London Chapter 2 (Portabello Market & The iconic Tower Bridge!)
Good morning London! , Yesterday we had a fun day exploring London City.
Morning of 11th June 2015, some of our roomates already went out, some were still sleeping. One girl was also gettin ready to go out. My bags were kinda getting in her way to the sink, hehe..but she was nice , smiled and all.
We went to the cafe for breakfast. TIPS: The breakfast in Astor In is charged 1 pound only, yep. They serve bread and cereal, for 1 pound, its affordable and chep!
So of course we want it, the cheapest we can find!. U put 1 pound in the jar and self service all the way.
the dining room
I felt so awkward to do cereal and bread in front of everyone. It was British breakfast, sometimes i do not know what certain things are, kikiki. Coffee was there, thank god. TIP: U can cook here if u want, but ensure to clean up after.
After we had our breakfast, we made our way to the train station. Our destination? Portabello Market! :) we took the tube and stop at Notting Hill Gate. TIP: Portabello road and Notting Hill is within walking distance from the tube station. The London tour bus also made a stop here.
Notting Hill Gate
This neighbourhood is awesome, very English. I like the houses here. There is even a library, But was closed at that time.
fefeeling .. awkwardly walking waiting for Sarah to snap the pic :P
The Library
We continued walking until we find the street hawkers and stalls and we were in Portabello! TIPS: This market is actually much more interesting on weekend, we were here on Thursday. So, it was so - so.. still interesting though. Can u imagine the how exciting it will be on weekend?!.
PortaTera :p
I saw Turkish guys selling rings with colourful stones, some people selling clothes, books, antiques, souvenirs..lots of thing. TIPS: if u wanna buy souvernirs at cheaper price, buy here in Portabello! . By the way to tshirt i wear, i bought that at Cool Brittannia, hihi.
Crepes anyone?
We stopped at a souvenir and vintage shop. The owner is a lady and she sells lots of unique things from souvenirs to posters, to stickers. My eyes were stuck at this wording thing that u can hang. It says 'All you need is love and a cat'. Homaigerdd so cute and so me!!. I bought that for 8pound. remember dont convert the money! hahhahahah.
TiPS: seriously, if u love vintage stuff, this is the place for u. Sarah bought some souvenirs here as well, she sell uniques fridge magnet too!
8 pound, choose what u like!
I fuckin love this shop!
more stickers and stuff
Sarah stopped at a dress shop, the staff is bangladeshis, mmmhmm they are everywhere i know. We said we r from Malaysia and the next thing that came out of his mouth was 'apa khabar teh tarik' .. hihihi.
I said to him that lots of Bangladeshis works in Malaysia and we even saw em working in Paris. He said 'Bangladeshis is like Chinese now, we migrates everywhere'. ..lmao! hahahaha. But he was charming tho.
The dresses he sell is nice u, lots of choices, colors and patterns, very classic. Theres even a changing room. He really likes Sarah btw, hihi, he tried so hard to please Sarah. There was this woman there who tried on the clothes and ended up asking our opinions, hehe.. maybe we look like we are such a pro in fashion?. Hiks.
I bought a blue dress with shawl which was made in Italy. The quality is good. Sarah bought a dress, or 2 dresses..i think. Some of the dresses u need to have good cleavage or it wont work, haha. So, with my size, my boobs are practically flat wood, so no :P.
Happy Sarah got a dress
Among all the booths, there was this one selling books and the author of the book sell it herself. She wrote books of positive words with ilustration. If u want to give it as a present, its a good choice. Sarah was so happy that she manage to bought the book. They even took a pic together..,aww :)
Sarah & her fav writer
We also made a stop at a boutique selling adorable dresses and shawls. Sarah tried a few dresses and got her another dress. It was nice. There were lots of small boutique here. See. trust me you will love Portabello! :D
Sarah: This dress is so me!
We continued walking, stop a lil here and there and finally found the Notting Hill Bookshop! :), the place where Julia Roberts shoot the movie 'Notting Hill'. yeayy..
