It's not jaywalking in the UK. Pedestrians have the right of way here. It's much safer to cross at a crossing point, but you have the right to cross anywhere. We like our red phone booths and want to keep them, even though basically nobody uses them anymore. Some of them are used as storage points for defibrillators for helping people having heart attacks and some are used as public art spaces or book exchanges, etc, but unfortunately a lot of them get trashed. Many of the places that claim to be inspirations for Harry Potter are just making it up so they can get tourist money, but the McGonagall connection with Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh is actually genuine. William McGonagall is infamous as being allegedly the worst poet in the history of the English language. His work is to poetry what The Room is to cinema- just so unbelievably bad it's mystifying and accidentally hilarious. He's a bit of a local legend in Edinburgh, and he did inspire the name of the Harry Potter character. Our cost of living is definitely too high relative to wages pretty much everywhere, especially due to our high housing and energy costs, although things are definitely much cheaper outside London. It does make things hard for ordinary people. Probably not as bad as in the USA, but still bad. We absolutely do love yelling at each other and our weather is legitimately terrible (guilty as charged). Glad you're enjoying the UK. Hope you get to see a bit more outside London, as there are lots of other great places here.
It blows my mind countries who follow the "no jaywalking" rule. I'm an adult. I can see when it's safe to cross the road and when it isn't. Let me choose my fate and cross when I want to!
but in practice, there are plenty of careless people who cross, it isnt just about you. there are rules of the road for a reason, and i dont know why pedestrians should be exempt. like, you arent the only person on the road & typically we dont trust anyone on the road to know what theyre doing@@04williamsl
@@Cubeforc3 Respecting traffic rules in general is a sign that there is a base for a well functioning society. Understanding safety rules and the reasons for supporting the respect of such rules is a sign of mature individual understanding.
I genuinely love the UK. ❤ Even with all its faults it is a dependable and stable country that has a backbone and a great sense of humor. British comedy is hugely popular in Czechia and lines from old shows like Yes, Minister get quoted even by people who have never watched the show. 😊
@@afiiik1 Ha! I’m not British and my husband and I loved Yes, Minister with all our hearts. We still tell each other we’re going to “Humphrey” a situation, and we know just what we mean by that 😂
As a foreigner who visited London and Scotland I don't see how a tourist could complain! Maybe the food is not the best but if you search well you can even find delicious food too.
I'm from the UK but have lived elsewhere in Europe for 5 years. I love coming home, I think I appreciate what the UK has a lot more coming with different eyes. British people in comparison to a lot of places are so nice and open, it really surprises me now, even in London! And food in the UK is wonderful, it doesn't deserve the stereotype. You can get any cuisine in London especially!
Tourists don't see the same stuff the rest of us do when we live somewhere for a while. Every place has the shine taken off when you get soaked on the way home from the supermarket, or ill at home waiting to see the doctor for a week or two. 5 countries and 8 cities here - currently split between London and Leipzig. We're politer but Leipzig is cleaner.
Me too!!!! TH-cam has been SUCKING lately and so many people are being exposed as predators or just rude mean people, but uyen and German bf are upping the TH-cam game with the longer videos. They are such a breath of fresh air in the current desolate TH-cam space
I love that she mentioned the cost of living for non tourists. Ive never seen a travel blog where someone mentioned the relative cost of groceries to income 😮❤
@@kimbrolyy As a Canadian, I thought everything was very inexpensive when I visited for a month. I was shocked to find out that prices are considered expensive locally.
@@elusiveillithid2633 they have gone up a lot recently. The average salary and definitely minimum wage didn't keep up with that so many people are struggling
The only road you're not allowed to cross in the UK is a motorway. You can freely cross anywhere you like and use your best judgement to make that crossing. Recently the highway code changed to give pedestrians even greater priority so of someone is waiting to cross at a junction a car that needs to make that turn should stop and allow the pedestrian to cross. You can also walk, run, ride or skip along the road if you choose to. ( Again not on motorways)
If you weren't allowed to cross the road so many people would just be trapped on their block for life due to how crossings are only for where it's needed At crossings outside of London (London is basically a different country) it's also fairly normal to cross at crossings without pressing the button, drivers understand that they could either let me press the button and I'll cross and they have to wait for the lights, or I can just point where I'm walking and walk and drivers understand they may have to slow down but they don't have to stop for the lights. Drivers are just far more aware of pedestrians, because drivers are pedestrians
@@ShamankaIlona oh of course, you gotta be careful, you can safely cause a car to slow down a little but not to slam on their brakes to stop (unlike in the US where drivers will just run over people at crossings because the traffic lights said they could go and so even at crossings when you’re given a green light you aren’t safe at all)
@@ShamankaIlona No but pedestrian deaths are quite low and are on trend in the UK to reduce over time. Over the past 20 years deaths and injuries are down over 50% The main contributing factors to this are the following. Safer cars More low speed zones i.e 20-30 mph zones Better awareness due to extensive TV campaigns targeting pedestrians and how to cross effectively and safely as well as to motorists to encourage safer drivings. Despite our laws our casualty rate isn't higher than other similarly dense areas. It may even be lower but I would need to look at per capita statistics.
It makes a lot of sense to give pedestrians priority over motorists. Anyone can be a pedestrian. Children, old people, disabled people. No one is banned from walking around outside. Whereas motorists are required to demontrate that they can operate their vehicle to a certain standard of safety, and can have their license revoked if they become too reckless or incapable of driving safely. So it's resonable to expect motorists to be able to take the primary responsibility for safety, but the same cannot always be said for pedestrians.
I’m from Poland but moved to the UK in 2019 and I’ve also fallen in love with the country. Not many people in Poland know about the amazing culture, the people and even the food! I love when my friends visit and I see that they love it too❤
It's lovely to hear someone speaking nicely about London and UK, it's very trendy atm to put the UK and London down by only focusing on the negative. Thanks for your honesty.
