This is a very long post with lots of photos. Be warned!!!
I’m not sure where I saw the ad, but it was for Singapore Day 2009 in London. And since London is just an hour away, I just had to go. I took the photos with a mix of my iPhone and Sony T20. For the record, it has been 20 years since I’ve last been in London, London was the first place I have ever lived for a few years outside of Singapore. And I have no recollection of Singapore in my earliest childhood. I can only remember London and Robinsfield Playschool where I had a blond best friend called Abe, that I sucked ladybugs out of trees with little gadgets, and that once I wrote alot of Ks on my paper such that my teacher thought that I was someone else, and that I had to choose between a pink bag and a green cat bag in Harrods and my dad buying me a little ball which costs too much since the GBP was like seven times to the SGD.
I also remember vague things, like things my parents said about Camden Town and that I should be left there with a milk bottle, how we would possibly return when we were older, and arriving at the maisonette in Singapore when I came back, only to realize that Singapore was in fact my home country, and not UK. I also realized that people hated my British accent and everyone wanted to speak Singlish.
The Ryanair tickets were really cheap. I paid like 60EUR for a return trip to London Stansted Airport. There are trains running from Stansted Aiport, and the Stansted Express takes you from the airport to some known location or to the Liverpool Station for about 15GBP. From there, take the underground, or overground to your destination. This, I don’t really understand because the transport system in London looks like Japan! The iPhone App I had (London Underground) was useful at some point, but not all the time because sometimes you need to take a mixture of train, underground, train, or bus to a certain place. No 3G didn’t help either.
We rented an apartment at the Marlin Apartments Olympic View for about 60EUR / night. Can I say it was the BEST DEAL ever???
Yes I will say it.
Marlin Apartments were the best deal ever!
The apartment was clean, big, and neat. And suitable for two to four people. There were twin beds and a couch which doubled up as a sofa bed. It had everything! Almost like the suite they booked me in (because the hotel was overbooked) when I was traveling for my last business trip in Groningen. The kitchen had a dishwasher, oven, microwave, utensils, pots, cups, champagne glasses. There was a washing machine, bath tub, digital TV with a gazillion channels. It is even better then my own home in the Netherlands!
The downside, however to living in Stratford, is that it is located where the Olympic Games 2012 London is being held, so the scenery is facing the construction site of the Olympic games. It was also an incredibly shady neighborhood being on the outskirts of London and it freaked me out slightly to be trying to find directions at 11pm at night in a neighborhood of black prostitutes, sleazy bars, drunk brits and buying kebah from a guy with a seriously disfigured face which looked like he got beaten up so badly. The main gate to the apartments also disappeared on the second night I was there…
However, there was a Porsche parked next to the apartments so it couldn’t be that bad.. right?
The next day, going to Hampton Court Palace for SG day was kind of fun. The transport in London is very expensive, and the transport system is separated into different zones which I never tried to figure out. But a good plan is to get the day ticket which costs approximately 7GBP. Going from Stratford to Hampton Court costs about 7GBP too…. one way.
Because most of my friends here are non-Singapore and mostly Europeans, it was quite funny to listen to so much Singlish in one day. It was almost like being back at home. But I’ve already talked about Singapore day so you can read that story here.
Since attempting to travel great distances and getting lost at 11pm is a really tiring thing. We went back to Stratford and shopped at Sainsbury supermarket, everything was so cheap there! I had Fishermen’s Pie for 75p – now thats’ absolutely gek (crazy)! I was also happy to know that there was many, many Starbucks around, even in such a sleazy neighborhood.
Sorry I just had to be unfaithful to my Nespresso for the next couple of days. Its like meeting your first love again.
Oh this is so sinful. Whipped cream, Berry mocha Frappuccino for Summer….
I’m glad I walked so much along Oxford Circus that all the cream didn’t go to my ass. I checked! I’m still the same weight as I left! The day however, ended weirdshit. Because everyone except me, slept at 7pm!!!! 7pm!!!! I wanted to party at maybe Ministry of Sound, or God’s Kitchen, or some great big hot club in Central London and its unearthly for people in their 20s to start sleeping at 7pm on Saturday nights!
Bah!
Anyway the next day, we went to the Oxford Street and Regent Street and naturally did alot of shopping! We went to the huge Apple Store in Regent Street and it was my only source of Internet as I brought the WiFi equipped iPhone without my Airport Express (There was free wired broadband at the apartments), and I used Vopium and Skype to call my parents and back to Netherlands. Got to love Free WiFi!
