I spent 3 days in London in September 2024. Being the first time in London, the trip was filled with standard tourist stuff. My impression of London was that it had lots of luxury cars; food there was expensive (like 35 pound food court ramen expensive); it had very narrow streets; streets were filled marking for dumb foreigners to know which side to look for traffic when crossing; buildings were of mixed style; it was very organically developed; it had much better public transportation.

We land in London around 11, but it took more than an hour to clear the border and exit the airport, another hour and half on a taxi to get to the hotel near the Hyde Park. We were exhausted from the red eye flight, so the rest of the afternoon was spent in the hotel room for a long nap.

Second day! We went to the British Museum.

On our way back to the hotel from the museum, I saw this beautiful street corner with many London signatures in it: double decker bus; a store front; a couple taxis. Who knew we would later bought a 300 pound umbrella from this shop!

Lunch was in this Italian restaurant. Don’t recall how the food was, but the decoration was complex and yet harmonious.

A random camera museum in a coffee shop.

Some random shots on the street.

We randomly strolled along the Thames in the evening. I remember my first sight of the Big Ben: it was huge – way bigger than what I had imagined. The lighting was challenging for film camera. Even though the picture quality was no where near modern digital camera’s capability, I insist the result matches well with my impression of the scene.

London Eye was underwhelming.

We were fortunate to see a full moon right next to the London Tower Bridge, though my film camera with 35mm lens was not able to capture how big the moon was.

Day 3. The last full day London started with a visit to the Buckingham Palace. We had a quick breakfast near the palace and we obviously would not miss the opportunity of playing with the iconic phone booth.

There was a long queue to enter the palace, it photography was not permitted in it, but this shot of the back turned out to be very good.

We also visited the Westminster Abbey but unfortunately, 4-5 shots were exposed during processing (The turning knob on the Lab-box popped out, which had been my constant fear. It eventually happened). Though, I quite like the mysterious look of it. You see. Life happens.

London’s bus service was both fun and practical!

How can we miss 221B Baker Street?

After an impressively expensive dinner of food court ramen (45 pounds!), we walked through the Hyde Park and saw some swan, completely unplanned.