One of the things that I really wanted to do on this trip was to see a musical. I love musicals and I still remember my time watching musicals in Broadway when I was in NY in 2005. So prior to my trip, I was already researching on the musicals/shows that were showing in London's west end.So I was lucky that despite it being a short trip, I was able to catch not 1 but 2 westend shows, Oliver! and War Horse. I enjoyed both very much. Oliver! is a musical based on the Charles Dickens story Oliver Twist and War Horse is a play based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo. Tips for those who plan on catching a show in London. The TKTS booth located in Leicester square is a good place to check ticket prices as they always sell tickets at discounted prices on the day of the show itself. Otherwise, there are many ticket shops around which sell discounted tickets. For example, when I was in Madam Tussands, there was a ticket shop in the museum store and I just asked if they had any cheap tickets for the night. Voila... just a phone call and I got my answer. So it never hurts to ask really, and my experience is that the sales pple are usually very friendly and patient with yo :)



So most of the theatres are located in the covent garden area which is also where most of the nightlife happens in London, so even after your play/musical ends (usually at around 10.30pm), you can expect to come out of the theatre and still find restaurants and bars open around the area. Covent garden tube station is also always pretty packed with pple trying to get home after so it's like a massive human jam here..


BUT: walk maybe like 400m down the road back to Leicester Square and you find yourself in Chinatown! Recognisable immediately from the red laterns and sudden influx of chinese restaurants flanking both sides of the streets. I came here with Kah-Ling and Patrick after watching War Horse for supper and it was like wow walking around.... it was also how I managed to get my mooncake fix this year :P


We had supper in one of these taiwanese style bubble tea shops which also sells small snacks and deserts. Kaya toast, honey dew melon pudding, sugar cane pudding below.... Funnily enough, the shop was playing 林俊杰's karaoke dvd.... (S'pore singer)


Kah-Ling and I.... thanks to her, she made sure that I ate VERY WELL during my stay in London :)

So back on to the sightseeing..... well, i also did some shopping here :) Oxford street and Bond street and famous shopping areas in London, and I did allocate a few hours walking down the streets (it's a very very long street :)) London has the best shopping I swear... heaps of different shops around.
Famous Fortnum and Mason store: managed to buy some cookies to bring back.... have been munching on their chinese ginger biscuits ever since I came back :P

Some of the biscuits I lugged backed to budapest.... On top of the ones I bought from Fortnum and Mason, I got some from the V&A museum and Crabtree and Evelyn (who knew they sold food products!)

Burlington House on Piccadily street.


Burlington house has many societies occupying its grounds such as the Royal society of chemistry and the Royal Astronomical society.


Bond street: where all the designer shops are and almost every shop has a burly security guard standing near the door.

hehe Danica... I couldn't resist taking this picture inside Burberry.... I really love Emma Watson's campaign for Burberry...


One (more) thing I like about London is that most of its museums are free! Just goes to show how much appreciation and funding is given to the arts here. I met a lady working for the natural history museum in Chicago on this trip and she shared with me how amazed she was to find that the museums here in London were free to visitors, especially when back in USA, admission fees contribute towards the upkeep of the museums. This time, I visited the Victoria and Albert museum (museum of decorative arts). It has collections from all over the world, and while I was there, it also had a special Fashion exhibition since it being fashion week at that time.

Interior gardens of the museum.... despite it being London and autumn, I enjoyed sunshine throughout my whole trip, and it was very relaxing to just take a break from the exhibits and have a drink in the gardens, and continue once replenished...


Artistic piece hanging in the entrance foyer...

The tomb of Buyanqui Khan who was a muslim descendant of the great Genghis Khan. For a time, he was the puppet ruler of central asia, but when he tried to assert his own authority, he was assasinated by a local warload. His tomb was built in a cemetery on the outskirts of Buachara and the entire building was covered in tiles, inside and out. Below are tiles taken from the tomb which you can see are covered with inscriptions and engravings.

Fashion week exhibition: Dresses by Christian Lacroix, Yves Saint laurent, Vivenne Westwood and Versace from left to right

In clockwise order:
3. Bodhisattva Guanyin
5. Tiles depicting the warriors of Mara, taken from the Shwegugyi temple in Burma.

In clockwise order
1. Ardabil carpet: Islamic carpet commissioned by the Shah of Iran as a pair.
2. Ceremonidal ladle from Sri Lanka, 18th c.
3. Portable shrine (Nepal)
5.Dagger and sheath from Iran said to be a gift to a office from the British EIC.
6. Mother of Pearl bowl.

In clockwise order:
1. Drake jewel. Given to Sir Francis Drake from Elizabeth 1
2. Wine cup made out of coconut husk
3. Salt and pepper shakers in European style but Chinese design.
4. Mermaid jug and shell shape matching wash basin
5. Nautilus shell cup
6. Mother of Pearl basin

Original Beatrix Potter illustrations..

