A (belated) Day 10 post - Tour of London and the Crucible

Heyyy, this is Nicole and Eunice, blogging for day 10!

So in the morning, we had a guided tour around London with a local guide. Setting off from the Travelodge in Southwark, we headed for the bank where the London City Hall is located to have a good unobstructed view of the world-famous Tower Bridge. We also saw some very colourful elephant models which are to be auctioned off in Sotheby's after their display period during the Elephant Parade in different parts of London, according to our guide :)

(Of course, we also saw the rather-egg-shaped City Hall which looked rather like a UFO against the landscape.)

Following that, we crossed the Tower Bridge (which the Americans tried to buy many years ago, pooh!) and passed by the Tower of London. Apparently people still do live there, the brave souls. We arrived at St. Paul's Cathedral in short order and gaped at its sheer size and architecture. It is quite a feat considering that Christopher Wren had no cranes or other modern machinery to help him construct this enormous church.

According to our guide - she is an absolute well of trivia - it was a target for incendiary bombs but volunteers would climb to the dome every night to put out the fires started by those offending things. But the survival of the cathedral proved vital in giving the British confidence to survive the Blitz of Britain in which Britain was constantly battered by German air raids and were close to defeat before the Germans abruptly switched gears and went off to harrass USSR instead. We also crossed Blackfriars Bridge, apparently named after a group of friars who wielded great influence in that area since they could not get Queen Vic (of "we are not amused" fame) to come out of mourning to declare the bridge open.

We also got pictures of Big Ben in the middle of the London Eye, bit like a lollipop on a stick. Then we drove by the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster on our way to Trafalgar Square where the largest square in London is located with a monument Nelson's Column in memory of Admiral Nelson.

While we did not actually stop there, we managed to pass by THE Downing Street, see the monument to Florence Nightingale and watch part of the rehearsal for the parade that is to be held on the Queen's (official) birthday. It was quite impressive to see a band play on horses - the horse spoor the horses in question left behind didn't half stink! Also around this time, London's weather started acting up...

Not bad for a morning's drive around London, eh?

In the afternoon, we watched the Crucible in the Open Air Theatre at Regent's Park. The play began at 3.00 pm and it ended at 5.30 pm. It was drizzling as the play was staged so some of us bought ponchos to wear as we watched the play. Anyway the rain did not prevent us from enjoying the play and we enjoyed it thoroughly. The play is written by Arthur Miller to bring out the idea of tyranny of the majority and that the majority is not always right. Basically the play revolves around suspicion of witchcraft in Salem, where innocent people are convicted of practicing withcraft and hence sent to prison. Some chose to die for their beliefs and not turn themselves in for wrongs they did not commit for their name, and true enough they paid for it with their names.

After the matinee show, we spent some time shopping for souvenirs at a shop next to the Baker Street tube station. Then we took the tube to London Bridge station for dinner at Clink Street. This tube ride was different than the others because the tube actually broke down along the way! When we reached the Bond Street Station (which was one stop away from Baker Street), the tube halted due to 'technical problems faced by the train in the other station before us'. We were asked to wait for a while, but after about fifteen minutes the train master announced that the service was suspended. Hence we had to change tube lines to reach our destination. (Eunice would like to add that some of us were in a carriage full of *apparently* intoxicated football fans and they had very colourful language, especially visible after the first announcement) This experience was not very pleasant, to say the least, but it was interesting to have witnessed this happening because it made us think of the situation of the MRTs in Singapore. Many of us came out thinking that "this wouldn't have happened in Singapore" or saying things like "What if this had happened in Singapore?".

We suspect that this instance would have something to do with the overwhelming number of football fans crowding in the tubes. There was a football match in the afternoon, a League One Championship Playoff game between Millwall Football Club and another football club. Millwall had won the game and their fans were celebrating and being rather rowdy in the underground (i.e. banging on the walls of the train, shouting cheers which reveberated throughout the station, etc.). This exacerbated the unpleasantness of our tube journey, but nonetheless we managed to find some humour in the situation where things did not go our way.

After dinner, we proceeded to walk back to the hotel (in the cold, windy, London rain).

Jet lag be a sad, sad thing.