For instance, on my first trip to London, I landed at Heathrow Airport, Terminal 4, as most Asian flights do. While clearing the immigration, a flight had just landed before mine and there were about 50 people ahead of me. It took me an hour and half to clear the immigration. It made me extremely impatient and restless, and I kept thinking in my head that it would have taken maximum 20 minutes to clear immigration in Singapore even if there were 100 people ahead of me. So that was my first landing experience in London, but it only got better once I made my exit from the airport.
Throughout my 40 minutes cab ride, I was observing either sides of the road and trying to believe that I was finally in London. It was a drastic change from Singapore.
Firstly the weather, I went from flip-flops to boots and from shorts to overcoats in a matter of 24 hours. I went from living in a high storey apartment to a landed house. But then I also went from cheap food to super expensive food.
It was late December, few days before Christmas; I was landing in London at nighttime. It was a beautiful sight while landing as the whole city was lit up for Christmas. I couldn’t wait to be out there and see this magnificent city.
I generally used the underground for my transport in London. My first tube experience was very interesting. The tube is very similar to the MRT in Singapore, except for the fine boards. There weren’t any. People are free to eat and drink on the tube and what surprised me the most was that people are allowed to travel in the tubes with their pets. Every time I carried food on the tube, I used to feel guilty, as if I was committing a crime, as I was not used to it. |
That afternoon I also had my first crepe by the street. My friend was showing me around, so after lunch we boarded the tube to the famous Notting Hill Portobello market. The more I explored different parts of London, the more I was in awe every single day. Notting Hill was beautiful, the colourful houses, the vintage cars and the vibrant night market. |
The day after Christmas was Boxing Day, the crazy sale day, where people would actually queue up outside the stores from 5 AM. I was very curious to witness this and I wouldn’t have missed it anyway, as I was living with two shopaholic men. We made our way to Bond street station once again and unlike many others, we got there by around 10 AM or later. We all parted our ways to different shops of our choice. We hopped from one shop to the other for the next few hours. It was quite exhausting and the fact that it got dark by 4 PM made me feel like it was the end of the day.
Cambridge
After we reached London, I was in no mood to go home yet, so my friend showed me around the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge in the night.
The next evening my friends finally took me to the winter wonderland, which really was like a wonderland. This trip definitely has been about the food. Once again we hogged on some yummy food and the most appetizing German sausages. After all the eating sessions and wasting money on the games, which seemed really easy at first but quite difficult to win (although my friends managed to win a stuffed animal for me with a little bit of cheating and some combined effort), we managed to get tickets for ice-skating. Ice-skating was on my to do list before I had left Singapore. Ice-skating after a very long time was a lot of fun.
The following day I decided to visit the British Museum, where I spent the whole day by myself.
Brighton
We walked around the streets, went into the markets, admired the art, went to the beach and walked through the pier. And this is how we spent another wonderful day in yet another wonderful city of England. As we wanted to spend the New Years Eve in London, we took the bus back later that evening. I was keen on watching the midnight fireworks in London, but as we were extremely late, we decided to skip that. Instead we drank at home, then we hit the club and we drank more and after that I may not have memory of some parts of that evening and the rest I shall not disclose. It was a very eventful evening for me, although my friends may not agree, as I may have ruined it slightly for them. But neither of them can deny that it was indeed a very memorable evening. An evening that I need not put down in paper or photographs, as this one will always be an unforgettable one, an evening that we will always look back and laugh at.
The year had ended and I was feeling sad as time to leave this city was nearing. I still had two days on hand. We started the New Year being hung over. All of us rested the whole day. It was a relaxing day, when my friends reminded me of the things I had said or done the previous night. Some of them I had absolutely no memory of.