Paris-London Trip - Day 7

The first thing that comes out in my mind about London is red. The telephone booth, the bus, marching band, MU (I hate MU), … all are red colour.

We start our journey from Victoria area and walk to Buckingham Palace. When we reach there, there already crowded with people. Everyone is waiting for the marching band to march out from the palace. We hanging there awhile, and we planned to leave the area, the marching just started, ^^ lucky.

The Victoria Memorial

Victoria Memorial from front view

The marching band

The marching band

Sculpture at Victoria Memorial 

After Buckingham Palace, we walk pass Hyde Park and enter the Brompton road. It’s an area full with luxury brand, and there is a “shopping mall” that I have to mention here, the Harrods. I heard that Princess Diana like to shopping here. Ok, now you can imaging the price. We didn’t do any shopping there, first of all, it’s basically will only wasting our time; secondly, I’m afraid I will accidentally break anything and I need to wash dishes there forever :p

The next stop is Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum and next to it is Science and Natural History Museums. Nothing much special there except it is free.

After walking in the museums, we went back Hyde Park. It’s a huge park. It’s so huge until we are not able to finish it. Kensington Gardens is just next to Hyde Park, separated by a lake called The Serpentine.

At a corner of the park is the Albert Memorial. Maybe you don’t know who Prince Albert is, but you definitely know who Queen Victoria is. The Albert Memorial is commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband.

The Albert Memorial

My wife ^^

Next to the Albert Memorial is the Royal Albert Hall. If you like musical performance, then you may pay a visit here, but I believe the ticket is not cheap. Anyway, we only pass by the building.

Royal Albert Hall

At the end of the Kensington Gardens is the Kensington Palace. It was used to be official residence of our beloved Princess of Wales, Diana. We didn’t go in to the palace because it is not free and we also sick of seeing these luxury buildings after the Versailles.

Kensington Palace

Mirror trick :)

She is so sweet

The next stop is Marble Arch, which is neat to the Speakers’ Corner. Too bad we didn’t spot any speaker there. You may do public speaking here as long as the police consider your speech is lawful. I wonder when Bolehland can assign a area as Speakers’ Corner.

The Marble Arch

The next stop is Baker Street. If you are Sherlock Holmes’ fans, you definitely will know why Baker Street is so famous. Another tourist area in Baker Street is Madame Tussauds, the wax museum. The ticket price is £28 :s

Sherlock Holmes statue at the Baker Street

The next stop is at Trafalgar Square. When we reached there, the square is preparing for a concert. There are few famous buildings around the square. The National Gallery is at the back of the square, and right to it is Admiralty Arch which is a office building. At the left hand side is the St. Martin-in-the-fields, which is a church.

The Nelson's Column 

The St. Martin-in-the-field

The Trafalgar Square

Admiralty Arch

Walking from Trafalgar Square to the Parliament Square through Whitehall street will pass by Horse Guards and St. James’s Park.

The first building that attracts your eyes is the Houses of Parliament which have a huge clock tower called Big Ben. The building is also known as Palace of Westminster. Next to the Houses of Parliament is the Westminster Abbey.

Statue of Abraham Lincoln on the Parliament Square

My wife & Big Ben

The Big Ben

The House of Parliament

Westminster Abbey is a church but what make it so famous is because there are lots of great people buried in that area. Isaac Newton is buried there on 4th April 1727. Enter to the church is not free and when we reached there, it is closed.

The Westminster Abbey

You can see the London's Eye from the Westminster Bridge.

My wife & London's Eye

We end the day here.

To be continue…

Fish

That day when I was in the car talking about the gay (please don't think wrongly that I'm a gay, I'm 100% not gay and I only love girl), I look at my colleagues, the fan shue, my wild horse and my natural enemy, why in boy's school got so many gays and in girl's school there are les.

One of the reason that I can think of is the evolution. Well, how this idea came from?

Many people didn't know that some fishes actually can change their sex.

O.O unbelievable?

One of the example is clownfish. If you don't know what is clownfish, then maybe if I say Nemo, you will know what is clownfish look like. So, don't ask the seller to get you a male Nemo, at the end, it maybe a female or bisexual at the same time.

Fish change sex mostly due to the environment, to produce offspring. If you put all male fishes at the same pond, in order to maintain the species, some of the male fish will changing their sex to female and give birth.

So, that explained that why boy's school students are tending to become gay after some time :p

I better wear extra pants tonight, just in case my natural enemy realize this fact.

Dilbert comic

I love Dilbert comic, this stripe remind me the famous lawyer of Bolehland, "Sounds like me, looks like me, but how you know it was really me?".

