London Day 3 and 4
Itinerary for Day 3
Westminister Abbey
Brunch at Covent Garden
Regent Street
Oxford Circus
Itinerary for Day 4
St James' Park
London-Gatwick to Düsseldorf Airport
If you haven't read about Day 1 and 2 of my trip to London, click here :D
Soooooo continuing on to Day 3!
Sloth and I despite sleeping uberly late once again (remember, very deprived of friends the both of us lol so we spent alot of time catching up), we woke up very early to catch the 8am Holy Communion service at Westminister Abbey.
You can check the daily schedule here for all services.
Walking along Westminister Bridge to Westminister AbbeyWalking along Westminister Bridge to Westminister Abbey
Everytime I see the London Eye, I want to laugh because it reminds me of a stupid thing my bf said before lol.
We were quite cheapo so we wanted to save $$ and not pay to enter the abbey so we decided to go for a service.
That being said, Westminister Abbey is a Catholic church so for me it was no issue.
Duckiessssss
Walking there was a breeze again because of the close proximity of her apartment at Waterloo Station.
It felt nice to have the entire bridge all to yourself and no one photobomb-ing your pictures LOL!
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but saw many tombs of famous British people including one Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles who is buried in the abbey.
Of course, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was there at the entrance.
After the service, we were both very hungry and we decided to head to Covent Garden for brunch!
Walking was of course the mode of transport and we walked along the River Thames, seeing many statues like...
...such.
And these too. Poppies are worn, I heard, on memorial days by everyone in UK according to Sloth.
Brunch was at a cafe in the main square of Covent Garden (sorry, I don't remember the name.)
My breakfast
Sloth's breakfast
After which we went shopping in Covent Garden! LOL.
That wasn't the original plan though because Sloth thought I had wanted to go to King's Cross to see Platform 9 and 3/4 while I thought she wanted to go to school to complete some work.
The plan was for me to head to the National Museum first so she can do some work and then we'll meet at King's Cross station before going to Oxford Circus for shopping.
But, I was too tired by then (sleep-deprived whaddya know) and tummy issues so I said I'll skip the museum and King's Cross and we headed back to her apartment to chill for awhile before heading out again afterwards.
Sheeeeeep anyone? LOL
We both crashed for 45 mins or so, napping because we were both too exhausted.
Afterwards, Sloth wanted to head to some departmental store to return her online buys so we went by bus to Regent Street which is very near Oxford Circus.
Did you know you can return your purchases no questions asked within a specific time period in the UK?
Damn awesome please! They will give you back $$ just like that. Of course with a receipt and the tags still in place la.
Wish Singapore had this policy so I wouldn't regret buying so many things online >:(
Why queue in SG when this is available in every Tesco? Yeah I bought 1 here lol.
NFL Special along Regent Street
SO CROWDED :O
Famous toy store. I saw alot of people walking around with the shopping bags from this store.
Welcome to my heaven - Topshop's Makeup Department.
Lemme say firstly that I am not a huge Topshop fan. As in clothing wise.
I only own a couple of their stuff and it's mainly tops that I bought during my Poly days... then I simply grew out of them when I went to university.
But the make-up... ohhhh I've heard tons of things about them and they are mostly good!
So I literally whacked whatever I could buy there (restraining quite abit because I usually just grab grab grab grab then.... 10 minutes later when I decide to pay or when I ran out of hands to hold onto to them I get super dulan and just put everything back lol).
There's also a Lola's Cupcakes Store within the Topshop store in Oxford Circus.
I was really tempted to buy some to try because I've heard raves about them (I mean go all the way to London liao must try right?!) but I decided not to because I wanted to try the Hummingbird Bakery one (which I didn't in the end. boo.)
Met up with Sloth after buying all my Topshop makeup items and we walked down to Selfridges & Co to buy...
...Pierre Hermé macarons! Wohoo! And I really bought them and brought them back to Germany to eat. See at the end of the post lol.
By then it was almost dinner time and we were going to meet Suet for Korean food at Tottenham Court Road.
I was just... blindly searching for a Superdrug outlet to buy my makeup there but alas I couldn't find it anywhere along the stretch of stores :(
Their store locator bluff me one lol.
But luckily I knew of one near Tottenham Court Road in the direction of Leicester Square and I went there to buy all my things while Sloth & Suet queued up for a table at the Korean restaurant.
Assa
53 St.Giles High Street, London WC2H 8LH
So we had dinner at this restaurant that Suet recommended because I was craving for Korean food and it is really no fun to eat alone in Germany for me so I didn't attempt to find any Korean places there.
Very awesome dinner that night what with friends and good Korean food! YUMMMMMMEH!
