This set of blog entry has broken my personal records in a few ways. I often took a much longer time to process the photographs. Mainly because it is an artistic journey. You simply cannot hurry art. In addition, I have managed to post the relevant journals thanks to my wife’s geotagging her Instagram pictures during the trip (seriously, why doesn’t a state-of-an-art Nikon Z6 camera has such function #mindboggling). Lastly, I have to work with a new camera setup – first time using a mirrorless camera as well as a fixed lens – and a new photo processing workflow using DXO. And I managed to wrap everything up within a week. I am pleased with the results. I hope you do too.
Click here to view the final album.
As an Oxford graduate – and I could be bias – I don’t think Cambridge has the soul as Oxford does. Nevertheless, there are places within Cambridge that are very pretty. The weather was great. I have no complaint.
The main reason why we picked Cambridge was that the trip from the Lake District to London was rather long. We wanted to break our trip into two portions. It was a good decision. Taking Oxford out of the equation, Cambridge is still a very impressive town.
Personally speaking, I don’t like London. It is a big city. A very expensive city. Sure there are some good tourist attractions. But to me, most of them are commercialized. Because of the high parking cost (and the rain), we spent a lot of time driving through the streets and bridges of London – which wasn’t too bad of an idea. We got to stay dry while touring different parts of London. On the record, the commercial buildings in London are very impressive though. As someone who was born in Hong Kong and now living in Singapore, that means something.
The highlight of my visit to London was the National History Museum. When my wife planned that into our agenda, I wasn’t sure why but I didn’t ask. Both of us love art. But we are not that into history. Until she mentioned the magic word … dinosaur.
A good number of years ago, I vividly remember reading a magazine covering a story of dinosaur in London. It was this very museum. I am a HUGE fan of dinosaurs. Their era fascinates me. And my wife knows that. I am so happy to visit the National History Museum. Admission is free but parking wasn’t (duh!).
We have also visited the London Eye (and nearly watched a musical if it wasn’t for kids). I still cannot figure out if the London Eye is bigger than Singapore Flyer or they are roughly the same. Both structures are by the water. Personally, I prefer the Singapore Flyer. There is a multistories mall within it.
On the last day of our stay, we had a few options. Stay in London (expensive!). Visit Stonehenge (seems pretty far and one British colleague of mine told me that the stones are not worth the visit). Or visit Windsor Castle.
Windsor Castle and I have a history. As mentioned in the previous entry, I have cycled from Oxford to Edinburgh in the year I have graduated. My friend T and I would camp along the way and hence, we needed not only to carry around 10kg of payload but also cover a good distance each day. To train up for our expedition, we cycled to Windsor castle from Oxford during the weekend. It was a day visit and we didn’t get to visit the castle (typical student life).
Now that I can afford the admission fee, I am very happy to look inside the castle. It is a beautiful castle. It may not be as large as Versailles in France (not sure why I put the two castles in comparison). I would prefer Windsor Castle.
Right now, I am not sure if and when we will visit the UK again. What I do know is that my wife has already started planning our year-end holiday. I may get a different lens for the trip #staytuned.