Greetings, England- Day 1: Intensive Touring and a Slight Jet-lag

Wow, everything was so... new.
The signs, the roads, the people, the weather, the buildings, the shops, etc. So much there was to take in that I don't have the time to keep them all in my head!

It might not be that unusual for some people, but this is a brand new world for me to see!
My cousin and I are staying in the house of a friend of my aunt, and we both have a room for ourselves. I took a picture:

This is a picture I took from a window of the host family's house. It was a community of rather old buildings.
I woke up at 6:30 and though I didn't get to see the sun, with all the cloudy weather going.
It was chilly in the early morning, and when I got downstairs, the host family was already preparing for breakfast. Before the trip, my cousin and I were taught to help the host family as much as we could, in order to show some courtesy, so we helped with the preparation of the breakfast.
After breakfast, we went to a construction site. We were visiting the apartment my cousin is going to live in in two years since she's going to attend college in England in the future. It was the first time I've been on a construction site, and my cousin and I were roaming in and out of her future house like five-year-old younglings (as we always do). Her house is going to be rather big (with the standards of a one-person house) and I pondered that if I were to study abroad in the future, I'd love to have a house of this kind.
Here are some pictures I took:

We were too excited to remember to take any pictures...

construction site on the outside

So-called "good cousin" locked me out

Then for lunch, I had the first set of fish and chips in my life. It was amazingly delicious!

Tasty.

After that, we headed for Greenwich, where the Royal Observatory Greenwich is located in.

From outside the houses

The Flamsteed House and The Meridian Observatory right there showed the history of Astronomy and time keeping. We saw descriptions and displays of The Airy Family, a prominent family in the fields of Astronomy. We saw their trophies medals, items of clothing, and family remedies, etc. and I think the most interesting part of the family is that they used to invite other people to their house to discuss  astronomy, and they handle the meals for their guests with extreme care that now the site has their recipes carved into some stone tables.

Recipes for guests

Family remedies (sorry for the bad quality)

And in the other place, the Meridian Observatory, we learned about how much a trial it was in the past, to navigate and keep time when traveling on the seas. So before the clocks and watches made with springs and other small bits were invented, people used the movements of a pendulum to keep the clocks going, but one drawback with the pendulum is that it has to be on stable grounds.

One of the pendulum clocks

Even with a slightly wobbly surface, the clock will be out of accordance, and we can easily lose track of time. Now for the sailors, it has always been crucial to know the time, or there can be some serious trouble. However, with the pendulum clocks, it is basically impossible for them to function properly, and therefore, people have been trying to refine and modify the designs until the spring clocks were invented. This is actually a kind of historical tour I enjoyed.

Large room for astronomical observations

The roof

Then, we went to the one of the most attractive places in Greenwich: Waterstone Bookstore.
Okay. It wasn't really exclusive about the Waterstone. It is basically everywhere in England!
Being at the first bookstore I had visited in England, I rushed inside and was desperately looking for some books to buy. It was so large, with tons of bookshelves, and even though the categorizing was not that organized, I still managed to find two books before we leave for home:

Paradise.

There's a cafe inside

I love this place.

A bit expensive, actually... but totally worth it!

It was an amazing day, for the first day in England, and I could never ask for more. It was when I suddenly came to me that a lot of 120 students are abroad: William, who is also currently in England (oh right I met him in Bangkok when we were waiting for the transfer flight. It was also when we realized that we actually took the same plane!) Megan, who went to Japan; Tiffany, who went to Korea, and Sherry, who also traveled to Japan as well. I here wish all the readers and the 120 students a nice summer vacation!
p.s. Even though my cousin taught me how we can accommodate ourselves to the time zone in England more easily, I still feel slightly tired really early.... So I am heading to sleep right now.
07/01/2017