TRIP TO LONDON (Part 2): BREATHING LONDON AIR FOR THE FIRST TIME!

1:16 am

Hey! What's good?

Can't believe it's 2017 already! I would like to start off by saying that 2016 was a wonderful year for me. A bittersweet year filled with many achievements and also disappointments. I am ever-so-grateful to be able to look back and reminisce the many great moments in that year.

Passed my foundation studies.
Traveled more than I ever had.
New friends (lol).
Passed my first semester of degree.
etc.

I truly thank God for the blessed year. I hope you had a great 2016 too and hopefully 2017 will be another amazing prosperous year filled with countless blessings for you and for me!

⇀ Click HERE for Part 1 where I rant about how this trip was made possible

We flew to KL from Miri via MH2551 early in the morning of 7th December and our flight to Heathrow Airport is at midnight of the same day. We arrived at KLIA as early as 8 a.m. and we had more than 12 hours to go before the next flight. Being the pros of impromptu plans that we were, we hopped on a bus to KL Sentral and went around town to waste time (and money)

We went back to the airport and had our dinner in the food court. Then, it was finally time for the flight! Was I excited? Daym, I was. I've never been to a place so far before so, this travel newbie was gila excited.



Luggage dropped. Got into the plane. Settled down in the four seats in the middle. Take off took quite some time, head counts were done multiple times, but soon later, we were flying high in the sky. The food and drinks served were pretty good but bad luck Joel, he got a stomach ache. Having to do a number two in a plane wasn't a pleasant experience at all. It's all good though cos I got to watch few good movies, listen to Adele and Frank Ocean, and most importantly.. sleeeeeep. Lucky woman infront of us got all four seats for herself (i was really jealous, haha)



More than 14 hours later.. touchdown! 😎 We arrived London safely (phewww). It was surreal, felt really unreal. We went out from the plane and got through immigration. We got our luggage and the first place we headed to was the Travel Information Centre, where we purchased our London Pass cards which will allow us to enter/use attractions in London with no further payments. 



We then proceed to the airport's underground tube station to get to our hostel. We booked a room in RestUp Hostel for 5 nights. What made travelling convenient was the Oyster cards that I borrowed from a good friend. These cards are extremely useful for public transportation in London and I believe that it's the cheapest way to get to places in London too. Shoutout to Cielyne for telling me about the card and for lending them to us!


Dragged our luggage into the tube and it was fairly empty. Well, that did not last very long, though. After a couple of stations after the airport, the tube started to get filled with people. The tube is very small if you compare it with the size of the people there. People kept coming into the tube and there was barely any leg space. Memang macam tin sardin. It took us around 40 minutes in the tube to finally reach the Elephant & Castle Station, which was the nearest station to our hostel.

Climbed up the stairs and when we reached the top.. I had my first contact to the cold London air. I finally got to see the iconic red double decker buses!! #BucketList checked! ✅ It was a moment when I had goosebumps all over and I truly felt blessed.


After sucking it all in, we made our way to the hostel by foot with the help of Google. We successfully found the hostel and it has a real chill cool vibe to it. Hipstuuuur. You can check out the hostel at restup.co.uk. Too bad that we were not allowed to check into our room yet because it was still early. So, we left our stuffs in the lockers as we wanted to go around Central London. It costed us a few pounds to rent 2 lockers but we really didn't wanna just sit around and wait.

Made our way out and the bus stop was right infront. We got onto a bus and it's not long after when we reached the place that made my day..

tick tock, who can name this iconic clock?
round and round The London Eye goes.
Overjoyed, I really was. Up to this point, it still felt like a dream. I didn't know it was possible, but there I was.. eating a Gardenia toaster waffle beside the River Thames.

We then walked to Trafalgar Square. Got to see more of London by walking.



There were a lot of people at Trafalgar Square, just immersed in the street performances. Few Yoda(s) were there too.




Then we made our way to St James's Park. I fed the squirrels and birds there!



St. James's Park is located nearby the famous Buckingham Palace but food mattered more to us, so we went to find food. And guess what we wanted.
.
.
.
.
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Rice, looooooooooooooolll. #SoMalaysian

So, we went to a place called the Malaysia Hall Canteen. It's a homey canteen serving quite a variety of Malaysian food, by Malaysians for Malaysians. #SapotLokal

not the best Malaysian food I've tasted, but it suffices.
Malaysia Hall also provides budget accommodations for Malaysians-- just so everyone knows. It probably would really feel like home as it's filled with all things Malaysians.

After lunch, we went to Bayswater Station to go back to our hostel. We finally checked into our private room. The room was incredibly small but we just needed a place to sleep at night and secure our stuffs when we go out.. so it was A-okay! It was a hostel, so washrooms were shared with other occupants. We settled down and rested for a bit, then we head out again.

London gets dark really early in December. London started to get dark at 3 p.m.. But, I'm not complaining because the view was still very beautiful when it's dark. There was a Christmas Market nearby The London Eye, so that was the place that we went to.
the great view from the bridge as we head to the market. breathe-taking.
stuffed our faces with this delectable thaaang.
We finished our hotdogs while enjoying the great view of the River Thames. After finishing the huge hotdogs, we strolled beside the river and got closer to The London Eye.

Called it a day cos' we needed rest for the next day. It was an ah-maaaa-zing day indeed.

stay tune for part 3 and I would like to wish everyone a..
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017! 🎊😁


sidenote; Summer classes started. Buuhuu.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading! 😎
JL.





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