Our Royal day trip started off at
Buckingham Palace, the massive palace was stunning, though the amount of tourist there sort of ruins the royal, spacious effect. (not to mention my photos) =P Best part I liked about the palace and the fountain was the bright, shiny gold paint on parts of the gate and statue, which gave a sense of power and authority.
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| This group, not sure what title they are had hats which looked like mops or traffic cones! xD |
We walked along the side of
St James Park and saw some guards in their winter grey coats and big bushy hat buckled between the lips and chin. They just stood there, not looking entirely happy, annoyed actually especially when they couldn't say no to pics and became themselves a tourist attraction as well.
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| Changing of Guard coming out from St James Palace seen behind. Led by a marching band. |
St James Palace was not very stunning, it was very old fashioned, made with small red bricks instead of the large grey blocks of most surrounding buildings, but in its way you could tell it held a lot of history. The building beside it was
St Clarence House, which was where "The King's Speech" was filmed. (learnt by eavesdropping on a tour guide as his group came by). We waited for the changing of guards at St James Palace, which consisted of three groups. One group assembled at St James Palace and walked down to the courtyard in Buckingham Palace where it met with the other groups and did a short exchange performance.
We then walked to
Westminister Abbey and
Big Ben - a walk filled with magnificent architecture and of course the contrasting red of the buses and telephone boxes.
Lunch at Nottinghill Gate before walking to the nearby
Kensington Palace. The Palace was much smaller than I had thought, placed on the edge of a massive park that was filled with beautiful small gardens, statues and ponds. It was very flat as well, tho London is pretty much flat.. Though the palace had a special exhibition called "The Enchanted Palace", more than half was under construction work so I decided I'll enter it another time to see it's full beauty.
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| Kensington Palace Cafe |
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| Private small garden |
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| Squirrels! Lots everywhere, not at all afraid of us! |
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| Large Lake beside the palace with lots of swans/geese/ducks/birds |
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| Front Gate of Kensington Palace |
We saw the
Albert memorial statue and the
Albert Hall opposite it on our walk through the park. The Albert memorial was erected by Queen Victoria against his liking for a statue of him made let alone a massive and impressive hall named after him. The statue looked a lot like the statue in Edinburgh central, with the same shape of the covering but this one was much bigger with four corners of four different very large stone sculptures.
With the sky getting dark we walked along the Serpent river to the
Christmas Market, which was massive! With so many rides, they were divided into four 'parks' with individual tickets needed for each park... though very attractive they were hellalot expensive! Personally I felt that though it was a much bigger market, and much more expensive for the same things compared to Edinburgh's one, I didn't like how so many food stalls were the same, like a commercial chain in a christmas market.. which made me think it wasn't very "homey or special traditional made that was very unique and distinct from the others", tho the few that were were very much so special, from the huge pretzel stand with every flavour of pretzel, to lots of German and Spanish traditional delicates that was mucho delicious.
New Years Countdown!
10pm. Walking through Trafalgar Square which had massive screens set up for people to see TV broadcast and live fireworks in the distance, we headed down to the riverside opposite the
London Eye. However, they had already started to close off all the streets that lead to the riverside so everyone was stuck to the main street one parallel to it. Me and my friends run up ahead and fortunately was able to squeeze through just as they were sealing off one alleyway. We had it down to the riverside which was so spacious with so few people it was ridiculous. We spent the next half hour walking back the riverside towards the London eye and picked a spot to wait and started munching on the snacks we brought. Surprisingly, another group of students beside us turned out to be Taiwanese as well!
The live radio was the only entertainment we had. Slowly the time went by and our feet began to ache in the cold and through the two 10 minute shower. I noticed that the colour of the London Eye changed color every minute, then every 30 secs, then every 20 sec.. Finally the countdown started.. at 30 sec lol! The fireworks were amazing tho I thought too short, prob 7mins tops. Then everyone started to leave the rubbish infeasted area and fight for the tube home. Got into bed at 2.30am... zzzzzz
To be honest I didn't really enjoy the countdown that much, no live music, concert, famous people or speeches.. The fireworks were amazing and had a good time with friends, but there were too much downsides. Next year I shall try a different city =P
