10 July - London

On 10th July, we arrived at London Stansted airport at around 10.30pm. We had decided to sleep at the airport for that night because of the arrival time and also to save some pounds. This video just shows how the airport looks like from the place we slept for the night.

The next day morning, we took the bus (Terravision) which cost something like 18pounds each for a two-way ticket. We then arrived at Liverpool Street Station as seen here. We realised that London is pretty much similar to Singapore:

1) Extremely crowded

2) People are really walking damn fast like in Raffles Place every week day morning

3) Right-hand drive traffic

4) Their sub-way uses the 'eaziLink' system as well, they call it the Oyster Card

5) English signboards and directions!

We then headed to our hostel, the Antigallican Hotel. It is located in Charlton, think it's considered to be part of Greenwich. It's the worst hostel I have stayed in so far. Damn old and the shower pumps out boiling water!
After dumping our stuffs in the hostel, we began hunting for what we had came for: the London Summer Sales! We started off from Bond street, then to Oxford street and so on. The shopping street is pretty long and damn crowded too. Some of the stuffs were really cheap as compared to Singapore. But in general, they are still expensive if there are not on sale.
After a whole day of shopping, we did some sight-seeing the 2nd day. We first visited St Paul's cathedral but we didn't go in because it costs something like 8 pounds per pax.
They still have this kind of 'old school' phone booth in use pretty much.

This is how their Underground looks like. The call their subway as 'Tube'. After that, we headed to the Tower of London as seen below. It's more like a castle of some sort. Again didn't went in because of the high cost and extreme crowdedness.

This was taken in a souveneir shop just beside the Tower of London.
Below shows the Tower Bridge. It might be easy to confuse the London Bridge with the Tower Bridge because the Tower Bridge is the actual 'icon' of London, whereas the London Bridge is just an ordinary bridge, which many people thought would be something spectacular.

This is the London Dungeon. It's some scary thing that u can visit and get frightened by them lol. Again, extremely crowded and expensive.
Tate Modern, nothing spectacular.

And walking along the South Bank, we finally reach the London Eye. Looks the same as the Singapore Flyer eh?
This was taken just outside another 'scary' place like that of the London Dungeon.
Here is the Westminster Houses of Parliament. Spectacular architecture, but too bad the Sun wasn't out and the picture looks kinda dull.
Woo and this is the very famous 'Big Ben'!
On that evening, we went to the Chinatown of London. It is really small, just 2 streets and everything was really kinda considered exotic and expensive, when the Singapore one is CHeap! argh...
On the morning of our 3rd day there, we went the Buckingham Palace, the place where the royal family of England lives in. And lucky enough, we caught the 'changing of guards' parade as shown in the video below.

Westminster Cathedral, again the clouds were covering the sun zzz...

Finally the Sun is out and we arrived at the Natural History Museum. It's free but the exhibitions inside were really wonderful! There were displays of dinosaurs, mammals, ocean animals, creepy crawlies and etc. They were so overwhelming that we didn't have time to finish everything.

Well, there is a shop called 'Nicolas' near Harrods which sells really cheap alcohol!! Sounds like my kinda shop with my name of it haha..
This is the street where Harrods and Harvey Nichols sit on. The sale in Harrods was really crazy, damn messy and crowded.

06 July - Stockholm

Went to Stockholm again cux Lav haven been there b4. Main purpose was more to shop lol.. There was supposed to be a Redbull AirRace held in Stockholm but it was cancelled =(

But instead, we were lucky to pass by this 'Spot the Signboards' exhibition.

27June - Berlin (Germany)

Berlin by far has been the city that I loved most. The hostel there was excellent, transport was 'free' (we call it easiLink because you just walk into the Bahns without trouble at all!) Me and Lav arrived there on the 27th night, and found the hostel to be extremely near the U-Bahn. Also, there is a covenient store beside opened by vietnamese that sell 500ml beers at 1Euro and 750ml red wine at only 3Euro!

On the first morning (28th), we first headed to the Starbucks near the Bradenburg gate shown below. We had breakfast at Starbucks and waited for Laura and Gwen to join us for the 'free' walking tour.
Below is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. There is no definite interpretation to the structures; some think of them as coffins; some think of it as bar charts; some think of it as the cabins of trains carrying the Jews to places where they die.
Here is Checkpoint Charlie, a checkpoint where the people used to cross between East and West Germany. Everything that we see now is fake though.

This is a stretch of the Berlin Wall. Nothing spectacular, but thousands died trying to cross them. Here you go, Hitler! By right, his face shouldn't be seen anywhere in Germany because the people feel that he does not deserve to be remembered. However, some historians feel that it is very hard to describe that war without mentioning him at all.

We were very lucky that on that day, was the day when their Pride Parade is held. This is a parade which allows the gays and transexuals to parade through the streets with really loud music. Below is a video of it, but the quality kinda sux due to the loud music.

After cutting through that parade, we arrived back to the Reichstag, which is the parliament house of Germany seen below. The dome above was added on and once can go up there to enjoy the scenery of Berlin. However, the queue was extremely long and we thought maybe going early next morning might help.

Below is the TV tower of Berlin. I got the 'Soviet' cap somewhere near at 7Euros after bargaining it down from 15Euros!

This is the Berliner Dom. Very beautiful, but didn't get the chance to see what's inside. Now the weather is really warm and sunny, very nice.
Here we are at the East Side Gallery, the longest and most well preserved part of the Berlin Wall.

This is the U-Bahn station where our hostel is, and we have drunk some stuffs before meeting Venki and Sharon here. After drinking abit, we met up with 2 more Indian girls and went to this club which is within walking distance.
The next day morning, we went up the Reichstag. The queue was in fact longer than the first day, and it was so damn hot in the queue.

After that, we had to go in to the Coca Cola Fan Mile in order to catch the Euro 2008 final between Germany and Spain. The fan mile is just just beside the Bradenburg gate, and it could accomodate half a million people that night. Although most of us support Spain, we of course didn't dare to make any noise when Spain scored and won. The feeling was so funny.
We went in and sat down at like 4pm, all the way till when the match kicks off at 8.30pm.

Starting the Germans cheered and cheered like this in the video, but after Spain scored....

And here it is, Casillas lifting the Euro08 Trophy, Cheers!!The Bradenburg Gate looks beautiful at night.

The 3rd day, we headed to the Jewish Museum as seen below. Pretty boring museum, unless u wanna know more about the Jews,

This was a special exhibition in the Museum.
This is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Looks magnificient with the top of it bombed away during WWII. We couldn't get into the church because there was some kinda event going on inside.

There were lots of street vendors around, selling food and soveneirs at pretty reasonable prices. After that, we head for our shopping at Ku'Damm and Tauentzienstraße which were just beside.

We met up with Venki and Sharon again after our shopping, and ate at this restaurnt. The serving was huge and yet inexpensive.
On our last day, we went to the Sachsenhusen Concentration Camp which required a 1 hr Bahn ride to Oranienburg and a 30 minute walk.
This is the toilet of the camp.
It is believed that that the SS drowned people in those toilet bowls and feet washing basins like the ones shown in the pic below (on the left-hand-side).

This video shows how big and empty the camp is.