Tower Bridge

2 weeks ago I met up with a friend in London city for lunch. After that I went over to Adrian's London office which is near the Tower Bridge area to meet up with him after work and proceed to dinner together with a friend of his. I was sitting outside his office and came to realise that his office has an excellent view of River Thames and also the major landmarks nearby.

The building on the left below is Adrian's office. In front of his office is the belfast naval ship.

Across the river, there is the Tower of London, another major tourist attraction. Romantic right? What a nice place to pak-toh after work.

Check out the Gherkin ....er, there that condom shape building hiding behind.
And situated upstream of the Thames is the famous London Bridge! Magnificent isn't it. Nah, that's not London Bridge. Picture below is London Bridge... abit boh-syiok right? I was conned like most of the people. I'd always thought that the famous London Bridge would be huge, majestic not a plain simple ordinary looking bridge. Well to give you all abit of history - the very first London Bridge was built over a thousand years ago, while the Romans were in control of London , and it was made of wood. When London was raided by the Danes, they sailed upriver and attached ropes to the wooden struts and then rowed downstream with all their might and managed to pull the bridge down. This is thought to be the origin of the old nursery rhyme "London Bridge is Falling Down". Anyway, this one here is a completely new bridge, which was located slightly downstream from Tower Bridge. So back to Tower Bridge, this bridge is located next to the Tower of London, and hence its name. Built in the 19th century, this bridge is on a level with the streets with a double draw bridge that could be raised to let ships pass up and down the river and lowered to let vehicles pass to and from across the waterway. The bridge is regularly opened to allow the passage of tall ships.

We were lucky to be able to see the bridge being raised to allow tall ship passing through it. There was once when we were stuck on the bridge itself when the arms were raised. It was simply awesome being on the bridge seeing the road infront of you being lifted up.

At night, the view is even better.

So incredible is the Tower Bridge that the big Blue Whale wouldn't want to miss it too. hahaha!
-Steph