Sunday, June 27

Eurotrip: Act 2 - London II

Scene 4 - 23rd June

The day that vanished into thin air. I say it vanished because exhaustion has finally caught up with us.

All of us oversleep and stay in the room till after noon. Then lethargy is replaced with laziness. Sloth. Its a part of life. So on the second longest day of summer, we kill half the day by sleeping.

The good news is that this scene would thus be short.

I have mentioned, in an earlier act, that England is widely renowned, especially by English fans, as the home of football. Yes, England makes no claim to American or Aussie Rules football; both because the names of each of these sports suggest otherwise, and because these sports are kind of dumb. American football, probably, in the minds of English and soccer fans alike, is not football because you use your hands more than your feet. Its like the retarded half brother of Rugby.

Which was also invented in England, mind you.

I have also mentioned that England have been marginally better than the French; that being the source of great cheer here in London. Perhaps.

England have a must-win game against Slovenia. Lose, and they will go home. We join the hoards of crazy crazily patriotic English fans ardently cheering on for their home nation. I comment that this scene would just not happen in Singapore. In a match between Singapore and England, I'm reasonably assured that, at best, the cheers for both teams will be equally loud in a partisan crowd at Kallang. Blame whomever; but I, for one, blame the BPL for influencing Singapore to play like England, while our SEAsian counterparts play the dazzling football of Brazil or Spain.

In any case, England needs a win - which also does mean that they really needed to start performing better than usual.



A couple of hundred Ooohs and Aaaahs later and after the heroic cheers when Jermain Defoe deflects the ball in off a James Milner cross; the game is over and England are through.

The celebrations continue way too long, considering

1. They were always favourites to go through
2. They were supposed to go through top of the group
3. Slovenia had ample opportunity to equalise but for some last ditch defending

When England win the World Cup I shall eat my words. I'm reasonably assured I won't any time soon.

As we make our way towards Harrods for the second part of our really short day, a couple of CRAZY English fans came up to us and put their hands on our shoulders and jumped up and down and cheered and sang "England! England!" I would have sang "Singapore! Singapore!" but seriously, it doesn't sound that catchy. Aids-and-hygiene conscious Eugene probably had to soak himself in Acetone just to live with himself the next day. But I didn't stay to watch that happen.


I first heard about Harrod's a couple of hundred years ago, it seems, in the day of the late Princess Di. For those too young and/or ignorant to know, she was going out with the son of the owner of Harrods. Now, this didn't interest me at all; rather; what caught my attention was that this Mr Al-Fayed guy owns Fulham football club.

A few hundred years later; Fulham becomes Weelong's least favourite team because it knocked out his beloved Reading from the Premiership on goal difference - so I remind everyone to refrain from buying anything from Harrods as a boycott on Fulham FC.

This boycott works; but mainly because the prices were probably three or four HUNDRED TIMES our budget. Which makes me actually wonder why Fulham aren't actually rich enough to match the bid for Fernando Torres.

Ultimately, the only thing that is affordable is Krispy Kreme donuts; so we get some of those for breakfast for tomorrow.

To think that Gobi called it London's Mustafa Centre. What a joke.

We have dinner not far away - at Victoria Station; and we call Mr Jean Luigi Maillard, our roommate for the past 3 days, for dinner.

Just for your information, convincing an Italian to eat burgers is in itself a Sisyphean task. And so is convincing a Frenchman. So for Jean, with blood of both these races flowing through him, and living in Italy, it was impossible.

Jean claims to be as European as they get; having blood of both the French and the Italians. Why we do not consider the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Finns and the Poles and the Germans and the Spaniards etc in this equation I have no idea. But Gobi's corrupted him - he now knows two things:

1. He's white
2. Thats a damn good thing




One thing about Singaporeans is that racism seems to flow naturally through our veins. Its something we joke about endlessly; and perhaps its part of our lives. The awesome thing about this form of racism is that its not ugly. There is rarely malice involved. Obviously, when malice does get involved, we have the Sedition Act.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that Jean Luigi Maillard has been educated.

Just a flash from the past - we have Oporto's. THE Sydney Burger.


