Before I get to London, here are some happenings during our last few days in Paris.
When we got to the Metro, we decided to take another picture at the photo booth because
we did the same on our last 2 trips to Paris! 🙂

We went back to Eiffel Tower again and made sure we got there early to hit the queues to get onto the tower,
we want to get there before the tour buses. (Trust me on this!)
The view was gorgeous as before – but the weather was really a little too chilly.

Lunch was near the Louvre.

We also went to the Lovers’ Bridge which is really near the Louvre.
I know there are many Lovers’ Bridges all over the world but this is the first time I went to the one in Paris.
And it’s really romantic and all, being in the City of Love.
The street performer on the accordion sure added on to the romantic atmosphere as well!

Some of the locks on the bridge is so interesting!
Other than the tons of golden locks that looked almost the same
(because they all came from that few stalls selling locks near the bridge), there were a lot of other memorable ones.

A and I got our lock too!

We took the Eurostar train from Paris to London.
It was just a very short 1-2 hour ride and it was quite enjoyable with the sights – much preferred it to taking a plane.
The worse part about travelling had to be our massive rucksacks!
But whenever we come to a flight of stairs, we always feel lucky that we have our luggage on our back and not on wheels.
Can’t imagine dragging my wheelie luggages all over the place, so troublesome.

Here’s us in Paris Gare du Nord train station.

Does my bag look like it’s 16-18kg? Heh!

– – –

London, London!
It feels so different to be back here with a different group of people this time round.
The previous time I was in UK, I spent most of my time in Reading and only had the chance to get to London over 1 or 2 weekends.
Though our stay in London was only for 3 days for this trip, it was still very enjoyable!

We headed straight to Soho after we dumped our bags in our apartment.
Got a bit of trouble getting an apartment in London because, for some strange reasons,
the landlords don’t seem to be very prompt with attending to our messages on AirBnB.
The apartment we got was in Kensington. The location isn’t that bad, but I think it can be better.
Soho would be a better place to live in in my opinion.

I love Soho!

Our first Fish n Chips meal!

Unfortunately, I don’t have much pictures of ourselves in London.
Didn’t have the time to catch a play at the Her Majesty Theatre but had the chance to watch the guards parade in Buckingham.
SOOO boring! Haha.

Sun so bright. Tsk.

Random. Cute kid on Subway.
He was REALLY shy when he saw me snapping pictures of him. Blushing like crazy!
So cute!

And my favouritest place in London has got to be the Portobello Market in Nottinghill!
Love love love weekend flea markets and this one tops the list because there are so many vintage stores in here.
Somehow hate the numerous stores selling touristy keychains and whatnot though.

We also saw Jamie Oliver’s bakery cum restaurant.
I’m so impressed with the packaging of the things sold in there – really really good!
They have a kitchen at the ground level and they were having some baking class for kids when we were there.
Sounds like so much fun!
I heard they are coming to Singapore too by the way. 🙂

We bought this tray of quail’s egg chocolates. Look at the packaging!
It’s freaking expensive though. Totally not value for money kind of thing.

Yeah but I’m a sucker and bought it anyway because A likes it.
Seeing how she doesn’t bear to eat the eggs tickles me. :p

[insert: pictures taken back at the apartment]

And of course, how can a London trip be completed without the London Eye and the Big Ben?
Seriously, our Singapore Flyer is so much more impressive than their Eye. *competitive*

We took one of their city cruisers out onto River Thames too.
Ours took us all the way to Greenwich there GMT 0 is at.
Unfortunately, the Royal Observatory was already closed when we got there. 😦
So we just lazed around on the greens instead.

And on our way back to West Minster, the Tower Bridge!

It’s funny how London Bridge is so famous because of the bloody song.
But in actual fact, it looks super boring (and sturdy so I don’t think it will fall).

Oh! And A also bought me this ring from one of the vintage jewelers in Portobello Market.
I love it.
From what I understood from the jeweler, the ring is from the 1890s, the Victorian era
and made of gold, platinum and a small diamond.

At first I was a little skeptical about the ring being really from the Victorian era.
(I am always very skeptical one la)
So after a little research online, I’m quite convinced that the freaking ring is really more than 100 years old!
Something about the use of gold and platinum on the ring and the star design of it.
We also brought the ring to a local jeweler when we got back to have the ring resized
and the diamond replaced with a slightly bigger one, the jeweler asked us how old the diamond was
because the cut was really old school.
Now I kind of regret replacing the diamond because the fact that
the diamond was probably hand cut back in those days really amazes me!
This ring could have belonged to another woman back in the Victorian era! I wish I knew the story behind this ring.

And thank you A for the lovely ring. I think it’s more special than any other jewellery we can find back home.
Happy 2nd Year Anniversary, my love.
How time flies.