London Solo Trip #10 Nightmare on Wheels

The bus ride itself was depressingly eventful to say the least. At 5pm, we passengers were ushered to the boarding area to wait for the driver. We waited and waited but the bus driver was no where to be seen, until we alerted one of the station supervisors. So the bus left Victoria station more than 30 minutes late. Then when I was about to fall asleep on the bus, two brothers from Spain sitting on opposite side of my chair started mixing drinks in the bus (they were not supposed to bring alcohol on board). After a few shots of Red Bull mixed with Vodka, both of them started singing English songs very loudly with a thick European accent. A few more shots and one of them started screaming at a lady sitting behind me, taunting her with a bunch of vulgarities. It was only a matter of time before something bad happens.

Roughly an hour into our journey, the screaming man got up from his seat while holding his Vodka bottle and began to assault a young African man who was sleeping. The poor man tried his best to hold the obviously drunk man, both struggling while the drunk man continued to shout profanities. Soon another man came to assist and somehow managed to get the drunk man to settle back in his seat. Just when those two got back to their seats as well, the drunk man started taking off his clothes and also began to vomit all over. The bus driver stopped at the nearest motorway service station soon after he found out about the incident.

Remnants of the havoc!

By now the drunk man was almost down to his boxers and covered in vomit. Once again, he got up from his seat and began taunting the same African man again, this time throwing him a punch at his face. His brother who was finally sober immediately tried to control him while the bus driver called the police. Within minutes, the police arrived to arrest the two brothers and treat the wound on the poor African man's face. We were stuck there for more than an hour waiting for the police to complete their arrest and also for a replacement bus to arrive.

I finally arrived at Buchanan Bus Station at 4.45am. I never knew I would be so glad to be back in Glasgow.

lalanandaFRY
7/12/12

London Solo Trip #9 Too Late!

While planning the itinerary for my final day in London, I had to make sure all my destinations were near and do not consume too much time because my bus was departing Victoria station at 12pm. I chose to visit tourist sights at the South Kensington area since it was the nearest to the Malaysian Hall and I could walk pass Kensington Garden again to take more photos of stuff I missed the day before. I also had to wake up before 8am so that I could make sure everything was packed properly before I leave the hall.

So far I didn't mention about the constant pain I had at the soles of both feet whenever I put pressure on them. I knew I did too much walking but since it was the last day, I grit my teeth to walk to South Kensington, taking short breaks whenever there was a burning sensation around my feet. I started my day at 8.15am and walked to Albert Memorial area. Just around the time I was taking pictures of the memorial and Royal Albert Hall, a swarm of tourists from Pakistan arrived in a tour coach and they were all crowding at the memorial. I took the opportunity to get help from them to take pictures of me.

I went on to Prince Consort Road to get a better view of the hall as well as Royal College of Music (below)

While planning my itinerary the night before, I made a point to familiarise myself with South Kensington roads  so that I could plan the shortest route to my destinations without straining my feet. Exhibition Road and Queen's Gate are two of the main roads which lead to the 3 museums of South Kensington. These museums all open at 10am and I was obviously too early. I walked along Queen's Gate and to my surprise, I found the Baden Powell House at the junction of Cromwell Road. As a former cub scout and later a scout, I am familiar with Lord Baden Powell and seeing a whole place paying tribute to him is quite amazing. Directly opposite the Baden Powell House was the Natural History Museum.

Statue of Lord Baden Powell at the entrance.

I didn't expect a 200m long queue outside the museum.

The Natural History Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum are probably the grandest museums I have seen since Kelvingrove Art Gallery back in Glasgow. One thing I noticed about these museums in London is that they all have long queues at the main entrances. It was almost 10am and I was very discouraged to enter since I would probably spend more time queuing than actually exploring the museum. While walking to the Science Museum along Exhibition Road, I found another entrance to the Natural History Museum without a queue, so I went in. What a strange situation when everyone waited in line at the main entrance while the side entrance was wide open without anyone except the usher. I took lots of photos in the museum and somehow found my way exiting at the main entrance, walking pass the long line of tourists and school children. That was a prime example of "crowd attracts crowd".

The iconic Globe escalator in the museum.

It was almost 10.30am and I traveled back to the Malaysian Hall via Circle line from South Kensington tube station. Then I got all my luggage, checked out from Malaysian Hall and got back to Bayswater tube station to take the same Circle line train to Victoria station. At that time I thought to myself "it was just a few minutes to 11am, I have an hour to get to Victoria station, nothing will go wrong...". Guess what? Suddenly there was an announcement at the tube station saying that there was an emergency maintenance/repair thingy along the Circle line and all trains were delayed for a while. My heart started racing with fear that I may miss my bus back to Glasgow. True enough, Murphy's law struck at the worst time... I arrived at Victoria tube station at 12pm, ran like a crazy person while enduring the piercing pain from my feet, then I saw my bus leaving the station right in front of me and I was helpless.