I work in london and I still think its a wonderful city to explore. yes, the weather can be unpredictable but I don't mind, I find it challenging and very funny when peoples umbrellas are blown inside out, including mine. It can be very windy at times especially between the tall buildings, I always have to hold on to my hat and try and stop my dress or skirt blowing up, I think that's part of the experience of London. Thers so many place to visit and so much history here in London. xxxxxxx 🌬🌧☂👒👗🏛
@@Mellow_man2001 Trendy because the people that live here are very quickly being priced out of their own city. Most of the ire directed towards London is generated by Londoners who have seen it turn from a bustling cauldron of life where everyone and everything mingles, to a corporate shell Skinner box designed to suck the cash out of as many tourists and smaller corporate entities as possible. The people who actually make London breathe; service workers, transport staff, nurses and teachers - are hence pushed out to the edges where rent and utilities aren't 9/10ths of their paycheck. My family has lived in London for three centuries. I can't imagine living anywhere else, this is my home and my city. It just sucks that real people aren't allowed to exist in "proper" London anymore without effectively being servants in a corporate shell game.
I am surprised that you didn't know about the UK theater system. They seem to have a system there that consistently produces some of the best actors in the world.
I think that sort of factoid would be more known in the anglosphere, as in "Hollywood loves British people for their theatre training". For foreigners from countries that don't speak English, the people are probably not as invested in the details of English language cinema and would also be less likely to go seeing a play as a must do cultural activity.
It already starts at school though. I was at a small village school and they had a HUGE theatre/musical department and all the a level students were already perfect enough to put on a real show for paying guests. I decided then that i, as a German exchange kid with ambitions of becoming a musical theatre actress, it made no sense for me to even try. England already trains its kids to become full fledged artists. Germany scoffs at you wanting to become anything that's not boring.
As a brit I am really genuinely touched to hear that you loved the city, the UK has alot of problems and often doesn't feel that friendly, I worry constantly about how foreigners or non-white brits are treated and so I am so happy to hear you had a positive experience. Next time you go to London please give your UK followers some warning and we can give recommendations for local sites that tourists don't see! Especially it would be amazing to see you outside of London and in the countryside, places like Stonehenge or Avebury are really magical and there are so many towns and villages that are caught in a time warp, the prices are lower and there is truly excellent regional food, like cream tea in cornwall!
You need a reality check. Three little girls got murdered by a foreigner. A dog born in a barn isn’t a horse before you say he was born here. That’s irrelevant. If they didn’t allow his parents here in the first place then it wouldn’t of happened. Thousands of English girls being graped by pakistanis. Lee Rigby and your concern is foreigners. Do you have kids?
The greyfriars graveyard in edinburgh is famous for the names because JK rowling wrote the books in a cafe overlooking that graveyard and took the names of those people as characters for her books.
@@bellamijaymes2153 There is no cafe overlooking the cemetery, the cafe meant is a block away and most of where JKR's supposedly got her inspiration from was debunked by JKR herself. Ignore.
@@PianoKwanMan A little village? Edinburgh is a little village to you? But yes, they do indeed have tours marketed as HP, filled with misinformation that JKR is trying to debunk, ha!
As a Londoner, born and bred, it's so good to see you fall a bit in love with our city. It is very expensive to live here, lots of us struggle, but to have a truly cosmopolitan, multicultural city, that retains the a lot of the good things about our country and with a real beating heart to it, makes it worth the effort.
London is my spirit city and I go there often. All of our low fare flights from here are from Heathrow so no matter where I go in the UK, I always finish up in London to fly out of and I spend a few days there before I leave. It's always nice to hear a Londoner appreciate the city they live in because most people tell me "If you lived here you wouldn't like it." Well, you can't help where your spirit city is but also, they don't appreciate the city the same way a tourist would. And then there are some people who, when they go to bed, they vow they're going to wake up grumpy and stay that way all day LOL. Someone's one-word sum up of London varies as to what they like to do. "Sweet", "exciting", "interesting", "historic", "friendly" etc etc. And EVERYONE should, at least once, see London at Christmas time!
Interesting to see your perspective, I would say you've definitely reported on your opinion of London rather than the UK as a whole, the city is very different to what you would find even in other cities but especially the countryside and further afield
Same here in Denmark whenever I see stuff about foreigners visiting Denmark and talking about things that surprised them its just copenhagen. The rest of the country where the majority of us live is very different, but tourists usually just bother with the capital
Hate to break it to you, but that's how tourists work everywhere. They mostly just go to popular areas. A lot of the time, they don't even see what the city they're in is actually like. It's just what it's like to be a tourist most of the time 🤷♀️
@@theekatspajamasThat's true. Here in Germany most of the stuff is about Berlin or Bavaria. Berlin is the least typical German city and Bavaria probably is the most unique state. What's funny are those people that go to Berlin and try to find typically German food, which usually means they try to find Bavarian food which has nothing to do with the cuisine of Berlin and the area around it, as Bavaria is at the opposite end of the country. I would say: out of the 16 states of Germany, there is only one with a cuisine similar to the Bavarian one.
I don’t know at what point during the trip they went to London and filmed this, whether it was at the end or earlier. However I’m sure when the shorts came out from when they were in England I remember them being in Lyme Regis or somewhere similar which is a seaside town, in Dorset (which is fairly local to me hence why I thought I recognised it). So I do think they managed to get out of London for a little while. I’m just glad they seemingly enjoyed themselves and managed to have enough time to see some other places too which are probably more similar to the rest of the UK, plus Scotland which is beautiful. And since they hopefully enjoyed the trip they’re more likely to come back sometime, and maybe head to Ireland and Wales too since they’re definitely worth a visit :)
I agree, London is not the same as the whole country. I find the people in the countryside a lot more relaxed and therefore often kinder. I‘m just back from London, no yelling whitnessed 😉😊
As a Brit it's always so lovely to hear a glowing review of the country. Sometimes we can be a little dour about living in the UK and tourists have a way of pointing out all of the best parts to those of us who have forgotten them. I'm so pleased to hear that you enjoyed your trip, come back someday and see the sights outside of London, there's pretty little countryside towns, national trust properties, and beautiful walks all over the UK :)
1:13 It's funny because the Palace of Westminster, the building behind Uyen, is actually falling apart and repairing it would take 12+ years and 7-14 billion pounds, this only if the premises were emptied, otherwise the cost would go up to 22 billion and it would take 70 years. This would mean the parliament would need another building to be brought up or to move to. Which means extra cost anyway. Given the size of the issue and the severity, obviously it gets put aside and ignored.
9:09, You have to understand that jaywalking does not exist as a concept or a law at all here, If you asked someone that hasn't travelled abroad before they would probably not even know what the term means.