We are all Julia Roberts, lol. The bookstore is close tho, but u can do ur camwhoring outside the shop. hihihi ;p
Tera Roberts
So, we made our way back to the tube station. I promised to meet my friend Farouk who stays in London. He is an activist for progressive muslim, graduated from Kings College London. He told me he have a meeting in Stratford and we can meet there. TIPS: Stratford is in zone 3, so we hv to take the DLR there. DLR is not tube, its short for Dock Light Rail, like LRT in Malaysia, not underground. By entering Zone 3, the fare is different, slight higher than zone 1 and 2. Make sure you topup the oyster card!
I was kinda lost a bit, I even asked a staff at the DLR station cos I was not sure on which platform to take. The officer was like 'u go straight and just,,' in a thick british accent hihi, so cute, lol!
Because i hv no wifi so the communication will be hard. He said he will be waiting at the Westfield mall entrance. We arrived at Stratford station, and head to the mall but he was not there.
Westfield Stratford City
We walked around the mall and still no sign of him. Im starting to feel frustrated. He text and said he was at Costa. Costa is like starbucks here a very common coffee shop u can find around London. We were there but he was not, so we decided to hv lunch there. Some bread and coffee.
The mall
One thing for sure, u can see lots of "Zayn Malik" look alike here. Means lots of Brits-Pakistani and Indian here. We head outside and hangout at the place where most people sit and relax. We saw the construction worker on their break, hello hot stuff! Hiks.
Abam sado
After a while, i gave up waiting, we head back to central london. I was so pissed off cos i've wasted my time. Then later i received texts from Farouk again and again. It was delayed! when he was at costa, i received the text half an hour after that. duhh. We made another appt the next day, in Greenwich cos that place was in our itinerary and he agreed. Haiyooo so hard. TIPS: if u wanna meet people subscibe to the local internet for 1 day!
We then check the train map cos we weren't sure on the way back to our next destination. We took DLR again and change to Tube and stop at Tower Hill station. u can guess whats here based on the name, mmhmm Tower of London, London Bridge and Tower Bridge ;). TIPS: All 3 iconic landmarks of London is just walking distance from the tube station! Be ready to explore!
Tower of London
I thought the tower is like KLCC, lol kiddin. The historic castle tower of London was built in 1078! A world heritage site. Sadly we did not have the chance to go into the building at that time as it was already 4.50PM But even from the outside u can see how majestic it is. TIPS: The entrance closed at 5.30PM, make sure u come in the morning to avoid the crowd!.
The Tower of London
The 2 Pillars of Biatch.. kikiki :P
We walk around the tower heading towards the river Thames. and from far we saw the famous Tower Bridge. I laways thought this Bridge is London Bridge but actually its not, i hope im not the only one who dumb enough and confused! lol. We reached The tower bridge that always be a landmark for London and the river Thames. :D I am so happy .. soooo, because im happy, next step is camwhoring! ..hihihi
Sarah is so excited
London London London!
Big hair on Tower Bridge
We walk on the bridge, we are on tower bridge yallll, check out the video
TIPS: There are lots of ppl crossing the bridge on daily basis, so be considerate and dont block their way.
We walked until we reached the middle of the bridge. enjoyed the view and continued walking crossing the River Thames until we reached the end of the bridge.
From Tower Bridge we walk via Tooley Street to reach London Bridge and nope its not falling down. TIPS: U must stick to Tooley Street as it can be tricky and u will lose the way, we got ourselves in some marketplace cos we strayed away, hihi..we managed to stick back to the main road.
Finally the sign "London Bridge" can be seen! Phew!. 'London bridges falling down falling down falling down'. Lalala hiks.
The bridge basically just a normal busy bridge. Really we wont even have the urge to take a photo bcos it have nothing special to it beside its name. Hahaha! But at least we've been on London Bridge. Here is a photo courtesy of google:
I stopped cos i saw my fav food, cherries. hihi, bought it. The stall not just selling cherries, she (the owner) also sell bread with multiple sauce type. one of it was sambal! ..really. They actually sell sambal as a sauce there, for bread obviously.
We walked back from London Bridge and Tooley Street to reach The London Underground Station. We need to stop at Waterloo station to check out The London Eye . :D . TIPS: Actually you can walk straight from London Bridge directly to Bank Station if you want to take the Waterloo line, but we think its a bit farther. If you wanna go somewhere that requires you to take Circle or District Line, then just cross the bridge and go to Monument station.