Harrods had a crowd admiring tiaras displayed to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

I was very depressed. I sat in the bus station for almost 30 minutes staring at the floor, angry at myself for not foreseeing this. Soon after I decided to buy another ticket for the 5pm bus which was estimated to arrive in Glasgow after 3am. My initial hopes to keep a £150 budget was shattered since the last minute ticket costs £21 in addition to my wasted £5 ticket. While eating lunch at Subway, I realised that I had 5 hours to kill and decided to visit those thing I didn't get to visit earlier, namely Harrods. I made it a point to return to the bus station more than 2 hours before the bus leaves, better paranoid than late again.

The last part will be about my bus back to Glasgow and believe me, even that was eventful.

lalanandaFRY
7/12/12

The Art of Bond-ing

Have I mentioned that I am a Bond fan? I think I have, but I haven't said it enough. So here is a little birthday  post for someone named Bond, I mean James Bond.

The first Bond film I saw was Goldeneye in 1995. To be honest I had no idea what the movie was all about because I was only concentrating on the action scenes. The same applies to the next two Bond movies. Tomorrow Never Dies was unique to us Malaysians because we were all proud that Michelle Yeoh was playing a Bond girl. Perhaps I was too young to watch these spy movies since all I knew at that time was Power Rangers and Barney & Friends. *The James Bond Jr cartoon was showing on TV but I didn't watch it* The Bond film that made me a fan was Casino Royale in 2006. Before the movie was released in theaters, I remember the TV was showing James Bond movies every night during the weekends, I watched all 20 Bond films up to that time there and I was a fan. I think I even made Casino Royale's theme song You Know My Name by Chris Cornell as my ringtone. Guess what? The first video I have ever made in my life was a tribute to the James Bond franchise.

Among Bond fan in the internet, the most common question they ask each other is

Who is your favourite Bond?

Many have commented on my video in Youtube giving their own, some even giving their top Bond actors list. If you ask me this question, my answer would be

GEORGE LAZENBY

For non-Bond fans, your first question would probably be "George Lazen...who?". It is sad that this name would only pop up in a pub trivia once in a while together with other Bond actors Barry Nelson and David Niven. I think I need to answer that as well. George Lazenby is an Australian actor/model who was the first person to replace the more famous Sean Connery as James Bond in 1969. He was chosen to play the legendary spy after Sean Connery chose to leave the role after You Only Live Twice in 1967. George Lazenby has not filmed a movie before this, the nearest thing to acting he has done was in a commercial for Turkish Delight.

Imagine the pressure he must have had on his shoulders, to act in a full motion picture for the first time and immediately filling the shoes of a well-established character with five previous movies played by a well-known actor. This movie was unique to the franchise then, and it still is now.

• The only non-British Bond actor.
• The only theme song that was purely instrumental.
• The only time James Bond gets married.
• Has a love song sung by Louis Armstrong.
• The only time James Bond to wear a kilt.

Most people dismiss this movie with the main reason that George Lazenby only acted in one Bond film. What many people don't know is that Lazenby was actually offered to sign a 7 movie contract by EON productions. Unfortunately his agent at that time, Ronan O'Rahilly adviced him to decline that contract because he predicted that the secret agent genre would get obsolete by the start of the 1970s. Lazenby's movie career was at jeopardy when he chose to follow that decision. He promptly fired O'Rahilly after his next movie Universal Soldier was a flop and moved to Italy, then to Hong Kong to film with Golden Harvest, then back to his home country Australia.

Lazenby in The Man From Hong Kong (1975) opposite Jimmy Wang Yu.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a very special movie because it differs from all the first five Bond films. It was not just an action spy film like the first five, it was a love story. To weave a love story into a film like this is not an easy task, and acting in one definitely adds on to the stress of the title character. Lazenby was not the best actor of all time in my opinion, but he was the best choice to portray the role of James Bond in this movie. His portrayal showed that the character was not always a cold-blooded and promiscuous person, Bond has a soft side and could actually love and settle with someone he truly loves. Many critics and fans dislike this movie because their impression of James Bond was very two-dimensional, not that it is a bad thing in other Bond films, but this film demands more depth than those films. The scene which demonstrates this very well this the final scene the movie.

When my father was planning our family Europe tour, he asked me whether I wanted to visit Klein Matterhorn or Schilthorn to cover the Swiss Alps. He mentioned that Klein Matterhorn has Europe's highest mountain lift and the view from the top looked spectacular from the top. He has been to Schilthorn years before and the moment he described the place, I instinctively chose Schilthorn over Klein Matterhorn. 60-70% of On Her Majesty's Secret Service was filmed in and around Piz Gloria, a revolving restaurant on Schilthorn.

