LONDON, one of the busiest, one of the world's leading financial hub and the most visited city in the world with over two thousands years of history in it.
Even we spend 365 days in London, we could not fully experience and enjoy what the city offers. Fortunately I got at least 12 hours of my time to be spent in this spectacular city and I wanted to use the best of best from it.
The good way to plan is to fully browse the http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ and shortlist the places to visit or book a tour package before arriving the city.
Since I love cycling, I booked my tour in a 'Fat Tire Bike Tour'; there were also walking tour, private taxi tour, bus tour etc., If we were visiting the city for the first time, do not know anyone here and we have to roam alone then the better option would be to book a tour. The group tour make us feel we are not alone and makes us more comfortable in new place and also we can cover more sites in short time.
One important thing to note is to find from which part of the city these tours are started, the connectivity within the city is extraordinary but the point is we should consider the travel time required to reach the given location within the time.
Packing my things for a day trip
Must have things
Printed city tube map (freely downloadable from internet)
Printed city bus map (freely downloadable from internet)
Wallet with some money ;)
Mobile & SIM card with data pack
ID proof
Good to have
Drinking water
Some snacks
Umbrella
Towel
Mobile charger
With my personal bag I arrived Victoria Coach station, London at 8:00 AM in the morning. The weather was very cold and it drizzled too. I finished my breakfast inside the bus itself so I should head directly to Queensway tube station where the bike tour supposed to start.
Notes:
Victoria coach station is the bus stand.
In London, the underground metros train are called as tube and station is called as tube station.
The Victoria terminal can be seen similar to Majestic terminal in Bangalore. Like Majestic, here we have the bus station, tube station and inter-city train station very adjacent to each other. By walk I went to Victoria tube station, this tube station have multiple entries and the one entered was not so great in look and has narrow pathways. When I entered I got the feel of entering Mumbai or Chennai electric train station. There were self-help ticketing kiosk and the traditional counter too. Either we should buy oyster card OR we could buy one day pass which can be used both in tube and bus. The difference between oyster card and pass was oyster card itself is charged but we can surrender when we no longer need it and get the refund.In London city bus, the driver will not take cash for ticket, so buying an oyster or pass is mandatory.
One of the tube stations
I purchased one day pass and took train which would take me to Queensway tube station.
A Guy was waiting for us with Bike Tour board in Queenway tube station
Once all the people who booked for the tour were arrived, we went to the 'Fat tire bike tour' office. After going there I got to know, they have offices in France, Spain & Germany too. We were totally 20 people and they divided in two groups and assigned different guide for each group. Each one of us picked one bike and went to nearby Kennington park.
1. Kennington Garden
London city has numerous number of parks and they have dedicated cycling track in park as well as in road. Our guide asked us to get used to the bike for few mins in this park. They have mixed varieties of UK and US bikes; in UK bikes the gear and back wheel break in left and front wheel break in right, for US the reverse. Guide was carrying all the necessary tools with him all the times.
After getting comfortable with our bikes, we started for the tour !!!!
Started our tour :)
2. Kensington Palace
The Kensington palace was not built with the intention as royal residence. In the beginning of 17th century, wealthy business man constructed this mansion far away from central London. In late 17th century the King wanted to stay away from the crowded and smoky air of London so he purchased this mansion. That time Kensington was a suburban village outside London. Queen Victoria was born and brought up in this Palace. Today Prince William and Kate were staying here. This palace has two parts, one is accessible to public while the other is used only by the royal family.
Kensington Palace's Main Entrance
Queen Victoria coronation statue
The above coronation statue of queen Victoria is designed by Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.
3. Wellington Arch
The Wellington arch was built between 1826 to 1830 to commemorate the Britain's victory in Napoleonic Wars at the battle of Waterloo. The location of current arch was short distance away from where it was originally installed and the statue on the top was replaced. There was statue of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington but in 1912 it was replaced by statue the Quadriga, the winged Goddess of victory. This Quadriga is the largest bronze statue in Europe.