Absolutely!! When I first arrived in Germany (18, British Army), a Sergeant that picked us up from the train station in Dortmund told us that "jaywalking is a big no-no over here lads!" I had no idea what he was talking about; I genuinely thought it meant walking down the middle of the road or something!
The best you'd probably get asking people that haven't been abroad is them recognizing the term from a movie, followed by "Wait that's actually a real thing?" For me it's that one Harold and Kumar scene where they're stood at a dead intersection and Lethal Weapon 3 lol
The really funny bit is that Germany's roads are more dangerous than UK roads, and the US road deaths are many times higher than Germany's. It's absolutely crazy.
We moved to the UK from New Zealand in 2001 - and agree very much with your comments. 5 minutes after we landed at the airport we were struggling to find some English coins to call our cousin we were staying with, and people just came up and offered them to us, and on the whole everyone has been lovely for the last 23 years. And I really love a UK queue - no pushing and shoving (although in our time we've seen pushing and shoving on the underground becoming sadly much more common - things change). Glad you enjoyed our adopted country! We love it here too. And we also appreciate the German immigrants Lidl and Aldi.
When I first moved here and came through security, I was shocked by how friendly and helpful airport security was. Such a change from American TSA. It was a really pleasant first encounter at the start of a new adventure
Ironically a lot of British doctors are fleeing to Australia and New Zealand for higher salaries and better quality of life. Spending £2k a month for a run-down moldy terraced house gets old fast.
Haha, when I, a Brit, visited New Zealand I felt everybody was just so much friendlier and kinder than the UK! The way I was shook when a rail employee offered to carry my bag from the train to the bus lol
If you want even wetter, windier more miserable weather, come visit Yorkshire. We do have lovely scenery though and great tea . So glad you enjoyed your London /Scotland trip. Interesting to see it through fresh eyes ❤
I visited Yorkshire on my UK trip 20 years ago and loved it. Great scenery, delightful people, and the city of York had so many things to see and do. If/when I make it back to the UK I will absolutely come again. :)
I hope you get to come back. I live around 22 miles from York. The Yorkshire Dales are beautiful and I agree we are generally a friendly lot. Glad you enjoyed your visit
@@christopher3386but that is how it works everywhere in the country. Your local community defibrillator is a short walk or drive away. Everyone should know where their closed public defibrillator lives and how to access it in an emergency.early defibrillation is the key to better outcomes.
Woo! Glad you liked London!! The West End theatre scene is as big as Broadway in the US - often shows will only be on in both places and sometimes shows start here and then go to America!
As an American who has family and friends in theatre, this is so true! In fact, many classic musicals had their start in the West End, then on Broadway, and then became films. The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Cats, Matilda, Mamma Mia, Les Misérables, Mary Poppins… so many wonderful performances opened in the West End. And it’s much older than Broadway. I think like, over 200 years if I recall. 😊
Since lockdown, the West End is much stronger, and has made a much bigger comeback. Producers are much more likely to make more income, and a bigger profit, here which is why so many shows launch here rather than Broadway. If they're a hit here, then they move them over. It costs a lot less to put on shows here too, thanks to the way our theatres are owned and run. There's quite a good explanation on a recent episode of The Rest is Entertainment - I think about two weeks ago as I write this. (Sadly their episode titles don't include all the topics they cover, but I googled the show name and 'west end' and found an instagram clip posted 2 weeks ago, which sounds about right).
wow its not often I hear someone talking good about my home country, thanks! i will just like to mention that some of the things you mentioned, like the phone snatchers or people yelling, are more of a London or big city thing. very different to the smaller towns around here.
They snatch within london tourist areas specifically, there's been attempts at clamping down on it, but unfortunately most culprits can just dissappear into the crowds. They do eventually catch them, but often far too late.
Edinburgh local here - yes people really do live here, but you might not be surprised to know that rents are very high here with the exception of a couple neighbourhoods! I'd love to see a video on your experiences in Scotland as well :D
London is my favorite international city, I think. Prague is up there too. I had never read the Harry Potter books but did the studio tour. I was so impressed that when I returned to the US I read all the books and saw all the movies. It is truly magical!
Im really glad you enjoyed your trip to the UK. As an English person living in the south of England, I can confirm that living costs are ridiculous even outside London and that you should definitely visit other places outside London to see the real England such as Bath, York, the Dorset coast, Cornwall, the Lake District ❤️
Uyen, thank you for your kind words about London and the UK. I'm glad you and your partner enjoyed your visit so much - you're welcome to come back any time.
Uyen, this was really touching. Thank you for reminding me why I moved here 10 years ago! For some reason watching you fall in love with this city and country brought tears of joy to my eyes, because it mirrored my feelings exactly. Hope you return soon and visit even more of what this beautiful country has to offer!
British are the best! I had an amazing time while living in London for around 1 year. British humor is THE BEST! even at the times they have been cynical towards me. London is a tough city, is really expensive, salaries are low and housing is not as good as other countries; however you can really enjoy it if you’re around with respectful, chatty, helpful , funny, empathetic and charismatic people as the Brits and foreigners I met there; if you don’t integrate in British society I have no idea in which society you would be able to do it, despite me not having the best working experience either salary in London, I feel for ever thankful for my experience there. It is a shame salaries are low and now I’m relocating to Munich where I will have double the salary in an IT position, but if I could afford London, I would definitely live there the weather is not that bad, it is a very green city, things work, there’s always an interesting activity to do. Thanks Brits for making my time there so special and amazing! 🥹
Depends where you look and where you go. If you live in Victoria ( and there are mix of housing tenancies) you shop at the market or Sainsbury's which is cheaper than the little tesco.
Yes London and a lot of the surrounding cities/areas are very expensive and wages really don't compare, they are far too low to be expected to live especially if you are single. I think people love to be sarcastic and deal with negative situations by joking about them, it's our way of coping 😂
It's nice to see you so happy and hyped about the trip. My sis also was surprised and infatuated by England when she went to visit it. This is a unique place in Europe, for sure.
Lovely to hear so much positivity along with your usual funny comments. Do please come back and see the rest of the UK too! Theres so much more to the nation than London. Come up north and make sure to visit Wales and Scotland too!
