Day 10: 19 October 2009, Monday
We were in London again, having spent less than 24 hours here on Day 1 before leaving for Paris, Coventry, Manchester, Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon before circling back. We had the next five full days here so there was plenty of time to explore all of London’s sights. For today, we focused on the areas around the River Thames.
At about 9:30am, we first made our way to the Tower of London. This historic castle had various uses in its lifetime, having served as a royal palace, fortress, prison and even an execution ground. Today, the UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to a collection of 23,578 gemstones and the precious Crown Jewels, the most powerful symbols of the British Monarchy. The Crown Jewels are still regularly used by The Queen for important national ceremonies and they are watched closely by armed guards 24/7.
The Tower of London felt quite out of place as the medieval castle complex was located right in the middle of bustling London city. Not far away was the futuristic, bullet-shaped “Gherkin”, and across the Thames were modern office buildings with sleek glass windows. The Shard, a 72-storey skyscraper, was still being built at the time of my visit but it would soon dominate the skyline in this area. We didn’t pay to enter the Tower of London so we snapped a few shots from the outside before moving on.
Right beside Tower of London is another of London’s most iconic sights – Tower Bridge. This bridge is often confused with London Bridge, perhaps because of a childhood song/game that people of my generation used to play when we were kids. Two people would face each other and hold hands to form a ‘bridge’ while singing: “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.” While the song is being sung, the other kids would form a continuous line and pass under the ‘bridge’. When the song ends, the ‘London Bridge’ would fall (the two people would drop their hands) and the poor kid being caught under the ‘bridge’ would have to do a forfeit. I’m not sure about the origins of this song/game, but it’s not hard to see how it could have been inspired by the design of Tower Bridge, with its two 65m-tall towers connected at the upper level by two horizontal walkways.
Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge. The central pair of bascules can be opened to allow ships to pass through. The bridge lifts about 800 times a year but I have never managed to catch the Bridge Lift in action before. I’m sure it’ll be quite a spectacle. You can check the schedule here.
We walked across Tower Bridge and marvelled at its two impressive neo-Gothic towers up close. Looking at my photo below of the undersides of the two horizontal walkways, you will notice that they are perfectly solid and opaque. The Glass Floor that exists today was only added five years after this photo was taken, in 2014. When I visited London again in 2019, I paid to go up the towers and walked across the Glass Floor. It was rather gimmicky, I must say. You can read about my 2019 visit here.
After crossing Tower Bridge, we reached the south bank of River Thames. The most striking building on this side of the river is the City Hall, a bulbous and asymmetrical glass structure designed by the acclaimed architect Norman Foster. FYI, he also designed our Expo MRT station, Supreme Court building, South Beach commercial and residential project and most recently, the floating Apple Store at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
As we walked along the river bank, we saw the HMS Belfast, a World War II Royal Navy warship permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames. Not long after, we caught sight of the real London Bridge. The current bridge opened in 1973 and it replaced a 19th century stone-arched bridge. Where Tower Bridge is distinctive and iconic, London Bridge is remarkably unremarkable. It is purely functional with no architectural merit, a pity for a namesake bridge.
Walking further along, we reached Tate Modern and went in for a look because admission was free, like most other museums in London (how wonderful!). Tate Modern is one of the world’s most visited art museums and it houses the UK’s national collection of international modern and contemporary art. The museum opened in 2000 and it occupies the former Bankside Power Station building, which stopped operations in 1981. The brick-clad exterior has been retained, along with its impressive 99m-tall central chimney. It is the perfect home for a contemporary art museum. When we entered, I was struck by how cavernous the main Turbine Hall was. It didn’t feel like an art gallery at all.
As we were not art aficionados, we breezed through a few of the galleries and the special Pop Life exhibition, which contained works by leading visual artists Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and more. Photography was not allowed but I managed to sneak a shot of Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper and Gun paintings.
