short days in london

we heard london heathrow airport was quite bad, so we prepared for the worst. but it was surprisingly ok, quite tidy and orderly. when we exchanged money, the lady introduced us the dot2dot service. it took us directly to the hotel in 20 minutes, and cost about the same as heathrow express that we planned to use. we will recommend this to all friends who will visit london.

it was a cloudy day when we arrived. we were told it just stopped raining in the morning. so we felt quite lucky. when we settled down, it was about 4pm. to our surprise, it became very dark. by 5pm, it already felt like 9pm in australia. but we had travelled for almost 24 hours and were quite exhausted, so we just had an early night.

the next day was still cloudy. when we walked out, i felt very cold, perhaps because of the humidity. so i stayed in the bag. acting bear didn't mind the weather at all. after all he is a polar bear. we went to the buckingham palace, but could only watch from the outside. i think the austrian emperors' schonbrunn palace is a much nicer place. but i like st jame's park very much. there are a lot of birdie friends, and squirrels too. a squirrel came to talk to us, but we didn't have more macadamia nuts left. next time, we will bring more.

we were expecting to see a lot of pigeon friends at the trafagal square. but surprisingly we didn't see any of them. there were four lions. it cannot be that the lions scared them away. acting bear tried to talk to one lion. but the lion stood too high and didn't hear him. hakuna matata!

the third day was a fine day. the sun came out, and immediately we felt our mood lifted. we went to the westminister pier to take a city cruise to the tower bridge. the guided tour was very informative and funny. for the first time i knew that big ben was not the clock, that what was wrong with the wibbly wobbly bridge was not the bridge, but the way london people walked, that the london bridge was going to be sold to aussies in another 50 years, and why the movie sales was referred to "box office".

tower hill was our final stop before we headed to paris. it was a very pleasant place (with the sunshine and blue sky). there was a fish and chips shop. until papa told us, i didn't know fish and chips was originated in uk. very nice indeed.

on our way back, we boarded on a train to wimbledon. i really wish i had time to go there, but we had to get off. next time. it's on my must-visit-list.

coming from a place where the sun rises at 5am and doesn't go home until 8pm, we felt short of time here. the effective time for use is only a few hours in the afternoon. maybe summer will be a better time to visit europe. but the london tube is so far the most efficient we've ever experienced. for two things, first, we never waited for more than one minute for a train; second, we don't need to look for different platforms for the same line but different directions. but what we don't like about the tube is its poor ventilation.

oh btw one thing that we couldn't figure out about the metro is the way people stand on escalators. in uk, people drive on the left, which is the same as in australia. cars/people overtake from the right lane. so in australia, we stand on the left of the escalator, but here the sign says "stand on the right". isn't there inconsistency?