猫

天暗了 天空被涂成深黑色
然而城市的灯 荼毒了它的美
它颈上系着蝴蝶结 在没有灵魂的废区中寻找它的晚餐
一个无魂的躯壳 徘徊在废区中
明亮的双眼 扫描着周围的一切
渴望能在午夜之前寻获一个让生命延续的理由
寻寻 觅觅
一个个的希望 接着一个个的失望
生命只为了活着而活
夜加深了 深得令它快要溺毙
心慌了 步伐也乱了
黑夜慢慢的吞噬了它 残留下的躯壳

Paris-London Trip - Day 6

We going to London on day 6. After check out from the hotel, we travel to Gare de Nord to take Eurostar to London.

Once we reach the station, we saw lots of passenger lining up at the ticket counter; it took us almost 1 hour to get our ticket. Guess what, the Iceland’s volcano Eyjafjallajökull (don’t ask me how to pronounce or spell this word, up of my knowledge) erupted and causing the ash that interrupt the airport operation. Everyone is queuing at the Eurostar station to hope to get a ticket for them to travel back. Lucky we book the ticket before we came, else it will be a nightmare for us.

Travel to London from Paris taking us about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Nothing much to see in the train cause most of the time, the train is travel in the tunnel.
The train stops at St. Pancras international station. It’s a much beautiful building as compare to Gare de Nord station.

After purchase the daily pass, £5.60, we went to our hotel at Hammersmith town. Well, nothing much to say about the hotel, it’s quite old but cleanliness is still acceptable. Nothing much to complain for a budget hotel.

After leaving our luggage, we went to China Town.

The china town is located at Piccadilly. There are lots of shops selling Chinese food in this area, but we didn’t try. Some of the shops are full with customer, some got none.

Walking around Piccadilly area, pass thru SoHo, have some rest on the park, looking at the pub full with people. The Regent street is a shopping area, any brand you can name it, you can get it here, but I think I didn’t see LV, lucky ^^

Ok, to be continue.

Paris-London Trip - Day 5

The 5th day is Wednesday, on Wednesday and Friday, Louvre Museum will open until 9pm and for other day, it will only open until 5pm. So, today is our museum day. If you are museum maniac, you can get museum pass and enter to almost all the museum in Paris for free. If I’m not mistaken, the two days museum pass cost €32. You may check the detail here. Well, it definitely save some entrance fees if you plan to visit other museums in Paris. However, my target is Louvre Museum and the entrance fee is only €9, so not worth for me to get the pass. Anyway, it is very much depend on how you plan your Paris visit.

Actually we plan to visit Rodin museum, but I know I’m going to take few hours if I went there and I may miss the Louvre Museum. So, I told my wife that we go to visit Picasso before go to Louvre Museum because I heard they can allow you to visit the corridor for only €1, but I’m not sure how true is that cause I can’t found the detail at the office website.

We went to Picasso Museum and it requires some walking since it is located in the residence area. When we reached there, we found that the museum is closed for renovation and will only open on year 2012. Too bad.

:(

So, we went back to the metro and went to Louvre Museum.

It’s a huge place and lots of people. We took almost ½ hours to get our tickets. The ticket didn’t include audio guide and you can rent an audio guide from the counter for €6. As usual, I don’t like those guides because it’s like reading a long history book and taking lots of time to tell you the story behind those collections.

I try to search the web about those famous collections in the Louvre Museum, hope it can give some explanations on the photos I’d took.

Milo of Croton

I believe you know this, I remember that when I'm at form 3, I study about the world history and one of the most famous subject is the Code of Hammurabi and I finally saw it with my bare eyes.

 Law Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon

Don't ask me, I don't know what is this also :p

Sarcophagus box of Ramesses III

One of the most famous collections in Louvre

Aphrodite, known as the Venus de Milo

Imperial group as Mars and Venus

Fighting Warrior

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss

Mercury and Psyche

Dying Slave by Michelangelo

The Slave by Michelangelo

I can't remember what is this also :p

The Death of Sardanapalus

The Intervention of the Sabine Women

The Meal at the House of Simon

The Wedding Feast at Cana

This is another most famous collections in Louvre

Winged Victory of Samothrace

The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Joséphine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804

If you read my blog, you will remember this drawing, I love it so much. Empress Josephine is a very beautiful lady, too bad is that the story about Napoleon and Josephine is not a happy ending.

Again, the most famous drawing

Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo (Used to known as Mona Lisa)

My wife ^^, she is my tour guide also

We “finished” the museum around 8pm and after took some photos outside with the pyramid.

After resting in the park, we decided to go to have a look on the Eiffel Tower at night. You maybe surprise that I didn’t took much of night photo in this trip. Well, in April, the sun come out very early, even on 6am, it’s look like noon, and the sun start to go down around 9pm. So, if I want to take night photo, I may need to wait until 9pm and to get a really dark night shot, its start around 10pm.

Eiffel at night