영국여행 | England (Day 10)

I can't wink, how do you people do it?

This day was a great moment of serendipitous fortune, because we happened to be available and in London at the same time as our good friends Erin and Morgan. They were some of the first people we met in Korea, and recently finished their contracts and went back to live in the US. But they were coming up towards the end of what I will call a "world trip" because they genuinely went to so many amazing countries and cities over the course of quite an impressive amount of time, immaculately planned (in my opinion, anyway). So it was really exciting to have a final glimpse of them before dipping back into "when will I see you again?" territory. Sobs.

We'd booked in to see another Shakespeare play at The Globe, this time Much Ado About Nothing. But prior to that, we had a mosey around the Southbank area, including lunch at Pieminister (repping the West Country), which I ate too quickly to even think about documenting. That's how much I love those pies.

We still had some time to spare, so we went to the Tate Modern, which was just as confusing and incomprehensible to me as it was during a secondary school trip, which was the last time I'd visited. Maybe it's all too deep for me. I got more enjoyment looking at people looking at the art. Or is that also part of the modern art? Deep.

We were in standing for this performance, so I got to see all of the gorgeous painting above the stage in better detail. I like that I got to have an experience of both seated and standing.

영국여행 | England (Day 9)

I'll give you one guess at where we went.

Day 9 saw me meeting up with Ann-Marie again to go on a day-trip somewhere neither of us had been before, once again checking off something on our "explore more of England" list.

We met at King's Cross, which is always fun to say, and we might actually have left from platform 9 or 10 (sadly not 9¾).

Breakfast! Once again making the most of cured meats and real cheese.

Due to our lackadaisical approach to planning a day out, we ended up just typing various place names into the ticket machine and choosing the cheapest one that was also less than a 2 hour train ride away, and ended up with Cambridge.

Flat English countryside from the train window.

What we didn't realise is that the train station is actually quite a long walk from the actual university buildings. What I also didn't know is that Cambridge apparently has a large Asian expat community, because we walked down a whole street of shops catering to Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Japanese tastes, as well as many more. We popped into a bubble tea shop with post-it notes covered in cute doodles and messages not written in English, and generally caused a hassle, as we usually do (they didn't have a working card machine and I never carry cash, but they'd already started my order, oops)

It's kind of weird, just wandering around and then choosing a random university building to just walk into and look around. Especially as most of the buildings are probably halls of residence, it feels a lot like you're just walking into someone's garden and having a nose around, even though the area has the look of a stately home, which actually IS just walking into someone's garden (and house) and having a nose around.

영국여행 | England (Day 7)

Deliberately moving this photo up to use as the thumbnail. Sorrynotsorry.

On day 7, Nick was busy with various arrangements and people I don't know, or at least know very well, so I met up with the second best thing, Ann-Marie (sorry, you're not a thing, I know)

We were determined to get some culture down our country bumpkin throats, so, after walking past the entrance gate and up the road the wrong way for about 5 minutes, we finally made it to the V&A Museum.

Considering it's full of ~beautiful things~ including fashion history, I've been wanting to come here for a LONG time. Look at that exterior! So pretty. Also, what a beautiful day to be spending indoors in darkened rooms with musty old things. Ah, yes.

Anyway, here are some pretty things. I like how they have benches all around this section so you can just sit and stare at the pretty things. I took these pictures mainly so I'd have some reference materials for drawing but we all know that's not going to happen, so I'll just share them with you.

My favourite dress, along with the section that made me laugh the most. Of course there's a section dedicated to modern British rainwear. Of course.

I love how tiny the lady is.

영국여행 | England (Day 6)

London Bridge, thankfully not falling down.

Next, we headed back to London for Nick's mum's birthday. We had dinner at Bill's (do recommend! Been there a couple of times now and it's always delicious) before heading to the home of another Bill, The Globe Theatre (see what I did there, winkwonk).

Eton Mess, how could I resist?

The walk along the Thames from Bill's to the Globe was great, with the sky being all kinds of colours and full of clouds. So pretty.

영국여행 | England (Day 5)

Bovril. File under: Things I really, really miss.

Day 5 saw me have breakfast at my grandparents' house (quite possibly the only place in the world where I have proper, normal breakfasts sat at a table without a rush.) before going out with my parents to do some sightseeing.

