Day 2 – 3 July 2019, Wednesday

It’s strange that whenever I am overseas, I will always wake up early no matter how tired I am. Today was no exception. We woke up at about 7:30am, had a quick breakfast and were out of our hostel by 8:30am. The 7-hour time difference and jetlag had magically disappeared overnight. The weather was a cool 16 degrees Celsius and it was going to be another sunny day.

We walked towards Regent Street and Oxford Street, two of the main shopping streets in London. As it was still early, most of the shops were not open yet. However, it was a weekday so the street was still relatively busy with people making their way to work.

We soon encountered a quaint little church called All Souls Langham Place, but sadly it wasn’t open so we couldn’t enter to take a look. Directly opposite it is the BBC Broadcasting House, the headquarters of BBC, which is the world’s oldest national broadcasting organisation. The beautiful Art Deco style main building and extension building with the glass façade are home to BBC Radio and BBC World News channels.

Not far away is the University of Westminster at Regent Street. In Singapore, we talk about the Singapore Management University (SMU) being a university in the city (or Univer-city as I like to call it) and how cool it is, but the concept is really not new. I love how many of the buildings along Regent Street are designed in a similar, elegant style, giving it a uniform look.

As we walked along Oxford Street towards Bond Street Underground station, I spotted the familiar logo of His Master’s Voice, or HMV. The huge logo remains intact above the entrance but the main doors have been shuttered for good. Homeless men have set up their sleeping bags in front of the store, grateful for a prime location to perhaps gain some coins from the passing crowd.

Once a music industry behemoth, HMV collapsed into administration after Christmas last year but a Canadian music entrepreneur named Doug Putnam bought over HMV in February 2019. He managed to save 100 stores but had to let 27 stores go, including this flagship Oxford Street store, which was the first ever HMV store that opened in 1921.

I remember visiting this store during my past visits and I spent a good deal of time and money here. It’s really sad to see an institution like HMV closing down, but I guess there is really no choice. Me alone can only buy so many CDs and vinyl albums.

We made a U-turn at Marble Arch and walked back towards Tottenham Court Road station and proceeded to our next destination, the British Museum (click here). I had never visited the museum before so I was keen to check it out this time.

The British Museum was founded in 1753 and it is the first national public museum in the world. It is dedicated to human history, art and culture and it has a permanent collection of a whopping 8 million items. Its tagline is “a museum of the world, for the world”. Indeed, the museum has galleries dedicated to artefacts from Africa, the Americas, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Obviously, one day is not enough to savour all its goodness so what we did was just to get a taste of what it had to offer. But if you have more time, you can go back again and again, because entry is free. How wonderful!

The main entrance to the British Museum is via Great Russell Street.  When we arrived at 10:40am, there was a queue to enter but it moved rapidly. The museum opens at 10am daily and there were already plenty of early birds ahead of us. After going through an airport style security check, we came face to face with the imposing South entrance building. The tall Ionic columns supporting the huge pediment are reminiscent of classical Greek architecture and they were designed to reflect the wondrous objects housed inside.

Immediately after passing through the South entrance, we were standing inside the Great Court. There is no way you’ll miss the spectacular, Norman Foster-designed glass roof with the Reading Room in the middle. It was a sight to behold indeed, though it felt a little like we were inside our Jewel at Changi Airport.

When the roof was completed in 2000, it transformed the museum’s inner courtyard into the largest covered public square in Europe. The roof was constructed out of 3,312 glass panes, no two of which are the same. It was just amazing how the glass roof breathed new life into the museum and bridged the gap between old and new architecture, in one bold masterstroke.

After gaping at the roof for a long while, it was time to explore the galleries. We headed to the upper floors first to see the Ancient Egypt galleries. One of the most fascinating exhibits was the mummies in the Egyptian death and afterlife gallery. The mummy casings date back to thousands of years ago and yet they are intricately decorated and still so well preserved. It was humbling to see these artefacts and ponder about the mystery behind each mummy.

