A Week in England

The rooms are tiny; the shower is, as in many English bed and breakfasts, a tiny stall with a see-through door crammed into the corner of the room , the pillows are flat, and the rooms are a little worn.

However, rooms at this two-star B&B have two things going for them: a personal refrigerator—perfect for the budget traveler who wants to make his own sandwich lunches—and free WiFi.

Moreover, Marble Arch Inn is just three blocks away from Oxford Street, happy news for shoppers.

To be frank, Marble Arch wouldn't be my first choice for a B&B; I've stayed at much nicer ones, but at the discounted VAT-inclusive price of £45 per night, with a cereal breakfast brought to your room every evening, it was hard to resist. You can also email them at sales@marblearch-inn.co.uk for enquries.

Travelodge UK has found a magic formula for budget business hotels. While their regular London rack rate is around £80, the average tariff for a double ensuite room in a three-star hotel or B&B in London, early birds can book and buy online to get en suite double room in London for as low as £15 per night, with rooms also available for £26 or £45. The cheapest prices aren't always available, however, and longer-staying guests might need to book a room at a combination of £15, £26, £45, and £80 rates to get the best possible price.

Travelodge London Marylebone was one of the hotels recommended to us by the organizers of the conference that my husband was attending. We went on the website and were pleasantly surprised to find a double room available at £15 per night on the dates of the conference. The £15 was their unamendable, unchangeable rate and did not include breakfast, although breakfast was available at the downstairs cafe for an additional cost.

We were confident that the room and amenities wouldn't be too bad, since the establishment had the well-respected Travelodge brand name to back it up, but when we arrived at Travelodge Marylebone, we were very pleasantly surprised. The room was large by London standards, and looked very clean and well-kept. Amenities included in the were a colour television, a teapot, a desk, and a bathtub and shower in the adjoining toilet/bathroom. Towels and soap were also provided, as was a tea and coffee tray. The only two amenities we missed were free WiFi and a telephone in the room, but for the great price, we couldn't really complain.

The Marylebone branch of Travelodge was in a fantastic location, too. It was right across the street from the Marylebone underground station, making it a very convenient base from which to tour the city and just a 15 minute walk from the shops on Oxford Street. An M&S mini-supermarket, a convenience store, various breakfast places were all just across the street in the Marylebone station, and several ethnic restaurants lined Edgeware Road just a block away. Yet, despite the accessibility of the hotel, we were not bothered by street noise at all from our 1st floor (second floor for Americans) room.

Finally, the Travelodge staff was very helpful as well, allowing us to leave our luggage at no extra cost for a few hours after we checked out, and assisting us in finding an Internet cafe a 10 minute walk away on Marylebone Road).

All in all, we were definitely happy with this hotel, and would definitely stay here again if the cheaper rates were available.

There was a time when England was laughed at for its cuisine. Boiled food with a bit of salt and pepper was the only image people conjured up when they thought of food in England. I'm not sure if this was ever an accurate picture of food in England, but I'm absolutely certain it isn't accurate today.

England, and London in particular, is a foodie's paradise. Thanks to Britain's rich imperial past, London is one of, if not the, most diverse cities in the world, and the cuisine that you find in London can make any palate happy.

Just a block away from our hotel in Marylebone, we discovered, to our joy, the culinary delight that is Edgware Road. The street was lined with various ethnic hole-in-the-wall restaurants and ethnic groceries: Lebanese, Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and Indian. My husband and I know that the most authentic food of any ethnic community is found not it swanky restaurants, but in the hole-in-the-wall eateries surrounding that ethnic group's neighborhood. We were certain we were going to have a delicious lunch.

We wandered into Shahi Sizzler, a tiny Indian eatery among a row of Indian and Arabic groceries, and ordered a lamb dish and rice. What a lamb dish it was! It was, I promise, the best Indian dish I had eaten!

Travelers who are picky about food might not want to eat in a hole-in-a-wall such as this one, but the more adventurous will like this place. A curry and rice combo is just £4 to £5.

Shahi Sizzler is at 330 Edgware Road, right across the street from the police station. It's a member of the
just-eat.co.uk online ordering and delivery service.

We spent Saturday in Oxford, managing to get a £4 early-bird fare each way on the rail—the fare is usually £16). The train left at 8:52am and arrived around an hour later at the Oxford Rail station.

The first place we went to when we arrived was Wolvercote's Cemetery, to pay homage to Professor J. R. R. Tolkien at his grave. We found out from Internet research that most people take a taxi to Wolvercote Cemetery, but we found a much easier, and cheaper, way to get there. So, for people looking for Tolkien's grave, here are the directions: from the city centre, take any bus number 2 (2A, 2B, or 2C). Get off at the Five Mile Drive stop, which is just after the roundabout. Walk ahead just a few steps. The cemetery is on the left. Once inside, there are markers on ground level all along the main path on ground level to tell visitors how to get to Tolkien's grave.

