London - Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus!
Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus!
On Wednesday (the 6th June), Steve and I found took ourselves to Covent Garden for a pre-arranged meeting with another mysterious internet friend. Turns out Joel wasn't so mysterious after all and really friendly! After some confusion on my part on the tube, we made it to covent garden late and really HUNGRY! Covent gardens being an area we were not familiar with, Joel took us to the market square for lunch, which is really rich in fabulous places to eat. Opting for Italian Cuisine, Steve and I ordered our favourite dishes and before I had a chance to blink my eyes, Steve's plate was empty! ;o)
It was very busy in the Covent Garden market square, they had several stalls relating to their promotion of Malaysia Week 07. They had some lovely cultural stalls with Malaysian made traditional clothes, jewellery, and some ladies weaving big rugs of sorts. As well as this, there was a fashion parade displaying current fashions in the country presented with traditional music... NICE. After lunch, we wandered around a bit and into the market area, where we caught some cheeky musicians (violinists) entertaining a group of tables around a cafe of some sort.. I stopped to take a few pictures, and then realised I could actually video them so I did.
We wandered away from Covent Gardens to escape the crowd and to find somewhere peaceful to sit down, chat and have a quiet drink. Joel led us to Leicester Square. Funny thing about this place - we read the word and pronounced it "Ley-chester", Joel of course cracked up laughing and said "OMG, pick the tourist!".. so I said "Orright then HOW DO YOU pronounce it?" .. Apparently, it's just LESTER.. They seemed to have deleted a complete syllable. Its not the only one either, MARYLBONE is pronounced at MARYBONE and SOUTHWARK as SOUTHARK with a short "A" sound. Trust them to change the rules of pronunciation..and we thought the british were proper! Anyway, interesting place ..very busy... a nice little park area in the middle, lots of trees and some statues of important people. The square is actually named after Robert Sydney, 2nd Earl of Leicester. The main monument is the centre is of William Shakespeare. Around the park however, there are other features like a statue of Charlie Chaplin. The corner gates of the park feature monuments of Sir Isaac Newton (a scientist), Sir Joshua Reynolds ( first president of Royal Academy), John Hunter (a pioneer of surgery) & William Hogarth (a painter). The square is also cinema/movie central. It contains the largest cinema being able to house up to 1600 eager movie buffs and claims to have the largest screen. There is the ODEON LEICESTER SQUARE, EMPIRE & ODEON WEST END. They also used to have a cinema that dedicated itself to screening only Warner Brother's films, but it was bought out in 2004, by Vue.
After a couple of BIG pints of beers, the boys and I headed towards Piccadilly Circus. This is one of the most famous traffic intersections in London. Around it, you will find the Criterion Theatre, The London Pavilion and two competing music stores - The Virgin Megastore and HMV. It also boasts to have some pretty neat Neon signs that just can't be ignored! It was a very busy area, swarms of people pushing past each other on the footpaths and trying to cross the street. We had quick look around and decided to end our afternoon here...
Thanks to Joel for a lovely afternoon! ;o)
On Wednesday (the 6th June), Steve and I found took ourselves to Covent Garden for a pre-arranged meeting with another mysterious internet friend. Turns out Joel wasn't so mysterious after all and really friendly! After some confusion on my part on the tube, we made it to covent garden late and really HUNGRY! Covent gardens being an area we were not familiar with, Joel took us to the market square for lunch, which is really rich in fabulous places to eat. Opting for Italian Cuisine, Steve and I ordered our favourite dishes and before I had a chance to blink my eyes, Steve's plate was empty! ;o)
It was very busy in the Covent Garden market square, they had several stalls relating to their promotion of Malaysia Week 07. They had some lovely cultural stalls with Malaysian made traditional clothes, jewellery, and some ladies weaving big rugs of sorts. As well as this, there was a fashion parade displaying current fashions in the country presented with traditional music... NICE. After lunch, we wandered around a bit and into the market area, where we caught some cheeky musicians (violinists) entertaining a group of tables around a cafe of some sort.. I stopped to take a few pictures, and then realised I could actually video them so I did.
We wandered away from Covent Gardens to escape the crowd and to find somewhere peaceful to sit down, chat and have a quiet drink. Joel led us to Leicester Square. Funny thing about this place - we read the word and pronounced it "Ley-chester", Joel of course cracked up laughing and said "OMG, pick the tourist!".. so I said "Orright then HOW DO YOU pronounce it?" .. Apparently, it's just LESTER.. They seemed to have deleted a complete syllable. Its not the only one either, MARYLBONE is pronounced at MARYBONE and SOUTHWARK as SOUTHARK with a short "A" sound. Trust them to change the rules of pronunciation..and we thought the british were proper! Anyway, interesting place ..very busy... a nice little park area in the middle, lots of trees and some statues of important people. The square is actually named after Robert Sydney, 2nd Earl of Leicester. The main monument is the centre is of William Shakespeare. Around the park however, there are other features like a statue of Charlie Chaplin. The corner gates of the park feature monuments of Sir Isaac Newton (a scientist), Sir Joshua Reynolds ( first president of Royal Academy), John Hunter (a pioneer of surgery) & William Hogarth (a painter). The square is also cinema/movie central. It contains the largest cinema being able to house up to 1600 eager movie buffs and claims to have the largest screen. There is the ODEON LEICESTER SQUARE, EMPIRE & ODEON WEST END. They also used to have a cinema that dedicated itself to screening only Warner Brother's films, but it was bought out in 2004, by Vue.
After a couple of BIG pints of beers, the boys and I headed towards Piccadilly Circus. This is one of the most famous traffic intersections in London. Around it, you will find the Criterion Theatre, The London Pavilion and two competing music stores - The Virgin Megastore and HMV. It also boasts to have some pretty neat Neon signs that just can't be ignored! It was a very busy area, swarms of people pushing past each other on the footpaths and trying to cross the street. We had quick look around and decided to end our afternoon here...
Thanks to Joel for a lovely afternoon! ;o)
Pictures can be found at : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/CoventGardenLeicesterSquarePiccadillyCircus
