ENGLAND! A place known for its palaces, cobblestone roads, royalty, accents, and I guess now, Brexit. We learn about it in school, we see it on TV, we meet people who rave about it. What were we thinking? Why haven’t we been there!? Casey and I had been talking about visiting London for a while. London is one of the largest cities in the world, it has loads of history, and most importantly, it has castles…. and I mean who doesn’t like castles? We didn’t know a whole lot about London, so it was time to do some serious research…. Our research on our planned destination always begins with Youtube and blogs. If we can find some solid ideas between the two, we are instantly 60% committed. Next, we look at the public transportation. Is there some type of train or bus system that looks usable? Yes? Nice! We can commit another 30% to the trip. Finally, we look at the ease of flying there. London is a non-stop flight from Seattle. Jackpot! Looks like we were going to London! We decided it was time to start watching ticket prices for the month of May. Because of our jobs, we have a two-week window we can travel in every month, so it actually makes tracking ticket prices pretty easy. After cyber-stalking numerous airline websites, we found there were times when ticket prices would drop to the high $500s low $600s. We decided when tickets dropped between that range again, we would purchase. BAM! Next day, it happened! The tickets ended up being through Delta which worked out great for us because we had enough points to cover one ticket! Score! Before we knew it, May 18th was here and we were heading to the airport. Virgin Atlantic (partners with Delta) had the fancy new 787 Dreamliner, and we were excited to see if the air quality and lighting really made a difference during the flight (FYI we concluded it did). I (Brittany) am not the best flyer in the world. As much as I love traveling, airplane rides just don’t do it for me. The idea of a hollowed out can flying through the air (not to mention turbulence) can put me on edge. So, I listened to some books about flying and felt pretty good about this flight. Yet, as luck had it, right when we were about to board the plane, the person driving the beverage cart ran into the fiber carbon airplane. After 5 hours of the airline emailing pictures to Boeing, Boeing cleared the plane to fly. I watched in silent horror as a mechanic used “speed tape” on the area that was hit (you know, just incase there was a crack) and we were ready to go! This “speed tape” fix did little to calm my nerves, so I spent the first few hours of the flight imagining a crack on the exterior of the airplane spreading. Eight hours later, we touched down at Heathrow and my theory of spider vein cracks decorating the plane was proven wrong. nThe delay in flight actually helped us out. We were originally scheduled to land around 8:00 AM and our AirbNb wasn’t going to be ready until 1:00 PM, which meant we would be stuck with our bags. With the delay, we actually landed around 1:00 PM, so we didn’t have to find a place to store our bags. We could just go straight to the Airbnb and drop the bags off instead of finding lockers or luggage storage services at a train station. After we dropped our bags off, we knew we needed to stay awake until at least 8:00 PM so we could get onto London time. Luckily, Kensington Palace was within walking distance of our Airbnb and on the 3-day London Pass we had purchased. On a side note, I would highly recommend getting the London Pass for the first time visitor. It gets you into loads of places at a discounted price. Anyway, back onto my original train of thought. We grabbed our London Passes, a quick cup of coffee and took off for Kensington Palace. Kensington Palace, home to the royal family since the 17th century, was huge. We wandered through the rooms enjoying the art and stretching our legs after the long flight. We also took some time walking through the garden as well. Of course it was gorgeous! With it being the end of May, almost everything was in full bloom. After Kensington Palace, we decided to explore our neighborhood a bit while simultaneously looking for a dinner spot. We ultimately settled on a Lebanese restaurant. We filled ourselves with hummus and gyros then lumbered back to our Airbnb where we both passed out. We decided to start our second day in London at Westminster Abbey. The London Pass we purchased was good for three consecutive days, so we had to do all we could in London in three days. On our walk over to the historic site we came across two other churches. We took our time roaming the churches and admiring the stained glass windows and decorated ceilings. We ultimately made it to Westminster Abbey. There was a bit of a line to get in, but it moved quickly. When we reached the entrance of the abbey, we were given a cool interactive listening guide. We popped in the ear buds and followed our interactive chaperon through the historic monument. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but the outside pictures do it a little justice. Next, we made our way over to The Shard, which is a 95-story skyscraper with an observation deck in the heart of London. On our way over, we made a quick stop at Buckingham Palace. There isn’t much to see other than the palace itself, but since it was on the way, we figured why not. Anyway, when we got to The Shard there was hardly a line, so in no time, we were sitting on top of London. We then strolled over to London Tower. We thought this old castle was pretty cool and wish we had just a little more time there. The castle itself was amazing! They also had old knight uniforms on display along with some of the crowned jewels (which, understandably, we couldn’t take pictures of). We ended our first full day in London with a walk across the famous Tower Bridge during sunset. Our first day in London was a success! We began our next day with a quick train ride to the outskirts of