Before we filled up our schedules, Nick and I had been planning on visiting loads of places in the UK that we'd never been to before. Mainly inspired by the fact we've not really been to that many places in South Korea, but many Koreans often comment on how we've been to more places than them, or people they know. We made a plan to be a bit more of a tourist in our own country and see some of the places we always hear about but never actually bother visiting because "it's only down the road" or something like that.

We ended up going to a tiny little village just next to mine called Castle Combe. Despite it being very, very small and I think entirely composed of grade-listed buildings, it's reasonably famous due to it being a filming location for a lot of films and TV shows.

The main reason for this is probably the fact that it's remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years. From the main roads, which are mostly single-lane, you can't see anything that would look out of place in a period drama. No house alarm boxes, no phone lines or antenna, satellite dishes or modern electric streetlights.

영국여행 | England (Day 4)

Gna cut U

The next day we headed out to Bristol city centre for a wander around and some coffee, nothing too serious. We killed several hours just taking photos and talking for a while, inevitably bumping into people we know and chatting to them, too.

Then, we headed back home to go to my Nan's house for a real roast dinner! Yay~

Quite possibly the thing I was most looking forward to, was going to my nan's house, gorging on the flawless Sunday roast her and my grandad always make, and then lying on the sitting room floor in a food-drunk stupor just like I've always done since I was very, very young.

*choirs of angels sing*

영국여행 | England (Day 3)

Perspective tricks?

On day 3 we finally left London and headed west to Birmingham to see Nick's grandpa, after which I would head southwards to Bristol and Nick would just go back to London.

We took the train, which is always a nice, relaxing way to go, and after years of gross Megabus journeys (PSA: for the love of all that is good and holy, don't poo in coach toilets) I think I cherished it a little more than I'd expected to.

Birmingham looks different to how I remembered it.

It was a bit confusing to see the progress in Brum New St station, since the last time I'd been there most of it had been closed off and it was a nightmare to get to any platforms. A lot of it was still closed off, but navigation was easier, there was more room, and you could see a lot of progress had been made! (In my opinion anyway). We transferred trains, met Nick's grandpa, and sped off to a pub for a proper pub lunch.

영국여행 | England (Day 2)

We started our day reasonably well and didn't sleep in too late, and had a deliciously English/unhealthy tasting breakfast of toast, fried eggs, and various forms of breaded potato with Nick's brother.

We went to the shops to see to several errands such as getting SIM cards for our phones and sorting out bank things we'd been having trouble with.

I was also determined to find some shoes and jeans to bring back to the land of clothes for tiny people, but didn't have much luck or time.

We did, however, have time to make Nick try on this hat.

We were trying to take it easy on day 1 and 2, but we were also determined not to fall asleep at anything earlier than 8pm to fight off any jetlag that could jeopardise our tightly scheduled holiday. So, in true British style, we "went for a walk".

It was nice to see all the British wildflowers and trees and people and air for a while. We also saw some seemingly wild parakeets, which was baffling. What exactly happened to England while we were gone?

We went to a great little cafe that we love, which was thankfully still there (we're damaged by the impermanence of Korean establishments), for lunch and had proper sandwiches. Take that, Paris Baguette!

영국여행 | England (Day 1)

For our 2015 summer vacation, we decided to blow all our money on a trip back to England. We don't get many holidays, and the summer holiday is the longest one we get, so it's the best for travelling a long distance. Considering we'd been away from home for over a year, we thought it'd be a good opportunity to go home.

I kind of really enjoy long-haul flights and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I always associate them with being really excited or big adventures. Maybe it's the free movies and food.

On the plane we were sat next to a boy from Busan who was going to study in England. We had to help him with a few things, as we were flying with BA so most things were in not-so-simple English. The most horrifying thing was realising just how weird the English used in the boarding and immigration documents is. There's no simple language like most forms. In place of "address" it's something like "location of residence" and instead of "reason for travelling" it's like "intention of sejour". Why would you do that? Especially on flights where it's likely people wouldn't necessarily be fluent in the weird words British formal public language likes to use.

We watched The Royal Tailor during the flight, because we'd seen it over a few shoulders and it looked quite funny. What we weren't expecting was that halfway through it would suddenly become very tragic and we'd cry a lot. (It was a great movie though, you should watch it)

Everything's in English!

So, half a day later, we arrived in England about 4 hours after we'd left Korea (ah, time zones), grabbed our luggage (after the usual drawn-out fear that it didn't make it over) and got into a car with our friend Tom who'd graciously agreed to spare us the pain of getting the Tube from Heathrow.