Scene 5 - 24th June

We start the day in a typical Aussie fashion i.e. how we did it in Sydney. Donuts in the Park. Except, of course, this time, its Hyde Park, London. Once more, hygiene conscious Eugene needs to be persuaded to gently place his arse on the grass of Hyde Park - but that task proves easier than convincing Jean Maillard to eat Oporto's Double Fillet Bondi Burger.



Gobi needs to go to the lab to finish up his project; something that hopefully will change the future. Makes me wonder sometimes what will I do to contribute to Mankind.

Eugene and I make our way to the River Thames and the Tower of London.

But first, St Paul's Cathedral. St Paul's Cathedral is a major church in the Anglican Church - so it does make a good visit. It IS huge; undoubtedly. However, an entrance fee does apply. So the plan to view the insides are put on hold. I make a point that we are, after all, going to visit the Basillica of St Peter in the Vatican, THE biggest church in the world; so paying 9 GBP for a look see into the biggest Anglican Church in the world didn't appeal to a cheapo like me.



St Paul's is a stone's throw from the Thames, so walking over to the Thames is relatively easy. We cross the Thames using the Millenium Bridge. No idea why this particular footpath across the Thames is thus called; or why there are flocks of tourists crossing it. A well educated guess would probably that it was built sometime around the turn of the Millenium - which would then explain why I don't remember it being there the last time I was at the Thames. That being before the turn of the Millenium.


But then, I also dont remember the Tate Gallery. Which is where the Millenium Bridge brings us to. Now, the Tate Gallery was in the list of "Things to do in London"; but when we walk in, all we see is four blank walls and a couple of boys playing football with a water bottle downstairs.


After momentarily contemplating joining them, and then realising that Eugene is a 'kaki bangku' i.e. cannot play soccer, we decide to leave the supposed famous art gallery and continue our walk towards London Bridge.

Perhaps the exhibition is further in; but neither of us is enough of an art buff to know. Or care.

Which brings us to the next point of our journey - London Bridge. Now the only reason I know about London Bridge is from the old nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down". If we use the fact that we walked by London Bridge without realising it as a gauge; I understand why the song writers want to pull this inconspicuous "Platform 9 3/4" bridge down.


But then, I reckon bridges oughtn't be too conspicuous - as an engineer: the most important factor is that it should serve its purpose to link the two sides of the Thames. And that it does.

So we walk on along the Thames. Recall; we want to see the Tower of London. To get there, though, we get distracted by the Tower Bridge. It's cheap, so we decide to go in for a quick tour.


By the end of the tour, we realise that it was indeed a very interesting tour; and hence probably worth every penny.


The expedition into the Tower Bridge was quite educational - it showed us all the most famous bridges in the world, as well as the challenges required to build the bridges. Also, it detailed-ly went through the process of building the bridge, as well as the mechanism of lifting the bridge.


For those who do not know, the Tower Bridge is capable of being raised to allow tall ships through it. Unfortunately, we don't get to see any raising or lowering of any part of the bridge. So we just watch an animation of it happening.
After spending way too long inside the Tower Bridge, we finally allow the bridge to serve its purpose - we cross it.

On the other side is the famous Tower of London. Along the way I make up a "Dan Brown" story to Eugene (i.e. mixing fact with fiction). Only thing, I honestly did mix up my fact with my fiction. But I do know that there are guided tours inside the Tower of London; so we are relatively certain of learning more of the place inside.


We go into the ticketing place and ask for two student tickets - Student tickets are actually affordable, so it was a great move to have brought our student cards along. Only that I have to rely on my EZLink card. Which does say that I'm a student, thank God.

The ticket selling lady is willing to sell us the tickets, but encourages us to come back tomorrow - she recommends spending at least 5 hours in the tower. FYI, at this time, the clock reads around 4.30pm. The tower closes around 6.

So we decide to just have a little snack and then return to hostel. We can always come back tomorrow before we move off to Paris.

Mr Jean Luigi Maillard; our resident French-Italian food expert; suggests that he goes out to buy food back to us. He gets Armenian food, and by some luck of some draw of fate, we each get our first choice of food when he returns back from the restaurant. Well, obviously, Jean would get his first choice, but the other three of us actually get our first choice. I have lasagne. But I'm too hungry to take a photo of it; and by the time i'm less hungry, I have just an empty plate.

Besides, we are all watching Reno 911.

1 hour that I will never get back off my life.

