Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

... I've been up to London... didn't visit the Queen...

By now, we are starting to feel the stress of flying and being constantly on the move. Although, we are happy about our decision to forget about hostels (thanks to our hostel experience in SFO) for now, and stay in a cheap but clean hotel instead, it doesn’t exactly help that it had to be so far away from the city centre to be affordable. So, to avoid more stress, we booked to join coach tours for the next two days. Today, a London Day City tour with an evening cruise along the River Thames. Tomorrow, we go for a day tour outside of London through the same tour company.Still jet lagged, we only snoozed off at 03:00 hours in the early morning. Then, we had to get up as early as 06:00 hours to make it to Langham Hotel at 08:00 where the coach was picking us up. We had breakfast at EAT again, scrambled egg panini. Not bad.

Kanootz and Evan Evans

Richard's blue badge

The bus was 20 minutes late! Grrrr! Hmpf! Grrrr! We waited in front of the hotel. We learned later that the Langham hotel’s cheapest room is at UK350 pounds per night! What?!!! What kind of people stay in places like this? I also noticed that they had quite a few Filipino employees.

they keep them all in here!

kanootz w/ the beefeaters

the White Tower...

meticulous care...

Finally, the shuttle arrived and it took us to Victoria Coach Station where we boarded our tour bus. Our blue-badge tour guide’s name is Richard. Man, he liked to talk. We realized later, we were the only ones listening to him; everyone

he stands all day...

else had their speakers off. Oh well, at least he kept us entertained. We certainly appreciated the information spoon-feeding as we're too lazy to read up about the places.

braveheart!

ei, sisterrrr!

gotcha!

The tour started with a visit to the Tower of London, with a view of the Tower Bridge. Kenneth enjoyed the interactive exhibits at the White Tower museum. Joia was almost dizzied by all the bejeweled stuff in the Crown Jewel House. Oh, please do keep the postcards we sent you particularly the ones from the Tower of London/Crown Jewels for possible collection when we get back… haha! It’s just that we didn’t buy any souvenir.

arrgh! (Inside white tower)

From there, we drove to Buckingham Palace just in time for the finale of the changing of the guards. It was perfect timing! We didn’t get to see the whole process but we didn’t want to anyway, as apparently the middle bit is quite boring. There were Croatians in their football colours everywhere that day. We learned later that England was playing Croatia that night. England lost. They were very sore.

hop2, hop2! Guards marching in...

hop2, hop2, guards marching out!

this beautiful thing on front of Buckingham Palace

From Buckingham Palace, we were brought to an English pub for lunch – as promised. There we got chatting with the other people in the tour group. One very friendly young lady was called Julie. She’s French, 26, very well traveled; her boyfriend’s English so she took a job with Evan Evans to be able to live in the UK. She’s trying out the company’s products/services before she commences work. Sensible! There was a Filipino lady and her American husband from Connecticut; they were nice and down to earth. Then there’s this Filipino retiree couple, super YABANG! “O, yu shud bisit us in Merilend, we hab 3 extra rums becos ol our children are propeshonals and hab their own houses.” We were saying ‘Wow, you did very well then! But inside, Joia was grinding her teeth. ’Hmpf! Just the kinds of people that make one realize just how easy it is to stereotype Filipinos. Not good!

this way, that way... so many signs. yet so easy to get lost

Anyway, after lunch, we drove to Westminster Abbey. By this time, the tour was getting a bit too overloaded. Too many tombs, even Charles Darwin’s was there. ???? Doesn’t make sense ‘cause the Abbey is a church building. We did like the section where the ‘Quire’ (Old English for Choir) sits. Although there was no singing at the time, we can imagine how lovely it would have been.

outside Westminster Abbey

inside Westminster Abbey

The EYE

We then ended the day

Joia & Julie

with the beautiful evening cruise along the River Thames. We didn’t have enough time to go for a ride on the London Eye, but we were quite content with just being at the foot of it. The cruise captain was funny. He kept making us wave to the people on every bridge we passed. We were fortunate that just before the cruise ended, a big barge was approaching the Tower Bridge which meant it had to open up. What a sight!

Abra Cadabrah! The bridge opens up!

Kanootz & Joi by Westminster Abbey's walls

We didn’t really realize just how tired and stressed up we actually were until the tour finished and we were on our own. We walked around Picadilly Circus trying to locate the Internet Café we found last night. It was very frustrating; we were already hungry and tired but had to prioritize it so we could book our plane to Turin. This was yet another hall-of-famer, in a bad way, as this was our lowest point. We had a really big fight… which we won’t go about into too much detail, as you probably don’t want to hear about it anyway. The thing is, we expected and prepared ourselves for far worse situations than this. We knew there were going to be tough times. We’re still quite thankful and very proud to say, we are still very married and in love! Yippee!

Hope you enjoyed our London City tour. God bless you all!

written by

garcia on November 22, 2007 from London, United Kingdom

from the travel blog: Got 2 see what's out there!

tagged London

Send a Compliment

Hello, Joy and Ken! Thanks so much for the postcard! And thanks for sacrificing your precious time to keep us updated through this blog. We really, really appreciate all your effort!

I guess good times come with bad too, eh? We thank God He kept you guys strong throughout the experience, and we're always praying to keep you safe, healthy and happy. We miss you both! Hurry back home! :)

written by Ba-alan family on December 9, 2007

thanks grace, tatay son and nanay! we do get some rest periods during the week. we mostly go away on weekends at the moment... mahirap naglalalabas kasi Joia's Italian sucks. hehe! thanks for dropping by. we appreciate. God bless and we're happy about all the news about church and newsletter, etc. everyone seems very busy. they haven't logged in at manuka road for a while...

miss you all too!

written by garcia on December 10, 2007

hi ate joi and kuya ken!!! Sorry, been out of the net for quite a while po. hehe!!! thanks for the Turin postcard. we just recivd it today. we are trying to get the newsletter done by friday night for saturday morning distribution. Sana umabot. -.- mishuboth!!!!

written by Jane Pintucan on December 11, 2007

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