Don’t be confused. Soho London has nothing to do with SOHO (Small Office Home Office). Soho London is an entertainment area in the City of Westminster, West End of London city centre. It was a farmland in 16th century. No record have stated how Soho got its name in the first place. Some believed it was derived from hunting cry in battlefield. It is now the major nightlife district in London city centre next to Oxford Street, Leicester Square, Regent Street and Covent Garden.
Another travel attraction in London, Soho is a huge area with lots of upmarket restaurants, cafes, theatres, sex shops, pubs and dance club. During my travel to London, I had a walk through a few of the streets in Soho area at night and took some travel photos of the beautiful night scenes and am going to share them here.
We started our Soho walk from the South Eastern corner at Seven Dials near Cambridge Circus where 7 roads are joining together. Cambridge Theatre is here.
At Cambridge Circus, there is the famous musical performance theatre, the Palace Theatre. “Priscilla, The queen of the desert” is now showing.
From Cambridge Circus, we walked into Moor Street and our first pub in Soho.
Via Moor Street, we came to the Old Compton Street. It is widely known as the main gathering place for gays in London and is a very stylish part of London indeed. The Three Greyhounds was the first pub we met here.
It is the quieter section of Soho and there was less crowds on the street on Monday evening.
Apart from restaurants and pubs, there are also entertainment centre.
Costa Coffee, since 1971, as old as me, is a major player in coffee shop in London. You can spot 1 everywhere you go.
Junction to Dean Street, the home to the Soho Theatre. The famous Admiral Duncan gay pub is located here.
Sex shop used to be the dominant feature in Soho. Though there are a lot lesser now, we could still find one along the Old Compton Street.
Comptons Of Soho pub, the gay institution on Old Compton Street, having served the gay community as a pub for 20 years. Prices reduced to £1.50 every Monday night during happy hour from 7PM to 11PM. Has it kicked your heels up before?
The O Bar at Wardour Street, open late every night with dance music. There is a direction post showing you that from Wardour Street, you can go to London Chinatown at Whitcomb Street not far from there.
SNOG in Rupert Street, selling pure frozen yogurt.
St James Tavern, another traditional English pub in Great Windmill Street.
The London Trocadero is an entertainment complex located at the corner where Great Windmill Street is joining Shaftesbury Avenue, London. It was originally built as a restaurant but most recently used as an exhibition and entertainment space.
At Great Windmill Street, we ended our Soho walking trail (with a couple of pints off course 
) and to catch the underground train at Piccadilly Circus, a stroll walk down the street. However you could continue clubbing at either Soho north, Leicester Square or at Regent Street. It’s great fun to have few pints in the cold weather but you won’t get an environment as wild as in Patong Beach of Phuket. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog.
What’s my verdict?
- Attractiveness: Good √ √ √ √
- Features to explore: Good √ √ √ √
- Photo Opportunity: Good √ √ √ √
- Accessability: Good √ √ √ √
- Affordability: Good √ √ √ √
-
Overall Travel Score : 80%
- Verdict: It is free and safe to wander around all those pubs and streets in Soho area. Pick one or few to sit down for a pint or 2 is always a great idea when you are visiting foreign countries and wish to mix around with other people at night. – Travel Feeder
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I rephrased the title of the series from Central Europe to Western Europe this time. It is quite confusing here. There are people referring UK, France, Netherland and Italy as central Europe as well as Western Europe. Some might referring UK as Northern Europe while Italy as Southern Europe. If Europe is to be parted into 2, then they shall be geographically located in the west of Europe. Otherwise they shall be part of the central Europe if we split Europe into West, Central and East. I changed it back to Western Europe since more people prefer them to be called this way. So this shall be my Western Europe Experience Day 2, a rainy and chilly day.
We spent our 1st night in London sleeping in tiny bunk beds of 6-person-dorm. Jet lag from our 13 hours flight from KL to London the day before had nearly killed my sleep. Partly due to the chilly weather outside (or maybe I was too exciting ), I did not sleep well and woke up early at 5AM! The morning sun was already up as high as what we normally have at 7AM here in Malaysia. Sadly, the sun was not strong and it was drizzling out there.
At around 6AM, the rain stopped. Jean woke up and we decided to take a walk out. Outside temperature was freezing cold at below 6°C. Though May is supposed to be late Spring with average temperature of 13°C in London, unluckily, the temperature dropped drastically during the 4 days we had in London due to unknown reasons (I would believe it was partly due to the excessive ash cloud from Iceland the week before that)! 
It was Sunday so the traffic is very much easier. We walked around the Russel Square, crossing the roads, followed their pedestrian crossing sign, watching people on the streets, in the drizzly morning.
We went back to our hostel to join Chong, Keong and Bobo for our first breakfast in London. Breakfast starts from 7:30AM to 9:30AM. It is served in the dining room which is fairly big but still cramp for all guests to fit in. While waiting for tables, we sit in the living area where there are sofas, TV, table soccer and study tables and chairs.
Basic breakfast with bread, cereal, milk, jams and coffee or tea, was provided by the hostel in buffet style. Oh! The milk was still as good as what I had 13 years ago… I still love it!
What did we do next in our first morning in London? I booked our Eurostar tickets to Paris online through Rail Europe for £55 each without tickets (Check out: Top 5 tips to book cheap transportation in Europe). So we decided to collect our tickets from the nearby Kings Cross train station before anything else.
Eurostar ticketing office is located within the St. Pancras station which is annexed to Kings Cross train station.
Along the way to Kings Cross, we were counting our steps and time between Smart Russel Hostel and St. Pancras station. They are like 15 minutes away from each other. Europe Travel Tips: Always check or the best try the distance and time you need to catch your next train or flight before the actual date. So you could make sure you will not be late for your next transportation. Check also the check-in time you need before the actual departure!
The next thing we do was to decide whether we need Day Ticket or to walk. Since it was a rainy day (I couldn’t shoot much outdoor photos as what I expected), we bought Daily Travel Card for £5.60. Remember we bought £4 for a single trip from Liverpool Street to Russel Square yesterday? It’s a great saving on local transport (underground and buses) if you plan to travel frequently around and within London city.
We took London Underground train following Piccadilly Line back to Russel Square and then walked over to our first travel destination in London, The British Museum < Check out the Travel photos of British Museum here.
Next up was shopping time! We strolled down the street from the museum to the most popular shopping street of London, The Oxford Street. We actually detoured our original itinerary on our first day in London. Because it was raining, we went shopping instead of travel attractions of London! Before that, we bought some sandwiches and breads and juice from Tesco Express minimarket opposite Russel Square underground station. It was our first lunch in London that cost only £2.
The first souvenir stall we spotted on the street. I always love UK souvenirs for their colourful design and full varieties. Fridge magnets are selling for £1.50 each and T-shirts are £3.99 each. Fancy anything from the stall?
Though it was rainy Sunday, Oxford Street was still packed with Londoners and travelers. All major popular brand names for young people could also be found along Oxford Street. For exclusive celebrity designer fashion, you should go Knightsbridge instead.
Oxford Street including New Oxford Street, is stretching from Marble Arch (For Malaysian, you can find Malaysian High Comm here) to Oxford Circus. My Nikon D60 with Tamron SP10-24mm Ultra Wide Angle lense were working very hard here!
Many departmental stores such as Selfridge, Debenhams, House of Fraser, John Lewis, BHS and Mark & Spencers are fighting for higher market share here.
There were quite some bargains found there. I bought a windcheater for only £8 (I didn’t expect I needed it there before) . Jean and Bobo bought a couple of T-shirt and jumpers for their children all for less than £6 each.
At around 4PM, it finally stopped drizzling out there. We finally stopped shopping anymore…. in Oxford Street. We moved on to another shopping street, Brompton Road by taking Underground at Oxford Circus Station. If you’ve noticed by now, many of the London underground stations are tucked in to blend well with other buildings side by side.
You can also choose to hop on to this double decking touring bus to tour around London city. But be careful. Though they are also in red as the rest of the London bus, daily travel card is not acceptable to hop on.
We took the Victoria then Piccadilly line to arrive at Knightsbridge. When people talk about Knightsbridge, they will certainly mention about the landmark, The Harrods, the luxury Departmental Store that attracts many royal families as well as celebrities all over the world. > Check out The Harrods Food Hall photos.