Following our short visit to Tate Modern, we crossed the Millennium Bridge back to the north bank of River Thames. As its name suggests, the pedestrian bridge was opened in 2000 to mark the beginning of a new millennium. However, the Millennium Bridge didn’t have an auspicious start as it was found to be excessively wobbly and had to be shut down just two days later. The bridge underwent almost two years of modifications and repairs before it reopened. When we walked across the bridge, we did feel some slight swaying but it wasn’t that bad.
We then slowly made our way over to Leicester Square, where we joined the queue at the TKTS booth to buy reduced-priced tickets for Les Misérables. We managed to get tickets for the 7:30pm show. The ticket was originally priced at £59 but the sale price at TKTS was £31, plus a booking fee of £3, so the final ticket price was £34 (S$80).
London’s West End and New York’s Broadway are undisputedly two of the world’s capitals for theatre and musicals, so I made it my priority to watch as many shows as I could during this trip. While many of these productions do call upon Singapore quite regularly, they are often very pricey and feature a different travelling cast. Hence, it felt the most authentic to watch them in their home ground. With our tickets secured and mission accomplished, we continued to explore the area around Leicester Square.
We soon reached Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. After taking the requisite photos with the great bronze lions at the base of Nelson’s Column, we moved on along Whitehall, which is the centre of the UK Government. Here, we caught a glimpse of the Horse Guards on duty as well as 10 Downing Street, the official residence and office of the British Prime Minister. Being a historically important area, this is also where several monuments can be found, including the Cenotaph and Monument to the Women of World War II. I noticed that the Cenotaph in Singapore is very similar to the one here in London, except that ours says “Our Glorious Dead” instead of “The Glorious Dead”.
Next, we reached the Palace of Westminster, the home of UK’s Parliament. The first thing that caught our eye was the iconic Clock Tower (renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012), which houses the famous Big Ben. Contrary to popular belief, Big Ben is not the name of the tower but the nickname of the great bell, the largest of the five bells in the tower. Four quarter bells chime at 15, 30 and 45 minutes past the hour and just before Big Ben tolls on the hour. The tune sounds very familiar to Singaporeans because the clock tower at our Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall in Singapore plays the same Westminster Chimes, a nod to our colonial roots.
It was awesome to see the 96m-tall neo-Gothic tower up close. As we walked along Westminster Bridge, we had a view of the entire Palace of Westminster building by the River Thames. I remember seeing my parents’ photos of their London trip from decades ago and they had taken photos at this exact spot. These images were stuck in my head ever since, so it was quite mind-blowing to see them in real life.
Diagonally across the river from the Palace of Westminster is the London Eye, once the world’s tallest ferris wheel at 135m. It has since been superseded by other taller observation wheels, including the Singapore Flyer, which stands at 165m.
With our sightseeing done for the day, we walked back to Leicester Square to visit Chinatown (nothing wrong with Chinese people visiting Chinatown overseas, right?), Shaftesbury Avenue (the heart of London’s West End theatre district) and Piccadilly Circus. We then ventured to the Covent Garden area and had traditional fish & chips at the Rock and Sole Plaice, London’s oldest fish & chip restaurant.
After dinner, it was time to catch Les Misérables at the Queen’s Theatre (now known as Sondheim Theatre). Despite our tickets being discounted, our seats were not too bad. The view was quite good and we weren’t too far away from the stage. I was actually a little surprised at how cosy the theatre was. This is probably because unlike travelling productions, which stop by each city only for a limited period of time, this is the home base and the show runs almost every day, so the capacity is correspondingly smaller.
At 7:30pm, the lights went out and the curtains were drawn apart to reveal the stage. I was very much looking forward to it as I loved the songs from Les Misérables, having performed the tunes during my school band days. However, midway through the show, my eyelids felt heavy and I fell asleep. I think it was due to a combination of stuffiness inside the theatre (there seemed to be no or minimal air-conditioning) and fatigue after a day of walking. Nevertheless, it was still a good experience. With that, it was the end of a long but fulfilling day in London. Much more to come over the next few days!
