| Friday, 12-Jan-2007 14:14 |
|
London vacation
|
|
I went to London for the winter break for 4 days with Laili. It was a nice holiday break...full of unexpected incidents, excitements and even running..yeah, lots of running actually...just to catch the bus...we did use the underground tube but it was cheaper with the bus...and you could see the nice view ;-)
We nearly missed the bus even before we started journey to London. We arrived at the bus station 5 minutes before departing; thanks to the slow bus to city centre. We had to run like athletes with our luggage just to arrive at Digbeth coach station.Lucky enough that the clock at the coach station was 5 minutes late and we managed to board the bus.
When we went out the first night we arrived, another incident happened. This time around, my camera ran out of battery.Gratefully, we have our camera phone and we managed to capture all the scenic views.
The vacation was very well organised. We had our laptop and every single places that we went to was planned carefully. We even know what bus to board and what place to go next. It was nice to board the London Eye flight, going for the Thames River Cruise, Madame Tussauds, visit the Buckingham Palace, Tate Modern Museum, Big Ben, Tower Hill, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and many more...
Another unforgotten incident happened at Madame Tussauds wax museum...we were so excited taking pictures with all the 'stars' and left our backpack at the pillar. All of a sudden, the backpacks were gone. We were panicked as we did bring the laptop with us and even our belongings such as our wallets, university ID, and etc. We reported to the staff as quick as possible. Lucky enough the backpacks were held by the security guards. They told us that they can't return the backpacks to us for security reason. It's their procedure that all backpacks left unattended should be demolished. We were so terrified and after a while we could reclaim our belongings. We were lucky that they returned our belongings as in most of the case, they have to evacuate all visitors and perceive the unattended bags as threat. All this is due to the recent bomb threat in Heathrow Airport that they have increase their security measures.
Finally, another incident happened when we were about to board the bus to Birmingham. This time around, the online ticket which we have printed was lost during our 'Explorace' run to the Victoria coach station in order to find the right platform. One mistake was we did not have the reference number with us as we only depend on the paper. We went to see the person in charge and he asked us to check from the internet. To make matters worse, the internet service was unavailable at that point of time. Yet another lucky time, we were saved by the virtue of the person in charge who let us board the bus even without the ticket. Fuuhhh, once again we managed to return safe and sound to Birmingham.
All in all, it was a nice vacation in the cold, windy London filled with unexpected incidents :satisfied_nod: Take home message: charge the camera, don't leave bags or belongins unattended, have the reference number for any online purchases made.
|
