Saturday, July 05, 2008

Big Ben sure is big


And so is my forehead! Harhar!

We really liked walking around this area. About 10-15 minutes away, we got to the South Bank where our real destination, The London Eye, lords it over the River Thames. That's a cool area, by the way. There's an aquarium museum for the kids (sharks!!!), a movie museum (looked unimpressive haha), and Dali Universe. That guy is out of this world. Here are some of what his artwork looked like.
  


Crazeeee! But great, right?



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Up in the biggest ferris wheel in the world!

Vince and I fell in love while riding a ferris wheel. Yep. We were at the UP National Writers Workshop in Baguio nine years ago. We were exhausted from all the criticism the panelists threw at us so some fellow writers got it into their heads to visit a perya to just let loose. It was a cheap perya with cheap rides. Vince and I didn't really know each other and I don't think we really liked each other at that point. However, we found ourselves sharing the little squeaky dangerous-looking pod and for a few minutes we were scared for our lives. Maybe that vulnerable moment did it, or the stars in the clear mountain sky, or the chill of the Baguio breeze, or the most incredible conversation in our life--whatever it was, by the time we got down shakily from that contraption, we were inseparable. 

So obviously when we visited the city with the largest, highest, biggest ferris wheel in the world, why, what else should we do??? Catch a flight on The London Eye naturally!

The London Eye from our boat when we took the river cruise.

Underneath the giant wheel
 
Behind and below: Westminster, Big Ben, River Thames

  Behind and beyond: the sky!

 

Needless to say, we found it very romantic.




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Sights that made me sigh

I love two dead royals: Anne Boleyn, queen consort of the infamous Henry VIII, and Diana, Princess of Wales.

They lived such tragic lives but at the same time, these two women brought so much change to their country. Anne was the mother of the English Reformation and Diana modernized royalty.


So when we passed by the Tower of London, I can’t help but sigh. In this fortress, Anne was imprisoned as her husband romanced his new queen-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. Anne was quickly beheaded yet her last words still spoke of her love and respect for the king.


Then when we passed by St. Paul's Cathedral where Diana and Charles were wed, I let out another big sigh. I could still see her walking down those steps in that ridiculously pouffy wedding dress, young and glowing and looking shyly but happily at her prince. I think she still can't believe that she was now the star of every little girl's bedtime story. Well, we all know how that fairy tale ended.

Such sad wives. And on your honeymoon, that kinda jars you, ya know?



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Alas! British food, I will not miss you (except for choco muffins!)

Our hotel was Premier Travel Inn at Kings Cross. It’s very near the busy tube station but it was quiet. I loved our hotel (sorry, no pics!) since it was near everything—the tube station, the bus station, pubs, a McDonald’s (though we didn’t eat there but it looked bright and friendly anyway), and a Tesco right at the back!

That little supermarket has really yummy food. I found these incredible chocolate muffins there. Super sarap! Grabe! I even brought home 2 bags of those muffins. Yes, here in Manila! Tinipid ko talagang kainin yung mga muffins na yun pero all good things must come to an end and after a week, I very sadly finished off the last chocolate muffin and Vince thought I was so kawawa kasi pati yung maliliit na crumbs na nahulog sa lamesa, pinulot ko. Yes, I am that pathetic. If there’s anyone out there kind enough to send me these incredibly delicious chocolate muffins, please!

The pastries and desserts in London were great but everything else… okay, like I said before, the food ain’t bad. In fact, I loved everything the first two days haha. English breakfasts are fantastic actually. The croissants and jams and jellies are superb! And the fruit juices? The freshest I've ever had.


Here’s Vince enjoying the famous English dish fish and chips. Fish fillet and potato wedges for a whopping GBP 7. I had lasagna, served also with the ubiquitous chips. And salad. They like their greens. My dish was also a whopping GBP 7. So yung total mga PHP 1,300. Masarap ba? Sabihin na lang natin na matabang yung isda at mas masarap pa ang lasagna ng Greenwich.


