London, Baby! – II
After touring in the Westlands and West-Midlands of England, I once again was in London. This time I finally fulfilled my wish to go to Notting Hill.
Undeniably, I did decide to go there merely because of the movie Notting Hill. Kaho had already warned me that there is nothing worth going, but the idea had already entered my mind too long ago I just couldn’t abandon it. I immediately looked for Portobello Street when I got out of the tube station. It has a lot of small shops, which sold clothes, accessories, decoration and even fresh produces. More, it somehow reminds me very much about Brunswick Street in Fitzroy.
Without meeting Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts (ha!) I headed to Barbican which Yat recommended however, Since I haven’t done any research beforehand, I of course ran into the day which here’s pretty much nothing on there. I grabbed a bit at the cafe and had a quick look around the area: I guess it’s like a new town to London. It has a lo of high-rise residential buildings in the area (by European standard) and the density actually reminds me of Shatin without those hideous big mall in the centre. But overall, I really appreciate that the art and cultural centre is the heart of Barbican instead of a shopping mall like everywhere in HK. So tell me, how is it possible that HK is not materialistic and not a cultural desert?
Seeing that Postman Park isn’t actually far away, I walked south and passed the Museum of London. About 15 minutes later, I then arrived the Postman Park which I’ve looked for since 4 June! It’ not a big park. It’s actually just a tiny green passage that sits between two buildings where many souls of heroes who sacrificed their lives for the others rest. It’s also where Closer was filmed. It’s also where Natalie Portman’s character borrowed the name of Alice Ayres and lied to Jude Law’s character. Some kids were running around with supervision when I arrived there. There’s also a girl reading under the shadow of trees. The atmosphere of the place is just very peaceful and quiet. If I weren’t in a hurry to book my reservation for the train from Paris to Milan, I could have spent hours resting there.
I then went to St Pancras to see if I could make my reservation there since it’s the only international terminal in the whole of UK! But I was then told that the only one place in UK that you can book rail tickets for Europe in UK is the office of Rail Europe on Regent Street. Anyway that’s not the most shocking part YET, the most shocking part is that I was told all the seats reserved for pass holders for that train were already sold out. Actually, he couldn’t find the original train that I wanted to take but all the trains of that day from Paris to Milan were sold out anyway, UNLESS I was willing to pay full price, which FYI is 85 pounds! I almost wanted to say it to his face ‘eh… What did I pay 239 euros for the pass for?!?’
Anyways, I decided to just have a walk around Piccadilly Circus just as wellI was there and then back to St Pancras earlier for my Eurostar train to Paris Garde de Nord.
The feeling of meeting up with a friend that I’ve known in Sweden after leaving Lund is so surreal. After meeting up with Theirry at the station, his cousin hen picked us up and brought us to a Vietnamese restaurant. It’s been a year since I’ve last had Pho! Gees, it’s such a crime!




