Day 7 – 8 July 2019, Monday

It’s the day of our departure but we managed to squeeze in one last activity before our afternoon flight home today. For the morning, we booked a 10am guided tour of the Royal Albert Hall (RAH). I’ve always wanted to watch a performance at the RAH but never got the chance to do so, the next best thing would be to go on a tour of the famed concert venue. The tour takes about an hour and it costs £13.50 (S$23.50). Click here for more details.

We left our hostel bright and early and took the Tube to South Kensington station. From there, we walked along Exhibition Road and soon reached RAH at 8:45am. As it was still early, we decided to cross over to Kensington Gardens for a stroll.

The first thing we encountered was the Albert Memorial, located directly across the road from RAH. It was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband Prince Albert, who passed away in 1861 at the age of 42. The memorial is a 54m tall pavilion designed in the Gothic Revival style. The canopy is made up of elaborately carved spires and decorative mosaic artworks. The central tower bears gilded statues of the moral and Christian values, angels raising their arms heavenwards and it is topped by a golden cross.

Under the canopy is a seated figure of Prince Albert. The statue is made of bronze and gilded with gold. The base of the memorial is surrounded by the Frieze of Parnassus, where Mount Parnusses is the favourite resting place for the Greek muses. The frieze depicts 169 characters including musicians, poets, painters, sculptors and architects. The Albert Memorial is a beautiful monument and a labour of love. No wonder it took 10 years to construct.

We then walked to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain located beside the Serpentine lake. The fountain was opened in 2004 to remember the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who was killed in a horrific car crash on 31 August 1997 while being chased by the paparazzi. Even in death, she remains one of the most beloved members of the British royal family ever.

When we say “fountain”, we usually think of a jet of water that shoots into the air but the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain is not one such fountain. It is an oval stream bed where water flows gently over a series of ridges and steps before ending in a calm pool at the bottom. It was designed in such a way as to encourage people to sit at the edge of the Memorial and refresh their feet. It aims to reflect the late Princess Diana’s life, her openness and her inclusive personality. As the fountain only opens at 10am, we were not able to enter to get a closer look at it or dip our feet in the water.

They couldn’t have chosen a better spot for the Memorial. It was surrounded by trees and beautiful flowers, and the calm waters of the Serpentine lake were a magnet for birds and swans. We even spotted a man swimming in the Serpentine. An elegant bronze sculpture of an ibis bird, named Serenity, stands guard at this spot, conveying quiet emotion that relates both to nature and the human spirit. It’s really a place full of serenity.

We then returned to RAH for our 10am tour. Including us, there were about 15 guests in all, with a mix of Brazilians, Italians, Americans and even locals. Our guide was a gentleman named Tony, who spoke impeccable Queen’s English, as you would expect from a guide at a venue like the RAH.

The first thing we saw was a mural at the visitor centre called “Appearing at the Royal Albert Hall”. The mural was created by Sir Peter Blake, who designed one of the most iconic album covers of all time – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. This mural features more than 400 stars who had performed at RAH, and it was commissioned to celebrate the Hall’s unrivalled history of performance. I was glad to spot Ms Jackson among the famous faces, which include other musical greats like ABBA, Sir Elton John and Adele, and even sporting legends like Muhammad Ali.

As Tony brought us through the bowels of the Hall, we saw many photographs of notable events that had taken place here. One of it was on 13 October 1991, when the Hall hosted the first official sumo tournament ever held outside of Japan. This shows that the RAH is not only used for musical performances but also for sporting events like boxing and sumo wrestling. To prepare for the inaugural sumo tournament, the Hall’s lavatories had to be weight-tested, chairs reinforced and extra-large showers fitted for the 40 competing wrestlers.

Tony then led us to the Royal Box at the Grand Tier, where members of the royal family sit and watch performances. There are 20 seats at the Royal Box and these seats are owned by the Queen. Tony explained that after Prince Albert died, Queen Victoria built the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall to commemorate him.

The Memorial was very expensive because of all the gold that was used, and the money that was meant for RAH was channeled to build the Memorial. Therefore, to raise money for the construction of RAH, they sold seats. Each seat costs £100 with an ownership of 999 years. Queen Victoria bought 20 seats in 1871 and that is why the Royal Box has 20 seats today. Out of the 5,267 seats in the RAH in total, they managed to sell 1,300 seats to raise the required sum.

We sat in the seats and became Royals for a brief moment. From here, we had a marvellous view of the stage area and the entire Hall. They really were the best seats in the house, fit for a Queen no less. Tony said that a family just sold one box for £3 million last year. That’s a very tidy profit for a £2,000 investment!

Tony also explained that the Hall was not in its usual pristine self at the moment because they were in the midst of setting up for an awards show with a dinner banquet. The floor was being covered with wooden panels and platforms were being added. Otherwise, the floor usually has 1,500 seats.

After that, we visited the resting room used by the royals before the performance and during the intermissions. This is where they have their refreshments. Tony said that the red chairs in this room are from Buckingham Palace itself. We also saw Box 38, which is owned by Earl Spencer, brother of Princess Diana.