Standing infront of Wellington Arch
4. Buckingham Palace
Next place were we stopped was Buckingham palace which was the home of British Queen and state rooms. The guide questioned us whether the queen was in home at the moment, we gave mixed answers. After our answers, he told us a way to find out this. If a UK flag was flying then queen was not in home, if royal standard flag was flying then it means queen was in home. Guide told us about the story of Michael Fagan, the Buckingham palace intruder who broke into the palace and entered Queen Elizabeth II's bedroom in 1982.
In Buckingham Palace
5. Trafalgar Square
Next we headed to Trafalgar square and parked our bike for lunch. There were lots of restaurants and sandwich shops for either having a lengthy, casual lunch or quick lunch. He gave us 45 mins time to finish our food. The main attraction was the Nelson's column. It was built to commemorate the victory of British's naval forces during the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain. The four bronze relief panels on four sides of the column were cast from captured French guns.
Trafalgar Square
Bronze panel made from cast of captured French guns
Really I should appreciate the guide for explaining us how British has defeated French and Spanish ships even though the British had less number of war ships. He asked us stand in the same naval formation commanded by Admiral Nelson during the battle and made us understand the British's naval tactics during 18th century.
Infront of Nelson's Column
6. Horse Guard Parade
Horse guard for Buckingham palace starts from Whitehall everyday at 11:30 AM. Since we went after lunch, we could not see the change of guard ceremony. I noticed signal for horses too in London like how it used to be for pedestrians and cyclist.
Whitehall Palace
Above: Not the actual horse guard, the actual guard will be with uniform Below: The actual horse guard for palace
Next to Whitehall was #10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister's home and office. Just adjacent to it was Churchill's war room where he discussed all his world war II war plan.
7. Westminister Abbey
Westminister abbey is a large church in city of Westminister, London. It has been the traditional place of coronation and burial site for British monarchs. Princess Diana's funeral was held at this abbey.
Westminister Abbey
Though the narrow streets of London
8. Westminister Palace
It is called House of Parliament and the meeting place for both House of commons and Lords. It was the primary residence of England King until the fire accident happened in 16th century. After reconstructing the Westminister Palace they started using it for Parliament. The design they wanted to adopt was to completely move out of Roman design with dome structure; the primary reason for this was US was already having their Federal Government building with dome and UK wants to be different from them.
Westminister Palace
A part of Westminister palace was the Elizabeth tower which was commonly called as Big Ben after the name of its main bell. It was one of the iconic landmark for London.
Big Ben
9. Victoria and Albert Museum
This was the last site for our bike tour, after this we went back to Queensway tube via St James Park, Hyde Park and that concludes our bike tour. On the way we stopped for photo shots in this beautiful gardens. All around London, we could find plenty of museums. Few are free and most of them are charged. Each museum will take atleast half a day of time.
Lake in Hyde Park
Infront of Victoria and Albert Museum
10. London Eye
London eye was a giant Ferris wheel located in southern bank of River Thames and started operation from 31st Dec'1999 to mark the millennium. During 1999, it was the world's tallest Ferris wheel. It provides highest viewing point in London but we need to stand in a big queue for that. The speed of rotation was very slow and the whole ride takes 30 mins.
Standing in Westminister bridge and infront of London Eye
11. Tower of London
It was a castle and in history it even served a prison. Today they have a museum here and kept Crown Jewels which has India's Kohinoor diamond, the 106 carat diamond. Each and every stone in the crown has its own history.
12. London tower Bridge
Ofcourse how one can miss Tower bridge when visiting London. It was next to Tower of London and crosses river Thames and was one of the iconic symbol of London and to UK itself.
Infront of London Tower bridge
I was a little bit lucky enough to see the lifting of bridge for boat to pass through. The bridge lifting time will be published in their official website.
Panoramic view of Tower of London, Tower bridge & modern building in Southern bank of Thames
There was an exhibit in towers of tower bridge but it was chargeable. Pedestrians can walk on the bridge and we could see the engine room in southern bank. I enjoyed the view of wide Thames from the bridge.
Snap on the bridge
In the southern bank we could see live musical performance, lots of shops and restaurants. We could sit for sometime and get relaxed after seeing the flow of Thames.
