Christmas in London

We arrived in London in the afternoon, two days before Christmas. A quick visit to Marks & Spencer and Tesco for some groceries and we were off to dreamland. The Christmas-y feel was evident through the cold winter weather, street decor and lights (although it was nothing compared to Orchard Road) and TV news reports on season activites in the city.

Every year since 1957, Queen Elizabeth broadcasts her speech for the season, which apparently is her own personal thoughts, free from key messages by her advisors. BBC showed previews of the Queen's message leading up to Christmas Day. She touched on several topics including the economic situation facing the upcoming year.



We woke up at a comfortable hour on Christmas Eve and took the tube to Marble Arch station for some quick shopping at the usual crew must-buy outlet - Primark.



Primark is like Target in Australia and prices are supposedly cheap. Quality is not that great, but I got some quite outfits for Keira.



Lunch was at Bayswater in one of the only two Chinese restaurants open, Kam Tong.



We were longing for duck rice. Our table became silent as we whalloped our individual plates of siew ngap and siew yoke fan.



After lunch, we returned to High Street Kensington to resume shopping and I decided to venture furture down towards Knighstbridge to check out Harrods upon Ernest's recommendation.

The walk there took about half and hour. I passed by the Royal Albert Hall, where the world's greatest artists from every performance genre perform. The Hall is also known for holding annual summer proms. Our very own Datuk Siti Nurhaliza was given such an honour a few years ago.



I crossed the road the walked along the park opposite Royal Albert Hall where families were spending their Christmas eve afternoon. I suspect most of these were foreigners since locals would have been at home busy preparing for Christmas eve dinner with family.

Shortly after that the streets appeared to be more busy and I guessed I must have reached the shopping area in Knighstbridge. The sun was already starting to set by then.

Harrods department store was just packed with people! And most of them seemed to be people with a mission, unlike me. I was just there to observe and take photos. Every shop assistant in sight was busy attending to someone.

I was just in awe of the interior decoration. Harrods as a building is something to admire. It is divided into several halls, each decorated with its own theme. The food hall downstairs was even more packed! I could barely move about without brushing someone, partly due to the heavy winter coats everyone had on.

Everything looked so nice and attractively packaged for the season, I just had to pick up something. Thankfully, it wasn't that long a wait at the checkout counter and I managed to make my purchase 5 minutes before 4:00pm when they close. As she gave me my change, the cashier took a look around and said to me, "Doesn't seem like anyone cares that we're closing in a few minutes, does it?". People were still taking their time deciding what to buy, until the closing announcement came on.

Christmas Day was spent mostly indoors. All the shops were closed outside, but when I couldn't take the dry indoor air anymore, I went out for a walk and discovered a nearby park. "Discovered" because it wasn't an open park. The entry was through gates and it was a long walk up a rather narrow path before there was more of the park.

A lady was feeing peanuts to the wild pigeons and squirrels and I spent some time observing their behaviour.

Quite a unique Christmas from the ones I'm used to at home, but still an experience.