I am now on the plane back to Hong Kong, which is about to take off. The two seats beside me seem to be vacant. If so I may lie down to sleep. But I am not tired for it is only 1:30 pm. This flight will last for 12.5 hours and the next one will take 3.5 hours. I thus will arrive in Hong Kong at 7:35 am on 21.9.95 in London time. I guess that is why people have jet lag.
I did not write in the past few days because there were so much to do in London. I had to rush for this and that. Besides, I was reading another novel by Maeve Binchy. So my time was taken up by sight-seeing, reading and sleeping.
I am already missing Europe (I have not even left it). Since I woke up this morning, this feeling has started to grow. While I was walking in the airport, I thought, what a pity that I had to return to work and leave all these beautiful places. How pathetic it was that a vacation should ever end while work never would. But life goes on and I just act according to my plans, as I always do.
The first day in London started quite awfully. I arrived at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof at 6:00 am. I could not possibly do anything at that hour. I was tired and there was little to see in Frankfurt. So I just waited and waited. When I got bored, I ate and drank.
Then I was lost in the maze of the great big airport in Frankfurt. Nobody would believe that I could not find the check-in counter which was numbered in 3 digits, meaning that there were hundreds of such counters in the airport. I was practically lost and somehow I left the departure hall and got into the arrival hall. I was very frustrated for I feared that I might need to go through the customs and the immigration in order to get back to the departure hall. What a joke! I was supposed to be leaving the country!
Of course, I managed to get on the plane at last. The food on the plane was awful. I have begun to believe that the food provided by all British airlines was awful. But then since I had boiled my tongue with hot chocolate that morning, I found that everything tasted awful.
Everything went quite smoothly upon my arrival in London. Well, with a lot of sweating as usual. I settled down in the Garden Court Hotel at around 3 pm. The room was, ah, I don't know. The facilities seemed OK, but not very good. There were everything, a bed, WC, shower, wash basin, hot water, desk/chair and a TV. But the room did not seem very clean, or clean enough. The bathroom was so small that I had to squeeze myself in. The shower was right above my head so as to ensure that I would get wet from head to toe. There were 19 channels set on the TV but only 5 worked. And there were stains on the bed sheet so I knew that it was not changed at all during my entire stay. Anyway.
Then I went to walk around the place. Unluckily it rained so I, as usual, felt uninterested in anything. But I managed to buy a ticket of the "Phantom" at Her Majesty's Theatre over the telephone. I also went to the Covent Garden. I liked the place quite a lot and I bought some souvenirs and a pair of socks there. Then I checked the train schedules for Cambridge and Bath from King's Cross and Paddington stations, respectively (how tiring). Then I went back to the hotel, ate, washed and slept.
Early next morning I went to Cambridge. It was a small town. I walked along the main streets and visited St John's and King's Colleges. St John's was a mistake because I went in thinking that it was Trinity. But its courtyards and lawns and buildings were beautiful enough. King's was of a much grandeur and more majestic look but I like St John's better.
The weather was very good that morning. Everything looked beautiful in the sunshine. As to the River Cam, it was just a very little green river. Since there are so many romantic elements attached to it, I supposed I should not feel anything less than romantic. And now I suppose I thought it was romantic. But the truth was that I did not feel anything special.
I returned to London to see the London Tower (magnificent), Tower Bridge (same), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Parliament. Then I walked a long way to the Buckingham Palace. What a tasteless palace. And it started to rain again. I hurried to see a movie "Bridges on Madison County" at 6:15 pm in a cinema near my hotel.
The Garden Court Hotel was in a fine location. The neighbourhood was quiet but the busy shopping street, Queensway, was just two blocks away. It was safe and convenient. There were 8 cinemas in a great shopping centre nearby and the shops there were open until very late.
That night I had some spaghetti in a restaurant.
The next morning I went to Bath. I had never thought that my rail pass did not cover Bath (what an idiot. I had thought that Bath was not shown on the map of the pass because there was not enough space.) so I had to pay an extra £11 as supplement.
Bath was an even smaller place. The Roman Bath, the Royal Crescent and the Avon River were worth a look. I took a 2-hour train to go there, spent 2.5 hours there and took another 2-hour train back to London.
Then I went to the British Museum. It was undoubtedly large and rich with its collections but in the haste of just 2 hours and after a morning trip to Bath, I found the place much less interesting than I had expected. I like the Louvre much more.
Then it was the "Phantom". I could only get the cheapest ticket (£16.5) with restricted view, which meant that there was a pillar right in front of my seat blocking the centre of my view and dividing the stage into two halves. I had to move my head so frequently that after Act 1 it almost fell off. I moved to a vacant seat one row behind during the intermission and it was much much better.
This "Phantom" was almost exactly the same as the one I had seen in Hong Kong (but the tickets were much cheaper. The highest price was only £30.). The actor playing the Phantom was tall and young (as shown in the programme) and had a clear and strong voice. However, sometimes I could not hear him when he lowered his voice. Unlike Peter Karrie, this actor acted much more naturally. Karrie acts too much, especially his hands, and his voice is old and rusty. I like clear voices. The actors playing Christine and Raoul were all right. So was La Carlotta. But the two Managers were not as good as those of the Hong Kong production.
The theatre was shabby.
The weather was very good this morning. I decided to take a walk before leaving for the airport. I walked on Kensington Road. Then I went to Green Park, which was really green. Because of the proximity, I also went to St James' Park. It was wonderful. I liked its water and lawns and birds very much. It was too bad that I could not spend more time there.
London was nice. I think I like it because I know the language and its systems are familiar to me. I felt easy there. It did not appear to be so foreign to me. Would it be too much if I say that it felt like home?
I also want to marked these -
- In Vienna, there were chestnuts, lots of them, on the road. In London, there were maple leaves, lots of them.
- Could "never as good as the first time" be true? I like the first European city I visited (Paris) most, and also the first grand museum (the Louvre), the first “Phantom” show I saw in Hong Kong.
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