As I’ve mentioned before, I travel to London somewhat frequently, mostly for business. Within the past few years, I’ve gone:
Well, I went again this September, for a week-long business trip. While London does get less exciting the more I visit it, I still try to do some fun things every time I go.
I left New York on Friday evening right after work, taking an overnight flight out of JFK.1 This was perhaps a little miserable, given that I had gotten at most three hours of sleep of sleep on Thursday, and I only managed to get a few hours on the flight. So, I landed in London on Saturday morning pretty exhausted and honestly ready to just crash.
The first order of business was obtaining a SIM card. I decided to be adventurous this time and forgo getting one at the airport, instead waiting until I arrived at Liverpool Street on the Elizabeth line. The kind station attendant directed me to a WH Smith, where I got a particularly cheap SIM card. I then realized that I had a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem on my hands: this particular SIM card was not prepaid; I had to visit the issuer’s website in order to activate it. However, I would need Internet access in order to do so—a true pickle indeed! Fortunately, my firm’s London office was nearby, so I just badged in to use the wifi.
After this fun exercise, I headed over to my hotel, a place called the Ned located about a fifteen-minute walk from the office. I had wanted to stay at the Pan Pacific again, but sadly it was super pricey this year (beyond what felt reasonable to ask the firm to cover), so I chose the Ned instead. I’m not complaining, though; while the Ned is not quite as nice as the Pan Pacific, I won’t complain about being put up in a five-star hotel in the center of London by the firm.
The lobby of the Ned is actually quite fancy, being an old converted bank. By morning, it’s full of businessmen in suits sipping coffees; at noon it’s full of affluent, middle-aged women eating brunch; in the evening it’s crawling with, er, “finance bros” and their dates. It was dimly lit, with spaciously high ceilings, marble fixtures, and live jazz music, so you can just imagine how out-of-place I felt in my free t-shirt and jeans. Fortunately, I had brought my Patagonia jacket to London, so I could at least attempt to blend in a bit with all of the “finance bros.”
Anyway, since it was still the morning, my room wasn’t ready yet, so I left my luggage with the concierge and decided to go for a day trip out of London, mostly to fight off jet lag. I was completely exhausted at this point, and I knew that if I saw a bed, I would immediately collapse, ruining my change at adapting to the London time zone. So, I went on a little trip to see a couple of sights in England that I had long wanted to see.
The first place I went was Canterbury, to see the famous cathedral. There was a lovely little town, with surprisingly more Asians that I’d imagined. (I assume because of the nearby University of Kent.) The cathedral itself was quite beautiful as well, although the exterior was under restoration when I went, so I only have interior pictures. My favorite part was probably the cloisters.
I listened to a talk on the whole Thomas Becket affair by a knowledgeable volunteer guide who, judging by his accent, was also an American. My previous knowledge of Becket’s murder was really only limited to a few scant details that I remembered from my quizbowl years, so I think I learned a lot from the talk. Our tour was briefly interrupted by someone going up to the pulpit to deliver a regular prayer; as part of it, they invited everyone to join in saying the Lord’s Prayer, which was quite charming.
It was kind of cool being in a place with so much history; right after the guide explained the significance of Becket’s murder (“the most shocking event of the twelfth century!”), I got to see the very spot where it happened.
The cathedral was nice, but I wasn’t done with the day yet. After stopping for a quick fish and chips (because of course I had to), I hopped on a bus to visit the nearby White Cliffs of Dover, which I’d always wanted to see.
I did a bit of hiking on the cliffs themselves, which were fairly impressive, although I will admit that the view of the cliffs from the cliffs themselves is not all that great. To really get the most spectacular views, you have to see the cliffs from a boat on the water. One cool thing that I was not expecting: the chalk in the cliffs makes the water below a pale turquoise, a really unique and beautiful effect.
Of course, Dover is also the site of Matthew Arnold’s famous poem. I just had to stand dramatically on the cliffs, gazing out upon the foggy sea and reciting the last part of the last stanza (pretty much the only part I know) like the sentimental old man I am. One local house that I passed by seems to have embraced this literary association and branded itself as the “Matthew Arnold house,” complete with collections of various scrap items and a tattered copy of the poem on the doorstep.
