A British vacation (but I'm also going to Japan)

[rbjhan]

We went straight to the Crown Jewels...


Wow I did not know that there's a people-mover (airport style) next to the jewels....

Tower Execution


Royal Mint
Oh this is funny...

 

[rbjhan]

Medieval Palace，




Ravens


Nice view from the walls

 

[rbjhan]

The White Tower


Apparently this belonged to Henry VIII






This was maybe mid-day? Inside the White Tower it was packed to the rafters....
Lucikly there's an exit in Level one....

And the queue to the jewels were looooong!

 

[rbjhan]

Booked lunch at Le Pont de la Tour, so we crossed the Tower Bridge...


Nice view but I was not a fan of the food!

 

[rbjhan]

Blackfriars Station


Got off at St Pancras....


Now where was I going?
The British Library!

 

[rbjhan]

There's a reason I came here: Magna Carta!


Lindisfarne Gospels！


Henry VIII's Great Bible


Codex Sinaiticus! OMG look at the Uncial

 

[rbjhan]

Ah yes, didn't mention it before, but I'm a calligrapher
The British Library was probably the one place I was most looking forward to visit!

My uncial


The script is not exactly the same but close enough.

 

[rbjhan]

After British Library, mother was tired so we went back to hotel...

Premier Inn Paddington Station, the location is super convenient, right across the street from Paddington Station (Elizabeth line entrance).


Room was just like any Premier Inn.


Bathroom


For £130 per night, no complaints.

 

[rbjhan]

I managed to grab a 5.30pm booking for The Lookout that day, but mother decided not to go...

Horizon 22 is higher but they close super early.
The Lookout opens till 9pm on Mondays and Fridays.


Shooting was difficult though! Obviously the indoor lights can't be dimmed....
So without a lens skirt, best I could do was stick my lens to the window and try to cover it with my jacket!






The Lookout was a lot higher than Sky Garden...

 

[rbjhan]

Day 14

Oxford day trip!
Well this was not easy....originally I planned Oxford on another day, but couldn't find any Bodleian Library tours on that day For me that's a deal breaker...Stalked their website for like a whole month...finally managed to book a 30 mins tour!

So now the tour was booked at 10am, obviously I need to leave Paddington before 9....Booked the 8.23am train thinking plenty of time to spare....Since our hotel was right across the street, we were very relaxed....

Err, this was when I realised waiting for the platform to be published was such a stressful experience!
And guess what? Our train was delayed.... so I was staring at the board and got nothing


Eventually we were told at about 8.30 that it would be platform 11 - of course it had to be the longest walk!
So a whole bunch of people just ran towards platform 11.....it was way past the departure time and we didn't know when the train would actually leave.
Our seats were in Car B, I decided we need to board the train from the nearest one coz mother couldn't run....she didn't want to but I drag her on.....and the train started moving before we made it to Car B.

Damn this was diabolical

 

[rbjhan]

Finally made it to Oxford! Amazingly not that much delayed either...

The 30 min tour takes you to Divinity School and Duke Humfrey's Library. There are also 60 and 90 min tours but mother doesn't like tours so I try to minimise it...

Old School Quadrangle


Entrance to Divinity School






Ceiling was very elaborate.

 

[rbjhan]

Then we went upstairs to Duke Humfrey's Library.





So how are you supposed to read the books?
I asked our tour guide, apparently you need to put in a request to the library. After getting approved, the book will be taken to a reading room in the Weston Library.

 

[rbjhan]

Speaking of the Weston Library...


Oh look, there's a Magna Carta here too!


Not as well preserved as the one in British Library....

 

[rbjhan]

Bridge of Sighs, Oxford version.


University Church of St Mary the Virgin


I was here mainly to climb the tower.


Great views on top.


Especially the Radcliffe Camera!


All Sous College to the right

 

[rbjhan]

If I go to Oxford by myself, I'd probably plan a whole day of Tolkien sights....but mother's not into that type of literature....So we must visit the most famous college, Christ Church obviously.
Mind you, she's not a Harry Potter fan either

So we had a quick lunch and then walk towards Christ Church.

Carfax Tower

Tourists are not allowed to enter here...


We follow the signs to Christ Church Meadow....

And wow there's actually a whole building here as ticket office/ gift shop. Not sure I like how commercial this is....

Oh and the entrance costs £20!
You do get a multimedia guide though

 

[rbjhan]

Hall Stairs




Great Hall


We were here just after lunch, the smell was....not very pleasant


High Table


A nod to Alice in Wonderland.

 

[rbjhan]

Tom Quad


Peckwater Quad


The chapel of Christ Church is also Oxford‘s Cathedral.






When we finished the self guided tour it was about 3.30pm.
I had wanted to visit All Souls College but mother was tired....so we took a bus to Oxford station and caught the next train back to Paddington.