In Southern bank with the view of Tower of London on Northern Bank
13. Borough market
Borough market was one of the oldest wholesale and retail food market in London. Here we could see stallholders from different parts of UK. Almost all the shops get closed at 5:00 pm, so if we would like to shop some food better to go soon.
Main entrance of Borough Market
14. Victoria Railway station
Victoria is one of the busiest railway station in London. This Victoria station structure resembles our Mumbai's CST, I should have told in reverse order ;) its ok :p
Victoria Railway Station in London
Bye Bye London, see you again
After exploring this historical city for the whole day, I said bye with hard emotionsand reached Victoria Coach station. From here all inter-city bus departs.
Victoria Coach station
I saw River Thames again on my way out of London :)
It is not difficult to get vegetarian food in UK but it is difficult in finding the right place where we get vegetarian food. Within couple of days, we could find plenty of Indian restaurants in the city but I wanted to have a balance between Indian and English food during my stay.
Vegetarian logo in food products
If we are buying some packed eatables from shop, it is better to look for this logo << 'V' - Suitable for vegetarian >> for veggi food. Food allergies are intolerable here, it is government rule to list all the ingredients which may be causing allergy. In almost all the restaurants, I saw the board which says << If you have food allergy or special dietary requirement, please talk to a member of staff >>. Egg is considered as vegetarian food here, if we don't want to be served with egg then we should ask for vegan food; which do not include egg and dairy products.
Quorn & mushroom pie with fresh vegetables
Quorn is a meat substitute for vegetarians and very popular among people in UK, Ireland and USA. I do not know this before; after eating a little, I was afraid whether I was eating vegetarian food. I did quick google check to satisfy myself that it was a vegetarian food. They stuffed this quorn and mushroom inside the bread and served with boiled potato and cabbage.
Spinach & Mozzarella pancake with Smashed potato and salad
The preparation of pancake is similar to Indian masala dosa but the flour for batter is different. They folded to make it like a triangular pancake and stuffed it with spinach and mozzarella; mozzarella is a cheese from Italy and it was so delicious. Along with the pancake two scoop of smashed potato, green peas and salad were server.
Wild mushroom stroganoff with boiled rice, chips and garlic bread
Stroganoff means a dish in which the central ingredient is cooked in a sauce containing sour cream, here the main ingredient is wild mushroom. This mushroom was big and tasted differently. To be honest, I didn't like this mushroom. Along with this they served chips and garlic bread. Yeah, we call it as French fries and they call it as chips.
Roasted vegetables frittata with potato wedges & beans
Frittata is an Italian dish and the word 'Frittata' means fried. They added roasted vegetables along with it and served with potato wedges and beans.
Brie and roasted red pepper quiche with bean, peas and mushroom
Brie is the best known French cheese and has the nick name "The Queen of cheeses". Quiche is a pastry crust with fillings of cheese, vegetables, meat or seafood; here they filled with brie cheese and red pepper. Along with quiche, I had beans, green peas and mushroom. The mushroom was bland and we need to add salt to taste better. Not only mushroom, even the chips they served do not have salt, we need to sprinkle a little salt before eating.
Pilaf rice with chickpeas curry and chips
Pilaf is another name of pulao, I am not able to identify the spice they added to make this pulao with the taste. Along with this they gave chickpeas curry and chips.
Quorn and lentils pie with sweet potato toppings
Mixed the quorn and lentils and prepared a pie with sweet potato toppings.
One of the Indian restaurant which serves only vegetarian food
This restaurant is located in High Street, Southampton and to my surprise they serve only vegetarian food. All south Indian dishes too was available. There were few more Indian restaurant in the same street; Coriander Lounge, The Everest to name few of them.
