Jenol's Jam-Packed Jaunt to Europe

My husband has been all smiles last week by the virtue that his old classmate from his days in VS, is finally here. It will be his penultimate Europe trip with jaunts into Paris, a five day sojourn to Germany complete with World Cup ticket (yes!yes!), a down-time few days in chilled out Amsterdam before flying into Liverpool to pay homage to Anfield, Goodison Park and Old Trafford. Manalah mat tu tak happy?

We kicked off with a whirlwind tour of London, on the hottest day of the year here. Even Jenol was surprised how hot it is here. 32º C! and unlike Singapore, no aircon shopping malls! Even our car has manual aircon i.e. bukak tingkap.

We started with a drive around Park Lane and Mayfair (which I affectionately call the Monopoly tour), passed the statue of Boudicea on Hyde Park roundabout, down Green Park where we passed the first ever Hard Rock Café in the world, passed Piccadilly Circus where statue of Eros stood. It is once said that if you sat there long enough, everyone in the world will pass by.

We turned off and passed theatre where Phantom of the Opera is still playing. I remember being mad about it in JC – finally watched it with YF after all those fan years and was slightly miffed at how cheesy it was. Still very watchable though.

We swung past Trafalgar Square with its lions. Lord Admiral Nelson is still being renovated, pass 10 Downing Street and down to Westminster Palace and Big Ben. Parked nearby St. James tube station and walked to Westminster Abbey (which is closed because of Sunday mass).

From the abbey, Westminster Palace with its House of Lords and House of Commons is a mere few steps away. I once went on the inside tour and was amazed at the difference between the gold and glitz of the House of Lords and the brown and green utilitarian look at the House of Commons. Who says there is no more class barriers in U.K.? Apparently, members of the Commonwealth nation sent gifts to U.K. and yes, I managed to check out Singapore’s gift which is a table and some chairs. How pragmatic but that’s Singapore for you.

We walked across the bridge to gawp at the London Eye. It was far too hot to stand in the queue. Jenol kept saying that it hardly moves but on closer inspection, you can see that it does. 30min. just to do one revolution!

After taking a few photos with Dali’s elephant and the London Eye pod on the background, we backtracked towards St. James Park. It was definitely much more pleasant to walk in the shade of the trees by the lake. When it is so hot like this, I often forget how cold it can get in London. Thank goodness for the shady trees in St. James park. It was so lovely to get out of the sun for a while and we walked down to Buckingham Palace with the strains of a marching band in the background.

Buckingham Palace was teeming with tourists, eager to get an eyeful of the Changing of the Guards. We decided that a quick peek is enough. Constitution Hill is bedecked with flags and we were in the middle of the rehearsal for next week's Trooping of the Colours for the Queen's birthday. Needless to say, the marching bands were very good; probably better than what we get at National Day Parades although I do miss hearing the commands in Malay.

Talking about Malay, we decided it was far too hot to traipse around London so we headed back to the car and took a well-deserved lunch at Mawar.