5/26/2003

Today we did a bus tour to Lacock, Bath, and Stone Henge. The lady driver, Louise, is such a charming lady and a knowledgible guide. On our way to the first site, Lacock, she pointed out to us various places and told us their histories. She also told us ahead of time what we expected to see at Lacock, Bath, and Stone Henge. Lacock is a small Cotswld village with lots of fetch roof buildings. Man, ain't those fetch roofs high maintenant? They can cost up to �30,000 to replace. Our next stop was Bath, where we spent 3 hours. Louise first drove us around the town and pointed out various sites of interest. Then we went to see the church and the Roman Bath. After that, we just walked around the town ourselves. I don't like Bath very much. It really disappointed me cuz' it is so touristy. So many people and so many shops. It doesn't have the old historical town atmosphere I hope to experience. Since this day was a bank holiday, there was a little festival market and we tried some good garlic fries and French crepe. I guess this is the highlight to Bath :P

After the tour, we ventured out to Picadilly Circle. It was dark and there were lots of people. We were really worry about pick-pockets; so we were on high-alerts. One time we walked by a bunch of guys and one of them started walked toward me. I immediately pulled my sis to walk faster and moved my backpack to the other side. Seeing that he started cursing and trying to chase after us. We immediately walked toward a crowd. How scary.

5/25/2003

I am so jet-lagged!!! Having been able to sleep only 2~3 hours on the plane made me have big dark circles under my eyes. When we arrived at London, it was daylight and sunshine all over, couldn't sleep under such condition, could we? We took the Heathrow Express from the airport to Paddington station. With little knowledge of the distance/scale on the map and trusting what the hotel website told us, we walked from the station to the hotel. Man, that was a looong 10 minute walk, especially with a 20 lb bag on my shoulders! When we finally arrived at the hotel, we couldn't checkin yet cuz' it was too early. So we left our luggages at the hotel and started our site-seeing adventure. We took the Tube to St. Paul's and joined a William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens walking tour. We walked around the area where the tour guide explained to us the history and stories of Bill and Charles in the old days and pointed out historical buildings and streets for us to snap pictures. The walk was long, lasting over 2 hours. Half way through, we were already so dead tired that we decided to skip the Jack the Ripper tour later that night.