Isle of wight is an island south of mainland Great Britain, it is divided by The Solvant. If we were staying in southern part of UK, then it is a must visit place in my view. Since I stayed in Southampton, there was a frequent ferry service to this island. The ferry service are operated by many companies. I booked in Red Funnel company; they operate ferry service every one hour and they have spacious lounge, restaurant, kids play area etc. They even carry the 4 wheeler, so people can use to drive in the island. Most of the transportation in UK is animal friendly, so they can carry their pet animals with them; so even in the ferry we can see people boarding the ship with dogs. Southampton has so many docks and the famous RMS Titanic, Mayflower, RMS Queenmary cruise started their journey from one of these docks. Below link takes to the ferry service time table, this ferry takes us to East Cowes dock in Isle of Wight island.
As we leaves the dock, we could see the wide view of the city port and docks; there will not be much tide as these docks are in river Test which has its origin from Ashe, 60 kms away from Southampton. Also row of yachts could been seen clearly.
View Ocean Cruise from our ferry
Yachts in the dock
The Ferry we went has 3 deck, C deck is for complete 4 wheeler and goods, deck B has refreshing lounge, deck A has coffee bar with children pay area and sun deck. All these deck are pet friendly area.
In Deck B
Deck C carrying vehicles
Refreshment shop in Deck A
Travel time to Isle of Wight island was nearly an hour, till then we can enjoy the AV service provided in TV. Also they will update the vessel position now and then in TV. They have free literature section with choices of books to read, we could take free maps, pamphlets and some information & reference brochure which are there in the ship.
Approaching East Cowes in Isle of Wight island
After getting down from ship, we went to the nearest bus pickup point. It would be always good to talk with the bus driver for knowing the best deal of bus ticket; they even have a family full-day ticket which saves more bucks than individual full-day ticket. There are no taxi service in this island but all the parts are well connected by public transport. It would be very difficult to cover the whole island in a day, most people stay here for couple of nights to visit all the places. Our plan is only for a day and we shortlisted 'The Needles' which is in western region of the island.
Bus service in Island
Have a look into below website to know more about their services
This island became very popular after queen Victoria built her summer home here. This Osborne house (the summer home) is now open to public to visit. Not only this, the island has so many interesting historical facts which was kept secret for long years (keep reading to know ;)) & lots of entertainment, sport activities which attracts tourists all over the year.
The Needles
1. The Chalk Cliff
The needles is a white chalk rock that rise out of the sea. And to reach there we should take the bus that goes to Alum Bay. It got the name needles from the pinnacle of chalk which was 120ft high, in 1764 it fall with such a great force that people in mainland Britain could hear it. In-front of the rock is the lighthouse which was built in 1859. This unusual vertical rock claims to be the most photographed group of rocks in the world.
Chalk cliff
Same Cliff from other side
Standing in the view point of chalk rock
2. Old and New battery
First, battery means cluster of cannons, guns or missiles grouped together for better battlefield communication and commanding. There are two battery in The Needles; these are constructed during Victorian time. These are used during both world wars to protect against the enemies. Both the batteries are now decommissioned after the war.
Old battery entrance
Couple of battery kept for visitors
New Battery
New Battery in action
3. Secrete rocket program
British rockets were initially tested in parts here before using them for launching it from Australia. Since the old battery was deactivated, they used this space for rocket testing. This was a very secrete program carried out by British that even the family members of the people who worked here do not know about it.
Today they have a small museum there and cardboard model of workstations.
4. Alum Bay multi colored sand cliff
This we could see when we are coming down from The Needles peek. This multi color rock is because of the geological changes some million years age.
Multi color rock
5. Marconi Monument
Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio did his first investigation and experiments with wireless radio communication in The Needles. This place could be told as birth place of all modern communications. There is no museum or exhibit kind of sort; they kept a monument in remembrance of this historic event and we could breath and imagine how it might be during late 19th century.
Monument in Alum Bay
6. Amusement & Attractions
Always something will be there for everyone. The attractions ranges from 4D film, chairlift travel, pleasure boat, glass manufacturing demonstration, sweet manufacturing demonstration, pebble beach, restaurants, shopping and much more
The Needles Park
Pebble beach
In the far, we could see chairlift bringing people down to beach
One of the experience that we should not miss was this open bus travel in The Needles; it was a 30 mins journey and our normal day pass was accepted. It takes us via hairpin bend turnings in cliffs and most important is they have recorded audio which says about the importance of each place we across.
