First day in London

Lack of sleep, long flights and confusion between time zones: thus began our first day in London. 

Our flight from Hong Kong to London left at 11:05 Hong Kong time, which was around 4:05pm London time if I'm correct! So we had to stay awake the entire 8 hours in Hong Kong, plus the first 2 or 3 hours of our 12 hour flight in hopes of getting an 8 hour sleep before landing in London at 5am London time. This plan was flawless, in theory... however as you can probably guess, it didn't work as well as planned. I stayed awake all those hours, but the discomfort from the plane (and my terrible light-sleeper-ness) stopped me from being able to sleep.

Our dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, depending on which time zone you think about!

Breakfast was served at like 3:30am!

Anyways, despite these painfully small amounts of sleep and extreme time differences, we made it to London safely!

After quite some time sorting things out at the airport, we caught a train to the train station where we stored our luggage for the day until we got into the place we're staying at! The train was super fast and really cool :D

When we got into the streets of London, there were a few differences that I noticed straight away. 

First of all, there were many more bike riders on the main roads than in Canberra... Or Sydney... Or at City I've ever been to!

Another HUGE difference was how insignificant the 'no walking' sign on the pedestrian crossings were! People would ruthlessly cross while traffic had the right of way, and it was absolutely terrifying. I can honestly say that I thought there were a few times where I could've sworn it was a near death experience for the crazy local pedestrians!

Here's a picture of the leadenhall market that we walked through 

From far away its roof looks ordinary, but in real life it was incredible!

After asking no less than 4 locals for directions, we made our way to the Tower of London! I'll be completely honest here, I was incredibly tired with sore feet and I really wasn't coping too well, but it was absolutely stunning nonetheless. 

The Tower of London from the outside

The buildings were all so beautiful!

So stunning!

I loved the blue doors on this one!

After seeing the Tower of London we walked what seemed like a very long walk to a wonderful little cafe called de vine. Even though it was at least 4 times a longer walk than the one to the nearby Starbucks, it was worth it when I got to try some really yum English food! I ordered pain au chocolate and cottage pie! They were both delicious. The man who talked to us and served us was incredibly friendly and helpful (I felt bad because I was super jet-lagged and was practically silent)! His name was Sid :D

The pain au chocolate (well, the half I hadn't eaten yet...)

The HUGE cottage pie! It was amazing!!

All in all today has been a very long yet good day! Wish us luck with sleeping off the jet-lag tonight!

-Kara :)