Jom Melancong ke London UK!

(All the Pictures are courtesy of Muhammad Farith)

The Parliment from Westminster Bridge

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.”

from Boswell’s Life of Johnson

Currency Rate , Expensive Accomodation, Airlines Fare, What to do?

Hey, who says you cannot afford to have a getaway to the City? Be optimistic, you can! For this entry I wanted to share some experience that I grabbed during planning, traveling and what’s the best for this trip.

How Long to Spend?
At least 3 days.

How Much?
Don’t worry. It can be optimized.

What to do?
A lot!

London Tourist Information:

Attractions?
Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, London Eye
Stadiums: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur
Piccadilly Circus
Oxford Street
Changing the Guard
Buckingham Palace
Covent Garden
The Tower of London
Kensington Palace
Bank of England Museum
Kew Palace
Kew Garden
Royal Mews
Queen’s Gallery
National Gallery
Theatre Royal Stratford (Free Comedy Theatre)
River Thames Cruises
Tate Modern
Horniman Museum
Shakespeare’s Globe Theater
Leadenhall Market
Petticoat Lane
Somerset House
Little Venice
Cartoon Museum
Pollock Toy Museum
Madame Tussauds
Sherlock Holmes Museum

Malaysian Accomodations:
1)Mara House

2)Malaysian Hall

3)Rumah En. Ahmad > www.tinggal247.blogspot.com – you will all the information you need from En Ahmad’s blog about the accomodation.

4)Tune Hotel (Coming soon)

Mosque or Islamic Center
1)North East London Mosque, White Chapel
2)MSD (Malaysian Student Department)
3)Regent’s Park Mosque
4)LSE Prayer Room (basically almost all universities have prayer room) so.. u dont have to worry that much.
5)Heathrow Terminal 3 Multifaith Prayer Room

Halal food restaurants:
1)Chicken Sizzler
2)Chicken Cottage
3)Perfect Fried Chicken (next to london bridge tube station)
basically anywhere you go in london, there will always be halal food. just check out for the halal logo, InsyaAllah    its halal for the Muslims as long as ur certain. 
4)Subway (Halal):
-along the tottenham court road
-bayswater
-edgware road

Parks:
1)London’s Royal Parks
3)Hyde Park
4)Primrose Hill (Romantic Sunset Place)
5)Battersea Park
6)Victoria Tower Garden
7)Green Park
8)Albert Memorial
9)Princess Diana Memorial Park
10)Kennington Park
11)Burgess Park
12)Holland Park
13)Vauxhall Park

Hyde Park

p/s: if you come to London, check out the park, it’s fascinating!

Markets:

Shopping:
You can use your VAT when shopping. VAT is a tax free shopping for non-europeans who are not staying in UK for studying or working. It will give you full refunds of tax added in the item. It means you’ll be shopping tax free. Some places likes Harrods do not charge you for service charge for doing it but if the shop do so it will just take it from the amount of tax. This is what shall you do:-

Shopping -> Ask for VAT form from the shop -> give your pasport to fill in the form -> In Airport, you bring the VAT form in an envelope given by the shop to the VAT Department for stamping -> put in the mailbox at the VAT Department.

Some Informations That You Need To Know Before Coming:
For non-Europeans, you need to ask for Landing Card before landing in London. It’s just a small piece of card but really important because if you do not have it, u cannot enter UK. For it, you must have the address of where you’re going to stay, telephone for you to be contacted.(THAT’s IMPORTANT too!). For the time being, Malaysians do not need to use visa but we can enter UK for 6 consecutive months without Visa.

I’ve an itinerary, for everyone!
(Muslim’s info included)

DAY 1
Touch-down at Heathrow + Check out + Luggage.
Solat in Heathrow Airport musolla.
Take tube to London Bridge (Duration: 1 Hour and 10 minutes)
Lunch in Chicken Sizzler and Walk along the River Thames for sightseeing. Tower Bridge Exhibition (£ 5)
Back to London Bridge Station. To Oxford Street and Regent Street for window shopping. You can use tube or No. 15 bus to go there.
Walk along the avenue, you will find Marble Arch.