The view up there was phenomenal. There was a small souvenir shop, an exhibition hall with an awesome introductory film, the same helipad and revolving restaurant which was featured in the movie. I felt like I was walking in his footsteps. So to Bond fans or Lazenby fans out there, if have the choice of locations to see the Swiss Alps, choose Schilthorn.

By the way, my other favourite Bonds are Sean Connery, Daniel Craig and Timothy Dalton. Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan are probably the worst to me despite being the first few I saw because my impression of the character is a serious spy/killer and not a comedian. Connery also portrayed the character to have a sense of humour and spouts out comedic catch phrases, but I think he has his witty charms and can be serious whenever the situation is appropriate. I also don't understand why many dislike Dalton's portrayal as Bond. I believe that if his two films were released in recent years instead of the late 80s, he would get much more recognition because his character is so similar to Daniel Craig's reinvention of Bond.

Lazenby, everyone may not remember you, but I sure will.

Anyway, I have just seen Skyfall recently and I think it was a good Bond movie but it has its flaws, mainly its pacing which contributes to its two and a half hour run time. However I must say that I am looking forward to the next James Bond movie when they use the same ending scene as the beginning of all his coming missions. Oops... SPOILER ALERT!!!

Now I realised how horrible I look with these superstars!

lalanandaFRY
5/12/12

London Solo Trip #8 Monopoly Failure

Even the pier looks classy!

Wow! It is part 8 already? I am still at afternoon of day 3 in London. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had lunch beside Southwark Cathedral near London Bridge. It was almost 3pm and I had to rush a bit to catch the last hop on hop off river cruise at Westminster Millennium Pier next to Westminster Bridge. Once again I was running like a mad man and I arrived at the pier mere minutes before the cruise left. There was a ⅓ discount when I presented my travelcard, so the final cost was £6.35 for unlimited travel along the Circular Cruise route.

Have a look at this checklist, I mean check board!

Before I write about the cruise, I must mention that I have a desire to visit every place on the Monopoly board, or at least all 22 streets and 4 railway station. I have to say I did a horrible job in fulfilling that desire, the cruise is one of my efforts to complete the board. Now I know how ridiculous that plan was. I personally had no regret in taking the cruise, in fact the experience of walking in the footsteps, or rather the "boat"steps of James Bond in the opening scene of The World is not Enough was wonderful to say the least.

The first stop I made was at Embankment Pier. According to the cruise company website, there wasn't any landmark there. But I know after doing some research that there are 3 famous landmarks that I personally want to see there. The first was the Victoria Embankment Gardens which had many beautiful statues and classic work of art all surrounded by greenery. Then there was Savoy hotel, the most famous and prestigious hotel in London. And lastly there was the Somerset house that I mentioned in my first part. I allocated 40 minutes for myself to go for one round at Strand and Victoria Embankment in order to catch the next boat to Bankside Pier.

Saw this in so many movies, never expect myself to be there.

Bankside Pier can be described with 2 words, SCENIC on one side and ISTHATVULGAR on the other. The SCENIC side was of course the Millennium Bridge looking upon St Paul's Cathedral from a distance, it was just spectacular. The south side had an artistic old look because there was a huge old power station which was converted into the world's most visited modern art gallery. I didn't know it was an old power station, I thought they built it to look like someone giving me "the finger". At least I am sure that I have little to no taste in modern art.

Do you see it now?

The final pier was the one I anticipated the most, St Katherine's Pier. Not only did the whole surrounding look like what I see on the TV, the boat ride under the Tower Bridge was a dream come true. There was this.... feeling... I am literally lost for words now, words just can't describe my feeling at that time. It was like an achievement to me just to walk across the bridge once from St Katherine to the south side. I was so overwhelmed that I stopped at Southwark Bank outside the City Hall to sit and admire the view until it started to rain. Then I ran to the nearest tube station and travelled to Vauxhall station to see the SIS building.

This place is so modern, now with the Shard as the tallest building in UK.

Spoiler alert: I saw this building exploding twice, both in James Bond movies, guess which ones?

It was getting late and I had one last destination which was Bond Street, Regent Street and Oxford Street. When I reached Oxford Circus, I couldn't find a restaurant that satisfied my taste. I continued to walk along Oxford Street and remembered that there was a fish and chip shop called the Golden Hind. It was not located on a main road but on Marylebone Lane, which I had lots of difficulty finding without a proper map. I read on the internet that it was the best in London and I can now prove it first hand, not by eating there but just by timing the waiting time to get a table. Believe or not it took me more than 15 minutes to realise that I was standing at the door waiting for a waiter to give me a number and another 30 minutes to get to the table. The queue was almost as long as the one at Monmouth Coffee shop and my stomach has not made so much noise since... it has never made that much noise before!!!

See the guys under the shed next to Gibson Reeds, I was there.

