^JB^ wrote:[..] Squeezing into London is great. Opportunity I will have, too. I will arrive at about 5:30 p.m. and then Clary will take me to a nearby hotel. On the next day, at 16:00, a coach from Totnes will be waiting at Heathrow. So, as you see, I have a whole morning, half of an afternoon, FREE. I don't want to waste it, and I wouldn't like to miss this opportunity to see such a great city. You have some advices? [..]
JB, unlucky you are because London is an entire universe and you have so little time to see this really interesting city! One can live there for a long tome and still find there something new and impressive. I hope during your 7-week stay in the UK you are going to visit London more, or at last you will be able to find a couple of days to see the city when you return there to take a flight home. In any case let me share with you my own experience of a man who was first time in London. (Fortunately when it was my first time I did have time to enjoy the city. My most recent visit, on the contrary, gave me only lots of work.)
First I would like to say that London is very visitors friendly. If you can speak English it saves you a lot of problems (finding ways in the Tube etc.) though at first moments it appears to be somewhat difficult to understand English speech if this language is not your mother tongue. There are written signs everywhere that would never allow you to get lost and people are very helpful if you approach them and ask something. But just imagine how your language skills are going to improve when you are back home! Another unpleasant surprise may be that Britain is rather an expensive country. Exchange your money (exchange offices are everywhere, they will give you around 50 English pounds for 100 US dollars or 60 pounds for Euro100) and try to never count prices in Yuan. Find out if you are eligible for a student card, it would sometimes cut your costs by nearly one third. Yet another thing out of the ordinary is the British traffic: cars go "on the wrong side"! In the beginning it kept me frightened all the time because I was afraid to be run over.
When you only arrive to your hotel I would advise you to go to the nearest Tube station and get there an Underground map, main Bus routes and Tickets and Fares booklet. These materials are free of charge and I found them very useful for a newcomer. I think it may be convenient for you to buy a day travelcard, it would allow you to use underground (within the zones such travelcard is valid for) as well as buses throughout the day and forget about fares. It can be also useful because in the central London one must already have a ticket BEFORE boarding a bus. As for fares (if they have not changed since mid May, when I was there) a day travelcard for zones 1-2 (Central London) costs £4.70 (on weekdays if one has to travel before 9:30a.m. he or she will need to buy a travelcard valid for peak hours, such travelcard for two zones costs £6). If you prefer to buy single tickets, they will charge you £1.20 in a bus or £1.30 in the Tube (except for central London where single within Zone 1 costs £2 or £2.30 for Zones 1-2). All the above info can be found in the Tickets and Fares booklet (from where I am taking it now), but I guess it can be useful to put it into a nutshell to let you know all this beforehand.
Here are some places of interest you would wish to see with the names of the nearest Tube stations:
Piccadilly Circus:
Piccadilly Circus station (Piccadilly or Bakerloo lines). This is very close to Soho.
Trafalgar Square:
Charing Cross Station (Bakerloo or Northern lines). If you take the direction to the Big Ben (it is quite visible from there) you will go along Whitehall (which is itself a good place to see, I won't even enumerate what you can find there or it will be a long list) and get to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.
Big Ben:
Westminster Station (Circle, District or Jubilee lines). The Parliament is indeed a fascinating building itself, let alone this is a historic place! If you cross the bridge you can get to the London Eye (Millennium Wheel) and view London by a bird's eye (or Waterloo station is closer to there?).
London Tower:
Tower Hill Station (Circle or District lines). You can get to there directly from Westminster Station. There you may see the Tower and the Tower Bridge known to the entire world, the ancient city walls and also, if you cross the bridge, the City Hall (Mayor's office), which is a very interesting sample of modern architecture.
Canary Wharf: (Jubilee line). There are the tallest buildings in the UK there. Britain is not famous for very high constructions, and this area is another good example of the modern type of architecture. I was most impressed to see this place at night (then it was winter and it got dark early). But I was more interested to see not the skyscrapers but the Tube station itself. While old stations of the underground all look the same, Jubilee line is worth seeing.
I think it might be even too much for your short day, but you can always choose. As an alterative you can take a city tour by bus to listen to recorded guide's explanations in Chinese. To do so you may go to the western end of Oxford Street (
Marble Arch station, Central line) and buy there a ticket (if I am not mistaken, it costs £16). The famous
Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park is situated very near. But if I were you I would prefer to see London on myself, all city tours remind me watching TV (though, as you might guess, I tried both options).
Another "must visit" is, of course,
the British Museum. But it would require from you an additional day, so you'd better plan it for the next time. To get to the museum you will need bus 7 or go from
Tottenham Court Road station (Central or Northern line) - you will need to go from Oxford St. along Tottenham Court Road and make a turn to Great Russel Street.
From your post I understand that you will have to go to the airport all by yourself. You may use the Tube (Piccadilly line services to Heathrow). Please note it is Zone 6 and if you buy a travelcard for two zones it won't be valid there. Adult single to Heathrow costs £3.80 (zones 1-6), journeys from central London take about 50 minutes. If you prefer to save time use Heathrow express from
Paddington station (£14), it goes often and takes you to the airport in around 15min. Of course you should not start 15 minutes before you plane takes off
