An Eventful Trip (Part 2): London

Day 3: Philippa's Wedding!!!! 

So, since the luggage wasn't delivered the previous day, I didn't have shoes for the wedding. I got ready and just after 9am I went down to Oxford Street and went into 2 shoe stores. I found a pair of sandals that cost £20, they weren't great, but they would have to do. Then I had to rush to Paddington Station to catch the train to Chippenham.

I got to Paddington Station and had to walk to the "Main" terminal for trains going outside of London (I'm guessing, they don't really have another name for this station/terminal from the metro station). It was a bit confusing, they don't really label things well here.

And when I got to the ticketing/waiting area I was so surprised at how crowded it was. I thought since it was a Saturday it would be quite dead and I would have the whole train (or the carriage at least) to myself. So wrong!

I had pre-booked my ticket online and got an assigned seat, but I had to go and "pick up" the ticket from one of the electronic ticketing machines. There were multiple lines in front of all the machines, and the annoying thing is that you have to pick up another ticket... they should make the ticket available on people's phone. Some people had trouble with the touch screens and figuring out how to use the machines - PLEASE assign 2 staff at the ticketing machines!!!! It was so painful to see the old couple in front of me re-entering the info 3 times before they got it. I couldn't really help because I had never done it before, but I watched and learned, and got my ticket in one go.

Then after you get the ticket it doesn't tell you which platform you board from. I had to walk around wondering who to ask, and the guys at the info desk (which is not labelled with a sign, they just sit under the 10 television screens that show trains arriving and departing and which platform), they weren't very nice when I asked if they knew which platform my train would depart from. He said something and didn't make eye contact and looked like he was annoyed at being asked another question about which platform the train was at......

British railway companies and the management of the train terminals - please improve the way you communicate with customers, even if it's with signs and television screens, so that your staff don't have to give attitude to customers.

I eventually got it that he wanted me to just look at the television screen, well I looked and my 11am train was still not assigned a platform..... I waited in front of the screens just like all the other hundreds of passengers. There was also a note that read 'since the train is delayed there will not be any reserved seating' - good thing I didn't pay extra for a seat!

before the tsunami......

Finally it came on which platform we were to board from, and at I saw a tsunami of people all moving at the same time towards the gates. We rushed to the turnstile gates and each of us had to put our ticket in before we could get through, then people started running down the platform.

The strange thing is that when I boarded a carriage, it was ALREADY FULL OF PEOPLE, there were no empty seats. I was thinking "there's no way all these people got here that quickly! I wasn't that far back in the tsunami!" We couldn't even walk down the aisle it was just full of people!

So I had to run to another carriage further down the platform, and it was the same. In some ways it reminds me of scenes you would see in India or China where people just clamber onto anywhere..... I was thinking is it ok for people to be standing? or would we have to get off if we're not seated? The train started moving and there were still so many people in the aisle. Apparently the previous train that was supposed to depart at 10am was cancelled, so we had all the 10am passengers along with the 11am ones!!!!

After about an hour on the train, I arrived in Chippenham and got in a taxi to get to the wedding venue. The venue was amazing! It's similar to what you think of when you think of an English wedding - on a huge estate with a towering mansion, lots of green fields and gardens around. Not sure if it's because of the weather that day, it was a bit cloudy with a chance of rain, so the wedding took place indoors in a room with a beautiful floor-to-ceiling bay window.

Philippa & her father

After the wedding ceremony, we were outside in the garden taking photos and enjoying the cocktail while waiting for the lunch to be set up. Then I suddenly got a call - it was from the driver with our luggage! He said he's 10 minutes away from our apartment!!!! (where's the 2 hours notice?!?!?!) I think at that moment I had to walk away to an empty part of the garden and started yelling/talking really loudly as I was trying to understand him (sorry he had a very thick foreign accent) and I was trying to get him to come back in an hour or two because I had to tell Phebe to get back to the apartment. He said he "cannot come back, if he cannot deliver it now he would have to deliver it tomorrow".  (Omg, I hope I wasn't yelling too loudly at the time...... :S)

I had to tell him it's for a wedding and then he was a bit nicer. In the end I told him to leave it inside the door, and fortunately he was able to get up to our apartment (I think the neighbour let him in) and left the luggage in front of our apartment door.