The vast majority of people don't live in central london and go to larger groceries. The shop you visited was a smaller shop where they tend to raise prices (I think a Tesco Express is around 15% more expensive than a regular Tesco on average). Still, they can be expensive.
Why are people actually being fooled into believing that everyone is poor. Around 20% of the UK population earns more than 50K, which means that on average about 1 in 5 people are earning over 50k. It's much better than you think.
Wow, i'm really surprised that you don't think of the UK as somewhere for Theatre!! Most of the most famous "Broadway" shows in the world actually started in the West End. There's hundreds of different shows in the West End every night, and the quality is amazing. And that's not even counting the Globe, the Rose, the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon, and all the Royal Shakespeare Company shows that perform almost entirely Shakespeare plays. They might not be as enjoyable for tourists since the language they use would be almost impossible for EFL learners to follow, but Shakespeare has left us with a 500+ year theatre legacy. Obviously we're not doing a good enough job of advertising our theatre scene in foreign countries 😂
7:32 honestly my sisters friend lives in London and we have been there multiple times and it is NOT safe like the chances of getting your phone stolen are so high that my sisters friend and many others get literal straps to physically attach their phones to them to make sure they aren’t stolen 🙏
Glad you enjoyed the UK. It's not jaywalking over here it's just crossing the road, if it's a busy road it's best to wait at lights but if there is space it's fine to cross. The supermarket prices you saw are London prices so a lot more expensive then other places although prices have really increased a lot in the last few years.
I think this is the first full length video I've watched from you, having seen dozens of your shorts. So wholesome. I think the weather in the UK is beyond a meme at this point. It's early December here right now and a few days ago I woke up when it was freezing, it was sunny in the afternoon and by the evening we had torrential rain. Wouldn't have it any other way.
As someone who's watched your content for a long while, I'm so glad that you liked your stay in our country. Not too many positive comments can be found these days about it (especially from residents) so it's nice to be reminded of some of its good parts.
It's fun seeing London from and outside perspective and hear what people find surprising about it. As I commute to London two-three times a week for work, I just take it for granted and everything becomes a blur. But I like watching these type of videos as it makes me reappreciate the city! Hope you had a nice trip 🙂
I have moved to the UK from Germany where I lived for 17 years. I have been living in London for 12 years. Everything you have said is correct. I love the quality of your videos. Maybe one thing I have to say that the unpredictable weather is compensated by the lovely, friendly and helpful Londoners. I was quite miserable in Germany and am so happy in England. ❤
I lived ireland maggie. I experienced the weather there LOL My god it can get very windy there and lots of rain. I had many of my umbrellas wrecked not mention how many times my skirts and dresses had blown over my head LOL
9:16 i’ve never witnessed this lol. but tbf i live in a small town so people tend to be more chill. when you’re waiting at a crossing usually the car stops for you (pedestrians have the right of way) and you put your hand out like this 🤚🏻 to basically say “cheers mate”
I've lived in London for ten years now, and it's an amazing city. It's very, very expensive, and the housing market is brutal, but it's a great place to live with world-class infrastructure and culture. It is a global city and one of the most diverse places on the planet, which means no matter what, you'll always be able to find something new and interesting around. It just needs to be more affordable.
6:52 you’re right to mention the phone snatchers. They do exist in London. My mother in law had her purse pickpocketed while we were visiting a gallery in London. They found the purse later with all the cash missing (She is Japanese. They carry a decent amount of cash with them)… it was a horrible experience.
The bus drivers here are lovely, yes. Brit tip- always say "cheers " or "thanks" to the driver when you get off the bus. In London less people do it but outside London it's generally good manners. And we cope with the weather by baking ourselves to a crisp in the summer!
to be fair, Harry Potter was written in Edinburgh, and the graveyard they took you to was (I assume) Greyfriars Kirk, which is where J K Rowling took the names for some of the characters in the book. So the stretch isn’t they happen to share the same names, it is that the names are directly taken from that actual grave. J K Rowling stood exactly that spot. The connection isn’t as tenious as you think.
About the prices - London is way more expensive than elsewhere (people are mostly paid more there). In the Midlands and the north, things will be like half the price.
I’m a fan of you from the UK and so glad you visited !! Ever since I started watching ur content I’ve always thought you’d like it here. I’m glad you had an amazing time !!!!
Uyen, thank you for being so enthusiastic about the UK! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. 😊 Please come back, see more places like the North of England and rest of Scotland.
So glad you enjoyed London, Uyen & German bf! It was so lovely to see such a positive take on the country, thank you. We do complain a lot about things like the cost of living (which is, indeed, especially ridiculous in London), government, weather…, and Seasonal Affected Disorder is definitely a thing, but I think we have a bit of “keeping up appearances” ingrained, too, so we usually only show our real feelings/complaints with friends. I promise other parts of the country are much safer for phones. I think you’d really enjoy a bit of time in the countryside if you can manage it to see the contrast.
Good comment gemma. I work in london and I do complain myself about the weather, especially when my umbrella keeps blowing inside out and end up getting wet or my dress or skirt is blown up over my head from the wind in London. I think london is a wonderful place and enjoy working and exploring the city. So much history here xxxxx
Thanks for such a lovely video To a Brit it is customary to compliment a foreign country when talking to it's people Whereas so many non Brits are truly disparaging about the UK
London is actually a bigger theatrical centre than Broadway, with all the big shows but marked by many experimental ones and everything in between. At the end of the day, it has more theatre seats -1 million - than even stadia seats, which it's also the world leader (think 12 Olympic sized stadia).
Yours have been the best video about London I've ever seen so far, how a normal walk is like (that's what I want to see), the subway (that's what I wanna know about), none of the stupid trendy restaurant reviews (I don't care for that at all), the helpful bus explanation (I love that), and I thought was so funny when the phone started talking 😂. Thank you very much.
This was lovely! It's so nice to see somebody do positive and complimentary of our little country. Very insightful too! I think you hit upon two of the biggest reasons why alot of Brits like to visit or relocate to other places...weather and cost of living. Both do get us down quite a lot sometimes.
