London work and play! (01.07.11 – 10.07.11) - Part 2

The next day, we checked out and left our bags on with the Hotel Concierge after breakfast because we will be taking the London bus for sight-seeing before going back to Norwich.
While waiting for the UK colleagues to get down to the lobby, me and my KL colleague had some cam-whoring time. LOL.


This is located at the opposite of our Hotel entrance. It’s actually one of the side entrances of the Buckingham Palace. :)

Hmm… where to now?

It’s sight-seeing time. I totally forgot how much it cost for a full day pass to ride this tour. Earphone is provided for all the passenger of the ride. Because of this…

You may choose the language that you prefer to listen for the ‘guided’ sight-seeing ride. A route map of The Original Tour bus will also be given to us to inform us on the route that the bus will be using and where we can hop on and off the bus. Actually, the bus sight-seeing is for us to familiarise ourselves with London and to decide where we want to visit during our second trip back to London which is the next weekend. It’s Cam-whoring time again!!

This is the Marble Arch. Don’t ask me the history of this as I have no idea. Too many landmarks all around London with historical meaning. Can’t remember most of them. hehe..

Really wanted to visit Madame Tussauds but the crowd is always huge.

Piccadilly Circus anyone?

The Trafalgar square – they have started to count down for the London Olympic Games 2012 with the digital clock placed there.

The Westminster Underground Station

This is where Prince Charles & Princess Kate got married! The Westminster’s Abbey

The Big Ben and the house of Parliament
All the above pictures were taken when we are on the bus. Our first stop and getting down of the bus was to get the London Eye ride. J





This is the London Bridge. View from the London Eye capsule.

River Thames Cruise. This cruise ride comes in free of charge with the purchase of The Original Bus tour. We did not ride the cruise because of the crowd.

St. Paul Cathedral’s view from the bus.

Still at St Paul’s Cathedral

And the above beautiful bridge is actually called as the Tower Bridge and not the London Bridge. People tend to think that this is the London Bridge because it is a lot more magnificent and the London Bridge. Note that the military ship on the right side of the picture is actually a Museum (If my memory serves me right!).

More Tower Bridge’s picture as the bus is moving on the bridge.

Another crowded place. People willing to pay to get ‘heart attack’ at the London Dungeon!!

as the bus was turning to another street, I managed to get a closer shot of the Parliament house! J
And oh!! I have no idea why, but seems like if you are in London, then it’s a must for you to visit the Harrods! And so we did! LOL!!

The interior (ceiling) of Harrods.

Another ceiling

Mini balcony which are located beside the escalators. I even saw an opera singer singing her heart out. Entertaining the customer that is travelling on the escalator. Sorry, did not manage to get a pic of her singing though!

Even the back of the escalator have designs!
After window shopping at the Harrods, we took a cab back to the hotel to collect our bags and took the express train back to Stansted and drove back to Norwich as we will be staying in Norwich for the week. The office is a short train ride from Norwich town. It’s the end for the first part of London trip.
We had dinner at the hotel’s restaurant before going back to our own room to rest for the day.

Pic above is the view from my room window, just beside Norwich’s main river. The other side of the river is actually the Norwich train station! How convenient!

London work and play! (01.07.11 – 10.07.11) – Part 1

It has been so long since I blogged. Hehe. Too busy with work and home I guess. Workload has definitely increased since my trip to UK. Company sent us to our UK office for one week long training. The best part is that this is a fully paid trip including food, drink and leisure! Yay!!!
Company only allowed us to take Air Asia to Stansted, UK. But.. We are allowed to buy whatever comfort kit or hot seat and claim everything that we want to eat and drink on the plane. Regretted for not taking the premium seats..Wait a minute if I were to get the premier seat, why didn’t the company just allow us to fly in other better airline? Don’t really know what all the ‘guai lou’ are thinking. 14 hours in a crampy seat!! Can die man!!!
In case you are wondering why I used ‘we’ in the blog. I went with another colleague, the reason is because company knew that I never travelled that far and they decided to get a ‘bodyguard’ for me. Haha.
We stayed in a hotel beside Stansted airport on the night we landed because our London sight-seeing trip starts the next day.

I was told that this hotel is famous for their bar named Angel’s Wine Tower Bar.

Sorry for the crappy picture. The wines are stacked so up high that when a customer orders a bottle of wine, an ‘angel’ or I mean the worker will then strap herself with cables which will then pull her up to look for the wine. No luck of snapping a picture of an ‘angel’ is soaring high that night though.

A clearer picture of the tower in the morning.
We checked out of the hotel early morning and waited for 2 of our collegues from the UK office to meet as at the Stansted Airport as they will be our London tour guide. We took an express train to London.

The train station is right in the Stansted Airport.

The Stansted Express train.

We reached London’s Liverpool Street Station after around 1 hour train ride. ‘People mountain people sea’ literally! Very very huge crowd! One of the reason why London was so crowded is because there were some strike and parades going on that weekend. and oh, it was Saturday morning when we reach London. Pictures of the strikes will be posted later.
We then took the famous London Black Cab to our Hotel. Ruben’s Hotel which is situated on Buckingham Palace Road itself. Yay!! The hotel is situated exactly opposite the Buckingham Palace but it’s a shame that I did not get the Buckingham Palace view from my room. Come to think of it. my room cost some what around £250 per night. If it’s a Buckingham Palace view, I can imagine maybe It will cost more than £500 per night.

Every room in the Ruben’s has its own theme. I got this room which I liked very much because of it’s chandelier and the huge mirror at the back of the bed. This room is actually very small as from the mirror reflection; you can actually see the full view of the room. The door at the back of me (from the mirror) is the bathroom. And the main door of the room is on right.
Once checked in, it’s London tour time! Yay! But.. before we start anything, we were greeted by them.



Not sure why, but most of them wears costume.

And also because of all the strikes and parades. Most of the roads were closed. So we had to walk around the town areas.

And.. the guys on the picture on top is not camping. They are on strike! For what purpose? I have no idea.

Sweet shop.. yummy!
Our first stop is to go to the Covent Garden area to have lunch.

Punch & Judy is one of the famous restaurants in Covent Garden. People would by a drink and sit on the balcony of the restaurant to enjoy some street shows like the one below.

This man is actually playing with ‘che ling’. For your information, ‘che ling’ is also called as the Chinese yo-yo. So obviously it’s a Chinese thing. I’m surprised that this ‘guai lou’ can entertain the crowd with it.

Lunch at the Tuttons. Everyone drinks wine for breakie, lunch and dinner. It would be weird if someone orders juice. Haha..

Next stop, the Apple Market
.
Then the Jubilee Market Hall. All the markets are in Covent Garden.


Nice 3D cards.
After a heavy lunch and some walking around, we had to rush back to the hotel to get ready for Billy Elliot. Because most of the streets are closed for vehicles due to the strikes and parades, we had to squeeze into a very very crowded London Underground Tube. And walk from a park near the Buckingham Palace to our hotel.
The park is actually very crowded. Since it’s summer, everyone was trying to get as much sunlight as possible on the park!


It’s Billy Elliot Time at the Victoria Palace.

I was told that The Queen came to this Theatre before.
Watching theatre is a must if you visit London. The price of a ticket Is very much depends on what shows you are watching (each different theatre have their own show of course). For Billy Elliot, we paid somewhat around £65 per person. Of course if you want to sit on those upper decks the price will be a lot more expensive. It was a 2 - 3 hours show with a 15 minutes in between. I did enjoyed the show.. it was a nice and of course FOC experience. haha! We then had a light dinner at the hotel before going to bed.