One of the museum’s most prized artefacts is the Rosetta Stone, located in Room 4 on the ground floor. The stone was created in 196 BC and it was acquired by the museum in 1802. It is important because it resulted in the unlocking of Egyptian hieroglyphic script, which was a symbol based script. The Rosetta Stone carries an inscription in three different languages – hieroglyphs (top), Demotic (middle) and Greek (bottom) – recording a decree on 27 March, 196 BC.

The stone was discovered in 1799 by a French soldier near the town of Rashid (its Arabic name), otherwise also known as Rosetta (its western name), and hence, its name, the Rosetta Stone. The stone is the only surviving fragment of a larger stone slab (stela) and it would have been placed against a temple wall.

At the time, hieroglyph was the traditional script of Egypt monuments, Demotic was the everyday script of literate Egyptians and Greek was the language used by the government. Thus, by comparing the three different languages used to record the same decree, it allowed scholars to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphic symbols.

After visiting the British Museum, we walked to Covent Garden, where I made a mandatory stop at FOPP, the only major CD retail shop left in central London. I had visited this store once before and it was great being back again. I don’t know if there is a term called CD porn but I am definitely into it. Picking up the CD albums and caressing them, examining the artwork and tracklists, it was pure bliss. Ok, I am exaggerating slightly but you get the point. I controlled my urges and ended up buying only two albums, which was a remarkable act of self-restraint.

For lunch, we decided to try another American fast food chain called Five Guys, since we already had Shake Shack yesterday. I know, I know…we’re in London but all we’re eating is American fast food. Anyway, the unique proposition of Five Guys is that you can customise your burger by choosing your favourite toppings.

I ordered a bacon burger and had it stuffed with mushroom, grilled onion, tomato, lettuce and mustard sauce. The burger cost £9.95 (S$17.30) and a serving of Cajun fries cost £4.75, and it came up to £14.70 (S$25.60) after tax. Five Guys will be opening its first store in Singapore at Plaza Singapura between October and December this year, and it will be interesting to see how they price their food. For the record, the Five Guys burger is bigger but I think Shake Shack tastes better.

After lunch, we walked to the nearby Covent Garden Market, which was established in 1845 and was once a fruit and vegetable market. Today, it is an upscale shopping area with stalls that still sell locally produced fruits and vegetables, but there are also many fresh food stalls selling meats and cheeses, branded boutique shops and fine restaurants. Nearby, there is a flea market housed in Jubilee Market Hall, which is worth a stroll through.

Our next stop was an unscheduled one and it arose because we discovered that our old £5 and £10 notes were no longer legal tender. We had some leftover currency from our previous trips and when we tried using them this time, the staff informed us that they were no longer accepted. The ONLY place to exchange the old notes for new ones was at the Bank of England. Thus, we specially made a trip there as we felt we shouldn’t let the £40 go to waste.

After doing a Google search, I just found out that the £5 note was withdrawn in May 2017 and the £10 note was withdrawn in March 2018. And according to this BBC article dated 27 August 2019 (click here), more than £1.5 billion worth of outdated £5 and £10 notes have not been returned yet. So evidently, we were not the only ones. I guess a substantial portion of that £1.5 billion amount are currently in the hands of tourists who may not be aware, or it may simply be too much of a hassle to make a trip to the Bank of England to exchange them.

Anyway, the Bank of England is located at Threadneedle Street, above Bank station. There is a strict security check to enter the bank but the subsequent exchange process is fuss free, so don’t let that deter you. There is no service fee for exchanging the notes, and there is no expiry on the period in which the notes can be exchanged. If you’re still holding on to some of the old notes, you may wish to consider exchanging them for the new polymer notes during your next trip to London.

We also discovered that there is a small museum located within the Bank of England building (click here), so we popped by for a quick look as entry is free. After another round of security checks, we were in. There were surprisingly quite a number of people visiting the museum.

The museum has exhibits showcasing the history of the Bank of England, its role as the central bank of the United Kingdom, a banknote gallery and more. It also sheds light on why there are 400,000 gold bars in the Bank of England’s underground vaults. That’s a real-life Gringotts right here in London! (By the way, Gringotts Wizarding Bank is a fictional bank in the Harry Potter universe) To be honest, the museum wasn’t very interesting so we left after a short while.

