10 Things I love About London
In no particular order…
- Ease of travelling around the city (via the uber system of the London Underground tube lines)
- Cultural diversity
- Buskers in the tube underground walkways (who put our Singapore Idols to shame)
- Cheap tickets for theatres (three cheers for Queen’s Les Miserables!!!)
- The staricases/steps in the London Underground (which keep Londoners, and I for 2 weeks, fit and lean)
- Fashionably dressed crowds (yay, even in the tube)
- Cheap sandwishes and wraps (in London’s context. Extremely expensive in S’pore!)
- Free museums/galleries (now that’s something Singapore could learn from)
- Good chinese food in their Chinatown
- Bagels and scones (for breakfast and tea)
Most importantly, everything’s lovely cos I had my wife along with me. 
Bonjour!
Got back from Europe last Thursday. Despite the long rest since, I am still suffering from some jetlag resulting from the failure to sleep a single while flying back from London. Guess I will have to put up with the nagging slight headache and this interesting sense of lightheadedness as I head back to office tomorrow.
The trip to London and Paris was great! It was my second time visiting London while it was a first for Paris. This trip was made the more meaningful and fun since I am travelling with my wife.
London is definitely the ‘in’ city to be in right now. Its streets oozes with the buzz which the painfully uncreative Singapore is trying so hard to emulate. Every trip on the fame London Underground is a unique experience. I got to see people, be it Londoners or pligrims (like I) to this global city of buzz, from all cultures and walks of life. There were smartly dressed Londoners on their way to offices, fashionably dressed shop assistants, chic looking students and the obvious tourists holding the ever trusty map of the tube. And we were all, at that very moment, shared the wonderful experience of chugging along in the round underground tunnel in London’s aged trains.
I visited most of the ‘must see’ sites in London. These included, The British Museum, London Eye, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace (for the changing of the guards), Tate Modern, St Paul Cathedral (where Princess Di got married), Westminster Abbey, Covent Garden, Harrods and we also caught Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre.
Thanks to the strong S$, which stood at 1 pound to 2.89 S$, things were more affordable then when I last visited the city. Despite the better exhange rates, a simple meal of braised beef brisket rice in London’s Chinatown at Leceister Square still set me back around S$17.40.
My most memorable, and also the most expensive meal, was the seafood rissotto which I had at Cafe Pasta along Holborn street. I have to say that it was the best rissotto I’ve ever had. The seafood was both succulent and fresh. The rice was just nice, neither too mushy or too sticky. It was just heavenly to stuff spoon after spoon of this mouth watering dish into my mouth. It felt was if I was in paradise then.
I am glad to be back home. But for some reason, I feel that I fitted in better in London or Paris than back here. Guess it the fact that both cities ozzes with culture and hertiage has a big part to play with this feeling. Suddenly, I feel disconnected with all the modern highrise and oddly cold and characterless buildings around me. Singapore lacks the soul, or the heartbeat, which makes a city beat and throb.
Anyway, I will upload the photos as well as another post on my experience in Paris once I am done with my unpacking. Now I have to find some way to satisfy that cheesy aftertaste which the rissotto left on my palate. Any recommendations of a good Italian makan place in old boring Singapore?