London. We wanted to check out London’s Olympic Park since we loved Seoul’s Olympic Park so much. We took our time walking the paths and even had a lunchtime picnic. If we had to pick a favorite between the two Olympic parks, we would have to pick the Olympic Park in Seoul. Seoul’s Olympic Park just had much more art, was A LOT bigger, had multiple paths, and supported small businesses. This park felt a bit abandoned and forgotten. Still, we love parks, so we enjoyed our morning just the same. After our picnic, we wanted to check out Greenwich to visit the Royal Observatory and straddle the Prime Meridian. Greenwich is on the other side of the Thames River, so we hoped onto the Emirates Air Line (which is a cable car), and arrived on the other side of the river in no time. We grabbed a quick scone and coffee, since we were still adjusting to the time change, and then pushed onto the observatory. Again, the London Pass worked like a charm. We made a V-line to the Prime Meridian and took the classic “straddling the Prime Meridian” photo. When in Rome, right? Anyway, we wandered through the other museums on site, which included a boat museum and an astrology museum. After all the museum wandering, it was time to head back into downtown London. We found a ferry that went into the heart of London via the Thames River and decided to hop that instead of the train. A sunset river cruise! So romantic! It was already our forth day in London, and since our London Pass was expired, we decided it was time to head outside the city and see England’s gorgeous countryside. One of the must see places on our list were the White Cliffs of Dover. We were stoked when we found out they were only a 1.5 hour train ride from London. So, we boarded the train early that morning and enjoyed the ride through south England. Once we arrived in Dover, we walked through the small town up to Dover Castle. This castle was crazy cool! It was from the 11th century and had awesome hallways and spiral staircases everywhere. We probably spent a good two hours exploring the castle and its surrounding grounds. Not a bad way to spend the morning. Next, we decided to “hike” over to the Dover Cliffs. The Dover Cliffs were by far the coolest thing of the whole trip! They were way bigger than I thought they would be and the hike along the coast was amazing (we could even see France in the distance). The weather was perfect, and the walk was easy and well marked. After about 5 hours, we made it to the end of the cliffs and started to head down into Martin Mill Station where we could catch a train back to London. I would highly suggest taking time to go out to the Dover Cliffs if you are considering going to London. It was really easy to get to and totally worth the travel time. On our fifth day, we decided to do a hike through South Downs National Park. The train ride was about an hour long, so it went by really quick. The train station near the national park was right at the trail head. We had a hiked planned from one train station to another train station. The hike through South Downs was beautiful. The green rolling hills were gorgeous. And not only were there rolling hills, there was livestock just roaming the grasslands! Talk about exciting! During our last few miles, we ended up hiking with an older couple (from England) who had traveled the world! They were hiking through all of South Downs National Park and were covering about 20 miles a day, for 4-5 days straight. They were on their last day and were excited to have almost finished their adventure. We wandered past more livestock and rolling hills with them while swapping stories and comparing cultures. The hike finally came to an end 18 miles later. We slept well that night! For our final day in the London, we went out to Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is an easy 45-minute train ride from central London. The castle was huge and we spent plenty of time walking through the grounds and all the large rooms the castle had to offer. After the castle, we went back to London to explore Regent’s Park and Camden Market. Regent’s Park was pretty cool. Queen Mary’s Garden had roses that were in bloom and we walked around taking waaaay too many pictures. Camden Market was very lively. We weaved through all the small shops and food stalls. It was starting to get late though, and we had some packing to do since we were heading to Liverpool the next day. We started to head back to our Airbnb, when we decided to take a quick detour to see Abbey Road, which was where the famous picture of the Beatles crossing the road was taken. We watched numerous people try to recreate the photo and then decided it was actually time to turn in for the night. On Saturday, we caught the “speed train” to Liverpool where we would be running our marathon! When we arrived, we checked our bags at the station, and headed over to the running convention to pick up our bibs and walk through all the booths. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets of Liverpool and watching the town transform for all the people getting ready to run. Sunday was the day of the marathon and it went pretty good. The last 4-6 miles were super windy, and I did get some back pain, but we both finished! I ran this race in memory of my grandma, and took her along for this run on my pack. After a well-earned nap, we had a celebratory dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Liverpool’s Chinatown. So yummy! We decided to spend our final full day in England doing a SLLLOOOW hike through Peak District National Park. I can’t say it was as epic as a Korean hike, but the rolling green hills were stunning! Also, there was livestock roaming the hills. I’m pretty sure it’s frowned upon to pet the livestock, so I had to settle on taking pictures of the furry little animals instead. They were just too cute! Monday ultimately rolled around and it was time to make our way back to Seattle. We caught the 