We find our way to the London Bridge station, pheww tired of walking a that time..hihi. We hop into the Jubilee line and stop at Waterloo. We walked out and we can see the London eye from afar! :). We have the free tix for this, cos its fall under Merlin Entertainment as well. remember the free pass for Madame Tussaud Amsterdam, yup this is the same too. hihihi.
The London Eye!
Before we went queuing, we sat down for a while and enjoy our cherries. hihi. Just sat and relax for a while u know. Regain energy. lol.
We walk towards the counter and gave the pass, this girl wasnt as friendly as Madame Tussauds staff however, she gave us the pass and asked us to start queueing. It was about a 10-15min queue, not that long. The staffs at the entrance were very good at their job ensuring everybody adhere to safety and help children and elderly hop into the carrier safely.
We got inside the carrier, it can occupy about 10 ppl i guess, it was quite big with a place to sit in the center. And it started moving slowly, weeeeee :). The sun was so strong cos it was 8PM, eye level sun. So, the pic sometimes show ur reflection back at the glass window.. meh. But we got some awesome pics!. The Spanish family asked me to take their pic, and i did..but her daughter was looking at me like im some sort of alien, wateverrr, :P . TIPS: if u want good pic, go in the morning so the sun wont block the view :)
Goodday Mate!
View from the London Eye
The Big Ben view from The London Eye
London London London, Fergie style... hihi. After 1 round it stopped and we got out. We planned early to also take the Thames river cruise, but since its gettin colder and we got tired. We decided to just went back to our hostel. So back to Waterloo station, stop at Leicester Square, change train and boom baby back to Russel Square.
Leicester Square meet Sarah
As usual before we got back to our hostel, we stopped at Pret A Manger for some food and coffee. At that time it was already near 10PM. We had our dinner here and then walk to Astor Inn to rest. We planned at first to go out to SOHO and Shaftsburry Avenue tonight as it is our last night in London. Somehow we ended up talking to one of our housemate, the Hong Kong dude. He said, the train stops at around 11PM or so. If we wanna go we hv to get back here via bus. Now i didnt do research on that, so i am afraid if we got lost at 1AM, thats not gonna be good.
So we decided not to go and hangout at the hostel instead. The dude went to KL before and he said 'idk but for me theres nothing there, just a city, no culture, quite dull' . I dont blame him, cos its true, We got no culture, our old buildings are being crashed to make way for new tall modern buildings, our people are trying to either become Arab or White. The Malaysian identity is fading and if we want our country to soar, we must stay true to our own heritage and culture, My opinion.
We hangout at the common area, where we met a joyful Turkish women. She was sooo nice to talk too.
We had a great conversation with her. She told us about how she live in Turkey and places that she's been to. Also the moment when she cried in London Underground cos she can't feel her legs due to winter. She said, "u need to buy shoes with extra size than ur feet and wear multiple layer of special winter socks so that your feet wont froze".
We got lots of info from her and we also told stories about us. She said that some Turks are very conservative and she doesnt like em..well so do we with 'holier than thou Malaysians' .
The common area, taken from hostelworld cos i didnt bring my phone that night
One funny thing she told me was 'there is something different about u, ur voice, it's strong i like it' hahahahahaha !!! Sarah looked at me and 'krik krik' .
But she was a great person, she has been staying at Astor Inn for almost 3 mths at that time. One of the Astor inn staff was sitting next to us as well, quite cute that guy ..hihi .
He told us it was time to close that space. Duhh...dude ur cute but strict, oh well. We went to the shower and head to bed. The thing is even its cold, i will still take a shower, hehehe cos i feel unclean if i didnt. TIPS: actually, when u take hot shower in cold nights, u will feel more colder after that. So dont copy the asian me, hiks.
Sarah actually went to smoke and ended up talking to a Polish guy in the laundry room. She spent quite some time with him that night, "talking", hihi really just talking. He asked her out for a drink but it was late so Sarah said no.
Tomorrow we are going to Greenwich! So see ya soon mates!
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