An interesting feature of the V&A museum is its casts courts. The casts of famous monuments was created for educational purposes when it wasn't easy to travel and see original works. The casts provided an opportunity for students to study European sculpture. Some of the famous casts that one can see include:
Tabernacle in the church of St Leonard, Zoutleeum, near Brussels

Western portal at the cathedral of St Saveur, Alx-en provence, France


Trajan's column, Rome

My family probably knows this fact very well, that I love London to bits. It is one of my favourite cities in Europe that I could not stop talking about it and that I even planned a second trip back there. Now that says something, especially when I have limited time and funds to travel around Europe, why would I go back to a city I've already explored (some) and go to somewhere else new instead? Answer: because it's such a lovely city and there's so much to do and see! Even after this second trip, I feel like, eh... I don't think I've seen everything....

After having been once, London was rather easy to navigate this time. Was pretty familiar with the metro systems and got to my hostel with relative ease. It was such a pleasure being able to arrive late into the city, but having the knowledge that supermarkets would still be open, and I could still pop into Marks and Spencers and get their meal deals at 7pm at night... So this time round, I took the opportunity to check out various sights that I had missed on my previous trip and one of them was Madam Tussands Museum. Having already been to the one in NY, I was curious to see what this one would be like. I must say that the tickets were rather expensive, 24 pounds and there was a long queue of people despite having arrived there early, so pictures are below:

I must say that not every wax statue looked like the original. There were some I had to take a double look or look at their plaque to confirm who they were....
If not for the plaque, I would not have recognized Tyra Banks and Kate Moss below, though I managed to recognize Elle almost immediately...


The beckhams were mainly recognized via their style and victoria's hair, but the Victoria's face didn't really make it.... Brad Pitt look the most authentic in that picture below.

Not bad replicas..I have a similar picture of me and Julia Roberts, which was taken in NY in 2005... I have a feeling they switch models around the museums every now and then.

I don't think many people recognized Mr Orlando Bloom below because compared to the rest of the wax models, people were mostly ignoring his statue. I had to look twice to confirm it was him too when I wandered over to his area, though Leonardo below looked pretty real :)

Johnny Depp and Nicole Kidman pass.... Mel Gibson and Will Smith, fail...

There was Miley Cyrus in the corner but she was being beseiged by a bunch of screaming teenagers so I retreated and only got Zac Efron...

Bollywood stars

In the director's chair... hehe...

My name is Bond... James Bond

Props for Aguilera's wax model... looks totally like the real thing..

Shrek!!!

Sports people; A meaner looking version of Beckham, but I must say that Rooney looks like a gorilla here....


Shakespeare and the Pope JPII

Props for Britney Likeness... but Beyonce is a thumbs down....


BFFs...

French and Chinese together...

Ze Royal Family.... I must state here that I could not find Diana's statue in the museum....


Pretty good model of Simon Cowell.

It's kinda scary that Madam Tussands has this... but she was french after all. The caption reads as: This guillotine blade is that one that beheaded Marie Antoinette in 1793. It was purchased from the executioner's family.

Wax models of the executed from the French revolution.

After walking through heaps of wax models, I ventured across the street to the Sherlock Holmes museum... hehe... I was a pretty big fan of his novels when I was a kid and into dectective stories. I hope that I still have my Sherlock Holmes collections somewhere back home unless it was a book that my parents forced me to throw away/sell when we moved house.... (Yes, story of my life... when I was younger I had heaps and heaps of books. But when we moved house to our current flat, Mom only allowed me to choose some books to bring along. The rest were all given or thrown away. I still remember hiding my Enid Blyton books so she wouldn't find them or trying to persuade my brother that Enid Blyton was worth packing in his box... )

So anyhow, anyone who has read Sherlock Holmes would know that this fictional character resided at Baker Street, so it's apt that the nearby tube station is named Baker street station and his museum is situated at 221b baker street. The museum and the shop is a pretty interesting place. You have to ring the bell to get in, and you're greeted by maids dressed in victorian outfits, or by the police officer below at the door.

To go up to the museum, you are first led to this small corridor lit up as it would have looked like in Holmes's time...

Then you go up this really old rickety staircase that creaks LOUDLY with every step..

Venture in the sitting room of Sherlock Holmes, his bedroom.



Other rooms show re-enactments of Sherlock Holmes cases, bits and pieces of clues that helped solved the mystery, or various awards that Sherlock Holmes received during his career...


I recognized this set up of the "The case of the red headed league" from one of the stories I read when I was young.


The museum shop is quite interesting, and built almost like a antique store with heaps of cute sherlock holmes memorabilia



For all beatles fans, this shop was a few shops down from the Sherlock Holmes museum. I had a look inside and found a lot of random Beatles stuff...

Lastly, always a good idea to keep your eyes peeled open when you're out and about in the city and you might see signs like the one below.... Nothing better than to discover that a famous writer lived in the particular building that you're walking past at the month... For the ignorant, H G Wells is a famous Science fiction author.... the movie War of the Worlds (with Tom Cruise) was based on a book he wrote.