england/north wales tour 1997 (1)

outside our accommodation in london - 1a gosfield street, off oxford circus - for which we paid s$240 a night. we had travelled on mas to london, with a one-hour transit stop at subang in kuala lumpur. throughout the nearly 13-hour flight, we had to endure cigarette fumes in the smoking section. ironically, my friend victor samuel, a heavy smoker, who had taken an earlier flight, was nicotine-starved on his sia flight. in 1997, all flights on sia were already smoke-free.

victor and his wife helen were at heathrow terminal 3 to meet us. we rode on the tube from the airport to oxford circus. the 50-minute ride cost us about s$17.80. we had to change train at piccadilly. that night, we had dinner at a nearby chinese restaurant.





on day 2, we did a lot of walking in central london. from oxford circus, we walked down regent street towards piccadilly, passing carnaby street along the way. we so walked past the sign pointing to soho but we did not visit that area. the london palladium - where the musical 'oliver' was being staged - is about 800m from gosfield street.



we joined the pride of london sightseeing tour at piccadilly. for first-time visitors to london, this was the recommended way to see most of london's famous landmarks. the 20 stops that the open deck double-decker bus made included the west end, piccadilly circus, traflagar square, st james's place, hyde park corner, buckingham palace, westminster abbey, the houses of parliament, big ben, whitehall, downing street, horse guards, strand, fleet street, st paul's cathedral, the mansion house, london bridge, london dungeon, tower bridge, the tower of london and shakepeare's globe.





places which we made multiple visits to included leicester square, covent garden, trafalgar square and charing cross. we found leicester square the most exciting place to be in the evening, especially on a saturday.







which child could resist feeding the pigeons at trafalgar square? there were more pigeons in the later part of the morning and early afternoon. there seemed to be fewer pigeons in the evening, especially after seven. the pigeons were apparenty well-trained; they would take food from visitors/strangers but would not steal from the stall that sold the bird food at 30 pence a cup.





we were there not to admire nelson's column or to take pictures of the four impassive lions. all three times when we went to trafalgar square, it was to feed the pigeons.