From the Bank of England, we walked past Monument station, where we saw the Monument to the Great Fire of London (click here). It is a huge Doric column standing about 61.5m tall and it is the tallest isolated stone column in the world. There is a viewing platform at the top of the Monument, where you can get a panoramic view of the city. Admission to the viewing platform costs £4.50.

The Monument was built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London and to celebrate the rebuilding of the City of London. The Great Fire burned for five days from 2 to 6 September 1666 and destroyed thousands of houses and buildings. The height of the column, 202 feet (approx. 61.5m), is the exact distance between the Monument and the site in Pudding Lane where the fire began. The gilded urn at the top of the column symbolises the Great Fire.

We continued walking past the Monument and soon crossed London Bridge to get to the other side of River Thames. We had a nice view of The Shard as we crossed the bridge. Standing at 309.6m tall, The Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom.

We then went to Borough Market (click here), which was just around the corner. Borough Market is one of London’s oldest (over 1,000 years old!) and most popular markets, and rightly so. There are over 100 stalls selling all kinds of cooked food, from paella to mushrooms on toast to freshly shucked oysters to cheeses and coffee. Everywhere we turned, there was always something that smelled so good it made our mouths water. We kinda regretted having Five Guys for lunch earlier as we were simply too full to have anything else. So the best advice is…come with an empty stomach!

From Borough Market, we walked along the bank of River Thames and soon reached Tower Bridge (click here), London’s most recognisable landmark. To me, no visit to London is complete without seeing Tower Bridge. This time, I decided to go one step further – to go up Tower Bridge.

We bought our tickets from the Shop on the south bank. It costs £9.80 (S$17) for adults, and there is a £1 discount if you book your ticket 24 hours in advance online. I just discovered that there is also a joint ticket for Tower Bridge Exhibition and the Monument going for £12.00, so if you’re interested to visit both attractions, this would be a good deal. However, we didn’t know about this option or we may have considered going up the Monument as well.

The Tower Bridge ticket includes a visit to the Engine Room, which is located in the same premises as the shop. We started our visit in the Engine Room, where we saw the old steam engine that used to power and raise the bridge. When Tower Bridge first opened in 1894, 80 people were employed to maintain and open the bridge. They used hand-operated levers to open the steam-powered bridge. In 1976, they switched to electricity and today, only 12 people are needed to maintain and open the bridge, as the bridge opens on the push of a joystick. How convenient!

After the brief visit to the Engine Room, we walked across the bridge and proceeded to the North Tower to take the elevator up. At the top of the tower, there are two walkways, the east and west walkways. Both are identical but they offer different views of the River Thames.

The so-called highlight of the walkways was the Glass Floor, an 11m by 1.8m section of glass panels that allow you to be “suspended” 42m in the air and look down to the River Thames below. The Glass Floor is a relatively new addition to the 125-year-old bridge. It opened in November 2014, no doubt to boost visitorship by creating a “wow” factor. I found the experience rather gimmicky.

It wasn’t scary to me because the entire walkway was enclosed, so it felt like I was walking on an ordinary link bridge between buildings. The windows were mostly shut so there was no breeze coming through. Overall, I enjoyed the views from Tower Bridge more than the experience of walking on the Glass Floor.

After our Tower Bridge visit, we crossed over to the other side of River Thames and walked past the Tower of London. In all my visits, I have never entered the Tower of London. Somehow, it just doesn’t strike me as a must-visit site. Maybe next time.

We then took the Tube back to Oxford Circus, where we popped by Marks & Spencer to grab a butter basted whole chicken (£6.50) and spaghetti & meatballs (£2.50) for dinner. By the time we returned to our hostel, it was about 5:50pm.

At about 7pm, we had our M&S dinner in the hostel. We then took a short rest and got ready to head out again. It would be a long and exciting night ahead because we were going to queue for tickets for tomorrow’s Wimbledon matches. More on that in the next post!