So yesterday Jerry and I slept in until 12pm before we started our day. We did the things on the list Lisa made us the day before. It was great we started off getting breakfast at Tesco Express again. Bacon and Chicken sandwich, a bag of cheese and onion flavored Walkers, and a tropical fruit punch drink all for £2. We ate that before we got onto the Piccadilly line at Russell square using our all day pass that we bought for £5.60.

Our first stop was at Hyde Park where there was a festival & Christmas market called Winter Wonderland. The place smelled awesome with the aroma of Belgiam waffles, churros, roasted buts, German bratworsts, fish & chips, freshly baked pretzels and much more. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to taste any of it because we’re so broke.

In addition to the food there were crafts and vendors selling Christmas gift items which brought in a herd of shoppers early in the morning. While the parents were shopping the kids were enjoying themselves on the Christmas themed carnival rides. Reminded me of a smaller version of the Orange County Fair, just a lot colder.

From Hyde Park we walked to Birmingham Palace but unfortunately we missed the “Switching of the Guards” ceremony. We did get to see cool, old school British soldiers though.

From Birmingham Palace we walked through Saint James Park where we met some of the most non-shy animals I’ve ever seen. Lisa says that she saw a man stick out a lollipop and a squirrel climbed his body and over his arm to get it. Jerry and I wanted to do the same thing but we didn’t have any food so Jerry offered to give £1 to a lady who was feeding the birds sandwich bread. She gave it to us for free. As you can see in these photos and videos. It was a lot of fun.

Our quest to Big Ben lead us to the London Eye, which is just a giant ferris wheel in the Westminster Parliament area. Speaking of which, we saw these Santas practicing for a marketing campaign.

Big Ben was a pretty interesting area. There was hundreds of police officers from London and neighboring cities in squad vans waiting for something to happen. The whole area was on alert because of student protesting against tuition hikes. They were camping out with billboards and posters in the square next to Big Ben. La Resistance!!

After Big Ben we wanted to see the famous bridge in London that we thought was called the London bridge. We get on the tube and get off at the London Bridge station only to find this:

This was what we were looking for and apparent it is not called the London Bridge. It is call Tower bridge. London bridge is the bridge that replaced the previous London Bridge which fell down a long time ago as stated in the song.

After that we met up with Lisa one of the tube stations but while waiting for her, Jerry and I needed to pee. It was our first encounter with a fully automatic toilet. How cool is that.

After meeting up with Lisa and her awesome classmates at the University College London’s student union, we headed off to an area called the “Indian Mile” where we had some delicious Indian cuisine. So delicious that I don’t even remember the name of the dish I got.

There were dozens of Indian restaurants in this one way alley and it was pretty interesting how they get people to go to their restaurant versus the competitors. They have people stand in front luring potential customers in by offering them a huge discount of the menu (just like the guys that lure you into casinos and strip clubs in Las Vegas). Once you’re in they commit to their promise and offer you with a pretty good portion of a starter, main dish and side dish, all for only £10. Where they make the money though is through sub sequential customers who see us eating and will pay the full menu price when they come in.

Anyhows, I’ve been online since 7:00am this morning because Lisa just left to the airport to go back home for the holidays. Jerry and I are waiting for our 10 hour bus ride which leaves at 10:00pm tonight. We’re in the computer lab in her dorm trying to keep warm because it is expected to snow tonight. We’ve hidden our giant backpacks so that it doesn’t show up on any of the security cameras that are all over London. We’re technically not suppose to even be using the computer right now and I still need to print out about 30 pages of boarding passes and bus tickets before we leave tonight.

Well, I’m getting hungry so I’m going to wake Jerry up. Geez… he just farted in his sleep and woke himself up. Suddenly not craving that traditional London Pie and Mash any more. That’s all for now. Over and out.

I’m staying at the University College of London where my friends is studying urban design. It’s a really nice campus that is right in the city of London. The closest metro station (the Tube) is Russell Square Station which we passed by 10 times in the past 24 hours.

