Planes, Tubes, and Piccadilly Circus

At last! We are finally here in the beautiful and historical city of London! This was my first time traveling to another country and surprisingly, my flight experience was better than I had anticipated. I slept most of the way from Dallas to London. I now have a crick in my neck despite my best efforts to bring a neck pillow.

After our flight, we took a coach to the Royal National Hotel, where we will be staying for the next few of weeks. The rooms are quite nice with a pleasant view of the city streets. I decided to freshen up and rest a bit before our first excursion out into the city.

At 6:00, our group met in the hotel lobby so that we could all go together to learn the Tube System. We are provided with something known as Oyster cards that allow us access to this type of transit all throughout London. We took the Tube to the Piccadilly Circus where we roamed around looking at all the unique shops and restaurants. Some are not quite as unique as one may expect, for Americans are sure to find the familiar chain restaurants and stores that they know and love from back home. I found myself quite shocked to see that London had a Slim Chickens and Pizza Hut. What I found most interesting was how all of these modern restaurants and storefronts are in old historic buildings that have been around for centuries. One can feel the heavy history of London in their soul as they stroll the cobblestone streets. As I walked along with the group, I enjoyed looking at all the flowery windows of shops and flats. The architecture is so detailed in a way that truly gives the atmosphere deep character.

One of my favorite places that we visited was China Town which is right next to Picadilly Circus. I loved looking up and seeing all the beautiful red lanterns hanging over me as I walked. There were more Chinese restaurants than there were people in the streets. Our group had a difficult time deciding where to eat because of this and also because our dinner schedule was a bit thrown off track due to the drastic time change. Many of us weren’t heavily hungry so we decided to go inside a China Town Bakery and try Green Tea Ice Cream and Pork Pastries. The Green Tea Ice Cream was so tasty. The texture was very smooth and the flavor had a matcha, earthy taste to it that I loved. The ice cream came in a cute waffle cone shaped like a fish. I can’t wait to try more foods as we continue this trip.

After having explored all of Piccadilly Circus, we decided to walk back to our hotel. It was so enthralling to walk back and see all of the beautiful buildings. I am so excited to see all that is in store for us during the next couple of weeks. So far, we are off to an amazing start! I cannot wait for what tomorrow’s adventure brings!