:: The City of GMT/UTC 0 ::

This will be my last blog about London, I'm afraid it'll be an overkill.. further more its not like I was there for eons. Just merely plus/minus 192hours including sleeping and flying.

It is summer now (then).. Two days before we arrived BA (British Airways) experienced a strike at Heatrow airport, not very funny.. The lack of staff on the airport is very apparent as the line thru the immigration is bloody long. I really appreciate our M'sia's automated passport gate.. so techy. Did you guys know now that we can also use our IC on the same machine back in Sepang?

Sepang = 1, Heatrow = 0

I was staying in Ruislip with my cousin. It's located on the North West of London a.k.a. Zone 6. The public transportation there are awesome. Almost everything/everywhere is linked by tube! (i thought its called 'underground' but the LRT, MRT system there is called Tube.. silly me).


First thing that I notice was the weather.. it was beautiful. 22'C max and averages around 19'C the whole week I was there. Flowers are everywhere and trees are bearing fruits like no-bodie's business. Also learned one thing.. there are two types of apples. One are sour (for cooking) and the other are sweet (for eating of course). Almost every resident will have at least one apple tree.. dunno why.. proly cause all the houses there comes with a backyard that the size of 20feet (w) x 80feet (l)!!! Yes.. every houses are like that..

a typical English house

Food and drinks there are not very expensive. Seriously!.. it'll be even cheaper if you work there. Please do not try converting to RM for everything you spend on. You'll wanna kill yourself.. hahaha!!.. Prices that I remembered paying for are like:

• Burger King Meal (Double Whopper set): £2.8
• One Mineral Water (in National History Museum): £1.3
• Tube ride (whole day + returns @ kid's price): £1.4
• Chinese Lunch for 5pax (char siew mee & drinks): £28.9
• Starbucks Café Latté with Hazelnut Syrup: £2.4
• Beer (averages): 0.88p - £4 .. yup.. cheaper than water @ some place and they serve in pint

The cars are DIRT CHEAP!.. i mean really really cheap if you work there la.. a New Peugeot 307 1.6 Triptronic Auto will costs you £15k. (M'sia price is bout 130k) A New Honda Jazz 1.4 i-DSi costs bout £11k. 2nd-hand cars are even cheaper!.. 99' BMW 318i coupé ranges from £2000!!

Note: 'Quids' are normally known as a slang to replace the word "Pound". e.g. "the bottle of water is 1.3 quids" instead of "1 pound 3 or 1.3pound".

Tube Map @ South Ken's Station

Malaysia = 0, London = 1

The community there.. they're quite friendly mostly, Malaysia always promotes itself as the centre of "Masyarakat Majmuk" (Diversed Community).. but it's no freaking way we're gonna compare ourselve with London. On the streets of London, you'll see roughly 961types of ethnicity in a second.. (just joking) tee hee hee.. :) But there are definately more race and much much more diversed than Malaysia by a huge lots. Whilst walking the street, I heard (to those I understand & gauge frm the looks) Indonesian language, African, Mandarin (China & Taiwan), Cantonese, Italian, French, Korean, Tamil, Hindi & even Malay.. one very famous bumper sticker in M'sia was spotted there as well "Satnam Sri Vaheguru".. they're definately Sikhs..

Malaysia = 0, London = 2

Places, places, places.. Not many famous places that I've been but I'm glad that we manage to squeeze some minutes to visit the National History Museum. The world most famous museum!!

Big Ben, London Eye, Harrods, National Science Museum and also the Winsor Castle. After walking and sight-seeing, one might notice, London as a famous world city has not much of high-rise modern building. Everything was old, everything has its sense of nostalgic and history in it. Far different from the skylines of KL nor S'pore nor any big Asean city.

Actually during the whole trip, I was holding the camera most of the time thus, I didn't really have much photos of myself and the environments. Saddening..

The best part during this whole trip was being able to meet my cousin whom I've never met since.. er.. forever. Knowing that I have two beautiful 2nd cousins/niece and one naughty cousin/nephew. My dad has the best time as well, he met up with his schoolmates (frm Bukit Bintang Secondary, PJ) that he hasn't seen since 12years back!

Anyway, I can't think of anything else to say bout London no more, this will be a closure and I did enjoyed the trip and will keep in my heart as a place that I'll re-visit again.

p/s: dun bother looking for ciggie there.. it's 4.9 quids per pack!!!.. I was officially a non-smoker in that 8 days..

Winsor Castle - Hazel: a picture taken by me!