The surrounding area is very beautiful and the city is filled with people walking, on bikes, cars, buses. One thing you’ll notice are a lot of smokers, police sirens, and bicycle renting centers as seen below.

The picture below was the first museum we visited in London, The British Museum. The architecture inside is just amazing. Take a look.

Woke up this morning and headed off to the Tube (subway) only to realize that Jerry lost the itinerary. We improvised our day based on the attractions and sights around the British Museum, which took up most of our day. If you are planning to come here be sure you set a lot of time aside. It was great because there were so many exhibits including one about ancient greece, egypt, asia, rome, and much more. Definitely worth the price which ways free. All museums in London are free but the ride there usually isn’t.

Before the museum, we had lunch in Russell Square Park which is near my awesome friend Lisa Chau lives. We’re crashing at her place for the next few days. Thank you Lisa! I love you so much girl!

After the museum, Jerry got a dirty dog (Tijuana dog) right outside the gates of the museum and we went to check out a few theaters to see if we can get student discounts on show tickets but ended up not getting anything.

For dinner we went to Tesco Express which is very similar to 7-Eleven (US) or Family Mart (Asia). They had a special deal where you get a sandwich, juice or soda and a small bag of Wallers’  (Frito Lays) all for 2 pounds. In Britain they chips=crisps and fries=chips. Interesting huh? I also got a box of custard cream cookies for 1 pound which isn’t a bad deal at all. Dinner was approximately 9 pounds.

Right now, the exchange rate is approximately 1.7 pounds to the dollar. I’m going so broke just trying to survive here. Until next time send some money!!!

Had a great time hanging out with old junior high friends for thanksgiving. Jerry, Anh, and Little Jimmy came to pick me up at 6:00pm when the dinner started at 6:00pm. It was a potluck but we didn’t have anything to bring. Jerry wanted to get nachos from Wingnuts, which I thought was very odd for a potluck dish, and Anh wanted to split on some pizza. Little Jimmy, who bought ingredients to make a corn dish called Trung and unfortunately he had already bought Papa Johns. We all finally ended up buying an expensive party platter from Panda Express near the Costco and Fry’s Electronics  in Fountain Valley.

We were the first ones to arrive after Eddie (UCI)  and Ryan (UCLA) but after a while things started to get poppin and I’ll let the pictures explain themselves. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

It was such a great deal!

I didn’t realize how long it takes to upload videos onto YouTube. Each of the 3 minute segments we have are about 1gb each. I’ll be changing the video settings from 1080p 30fps to just 24fps. We’re not running around or anything so I don’t think it would be a big deal. Additionally, I don’t want to be sitting at the internet cafes in Europe waiting for the uploads.

Throughout the past few days I’ve been looking for a good deal on an external hard drive to back up all my photos and videos in Europe. My SD card only holds 8gb which is a 10 minute video.

There was one for $129.99 on Staples.com but was on sale for $85.99. On top of there it was further discounted by $16 for Black Friday making it $69.99. I bought a coupon for $25 off $75 or more at Staples but they didn’t give me the code instantly so I went to bed thinking that they would have enough for everyone this morning. Bam! I wake up in the morning and they don’t have anymore in stock. What makes me even more sad is that I had a $20 gift certificate too. It would have been the perfect transaction. Better luck next time.

Why didn't you send me the code in time?!?!

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So it’s Thanksgiving and Jerry and I spent the entire night making some videos for our trip. You can check them out here:

This is the rought route that I will be taking.

Although I’m not sure where it is that I am exactly going to I do know that these are some of the places that I want to backpack to. What’s not on there as well is London, Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam.

lagunabeach1

Laguna Beach, what a beautiful city. I really do miss Southern California when I’m not hear but when I’m back here I wish I was on the coast of an island where there is warm and clear blue waters like Phu Quoc, Vietnam or the islands off Belize City, Belize.