On the walk to the train station, I also passed by the self-styled “Last Pub in Civilization,” evidently claiming to be the last pub in England before you reach the French shore in Calais.
At last, quite late at night, I boarded the train for the nearly two-hour ride back to London. I was so tired that I decided to just grab a quick dinner at one of the hotel restaurants attached to the Ned before showering and heading to bed. Here, unfortunately, I was treated to what was perhaps the worst meal of my life from a quality to price ratio perspective. I went to the “Asian” restaurant in the lobby, where I ordered a poke bowl, some scallops, and some edamame. The scallops were fine but overpriced; the edamame was nothing special, and the poke bowl was just bad. The worst part was that they charged me an astronomical seventy dollars for the experience! I’ve had more expensive meals before, but at least the food was actually good in those meals! It’s a shame, because the hotel lobby’s vibes were otherwise immaculate. I suppose you’re really paying for the ambiance, but I was just tired and wanted to go to bed, not trying to impress someone on a date. What a sad way to end the night.
I woke up pretty late the next day: right after 2pm London time. (For reference, I believe I had slept before midnight the night before.) This is a bit of a habit of mine: I accumulate massive sleep debt for a while, then completely crash one day to pay it back. Yes, I’m probably taking off a nontrivial amount of time from my life expectancy by doing this.
Anyway, this incredibly late start to the day meant that I’d ruined pretty much any chance of making it to a morning service, so I instead planned on going to evening service. I decided that I’d visit All Souls Langham Place, a church that I’d found online. Before that, I had a bit of time to kill, so I stopped by All Hallows by the Tower, a church that I’d stumbled across last time I was in London, but didn’t get a chance visit then because it was closed for some reason.
All Hallows by the Tower is a fairly impressive church with a lot of history; by some accounts it’s the oldest church in London, having been founded in AD 675. As a former Pennsylvania resident (back in college), I feel obligated to mention that it famously survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 thanks to the efforts of William Penn, though it was directly hit by a German bomb during WWII, destroying much of the structure.
The church has a neat underground section with some Roman artifacts and a few tiny but peaceful chapels. Underground, one can easily forget that one is in London; according to some signage, it’s a favorite spot of local workers to come and pray.
After visiting All Hallows by the Tower, I caught the subway to evening service at All Souls Langham Place, which was actually kind of interesting. It was billed as a “contemporary” service, and it was really fascinating to see how they adapted the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer to a contemporary worship service. After the service, I joined for board games in the church basement, where I met Simon, who had previously interned at my firm (and now works for a competitor) and who had grown up with one of my college acquaintances. I thought his name sounded familiar; I later discovered that I had seen his personal website before. It’s a small world!
I didn’t do that much during the week after work on this trip; the more I visit London, the more these trips feel like business, and I have less motivation to go and explore the city.2 But still, I did visit the Barbican Center one night, an elaborate concrete complex that’s mostly known for its theaters.
My favorite part was the conservatory garden on the upper floors: a green oasis in the otherwise dense heart of London. Some pictures of this are shown above.
I had another Saturday free before heading back to New York, so I decided to make a day trip out to Oxford to see some sites associated with famous authors that I like. Getting there was a bit of a hassle: I had booked a tour of C.S. Lewis’s old house, the Kilns, at 11:30 am, but it’s somewhat out of the way from the city center of Oxford. Instead, with the assistance of Google Maps, I concocted a plan to take a coach bus from London to a bus terminal on the outskirts of Oxford, then walk roughly a mile through the surrounding suburbs to get to the house. Though there were a few close calls, I managed to make it just in time for the tour.
The tour was actually quite lovely, starting in the garden and making its way through the house. Our tour guide was knowledgeable; I learned a lot about the relationship between C.S. Lewis and the other inhabitants of the house, particularly his brother Warren Lewis. Although it’s quite out of the way, I think the tour is worth it if you’re a fan of any of his works.