Thats all I will say about that show.

Scene 6 - 25th June


Once more, our tour guide that is Gobi abandons us to complete his work in his lab at Imperial College. So once more I'm free to roam the capital of my Motherland with the Monkey that is Eugene.

Also, tonight we will be hopping on the coach to Paris. I do wonder when that bus will be amphibious; because apparently we would have to get off at Dover to hop onto a ferry.

But first, with our ample time to kill, we decide to spend the morning at the Tower of London. If we recall from the previous scene, the Tower of London decided to close just as we were approaching it. Definitely proves its worth as a fortress - so today we will allow it to prove its worth as a tourist attraction.

Amazingly, we actually go back to Harrods for breakfast. I think we had enjoyed the last Krispy Kreme breakfast that we had had, so it makes natural sense for us to go back there. However, we do not actually have Krispy Kreme's but rather enjoy some pastries that were sold from the shop next door. However, we do sit down AT Krispy Kremes - having bought a drink from there.


The Indian lady stall vendor at Krispy Kremes turns out to Malaysian; so Gobi and I, both being Malaysian at heart, had a chat with her.

We arrive early; or rather, as early as we can. I like my sleep, and I'm not appreciative when it's stolen from me. But I make an exception; and we arrive relatively early. At least, compared to yesterday.


The tower is quite vast; so I think we cannot see everything - the goal is half. After all, as engineers, we will be able to analyse a few data points and then extrapolate. Sampling, if you must.

We arrive just in time to watch a show - the Medieval siege weapons demonstration. The 'actors', who are indeed very convincing as Medieval characters; demonstrate how two siege weapons work. They tell us what they are called, apparently, but I amn't listening too carefully. Anyway, one is basically a big arrow that is used for defensive purposes; while the other is just a giant sling shot which is used for both defensive and offensive purposes.


Ultimately, it is a relatively educational experience - though perhaps it would have been slightly interesting if they used stones rather than water balloons as the projectiles. Yes, I do understand it is dangerous. Also, it would have been nice if they had used my dear trebuchets; which I had so sworn by during the original Age of Empires.

ITs also interesting how we actually hear of the Scottish as the bad guys or trouble makers. Every other portrayal of the Scottish rebellion that I know of (including Braveheart) has the Scottish as the heroes and the English as the oppressive rulers. Yet these medieval characters are so loyal to their king and shout "God save the King!" repeatedly.

I also then realise that I don't know any shows where the Medieval English are portrayed as 'good'. Maybe they just weren't. Or maybe that isn't just interesting enough.

I do wonder how future generations would portray the ruling empire of today.

That would be America if you don't know. Though probably if you consider that China actually own America in a way; the ruling empire would be China. Hmm...

Moving on, the Medieval Siege Weapons demonstration ends just in time for the beginning of the next beefeater tour. I tell Eugene that this would be a very educational tour; if not interesting. So we follow the Yeoman Warder aka Beefeater around the Tower of London as he tells us stories of the past.

Then out of nowhere, he says "Enough of this blood and gore, ..."; and this is where I realise that this script hasn't changed in the past ten years. Because, the last time I was there at the Tower of London, the Beefeater guiding us around said those exact same words.

How do I remember?

1. My brother kept repeating it.
2. I mutilated the words to "Enough of this Bush and Gore".

So we now also approximately know when I was last in London.

This guy is funny too; he did make a poke at France not being in the World Cup while England still is - which is definitely not something that he could have said 10 years ago. Which is infact when France did win the World Cup. Later he welcomes all the Aussies back to their homeland. England.

After the tour, we go see the crowning glory of the tower of london. Pardon the pun; for this is the Crown Jewels Exhibition. The Crown Jewels are kept in a lock down that is indeed amazing; not that I know anything about safes or vaults; but this vault does seem like it would actually protect the crown jewels from a nuclear explosion that takes out the rest of London. Sadly we can't take photos in it; perhaps they don't want people to take photos; send the photos back to Hong Kong; and get duplicates of the crown jewels.

Anyway, finally we visit the White Tower. Honestly, I get bored after the first floor of seeing the ancient armours of Kings of England.

So concludes part one of this busy day.