Welcome both of you!🇬🇧🏴🇬🇧🏴 Enjoy your stay. Lovely to have you. Thank you for your honest observations! Sorry about the weather love. Can't fix that! ❤
I am a Londoner living in Germany and I miss people's cheerful character also. I am glad you enjoyed London and you are right about the mobile phone theft, it is now a huge problem in the UK but overall it is still a safe place for tourists
I am so glad you took advantage of the West End! Mostly because I love theatre and want more people to see more shows and fall in love with theatre as well. The last time I was in London I did the same thing and got a really great seat. Highly recommend, and also highly recommend if you can, catch a show at the Globe, especially the standing seats because it's just a different theatre experience (also super cheap) and fun
You're so right about the UK! I love it here. As noted by others, London isn't representative of the entirety of the UK, but it certainly is a magnificent part of it! The unfortunate thing is that many UK citizens don't recognize that at all. They focus too entirely on all the tough bits. I'm glad you saw all the beauty and wonder. 🙂💕
That was so nice to hear! If you're ever back in the UK I'd love to hear what you think of one of our other cities, or the countryside. Glad you had a nice time here!
I am glad you had an enjoyable time in London! Thank you for being so openly positive about the positives. Here are my two pennies worth: Architecture - Quite stunning, I agree. I love that we record & preserve our rich history. Underground - Refreshing to see someone appreciate the vintage of the Tube! They say there's more under London than in it. West End - It isn't that we're obsessed w Harry Potter, it's that tourists are. The UK is historically renowned, not for Harry Potter alone, but for literature in general! Phone Boxes - A lot of them are defibrillator or book sharing points now! (esp outside London) Phone snatching - Only happens in London, but is a real blight, esp for tourists. London is a honey-pot for opportunists. Politeness - Manners Maketh Man. Weather - I actually appreciate the variation, the changing of the seasons, and the comparative stability/mildness granted by the gulf stream. (No wildfires or hurricanes et c) Crossing the road - A road is not just for cars, but for people! And pedestrians have priority (as they should!). Buses - I still love sitting at the top of a double-decker, like a childish joy. Pubs - are even better, and I think pub-ier outside Lunners! And the people even happier too. Prices - largely down to decades of poor governance and high population density.
Kyiv has far deeper underground than London. Minsk has the one with the least amount of advertising. Both of them, and Tashkent have really beautiful stations.
To be honest with the bus thing as a local, you sometimes have to go down the stairs while the bus is approaching the stop because otherwise you might miss the stop. You just have to hold the rails tightly. Also yeah sadly our food prices have skyrocketed since brexit/covid :( still going up, london is also more expensive for food. It's surprising people were friendly, usually in London we all like to keep to ourselves and mind our own business, but we do say sorry/please yes! outside of London people are more friendly!
Thank you so much for sharing this video with your experiences! I am from Northern Ireland and it’s very similar. We get a lot of good theatre shows but it can’t be compared to the West End. I’m so happy you figured out to ask for last minute tickets to the shows, they do that at a lot of theatres over here and it’s wonderful - the performers are happy to have a fuller audience, the theatre makes money and we get to see things we would have missed out on otherwise. I think once you go to the theatre a few times it’s something you can really appreciate. Also, I really appreciate the longer form content! Sending love to you and German boyfriend from Ireland!
the best wayt to tell whos a tourist in england is not umbrellas, its when they sit at the top of the bus, then ring the bell andd wait till it stops, then walk down the stairs. making everyone wait for them. you ring the bell and get up, and if you have to go down the stairs you just go while its moving then brace for the stop. thats waht the handrails are for.
I’m so glad you enjoyed your time here! Would love to hear more about your travels outside of London, if you ever get chance to visit again I would definitely recommend travelling round more. It’s also super easy due to the trains.
Bus drivers waiting for you if you're running definitely depends on the driver and how good a day they're having 😅 also you can usually tell who gets a bus a lot by if they get up before it stops or not
It's not jaywalking in the UK. Pedestrians have the right of way here. It's much safer to cross at a crossing point, but you have the right to cross anywhere. We like our red phone booths and want to keep them, even though basically nobody uses them anymore. Some of them are used as storage points for defibrillators for helping people having heart attacks and some are used as public art spaces or book exchanges, etc, but unfortunately a lot of them get trashed. Many of the places that claim to be inspirations for Harry Potter are just making it up so they can get tourist money, but the McGonagall connection with Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh is actually genuine. William McGonagall is infamous as being allegedly the worst poet in the history of the English language. His work is to poetry what The Room is to cinema- just so unbelievably bad it's mystifying and accidentally hilarious. He's a bit of a local legend in Edinburgh, and he did inspire the name of the Harry Potter character. Our cost of living is definitely too high relative to wages pretty much everywhere, especially due to our high housing and energy costs, although things are definitely much cheaper outside London. It does make things hard for ordinary people. Probably not as bad as in the USA, but still bad. We absolutely do love yelling at each other and our weather is legitimately terrible (guilty as charged). Glad you're enjoying the UK. Hope you get to see a bit more outside London, as there are lots of other great places here.
It blows my mind countries who follow the "no jaywalking" rule.
I'm an adult. I can see when it's safe to cross the road and when it isn't. Let me choose my fate and cross when I want to!
but in practice, there are plenty of careless people who cross, it isnt just about you. there are rules of the road for a reason, and i dont know why pedestrians should be exempt. like, you arent the only person on the road & typically we dont trust anyone on the road to know what theyre doing@@04williamsl
In countries like Japan or Germany it's hilarious. People will wait at a crossing when there isn't a car in sight for miles, completely bonkers.
London is not representative of the UK for sure.
@@Cubeforc3
Respecting traffic rules in general is a sign that there is a base for a well functioning society. Understanding safety rules and the reasons for supporting the respect of such rules is a sign of mature individual understanding.
It's so refreshing to hear someone be positive about the UK and London 😅😅😅
I genuinely love the UK. ❤ Even with all its faults it is a dependable and stable country that has a backbone and a great sense of humor. British comedy is hugely popular in Czechia and lines from old shows like Yes, Minister get quoted even by people who have never watched the show. 😊
@@afiiik1 Ha! I’m not British and my husband and I loved Yes, Minister with all our hearts. We still tell each other we’re going to “Humphrey” a situation, and we know just what we mean by that 😂
i visited Scotland last year and it was my absolute favorite. Even the TV program is better than anywhere else.
Thats why I live there
As a foreigner who visited London and Scotland I don't see how a tourist could complain! Maybe the food is not the best but if you search well you can even find delicious food too.
