London Throwback: A Walk in the Park

It's December. The last month of the year.

I've still got lots of photo backlog to clear and one of them would be my London and Paris trip during the winter of 2011--2012. I wrote about my Italy trip in July this year and was so smug about being current... and then I stopped after the second city when I got busy with major work events. Well, at least I'm pretty current for my 2013 updates.

When my hubby saw the Italy photos on Facebook, he was reminded that he hadn't seen the first Europe trip (London-Paris)  photos yet.

Kh: "Where are the Europe photos?"
Me: "That's coz I haven't edited the photos, blogged about it and uploaded on Facebook yet."

Occasionally, my good friends and I would chat and mention about our trips.

Them: "Eh? I don't remember seeing all your Europe photos."

Me: "That's coz I haven't edited the photos, blogged about it and uploaded on Facebook yet."

A while back, a few of my colleagues went to different parts of Europe separately and we were talking about our Europe experience.

Them: "I will go to your Facebook to see the photos."
Me: "Oh, I didn't upload them."
Them: "Why?"
...

Yup, you get the drift.

Most of you already know about my grouches on the Asus Zenbook's overly warm tone and how it affected the colours of the pictures I see and the eventual editing of my photos. I hope that whatever I see on my screen doesn't deviate much in colour tones as what others see on their screens.

Here's Day 1 of my Europe trip. Many of the pictures taken in the park have not been edited as the beautiful sunshine lent a hand in creating natural splendid tones.




Day 1: A Walk in the Park (18 December)


When we landed at Heathrow Airport, we wondered at our good fortune. It was winter and to us at that time, London was not as cold and grey as what many often opine... or so we thought. We did not have to take our winter coats out from the luggage and walked to the metro station with only our jackets.


Our first ride on London's metro system-- the London Underground (also known as the Tube or simply the Underground).




While we were on the Tube, we witnessed our first sunrise in London. All throughout the ride, I thought of how I would not be able to take a sunrise photo on our first day in London.




The sky that greeted us when we emerged from the station was breathtaking!




By the time I wrote about this, I forgot if this was taken outside Bayswater or Queensway Station as these were the 2 stations we often walked to depending on which line we wanted to take.




Our hotel during the first leg of London-- Blakemore Hyde Park Hotel.




I asked kh to block the unsightly Cleaning in Progress sign. The picture looked so much better without the sign! I'm not too sure about the difference in colour tone. I did not edit them except for the usual resizing, adding of borders and watermarking.




It was 8 plus when we reached the hotel and we could not check in yet. Kh checked the map and decided that we could take a walk in the park while waiting for our room. Hence, we left our luggage at the concierge and headed out, not before I finished my snickers.




Say hello to my Chi Cats. I call them Chi Chi. You would see them at various significant landmarks for the trip. Chi Chi have since become my travelling buddies as they are small and easy to carry about. Even if I did not bring my bag out, I could easily slip Chi Chi in the pocket of my winter coat.




We started walking in Hyde Park and slowly made our way to Kensington Gardens. We covered quite a vast area that morning and by the time we reached Kensington Garden, my sinus was acting up really bad.




Even the hubby was cold.




At the beginning of the walk, I was mesmerized by the beautiful sunlit park. Although it was freezing, there were some joggers clad in shorts.




I recently read an article-- 25 Everyday Things You Never Knew Had Names. From there, I learnt that these are called crepuscular rays which are rays of sunlight coming from a certain point in the sky. I always call them God's rays.




I never knew the sun during winter in London could bathe the surroundings in such golden hues.




Could you spot any anomaly in this picture? I didn't do a very good job at this but the picture still looks fine if I do not show you the original.




This is the original picture. I remember liking this photo a lot and when I posted it on FB 2 years ago, one of my friends commented that it was a good shot except for the jogger in the background. I'm pretty thrilled by the smorgasbord of features added to the latest Photoscape software, one of which is the cloning tool. I cloned the jogger away by copying part of the grass and hiding him. It's just a very basic cloning tool with 3 brush sizes. For a free photo editing software, my amateur skills and the difficulty in cloning due to the shadows on the grass, I'm pleased with the result.




"Deardear, look! Got cartoon bears hugging each other. I thought it should be cupid or naked people?"




After uttering something so comical, kh started to act cool for a chao poser shot.




And another chao poser shot.




I like it when my camera accidentally captures lens flare. Hexagon shape to boot! I thought those were only done by editing.




Who is Jenner? Edward Anthony Jenner was an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine. Often called "the father of immunology", his work is known to have saved Mankind when smallpox was finally eradicated in 1980.




"There deardear! Fountains should be like this and not cartoon bears."




One of my favourite thing to do at huge open spaces with birds...




... is to walk amongst them. Scaring not included. You can't really do this in Singpore coz the cunning birds here fly too quickly. Birds in other countries usually have people feeding bread to them and hence, they are not wary of humans.




See, birds outta Singapore don't fly away easily and we could simply get close to them.




Besides pigeons, there were seagulls everywhere too.




They were compliant. They stood in a row and did not fly when I told them to.




Then, along came a little dog.




A curious little dog.




A pretty curious little dog.




Trying out a silhouette shot.




Frost on the leaves.




We reached Kensington Gardens and still had a long distance to cover.




These 4 dogs belonged to the same owner. I wonder how the couple coped with rearing 4 big dogs.




The Royal Albert Hall.




The Albert Memorial was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband, Prince Albert who died of typhoid in 1861. At the corners were four groups representing Europe, Asia, Africa and America, each continent-group including several ethnographic figures and a large animal. (A camel for Africa, a bison for the Americas, an elephant for Asia and a bull for Europe.)




By the time we reached one edge of the park, my sinus was acting up really badly. I could feel the numbing cold from the ground through my boots. You know, we should never get our feet chilly. That's a sure recipe for catching a cold.




Kh thought I looked like Rudolph and with the hood on, Kenny from South Park.




Along came another dog. Its ball rolled to our feet and the owner said, "Feel free to play with him." The ball was slimy with saliva. Hahaha... After that, we knew why the owner had a stick with a suction cup to pick up the ball.




What??? What did it mean by "Kensington Palace is being transformed"?




The gates were closed! Nooooooooooooooo!




What a contradiction!




The banner lied. Kh was doing the Italian WTF gesture and as for me, I would not take no for an answer.




We were clearly not part of its future.




We headed towards the Round Pond. The Round Pond is an ornamental lake in front of Kensington Palace.The pond was created in 1730 by George II. It is approximately 200m by 150m and up to 5m deep. Despite its name, it is not circular, but rectangular with stepped and rounded corners. There were people feeding the swans and the greedy fat pigeons so we decided to sneak into the crowd of birds without any bread of our own.




When the people dispersed, so did the fowl.




On the first day in London, Kh, Chi Chi and I conquered Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.




Who could resist those red phone booths in London?

The red phone box is often seen as an iconic British symbol throughout the world. Click here for a history of the red phone box.




We walked from morning till afternoon and by then, we were really famished that we decided to simply eat anywhere along the way back to the hotel. Bite Way looked like a great respite from the cold.




Bite Way served what seemed like Mediterranean cuisine. We had wraps and chicken, hot coffee and chocolate. The last picture shows the water from the hotel's tap after boiling. London's tap water is supposed to be safe to drink. I guess it contains too much mineral particles. After allowing the water to settle, it became clear. We popped Redoxen Vitamin C effervescence tablet to drink hoping to keep the cold away.




I will end this post with a video tour of our hotel room.