Next, we went further up to the Rausing Circle level and visited the Elgar Room, which hosts smaller events like jazz ensembles. The room is named after the British composer Edward Elgar, whose works include the famous Pomp and Circumstance marches. Here’s a clip of this very British tune performed at the RAH during the BBC Proms 2014:

After that, we went to the topmost level called the Gallery. There are no seats here and it is open for pop and rock concerts only. Due to safety regulations, only 240 standing persons are allowed, even though there is space for much more. Tony said that for events such as the BBC Proms, a ticket for the Gallery costs only £6. I wouldn’t mind standing here to watch a concert. The view is actually very good!

From the Gallery, we had a spectacular view of the entire Hall. We could see the disc-like objects hanging from the ceiling, which are sound reflectors to enhance the acoustics of the Hall. Apparently, they had issues with the sound for a long time until they found the solution with these discs.

The RAH is definitely one of the most beautiful concert halls in the world. Adele’s Live at the Royal Albert Hall concert DVD/Blu-Ray was filmed here and it just made me want to watch a concert here some day in the future. Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to do so.

The tour ended at about 11:05am and we hurriedly made our way back to our hostel to retrieve our luggage before making our way to the airport. We arrived at London Heathrow Terminal 2 at about 1:30pm and proceeded to the VAT Refunds counter. I didn’t do much shopping so I didn’t have much VAT to claim but I joined the queue since YS was claiming anyway.

The queue was agonisingly slow and it took us an hour before we got served. For my purchase of £67.00, the receipt showed that the VAT amount is £11.17 (16.67%). There was a service fee of £6.17 imposed by Global Blue so my refund amount was only £5.00. However, I found out that there was still an additional nett commission fee of £2.20 imposed by the Travelex counter here at the airport. So my final VAT refund amount was only £2.80, or 4.18% of my original amount spent! In other words, I only got back 25% of the VAT charged to me (£2.80 out of £11.17).

This whole VAT refund sounds like a scam to me. If YS were not queuing for his refund, I would not have bothered to spend one hour just to get back £2.80. A total waste of time. Perhaps that’s their true motive…to make it not worthwhile to get your refund so you’ll simply forgo it.

Luckily, we still managed to check in for our flight in good time. We boarded our Lufthansa flight LH2477 and departed London at 4:25pm. At 7:12pm, we touched down at Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss airport. Germany is one hour ahead of England. During the transit, we had a meal at a German restaurant and some German beer.

When it was about time to board our next flight, we heard an announcement saying that our Lufthansa flight LH790 from Munich to Singapore had been overbooked. The flight was scheduled to depart Munich at 9:55pm and arrive Singapore at 4:05pm tomorrow. The airline staff then asked for volunteers to take the next flight out.

This was not my first time encountering such a situation. In 2013, I was in Tokyo and my Delta Airlines flight back to Singapore was overbooked as well. I volunteered to take the next flight and the airline compensated me with a future flight redemption voucher (I cannot remember the amount), one night’s hotel stay and meal vouchers. It was a pretty good deal and I told YS that we should go for it this time as well.

We went up to the counter to enquire about the compensation package. The staff told us that they would compensate us €600 each, with the amount to be credited to a credit card of our choice. For the flight option, he initially told us that it could be one of three possible scenarios: take the next Lufthansa flight to Hong Kong tonight (i.e. an additional transit stop in Hong Kong); the next Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore; or the same Lufthansa flight to Singapore tomorrow night. We considered the options carefully because YS needed to go back to work on Wednesday whereas I was more flexible with my time.

After a short while, the staff said that it would be possible to put both of us on the next Lufthansa flight to Hong Kong (option 1), which would be departing Munich less than an hour later than our original flight. For the connecting flight from Hong Kong to Singapore, it would be on Singapore Airlines (woohoo!). We would still be able to arrive Singapore tomorrow at about 10pm, about six hours later than our original flight. It was great because YS could still go back to work on Wednesday. With that, we quickly confirmed the plan and the staff issued us our new boarding passes and processed the €600 refund.

We then rushed to the new departure gate, which was located in the other terminal building and we had to take the airport shuttle train to get there. We arrived just in time to board our Lufthansa flight LH730. What a mad rush!

Day 8 – 9 July 2019, Tuesday

We touched down at Hong Kong International Airport at 3:09pm local time. We had more than three hours’ transit so we took our time to have a meal at a cha can ting. I felt like it’s been sit, eat, sleep and repeat over the past day or so!

With the bonus detour to Hong Kong, we also took the opportunity to buy some cookies from the famous Kee Wah Bakery. At 6:50pm, we boarded our Singapore Airlines flight SQ865, which was an A380 aircraft (shiok!). We landed safely at Changi Airport at 10pm. It was certainly an unexpected and tiring (but good) end to a fulfilling trip.

The overbooked Lufthansa flight was great for us because the €600 compensation worked out to S$941.62, which was more than what our original two-way Lufthansa flight costs (S$898.60). So, we practically flew to London for free. Here’s my advice for those who face overbooked flights in future: GRAB IT! Of course, it depends on whether your schedule permits, but generally, it is a good deal. With that, it’s the end of our Wimbledon 2019 adventure!