Part two is a visit to Stamford Bridge. First and foremost, I must point out that I'm not, never was, and probably never will be a Chelsea Football Club Fan. This visit to Stamford Bridge is probaly merely a visit to AN EPL club. I would much rather visit to my dear beloved Loserpool; but that's way up north in the north of England. So I settle for Chelsea and Stamford Bridge. London's Pride.


Notice that I still wear my beloved Loserpool Liverpool cap at the Bridge.

Apparently it is among the attractions of London; since we do know that Chelski is the best 'English' team.


Notice that John Terry doesn't even see me coming as I tackle him. Typical of England's display at the World Cup so far - cannot even spot a player from the Nth ranked team in the world (where N>100) coming to tackle him.

So naturally, the manager wants to sign me.

But my allegience is elsewhere,

So, soon they kick me off the team. Oh well. Ah well, that's a story isn't it. Lastly, note the following irony.


Ah well, that's Stamford Bridge.

We can't spend too long at Stamford Bridge though, because we have to pick up Larson from the Train station and then take the coach down to Paris. We choose to lug around the guitar that Jean had left in the room. Its quite sayang to throw away a guitar - even if upon closer inspection its a pretty crappy one. But I think its the mentality that I/we have that I/we don't want to throw away stuff that is still functional. So we lug it around to the station to meet Lase. Its actually kinda cool. I think.


Henrik Larsson is the "man from sweden" who shares his name with the legendary swedish striker. Unfortunately he does not share his namesake's ability nor passion with the football and is the least likely football fan in the world. Come on, even Andy Murray is a football fan.

Interlude

We have to board the bus, but first we have to check in. So dinner seems to be out of the question due to lack of time. After checking in, and going into the bus to sit quietly, Gobi runs (literally) to KFC and buys some KFC for us.

KFC is my least favourite fast food joint - I only like the Zinger. So I get that. Unfortunately the bus driver doesn't allow us to bring up the food up on the train. In fact, he doesn't even allow us to bring any of our "hand luggage" up, stating the fact/opinion that it is too big. Gobi says he's just following regulations; but honestly, he could afford to be abit nicer. But then on the other hand, considering that this was the cheapest alternative at hand, he mustn't be getting paid enough to be courteous and gracious.

So we have the KFC Zinger at Dover; just before boarding the ferry. It is cold by now, but food is food. Zinger is Zinger. Cannot throw away. Eat.

Soon after, in the middle of the night, we board the ferry over to Calais. Later we will change back to the bus at Calais and then make our way down to Paris.



Onward to the Next leg. I'm very excited. Never been to Paris after all.

Friday, June 25

Eurotrip: Act 1 - London I

The opening act takes us to London, the capital of England - The Motherland.

Scene 1 -20th June
The flight was long and boring; with no one to bug and no one to be bugged by. One of the perks as well as problems of flying solo. Also there weren't many movies on the aircraft - or rather, not many nice movies. But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I was probably be prompted by a higher power to go catch sum shuteye. Higher power, in this case refers both to that of divine nature, as well as that of corporate nature. Unfortunately, the latter did not take into consideration the difficulty on sleeping on a Y-class seat in an aircraft. At least for me. Fortunately, I reckon I still managed to get in some sleep; perhaps on the order of an hour or so.

And so we touch down on London Heathrow. For once, I pass through immigration (or border control, as they term it here in the UK), and collect baggage by myself. Here we have our first blunder. Note to future self: Check the carousel number before trying to collect the luggage. I have been waiting at carousel 9 for around 10 mins; and now I realise that SQ322's baggage is being deposited gently onto carousel 6. I know, I know, I probably have upside-down vision; hence the confusion; but its no excuse. But three points anyway:
  1. I had followed my Asian brethren. Those of Far-Eastern descent. Being around them have made me overly comfortable following them; assuming they were Singaporean.
  2. What ultimately tipped me off was the baggage tags claiming to be Cathay Pacific Baggage.
  3. There were some of my South Asian brethren who followed suit. I know they were wrong too because I saw them waiting at both carousels.
*~*

As they term it in UK

Quick observation - British (UK) is different from British (Singapore).

*~*

London at 6am is bright - sunny even. Taking the tube down to South Kensington: 40 min. Waiting for Gobi AT South Kensington: 30 min.