While Vince enjoyed the fish and chips, he did not enjoy the strange sandwich at the British Museum (ganda ng ceiling, no!). Look at his face. That sandwich cost us GBP 3.50, so it's around PHP 314!!! Mga friends, I'm not boasting here when I quote the prices of what we ate, ha. I'm just saying that the food is soooo expensive and so we were constantly feeling just a bit hungry because we just can't bring ourselves to shell out lots of cash para sa pagkain na hindi naman masarap! Kahit nga yung mga mahal na food (we tried those eventually, we figured malamang mas masarap yun), hindi talaga natuwa ang taste buds namin. Sigh!


Yung coffee naman sa Camden (I’m drinking something hot kasi maginaw, kahit na maaraw sa picture na eto), yung isang tasa GBP 1. So okay lang kasi mga ninety pesos lang so parang parehas din dito. Well, sabihin na lang natin ulit na mas masarap pa ang instant Nescafe coffee so sobrang hindi siya sulit!

My friend Ianne said that she found the food great but maybe that’s because she ate mostly at Asian restos. Ianne, I dunno where you ate but the curry we had and the lumpiang Shanghai and the sweet and sour pork, pati yung Chinese fried rice that we hunted and eventually found, grabe. Matabang. I mean, c’mon, how can you go wrong with fried rice?! In fact, na-depress ako after a while. Umiyak nga ako nung last day namin dun. Hinahanap-hanap ko talaga ang lutong Pinoy.

Sa totoo lang, the food is good. Not out-of-your-mind-fantabulous but okay. London, after all, is not a destination known for its food (unlike Hong Kong or Thailand, for example). Ang masakit lang kasi sobrang mahal. Yung egg-and-tomato sandwich halos Php200, for example, wala pang mayo o mustard man lang. So you'll think, "Damn, for that kind of money, I could've eaten at a fine dining resto back home!" Grabe, yung isang bote ng tubig dun (see photo), mas mahal pa sa gasolina natin dito! Kaya pati tubig, tinitipid namin inumin. Hahahaha!

So Vince and I, when we got home, we ate at North Park, C2, all these yummy places here. And we kept going, "My golly gulay, we ate enough for four people and that was only, like, GBP 10!"


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A night at the theater rocked us!

You know what’s the very best thing about London aside from the National Gallery? It’s West End.

The theater culture in London is astonishing. There must have been more than a dozen theaters in the city, each featuring a play or a musical, with performances every day, twice a day. Here in Manila, which I believe is a bigger city, how many plays do we stage in a day? Please, let’s support our theater culture!!!


So there we were on our last night in the city and Vince and I decided to spend our money on a musical. I wanted to watch Lion King, always have, always will. But the husband is not a fan of the Disney movie so he was positively sure he won’t like the musical. We both liked Les Miserables but the ticket lady said, “Look, it’s your last night in London. You’ve had fun so don’t watch something that is sad and heavy, okay? Here, watch We Will Rock You. Everybody says it is the best. I got good seats and for you, I’ll give them for only GBP 35 instead of GBP 55.” So, since Vince and I love a good bargain and since Vince has been bugging me about watching We Will Rock You, we watched that.

The ticket lady wasn’t kidding. We did indeed get very good seats (near the stage, center!) and the theater was filled to the rafters with an excited buzz. In all my theater experiences here in Manila, I have never felt the electricity of anticipation that filled a theater like that. The audience was so eager to watch the play, it was disconcerting, and their excitement really rubbed off on Vince and me. This musical must be good!



And it was!

We Will Rock You is a rock musical written by Queen and Ben Elton. Honestly, the story line was a bit thin; it felt like they just needed something to string along Queen’s songs. But since the music was really really fantastic and the actors were really really good singers, it was so worth the GBP 70! The audience sang along, we danced, we clapped, we screamed and shouted, we gave them a standing ovation.

Next time we go to London, I’m just watching the theater. It was truly magnificent!



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