Tolkien shaped my husband's imagination when he was a child; The Lord of the Rings, introduced to him by his mother, was one of his favorite books. So we had been rather excited to visit Tolkien's grave. We were surprised about how moving it was to see the professor's grave. Tolkien and his wife were buried in the same plot, their Elven names inscribed under the real names. The plot was decorated with beautiful flower bushes, and fans had left trinkets, stuffed dolls, and, of course, several rings among the bushes. We took pictures, then sat down on the grass to compose a short letter to Professor Tolkien, thanking him for his literary legacy. We left the letter among the flowers before leaving.

We wandered a little around the cemetery before heading out. We were moved to see an old man who had come, watering can in one hand, fresh flowers in another, to tend the plants on his wife's plot; from afar we could see that his wife had died 30 years ago.

In the Jewish section of the cemetery, we accidentally stumbled upon the grave of philosopher Isaiah Berlin. We took pictures of that too before heading out to catch the number 2 bus back to the city centre.

Any true admirer of Tolkien who finds himself in Oxford ought to make the trip to Wolvercote cemetery. There is no entrance fee to the cemetery, of course, and the bus ride is cheap. A 24-hour Oxford bus pass is £3.40 per person; £3.00 per person if you're traveling as a group, and a pair constitutes a group.

London is the theatre capital of the world. It's one thing to read a tag line like that in a guidebook, but it's when you try to decide what play or musical to watch that you begin to realize how true it is. At any given time, there are perhaps forty or fifty plays and musicals being advertised in popular media; and I'm certain that doesn't yet include student plays! In tube stations, there are more advertisements for plays and musicals than there are for television programmes or films. Londoners really are a theatre-going people.

We wanted to watch at least one play on this trip to London and, through some Internet research, I was able to find details about a very well-reviewed off-West End play at the Bush Theatre called "Tom Fool," an English translation of a German play called "Mensch Meier." The story revolves around a working class German family trying to make ends meet in the 1970s.

Trying to find the Bush Theatre was a bit of a challenge. We got out of Shepherd's Bush tube station and asked around, but people didn't seem to know what the Bush Theatre was. Two people pointed us to a cinema, and with a bit of hunting, we finally found the nondescript door to the theatre two buildings past the cinema, next to a noisy pub.

From the posters in the theatre lobby, we found out that the Bush Theatre was where many famous movie actors and actresses started, including Kate Beckinsale, Paul Bettany, and Alan Rickman.

"Tom Fool" began at 8pm. The acting was absolutely brilliant; the script and story were excellent. It was definitely worth the £15 we had paid per person.

To find out the ongoing plays in the Bush Theatre, check out their website at http://www.bushtheatre.co.uk

I love that London has so much park area. I've admired the little parks in Sydney; I've strolled around Central Park in New York; and my mom used to take me to Kowloon Park in Hong Kong every Sunday when I was a child; but in no other mega-city have I seen as much park space as in London. I have a feeling that if there's one reason why the English don't want to get rid of their monarchy, it's because these beautiful green spaces that dot England's cities are constant reminders that they have much for which to thank their monarchy.

And if my guidebook is to be believed, of all of London's parks, Regent's Park tops the list. Though I haven't visited all of London's parks, I don't doubt that claim, because Regent's Park is exquisitely beautiful. In fact, when I was there, three local guys were walking down one of the promenades decorated with flower beds and fountains, and I overhead one say to another, "Whenever women walk down here they should be wearing long gowns." The other replied, "And all the chaps should be in white linen suits." If the park could still have that effect on locals who probably walk through several times a month, imagine the effect that the park had on me.

I watched the people sitting in the grass, sunning themselves, having picnics, reading books ... and I thought, "If I lived here, I would be happy just doing that every week." This was London, the world's second most expensive city and with Europe's most highly paid citizens, yet residents here knew that the best things in life remain free.

I wonder whether part of the reason why Londoners remain so calm, kind, and polite, despite being in one of the world's most exciting and most vibrant cities, is because they have these green quiet spaces to rest, stroll, and recollect themselves.

Since this was my first day in London, my spoiled Manilenyo feet were still adjusting to the amount of walking expected of Londoners. I had walked all the way from the Oxford Circus station to the middle part of Regent's Park, and after walking around and about the park, I had trouble finding the nearest Underground station, and ended up walking three stations farther than I needed to. At any rate, my aching feet and I finally found our way. I hadn't enough time nor stamina to explore the rest of the park (I skipped the zoo and the houses), and off I went to meet up with my husband for dinner.

The park is open from 5am until dusk all year round. To get there, take the Tube to any of the following stations: Regent's Park, Great Portland Street, or Baker Street.

Hyde Park is most famous for Speakers' Corner, where every Sunday you can find citizens speaking publicly to crowds on a variety of topics. It is the only place in London where demonstrators are allowed to gather without a permit, and is the main protest site in the city. (The giant million-man-strong anti-Iraq War protest took place here in 2003.)

