The Amazing Race (London Diary: Heading for Oxford)

For a total urbanite like me living in the compact island of Singapore City, I've truly never experienced big-time inconveniences in getting from one place to another. Of course, there are the usual peak traffic delays on the expressways. On rare occasions, the MRT is delayed due to technical problems or man-made disasters (when someone decides to jump off the track). Other than these hiccups, I am so used to a transportation network that runs almost on clockwork (that I was totally comfortable in Japan early last year). Most of all, you get out of the house & know for sure the MRT is up and running, like the law of gravity. Especially on public holidays when people rely on the trains to hit town for shopping, eating and meeting friends. For special occasions where big outdoor events are held downtown, they even add more buses and trains. Well, afterall, we are talking about bus and train SERVICES. We expect them to serve the commuters.

Well, I very quickly learnt, with rude shock, that London tube (underground) does not work the same way. I've been foretold by a friend, Lim-Chyi who resides in London. But I guess it never quite sank in. It never occurred to me that London works on this opposite principle - lets do engineering works on bank holidays/weekends & shut down some lines.

This wasn't good for us at all because Canary Wharf was tucked away in the eastern suburban corner. So that long weekend stretching from Good Friday till Easter Monday, they shut down the Jubilee line connecting Canary Wharf with central London. That's equivalent to shutting down the MRT line connecting Pasir Ris/Tampines to City Hall/Raffles Place. For 4 long days/weekends!! One wonders what kind of major engineering overhaul was undertaken.

Early morning on Good Friday when we were due to catch the tube to Paddington (Central London) to transfer to Oxford, we were told there was no service at the tube entrance after brisk-walking 700 - 800 metres from our apartment. Imagine our shock & confusion! We had to quickly make our way to the adjoining DLR (Docklands Light Rail), equivalent to our LRT; and decide the shortest route to get to Paddington (considering the much more complex network of lines in London).

So it was a heart-pounding, finger-crossing, clock-watching journey just to hit Paddington station. Our tension relief was joking that we were doing our version of the Amazing Race!

Scenery on route to Oxford

Huge relief we didn't miss our connecting train & reached Oxford as scheduled.

We learnt a huge lesson that morning & started behaving more like a Londoner: staying alert for announcements when commuting & reading those posters for which lines would be shut down over the weekends.