shauna rose: London! (Part 1)

I arrived home from a 6 day post Leaving Cert holiday in London on Tuesday night and I intend to spend the rest of this week catching up on all the sleep I lost throughout my stay there, so I thought it would be the perfect time to make a cuppa coffee & start working on my London blog posts. ^_^

Our last glimpse of Ireland! Our flight somehow managed to arrive like 10 minutes early? I’m convinced Ryanair give wrong estimated times just so they can be like ‘OMFG WE ARRIVED SO EARLY HOW GREAT ARE WE’ u_u

Side note: I managed to momentarily lose both mine and Lily’s tickets & passports. After a few minutes of crazily running around retracing my steps I found them.

Day 1: Oxford Street

We had a morning flight so we decided to spend a few hours on Oxford Street…. Probably wasn’t the best choice for our first day because it was totally packed and the majority of shops are absolutely massive. I thought we’d never make it out of Selfridges or Topshop. O_O

I’m proud of myself for not buying too much and also proud of Lily for actually buying something!

Day 2: Leicester Square, Covent Garden Trafalgar Square, Chinatown, OUR FIRST EVER WEST END MUSICAL!!!, etc..This was definitely one of my favourite days because we did so much in the space of one day….we also walked a lot too.
Side note: Converse are not good for walking long distances in.

Random shot in/near(?) Leicester Square. The weather was pretty dreary in the morning but it soon brightened up.

We decided to have a look around Chinatown since it is literally right beside Leicester Square, which I found funny cause I thought it would be more difficult to find. It was also a lot bigger than I imagined it would be. Although it consists of a lot of restaurants / other food related places, there are some other stores where you can find cute Asian clothes, accessories, make-up, skincare and other miscellaneous shizz! There was also a proper sticker booth machine in one store. I regret not getting photos in it now. ;__;

This is the Korean restaurant we decided to eat in. T’was super yummy. We may or may not have had some soju heheh. We came back here again the following Monday and the waitress recognised us; it was so cute! ^_~

So many options. *___* There was even wine flavoured pepero wtf. I think this store was called Oriental Delight.

And here is me doing a typical tourist pose at the gates of Chinatown! (this is one of the dresses I bought shopping on Oxford Street, in New Look)

Thanks to the lovely maps everywhere, we then made our way to Covent Garden! I really loved it; very tourist friendly, lots of street performers and places to sit, eat and shop. ^_^

I don’t know if I love macarons because they taste good or because they look so cute. Anyway, the Ladurée store is super pretty and the woman at the counter addressed me as Madame wtf. I got salted caramel & chocolate coconut(?) macarons…yes I am too cheap to buy a box so I only buy a few each time.

We were lucky because we came here on the day they have a food market! I didn’t really look at the other stalls too much because this one caught my attention first. They use organic flower, free range eggs etc. which I always like cause I feel that it shows they really care about the quality of their products.

A closer look at what they had to offer. Honestly I wanted to try everything cause I may or may not have a serious sweet tooth. *_*

In the end I decided to try the Red Velvet…cupcake which is not really a cupcake but I don’t know what to call it so I’ll just go with cupcake. It was so good and the icing was agdlkjadhgkjbHSLKGHdalghadfskjihbkfasjnhba *drools* Lily got a Belgian cookie and was of the same opinion.

You can’t go to London without taking a picture beside a red telephone box! (I didn’t take one last year but shhhh)

Before heading to Trafalgar Square we decided to see if there were any cheap tickets for musicals available and we got two tickets for A Chorus Line for that evening for £28 each! I got so excited cause I’ve wanted to see a west end musical for the longest time ever…..like since I was around 8 or so. >_<

In Trafalgar Square! The National Portrait Gallery is in the background. I’m not really that into art but I thought the renaissance section was quite cool. ^_^

View from the entrance of the National Portrait Gallery. It was actually really sunny when I took this so I’m not sure why it looks as if it’s dull. O_o

Since we had a few hours to kill we decided to walked in the direction of the Houses Of Parliament and whatnot. Downing Street is pretty boring but I took a picture of the signpost just to say I’ve been there lolol.

We then stumbled across this random park beside where the changing of the guards in Whitehall is… still don’t know the actual name of the park but it’s super super pretty!

SQUIRRELS!!!!! This was my highlight of the holiday wtf. I spent way too long chasing them to try and get a good photo. They were actually surprisingly friendly towards humans, one even started climbing the railings beside us lolol.

I got a picture with one! Mainly because it was preoccupied with drinking whatever was on the ground so it wasn’t bouncing all over the place wtf

Really cute house which had a sign explaining what it was….but I can’t remember what it said now OTL

This is the part where we went back to get Korean food in Chinatown and then rushed our asses over to the London Palladium ‘cause we thought the show started at 7pm when it actually started at 7:45pm…..we arrived there at 6:30 –_____-

Seriously though, A Chorus Line is freaking awesome. I knew some of the songs already and had a basic knowledge of what it’s about but holy crap it was amazing! I actually got a bit teary-eyed at the start cause it was my first ever West End musical and it’s been pretty much a lifelong dream of mine to see one before I die…….NOW I WANT TO SEE THEM ALL *_* and also Broadway too. My bank account is going to hate me. Oh and halfway through I realised that John Partridge (Christian from Eastenders) was Zach…he strutted right by us and everything!

My ticket! They spelled Conaty (Lily’s surname) as ‘Conarty’….at first he had it like ‘Conrty’ because she pronounced the ‘a’ like ‘ah’ lolol. I never realised Lily had such a heavy Irish accent until we came to London. O_O