In my pacing up and down the station with two huge backpacks and a plastic bag, I probabbly look suspicious. Strangely, nobody bothers to ask me what's going on. Good. Oh, there's a map on the wall. Perhaps I could locate my destination on the map and walk in the blistering cold (well comparitively) there. Great. The location is off the map. So the compass in my hand is redundant.

But then just as I decide to walk anyway, Gobi arrives.

As we walk I begin to realise that it would have been one of the dumbest ideas of all time to have walked. Firstly because it was a strange route. Secondly, and more importantly, the hostel room has relatively high security; much like RVR in NUS.



First on the itinerary today: Visit Gobi's Granduncle to deposit stuff.

The route to Epsom is fascinating - but only because it passes the sacred ground of Wimbledon. Where RF won his first Grand Slam.


*

Gobi's godgranduncle lives with his daughter in Epsom; but he spends 6 months in Singapore. Serangoon Gardens in fact. So its strange when his grandchildren speak British English of significant accent, while he speaks as Malaysian-Singaporean English as pretty much possible. Also strange to hear Tamil spoken accent-less. Then again, how could one possibly accent Tamil British-ly? If you are down, try thinking about it. It'll at least put a laugh in you.



The uncle has a beautiful garden; possibly partially an effect of living in Epsom where the air is cleaner and fresher than in either London or Singapore. The flowers are huge and there is a huge tree growing in the middle of the front yard.



Aunty prepares a wonderful Singaporean-Indian lunch for us. I have missed it - its been a whole day since I had Singaporean-Indian food. Obviously, I believe Gobi misses it more. It might be on the order of months since he's last eaten Singaporean-Indian food. I'm not too sure.

In true Indian tradition they insist on also packing dinner for us; as well as sending us to Wimbledon station. Basically, spoiling us. I accept rather quicker than usual - for two reasons mainly. First, I have enough experience to know that refusing is futile. Secondly, I hadn't had much sleep on the plane; so I'm terribly bushed.

We're at Wimbledon - I reckon I did sleep in the car. Which had a gear 6. Well, there's a first time for everything.




Second and last on the itinerary today: Watch Ivory Coast vs. Brazil


Football is a true British tradition. Its possible that it was actually invented in Britain. Although one could possibly be forgiven for thinking so if one follows the most recent World Cup. I think if you do follow it, you'll probably sooner think it was invented in Argentina than in England. Perhaps even New Zealand would seem a better canditate.

But as I suspect in England, a saving grace would be that they're still better off than France. For whom dismal is an understatement. Dismal fits the English game, though. Back to the point. We watch the football match in a bar. I reckon its probably the second best place to watch a match. After perhaps the stadium itself. I recall that alcoholic drinks are much more worth it than their non-alcoholic counterparts; so I order the cheapest beer. I reckon it is cheaper than coke.

Brazil dismantle Drogba's Ivory Coast - the disparity in class between a country that has 11 good players gelling together and one that has 3 good players gelling together is clear. Drogba does get in a say with a goal. But still, we do know that Brazil's defence was never famous for being airtight.

Scene 2 - 21st June

Today will be a very busy day. Firstly, there will be a lot of things to do; secondly Gobi won't be there. A truly sight-seeing day. Today Eugene and I will be proper tourists. The agenda for today is mainly so fly up on the London Eye (and Big Ben and Parliament House) and then to walk to the tourist information center on Regent Street. To get a proper map of London.




We start with breakfast at a french cafe. This costs a bomb, but heck, we saved so much money yesterday and I don't want to go around Europe attracting the attentions of more than one of the many pickpockets whose skill many have experienced. But nonetheless breakfast is fantastic. Say that word in a french accent; because it was, after all a french cafe. Gobi says that its a pseudofrench cafe because any honourable frenchman wouldn't serve bread and cake at the same shop. Something like that.



Gobi has just left us to be tourists - he's got some lab-work to do. Besides, he's seen all of London. And I reckon that the best way to be tourists is to be tourists. So we see the London Eye, but not before exploring the Natural History Museum as well as the Science Museum. At the London Flyer Eye, the experience and views are good. But what to look out for is the 4D experience. Which, I maintain is a very ingenius and novel idea. I shouldn't go on to elaborate as it would be unfair to anybody who doesn't want a spoiler on what 4D means. So, assume, as I did, that the 4th dimension is Time.