When we came to London last year, we hadn't had the chance to visit Speakers' Corner on a Sunday, so this was going to be a first for us. The green spaces of Hyde Park looked like any other London park would on a Sunday: dotted with picnickers and residents sunning themselves on the grass. But that little concrete corner of Hyde Park was what made it unlike any other park in the city. There, dozens of residents and tourists milled about, gathered around a dozen or so men and women standing on boxes or step ladders speaking to whomever wished to listen. The two hottest topics of the day were religion and the Iraq war. There were four or five Christian evangelizers talking about the second coming and giving out Bibles, another person was talking about Islam, and yet another was doing Catholic apologetics. There were a few people talking about race and ethnic issues of various minority groups, and there was a heated debate between one female speaker and the people who had gathered around her, about immigration. There were a few who appeared to be there in jest; one man was standing on a stepladder offering free hugs, and another man had a list of nine topics written on a board, and he was inviting passers-by to choose the topic they wanted him to speak about.

It was exciting and extremely interesting. Mike and I got into a discussion with one old man about climate change. We took a lot of pictures, listened to a few of the speakers, and marveled about how eloquent all of these people were.

Visiting Hyde Park definitely one of the more memorable things we did in London!

I find World War II history very moving. The Philippines, my home country, was one of the countries whose history was reshaped drastically by the war. And more than that, the stories of the war are in my blood. Both my grandfathers fought in the war: my paternal grandfather as a USAFFE soldier, my maternal grandfather as a guerilla. My paternal grandmother, a nurse, set up the only health clinic in her little provincial town to administer first aid to the soldiers who were passing through there. I was thus looking forward to visiting the Cabinet War Rooms.

To find the Cabinet War Rooms, I walked through St. James' Park and passed outside Buckingham Palace before finally finding the little entrance to the rooms. These were the secret rooms used by Winston Churchill and his War Cabinet as they planned Britain's strategy during the war.

Various parts of the complex had been reconstructed to look as they did sixty years ago. A lot of the furniture, most of the maps, and even the signs on the walls are originals kept exactly where they were during the war. Apparently, after the war, these secret rooms were sealed off and only reopened decades later. They had been sealed off in such a rush that workers found in a drawer a packet of sugar cubes that someone had left behind many many years ago.

Knowing that the rooms were almost exactly as they had been all those decades before was extremely moving. I contemplated how different the world would be today had the British chosen not to fight, or had the Allies not won .... It was a sobering, haunting thought. I left a grateful note at the exit before leaving.

Entrance is GBP 9.50 for adults, inclusive of entrance to the Churchill Museum next door.

Oasis Airlines is what travelers have been dreaming about for the last few years: a budget airline for longhaul routes! Oasis Airlines is a new airline founded by the founder of Dragon Air, the intra-China airline recently bought by Cathay Pacific. While budget airlines around the world have made it possible for everyone to travel inexpensively around their own regions, Oasis makes it possible for East Asians and Europeans to travel across the world at a fraction of regular costs.

Right now, Oasis only flies from Hong Kong to London Gatwick and back. Every Oasis flight has a limited number of economy seats at their cheapest non-refundable non-changebale fare of $130 one-way before taxes. You need to book several weeks in advance to get that incredible fare; when those seats are gone, the next available seats are progressively more expensive until they match the price of other airlines. At their cheapest, the business class fares are the same price as economy seats on other airlines, and as of this writing, Oasis is offering a buy 2, take 1 promotion for their business class seats.

We booked economy seats on Oasis because of the price, and our expectations were low at first, but we were pleasantly surprised! Like some more expensive airlines, Oasis has the convenience of online check-in. At the Hong Kong airport, the Oasis staff were very friendly and helpful.

The flight from Hong Kong to London was scheduled to depart past 1am, although there are plans to move the schedule up by about an hour. We boarded around 30 minutes later than scheduled. The seats on the airplane, bought second hand from Singapore Airlines, I hear, had decent leg room and individual video consoles in economy.

We were served two light hot meals: the first was a choice of noodles or a sandwich served past midnight, and the second was a hearty omelette breakfast served with orange juice, brought to us when we were nearer London. Coffee and tea are served with meals, but not soft drinks nor alcohol, although passengers may buy additional drinks and snacks from the flight attendants at any time.

We liked that the flight was at the schedule that it was; we slept through most of the 12-hour flight and didn't feel like we were wasting a day.

All in all, we were very happy with Oasis and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a cheaper way to fly from Hong Kong to London.

Before coming to London I read a series of articles debating as to whether it was London or New York that should be called the greatest city in the world. I will leave it to the Londoners and New Yorkers to debate this (I myself love both cities) but here is what I realized during this trip.

The quicker pace of life in New York (or at least Manhattan) certainly gives New York a more exciting "vibe": when you walk around Manhattan, it seems everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere, and the New York visitor is somehow swept up in that frenzy as well, which is no visit to New York is ever boring. New York has speed and excitement.

But London has more history (several centuries more!), more true multiculturalism, more parks, more museums, more art, more theater, than New York. And so if you allow yourself to stand in one of London's beautiful parks and be quietly still, you begin to notice that the layers that there are to peel back and discover about London are countless.

London, if I may humbly propose, has more depth.