As a Brit living in London its genuinely quite touching to hear someone has something nice to say about us, really cheered me up, thanks!
I'm from the UK but have lived elsewhere in Europe for 5 years. I love coming home, I think I appreciate what the UK has a lot more coming with different eyes. British people in comparison to a lot of places are so nice and open, it really surprises me now, even in London! And food in the UK is wonderful, it doesn't deserve the stereotype. You can get any cuisine in London especially!
She doesn’t know much. lol.
Tourists don't see the same stuff the rest of us do when we live somewhere for a while. Every place has the shine taken off when you get soaked on the way home from the supermarket, or ill at home waiting to see the doctor for a week or two. 5 countries and 8 cities here - currently split between London and Leipzig. We're politer but Leipzig is cleaner.
I often wonder what London would be like in the modern age if it had not been bombed in WW2
I can't wait to go back!!!! I went in 2016 and been dreaming to go back ever since ✨✨✨✨
The pure excitement realising the phone in the phone box works, you brighten our day Uyen
She's so adorable ❤
It’s genuinely heartwarming to hear that you loved London and England; Thank you for the positivity!
I’M HERE FOR UYEN’S LONG-FORM CONTENT! 🫶🏻
Yayyy thank youuuu🎉🎉🎉🎉
Same, I prefer long-form content for sure! @irised
So true! The shorts are great too but I would love to see more long-format content 🥰🥰
me toooooooo
Me too!!!! TH-cam has been SUCKING lately and so many people are being exposed as predators or just rude mean people, but uyen and German bf are upping the TH-cam game with the longer videos. They are such a breath of fresh air in the current desolate TH-cam space
I love that she mentioned the cost of living for non tourists. Ive never seen a travel blog where someone mentioned the relative cost of groceries to income 😮❤
Brutal she noticed even on holiday
@@flanagon360 it's bad. I was talking to Norwegians and they were saying the UK is expensive for them nowadays
@@kimbrolyy As a Canadian, I thought everything was very inexpensive when I visited for a month. I was shocked to find out that prices are considered expensive locally.
@@elusiveillithid2633 they have gone up a lot recently. The average salary and definitely minimum wage didn't keep up with that so many people are struggling
@@kimbrolyy It comes to something when people from a nation who can pay up to 41% tax on many things says this to you haha.
The only road you're not allowed to cross in the UK is a motorway.
You can freely cross anywhere you like and use your best judgement to make that crossing.
Recently the highway code changed to give pedestrians even greater priority so of someone is waiting to cross at a junction a car that needs to make that turn should stop and allow the pedestrian to cross.
You can also walk, run, ride or skip along the road if you choose to. ( Again not on motorways)
If you weren't allowed to cross the road so many people would just be trapped on their block for life due to how crossings are only for where it's needed
At crossings outside of London (London is basically a different country) it's also fairly normal to cross at crossings without pressing the button, drivers understand that they could either let me press the button and I'll cross and they have to wait for the lights, or I can just point where I'm walking and walk and drivers understand they may have to slow down but they don't have to stop for the lights.
Drivers are just far more aware of pedestrians, because drivers are pedestrians
These laws unfortunately do not make anyone immortal.
@@ShamankaIlona oh of course, you gotta be careful, you can safely cause a car to slow down a little but not to slam on their brakes to stop (unlike in the US where drivers will just run over people at crossings because the traffic lights said they could go and so even at crossings when you’re given a green light you aren’t safe at all)
@@ShamankaIlona No but pedestrian deaths are quite low and are on trend in the UK to reduce over time.
Over the past 20 years deaths and injuries are down over 50%
The main contributing factors to this are the following.
Safer cars
More low speed zones i.e 20-30 mph zones
Better awareness due to extensive TV campaigns targeting pedestrians and how to cross effectively and safely as well as to motorists to encourage safer drivings.
Despite our laws our casualty rate isn't higher than other similarly dense areas.
It may even be lower but I would need to look at per capita statistics.
It makes a lot of sense to give pedestrians priority over motorists.
Anyone can be a pedestrian. Children, old people, disabled people. No one is banned from walking around outside. Whereas motorists are required to demontrate that they can operate their vehicle to a certain standard of safety, and can have their license revoked if they become too reckless or incapable of driving safely. So it's resonable to expect motorists to be able to take the primary responsibility for safety, but the same cannot always be said for pedestrians.
First-time viewer from Britain: love your take on life. Your humour and enthusiasm shine through.
I’m from Poland but moved to the UK in 2019 and I’ve also fallen in love with the country. Not many people in Poland know about the amazing culture, the people and even the food! I love when my friends visit and I see that they love it too❤
We love you Polish too! ❤
It's lovely to hear someone speaking nicely about London and UK, it's very trendy atm to put the UK and London down by only focusing on the negative. Thanks for your honesty.
I work in london and I still think its a wonderful city to explore.
yes, the weather can be unpredictable but I don't mind, I find it challenging and very funny when peoples umbrellas are blown inside out, including mine. It can be very windy at times especially between the tall buildings, I always have to hold on to my hat and try and stop my dress or skirt blowing up, I think that's part of the experience of London. Thers so many place to visit and so much history here in London. xxxxxxx 🌬🌧☂👒👗🏛
Too bad she didn't mention how standoffish, cold, and unfriendly Brits are.
Trendy, because of the envy, stereotypes*, and propaganda
The several million bigoted Indians on the internet don't help.
@@Mellow_man2001 Trendy because the people that live here are very quickly being priced out of their own city. Most of the ire directed towards London is generated by Londoners who have seen it turn from a bustling cauldron of life where everyone and everything mingles, to a corporate shell Skinner box designed to suck the cash out of as many tourists and smaller corporate entities as possible. The people who actually make London breathe; service workers, transport staff, nurses and teachers - are hence pushed out to the edges where rent and utilities aren't 9/10ths of their paycheck.
My family has lived in London for three centuries. I can't imagine living anywhere else, this is my home and my city. It just sucks that real people aren't allowed to exist in "proper" London anymore without effectively being servants in a corporate shell game.
I am surprised that you didn't know about the UK theater system. They seem to have a system there that consistently produces some of the best actors in the world.
I mean it's the land of Shakespeare...