The iPhone in the UK costs only 340GBP for an 8GB version without contract, and we “almost” got another one because it was seriously quite cheap! There were a few stores which sell it, O2, which is the main carrier, as well as Carphone warehouse and a few more small stores. The uncontracted version however, was a simlocked version which was Pay as you Go, and it required a UK Credit Card or BankCard – no cash allowed! It was irritating! We managed to get those small stores which allowed you to unlock iPhones with their special Simcards and he said that he would use his card to get us a phone if we paid him twenty quids. The cash machine promptly did not want to let us withdraw money and we felt uneasy taking money from his “little machine”, so we left it as that. How do you unlock a locked iPhone 3G anyway? I never checked that part out.
Disappointed, we also went to the Nike flagship store and it was fantastic!
I have to admit, I was walking in my slippers in the rain all around Central London. After a while I was kind of grumpy making wet puddles with my shoes, so I went into Nike, saw this wonderful pair of Nike Plus.
You know what’s Nike + right? They sell shoes with this empty space in the sole, and iPod sensors along with it for like 19GBP. You drop the sensors in your shoes, and connect them up to your iPod nano and you can track how much you run! The suxy thing was that it didn’t come in my size, so J ended up with a kickass shoe anyway and I had to choose a different model.
The Nike store also had Nike ID where you could customize your shoes and they could sew it on the spot. The entire store was decked in iMacs and it was super pretty and awesome really.
So now I have Nike+ shoes without the iPod nano! Anyone wants to get me a really early birthday present? The shoes cost 68GBP, the same pair of shoes sold in the Netherlands costs 120EUR. Go figure at how much the GBP has dropped!
Thus, after blowing about 400 quid in the Nike store, we decided to walk on…
Suddenly I realized that I just HAD to buy Paul & Joe. I know, its like a crazy realization that it was available in the UK so I started asking every big departmental store on where to get it, where on earth do they stock these things?!! Since everyone was tired, I threw a great tantrum in order to go to Knightsbridge to buy Paul & Joe at Harrods! I mean, it was a waste not to go to Harrods if you were already in Central London right?
I bought an awesome Lip Gloss and other random stuff.
And since we were at Knightsbridge we had to go see Buckingham Palace. Who knows who I might meet, the Queen? Or maybe some Prince charming? Actually no, we went there to see if we could make the guards laugh.
At Buckingham Palace, I was surprised that the guards did not wear big tall black bear hats. The main gates were also closed so we could not disturb the guards.
So yeah, I did not actually meet the Queen, or the Princes. Sad.
I look soooo geeky here! But the temperature suddenly fell to like 5 degrees and I only had a very thin windbreaker with me so I was really very cold. From Buckingham Palace you can also take nice strolls along the Palace Parks, as well as see the famous London Eye. I started checking out all the people running to see if they also purchased the Nike+.
Otherwise… I really like the many channels on British Television… especially Dave! There was Top Gear every other hour, everyone sounded like Jeremy Clarkson, and there was this really nice show called Dragon’s Den. I also bought into the Raggae Raggae sauce which was featured on the show but was unfortunately confiscated during customs. 
On the last night however, we stayed at Russell Square hostel. Great location, but horrible place. Bad news here. Its like moving from a 4 star hotel suite to a zero star shelter. Not the best place to go because the place kind of stank and we were so out of place there with ten thousand kids and me holding on to my iPhone and Louis Vuitton bag. We decided to hang out at the Yino Japanese Restaurant because it had better toilets and smell. Still, it was 10GBP a night, and the room was shared with 18 people and we had to leave at 2am in the morning.
The good thing however, was that there was this fantastic Thai food place nearby. I think its called Thai Ten but I can’t be sure. A starter and main dish cost only 10GBP and it was the best thing my taste buds have ever tasted for a while. It was even better than the Hokkien Mee I ate at Singapore Day. Honest!
And then, it was time to go home…
I actually liked my trip to London. It wasn’t all I expected, and I was let down by the British weather. Its also kind of hard traveling with new people because at the end of the trip either you’re friends or you never want to speak to each other again, but all went well. But otherwise it was kind of enjoyable and I spent a grand total of 500EUR for the entire trip inclusive of transport and accommodation! For five days i think that’s quite reasonable but then I got really lucky with the accommodation (Come on! 60EUR a night for a 4 star hotel comparable suite) even though I lost my day ticket once!
Till my next holiday! xoxo
