London on a Budget

London is one of the most expensive cities in the world. However, we found that our lodging and food were cheaper than the other cities we visited in England. The secret is that we stayed in a B&B that had a shower two floors above us & we discovered Chinatown. It was probably smaller than Seattle's, but it had a lot of restaurants & shops. We ate three Chinese meals in a row. Pub food gets a little old after a while. It's pretty heavy and you quickly get tired of eating fries. The other thing about London is that the main attractions are free. We saw the changing of the guard, the National Gallery, which is an art museum, the National Museum and the National Library. As Rick Steve's says, just about every tourist in London gathers to see the changing of the guard. It's not really that exciting. There is a military parade that ends at Buckingham Palace where to new guards replace the old. The old guard marches out in their civies. The Malaysian Military was on duty the day we were there, so we did not see the Brits with the big black fur hats. One thing we did see was the Queen. She drove by while we were watching the parade. The museum and library had artifacts from all over the world, such as Egyptian mummies, the Magna Carta, early bibles, original music from Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Koran & Buddhist documents. Apparently the British Empire took whatever they wanted. There was even original Beatles music & lyrics.