Two Days in London

Day 1

After arriving at London Euston, my sister and I bought Oyster cards, which is underground tickets. The advantage of this card is that if a traveller spend more than 5 pound, the card will automatically be changed into a day pass, which means the card does not need to be topped up for a whole day. Therefore, we both put 5 pound each on our cards. The tube (or underground or metro, whatever you want to call) is just right under the station. We took the northern line tube for one stop, changed to the central line and got off at Queensway. The hostel was not far from this station and it cost us 15 pound each for a night. Our room was on the sixth floor. I was surprised because the building did not look that tall. After all the paper works at the hostel, we took the tube and headed for Trafalgar Square.

My sister and I split up here. She wanted to go to Portrait Museum, while I was enjoying the National Gallery. The master pieces such as "Sunflowers" of Van Gogh or "Water Lilies" of Claude Monet are here. We met up again and took some photos then headed for Harrods. We did not buy anything here apart from sandwiches for our dinner. Half and hour later, we were at Piccadilly Circus Square. I went to the ticket office of the theatre to take the tickets. We called at St. James park for our dinner; the sandwiches from Harrods before going back to the theatre at sometime a bit earlier than half pass seven.

Inside the theatre, it looked smaller than I had thought. It was not too crowded that night. The light was dimming and the show started. "The Phantom of the Opera" is one of the world famous story. In 2004, this musical play also became a cinema. The show that night had been playing in my dream all night long. The musics, lyrics, acting, screens and all components in the theatre and on stage were more than perfect. It impressed me a lot and my eyes were full of tears at the sad ending.

Day 2

Cristine Daae and the phantom sang to me all night long and made me a bit dizzy the later morning. I went down to the underground of the building to have breakfast there. In Europe, the free breakfast could not be something else apart from 1. cereal 2.bread and 3. milk, coffee and tea. We had a chance to meet a canadian polish-born guy who shared the room with us in the morning. We had a chat before leaving the hostel.

The first stop of the day was Hyde Park and as usual, my sister had ice-cream on her hand, while I was having a cup of espresso. The day was quite nice with sunshine. Travelling by tube to Covent Garden, we arrived at the Museum of Transport. The entrance fee was 7 pounds. I had thought it was free, so I felt like walking somewhere else. My sister convinced me to go to Greenwich (it is pronounced Green-itch, ask the british for more info). The longitude 0 is here. The longitude lines separate the world into time zone. At the Greenwich itself is the GMT + 0 , while in Bankok, it is GMT+7 and in the US must be GMT- something. The museum of time is free of charge and it was impressive. This place was the Royal Observatory. A lot of the ancient star observed equipments are in this museum. We sat in the Greenwich Park, where the observatory located, before going back to London.

We killed time by walking up and down Oxford Street. As time passed by, we collected our belongings from the hostel and took the tube to London Euston. The train departed at 9-ish pm, but with an electrical problem, it arrived about 20 mins late at Manchester Piccadilly. I love London very much according to my experience on this trip.