So at least we got that sorted out!!! Phew!

View from the 6th floor at the Tate Modern - Millennium Bridge is in the photo, didn't get a chance to cross it

That evening after I came back from the wedding, we also went out to the Tate Modern as they are opened late on Fridays and Saturdays in the summer. We had about 2 hours, and went through as many galleries as we could. There's also a bar/cafe on the top floor which offers a great view of the city and the River Thames.

above right: this plaque on the wall is titled "Location Piece" by Robert Morris

Four small arrows point towards the floor, the ceiling and the walls on either side of the work.

This draws attention to the relationship between a work and its immediate surroundings/space.

Visitors get to interact with this artwork, they can print/draw/make an impression on this carpet on the wall

Day 4: Charles Dickens Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, High Tea at OXO Tower

Got up early and took a red, double-decker bus to the Charles Dickens Museum. We had made reservations for a special tour that day. The museum is in the house that Mr. Dickens lived in with his family in London. There's an admission fee that goes towards maintaining the house and museum. It's a small museum, but for fans it's a place that is full of fascinating things.

there's a little cafe inside the Charles Dickens Museum

Our tour was led by Mr. Dickens' Housemaid who has been working there for quite a few years. She showed us around the house and told us about the different pieces of furniture in the rooms, what kind of activities they do, and about society in general and how popular Mr. Dickens' stories were.

We also saw the servants' quarters where we learned that each household in Victorian times kept hedgehogs in the kitchen to eat insects, as there was a constant war against bugs. Keeping the kitchen clean was seen as both a matter of hygiene and also a moral duty. A dirty house was seen to produce dishonest people.

Although the tour was a bit more expensive than the general admission, I think it was worth it. The housemaid was very informative and entertaining, she made the tour really fun to listen. We also had a big group attending, lots of people grew up reading Charles Dickens' stories - one of the guests is such a big fan she has a tattoo of Charles Dickens and she bought a lot of souvenirs from the gift shop. I got some postcards and also a bowl.

below left: No.48 - this is Charles Dickens' house number

Afterwards, we walked to St. Paul's Cathedral (no photos), and as it was Sunday it was open for Mass. This is the cathedral where Princess Diana had her wedding ceremony to Prince Charles.

Then we had a brunch at a restaurant just outside of the cathedral and I got an English Breakfast - bacon, eggs, beans, tomato and toast.

We then continued with our walk down to Tower Hill, we didn't go in to see the Tower of London because the admission fee is too expensive. We did walk across Tower Bridge and then waited to catch a bus to OXO Tower for afternoon tea.

The OXO Tower used to be an industrial factory building and now it's home to galleries and little shops. There's also a restaurant on the top floor that serves a relatively less expensive afternoon tea. When we were doing our research for afternoon teas, most places cost around £50-60 per person!!!! That's just too expensive for tea and some snacks. This one was around £35 per person, still expensive but we were travelling and thought it would be good to have afternoon tea in the country where this custom started.

This place is not as expensive but the food looked quite good. And also they allow you unlimited chances to try different teas. We found this out because we asked them what they would recommend and they told us that we could try different kinds as we go through the different "courses" - so for the savoury bites we could choose one tea, and then for the sweets we could get something else. I think we tried 2-3 kinds of tea each.

Boy, do I regret it. I had a few bites of the sandwiches and then my stomach started to feel really uncomfortable. Don't know if it's the food from the afternoon tea or if it might be the brunch we had. I had to go to the loo quite a few times while I was there and it certainly ruined the afternoon tea experience for me.

Thankfully, it all cleared by the time we left the restaurant and made our way to Convent Garden. We walked around for a bit and had reservations for Gordon Ramsey's restaurant to try his Beef Wellington (which we had to order at least for 2 persons, so we didn't anticipate that we would be able to try anything else), but had to give up on that due to the stomach issues earlier.

Both Phebe and I liked the overall experience we had in London and will be back to visit again one day - we'll keep Gordon Ramsey's Beef Wellington on our list of things to try for next time.

Day 5: King's Cross Station and taking the Eurostar to Paris

In the morning we made our way to catch the Eurostar to Paris, but before our 1pm train, we had time to stop by the Harry Potter filming locations inside King's Cross Station. They apparently filmed the train boarding scenes in the station between platforms 3 & 4 (not at platform 9 & 10).

