London

This trip to London includes stopping by the Stonehenge on the sunrise of summer solstice. Thanks to my dearie for this recommendation. This was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday in the UK. The big bustling city of London, ah, everything here is expensive, fast paced, a typical example of a busy city. For the tourists, London has many museums and beautiful architecture to check out. I was sure to visit some of the film locations of Harry Potter movies.

20 June 2018, Doncaster > Sheffield > Salisbury, Cloudy

Yes, you did not read it wrong. Why would my day start at Doncaster? I was travelling back by train from Edinburgh, and transiting at Doncaster. Very unfortunately for me, there was a train strike and there were no trains to take me from Doncaster back to Sheffield. Realizing the trouble I am in, I quickly searched in google maps from the way home from Doncaster. It suggested me to take the train to Wakefield Westgate, walk to north gate, then take a National Express bus back to Sheffield. A nice station staff approached me and asked if it was okay, and suggested me to take a bus to Rotherdam, then ask a friend to fetch me back home. After some thinking, I did not listen to the nice lady, but went with google's suggestion. Fortunately for me, it worked. I reached home at about 2 AM. After some good rest, at about 6 PM, I bought some snacks and drinks and set off for Salisbury.I  bought a crappy Doner kebab while I transferred at Basingstoke.

21 June 2018, Salisbury > London, Partly Cloudy

I arrived at Salisbury after midnight. Here, I took a special bus service to the Stonehenge visitor centre, and then walk for quite a long while before I reach the stones. This was exciting! Stonehenge has an annual solstice event where they allow free controlled access to the inner circles to the stones. This was exactly what I was here for. Unfortunately for me, there were many people drinking and making quite a scene outside the area. Inside the stones, many people were smoking, and it made me feel very uncomfortable. To add, it was really pretty cold. As for the good part, I was able to touch the stones! At about four, the sky start to light up. I even had to enter a debate of where the sun will rise from... I had to explain that the sun is coming up from the east, because there is already light coming from that direction... really!? I was very lucky. It was a clear horizon sunrise. and it was simply legendary.

The light slowly flooded in, and with the light, I walked around the Stonehenge to get more pictures before leaving for London. My first impression of London was that it was super busy and expensive. I first visited London Eye, and had a simple hotcakes breakfast at McDonalds'. The Big Ben is permanently under scaffolds according to the locals, so that was quite unfortunate for me. I walked around the Westminster area for quite a while, checking out the Westminster Abbey and the palace before walking towards Great Scotland Yard, a film location for Harry Potter. There, I coincidentally ran into a tour group and I listened in to the speaker. He was describing the special features of the place and how the director changed the location slightly to have the correct 'feel'. My lunch was at a ramen shop called Kanada-ya. It tastes fine. Next, I went to check out Buckingham palace. It was a pretty standard kind of castle. I then went to the Natural History Museum. The museum was quite good. At this point, my body cannot take it anymore. I ate my dinner at McDonalds' again, checked into a hostel and slept. What a tiring birthday!

22 June 2018, London, Clear

I slept for 11 hours straight. Today, the weather was perfect, providing an excellent opportunity to take nice pictures. After a free, and pretty bad, breakfast, I went to visit Hyde Park and Kensington Palace.The sunken garden here is very beautiful.

My next destination is Royal Albert Hall, and it was also under renovation... oh well. Next on the list was Baker Street. I took a picture of the guard outside 221b Baker Street, and the statue of the real Sherlock Holmes nearby. Next, I went to the House of Minalima. This place is a shop, and has a whole collection of the prints used in the Harry Potter movies. It was quite a nice place. Lunch was at Shoyru Ramen Canarby. This ramen is quite good and I do recommend it. Next I took the train to visit Greenwich Park and the Royal Observatory. The Royal Observatory was on top of a small hill, which I climbed. I needed to pay an entrance ticket to stand on the decorated Greenwich Meridian line. From what I understood, it was free before. Well, at least I was still able to see the old and original meridian line. The hill provided a rather nice view of the Naval school and London city. After I had enough, I took the train back and went to the Tower Bridge, which was where I spent the evening. The Tower Bridge was, to me, and engineering marvel. It is so pretty, and yet so functional. I was lucky enough to catch the centre of the bridge opening up for a large ferry to pass. There was event called 'Summer by the River' going on nearby, so the area is crowded and lively. Pints of beer was going at 7 pounds, just wow. I ate KFC nearby and stayed at the vicinity throughout sunset. The Tower Bridge looks even more amazing at night, which you can see at the beginning of the post. That ends the fully packed day in London, and I went back to the hostel to rest. 

23 June 2018, London > Sheffield, Partly Cloudy

After the free bad breakfast, the first stop of the day was Leadenhall market. It was quite a cool old Victorian style market. I went to the door where Hagrid took Harry into Diagon Alley. Next was Millenium bridge, the bridge that got destroyed by the deatheaters in the books. It was actually a very beautiful bridge.

Only pedestrians were allowed on the bridge, no vehicles. In front of the bridge was the St. Paul's Cathedral. I only took a few pictures of the cathedral from the outside since I needed a ticket to enter. I moved on to get a day picture of London bridge and Celtic court. I then had some stir fried noodles for lunch, and it was pretty good, though it was quite little. Next, I went to the British Museum. This place should really be renamed as the World Museum. Their collection is huge, and it is global! I spent quite some time there walking around and there were always new corners to check out and new exhibits to see at every turn because this place was just too big. I got tired and decided to leave after 2 hours. I then walked to King's Cross station to check out platform 9 and 3/4. It was a little underwhelming because it was unlike in the movies. It was between boarding platforms 8 and 9, to be precise, and does not require you to buy a ticket. You can borrow the house scarfs to take a photo, though the queue is usually very long. I ate at the nearby McDonalds' quickly before taking the train back to Sheffield, thus ending my own solo United Kingdom exploration trips. The next trip will be with my dearie, so it is definitely going to be better.