Sitting in the top
Open double deck bus
The bus drops us at The Needles peak, and we can spend some time there with sight seeing, photo shoot, enjoying the breeze, playing
Trying different poses in photo shoot
We could see the mainland Britain from The Needles peak. Recently they found dinosaurs fossils in this island which proofs that this island was once part of mainland.
View of Mainland from The Needles (it is farther, may not be seen clearly in this photo)
Applying visa for UK is made simple by filling out the online application form and scheduling the date & time of appointment. All short time visa (upto 6 months), we will get it in 10 working days. We need to go in person to give our thumb imprints, photo and signature; the good thing is we don't have to visit only the British consulate for this, we can visit the nearest VFS Global office for this. In Bangalore we don't have the consulate, so scheduled my appointment to VFS office.
I started from Bangalore airport heading towards London. I couldn't find a best airfare deal to London from Bangalore airport; so I booked it via Mumbai in Jet Airways. The choices of food is limited only to Veg & Non-Veg but the AV entertainment contains full desi choices.
In CS International Airport, Mumbai, waiting to board the flight 1:15 AM IST
The flight running time from Mumbai to London is 9 hours approximately. It is good to land London in day time because the aircraft will start flying in low altitude when we are 100 miles to London. We can enjoy the spectacular view of the country side, areal view of Thames river with its twist, turn and sailing ships on it. We will get the clear view of London Tower Bridge, most of the historical buildings, modern high raised buildings and much more.
Reached London Heathrow Airport 6:45 AM GMT
We say following sentences in synonymous 'Travelling to Britain', 'Travelling to England', 'Travelling to UK', 'Travelling to London'. In this blog I wanted to write a little about its differences.
Britain: Britain was the name made popular by the Romans when they came to the British islands. Great Britain refer to the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland on the same landmass, that were ruled over by the same monarch.
England: England used to be known as Engla land, meaning the land of the Angles, people from continental Germany, who began to invade Britain in the late 5th century, along with the Saxons and Jute.
UK: refers to the union of what were once four separate nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
London: It is the capital of both England and UK.
From London Heathrow airport, we would find plenty of commutation options to the city like private taxi, city buses and inter-city buses. I booked my apartment in Southampton city; on my way to the city, I witnessed the beauty of Winchester city and Southampton University.
Inter city bus
City Taxi service
City Bus
Winchester City - On my way to Southampton
We selected and booked the apartment prior to our arrival from the below link
On arrival we collected the key from the office to check-in, the apartment which we booked is self check-in type. We spent nearly 20 mins inside the apartment to find the flat, it was like a maze but was fun going around the property to find it.
General Information:
(1) Buying SIM card is very easy and they are not asking for any proof also. Lycamobile is popular among people who make frequent international calls. In Lycamobile, the call to local UK number is costlier than calling an international number. We can also order SIM card online at free of cost.
(2) Tap water is good for drinking. Packaged drinking water priced 4 times the price of a soft drinks. (3) City is very clean, filled with green trees but breathing is not pleasant always. People keeps smocking in public which causes inconveniences to others. (4) If we step out from apartment, there is a 99.99 % chance we will meet an Indian. (5) For inter-city travel, travelling by bus is cheaper than travelling by train
(6) In the era of mobile telephone, we could still see telephone booth in many parts of the city
The objective of this post is to explain the step-by-step procedure on bringing up wetty node-module in a linux OS based on MIPS architecture.
About Wetty
Wetty is a web based tty. It allows us to open a tty (text terminal) session in a web browser to access the remote machine. Normally we use a standard tty client such as putty or Xshell to access the remote machine. Wetty gives us the flexibility of accessing remote machine from a browser without the need of any other software. Wetty is a node.js module and it runs on top of node.js
Prerequisites:
Download node.js source code (https://nodejs.org/download/); v0.12.7 is the current version during the time of writing
I prefer to run a virtual machine in vagrant environment, it is so easy to configure and bring up a VM in vagrant. And file sharing between virtual machine and host is also so simple.
