London; first day away from Portsmouth and back.

After Felicia's last day of work (for a month) was over, we hopped onto the earliest train from Portsmouth to London the next morning. The journey took us about 2 hours, after which we finally arrived at London Waterloo. Digressing a little, I love it that public transport in UK & Europe is sooooooo convenient (i.e. when they are not on strike).

Jay and Felicia got me an oyster card; and if I haven't remembered wrongly, the maximum amount that will be deducted per day of usage is capped at 5 pounds, regardless of the number of stations that you've been to.

oyster card; I used it mainly for the Underground.

Nice cover page; I like the 'names' they've given the stations.

Earlier on, I made a list of all the tourist attractions that I was keen to visit, and we started off with the Science Museum. The walk from South Kensington station to the museum was (omfg) long; and this would mark the start of A LOT of walking for the next month to come. Okay, I'm going to start showing you some of my extremely touristy shots!

it was bright, sunny but windy; lovely weather.

inside the Science Museum. LOTS of kids on excursion.

The museum is huge, and there are so many exhibits that it's impossible to finish looking at and appreciating them all in a single visit. I guess it might be a good idea to check out their website, and look at what is of interest to you before you arrive at the place. That'll beat rushing about trying to cover all the exhibits (unless you're planning to spend an entire day in there).

exhibit.

fibonacci spiral; Mathematics Gallery

We saw some of the world's oldest calculators, computers, and interesting shapes & patterns that are results of mathematical formulations in the Mathematics Gallery.

cute? morbid?

dolls; Plastic Gallery

There were long draping flaps of plastic in the gallery so...

fake doll 1

fake doll 2

I'm posting this because I like the colours.

After spending 1 or 2 hours in the Science Museum, we made our way (just down the road) to the National History Museum. I was really excited about visiting this museum, because of some self-created evolution hype a little while ago. Like the Science Museum, this place is huge and filled with way too many exhibits. I regretted not looking up online the specific galleries that I wanted to visit; we ended up skimming through the galleries because of time constraints. Dear National History Museum, I'm really sorry that I didn't take a good look at you, but, I'll be back again someday, I promise!

National History Museum

Anyway, it was really nice to see people lying around the grass outside the museum (and everywhere else); families with their giggling toddlers, couples in lovey-dovey mode, groups of girls talking, laughing and munching on some strawberries, everyone just wanted a piece of the sun! 

THE dinosaur skeleton.

and... a little closer

We spent like, probably another hour or two roaming the grounds of the National History Museum, checking ourselves out in funny mirrors, looking at stuffed animals and so on, before we headed back to the underground station, and travelled towards Oxford Circus. Window-shopped along Oxford Street, then Regent Street before heading to Chinatown, near Piccadilly Circus. For dinner! 

welcome to London's Chinatown!

The familiar smells of roast meats and Chinese spices were awesome. Not to say that I haven't been enjoying my meals in England prior to Chinatown, but I think I'm a die-hard Asian at heart; when it comes to food (and maybe men) at least, I love our spices way too much! We had dinner at a place that serves Singaporean and Malaysian dishes; and I couldn't finish the char hor fun that I'd ordered because the portion was simply too big. After dinner, I developed some weird, random craving for bubble tea and we set out to look for it; and I had my most expensive cup of chocolate ice-blend with pearls at 3.30pounds (S$6++). See what weird random cravings can do to your wallet???

After finishing the very expensive cups of bubble tea, we hopped onto the tube, and headed back to Westminster, then Waterloo (where we first arrived) to see River Thames, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and London Eye.

inside the Tube.

The interior's much smaller compared to our MRT trains, and it can get really crammed at times. Big carriages for small people, small carriages for big people hur.

must.pose.

The sight of Big Ben greeted us the moment we stepped out of Westminster station, and we heard it's half-hourly chime a few minutes later.

Felicia's mum calls it the 'dua liap jeng' (big clock in Hokkien) 

London Eye along Thames. & nope, we did not pay 15 pounds to get up there.

Westminster Abbey behind us, across the road.

We walked really quickly back to Waterloo after all that snapping of pictures for fear of missing the train back to Portsmouth; it turned out there was a delay instead and we were stuck at the station for a good 45 minutes at least. The big crowd went crazy when it was finally time to board; EVERYONE was running and rushing to get a seat. We joined in and it was pretty fun, don't ask me what's so fun about that, I just know I was smiling to myself (again) amidst the other jostling commuters.

Later, I shivered on the train all the way back to Portsmouth.