Monday, September 17, 2007 | 1:36 AM

Part V – London

Well well well, what can I say about London. Visiting London is like a dream-come-true for me (and so is Europe by the way).
Have always yearned to visit London since I started to fall in love with football, Chelsea and Frank Lampard. And London has not let me down one bit.

Though London might be a little gloomy on rainy days, the London that I experienced wasn’t all that gloomy (it’s summer!)

Visited Westminster where we saw The Eye and Big Ben.

Only picture Jeanne and I managed with the Big Ben

A close up

The Eye aka Ferris Wheel

And who can forget about Buckingham Palace where the Queen resides.

Our first bus taken was at London too. It felt just like home. I simply love the British accent and their many a culture, including…

- Musicals

The musical Jeanne and I caught (Jieyi ran low on budget)

It's a rather new musical - compared to the one which Jeanne wanted to catch initially (Mama Mia which was too exp that we settled for this instead).
But anyways, it's nice! Witchcraft, sisterly love, romance. So me.

The reviews..

Inside the theatre at Victoria

Took this before the muscial started. It's roughly how the stage started out as..

- Shopping and more shopping at Piccadilly and Oxford Street
Where many UK brands such as Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Marks and Spencer etc. could be found. Had a great time shopping there!

This was taken with the Crest of London bear outside the Crest of London souvenir shop

- Football
Football is so in their blood as the blue is in my blood. I can never forget how the tube gets flooded by British (both old and young) wearing jerseys of the team they support on matchdays, and how the tube station displays the following matches so that people avoid the tube at those times. And how random people could ask us for the result of Chelsea vs Birmingham when we boarded the tube after the match clad in our jerseys.

Chelsea FC

The chelsea megastore

All my buys from the shop above

Map of the 'Chelsea Village'

The reason for my being there

The reason for US being there

We took a stadium tour of Chelsea the day before the match. Enjoyed it so much more than the Barcelona FC one. There was a guide throughout the tour and apart from the legendary Away dressing room which is purportedly very dirty, small and rundown with only 2 showers (such a malicious accusation!), we were also brought to the Home dressing room whereby we were lucky to catch the jerseys laid out for the players were scheduled to be in for training that afternoon.

Me at the walkway between the dressing room and the field

I set foot on Chelsea ground!

Live size statues of the captain and vice captain

Looks familiar? This is where press conferences are held

The Home changing room

My boys (No boots for Terry as he was out for the match)

The museum is much smaller than the one at Barcelona FC but it houses more recent and interesting stuff compared to the former.

We are FA Cup winners for 06/07!

Signatures of the players covered part of the wall
Presenting my fav 4 players

And this is for Kitty

Can't believe that this is really in the museum - Mourinho's legendary coat which he used to wear for his first 2 seasons or something and he claimed (correctly) that he donated it to the Chelsea museum after that

And if you are a JT fan, you should know that this is a classic.
This is the jersey that JT wore last season in the away match against Reading where Reading concussed both Cech and Cudicini that JT had to take the goalkeeper's place for the closing minutes.

Managed a little bit of stalking business and our efforts did not come to naught. Can’t believe that I still stalk at this age. Quite throw face huh.

Caught Ferreira driving out of the carpark

And this is THE best - me with Ricardo Carvalho

He was aiming for Jeanne actually - fulfilling his promise to back in 2minutes after a phone call (as Jeanne was the only one who enthusiastically approached him then). Anyway, I happily free rode on that. =)

And we still arrived early on the matchday to follow up on our stalking business. Heh.

Our new (but ugly) defender - Ben Haim

Robben who had left for Real Madrid

Towering Cech

Didn't mange to catch JT or Frankie though. =((((((((

Substitute (poor one at that) for that - Roman Abramovich

And I got his signature on my Chelsea cap (on the spot which I was eagerly waiting for Lamps to sign on)

Stalker no 1 and no 2

Highlight of 3 consecutive days at Fulham Broadway was catching the opening match of season 07/08 - Chelsea vs Birmingham. The atmosphere of the match was really great. Not quite what I’d expected but it was really wonderful to catch a match live at Stamford Bridge. Had I stayed in London, I would definitely get a season ticket and watch them week in week out!

The match that we caught

Tickets that we tried so hard to get - Thanks again to kitty

And to top it off, I love our hostel in London. It’s a student hostel (private ensuite), and the time spent there really triggered the thought of furthering my studies (hope that I would have a sponsor by the time I want it). I will never forget the late night chats and all the fun we had with the 20p foosball and pool. It’s so s0 SO fun I really want to be back! And this time with more soccer and hopefully some Wimbledon.

Our hostel - Dinwiddy House

20p pool - I miss you!

And with this, though reluctantly, I rest my Europe grad trip in a place called memories.