Shopaholics need 1 whole day to shop all its 330 departments in the Harrods. We spent only 1 hour inside its Food Hall as we were rushing for our next travel attraction in London, the Buckingham Palace… coming up next! Subscribe to my Feeds vis RSS or Email for free updates on my Europe travelogue and more Europe travel photos and travel tips! - Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
>> Check out all photos taken in London here:
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On Labour Day of 1st of May 2010, early in the morning at 5:30AM while everyone else were still sleeping, we were already standing at the bus stand. We were waiting for our Star Shuttle bus to take us to LCCT airport in 1 hour time so we could check in our baggage well before our flight time at 9:20AM. I always love to take Star Shuttle to or from LCCT since it stops at Batu 3, Jalan Ipoh which is very close to our home and it costs only RM9 one way (Terravision also cost us 9 bucks to get to London city from Stansted, only that it was in Pound Sterling!). Where were we flying to? If our air tickets did print correctly, we should depart from LCCT and arrive at Stansted, London in 13 hours! It’s going to be our starting and ending point of 14 days Central Europe sightseeing tour!
There are 5 airports in London. We were flying to low cost Stansted airport because we were taking low cost Air Asia X flight. Our carrier was Airbus A340. Seats configuration were still 2-4-2 (it has been upgraded last month to be more spacious).
Since we were flying east to west, I was trying to stay awake as much as possible. This was mentioned in the in-flight magazine which is one of the 5 tips to a more enjoyable flight. The 5 tips mentioned are:
- Equalise Pressure of your ears by swallowing, yawning or exhaling forcibly while pinching your nose;
- Stretch & Flex your legs every hour to prevent swelling and pain at the back of your leg;
- Forget contact lenses and wear spectacles instead to prevent your eyes from becoming dry especially during a long haul flight;
- Sleep smart to counter the jet-lag effect; Sleep as much as you like when flying west to east, and
- Stay hydrated by drinking more water as airplane air is extremely dry.
Half way through the flight, our plane passed by a very long mountain range which I wasn’t sure whether it was the Alps or Himalaya…
When we are approaching UK, we flew over a very large fields of farms in other parts of Europe and even withing UK.
Many of these ‘yellow’ fields were spotted. I found out later that they are actually Canola field which produce edible oil from their seeds.
After a long long flight, We were finally landed at the Stansted Airport of London! Though it is the low cost carrier airport of London, it is still a very big and advanced airport (if compared to Ciampino airport of Rome). However, it wasn’t a nice day. It’s raining and the temperature dropped drastically to only 11°C eventhough it was in May!
There are 2 most popular transportation options to go to London city centre. One is by train and we opted for the other one which is by bus or shuttle. We took Terravision shuttle for £9.00. After an hour, we were in London city centre Liverpool Street train station.
It was nearly 8 in the evening so we quickly grabbed an underground train ticket (cost £4 one way) and jumped onto the train to get us to Russel Square (Changed line in Holborn). From Russel Square tube station, we had to walked ten minutes to reach our London accommodation, our first accommodation in Europe, the Smart Russel Square Bed and Breakfast. It is located at 71, Guilford Street.
Smart Russel Square B&B is a 4-storey high apartment along Guildford Street with many rooms and beds to offer to those travelers on a tight budget. We booked 5 beds in a 6-person mixed dorm with shared bathroom for £16 per person per night which was quite reasonable if you are talking about staying in London City Centre. In fact, our hostel is in walking distance to all major travel attractions in London City Centre especially the British Musuem which is only throw stone away! We got the deal by booking well in advance online through one of those booking agents like Hotel Direct.
After checking in and settling down a bit, it was already 10PM at night. The rain had just stopped but it was still freezing cold with only 6°C I believed. We walked out for our first dinner in London and Europe. With some advice from our B&B receptionist, we came to a street nearby with quite some restaurants and cafes. It was weekend night so the night was quite busy eventhough it was raining half an hour ago.
We chose this kebab shop called Valencia Cafe Restaurant. It offered middle east menu and we ordered kebabs, curry, fried rice with lots of fries! This wrapped up our 1st day in London also our first destination in Europe briefly. Tomorrow we will start exploring the busiest city in Europe, London and its shopping streets in more details! Stay tuned! Subscribe to my RSS feeds for upcoming stories of my Europe travel. - Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
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