Monday, August 30, 2010

More Of London

London sights:

DSC_0912
We were near Buckingham Palace and in time to catch the last bit of the Changing of The Guards. Lucky for us because I can't imagine standing in the sun for a silly ceremony the purpose of which is to draw silly tourists to a boring palace. I'm not much of a monarchist as you probably can tell.

DSC_0900
The grassy area behind Big Ben and next to Westminister is favorite for protestors who pitch tents and live there. Most of them were protesting against the presence of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghan. I love countries that allow freedom of speech.

DSC_0974
British pubs are cosy and fun.

DSC_0434
Double decker buses and antiquated (and silly-looking) cabs

DSC_0436
London underground. Check out the Metropolitan station. It is perfect for a horror flick.

DSC_0456
Chinatown, small and cosy with good restaurants.

DSC_0829
We saw a big crowd barricaded off an red-carpeted area next to cinema in Soho. Will Smith, his son and Jacky Chan were there for the premiere of Karate Kid 11.

DSC_0861
 Harrods is an AMAZING store. I've never seen a store like Harrods' and I don't think there's any store that can beat it. It's just the most luxurious and decadent store in the world. The things in the store, from the furniture to the clothes to the food, are unbelievably beautiful and expensive. 99% of the shoppers in Harrods were Arab women, who shopped in a group with body guards. Their handbags were either  Hermes or Chanel and they actually wore jewels on their foreheads. A couple of masked ladies wore golden moustaches and Yi saw one who wore a moustache AND fake eyebrows , making her look like Groucho Marx. Can anyone tell me the significance of that??

That's the super hot yet cool--and brainy--Kimmei, btw.

DSC_0884
Poor tourists shop at the huge Topshop opposite Harrods.

DSC_0662
Lloyd's Building, still attracting the gawkers.

DSC_0696

Copy of DSC_0697

DSC_0721
The Gherkin needs no introduction. Even the posts on the roads are phallic. I've yet to see a building glorify the female reproductive parts.

DSC_1000
One of the things I wanted to do in London was watch Les Miserables but one of the Jonas brothers had to be in the show the week I was there and that bumped the cost of the ticket up to 77 pounds so I decided I'll watch it another trip.

My Documents9
Boldly-colored cakes in a shop that seemed to belong in Disneyland, near the Garrick Theatre

My Documents12
Goodies in Selfridges

London's saving grace is the many theatres and shows. Other than that, I think the city is rather disappointing,  maybe because of great expectations (no pun).  The first time I saw the famous historic buildings, it was awesome but the second time, I felt nothing. The Brit churches, palaces and places of interest are booorringg compared to the rest of Europe. Even the shopping is booorring. Carnaby St is sweet, made for tourists. Regent St, the main shopping street, is just full of chain stores like H & M, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Zara, yadda yadda yadda. Despite that, I found the girls in London very stylish and original, definitely edgy and exciting. But don't let me put you off London. It's still worth a visit.

Bear with me as I finish off my posts on London. Two more to go and we'll go back to Hungary. And you thought I was done with my Europe tour.

5 comments:

Linda said...

I love reading about your Europe trip. I am happy this is not the last post :)

Rita said...

I love reading your blog. Re the Arab tourists at Harrods, I wonder if it was becoz an Arab has bought over Harrods from Al-fayed???

Jeri said...

The moustached women intrigued me so I googled and found these...

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Qyoh-CdicLMJ:www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-309916.160.html+hijab+moustache&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=firefox-a

(look at bluespice's comment- apparently it's a method of covering their face)

terri@adailyobsession said...

linda: thnks, linda. you asked ofr it...

rita: al fayed is also of arab origin and i think even during his ownership of harrods the shoppers were frm the middle east. got plenty of money.

jeri: i tried to get tt link but couldn't. who's bluespice?

Jeri said...

Oops, sorry I gave you a cached link !

Here's the right link

http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-309916.160.html

Bluespice is the commenter :)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...