My London Adventure Part I

It was quite an adventure, so I need to type it down so as not to forget it.

My parents left the UK for homeland on Ssunday, May 24th, so as my last treat for them, I took them to London. By train. Because Hubby was working (we went from Thursday to Sunday). My parents argued that I'd be spending a lot of moolahs for the 4-day trip and we should have gone from Saturday to Sunday only. Well, no doubt it costed me a bomb, but I didn't want to rush everybody around in a short span of time, especially when we do not know our whereabouts in the city and we needed to travel on public transportations and walk a lot. Luckily I planned it that way....I didn't even know about the adventure that awaited us...

We took off from Newark North Gate Station at 10.38am and reached London Kings Cross Station at around 12 noon. As soon as we walked out of the station, my mind went blank. Looking at the buses and people streaming on the streets in front of the station, and not knowing where to head or what to do next, I pranced up and down the sidewalk for a bit. Tried to study the bus routes at the bus stop near the station, but my mind seemed to stop working.

I decided that we should follow the throngs of people walking across the street, but halfway down the road, I changed my mind and we returned to the station. I tried studying the underground routes, and decided that we should use the tube instead. So, bought one-way tickets for the 3 of us (nasib baik Daniel travelled free..hehe..), and took the tube to Westminster Station.

At Westminster, we stopped for a while to take photos of the Big Ben and London Eye. There was a group of people picketing in front of the Parliament House, demanding Britain citizenships for the Nepalese/Burmese etc soldiers whom served the British Government during the wars, so there were policemen everywhere. On that very same day, the reunioun of workers for the Victoria Line decided to hold up a strike because one of their drivers was sacked following his mistake in opening the wrong side of the train doors while stopping at one of the stations. So, the whole line was shutdown for that day. No service for that line, causing chaos for the other lines and also the buses. Traffic was just horrible that day. Nice timing...huhu...

While trying to snap more photos of the Big Ben, I was suddenly stopped by a lady, whom immediately put a dried wild flower on my jacket. She asked me for some contribution for the children (which or whose I don't know). There were a few of them around, handling out flowers and pamphlets to the public. Suddenly someone came up to us, asking the lady something like "Are you collecting money for the children" to which the lady nodded and the other lady passed a 5 pounds note to her. So, I rummaged my purse, eager to get away (since she didn't seem like wanting to let me off until I give her something) and pulled out a 2 pound coin and passed it to her. She said, "Can you spare a paper note for the children? FOR THE CHILDREN" she emphasized. I felt cornered, but strangely enough, I obliged and gave her a 10 pounds note! That was a freaking RM60! And I regretted it as soon as I gave it.. Hilang pahala, I know, but I just felt like I was being cheated. For all I know, maybe the other lady who gave that lady the 5 pounds note was just acting as donor? Her timing was just nice, anyway..Well, I didn't even know if the lady was genuinely collecting the donations for the children, anyway. And I thought the money would be better spent to our own orphans or poor children back home in Malaysia...*sigh*

Aaaaanyway, after that my mood for more photos snapping turned sour, and all I wanted was to get to the hotel where we were supposed to check in that day. The GPS maps on the phone seemed somewhat stupid, because it told me that it would take about 3 hours for us to get to the hotel. Cheh...Ada barang canggih pun tak boleh guna...hampeh... so, I had to resort to the normal map. Nasib baik ingat nak bawak map..Kalau ingat nak depend entirely on the GPS, m*mp*sla kitorang kat London tu...huhu...

After a few minutes, I got the gist of the bus routes, so I bought 3 one-way tickets for the bus. I called the hotel, telling her that I was at the Parliament Square and asked her the direction to the hotel. She said she didn't know where was Parliament Square (WTH?? It's your Parliament, ok?), but she told me to stop at Queensland. Hopped on the bus which should have brought us to our destination. Little that I know that we were on the wrong side of the road, which only meant that we were brought even further from our destination (the bus actually CAME from our destination). Naturally our stop wasn't called out until the end of the bus route, so we hopped off when the bus stopped at its final destination.

By this time I was devastated already. We crossed the road, tried to find the correct bus route and bus stop, again bought the tickets (this time I bought the whole day ticket so that if we were on the wrong route again, we could change bus again and again) and hopped into another bus. I asked the driver whether he goes to Queensland, and he said yes. Phew..At least we were on a correct bus.

When we reached Queensland, I once again tried to use the phone's GPS to locate the hotel. Again, it showed us a haywired, stupid route, so I decided to call the hotel again. By this time, everybody's feet and shoulders were terribly aching already. The hotel reception gave me a direction, but alas! He gave the direction on the other side of the road! Again, it meant that we walked EVEN further away from the hotel! DANG! DANG! DANG!!!!

I asked a passerby of the hotel location, but apparently, he didn't know where it was. I told him the street name, and he said that we should have walked the other way round. He said that we needed to walk through Kensington Garden (which housed the Kensington Palace- where Lady D lived during her time as the Princess of Wales). So, we turned back, I asked my parents to stay behind at one of the benches inside the park, and I continued walking towards the end of the park. And you guessed it right- it was a dead end..huhu! Lucky that I brought sandwiches and fried beehoon along, so while we rested for a while at the bench, we ate our very, very late lunch.

I must have walked more than 10 km by that time, and finally the phone's GPS decided to give me the correct route! So, we walked towards the hotel, and halfway through, we saw a tube station- the Bayswater Station. Dang!!! Why the hell didn't the reception lady told us to use the tube for easier access to the hotel, instead? Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!

We finally reached the hotel (an apartment converted to a cheap hotel). Cheap by their standard la.. It costed me 75 pounds (RM400) for a triple bedded room, with a small bathroom and really, really cheap furnitures and all. Satellite TV pun tak ada ok? But, we were so thankful to have a place to stretch our bodies and rest our feet, nothing really bothered us that time.

It was about 6pm already, so after solat and a few minutes rest, we walked to the town for dinner. Halal restaurants were quite aplenty there at Bayswater, and there were a lot of souvenir shops as well. We dined at Halal Restaurant (yes that was the restaurant's name) and walk about town for a while. Initially we wanted to take the bus back to the city centre (we bought the all-day ticket earlier, remember? Rugi la kalau tak guna..hehe..) But, after thinking again, we decided to go back to the hotel to rest properly. I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillows...

(to be continued...)