend miriam that but she didn't know where it was. So apparently, English people find each other's places by postcode. You just tell them your postcode and they know where you are! it's kinda weird cause in malaysia you say "i live in klang" and people know where you are, you just have to say like 'bukit raja, near bla bla' and they can find you, something like that. So it was weird for me, though my mom said it was perfectly normal and we do it in malaysia?? well not me obviously.

Went to book our car, but i went to the internet cafe, 50 pence for 1/2 an hour, okla since i was desperate and the hotel charged like 5 pounds and hour. After we got that done, it was off to london! went to Regent street where all the branded names are.

Went into Hamley's toystore, it's HUGE!! MEGA!! HUMAGOUS!! it has five levels and each level is dedicated to certain toys like one level for boys toys, another for girls, aother for hobbies. I saw their special collection. They had LOTR merchandise, Harry potter (awesome collection), Narnia, pirates of the carribean. It's expensive, but beautiful.My bro bought a ben 10 figurine there.

There was also the national geografic gallery, where there were these horses made out of wood. seriously! it costs like a bomb a few THOUSAND pounds and when i looked at one of the tags, one of them (there were 2) was sold to someone!!Now then, we took the original london bus tour, where you sit on the roof, they have a tourguide talking to you all the way and you can hop on and off whenever you want. Saw all the normal tourist stuff, oh ya, outside the parliment building is this guy who has been camping out there for 7 years and won't go till there's peace in iran. Yea the tour guide said that like 3 times. Went pass the place where all the expensive houses are and it's 1.5 million pounds per house i think. That's JUST the house, not the land, the land belongs to the family who built the whole posh area. You heard of the great fire? well we passed that part too, and there's this monument which is in rememberence of it and if you lay it down flat it reaches the point where the fire started, in a bakery. And i found out something too, most of the touristy attractions are in westmnister, but lodon city itself is so small!! it's the smallest city in the the world if i'm not wrong.

after the tour we went to trafalgar square and took many pretty pictures.
went into the national gallery (it's at trafalgar square) for awhile.

After that we made our way to Harrods. Yup, that famous shopping place. It was nice, but i was really tired from walking. Well Harrods may boast about being able to sell you anything, but they don't have one essential thing. A CHAIR TO SIT ON!! seriously, i was searching around the place for a chair but nope, nada, none. Till we got to the household section and we all sat on their display outdoor table sets. HAHA! Went to the foodhall mostly, it's really nice and it's like what you see on tv, they had a 4999 pounds cake!! it was lovely.



lastly we went to see tower bridge (often confused as london bridge, yea even the guy who wanted to buy tower bridge got confused and all and bought the london bridge instead. sad.)

and we went back to the lodge/hotel.
To be continued.....................