I was surprised by this too since Broadway and West End are arguably two of the most famous theatre districts in the world.
She get affect by American culture more through TV. So she know about Broadway.
I think that sort of factoid would be more known in the anglosphere, as in "Hollywood loves British people for their theatre training". For foreigners from countries that don't speak English, the people are probably not as invested in the details of English language cinema and would also be less likely to go seeing a play as a must do cultural activity.
It already starts at school though. I was at a small village school and they had a HUGE theatre/musical department and all the a level students were already perfect enough to put on a real show for paying guests. I decided then that i, as a German exchange kid with ambitions of becoming a musical theatre actress, it made no sense for me to even try. England already trains its kids to become full fledged artists. Germany scoffs at you wanting to become anything that's not boring.
As a brit I am really genuinely touched to hear that you loved the city, the UK has alot of problems and often doesn't feel that friendly, I worry constantly about how foreigners or non-white brits are treated and so I am so happy to hear you had a positive experience. Next time you go to London please give your UK followers some warning and we can give recommendations for local sites that tourists don't see! Especially it would be amazing to see you outside of London and in the countryside, places like Stonehenge or Avebury are really magical and there are so many towns and villages that are caught in a time warp, the prices are lower and there is truly excellent regional food, like cream tea in cornwall!
There are no 'non-White Brits' all British people are white by default, Coloured People who live are just Coloured People who live there.
You need a reality check. Three little girls got murdered by a foreigner. A dog born in a barn isn’t a horse before you say he was born here. That’s irrelevant. If they didn’t allow his parents here in the first place then it wouldn’t of happened. Thousands of English girls being graped by pakistanis. Lee Rigby and your concern is foreigners. Do you have kids?
Yawn. There are all kinds of Brits whether you like it or not
The fact that you use coloured says it all.
@@ajrwilde14So your logic is... a British person is only British if the appearance of their skin is within lighter tones?
That's not how it works 😂
Genuinely didn't expect you to be so positive about England, it's so refreshing! Also my favourite place in the world so far is Vietnam
The greyfriars graveyard in edinburgh is famous for the names because JK rowling wrote the books in a cafe overlooking that graveyard and took the names of those people as characters for her books.
I never knew this
@@bellamijaymes2153 There is no cafe overlooking the cemetery, the cafe meant is a block away and most of where JKR's supposedly got her inspiration from was debunked by JKR herself. Ignore.
Ah. I thought she meant a little village having a graveyard tour branding it as a HP experience xD
@@PianoKwanMan A little village? Edinburgh is a little village to you? But yes, they do indeed have tours marketed as HP, filled with misinformation that JKR is trying to debunk, ha!
As a Londoner, born and bred, it's so good to see you fall a bit in love with our city. It is very expensive to live here, lots of us struggle, but to have a truly cosmopolitan, multicultural city, that retains the a lot of the good things about our country and with a real beating heart to it, makes it worth the effort.
Tbf locals also know where to shop and where to eat 😂.
Still bloody expensive mind.
Multiculturalism doesn’t work. Diversity is not a strength repeating it over and over doesn’t make it true.
@@tmarritt More importantly where to live... As far away as possible.
Gentrification is spreading- I lost my flat of 15 years when they put the rent up by more than 100%. I love London, but we need rent control badly.
London is my spirit city and I go there often. All of our low fare flights from here are from Heathrow so no matter where I go in the UK, I always finish up in London to fly out of and I spend a few days there before I leave. It's always nice to hear a Londoner appreciate the city they live in because most people tell me "If you lived here you wouldn't like it." Well, you can't help where your spirit city is but also, they don't appreciate the city the same way a tourist would. And then there are some people who, when they go to bed, they vow they're going to wake up grumpy and stay that way all day LOL. Someone's one-word sum up of London varies as to what they like to do. "Sweet", "exciting", "interesting", "historic", "friendly" etc etc. And EVERYONE should, at least once, see London at Christmas time!
Interesting to see your perspective, I would say you've definitely reported on your opinion of London rather than the UK as a whole, the city is very different to what you would find even in other cities but especially the countryside and further afield
Same here in Denmark whenever I see stuff about foreigners visiting Denmark and talking about things that surprised them its just copenhagen. The rest of the country where the majority of us live is very different, but tourists usually just bother with the capital
Hate to break it to you, but that's how tourists work everywhere. They mostly just go to popular areas. A lot of the time, they don't even see what the city they're in is actually like. It's just what it's like to be a tourist most of the time 🤷♀️
@@theekatspajamasThat's true. Here in Germany most of the stuff is about Berlin or Bavaria. Berlin is the least typical German city and Bavaria probably is the most unique state. What's funny are those people that go to Berlin and try to find typically German food, which usually means they try to find Bavarian food which has nothing to do with the cuisine of Berlin and the area around it, as Bavaria is at the opposite end of the country. I would say: out of the 16 states of Germany, there is only one with a cuisine similar to the Bavarian one.
I don’t know at what point during the trip they went to London and filmed this, whether it was at the end or earlier. However I’m sure when the shorts came out from when they were in England I remember them being in Lyme Regis or somewhere similar which is a seaside town, in Dorset (which is fairly local to me hence why I thought I recognised it). So I do think they managed to get out of London for a little while. I’m just glad they seemingly enjoyed themselves and managed to have enough time to see some other places too which are probably more similar to the rest of the UK, plus Scotland which is beautiful. And since they hopefully enjoyed the trip they’re more likely to come back sometime, and maybe head to Ireland and Wales too since they’re definitely worth a visit :)
I agree, London is not the same as the whole country. I find the people in the countryside a lot more relaxed and therefore often kinder. I‘m just back from London, no yelling whitnessed 😉😊
As a Brit it's always so lovely to hear a glowing review of the country. Sometimes we can be a little dour about living in the UK and tourists have a way of pointing out all of the best parts to those of us who have forgotten them. I'm so pleased to hear that you enjoyed your trip, come back someday and see the sights outside of London, there's pretty little countryside towns, national trust properties, and beautiful walks all over the UK :)
1:13 It's funny because the Palace of Westminster, the building behind Uyen, is actually falling apart and repairing it would take 12+ years and 7-14 billion pounds, this only if the premises were emptied, otherwise the cost would go up to 22 billion and it would take 70 years. This would mean the parliament would need another building to be brought up or to move to. Which means extra cost anyway. Given the size of the issue and the severity, obviously it gets put aside and ignored.
