two days in london: day one

apparently the last time I posted was over a month ago, so a quick recap of major things that have happened since:

• I wrapped up the year with fifty-four seniors who shot with me in spring 2019. I say this a lot, but really, thank you so much for trusting me to capture this huge milestone in your life. I was really stressed as heck near the end there, but I loved getting to meet new friends & hear about every single unique story of the past 3 or 4 or even 6 years you spent at UT. That, and knowing you were happy with your photos made it all worth it. There are so many great shoots that I would love to blog about but seemingly lost the time to when I was sitting at my desk editing two sessions a day to try and get everything delivered on time!

• I graduated too??? It's a wonder I never blogged about the actual graduation event, but I think I'm still processing the fact that I won't be returning to UT in the fall and that so many of my friends have already moved to different cities across the country to start their careers.

• I got to visit the UK (just Scotland and London/Oxford) for 2 weeks so there are lots of stories I could tell but I've decided to start with this one just for you, Swetak.

so here we go!

we flew into London Gatwick Airport from Glasgow on EasyJet, which is a budget airline that offers really cheap flights between different European cities! honestly, the seats were really comfy and if you're traveling light (they allow one free carry-on) then this is the perfect option for a weekend getaway. the only problem is that they're known for experiencing a lot of delays so probably don't plan anything that requires a reservation to do on your travel day just in case you arrive late.

the morning after we flew in, we started our day off at the Tate Modern.

Untitled, 1968 by Jannis Kounellis (bc we're all about giving artists credit where credit's due!!!)

With two sides connected by a bridge on the fourth floor, and many floors on either side, we weren't able to explore everything in the handful of hours we spent there.

The main atrium of Tate Modern. Very industrial. Very modern.

Still, I loved wandering around this museum, which is actually an old power plant repurposed into what it is today! It's a great place for people watching, for puzzling over a hanging exhibit before accidentally stepping into the forbidden zone and realizing it's just a bunch of window blinds structured into cubes right before you realize your mistake as a security guard is walking towards you, and for coffee on the roof level where you can admire the skyline.

A lovely view of the Thames river and London buildings across the way. Yes, the river really is that brown.

My aunt and I got some Earl Grey and herbal tea while we were up there and shared a smoked salmon sandwich for a light lunch. This was my first real view of the city, and it was amazing to me how densely packed the buildings were, all ranging from historical stone architecture to glossy high rise glass skyscrapers.

Next, we were onto Shakespeare's Globe, which happened to be right next door. We didn't get to see any of the performances going on, but it's definitely something I'd like to squeeze in next time I visit. We then crossed the Wobbly Bridge to the other side of the Thames.

A view of Tower Bridge from the Wobbly Bridge (AKA the pedestrian bridge that is actually called Millennium Footbridge). It didn't seem to wobble that much to me when I walked it.

Directly ahead was St. Paul's Cathedral, AKA the highlight of my two days in London. You do have to pay a fee to get in, but if you have a student ID you can get a discounted price.

Pictured: a statue of Queen Anne intimidatingly pointing a golden stick at my camera.

I went in by myself, and was amazed at the amount of detail in every square inch of the whole interior of the building. This is interior design on a whole other level. I found myself staring up at the ceiling, trying to imagine an artist painstakingly painting the scenes on the dome. I guess that's the idea of a place of worship though, to draw your eyes up and feel humbled by the fact that no matter how lovely a building, it can't compare to the majesty of heaven.

Just one image of the inside of St. Paul's Cathedral. Pictures don't really do it justice.

When I got my ticket to go in, the cashier told me to immediately head for the stairs. The cathedral stopped admiring visitors at 4, and at 4:30 it was closed to the public to prepare for service. I got in at 3:45 and thought that would be plenty of time to see what I needed to see. I was wrong. The harsh reality of the stairs is that it takes about 20 minutes to climb up the stairs and another 20 minutes to climb back down. Which meant I had about 5 minutes to actually admire the view. Still worth it though.

The man in front of me on the stairwell wandered away from the group to stand on this trapdoor looking platform. He looked down into the viewing hole and took a picture. Soon, a crowd of tourists was standing on the trapdoor looking platform. "Only 4 at a time!" someone yelled from upstairs. Imagine a bunch of tourists tumbling down into the pews. But the real question is, why is there a trapdoor all the way up here anyway? This caption is too long now.