Scampi and Chips, the fastest meal they could serve at that night...

Then I returned to Malaysian Hall, then the same routine goes on... take my bath, revise my itinerary, stare at the ceiling... morning already!!!

lalanandaFRY
4/12/12

London Solo Trip #7 Blue Harvest

In London, there are parks huge enough for swans to enjoy themselves.

This is the start of another new day, so I made another list of things I planned to do before I started.

1. Visit Stamford Bridge Stadium.
2. Visit Bank of England, Monument and Leadenhall Market.
3. Have lunch at Borough Market, London Bridge.
4. Get a glimpse of Vauxhall Bridge and SIS headquarters.
5. Take a boat ride along Thames.
6. Take a stroll along Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street.

First of all, I didn't accomplish all these in order, in fact I had to rearrange them to include more. The weirdest thing is that the day began with a rearrangement. To be honest, I was really blur that morning and I was so excited to start off that I left the hall at 8am. My problem was that my first destination after breakfast was Fulham Broadway station which was just down the District line from Bayswater station. My off-peak day pass didn't start operational till 9.30am. So I had more than an hour to roam around Kensington Gardens and Palace area. I don't have much so say about the garden other than it is huge and crowded even during weekdays. I was also the first time I saw swans at a close range, I could actually feed them if I had food with me!

Anyway I entered the station the moment the off-peak pass was operational and zoomed straight to Fulham Broadway station, which was only a 5 minutes walk away from Stamford Bridge stadium's Britannia gate. For those who want to visit the stadium and the museum, the ticket and souvenir shop is at the North side behind Matthew Harding Stand labelled "Stadium Tours and Museum". The entrance fee for both tour and museum with student discount was £13. I have been to 4 football museums by this point and I must say that this is the biggest and most comprehensive of all, so if you are a Chelsea fan or just a football person like me, it is a must see.

I forget to mention that there was a Danone childrens' football game on too.

The tour itself was also very comprehensive compared to other stadiums I have been. If you pay attention to my previous post, you would notice that the day I visit Stamford Bridge was the day before the UEFA Champions League Finals in which they were up against FC Bayern Munich at Fußball Arena München a.k.a. Allianz Arena. **Spoiler: Chelsea beat Bayern 4-3 in the penalty round to win, what a sad ending!** I didn't expect the atmosphere at the stadium to be so hyped up since the finals was in Germany and not in this stadium. The tour guide was spouting out facts about how Bayern couldn't stand a chance with Chelsea even if they were at home grounds and how awesome Chelsea players were ready for any challenge. As usual the tours goes around changing rooms for home and away, all four stands, players tunnel and hot physio staff Eva Carneiro's station "I didn't expect that to be an attraction!!!". By the way, why were there so many PS3s and Xbox 360s around the stadium?

Fancy changing room with surround sound and TVs everywhere!

The tour ended at the megastore which has two floors, the top floor has all the jerseys and T-shirts while the bottom floor has all other items like posters and keychains. I didn't stay for long to look at their products because most of them were about celebrating their UEFA victory even before the match started. I left Fulham Broadway for my next destination which was Monument station near Bank of England. One thing I have to mention about Monument station is that the tube map shows three dots linked together at this point, but in actual fact there are 5 stations which are quite far apart, so you might want to take that into consideration when connecting from one line to another.

I didn't go up the monument, I heard there is a good view from the top.

I got down at Monument station on the District line and the Monument to the Great Fire of London was just a few steps from the exit. There was another tourist location called Leadenhall Market which was 500m away from the monument. Leadenhall Market is another tourist attraction like Cecil Court at Soho known for its appearance as Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies, but this was not an inspiration, the market was a set for the first movie.

Notice little Harry and young Hagrid?

The last stop before lunch was the Bank of England museum. Personally I love to collect vintage money, I am not a hardcore collector but I have little box with old Malaysian/Malayan notes/coins and another with old foreign currency. The Bank museum entrance is located just around the corner of the main entrance and is heaven for money collectors like me. Unfortunately they do not allow photography and they have an extensive security check at the entrance and exit. I didn't spend much time going through the museum because I was getting really hungry and it was almost 1.30pm already.

As you can see, everyone eats everywhere!

Then I traveled to Borough market near London Bridge for lunch and I really recommend getting lunch there because there are lots of amazing food shops there selling sandwiches, kebabs and other stuff for reasonable prices. I had a delicious sandwich from The Guildable Manor for £4.80, quite a good deal, no wonder there was a queue! I also got a cup of java at Monmouth Coffee, known for being the best in London. The coffee was good but I personally prefer espresso shots like the one from Tazza D'Oro in Rome.

I haven't seen such a long queue for coffee before...

To be continued in the next post!

Bonus picture: Petr Čech's original Canterbury headguard, or as I call it, Vader's helmet!

lalanandaFRY
2/12/12