22 Jun
Touched Down at Gatwick Airport in London at 11.30 in the morning. Unfortunately, it has to be a long queue before we get to the custom and clear the luggage. Najihah and Azureen were waiting at the arrival and I was a bit awkward to see them, in fact, I was never seen them before. I thought maybe it's time to make new friends, afterall, I have to. Soon as we arrived, we went to get the car that was pre-booked online prior before the trip. However, due to the International License requirement, our booking has been rejected. Only if I had an International License, but never mind, life goes on. There were about five other car rental companies at the airport, and one by one rejected our request to leave us fuming. Three hours went by and we were still in pursuit of a rent car. The negotiations with the companies seemed to reach an impasse.
What a bad start to the day, our plan to get off to Liverpool that morning was fading away. I was clinging onto a small hope that renting a car was still possible when Azureen told us that there might be another company at London Victoria Station. We decided to try our luck and immediately took the train to London Victoria Station. When I was about to fall asleep, the attendant came over to check the ticket and had asked to pay extra pounds, I gave her my twenty-pound note, yet again, the unfortunate happened, she told me that it was an old version and never officially being used anymore. What?? That means I have another 140 pound of 'ancient' British notes with me. Luckily, a good Samaritan appeared out of nowhere and offered me his money for the exchange of mine.
London Victoria Station |
The River Thames |
23 Jun
Hyde Park |
Kensington Palace |
I met a woman, Ana, whom also a Malaysian, and happened to be 'Orang Terengganu'. At first, I didn't recognize her Malay face, but when I heard the word 'silau', I knew she is. I had a chat with her while she was waiting for her husband. At one side of the park, there sits a garden called Kensington Garden which lies inside the old royal palace, Kensington Palace. It was the former residence of Princess Diana before her death in 1998. There was not so many people around, maybe it was too early. I went back to the room and packed the stuff before going for breakfast with Amin. We checked out of the hotel and waited for the two at the bus stop near the hotel entrance. I saw Malaysians on many occasions, but they weren't seemed to greet each other, maybe because there are a big chunk of Malaysians in London and it has became too redundant.
At 10 am, we went to Chelsea FC and Arsenal FC stadiums with two 'Pak Cik' whom we just met. They were just arrived at London and had asked our help to bring them touring around. I had no problem with it and firstly we went to the bank to exchange our 'old' notes with the new ones. At last I got some money to spend. So many things happened and I just realized that we were better off to be travelling with Zue and Jiah. At Chelsea and Arsenal stadiums, we went straight into their stores, nothing much to do with the stadiums either.
The plan to go to London Bridge has been called off in the last minute due to time constrain, and Zue took us for lunch at Oxford Street. London is a massive metropolitan, it could be regarded as one of the best in terms of shopping and leisure. Tourists like us should spend more time in the city because apparently it offers a lot of attractions. No wonder it's being included in the Top 5 most visited city in the world. But we just didn't have much time left. We took the car at London Victoria station and off to Liverpool at 7.00 pm. And the journey began, Amin was the one and only driver, too bad because I can't drive manual cars. The journey was quite smooth thanks to the GPS but we did took the wrong exit on the highway and has to turn back, wasted almost half an hour there. The time spent during the whole journey gave us some space to get to know and gel with each other. The overall journey took us more than six hours. We checked in at Dolby Hotel at 2.00 am.
The plan to go to London Bridge has been called off in the last minute due to time constrain, and Zue took us for lunch at Oxford Street. London is a massive metropolitan, it could be regarded as one of the best in terms of shopping and leisure. Tourists like us should spend more time in the city because apparently it offers a lot of attractions. No wonder it's being included in the Top 5 most visited city in the world. But we just didn't have much time left. We took the car at London Victoria station and off to Liverpool at 7.00 pm. And the journey began, Amin was the one and only driver, too bad because I can't drive manual cars. The journey was quite smooth thanks to the GPS but we did took the wrong exit on the highway and has to turn back, wasted almost half an hour there. The time spent during the whole journey gave us some space to get to know and gel with each other. The overall journey took us more than six hours. We checked in at Dolby Hotel at 2.00 am.
24 Jun
The River Mersey |
Liverpool City Centre |
It was raining since the afternoon, and we left for Manchester after the late lunch. Arrived at Manchester around 11 pm, we stayed at Acai's house. They greeted us just like we've known each other for some times, and they were so easy to make friends with. However, we didn't spend much time as we were too tired. Almost one in the morning and it was time to sleep.
5 comments:
wow! gi liverpool dop masuk anfield ke? ;D
eh, mesti r masuk..fav team kot...hehe
Thanks for sharing, waiting for part 2 haha
sabar2...busy sket
mane part 2 ko
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