The first set of stairs is this winding wooden staircase. The stairs are long, flat, and short, and there's plenty of space for people to come down as people go up. Once those end, you hit a narrow stone hallway that leads you to the next set of stairs. This time, the stairs are narrow and stone as well, so they have to funnel people going up though one set of stairs on one side of the cathedral, and people going down through another set of stairs on the other side of the cathedral. I found this out later when I reached the Stone Gallery (right before the highest point you can go to at the Golden Gallery) and proceeded to accidentally go back down the stairs before I hit the top. Maybe that's why it took me so long to get up there. Anyway, I had to go back through the stone set of stairs again and at this point my Apple Watch had already registered that I climbed over 500 stairs in one day. But we weren't done yet. The last set of stairs goes from the Stone Gallery to the Golden Gallery, and it's multiple sets of metal spiral stairs. The kind with all the holes in them so when you look down you can see how high you are and freak out a little bit.

My thighs were killing me at this point, but the Italian couple behind me seemed to be suffering too, and the German father and his child in front of me as well, and we all bonded over this as we had been together for at least the last 10 minutes trying to make it to the top.

When we finally emerged, we were greeted by blue skies. Lucky, because it had been raining pretty hard when I was at the Tate earlier, which was the main reason we had dodged into a museum for shelter from the elements. So yeah. Pack an umbrella and some waterproof shoes.

Round two of city views from the air. This one was a lot more satisfying partially because the view really was better and mostly because I really worked for that.

Another photo taken from the Golden Gallery of St. Paul's cathedral. Later, my aunt and I walked down here and got some pretty good falafel at a place down one of the alleys. One thing I learned from my time in the UK is that they generally call pedestrian alleys a "close." I thought these "closes" were pretty cool but Jerry pointed out that's because I only went in them during the day, but at night they're kinda scary.

I met my aunt outside the cathedral as we were shooed out for the beginning of service. I considered staying to see the proceedings, but I was too hungry by that point and we left to grab a quick bite to eat.

Afterwards, we decided to go visit Foyle's, a huge bookstore in London, in honor of the fact that when I was a little girl, my aunt would take me to Barnes & Noble's all across New York City to read. Here I was with that same aunt twenty years later in another huge city with huge bookstores so of course we had to go.

It was a 30 minute walk, but there was plenty to see along the way. We stumbled upon an old church where only the walls remained and someone had planted flower planters in place of where the pews once were. We also found this amazing orange building called "Prudential," and I had to snap a photo of the classic red telephone booths in front of it.

Spotted while walking across the city -- fun fact about these things, most of them have been converted to wifi stations and/or equipped with AEDs. But I mostly just thought of Crazy Rich Asians' opening scene when I saw this.

It rained on and off on our way to Foyle's but we finally made it and I spent a good deal of time picking out what books I intended to finish before the end of summer. I only bought one though, a book called salt slow by Julia Armfield which I started over a cup of hot chocolate in the cafe with my aunt, and finished on the train ride back to where we were staying.

Finished the day off at a bookstore with stories of stories!!!

In June, it doesn't get dark in London until 9-10, so we had plenty of daylight left to finish exploring. We walked over to Covent Garden, which if you look in the bottom left of the photograph I took, you'll see was labeled "Highgarden" for the time being. Apparently there were multiple locations across the UK transformed into famous Game of Thrones landmarks to celebrate the series finale.

Just kidding, the day wasn't done yet! We walked over to Covent Garden after reading.

There were lots of high end shops in the area, but more noticeably to me was the fact that all these shops were decorated by real flowers! I mean, you can get Michael Kors and Chanel in the US too, but not looking like that.

An egg tart shop caught my eye and we went in to purchase half a dozen to eat at home. They were so good! Different than the Hong Kong egg tarts I'm used to eating, but I liked them a lot and it was cool seeing the pastry chefs at work making batches of fresh tarts. '

Every single shop in the area decorated their entrances with colorful live flowers. Santa Nata was no exception, framing their doorway with yellow roses that matched the yellow Portuguese egg tarts they sold.

Finally, we went to the Royal Opera House because I wanted to take a look at the architecture. This photo below was taken in the restaurant inside, where the right side leads to escalators that take you up to additional seating, and the left side leads you to a balcony and dining room that have a more traditional style of architecture. Think -- plush red carpets, crystal chandeliers, gold detailing, the whole thing.

A trip to the Royal Opera House nearby marked the real end to our day. We stepped in to admire the architecture, and were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves admiring the efficacy of their system of serving drinks and snacks to patrons during intermission (which I believe the British call "interval").

So day one was a success, even coming into it with only a vague idea of a plan. The cool thing about cities is that you can just walk around and find something to see or do or eat, so you don't need to plan every detail down to the minute. But I did come up with a few things I was interested in seeing that helped us choose a starting and ending point.

The city is super walkable though and if you get tired, the Tube is easily accessible and pretty simple to navigate. Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon.