It’s hard to believe that the whole trip to London is already over. I still remember the super long walking tour seemed never to end, but now I’m already back to school again. I think this trip is a good relief for me from school work, and it allowed me to see some of the most historic and famous sights. There are many differences between London and Columbus. For instance, in London, drivers drive extremely fast, and everything seemed to blend together, while in Columbus, the cars move in a much slower pace. Moreover, Columbus feels like a more peaceful living space where you can slow down and enjoy more of your life, which is different from what I experienced on the tip, which was constant traveling within compressed time. The most important thing I learned from this trip is to get to people as early as possible start from the beginning of the semester. Throughout the semester, I was caught up with school work, but I have no complaints because I made such choice myself, but I should have still tried to be more active to talk to people more and get to know them better. However, I think I still enjoyed the trip with many people; I can feel their enthusiasm towards the trip and friendliness to me. I had lots of fun just by listening to their conversations. I think from now on, I will open up more and communicate with people more.

Today is probably one of the most relaxing days during the whole trip. In the morning, I was a little bit surprised to learn that Westminster Abbey served for different purposes, such as markets. In my previous opinion, churches were only used to worships. Then I went to see the great Chapter House, which is a lager version of Salisbury Cathedral’s chapter house. After that, I took the took the tube with Kendra and Kayla to the shopping center near St. Paul’s Cathedral. We had really nice Vietnamese noodle soups there. Mine was not as spicy as I thought, but I still loved it! After we finished our lunch, we went to a Starbucks near St. Paul’s Cathedral. There we had a nice conversation and enjoyed our leisure. In the afternoon, we went to SOM, which is a world-wide famous architecture design firm. I am not too big a fan of skyscrapers, so I thought the tour of the company was okay, but it’s still nice to see some of the models and 3D printed models out there. Then, I had a relay enjoyable conversation with the group at Wagamama. I was not hungry at that time, but the juice and food were very delicious!

Kew Gardens Palm House
Yesterday, we went to Kew Gardens. The weather was a little bit chilly, but I was glad to see a variety of different kinds of plants. It’s a lot of work to keep so many plants and take good care of them. It was really warm and beautiful inside the green houses. In the afternoon, I went from Kew to National Gallery. I went on the train with other people first, and I kept falling asleep. I really appreciate that they woke me up and let me sit close to them so I got off train on time. Then I took the tube to Charing Cross to National Gallery. When I first went to the gallery, I bought a map, and I was very ambitious to see all of it. I was planning to go to each room on first floor from right of the building to the left. But there are too many corridors which lead to different rooms, and I think I finished almost two thirds of the first floor. On the first floor, there were many colorful religious paintings. I wanted to glance through as much as I could, but I stopped to see stories for those which seem special and unusual to me. After that, I went to tea with everyone and had nice chats with people. The deserts are sugary, but I enjoyed their tastes.

Yesterday I visited British Museum, and I was glad to see my favorite, exquisite European designed plates, jewelry, and glass. When I was younger in middle school, I learned about how Brits exploited China and other places and snapped those valuable treasures from these countries, so I was angry about the Brits. However, as I grew up more, I gradually learned that Chinese government has not spent enough effort preserving national treasures, and some of them were badly damaged or not well preserved. Then I realized that British Museum may be a better place for them. Although it’s sad that they’re taken out of their original context, which would enable people to appreciate more of its cultural value, they can last longer in British Museum and be appreciated by people all over the world who travel to London.
It’s also really interesting to learn about the Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures’ explanations and stories behind. If I just looked at the sculptures, I would have no idea what it was about and why it was created.

In the afternoon, the boat trip to Greenwich was fun but cold at the same time. The explanation along the way helps me learn some of the interesting history behind these properties. Some of them lead to the very beginning of creation of the United States, so it’s fun the realize the ties and differences between these two countries since the past. At Greenwich, the rich paintings on the wall looked incredible just like those in St. Paul’s Cathedral. They were colorful and detailed as well.

Day two is a huge walking day, but it’s great to see so many buildings with detailed history background. The guide knew the history very well, and I really appreciated that. I learned that in order to construct a modern skyscraper, it must be built within the context and help to improve the street views of London order to get public’s acceptance. In Tate modern, I was very impressed by the earth taken from different periods of London. In addition, when I was visiting with Melissa and Katie, we found a painting with a red “O” inside, so we took a group picture with “OHIO”, and that was fun. Although we did not go to Buckingham Palace, the large surrounding green space was very impressive. Before, I watched some interesting tourism TV shows taking place here, so it’s exciting to visit these places myself. Since I do no major in Architecture, today’s walking tour helped me better learning how city’s buildings should be relevant to each other in order to create accepted atmosphere and add more value to the district where it is. Green spaces are always precious and not easily obtained, and I feel lucky to visit such well preserved royal palaces.

When we first went in the St. Paul, it was kind of dark and chilly. Then we went upstairs to the top, and the view was great. I could see the egg, the bridges, and the Thames River. The walking upstairs was a little bit of pain because the step was so tiny, but it was worth to see the top. It’s really hard to imagine people back in hundreds of years ago could design and create such delicate work, but I could not even make a good sketch of it…The paintings are religious and meaningful, although I do not understand majority of it, but it’s still inspiring to see grand view of paintings made on walls.
I enjoyed the whispering gallery’s view but not the guards. One of them constantly whispered to the wall to ask people to sit down. At first, I thought it was someone’s child being weird, then I realized it was the guard.

Also, I loved this morning’s walk. I loved park’s view and single long narrow street with houses. I wanted to go back to one the clothing stores, but unfortunately, stores close pretty early in England, and I couldn’t remember where it was quite well either.