An Unforgettable Experience - UK 2010

As I marked 13th till 22nd of June, 2010 as a wonderful and unforgettable vacation, I think its worth to pen down the experiences even though it has been more than 3 years. It took months of preparations. We went through bouts of excitements, worries and etc.  Finally, we made it to UK, a country which we never had plans of visiting. It was a dream come true. I would like to dedicate this post to the two very important stakeholders who made this trip successful - my dearest brother (who got the opportunity to study in Sunderland) and sister (who was willing to spend her money to travel with us). Without them, I would not be writing here.
The preparations started months earlier,just to talk about it brought smiles and excitements in our hearts. To get the confirmed dates was a challenge too. Everyone had their own opinions of best travel period and of course it had to fit our busy schedules too. As time ticked by and each day passed we saw the hike on airline ticket price. When finally the dates are confirmed, we went on to buy the Air Asia X flight. I got it for a cheaper price since I booked it 6 months ahead. 
Then the excitements starts with bunch of exchanged emails back and forth trying to figure the best places to visit, hotels to be booked and itinerary. We did quite pretty in planning I guess because the real trip actually did end following the schedule which we had planned. Then came the Eyjafjalljokull scare. The mountain in Iceland which we never heard of suddenly started to spew its ash a month before our flight to Stansted. We didn't know how long it would last which might hamper our trip. 
But, finally, the day we much anticipated arrived. It was the day we boarded the flight to Stansted. The 13 hours of flights didn't seem to trouble us much with most of the time we spent by sleeping. We landed at Stansted near to midnight, and took 1 hour to clear the immigration. We were greeted by our brother who looked eager-than-ever :). Since it was already past midnight, we stayed overnight at nearby Hilton London Stansted Airport hotel.

@Stansted

The next day, we boarded the bus to Central London and we took the tube to Rayners Lane (our uncle's house where we were to stay in London). Our plan was to go on city tour (Golden London tour) on the next day. 
So, our first stop on London hop on-and-off tour bus was Madame Tussod. We had fun looking at various wax of famous celebrities and public figures. I wanted to snap picture with Shah Rukh Khan's wax but could not find it there, so settled with Salman Khan instead :). My sister was overwhelmed with her Twilight vampire hero - Edward Cullen's wax. Then, we hopped on to go to London Eye. It was kind of boring ride on the merry-go-around but worth visiting as we were able to see buildings surrounding the area. It was then time to go to our last destination for city tour which was London dungeon. We went thru plenty of screams, goosebumps and heart stopping incidents ;). 

London City

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben

London Eye

The next day starts with travelling to London city center to board a bus to out of London city. Our First destination was one of the Queens resindences - Windsor Castle at Berkshire. It was a beautiful castle with nice landscapes. It was such a nice feelings to walk thru the chambers. There were lots of display of items used by the royals too. It was great to know we actually walked in the castle once lived by Queen Elizabeth.

Windsor Castle

 

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle

Next, we headed to Bath where we visited the famous Roman Bath. The buildings were ancient, even though there were ruins but it was preserved well. It was said that the natural hot water still pours through. Our last destination for the day was another English heritage, Stonehenge located near Salisbury. It was very sunny day and breezy. A glance at the great stones reminded us to think of how those primitives people managed to construct the structure with just the help of primitive tools. It was great experience to end the day!

Building at Bath

Roman's Bath

 
Roman's Bath

Stonehenge

 

Flower at Stonehenge

 

The next day, we went on city visit again, this time we visited St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Natural History Museum and cruise on river Thames. The St. James park was beautiful. There were lots of squirrels around, clearly not afraid of humans as they were fed food. We took a walk around the park and weather was very pleasant. One of the noticeable thing was the plaque bearing Princess Diana's name on the ground - marking The Memorial Walk. The Buckingham palace was just next to the park. Although we didn't manage to see the guards changing ceremony, but it was alright. We took plenty of snaps before heading to Hyde Park. There were lots of beautiful rose bushes. We could not take our eyes off it, it was such a magnificent sight! Then, we went on river cruise on the famous River Thames (this was with Thames River Services - Greenwich via Barrier). It was a relaxing cruise. We ended the day by visiting The Natural Science Museum was nice too. There were many preserved specimens of all kinds, replicas of dinosaurs, it was one of the place worth visiting and should not be missed. 

St James Park

St James Park

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

 

Buckingham Palace

 

Princess Di's Memorial Walk

 

Cruise on Thames

 

Tower Bridge

 

Millennium Dome

 

Something seen during the cruise  not sure what it was .... 

We boarded train from London to Staffordshire on the next day and stopped at Stoke-on-Trent. Our next stop was Alton Towers. The weather was gloomy and it was drizzling too. And we were shivering in cold. But that didn't stop us from taking the attraction of year - The Thirteenth and of course, the unforgettable - Rita :-) It was cool. I guess it was more to the coldness that sort of demotivated us from taking other scary rides especially the Oblivion. 

 

Alton Towers

 

Alton Towers

We spent the night at North Stafford Hotel and traveled to Manchester the next day. We stayed at Britannia Airport Hotel. We took some time to do shopping for people back home especially the much-loved chocolates. So yummy! Then, it was time to bring ourselves back to reality - we headed back to London and finally, landed in our country on 22nd of June. It was well deserved break for me. 

Turning Negative To Positive

Life is full of ups and downs. There are times we are surrounded with happiness then the next minute,sadness befalls us. Why sadness ? This is due to some incidents or happenings or arguments with people around us. There are lots of heart breaks, frustrations and grieve. We often think why can't people or others understands us. And why not people follow our way rather than theirs. We often wonder why does arguments happens at at times we least expect? The moment we thought everything is going on smoothly that's the time we often stuck with problems. If we think carefully, problems cannot be perceived as problems. Problem is a challenge. Challenges will make us a strong person. It is important to change everything negative to positive. It is a challenge by itself to transform negative to positive feelings. But when we successfully accomplish this transformation, our burdens becomes lighter. To be able to see things differently is a skill and self discipline. As a normal human being, we are often swayed or influenced into negative thinkings all the time. But we have train our minds not to be fooled or tricked by this. We have to be firm and always remind ourselves to remain positive , take charge of our brains and change every single negative things into positive. Positivity breeds good energy which in turn improves overall well being!