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Saturday February 16, 2003 - The tube, buses and forks
The
plane arrived early at LHR, even though the plane seem to have circled
LHR a few time. While the plane was circling, it flew over what look
like a castle with a moat.. wonder what it was.. might have been Windsor
castle.
Is was a bloody long walk to immigration, and so far LHR reminded me of the Brussels airport. The line at immigration at LHR had to be the biggest line I have ever seen at an airport (with the exception of the line to get through security on the first Thanksgiving long weekend, post 9/11). But surprisingly the line went quite quickly.
As I only had carry on luggage, once through immigration, I was outta there.. got some cash at the ATM machine directly across from the arrive exit. There were some American teenagers in front of me, who attempted to get cash from the machine, but couldn't (probably because they didn't have their money in the chequing account). Off it was to find the tube, where the darn machine wouldn't take my bill... oh well.. to the ticket window, where I bought a 6 zone off peak day card and onto the tiny tube train into London.
No problem navigating the tube, found
my hotel Georgian House Hotel very quickly. As the room wouldn't
be ready until 1 pm (and it was only around 10 am), it was off to do some
sightseeing. It's Sunday, so I headed off to Petticoat Lane market.
London was pretty darn cold, and Petticoat Lane had many many tempting
scarves.. stupid me, I should've bought one that day. Can't
believe how cheap some of the clothes were. But I was sleepy, and
hungary. I wonder around aimless for a while because I forgot to
take my guidebook with me, and I only had a brochure from the tube with
me. Bought some deep fried seafood from a stand in the market (it
was warm and it was food...that was all I wanted at that point. It
actually tasted pretty good, though I don't usually eat anything deep fried).
Stumbled across Old Spitalfield Market. Lot's of craft, for those who are familiar with Toronto, it was like a permanent "One of a Kind Craft show".
We had Mark and Spencer back in Hong Kong. For a while we had M&S in Canada, selling mostly clothes, with a section for food, mostly frozen food, biscuits and can food. So I was a bit surprise by the M&S that only sells food throughout London. Puzzled by all the choices of sandwiches they had. Took the bus back to Victoria Station, along the way, the bus passed many of the famous sites that I plan to see on this trip.
Back at the hotel, my room was ready. It was a single "student room" with shared bath on the top floor for 26.5 GBP. It bit of a hike up there (reminded me of Hotel Fantasia in Amsterdam). Location was bit further from the tube station than I expected, but it was a quiet neighbourhood, the hotel is clean, it included a full English breakfast and the staff are friendly. I would recommend this hotel, and would consider staying there again.
Anyways I took a shower, and than headed out to check out the neighbourhood my hotel is in. There is of course Victoria train station, Victoria coach station, which are both only 2 blocks away. Also a short walk way is Buckingham Palace, St. James Palace and St. James Park. I had intended to just explore the neighbourhood around the hotel, but for some odd reason, I ended up walking through St. James Park, the theater district, Chinatown, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, House of Parliament, Charing Cross and Leceister Square, finally ended up at Convent Market, by which time I was exhausted.
I was a bit puzzled by the obsession with minimalist decoration for restaurants which London seem to have. Even the Chinese restaurants in chinatown have the spots light and chrome decor. There was some sort of raid or emergency in Chinatown, dunno what it was all about, but there were lot's of cops, and people hanging around, looking at whatever was going on. I was too exhausted by that point. Got some food from Sainsbury for dinner, and it was back to the hotel to sleep.
Example of budget:
26.5 GBP for single "student room" at
Georgian House Hotel
2.20 GBP TimeOut magazine
1.80 GBP Mark and Spencer chicken sandwich
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