Just Touched Down in London Town!

Just touched down in London Town!! I was so excited to land in London to be able to sing that line from American Boy. As soon as we landed, I pulled Natalie and Yurie aside to pay the song. A stranger near us sang along too and I knew it was going to be a great weekend! Natalie, Yurie, and I navigated through customs despite facing hangry Yurie. We found our bus to the hostel and took off. The bus took a little more than an hour, but I didn’t mind because we got to watch the London streets go by. I had this feeling of ease on the bus. I could see London being one of my favorite cities at this point. Once we got off the bus and arrived at our hostel, we realized how great of a location we were in! We were all starved so we changed quickly and started looking up dinner places. It was decently late, so we wanted to go somewhere closer. We decided to go to the BoxPark. The BoxPark is the most ingenious concept, yet incredibly difficult to describe. It’s an outdoor/indoor modern market with permanent restaurant stalls, bars, and dance/club rooms. The entrance was free, but you have to get your bag checked. I got fried halloumi cheese fries to start. They were incredible and a staple in London, I quickly noticed! Next, Yurie and I went to explore more food options. I stumbled upon some Gyoza, which was the best Gyoza I’ve ever had in my life. Yurie got a bao bun and ramen and literally almost cried. We got drinks and leisurely relaxed and hung out. There was an uncomfortable encounter with a creepy guy, but we handled it and didn’t let it put a damper on our night. We called an Uber to get back to the hostel. It was so terrifying riding in the Uber, because they drive on the opposite side of the road in London!! However, we arrived safely back at the hostel! We enjoyed meeting all of our new hostel friends. One girl was starting her PhD in London the coming Monday. We all fell asleep quickly, because we had had a long day and knew Saturday would bring the same! We woke up early Saturday and headed across the river to the Borough market. On our way, we saw a moment for the great fire that had happened in London. I hadn’t heard of it, so I was glad we saw the monument. We got to walk across the London Bridge on the way there!! Luckily, it didn’t fall down! Borough market, once again, had incredible food. Yurie and I got kimchi for a snack for later. Also, we got kimchi bao buns. Bao Buns are our new obsession. I also got a homemade egg sandwich with fresh sausage, bacon, and grilled onions! The food in London did not disappoint. We spent so much time just walking around eyeballing all the yummy food. Next, we bought tickets to a hop off, hop on bus. We got on and road over the Tower Bridge. We saw the London Castle, and continued on. It was nice to ride the hop on hop off bus, because there was a tour guide on each one going through the history and fun facts. We got off across the river from the London Eye and explored some. We walked back and forth over the bridges exploring and taking pictures. We especially took lots of pictures with the bright red phone booths! Next, we saw Parliament, the Big Ben construction (sad), and Westminster Abbey. We hopped back on the bus and went to Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace was shocking to me. It was beautiful, but there didn’t seem to be much security. I imagined a lot more, similar to the White House security but this was not the case. The guards were exciting to finally see in person. We walked from Buckingham Palace to Hyde Park. Natalie and Yurie got a snack and we rested for a bit. We saw a lot of venders selling mini British flags and herds of people. I asked a worker what was going on and he said a big British music artist had a concert going on and that it was sold out. It was slightly bizarre to me that I had never heard of the performer, yet he managed to sell out such a huge London venue. After our park exploration, we got back on the bus and went to Harrod’s department store. Fun fact – Harrod’s department store was the first to have escalators! Harrod’s was a dream. I had heard so much from my mom and cousins regarding this enormous store. I loved looking at all of the expensive clothes and people watching the many people inside. The food hall inside Harrod’s was out of a movie. We spent way too much time just looking around. Yurie and I really liked looking at all of the teas. Also while there, I got to FaceTime my friend at VT for her birthday while she opened the presents I sent her! She was so happy to get to talk. It was nice to still get to be apart of her birthday. After Harrod’s shopping, we decided we earned tea time. Unfortunately, the place we wanted to go, Sketch, needed reservations and they were booked solid. We found one open reservation at Kenzington Palace though! How lucky! We had some time before we needed to go to high tea, so obviously we went across the street to TopShop. As I was walking up the stairs with all the clothes to try on, I completely tripped. It was hysterical for me and Yurie, but quite embarrassing at the same time. Everyone in London seemed so proper and I was tripping upstairs! We got back on the bus to Kenzington Palace for the tea time. Luckily, they didn’t give away our reservation, because we were around 20 minutes late. We sat down and quickly could tell we were biiiiig fans of this tea time thing. However, we were not proper enough! I didn’t care for the little sandwiches and was starved, because I didn’t get a snack at Hyde Park. So, I ran to the little cafe in the Kenzington Palace museum and got a ham and cheese croissant! Yummy! I brought it back to our tea table whoops. The tea was quite fabulous I will say. Yurie was laughing so hard her tea spewed on the table. Natalie and I couldn’t stop laughing. They also had babychinos there. I didn’t even know what a small cappachino would be like, but I needed to try it. As of last week, I am newly obsessed with cappachino. Unfortunately, they had to ask us to leave because of a private event, so I didn’t try the babychino. Next time! We had about an hour until sunset, and we wanted to watch it via the London Eye! We started to take the hop on hop off bus back to the area of town with the London Eye, but because it was after 6 the buses had started their last loop. We had to finagle a ride on another hop on hop off bus to get us a little closer. On our way, we saw the concert at Hyde Park. I have never seen that many people before – it was crazy. We began to run to the London Eye, because we HAD to get a chance to take a ride on it. Everyone looked at us crazy as we sprinted through the parks and streets of London cracking up. The sunset finished as we were approaching the Eye. We still got some cool pictures of it though. We went to get tickets for the Eye anyways. I accidentally asked for Big Ben tickets because I was so frazzled – whoops. The lady laughed luckily. The London Eye was incredible, and when we started on it it was dusk. The London skyline at dusk was incredible to look at. As we continued around, the sun continued to go past dusk and it was dark out. There was a full moon over us as we reached the end. I was speechless by the views we could see. I am very thankful we got the chance to go on the London Eye. I’m still so in awe that we get to do these things. I got to go to London and ride the London Eye with two of my best friends for a weekend. Like what? This is surreal. At the base of the Eye there was a postcard machine. Natalie, Yurie, and I had a hoot making a postcard with our picture on it. Only to find out they only took Pounds in cash, so we could buy it. However, I took pictures of it! We saw another store across the way with regular postcards. I got really excited by one and exclaimed “ITS CHICKEN SCHNITZEL!” The security guard got a hoot out of this and politely corrected me. It was in fact fish and chips. Duh, Emma. After the London Eye and postcard fun, we strategically called an Uber back to the hostel on Natalie’s phone. I say strategically, because all of our phones were running low on battery. We decided Natalie’s would be the designated Uber phone, so she was forbidden from using it. Yurie and I used our phones for pictures of the London Eye and other sights. We made it back safely, and were exhausted but starved. I had read all about an Indian restaurant in London, that apparently is the best restaurant in London. It said online that sometimes there were 2 hour waits, but we figured it would be ok because we were going so late. We got there around 11 pm to find there was still an hour wait. I was shook, given how late it was and that there were 3+ other locations in London. It meant it was worth it, so we waited at the bar. I couldn’t decide what to get so the bar waiter graciously brought me over a drink for free. I was so happy, because it was one of the expensive ones I wanted to try. I wasn’t goin to order an expensive one though, because we had already spent so much. Eventually we sat down and ordered our food. We got fried okra to share, rice to share, cheesy naan to share, and curry chicken for each of us. W O W is all I have to say. That food, again, was the best Indian food I had ever had. I will dream about this food. Afterwards, it was pretty late and we had to wake up early so we went back to the hostel!