After touring the Kilns, I took a short walk through the nearby nature preserve before boarding a bus to the Oxford city center, where I caught another bus to the north of town to see the cemetery where J.R.R. Tolkien is buried with his wife. On their shared tombstone are engraved the names of Beren and Lúthien, a famous couple from the Legendarium. It’s a touching sight, if you’re familiar with your Middle Earth history. I also saw the grave of Roger Bannister, the first man to have run a mile in under four minutes.
Sadly, the most famous Inklings site in town, the Eagle and Child pub where they used to meet regularly, is currently closed, but I walked by it and took a picture from the outside. Nearby is a memorial to the famous Oxford martyrs Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, who were burned at the stake in the mid 1500s for their refusal to affirm certain Catholic dogmas. (“Play the man, Master Ridley!”) There’s a memorial inscription proclaiming their steadfast devotion to the faith.
There’s plenty to see in Oxford; I briefly toured the Ashmolean Museum before grabbing a very late lunch at a local Caribbean place3 that did a decent jerk pork belly (if a little dry). I then toured the grounds of Balliol College, visiting the lovely chapel and stately dining hall.
Sadly, tickets to see the Bodleian Library were sold out (apparently you have to books these things weeks in advance), and I unfortunately just missed the cutoff to go up to the top of the University Church’s tower, so I just walked around a bit more, taking pictures of pretty buildings like the famous Radcliffe Camera. Oxford really is a lovely place that, in many parts, looks like it hasn’t changed for centuries. It’s fun to imagine oneself as a scholar here in the middle ages, walking along the same streets. The only thing I can really fault Oxford for: I got a bubble tea from a local shop, and it was just downright terrible. While not completely undrinkable like the bubble tea I got in London as an intern back in 2022,4 it was not a good drink at all. I guess I just have to accept that Asian food in Europe is not that good.
Before heading out, I visited Blackwell’s Books, on the strength of a recommendation from a colleague who had previously been to Oxford. It was a surprisingly large bookstore, hidden behind some scaffolding. I was quite amused to see a section containing the recognizable green and red Loeb editions of most of the Greek and Latin classics, as well as (of course) the Oxford Classical Texts, the critical texts so pretentious that even the preface to the (Greek) text is written in Latin! It reminded me a bit of my former life as a high school student, when I briefly thought I wanted to be a classicist. Nowadays all I have is a single Loeb volume of Cicero on my shelf as a reminder of those times.
Anyway, after this, it was getting a bit late, so I began walking to the train station, stopping to take pictures of any buildings that looked interesting. It seemed like everything was going smoothly, until disaster struck: just as we were about to board the express train back to London, we received word that due to an incident at Paddington Station, the regular service to London was not running.5 Instead, we would have to take a much slower (and later) train to London Marylebone. I arrived back at London more than an hour later than I had planned for; exhausted, I grabbed a quick meal from the Five Guys near St. Paul’s Cathedral (now a bit of a London tradition for me) before heading back to my hotel to retire for the night.
The next morning, I checked out of my hotel and attended service at Grace Life London, a small local church that I had found online. To be honest, I was a bit wary going in, because I saw that all of the pastors had gone to the Master’s Seminary, and I have some uneasiness with John MacArthur after the whole Covid fiasco. But I will say, the sermon—on the first chapter of Habakkuk—was quite excellent. I’ll also say that this turned out to be the most diverse church that I’ve visited in London, although perhaps St. Helen’s is close. I unfortunately didn’t have much time to stay and chat with people before needing to leave to catch my flight back to New York.
A funny incident before the flight: it turns out I had forgotten to take my pocket knife out of my backpack pocket in my frantic rush to pack, leading to its confiscation by the TSA. The officer at least gave me a decent appraisal: “You don’t look like a gangster.”↩︎
Well, I did go out to high tea and a local pub with colleagues, and I played soccer with them, but those were mostly work functions.↩︎
This was an interesting vibe…at the time I went, around late afternoon, it was packed with, er, women with empty cocktail glasses piled up on their tables.↩︎
Yes, it was so bad that I remember it to this day.↩︎
I later found out that this delay was the result of a trespasser at London Paddington. Apparently, some British train companies offer compensation for delayed journeys, so perhaps I’ll try my hand at that.↩︎
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