Cross compiling Node.js
|> Download node.js source code and prepare the build folder
# mkdir -p /usr/venkateshm/source/nodejs
# cd /usr/venkateshm/source/nodejs
# curl -O https://nodejs.org/dist/v0.12.7/node-v0.12.7.tar.gz # tar xvf node-v0.12.7.tar.gz # cd node-v0.12.7 |> Set the necessary terminal variables # export TC_PATH=/usr/venkateshm/toolchain/stbgcc-4.5.3-2.4/bin # export CC=$TC_PATH/mipsel-linux-gcc # export AR=$TC_PATH/mipsel-linux-ar # export CXX=$TC_PATH/mipsel-linux-g++ # export LINK=$TC_PATH/mipsel-linux-g++ |> Configure the make; the configuration for node.js is written is python so python 2.5 or 2.6 is required before running the below command # ./configure --dest-cpu=mipsel --dest-os=linux --prefix=/usr/local/nodejs --without-snapshot # vi config.gypi |> Add following entry under variables 'mips_arch_variant': 'mips32r1'
|> Make # make # make install
copy out/Release/node and put it in /usr/local/bin folder of MIPS machine
Installing wetty in MIPS
Most of the nodejs modules are platform independent as they will be written in javascript. But few modules like websocket are dependent on platform as they use platform specific implementation. Wetty is platform independent but its dependencies modules websocket and pts.js are platform dependent. Node.js ships with a utility called node.gyp to handle the cases like machine dependent node-module, this utility builds the node-module and generates .node file. The easy approach is to install wetty first in host virtual machine
# git clone https://github.com/krishnasrinivas/wetty.git
# cd wetty
# npm install Now all the dependencies of wetty are successful downloaded and can be found inside node_modules folder. Now download the source of websocket and pty.js node-module
# git clone https://github.com/theturtle32/WebSocket-Node.git
# cd WebSocket-Node
# npm install nan
# /usr/venkateshm/source/nodejs/node-v0.12.7/deps/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin/node-gyp --arch mipsel configure build
If the build is successful, copy the generated build folder and replace it in wetty/node_modules/websocket/build Similarly steps for pty.js
# git clone https://github.com/chjj/pty.js.git
# cd pty.js
# npm install nan
# /usr/venkateshm/source/nodejs/node-v0.12.7/deps/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin/node-gyp --arch mipsel configure build
Dosa is a staple food in southern region of India. The first step of dosa preparation is its batter; the batter is prepared from urad dal (white lentils) and rice. Once the batter is ready, it will be poured on a hot pan. As it is boredom to have same dosa everyday, people came up with onion dosa, masala dosa, podi dosa and much more varieties like that. One such variety that recently started up among younger generation is 'Pizza Dosa'; this after the mania on Pizza. I use to make this pizza dosa on a relaxed Saturday afternoon for a delicious & drooling lunch. The main ingredients is a set of favorite vegetables. One of my friend told me the secrete of cooking is on how we cut vegetables; for each dish the type of cutting differs and it plays important role is taste & easiness in eating. Main ingredients are as follows
Dosa batter
Set of vegetables
Cheese
Ghee
Chili flakes
Oregano flakes
Dry fruits (Optional)
Cut Vegetables
As I mentioned earlier; the shape of cut matters for best taste of vegetables and easiness in eating. I sliced the onion, did round cut the tomato & horizontal cut for capsicum.
TIP: Watch Youtube videos on cutting different vegetables if very new to cooking.
While making pizza dosa, keep the flame low, this is because it need more time bake the upper part of dosa. In hot pan, pour one or two ladle of batter (depending on the size of pizza we want), spread the cut vegetables on top of it, Lay cheese on top it and pour ghee on the sides. Sprinkle oregano & chili flakes and close it with lid. Open it after couple of minutes, we can feel the smell of oregano.
Ready to eat Pizza Dosa
Closer look
Now the vegetables would have cooked properly and it will cut easily when we bite. Enjoy & indulge into the taste of freshly prepared Pizza Dosa.