Sunday morning, we woke up early to get ready and check out of our hostel. We went to another market closer to us for breakfast. It was more of a shopping market this time, but I still found some bacon and eggs. Bless up. I love bacon and eggs for breakfast. We shopped around a little too long too, because we needed to get to The Buckingham palace for the changing of the guards. We tried to metro, but it was going to be more expensive than calling an Uber. Our Uber driver to Buckingham Palace was a hoot. He said he had seen much better changing of guards so preceded to pull up YouTube videos of guard changes in other countries. This was considerate, but I wanted to observe London. It ended up being quite funny, because if I looked away he would make a comment about the video to bring me back in. After the videos ended, he gave us a play by play of everything we passed. It was very considerate, but funny what he was saying. We arrived at the palace just in time! We got to watch the band of guards march to the palace. We squeezed our way up front to a good location. We loved people watching the crowd there as well. I was impressed by the security there. They were mainly on horses. One thing that stood out was they kept warning the crowd about pick pocketers. I thought it was extremely considerate to mention it so often. After the guards, we walked to regent street (the large shopping street). On our way, we made ourselves comfy at a fancy hotel to go to the bathroom. Regent Street had a summer festival going on in the street. We got to participate in some of the activities, enjoyed the live music, and ate the street food. Yurie and I both got one more bao bun before we left! We shopping some as well. My favorite store has become Zara, and each location in the different places I’ve been has had different clothes. We had to leave quickly to get back to the hostel to head to the airport. Because of the festival, there was so much traffic. We got a little worried about making our flight, but we left plenty of time thankfully. We got to the hostel and realized after talking to the front desk that we should train, not bus. We ran (literally) to the train station, because of the traffic delay we would cut it close. We made it to the train safely, and to the airport. We ended up having plenty of time to go through the long security, get souvenirs, and food! I got Burger King in the airport for food. I have eaten more Burger King abroad than I have in my entire life combined in the United States. Whoops. It is so much better here though I think at least. Poor Yurie was starting to get sick, so she had an uncomfortable flight ride back. However, we made it back safely!

Overall, I loved London. It was one of my favorite cities I have been too. One thing that I missed after leaving was people speaking English. It was nice not having to stress about trying to communicate with locals. I know that isn’t great to say, but it is what I though. I enjoy meeting people who speak other languages and communicating with them. However, it was a good break and comfortable to have English be the native language