It is a good thing that I made notes of what I did in London, because now, more than a week afterwards I can’t really quite remember (which I guess is also why I am blogging this).

Due to a combination of our room being overly hot, and the 5 hour (ahead) time difference, I woke up at various times in the night (hey look it’s 1AM, time for dinner in Toronto). The good thing I guess is that I couldn’t sleep in, so we got some breakfast and headed out not so bright and rainy into London. Our first stop was the Somerset House, but seeing as we arrived at 8 in the morning, it wasn’t really open yet. There was a nice open courtyard there though.

We then proceeded to walk further west amidst the bustle of the London morning rush hour. Our destination was Trafalgar square, but we saw a sign towards Covent Garden and decided to check it out. Covent Garden was interesting because taking the tube, we had seen signs that said that the Covent Garden tube stop gets extremely busy during the evenings and ond weekends, and advised us to get of at one of the neighbouring stops and walk the rest of the way. I didn’t read about it during my research so I had no idea what it was, which is why we went to take a look. It is a collection of shops, restaurants, pubs, and theatres (although it almost neighbours Leicester Square so maybe it is just spillover), and seemed like a lifestyle center if anything. Having solved that mystery, we continued on our journey to Trafalgar Square.

We had been rather fortunate that morning, the weather report said that it would be raining and the sky had only been overcast. Once we approached Trafalgar Square though, it started to rain more and more. This was unfortunate because before coming to London, I had heard stories of large flocks of pigeons in the square. We snapped a few pictures, took a look at the Canada House which housed the Canadian Embassy (didn’t lose my passport yet!), and then headed north for Leicester Square.

The notes on Leicester Square said that it was a tourist area but walking through it, it seemed like the theatre and cinema area. Actually very anticlimatic. I had also written in my notes to “DON’T EAT HERE”, but we ended up going to Starbucks anyways. It was by then, like 10AM and we were tired already! After some rest, we continued north to see the sad chinatown and then back south to Picadilly Circus. Picadilly Circus looks like the Times Square of London, or perhaps the Yonge/Dundas area of Toronto. There is a wall of neon signs and shopping around.

Following that, we took the tube to Westminster. Westminster is where the the parliament buildings, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey is; and so it is naturally a hub for tourists. We had been doing pretty well so far, coming on weekdays, of avoiding the crowds. But this is something you couldn’t miss in London so what can you do. There was something happening at the Abbey and we couldn’t get into the parliament without getting shot; so we did the picture taking thing again and then left for less rainier places. By now, it was almost time for lunch!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: diary, london, travelling