3rd - 5th Oct Back to London

UK has turned rather cold after our 2 weeks in Italy. We followed Bel's friend, SM back to her place at Greenwich. She is renting a one bedroom apartment and it's quite a lovely area. We set down our stuff and went out for dinner at a Hong Kong style restaurant for Chinese food. It's still quite packed with customers although it's already past dinner time. We ordered 3-4 dishes and soon dinner is served. After all the pasta and pizza in Italy, we very much enjoyed the feast. Back to her house, she is very kind to let us have her bedroom while she slept in the living room, making us a little 'pai seh'.

Next morning, we stroll along the riverside to the O2 Millenium where we then take the train to Canary Wharf for a short while before going to the Greenwich Royal Observatory. SM told us that before the fall of Lehman Brothers, Canary Wharf is always very crowded with people enjoying Saturday brunch or having coffee. Last week when the news break, the area was quite chaotic seeing employees grabbing whatever they can from the stores with their vouchers. Now all the cafe and restaurants do not have a single customers. It's such a huge difference. Later we took a train to the Greenwich Royal Observatory. I had always wanted to come here but somehow I had this wrong impression that it is very far away from London, hence I didn't try to visit until now. From the station, we went past a market square before arriving at the Greenwich Park. It's quite a lovely day, some teenagers were playing football on the field. It is a huge park and we followed a trail up to the Royal Observatory. The Greenwich Royal Observatory was founded by order of King Charles II to study astronomy and to fix longitude. Here, you can see the Prime Meridien line and also you can tune/set your clock to the GMT clock. The view from up the hill is pretty good. The tree leaves has changed colors signifying autumn. Later, SM went off to join her friend's gathering while me and Bel went to London for a walk.









Sunday, it was rainy and cold with strong winds. Bel and I decided to just stay at home instead and relax. We watched some TV and cook lunch. Later in the afternoon, Bel and I bid farewell to SM and took a train back to London, where I changed to another train going back to my cousins, while Bel head on to the airport, putting an end of our Italy trip.