We have lunch at that area - nutella crepes and cheese crepes. Sweet and Savoury. The guy accurately guesses us for Singaporeans. I guess back silently that everybody else at his stall's queue is Italian and that he's from Jamaica. Mainly from their accents. All very cool accents. I'm going to assume that I'm right.





As I've mentioned above, the second agenda for the day is to find the tourist center along Regent Street. Armed with a highly wanting map; printed from GoogleMaps, we struggle to find the tourist center. Along the way, we pass by a few interesting sights of London.

The first of these sights is a peace protest. For those who don't know, a sight of any protest in Singapore is impossible. Unless, perhaps you're refering to the blogosphere. This is probably due to the Asian mentality of not making too much noise. Or perhaps it's because Singaporeans are generally politically apathetic. Or perhaps because Singaporeans find they're very well treated by their government; and thus have no reason to complain. Or maybe we're not complaining people. Whatever the reason, London is not blessed as such. And hence, protest!

While I won't go so far as to say that this behaviour can be likened to that of the people of Thailand who decided to, in protest, invade the touristy centre of Bangkok and pretty much burn it down (exaggeration here), these people are in fact camping outside a famous monument - Westminster Abbey. Okay, not exactly a monument, moreso a church. Now, as warnings received prior to this expedition to the Motherland suggested that churches and castles are ubiquitous in Europe, the fact that we need to pay for entry into this church was a sufficient deterrent to keep a couple of pounds in our pockets. Also, we're cheap thrifty.

Okay, but we really need to move on to find the Tourist Center so that we can plot an efficient route to see the many other sights of this lovely city!

We soon pass by another tube station - which is about the only thing that is decently visible on the dismal map that we are using. And outside the station we see what (to us) is a demonstration of English sentiment towards France (as mentioned above).

Walking down this "street?" we soon arrive at Buckingham Palace. It turns out that the changing of the guards occurs only at 11am, so there's nothing to see at Buckingham palace. Except perhaps...

Okay fine, there is actually something to see because the guards start to march up and down. But then, there really is nothing much to see, much like standing outside the istana and watching and waiting for the president.


We go one round and then somehow we end up in some park where there is a semblence of a map. Comparing and mentally superimposing 3 different maps, we then plot a new route towards Regent Street. And we finally find one. And finally get a seat after hours on end walking in search of it.

IT feels like we're some pilgrims on this great pilgrimage searching for something and then finally getting it. Only thing is that "something" is probably sitting down rather than anything in particular. So we finally get our hands on a decent readable map on which the main attractions of london or clearly annotated. But this place looks dodgy - in the sense that someone might come and talk to us and then we have to answer.

~
On an interesting side note, British humour is amazingly awkward. Its the kind of humour that is more self-amusing rather than funny. So in the event of someone making a randomly placed comment, I do not know how to react. I guess soon enough I will learn. But then probably by that time I'd have to get acclimatised to French humour, should that exist.
~

So we quickly run out of the tourist center and make our way towards Trafalgar Square. This is only because our newly discovered map of London has claimed that Trafalgar Square is nearby. But then we see that there's a National Gallery that might be closing in a couple of hours so its better to see that first. So we do. An awesome thing about London - these galleries are free. Probably an effect of the exorbitant taxes Londoners tend to pay. As well as the VAT that we pay as long as we consume goods in London.

There are beautiful paintings. But I've no interest in paintings. Perhaps best bet is being interested in the history of these paintings. But there are better things in life. Like mountains, and valleys, and beaches, and bridges, and buildings, etc.

After that we do see Trafalgar Square.



The plan now is to get to Picadilly Circus before Tube-ing home. I doubt "Tube-ing" is a real word, but I shall coin it. Unfortunately, a slight complications arises. I have misplaced my water bottle. Retracing our footsteps we find ourselves at the Tourist Center and its closing. I ask the man if he's seen my waTer boTTle. He doesnt understand me until I repeat my words a few times and he finally exclaims "OHHHH!!! WOAATER BOTTTLE!". Quick flashback to what I said earlier on how they do not speak English in England.

