A day in London

Almost a year had passed before I finally get to do the "tourist" thing in London. After some careful planning by my friend, I was pretty much looking forward to seeing the major attractions beside Oxford Street.

While most of the week were wet and gloomy, we were blessed with a glorious sunny day on Friday. Our first stop was Big Ben. Somehow, I felt let down by the first sight of it. Then, we took a short stroll along Thames River to get some photos of London Eye which was on the other side of the river. As I wanted to see the "Changing of the Guard", our route was directed towards the Buckingham Palace. Along the way, we passed by Westminster Abbey and St. James park. We missed Downing Street but did not bother to turn around. There wasn't really much to do except to take photos. None of us were keen on visiting the interior of any of the attractions. The reason being the steep admission fee, which was not student-friendly at all.

Hence, we arrived pretty early at the Buckingham Palace. Yet, the crowd was already overwhelming. The ceremony began at 11.30am. I couldn't really see much of it. After awhile, it became boring and we decided to break for lunch. Destination was Pizza Hut (don't ask why) on Victoria Street. While the pizzas were just normal, I was impressed by the hospitality shown by the crew. One of them even offered to help us with our direction upon seeing my friend taking out the London map. That has got to be the best restaurant service I have seen so far in this past year.

After lunch, we headed towards Tower Bridge. Of the four bridges I saw, Tower Bridge has got to the prettiest. London Bridge was boring. Millennium Bridge was rather interesting especially having read about its closure following the unsteadiness of the structure. Besides bridges, we saw St. Paul Cathedral and went into Tate.

We ended the day with a musical - The Wizard of Oz at Southbank Centre. My friend managed to get very good seats at amazing prices because of our student status. While I love the songs from the show, it is not the most impressive musical I have seen. I thought it was more suitable for kids. The best part of the show has to be Toto, played by a really cute white dog who kept looking for food. At some point in the show, it sat down. I presumed it's getting tired and couldn't really understand why it had to do this every night.

To wrap up, I think London is over-rated as a city of attractions. My biasedness could be a result of too many trips around Europe, seeing almost similar structures. In addition, it is a very expensive city to visit. Most attractions cost around GBP10. This is in contrast with attractions in other European cities, which cost below EUR10 most of the time. Sometimes, the entry is even free for students (e.g. Athens). But not all is bad. At least this time, everything is in a language I can comprehend.