5:00 AM train from Liverpool to England and then made the transfer to the airport. Our flight wasn’t until 1:00, but I’m glad we caught the earliest train possible from Liverpool. Heathrow is a huge and busy airport, so it takes a bit of time to get through. The flight back was easy, and before we knew it, we touched back down in Seattle. Now for our overall impressions of England…it was…..OK. Don’t get us wrong, we are super stoked to have visited there, but it just didn’t create that same excitement we get when we are in the crowded streets of Seoul, or when we are surrounded by the blinking lights of Tokyo, or even the smell of fish sauce in Thailand. For us, it just didn’t have that…I guess…spark. First off, the food was as bad as everybody said it would be. In all reality, we ate out for dinner twice. We ate out our first night (our Lebanese dinner), and we ate out for our celebratory marathon meal in Liverpool’s Chinatown. Instead of eating out, we just ending up finding supermarkets where we bought food to make nightly meals and supplies for sandwich lunches. Everything there was fried, and just blah. Even if we hadn’t been running a marathon, we still wouldn’t have eaten out. I guess we had a bit of “sticker shock” on how not fresh, unhealthy, and bland the food actually was. Plus, the food was a bit more expensive there. Not crazy expensive, but at least 10-20% more per meal than in Seattle. And we know it’s not fair, but it is so hard to not compare the freshness and healthiness of the food in Asia to other places we travel. We never have to worry about finding food in Asia. No matter where we are, we can easily find a meal. London was difficult for us. We don’t enjoy bread, meat, and beer. We crave rice, vegetables, soups, juks, fermented and pickled food, noodles, buns, and the list could go on. For us, it’s just far easier to find meals we enjoy when traveling in Asia. I know we have only been to one place in Europe, and we definitely won’t judge all of Europe based on one destination, but as of right now, the food in London didn’t win us over. And just for fun, below are some pictures we took of English street food. We also posted some of the street food we took pictures of from our recent stint in Korea and trip to Japan. You can decide which looks better to you :) Secondly, the public transportation needs to be addressed. First off, high-five England for at least having a form of public transportation. It far exceeds what we have in Seattle, but we were really surprised by the untimeliness and the number of break downs that happened on the tracks. We had heard such great things about the train system in England that I just expected it to run smoothly. We had two instances where the train “broke down” and we had to switch to another train, and since the trains are ran mostly by private companies, they don’t tell you where to go to catch the next train to get to the destination the original train was going to! (jeez, can you even follow that?) So you end up sprinting up and down platforms to find the new train so you can make your next connection! The first time it happened it was no big deal. We were heading out to South Downs and trains from the station we were trying to get to ran ever 10 minutes or so. But the second time it happened, we had to quickly find the other train that was going to our connecting station, because if we missed the next train it was another hour before the connecting train came through. Also, the “speed trains” did not seem like speed trains to us. On the way to Liverpool, the conductor said they had too many people on the train (they oversold the train) and couldn’t exceed a certain speed. I’m sure that is true, but now all the other trains behind us were late. We ended up pulling into our destination station about 30-45 minutes late. Also, on the way back from Liverpool to London, we were one of the first trains on the track, and our train didn’t go much faster. The speed trains in England just can’t compare to the KTX in Korea or the Shinkansen in Japan. We were still excited to explore the country via public transit, but man, I was hoping it would be on par with what we were used to. Third, things were pricey. The London Pass and train pass were a great deal and did help cut costs. But places not on the London Pass were pricey to get into. For example, getting into Dover Castle was about $25.00 each and Windsor Castle was about $28.00 each. And again, this was probably just sticker shock to us, because entering a temple, or something comparable to other places we have visited, costs about $1.00 - $2.00 each, if there was even a fee. I guess we were also surprised by prices since we figured lots of the historically sites and monuments would be maintained by government funds (which didn’t always seem like the case) and therefore, would be priced less to see them. But it didn’t seem to matter if sites were maintained privately or publicly; it still cost a pretty penny to see them. And finally, like we originally said, the “spark” wasn’t there (for us). Casey and I both thrive on the quick movements of people, the small mom and pop eateries, the unknown ordering of items on menus, the quick and efficient public transportation, the challenge of languages, the harmony of the people, and unique cultures. In England nothing seemed to be mysterious or unpredictable. Part of what we love about traveling is the unknown (is this the right train?) and the experiences we have that challenge us on how we view ourselves and how we live our lives. For some people, they could totally get this feeling from London, but for us it just didn’t happen. We are still stoked to have FINALLY seen London though, and in all reality, we’ll give another place in Europe a chance to blow our socks off. But in the meantime, we’ve decided to return to one of our favorite stomping ground. Japan, here we come! さようなら!
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