Day 3: Churches, Buses, and 17 Girl Guides.

Gah, I'm gonna start this one off by saying or rather, admitting that I don't have the time or will to continue this day to day. Because of this, I'm gonna sum up the most interesting parts of the trip in the next few posts. This is also due to the fact that I have some stuff built up, not related to the trip, that I want to post up.

Anyways, day 3 is one of the highlights of the trip so... here, we, go.

Day 3 was a day that we had booked a day trip of London, where this tour company would bring us around the nicest places for the day on a bus and leave us at the London Eye for more than half the day.

So, started the day off by getting into the bus at Holiday Inn, which was just down the road. This bus took us to a bus terminal someplace. From there we would board the real bus which would take us around. Imagine my surprise, and maybe delight at learning that, when we reached there, we would be sharing the tour and bus with not 1, not 2, but 17 Canadian Girl Guides!! If any of you are reading this blog, then no, I was not looking or staring or thinking about any of you through-out the tour.

Well, in the first place they were about 15 so that would be kinda wrong for me. But the way they talk sounds just like an episode of The O.C., One Tree Hill and what have you. School girls bitching about everything. They would be on tour to London, Paris and finally Switzerland. Huh, I bet our Malaysian equivalent have only been as far as Taman Negara.

So enough about them, the tour was really interesting. Well interesting to me anyway, churches and historical sites are not really everyone's cup of tea. We had a really charming tour guide, older guy but witty and very knowledgeable. Visited various churches from the outside, but the best one was St. Paul's. I can't describe this place in words or pictures because it wouldn't do it justice, and no cameras allowed inside anyway. When you walk into the place, you are just overwhelmed by the sheer size and intricate design on the arches and walls.

According to the guide, they built it initally to instill, fear or rather awe, into church-goers to make them god-fearing people. The queen though, if I'm not mistaken, ordered in sculptures and beautiful window-paintings etc to transform the church. So people would be more god-loving and stuff, rather than fearing. The place is MASSIVE, you look up and you could just sit there and look up into the dome for hours just for your brain to comprehend how huge this place is and how long ago it was built.

Soon after, we had lunch and then headed around, but another highlight was going into the Tower of London or something like that, I hope it's right. Well it's actually a few towers, but it's become a museum of sorts now. We got in to see their torture chambers, house-arrest rooms and, wait for it, the crown jewels. It was pretty cool, standing inside a vault-like place looking at various unnecessary diamond-filled encrusted fully gold sticks and hats. No disrespect meant of course.

It began to drizzle slightly now but we went on a cruise of the River Thames, seeing the London bridge amongst many other bridges. Interesting stuff. The tour finally concluded with us going on the London Eye which is so bloody huge, it takes about 30 mins just to go one round. It's a massively oversized ferris-wheel btw. The view from above is breath-taking though. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, that we visited the Buckingham Palace, didn't go in of course but yea, we just went there.

Saying a silent goodbye in my head to the Canadians, day 3 was over. Headed back, in preparation for our Paris tour, which would begin the next morning.

Sometimes in Life,
The Journey is more important than the End.