My new year celebrations in London

First of all, I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2009. I just felt like sharing my 2009 new year celebrations through this blog. Well, way before the new year itself, we guys started planning for new year. Plan 1 to go to Dublin (Ireland) had to be dropped as Dublin is in Republic of Ireland and we need a separate visa for Dublin. Plan 2 was to go to Belfast (Ireland) which is in Northern Ireland and our UK visas are sufficient for that. We dropped the plan 2 as well as Belfast turns out to be a sad place to celebrate new year. Plan 3 to go to Blackpool (UK) didn't even kick start.

Finally me,my roomies (Niranjan and Sudeep) and Deepak (colleague) decided to go to London on new year eve to watch the famous London eye fireworks. I was very keen to go to London as I was not sure whether I will get another chance to watch the London eye new year fireworks again. As planned all of us left early from work, packed our bags with warm clothes and started by train to London by 5pm on 31st Dec evening.

Once we reached Liverpool station at 6.30pm, all of us took the tube (London metro rail system) tickets. I started to Paddington from there to meet Raj (friend from my native place in India) as I had plans to watch London eye fireworks with Raj and his friends and stay overnight at his place. My other friends went to their hotel. I met Raj and his friends at his place. I was kind of shocked when I learnt from Raj about how much people pay for rent in Central london. Rent for a 1BHK apartment in Central London is more than double of a what we guys were paying for a 3BHK independant house in Ipswich. After some chit chat of sometime, we guys had dinner and a small new year bash before the new year. For a moment I felt as though I was back to my old college days.

We lost track of the time and ended up starting around 11AM from Raj's place to watch the fireworks. I was my like 'Oh! my god' when I saw the madrush in the tube stations and unfortunately some of the tube stations nearby to the 'London eye' were closed. After getting down in Picadilly circus tube station, we guys had to walk a bit. By the time we reached the Trafalgar square from where we could see the London eye fireworks, it was 12AM and the fireworks had just started with a bang. We couldn't move even an inch further from there as all the roads around were blocked due to the crowd. I was told that the actual crowd was easily more than 7 lakhs. Finally we guys had to view the fireworks on the giant screens and the restricted view of the actual fireworks, available from that crowded area.

The fireworks were spectacular and went on for 12 to 15 minutes after which we guys started wishing each other a 'Happy New year'. There was one british guy who go onto to the top of the big horse statue there and was waving to everyone. Interesting the crowd was absolutely loving it. There were few drunken brawls and frenzy fights too in that crowd. After some time, we guys had to walk almost 2 miles or so till we got an open tube station, as all the other tube stations nearby to London eye were closed and people were swarming everywhere. After small party again at Raj place later, I slept with a feeling that my new year started with a bang.

I got up at 10.30 am the next day after couple of snoozes to my mobile alarm and gave a buzz to Niran. After thanking Raj, I started from Raj's place to East ham station to meet Niran, sudeep, dinesh and deepak at 1.30pm. The moment we stepped in East ham, we felt as though we were in Aamchi Mumbai. East ham is full of Indians (mostly tamilians) and Srilankans and one can see shops with vegetables and other groceries kept in and out of the shop just like what we see in the local Indian bazaars. After few enquiries with the people around, we found the way and reached the only Murugan temple in London. I was happy to see so many Indians around in the temple. After my prayers and offerings in the temple, we guys waited for almost 45 minutes in a big queue to get the prasadham in the temple.

After tasting the delicious prasadham, we guys headed to the famous Saravana Bhavan restaurant in East ham around 4pm. I was damn hungry by that time as I didn't have my breakfast. After another long wait amongst the frenzy crowd in the restaurant, we guys got seats. I ordered for a kichidi, a rava dosa and spicy fried idlis. The food turned out be yummy and was of authentic indian taste. How can i forget the famous filter coffee of Saravana Bhavan? I had one filter coffee too. Later all of us took the tube again and headed to Tower hill to try ice skating.
When I got my chance to try ice skating in Edinburgh (Scotland) during the 2008 new year time, I could not try due to lack of time. So I was really excited to try ice skating at last but had small jitters too about falling down before I learn the skating rhythm. Though I was damn scared initially when I stepped into the skating zone with the ice skating shoes on, I could manage to skate a bit after first two rounds with the support of the walls. After falling down couple of times and 40 minutes of practice, I was delighted that I could skate around better though not in the fast rhythm. Then after spending some time on the river side bridge with the beautiful night view of the London Bridge, we guys started back to Ipswich.
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