London again for the third time and loving it!!! I never get bored in this city and there's always new things to do here. I have a colleague who's leaving Budapest for good and flying back home out of London. So I jumped at the opportunity to accompany her and also go back to London to visit my friends, especially since I had recently learnt that a friend whom I had not seen in a while was currently in London pursuing her masters.
Our first night in London, we arrived pretty late and after lugging my luggage and ALL of Aimee's luggage back to the hostel, we just took some time to grab a quick dinner before heading out to the Hyde Park Christmas Market. The Christmas market, which was based on a German theme was so much more bigger than the Budapest one and so much more fun... they had a carnival together with typical Christmas stalls and Food/Hot wine stalls, an ice skating rink and even a life band singing cheesy songs!!! There were heaps of people there walking around and it was great to just soak up the atmosphere there...

Rara... New Moon at Hyde Park :P

Christmas market!


The Natural History Museum and street lights on our way home. Our hostel was in quite a central area right next to the museums, so it was very handy for Museum visiting and also nearby shopping at Harrods :)

The next day, Aimee went on a free tour of the city while (as I had been on the free tour before) opted to go to Kensington palace in Hyde Park. I thought it ironic that despite my third time to London, I haven't been to any palaces within the city, whereas I have already seen Windsor and Warrick castle outside London. So off I went. I must say that we were quite lucky the entire weekend, had mostly lovely weather during the day....


Inside, they had a short exhibition on Diana (who was a residence here once upon a time) and her famous dresses...


Also: a short presentation on the life of a Debutane (the thing romance novels are made of). Of course they still exist today, but only to the select upper classes.... for gossip girl fans, you may know it as the cotillion....


Debutane dresses contributed by real life once a upon time Debutanes



Finally... the royal apartments, including the original bed that Queen Victoria slept in before being awoken one fine morning to hear that she was now the Queen of England.

The Royal Staircase.... and yes I got to walk on the same steps as royalty... :P


Queen Victoria's bedroom

Surprise of the day...I was just walking around Hyde Park minding my own business when I walked past the Royal Albert Hall and saw the poster below for a tennis competition... upon further investigation I realized that the tournament was for this weekend!!! So giddy with excitement, I went to the box office to check if there were still any tickets left for the night session and there was... .yoo hoo!!! Been so tennis deprived the whole year... it was an OMG moment for me...

Singles match photos

Double match pictures

My blurred (disappointing) picture with Mark Philippoussis... in my excitement I didn't realize the blurryness of my pic till I walked out and was like, "oh dear!" In any case, I still have his autograph to remember the event :P