Day 263–268 : London

Hello London, we meet again!  This is the first city on this big trip that I had visited previously.  The last time I was here was in 2004, when Betty just moved over for work, and had went over to visit her while on way back from a business trip in Germany and to also spend Xmas and New Year’s holiday in Scotland and London.

Having seem most of the key tourists sights the last time round, the main purpose of this trip was just to spend some time with Betty before heading back to Singapore.  It’s good to be able to chill rather than pack the day filled with sights and activities.  Still I managed to see some new attractions (and old), visited the nearby parks and even managed to watch a musical “Blood Brothers”!

 

With Betty’s wedding upcoming in a couple of months (CONGRATULATIONS BETTY!!!), we went to do some shopping together to find her shoes for her wedding.  Her wedding will be in May in Hong Kong, so we will be meeting again when I go over to attend her wedding.

Westminister Abby

Impressive architecture and huge grounds.  It is a large, mainly Gothic abbey church in London, and a number of royal weddings were held here.

 

Somerset House

Somerset House is a large Neoclassical building situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames.  It has a huge courtyard, and while I was there, they had some beautiful art “flowers” laid out across the Courtyard. 

The “tunnels” were one of the setting used for Sherlock Holmes movie.

British Museum

This place was huge!  We only zoomed in on the Egyptian exhibit and the modern architecture of this place.  Otherwise it would have taken us days to finish covering the entire museum.

 

Olympic Village

The 2012 Olympics will be held in London, and being a former athlete, I was keen to see how the village look like.  Unfortunately we couldn’t really venture in as the main village was already cordoned off to complete the final touches in preparation of the athletes arrival.  The area around the village was completely built up from scratch and features a new mall to cater for the pending crowd.

Museum of Freemasonry

This place was recommended by Jae to visit and it was really interesting.  (Explain Freemasonry) Daily tours are provided, covering key sections of the museum which is opened to the public.  Unfortunately no pictures are allowed inside.

 

 

Church of Scientology

This is starting to sound like a religion discovery trip isn’t it?  While we were out visiting sights, we chanced upon the Church of Scientology.  Practiced by famous artistes including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, scientology has been a controversial “religion” for some time.  Some has criticised it as being a cult and for destroying homes while those who practice it swear by it. 

The place was open to public to enter, and being curious on the reasons for the controversy, I wanted to understand more.  I was cautious though that they may end up brainwashing us as we entered the place.  It was split over 2 levels, with the upper level filled with well written exhibits on what Scientology was about and included some videos playing on some of the screen with comments from those who practice the “religion”.  There was someone around throughout the entire time we were looking at the exhibits and as we were to leave, he gave us a DVD about Scientology which we could take home to watch.

Re-visited sights of London