(Note: This blog post contains events that happened in September 2023)
(Yes, I am behind on posts.)
(Like, very behind)
(If you want a more up-to-date record of my adventures, check out my Instagram where I post regularly on my account @arielaonthego)

Ah yes, England. The land of tea, Harry Potter and the Queen. Or I guess it’s the king now.
It’s been a while since I’ve been in England, the last time I was in England was when I was teenie tiny. That was back in September of 2012, when I was 4 years old. I’ve grown up a lot since then, and this visit to England I was going to actually remember it.

We flew from Toronto into the London-Heathrow airport.
We had to change our flight because there was a hurricane coming and my mom was flying in from Manila, Philippines. After we settled in our hotel, K.K. Hotel George Kensington, we fought our jet lag, our first stop was the Museum of British. We took a cab there, and the cabs are so fun. I’ve seen British taxi cabs elsewhere, like in Thailand, but I wasn’t actually able to go into one. I liked this one, they are so cute and their design is also really interesting and smart. Why don’t all cars have it so that you can have your luggage with you in the front? I guess it would get messy if you had a lot of stuff, but I think it’s also really handy that it’s wheelchair accessible. It just makes transit so much easier for them.

Our hotel was conveniently located right by both a train station and a Jolibee. Joliebee is really my favourite Filipino fast food chain, and they have really yummy chicken and rice. I am a simple girl. I just need chicken and rice to be happy during meal time.

Did you know that its’s free to go to the British Museum? If you visit England, make sure to take advantage of that! My logic is that if it’s called the British Museum, then it is a Museum of British. Our tour guide said “That’s the British Museum. It has everything the British ever stole in there, you can’t have it back, but you can go see it.” I won’t post too many photos from the museum. It’s for you to see it in your own eyes.

There was a lot of stuff, and a lot of exhibits, but the ones that I found the most interesting were the Indigenous exhibit, the old books, and the library. I also thought the Japan exhibit was neat, but there just weren’t that many things there. The ancient library was amazing. Can I have one in my house? I think the British museum was a good history lesson, but when I was there I was really only interested in taking a quick walk through. I think this would be good if you were going to spend the whole day there to actually absorb all of the information. We really just went there to see the Rosetta Stone. A stone in a glass case, haha.

After the British Museum, we went to Kings Cross. Because yes, I am a Harry Potter fan, and this is London. We took the Underground to Kings Cross and asked how we could get to Platform 9. The guard passed the vibe check, and he told us that the platform had “disappeared”. I love how the staff at the actual Kings Cross, and at the Universal Studios in Orlando they both say similar things. You ask anyone at the remake of Kings Cross in Universal how to get to Platform 9 3/4, and they will say something along the lines of “Platform 9 3/4?? You think that’s funny? Stop joking around”. There is a shop at the Platform, and yes, it does exist, it’s just not visible to Muggles ;]. I got a nice little fridge magnet that says Platform 9 3/4, Kings Cross London as a souvenir. I didn’t get anything else because literally all Wizarding World merch is exactly the same, and the same stuff that you see at Kings Cross is the same stuff you see at Universal Studios and I used to go there pretty much every day for 2yrs when I was living in Orlando, Florida, so… I had many opportunities. I enjoyed the platform nonetheless, and I had a great time seeing all of the Wizarding World trinkets. It’s still very cool to go to the real place and be able to enjoy it as is.

After visiting Kings Cross, and getting just a little bit lost on the London Underground we (we took a train on the wrong platform going in the opposite direction… crazy how in Thailand and Japan where they don’t speak English we don’t get lost, but when the signs are clearly labelled in English… we get lost??) decided that we wanted to get out of London and go see the countryside.
We took the Underground and then went above ground and took that train. The train went to Brighton. What did we want to see in Brighton?
Cliffs.
It’s a one hour train ride to Brighton from London, and then we took a bus ride to see the white cliffs.

We planned to to go the cliffs at The Seven Sisters, but we didn’t have enough time to hike over there, and the weather was not being very cooperative. We wanted to avoid getting caught up in the hurricane that was coming to England.
The staff were very helpful at The Seven Sisters, and they told us to go to Birling Gap instead.

From the bus stop, we embarked on an adventurous thirty minute walk. I very much enjoyed our long walk, and our trek to the water. I only recommend it if you do like walking, though. It’s mostly flat land. It was a very cloudy and very windy gray day, so that was the moment that I decided that I really like very windy and cloudy gray days. I had a lot of fun walking in the sort of rain, and there were some sheep on the pasture on the way. The sheep were very nice. They stared at me as I walked past. It was very windy because of the coming hurricane so we didn’t stay long.

When we finally made it to the coast, the waves were WILD.
There was a staircase that went to the bottom of the beach, but if you went down in those conditions, there was a 100% chance of getting swept away into sea. 10/10 would not recommend. There’s also a restaurant that sells tea and pastries and other nourishment.
Nourishment is good.
Because this Birling Gap is out of the way of pretty much anything, the best way to get there is by car. Maybe rent a car or book a tour bus like other normal people do. But we’re not normal and it was unplanned to go to Birling Gap.

So, do not take a commuter bus there, and probably do not walk all the way to the sea. It’s probably better if you just drive there.

That isn’t quite all that we did in Brighton, we also went to the Brighton Pier. It’s a walking distance to the Brighton train station. The Brighton Pier reminds me a lot of the Santa Monica Pier in California. They have the same vibes. When we went, the Brighton Pier wasn’t very busy, but there were a lot of cool things to do there like an arcade, some food stands, and an amusement park. I’m sure it would be a great place to spend the whole day, but for us we came on a slightly rainy grey day where the crashing of the waves was extremely loud and powerful. We didn’t spend long at Brighton Pier, all we did was have some hotdogs and walk to the end, and that was it. We didn’t really want to go on any of the rides because of the rain, but if it was a sunny day, maybe we would have gone on some rides.

T’was a short trip, but still enough to see Brighton. We hopped back onto the train, and then rode all the way back to London.

But what did we do next? Well, my next post is titled “England in One Day” and we saw some of England’s main attractions in just one day! It will be posted soon, but until then… here are some pictures!

New posts coming soon…