Saturday, July 22, 2006

Back from London.

My visit to London was mostly about travelling underground, walking on the sidewalks, sitting in open two-decker buses, roaming in the downtown and visiting various tourist attractions like Madame Tussauds, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge (popularly confused with the London Bridge), London Eye. In short, it was fun. I wish I could have stayed a few more days. The people there are courtous and nice and you can always expect a "Thank you" or "Have a nice day" from someone. Their good driving sense makes walking in the city hassle-free. If you want to cross the road, and you are standing at one end of the Zebra Crossing, an approaching car will most certainly come to a halt for you to cross the road. There is absolutely no honking on the roads. I didn't hear even a single horn going off, although I did hear many "Whoosh"s or "Varoom"s near a freeway. Yes, the cars drive very fast on those highways.

We travelled mostly by Underground Tube while going from one place to another in London. The Tube is spread across London and you can find a station in almost every part of the city. London Tube has evolved over the past 30 years and is very organized and efficient. Only New Yok Subways come near enough to it. Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Waterloo, Brent Cross, Golders Green, Charing Cross, are some of the names of the places/stations that got stuck in my head as I travelled there (or through them) almost everyday of my visit. Piccadilly Circus emulates the Times Square.

Inside the IMAX Cinema, just before the show started:

Central London houses the Buckingham Palace, Madame Tussads, Harrods and the other must-see places. While in C. London you will notice crowds of people commuting on foot. Almost every other girl I saw there was a pleasure to look at gawk at. You will also notice that almost every other person is listening to an iPod. iPod seems to be as popular in UK as it is in the USA.

The Buckingham Palace:

Aye, I bought an iPod from there too. Which iPod am I? iPod Shuffle, hands down. I have already loaded 3 of my Audio CDs onto it, in addition to a number of songs I downloaded. The battery life is very good. The sound quality is excellent. The design is very sleek and a pleasure to look at. I have nicknamed it, "Gods Own iPod".

I am standing behind Johnny Depp and that Chinese woman:


Bond, James Bond:

London's air is as fresh in the afternoon and evening as it is early morning here in Delhi. Also, there is good sunlight there till around 9 PM and it is as dark at 10 PM as it is here at 7 PM. And no, I did not have jet lag. Although I did spend the day before sleeping for 12-13 hrs .. what with all the walking and flying. More pictures soon.

The City of London (or a part of it) as seen from the London Eye. You can notice the latter's shadow if you have a keen eye:

Mind the Gap.

-| AG.

8 Comments:

Blogger Abhishek Nandakumar said...

Welcome to the iPod family. Did you get the free laser engraving done? They look really cool with those. I had to pay $20 to get mine done. Now it's free.

2:57 AM

 
Blogger Ayush Gupta said...

I bought it from an Apple Store there and although I would have preferred to have laser engraving done to my iPod, the thought did not cross my mind twice since I felt that the engraving thing was provided only if you bought it online.

3:55 AM

 
Blogger Uma Damle said...

The design is very sleek but don't you find the lack of a display annoying ?

10:30 AM

 
Blogger Ayush Gupta said...

Initially I did (for about 10 seconds) but I got used to it.

10:39 AM

 
Blogger Abhishek Nandakumar said...

To tell you the truth, the display is useless and only consumes all of the battery. But yes I do need one to navigate through playlists and select a song. But the iPod shuffle is good, because most of us who listen to music dont need to see what we're listening to and already know what's playing.

11:22 AM

 
Blogger Karan said...

I didn't know you could get a Shuffle laser engraved.

Anyway, I was wondering about your comment that the Tower Bridge is commonly known as London Bridge, which struck me as a bit odd because I was under the impression that London Bridge was a different bridge altogether and that it was a common tourist mistake to confuse it with the Tower Bridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge

9:06 AM

 
Blogger Ayush Gupta said...

Ah, I seem to have been bitten by the same bug. I visited the Tower Bridge, but not the London Bridge. The lack of inclusion of the London Bridge in the route of my tourist bus perhaps led me to believe that the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge referred to the same entity.

5:00 PM

 
Blogger Abhishek Nandakumar said...

Yes, shuffles can be engraved. Mine is a iPod mini and I had to get it done online. But a relative of mine has just got his iPod engraved from an Apple Store in VA.

8:13 AM

 

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