London London London!!!

Before I even got to London I had already heard so much from my roomie who studies there and many other people who rave about the sights and the excitement that this city brings. I didn't have high expectations but knowing that I would be staying with a long time friend and meeting with other long time friends, I knew that this trip would be pretty good regardless of the touristy stuff.

We flew into London Wednesday late night and was welcomed to the city with a very enjoyable late night snack of congee and kebabs. Yum! Thank you Lis!

This is me amazed by how pretty the 20 pound bills are in purple! And oh yes, also amazed by Ribena - yum!

The next day we headed off to the Natural History Museum which came highly recommended by a random local Londoner that I met on my Easyjet flight. At first I thought this was the museum they filmed the Ben Stiller One Night at the Museum at but upon further research on Google it seems I would be mistaken. Oops. But it was still pretty cool seeing all the large life-sized stuffed animals!

Front Entrance to the Natural History Museum

Next we hiked it through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park which are adjacent to each other. We visited the Albert Memorial, Peter Pan Statue (very anti-climatic, much like the little mermaid statue in CPH), the Diana Memorial, then headed past Wellington Arch and Buckingham Palace! It got so dark so early we were only able to get some night shots of the palace which was ok by me. The only complaint I had was on the walk to the Palace I could not believe the amount of leaves that were left unkept! I was up to my ankles in leaves! You'd think they would have some sort of fundage to maintain the grounds surrounding Buckingham Palace. Meh.

Albert Memorial - We had no idea who Albert was (apparently Victoria's husband. He was popular)

Backside of Wellington Arch

Look at the crazy unkept leaf situation!

Buckingham Palace by Night

The tube was super easy to take although now I totally understand why people faint underground. It is SO hot and stuffy down there. And this was winter. I can't even imagine summer.....yuck. Next we walked through most of Liecester Square and through the Piccadilly Circus and totally crashed the M&M store!! It was so awesome! Everyone is getting Christmas gifts from here! No joke. Lols.

Piccadilly Circus

Throughout the next few days we managed to see Notting Hill and Portabello Market (wayyy awesome!), Big Ben (Houses of Parliament), Westminister Abbey (it cost a whopping 13 pounds just to get in!), Trafalger Square, Tower Bridge (the cool looking one), London Bridge (not as cool - not sure why everyone sings about this one...), Millenium Bridge (where they filmed the death eater scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince), had tasty eats at Borough Market, had really yummy and cheap Pakistani food in a ghetto neighborhood close to Brick Lane, visited the flagship Top Shop (because according to Lis, every girl has to visit there at least once =)

Big Ben

Westminister Abbey

Random store I saw on the street

Whaaat?

Trafalger Square

Raclette Cheese! So smelly but soooo good!!

Again - SOOO good

Tower Bridge

Millenium Bridge

Us posing like Lame-o's in front of Top Shop =)

London Bridge by Night

Tower Bridge by Night

...And the highlight of my trip - Matilda on Broadway! I love Broadway and can never really get enough of it. It is for this reason that I would think about living in big cities like Toronto, New York or London. The Broadway scene is just so awesome! Anyway, this show really crept up on me. I knew I wanted to see a show of some kind and Lis just suggested Matilda since it was pretty new. I had read the Roald Dahl book as a child but never watched the movie so had no idea how they were going to do all the crazy fantasy scenes. But good golly did they ever do a good job!! It was seriously amazing! Because it was a children's book most of the performers were young kids and they did so well! I can't imagine how much work it would take to train all those youngsters to perform at such a high level! And the set was really cool too! I don't know that that same set can be all that mobile but I would still recommend everyone to go see this show if you get the chance!

The Set of Matilda - totally had to sneak this photo in when the usher wasn't looking!

Sooo good!!!

I should point out that we went during the Remembrance Day weekend and everyone was sporting poppies. I had no idea up until this point that poppies are a commonwealth country thing. Except Canadian poppies are totally way better. I used to get upset that the pin would constantly poke me and it always seemed to fall off my jacket. But now that I've seen the British version? I wouldn't have my poppy any other way. But in order to commemorate the soldiers who fought for us we donned these flaky poppies anyway. At least ours came with the service of having them pinned on for you!

Also another few highlights of the trip was seeing all the Christmas decorations up. I had heard that they are really nice with all the lights and tinsel all strung up but to be honest it didn't really rival that of Hong Kong from what I saw. I guess that just shows you how commercialized Hong Kong really is - they don't even really celebrate Christmas! They just want people to buy stuff!

Annnnnd.....I'm sure you've all been wondering - of COURSE I had loads of fish and chips!!!  Here was my first batch at an upscale restaurant called Gaele's in Notting Hill. We also had another dose in Spital Fields markets at a place called Poppies that was just a local diner and it was SO GOOD. The normal cod is ok for me but omigoodness when you batter up a halibut = SO GOOD. I was also recommended to try the Rock (a type of fish) and didn't get to this time around but you can bet your booty I will be back with a vengeance for these fishies in December!!