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I've always wanted to go to England, ever since my two older sisters did a summer study exchange program there ten years ago! I've always thought London was such a beautiful place, judging by the many amazing photographs of the city's popular attractions printed on millions of posters, books, brochures--you name it, Big Ben's in it! Now that I'm finally here, I can't help but just be sooo thankful and excited!!
Given that I basically only had half a day to explore London earlier today, the challenge was to see as much of the city as I can with the energy I have left coming straight from a 24+ hour travel from the Philippines. If you know me well, you know I love my sleep. It took major effort not take a nap as soon as I reached my hotel room. It was too dangerous. I knew if I would give in, I'd be sleeping 'til the next decade. And that's not cool, because then I'd miss the whole four months at sea haha.
Just a side note: One of of my friends from Westmo, Abylay, is also going on this same voyage, yay! I am so relieved and so happy he is going on this trip, too! It makes a world of a difference when you have someone you know go through this whole new experience away from both our comfort zones. We'll be facing a whole new crowd, a drastically whole new environment, and basically a whole new semester! It's so much easier to approach people when you have a friend literally by your side, right next to you. It's not so dyahe to just come up to strangers and introduce yourself!
So anyway, a lot of other SAS voyagers started checking in to the hotel and getting themselves settled. As soon as Abylay was able to check in a room with his new friend Cody, we knew we couldn't waste any more time just hanging around the hotel. It was time to see London! A lot of the other people were still waiting on rooms to be available, so Abylay and I just went ahead and decided on our own plans. Well, we didn't have any. Haha!
We asked the hotel concierge if they had any suggestions on what good tours we could do in a day. He offered us a tour package from the hotel that costs 150 GBP which can be split up between two people, or among three or four. A driver would be hired to drive us around the main tourist attractions, and then he would just bring us back to the hotel after 4 hours. I thought it was a good deal, but only because I didn't want to do more research on tours and stuff like that! Haha. Gorabels lang ako. But then after we thought about it, we decided to just wing it and explore on our own! Maka Dora eh.
So that's what we did! Abylay and I bought a London Underground 1-Day ticket (multiple entries) for 8.90 GBP. Then we took the first train that stopped, got on it, and randomly picked a station to hop off from! We were in Heathrow Terminal 4, and we got off at South Kensington (?) station. When we reached above ground, there really wasn't much to see hahaha. In my head, I was like "Eto lang yun?! Nasan na yung mga red phone booths?!" Don't get me wrong, the surroundings were still so pretty and peaceful, but I really, really, wanted to see the red phone booths.
Thanks to technology, we found our way to central London via a map app (not Google Maps) from Abylay's phone. We walked, and walked, and walked. Then walked some more. And maybe a liiiitle bit more. My legs were getting so tired and I felt like we weren't getting anywhere. Until I saw it. My first sighting of the famous London red telephone box!!! I actually squealed, literally squealed, when I pointed it out to Abylay. Little did I know, ang dami naman pala nun talaga around that area! Lawlz.
To make the already long story short (I'm super sleepy na kasi haha), we walked our way to some of London's highlights:
The Buckingham Palace
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| I wanted to cry when I saw the palace. It was so glorious. |
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| We touched the palace gates!! Yes!!! |
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| Pose pose lang sa may fountain pag may time! |
The Red Telephone Box!!!
(Is this a highlight?? Oh well, sakin yes. Haha!)
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| Red telephone box + Big Ben! Bingo. |
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| I was highly amused and happy. Big Ben! |
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| Tendu tendu |
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| Benny Boy |
London Eye
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I felt like I took a thousand and one photos just from today! Even the simplest shots of random streets turned out pretty. London is pretty. So pretty. Before it got dark and too chilly, my fellow explorer, Doro (ako si Dora) and I decided to head back because both of us were dead tired by then. We didn't take any other means of transportation other than the underground that first took us to South Kensington. We just walked everywhere. Kapagod, but so worth it!
I think we did pretty good for only having a few hours to tour the city. I'm happy we got to see some major sights without having to pay some major moolah! 8.90 compared to the 150?? We win. Their subway system is so efficient, I love it. Although we did get a bit lost on our way back home when we took the wrong train hahaha. I guess that's part of the excitement and adventure of wingin' it!
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I realize it's such a lengthy post...major props to you if you actually read all 500 billion paragraphs! I wrote this with a mixture of excitement and exhaustion, so I babbled on, oops!
Dear London,
I will return to get my heart back. Pretty sure I left it with Big Ben over there.
Love,
Laura
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