And my initial suspicion of the dodginess of the place is soon confirmed because he told me he thought it was a bottle of pee when he gives me back the bottle. And seeing the blank looks on our faces he adds synonyms for the word "pee" thinking perhaps we use a different word for "pee" in our strange native land where people say waTer boTTle rather than WOAATER BOTTTLE. In truth the blank look is a typical Singapore response to what he said. "Okaaaaay... Lameeee.... Now let me go in peace...".


Finally we do find ourselves in Picadilly Circus but I have no idea whats so significant of it. Only heard so much about it. But it did look kinda cool with its many many bustling people and flashy billboards. But it wasnt a circus in either sense of the word.

Well, thats untrue. It was more of the kind of circus with animals running about dancing to music than the kind of circus where a road makes a roundabout. Only small tiny case is that the animals in this "circus" were human beings. And the circus trainer putting them through hoops is a metaphor for our busy lives.

But non-metaphorically speaking its not a circus in anyway. But then, maybe I wasnt looking at it properly. Overall I know that I'm bushed after a day of walking so I flatly refuse to go on a run with Gobi. Excuse being simply that I've probably walked a greater distance than he will run. Possibly. For dinner, we go to Nando's which I'm not sure if they have in Singapore. But the food is good, albeit moderately pricey. According to Gobi 10GBP is about the standard moderate price we get in London. OH well.

Scene 3 - 22nd June

The plan for today is simple - a day trip to Oxford. Simple question would be why we, way past the age of being prospective students whilst perhaps lacking a certain calibre, or interest, in fact of ever gracing the cultured lawns of Oxford University, would be enthused over a visit to it. Yes, it is one of the finest institutions of higher learning in the world; but so is IIT and yet I, for one have not the slightest ounce of interest in visiting that school.

We take the Oxford Tube, about 13 GBP per pax from Victoria station direct to Oxford Town. Do take note that the Oxford Tube, is pretty amazing. Well, mainly because the bus has WiFi. And power sockets for laptops.

You see, they have free advertisement here on UVLight. Simply because they were good.

Oxford Town is a small town west of London made popular by its namesake university. New thing I've discovered today. There are many colleges in this one University. So we take steps to visit most of them.

The colleges of Oxford, in my opinion, are summed up in one word - Hogwarts. Unsurprisingly, I learn very soon that much like the beauty of my soon-to-be-homeland New Zealand is tapped upon by Hollywood for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the beauty of the colleges are tapped on for Harry Potter.



Come to think of it, it makes perfect sense that Joanne Rowling's imagined medieval school would have roots in a British medieval college; seeing as she is British.


Then we go to the church, which has a tall steeple; probably a prelude to St Pietro's in Vatican City; which we can climb up for panoramic views of Oxford. However, unlike its more fabled counterpart in the Vatican, this steeple, which allows visitors to climb to the top, only has on NARROW staircase heading up and down. This does turn out to be a problem when we try to climb up and a couple of sightseers from the top decide to come down.



However, the sights from the top relatively compensate for the inconvenience. Also because the people that we have to squeeze against were lookers. And that leads us (or rather Gobi) to the conclusion that Oxford-ians are much prettier than Londoners. And much prettier than average anyway. I agree; but still, I think the prettiest sights are in Singapore. But I shut up because I know I'm strange.

I also have to point out that I acknowlege that this picture looks very fake. But I assure you that it truly is a picture that hasn't been touched. I mean, if I truly wanted to touch up a picture, Taylor Swift would probably be standing next to me.


I still haven't mentioned what I find most attractive about Oxford. And here I shall be exposing myself for a true Indian; but I do so proudly. Things in Oxford, compared to central London, are much cheaper. Well ,admittedly that is obvious. I mean, the food, at this pub called Goats Something was good and the Pub-Guy was quite friendly and cheerful. And although we had lunch there and came back merely to support Argentina in a country where the Argentine football team is cursed for the mere fact that their coach is a scammer and a jackass; we were not thrown out of the pub.
And here's the ultimate. Shocker of a life. Footballs. 2GBP. Double-You. Tee. Haytch. wth.



So I buy one, disregarding the fact that carrying it home would be marginally difficult. I did tell Weelong I'd buy him a ball. So yeah. In fact, we kick it around on English soil so that Weelong will have an English football that has been kicked around on English soil. And don't forget what I said earlier about how football (soccer) had in fact originated in England.

By the time we make it home to Central London; the sun has set on the longest day of summer. Finally.