{"id":6548,"date":"2013-07-15T22:16:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/2013\/07\/15\/europe-2013-day-01-our-first-stop-in-london\/"},"modified":"2013-07-15T22:16:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T14:16:00","slug":"europe-2013-day-01-our-first-stop-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/2013\/07\/15\/europe-2013-day-01-our-first-stop-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe 2013 Day 01 – Our First Stop in London (I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Date:<\/strong> 01 March 2013 Friday<\/p>\n

This was not another one of our impromptu trips. Though we had long decided to have a trip early this year, our planning only started a couple of weeks prior to the trip. JR had lots of different ideas for this trip, like taking the Swiss Alps scenic train up into the Alps mountains in Switzerland. He was sooo disappointed when I was only able to take a week of leave due to leave clashes with other colleagues :(. We were only able to squeeze in London and Paris into our 1 week itinerary this round. We go again next year okay?<\/p>\n

Our first destination was London. We departed from Singapore on SQ322 at 23:45 PM on Friday night. I was a little upset to leave my 3 \u00e5\u00ae\u009d\u00e8\u00b4\u009ds behind in Singapore again and I was unable to celebrate YY’s 2nd birthday on the actual day.<\/p>\n

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First inflight meal – Pork chop with spaghetti. IT WAS HORRIBLE. The pork chop was so tough!<\/p>\n

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My western breakfast. I love the cornflakes which came together with the meal.<\/p>\n

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JR had carrot cake.<\/p>\n

The flight to London was about 13+ hours. It was the worse flight I ever taken! I was unable to sleep throughout the flight… I wondered how I managed the other longer flights previously.<\/p>\n

Date:<\/strong> 02 March 2013 Saturday<\/p>\n

05:55 AM London Heathrow Airport<\/strong><\/p>\n

We arrived at London Heathrow Airport slightly before 6 AM. The private taxicab from Mini Cabs 4 Less<\/span> that JR had arranged was already waiting for us outside the airport. We collected our luggage and left hurriedly.<\/p>\n

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On our way out of the airport, we bought a Sim Card with unlimited data plan. It costs us \u00c2\u00a320 which is about S$38! It is something good to have while travelling in a unfamiliar city.<\/p>\n

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It was still dark when we exited the airport. We waited at the valvet parking booth for the taxicab. It was extremely cold even with our coats on.<\/p>\n

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07:30 AM Hilton London Euston Hotel<\/strong><\/p>\n

The journey from the airport to the hotel was about 45 mins.<\/p>\n

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JR looked happy and fresh because he slept so much on the flight…<\/p>\n

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The large MPV taxicab that picked us up from the airport.<\/p>\n

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The Hilton hotel that we would be staying for the next few days is very old and small, really different from the other Hilton hotels that we stayed previously.<\/p>\n

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Checking in… We got a room on the middle level – 3rd floor.<\/p>\n

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View from our room. Nothing much to see.<\/p>\n

08:30 AM Exploring London<\/strong><\/p>\n

We left the hotel after taking a short rest. We were famished and need some breakfast to start the day.<\/p>\n

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Euston Station is about 5 min (walk) from Hilton London Euston Hotel. We took a walk there slowly.<\/p>\n

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JR purchasing our Oyster passes. The Oyster pass is something like our EZ-Link card. It is cheaper to travel around in London with a Oyster pass than with cash.<\/p>\n

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On the tube.<\/p>\n

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09:00 AM Borough Market<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A: Hilton London Euston Hotel [Euston Station]
\nB: Borough Market [London Bridge Station]
\nTotal travelling time = 20 minutes<\/p>\n

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The Borough Market is one of the largest and oldest food markets in London. We were early and we saw the stalls opening one by one. We were attracted to the stalls by the aroma of the food. Earlier in the hotel room, while doing some researching, JR came across a recommendation of a toasted grilled cheese snack that is sold in the market. We grew hungrier with every second but didn’t buy anything because we were determine to get the toasted grilled cheese snack.<\/p>\n

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Freshly baked french loaves.<\/p>\n

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Owl cookies<\/p>\n

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Pastries<\/p>\n

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Vegetables market<\/p>\n

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Eeek… Dead giant hares hang out for sale with their heads wrapped up in plastic bags. There was blood at the bottom of the bags…<\/p>\n

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Goose fat<\/p>\n

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Seafood<\/p>\n

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And more pastries.<\/p>\n

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JR checking out the pies.<\/p>\n

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We couldn’t stand our hungers any longer and bought a \u00c2\u00a32 Ham & Cheese puff from a random stall to fill our rumbling tummies.<\/p>\n

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Looks like a curry puff.<\/p>\n

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Strawberries!<\/p>\n

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JR queuing up for a burger.<\/p>\n

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The kitchen preparing burgers.<\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a36 for a Beef & Bacon Burger<\/p>\n

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Getting a drink after all the salty food… \u00c2\u00a33 for an Apple, Pear & Kiwi Organic Juice.<\/p>\n

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Yes, this is the toasted grilled cheese stall that I was talking about earlier. We finally found it after a long walk around the market. We loitered in front of the stall initially and thought it wasn’t open for business. It was actually opened, just that it had no customer.<\/p>\n

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The toasted grilled cheese is sold at \u00c2\u00a35 each. They cut the toast into 2 slices for sharing.<\/p>\n

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The toasted grilled cheese was really nice. I couldn’t finish my share maybe because I had too much food earlier and also the snack was extremely salty for me. JR had to finish mine. I felt very thirsty after eating… We left Borough Market with our tummies satisfied. Total $ spent at Borough Market = \u00c2\u00a317.<\/p>\n

View my entire TRAVEL list<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Date: 01 March 2013 Friday This was not another one of our impromptu trips. Though we had long decided to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6548"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6594,"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions\/6594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lowsweetling.com\/mylife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}