Here's what we ordered:
Stir-fry bulgogi
Samgyupsal (my all time fav Korean food!) and bean paste stew because my tummy was still crappy that evening.
Seafood pancake
All in all, we spent about £13 each for 4 sets of dishes which in my opinion was quite cheap for London's standards.
And to end off an awesome last night in London.. we went for bubble tea :D
Chatime (Soho)
11 Old Compton Street, London. W1D 5JF
I've never drank Chatime in Singapore before because I mainly prefer KOI or Gongcha but... beggars cannot be choosers ah. Have bubble tea to buy, just drink! Cannot hiam liao lol.
Paid £3.60 for this alone and I insisted on a picture because.. bloody hell expensive cup of bubble tea OTL
But it was nice, the taste of bubble tea after 1 month of not drinking since I left Singapore hahaha.
Damn drama but it was really a good end to that day the bubble tea.
Went home after that to pack and... talk some more with Sloth lol (never ending one leh the both of us).
Final morning in London before I flew back to Germany was spent at... St James' Park!
Sloth had the idea to feed the fowl and squirrels there so it was interesting for me.
Squirrels were damn greedy lol we kept saying they were super 忘恩负义 because they took the nuts and just ran away from us!
You noticed how only Sloth is in the pictures feeding the animals? Because I was scared :( But I did feed a few squirrels when they didn't come too near me.
The animals just roamed around freely and to be honest it kinda scared the shit outta me because animals from afar for me are ok... but when you start feeding them and they come closer and closer to you, it scares the shit outta me T.T
Ducks! Quack quack. Lol.
Had some Lola's Cupcakes that Sloth bought at Selfridges & Co for us to share.
See how unafraid the squirrels are of humans? WOW.
My turn.
Sloth and her furry friend
Yup, that's a pelican!
She's super daring lol
I liked how we spent the last day just frolicking around, trying to rid ourselves of the nuts and bread to the critters and fowl at St James' Park.
It's definitely something I wouldn't do in Singapore lol so it was a good experience! Heck I cannot even remember the last time I went to the Botanic Gardens >_<
After that we got hungry and decided to go and have breakfast at McDonald's again lol.
Found this in Mark's and Spencer's
Not much time left before we headed back to grab my luggage and we made our way to Victoria Station via the Tube. I was catching the Gatwick Express to Gatwick Airport to catch my easyjet flight to Düsseldorf.
Said goodbye to Sloth (See you soon dear old friend!) at the train station then I took the train to Gatwick Airport.
In my opinion, immigration staff aside, I preferred Stansted Airport because it was much more well-furbished than Gatwick Airport.
Gatwich's was more.... lao ya if you get what I mean?
But the Boots in the departure lounge HOMGGGGGGGGG.
If I hadn't been on the dot for my check-in, I would definitely allocate extra time just to buy shitloads some more of make-up there. Maybe next time xD
Oh, and yes another tip: please allow extra time to travel to your check-in counter because the train stopped at a terminal and easyjet flights were all at the other terminal.
Was kinda worried I wouldn't make it in time before the check-in counter closed because I recalled the huge queue from Köln-Bonn airport but thankfully made it in time with 10 minutes to spare! :D
So the plane was relatively good too (I had no complaints here for it).
I paid for extra legroom again because.... I'm just that spoiled hahaha!
Reached my apartment in Germany at approximately 7pm even though I had landed at 5pm because I had to freeze at the bus stop and wait for the bus to come for 30 minutes D:
I will show my London makeup haul in another entry (probably when I get back to Singapore at the end of the year because I gave everything to my father when he came to visit me last month to lug it back to SG for me. My mum screamed at me over Skype over my makeup haul -.-") but here's some of the food I bought!
I loved the Twinning's tea! Especially the Camomile & Honey one. Gonna ask Sloth to get some for me before she comes back next year during CNY because it's darn cheap in the UK! Particularly when Tesco has special offer on them (you have to check diff outlets. The offer varies from store to store.)
My Pierre Hermé macarons with the special London box which sadly I had to leave in Germany before coming to Switzerland because my luggage was packed to the brim :(
Love the packaging. But the staff there were snobbish though. Paid £16 for this whole box of 7 macarons if I didn't remember wrongly.
And I gobbled all 7 of them in a day all on my own lol!
It's really yummy - wayyyyy better than Ladurée ones (okay maybe I'm biased because the Ladurée ones in Singapore are not very nice and super overpriced).
I am heading to Paris at the end of this month - maybe I will purchase both Pierre Hermé and Ladurée macarons again just to have the authentic ones from France heh xD
Alrighty, end of my London escapades and... I will try and blog more often now that I have wifi in the hotel I am staying in :D
Annyeong!