What a beautiful day!

There's also a souvenir shop and a photo opportunity with a cart. You walk into the main terminal/ticketing area and walk to the end, you'll see lots of people lined up. The shop is like Ollivander's wand shop and you can buy so many things there! I ended up getting a notebook, 2 keychains (one with the golden snitch and one with the time turner charm), a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a postcard, and an acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for my sister.

At first, I didn't want to wait in line for the photo with the cart going through the wall, but since we were there, Phebe said we should. I'm glad she did. Apparently you can probably come here at night or in the early morning and there wouldn't be any line ups.

Here they help you to take a photo and you can get a copy by paying only. They won't give you one for free - not even online. We paid for one and we got a code that we thought would have all our photos online, but no when I went online it was just that one photo that we had a print out of..... not worth it. Plus when they take your photo, you can also use your own camera to take photos, so really no need to pay for one.

By the time we had our photos taken, it was time to head over to the Eurostar Station, which is just next to King's Cross in the St. Pancras Station. Inside the building there's actually quite a lot of shops for shopping, we didn't have time to explore though.

I find that in Europe their train stations are REALLY BUSY! We had taken trains before in Europe  but they weren't THIS busy (or maybe my memory is really bad). Similar situation as what happened at Paddington Station - everyone had to wait till their train's boarding time was announced before they could line up - you can't line up at the same time as passengers for an earlier train. We all just stood around waiting and once it was ready for us, the line became really long very quickly.

We got through immigration and security check pretty smoothly, boarded the train and it took us about 3 hours to get to Paris. After we arrived we got our Navigo cards (a card which local Parisians get that allows them to travel through Zones 1-5 and on all the different modes of transportation - they weekly or monthly passes, no day pass I think). I read that we had to get photos from a photo booth in the station, but there were so many different sizes to choose. Phebe and I got different sized photos but the lady at the ticket counter didn't really care, as long as it wasn't too big she could cut it to size.

Then we took the train to our Airbnb near the L'arc de Triomphe. We already anticipated that we would have to lug our luggage up and down stairs and that the trains would be a hassle, but the trains are sometimes so far off the platform that we have a huge gap in between and lugging our luggages in the crowds was really hard. A lot of the trains are also without air conditioning so we're all standing around in a small space with everyone's sweat just inches from your nose.

Once we were out on the street, we still had to push our luggage on cobble stone streets to get to our apartment. A thought did cross my mind - if pushing our luggage on these cobble stone streets would damage our luggage wheels.... I wonder how much my luggage could withstand.

Our apartment was on the top floor, and thankfully there was a lift in the building. We had to go up one by one because the lift would only fit one piece of luggage and a person at a time. Once in the apartment, we found that it was smaller than what it looked like on the website. I think the photo stretched the room out. It's essentially a studio rather than an apartment. The couch was a sofa bed, and once we pulled that out, there really wasn't much space for our luggage and to walk around in.

We did have a great view though. Although we couldn't see any landmarks like the Eiffel Tower from the window, it just looked pretty, with the blue sky and the window frame. The next few days we were there, I don't think we had as pretty sunlight.

That night we had reservations at a Michelin 1-star French bistro - Benoit. I had read quite a bit of blogs about this restaurant, so I was expecting really good food and service. But I felt the restaurant was very tightly packed. their tables were sooooooo close together they had to pull out the table in order for one person to be able to get to the bench sofa seat. And you could totally hear the conversation at the next table.

I don't think French bistros are really my style. The food was also quite ....... large-portioned and home-style cooking, which I usually do like, but I thought it lacked a bit of the refinement I was looking for.

I think I'll just stick with my usual travel preference of finding food close by to wherever I'm at. I think going to a specific restaurant always sets the expectations too high and it rarely ever meets it.

We got back to our apartment, and I think we did a load of laundry that night, but since the machine was a 2-in-1 machine where it can do washing and drying, we gave it a try as there was no place to hang our laundry. Unfortunately, after the dry cycle it still wasn't dry, and the machine gets really noisy as it spins. The neighbour actually banged on our door! :S

In the end we just forced the machine to stop and hung the laundry to dry.