Im sorry I took soo long to actually blog about my trip to London and Paris from CNY this year.

Been way too busy, it's really insane! Had lots of work to catch up on as soon as I got back and I thought I could always blog about it when I'm free.

But that day never came till the end of the semester.

HAHA! 

So keep a look out on the London and Paris series of posts if you're interested to know about the places I visited and what I did during my 10 days there :)

We arrived at the Heathrow Airport after a gruelling 7 hour + 2 hour transit + 9 hour flight all the way from SGP to Dubai then to Heathrow.

Thankfully, I got to catch some sleep on the plane because when we touched down, it was bright and early in the day!

It was my second time visiting London, and the first was after A levels with my friends. 

To the same places as well, London and Paris. But i've got no complaints because London still remains as one of my favortie cities in the world to date.

We took the tube to our hostel, from the Heathrow station all the way to the Rotherhithe station

One reason why my first trip to London was so enjoyable, was because of our accommodation there.

It was cheap, and really really comfy and homey.

I'm not the kind that likes to splurge on expensive accommodation, all I needed was a place to sleep at night, clean and more importantly, the area needs to be really safe

We were greeted by this sight the moment we exited the tube station

Rotherhithe is located in Zone 2 (just a teeny bit out of zone 2) and because most of the touritsty places are located in zone 1, we managed to get the room for all 6 of us at a really good price.

My first OOTD over there!

Love LOVE LOVE cities like this because everywhere is good for taking OOTD shots. 

They sold everything in the most interesting way!

Here are the gigantic blocks of cheese, so traditional

Was sooo tempted to get my hands on one of these because they looked so traditional and pretty.

But they were not cheap and I planned a budget for myself to stick to, so i didn't :(

We decided to grab our lunch here since they had quite a good variety of food.

I went with this, Paella!

They were displayed in HUGE pans like these and its funny how all their food were all not covered yet stay so fresh and uncontaminated at the same time.

We can do that in Singapore because... DAMN you houseflies!!!

We then headed to the Southwark Cathedral because it was only directly opposite the Market.

We decided not to go inside because we had other churches and cathedrals we wanted to visit!

After our hearty lunch, we decided to head to the Shakespear's Globe

I remembered enjoying myself when I visited the Globe with my friends just 2 years ago.

It showed us the old costumes and props used for the different Shakespear plays in the past.

It was really fun to see how the constumes started to change and evolve over time! But because i've already been in there once, I decided not to go in again.

(save money) haaha!

It was around 3 degrees at that time hence the thick and swollen mong. hahaha did I mention that I had a perpetual red nose too?

Hahaha!

A selfie with the 2 sisters.

I know it seemed like we did alot in a day, but it was surprisingly really chill and we took our time to GPS to find our way everywhere.

We also did lots of research prior to the trip and had planned out our itinerary to the best we could :) So thank God for that!

In the evening, we decided to pay the Tate Modern a visit (second time for me)

And well... what can I say. It's a beautiful place but i cant appreciate modern art? HAHA

But because it's rated as one of the world's best modern art museums, I had to bring my family there.

But at least the scenery there is BREATHTAKING!

The good thing about visiting London during the Winter is you get to see these dried up trees that line the streets.

Cant wait to visit this place again in August to see how the trees are like in autumn!

We barely spent 30mins at the Tate Modern because we were simply too bored out by it.

Oops no offense to modern-art lovers out there! We are simply people who cant appreciate or understand the art pieces, so we decided to move on to our last itinerary of the day, to the Tower of London!

Crossed the overhead bridge to the other side of the road (as instructed by my GPS) and the bus stop we were waiting at was right in front of the St Paul Cathedral.

Yet another breathtaking view of this iconic cathedral, definitely gonna visit it when I come over to London again!

With the help of the GPS and a few friendly locals, we managed to take the right bus to get to the Tower of London!

Its a pity i didnt manage to snap any photos of the super cool London Bus we took. It was open air! hahah

By the time we reached the Tower of London, it was around 6pm in the evening (or so) . 

It was my mistake to not check the operational timings carefully, and when we reached, it was 30 mins to closing.

My family decided to head back to the Tower of London again on another day since we had 4 days in London, and because I already been in there once, I told them to go ahead without me because the tickets were certainly not cheap!

If im not wrong its around SGD50-60 :O

Nevertheless we caught the Tower Bridge , and here's a really failed selfie. HAHA

I tried... 

So we ended our day with dinner at a Japanese restaurant that was apparently really famous, in SOHO.

Trust me... you wouldnt want to eat japanese food prepared by the Brits because they just tasted like salt water and noodles.

Food was really tasteless, and salty . It was just such a torture :(

We actually spent around SGD$300 on this meal, SO NOT WORTH IT.

So that was the end of my Day 1 in London!

For you guys who plan to travel to London, here are the few places in the Southwark area that i'd recommend visiting.

For those who plan to travel on a budget, remember, you can save alot on transport! 

Esp in places like these where standard of living is so high and their transportation costs are insane.

An estimate for travelling from Heathrow airport into zone 1 by taxi will cost you about GBP100 which translates to over SGD 210 ++ (im not even kidding)

Stay tuned for my next few posts on the rest of my trip!