Marble Arch

*First day it’s the best for you to catch some break after long haul flight.

p/s: All admission is for student card price

DAY 2
Manchester. I will enlighten this in the next post.
If you’re not a football fan you can go other places outside London like Bath and Stonehenge.

Me picturing on the Man Utd players and coaches bench

DAY 3
Tour to Trafalgar Square (Nelson’s Column), Westminster Abbey,London eye, Houses of Parliament,. Some people like to use Open Top Bus Tour. But if you want to have the same thing, but without a tour guide and extremely cheaper price, you can use bus No. 15. We always call it the tourism bus 

(For Muslims, Solat Jumaat at White Chapel or MSD). Next, the National Gallery is a great place to be. It sounds lame but actually, the item inside the gallery are all about the interesting histories and cultures. Plus, the admission is free! The in the evening, we go towards Hyde Park. Arrive at Hyde Park. Dinner at Subway for Subway of the Day!

Picnic at Hyde Park

Me picturing in front of The Parliment

DAY 4

Oxford. I will enlighten this in the next post.

Picturing in front Christchurch College

Harry Potter's shooting scene

DAY 5
We can call this as Stadium Day for football fan!
Take the tube to Arsenal Station using Piccadilly Line, Tour around Arsenal’s Stadium (Emirates Stadium)
Walk to Arsenal Station. Next, take the tube to Fulham Broadway Station, Tour around Chelsea Stadium (Stamford Bridge). For lunch, we had a meal at Chicken Cottage. Since the restaurant is in Holborn, we pay a visit to Cartoon Museum (£ 3) and British Museum (free and walkable from Cartoon Museum). Walk to Oxford Circus.
p/s: if you do not want to go to the stadiums, you can change it by doing others and then go for a theater!
London is famous with theaters!

DAY 6
Windsor and Legoland Windsor. I will enlighten this in the next post.

DAY 7
Breakfast (Home cook)
Princess Diana Memorial@Hyde Park – It’s situated just beside the Buckingham Palace. An eye catching park.
In the same time you can go to Changing of Guard. Check for the timetable here.
After that, we went to Covent Garden to get some lunch. Next we go to St. Paul Cathedral for sight-seeing.

DAY 8
Paris. I will enlighten this in the next post.

DAY 9
We start the day today with cultural theme. Since my place is nearby the Tower Bridge, we went to Shakespeare Globe. You can see a theater show here too. Then, we went to Tate Modern. A gallery that you should not miss when you come to London. Next, we go to The Monument first for The Monument& Tower Bridge Exhibition package. In The Monument, you can take the hundreds stairs to the top of a monument that built to remember the Great Fire of London. If you achieve to get to the top you will be rewarded with a certificate. For the Tower Bridge Exhibition, you get the chance to enter the famous Tower Bridge.

DAY 10
In the morning, we went to the famous Baker Street for Sherlock Holmes Museum (£ 6). Nearby was Toy Museum (£ 4) and then to the famous wax museum in the world, Madame Tussaud’s (£ 15). Then to Kensington Palace.

DAY 11
Liverpool & Some part of Glasgow. I will enlighten this in the next post.

DAY 12
Glasgow and Edinburgh. I will enlighten this in the next post.

But a little story about this journey was we missed our train to Edinburgh. It happened because we thought that our train embark at 5.30 pm at Liverpool Lime Street station. But supposedly we should go to Preston first with open ticket and then take a train from there at 5.30 pm! Alhamdulillah, we didn’t need to buy a new ticket by jumping to the next train to Edinburgh which is has to be change in Glasgow before going to Edinburgh 

DAY 13
We had a full day of rest.

DAY 14
Packing to go back to Malaysia. To Heathrow Airport.
Au revoir!

Flight Duration from Kuala Lumpur to London.

Malaysia Airlines: 13 hours
London Heathrow

AirAsia: 14 hours
London Stansted

Qatar, Etihad, Emirates: 16 hours (at least)
Transit in Doha, Bahrain, Dubai
London Heathrow