Thanks for your video. I love your Vietnamese humour and energy.
9:09, You have to understand that jaywalking does not exist as a concept or a law at all here, If you asked someone that hasn't travelled abroad before they would probably not even know what the term means.
Absolutely!! When I first arrived in Germany (18, British Army), a Sergeant that picked us up from the train station in Dortmund told us that "jaywalking is a big no-no over here lads!" I had no idea what he was talking about; I genuinely thought it meant walking down the middle of the road or something!
I was confused too by references to it in US cartoons. You mean... crossing the road...?
@@hyperchica yeah as a kid i thought that was the generic yank term for "crossing a road" not even illegally just any crossing
The best you'd probably get asking people that haven't been abroad is them recognizing the term from a movie, followed by "Wait that's actually a real thing?"
For me it's that one Harold and Kumar scene where they're stood at a dead intersection and Lethal Weapon 3 lol
The really funny bit is that Germany's roads are more dangerous than UK roads, and the US road deaths are many times higher than Germany's. It's absolutely crazy.
We moved to the UK from New Zealand in 2001 - and agree very much with your comments. 5 minutes after we landed at the airport we were struggling to find some English coins to call our cousin we were staying with, and people just came up and offered them to us, and on the whole everyone has been lovely for the last 23 years. And I really love a UK queue - no pushing and shoving (although in our time we've seen pushing and shoving on the underground becoming sadly much more common - things change). Glad you enjoyed our adopted country! We love it here too. And we also appreciate the German immigrants Lidl and Aldi.
yes, we love Lidl
I’ve lived in the UK all my life and do nearly all my shopping in Lidl and Aldi. Much better than Sainsbury’s , Tesco etc.
When I first moved here and came through security, I was shocked by how friendly and helpful airport security was. Such a change from American TSA. It was a really pleasant first encounter at the start of a new adventure
Ironically a lot of British doctors are fleeing to Australia and New Zealand for higher salaries and better quality of life. Spending £2k a month for a run-down moldy terraced house gets old fast.
Haha, when I, a Brit, visited New Zealand I felt everybody was just so much friendlier and kinder than the UK! The way I was shook when a rail employee offered to carry my bag from the train to the bus lol
If you want even wetter, windier more miserable weather, come visit Yorkshire. We do have lovely scenery though and great tea . So glad you enjoyed your London /Scotland trip. Interesting to see it through fresh eyes ❤
Does Yorkshire Pudding come from Yorkshire? And the Terrier? :)
@@voyance4elleas far as I know yes they are. 👍🏻
I visited Yorkshire on my UK trip 20 years ago and loved it. Great scenery, delightful people, and the city of York had so many things to see and do. If/when I make it back to the UK I will absolutely come again. :)
I hope you get to come back. I live around 22 miles from York. The Yorkshire Dales are beautiful and I agree we are generally a friendly lot. Glad you enjoyed your visit
@@melodiemeldrum3918 South Yorkshire here and you'll be welcomed back with open arms.
What a great video - you’re a natural. And thank you for your kind remarks about our country 🎉
Wow, you are so lovely! Your sunshine personality just gave me a lovely start to the day, thank you ☀️
I come from London and that was a lovely video, cheered me up no end. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
A lot of the red telephone boxes after having the phones removed now have defibrillators in them!
Yes, and I’ve seen ones turned into miniature libraries as well
Which is only useful if you live within a five-minute walk of one!
@@christopher3386plenty of people do
@@christopher3386 better than dying
@@christopher3386but that is how it works everywhere in the country. Your local community defibrillator is a short walk or drive away. Everyone should know where their closed public defibrillator lives and how to access it in an emergency.early defibrillation is the key to better outcomes.
It's so nice to see a positive video about the UK. Thank you Uyen!
Have you even watched the video? lol most of the time she’s complaining
Thank you for showcasing London. Love your long videos. I lived in London for 2 years and loved it.
I'm a police officer in London and I can tell you London is not safe for phone users, you are not exagerating.
Woo! Glad you liked London!! The West End theatre scene is as big as Broadway in the US - often shows will only be on in both places and sometimes shows start here and then go to America!
As an American who has family and friends in theatre, this is so true! In fact, many classic musicals had their start in the West End, then on Broadway, and then became films. The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Cats, Matilda, Mamma Mia, Les Misérables, Mary Poppins… so many wonderful performances opened in the West End. And it’s much older than Broadway. I think like, over 200 years if I recall. 😊
West End is actually much bigger than Broadway.
Since lockdown, the West End is much stronger, and has made a much bigger comeback. Producers are much more likely to make more income, and a bigger profit, here which is why so many shows launch here rather than Broadway. If they're a hit here, then they move them over. It costs a lot less to put on shows here too, thanks to the way our theatres are owned and run. There's quite a good explanation on a recent episode of The Rest is Entertainment - I think about two weeks ago as I write this. (Sadly their episode titles don't include all the topics they cover, but I googled the show name and 'west end' and found an instagram clip posted 2 weeks ago, which sounds about right).
wow its not often I hear someone talking good about my home country, thanks!
i will just like to mention that some of the things you mentioned, like the phone snatchers or people yelling, are more of a London or big city thing. very different to the smaller towns around here.
phone snatchers happen where I am too, they come from London
The phone snatchers come from a lot further afield than London..
@@Cubeforc3 keep your racism to yourself
@@laylamctavish8122 Scared of the truth?
Ever been to rome? You'd change your tune real quick.
They snatch within london tourist areas specifically, there's been attempts at clamping down on it, but unfortunately most culprits can just dissappear into the crowds. They do eventually catch them, but often far too late.
Edinburgh local here - yes people really do live here, but you might not be surprised to know that rents are very high here with the exception of a couple neighbourhoods! I'd love to see a video on your experiences in Scotland as well :D
London is my favorite international city, I think. Prague is up there too. I had never read the Harry Potter books but did the studio tour. I was so impressed that when I returned to the US I read all the books and saw all the movies. It is truly magical!
This was such a touching video, it makes me proud to be British! Thank you for coming and enjoying our country!
Im really glad you enjoyed your trip to the UK. As an English person living in the south of England, I can confirm that living costs are ridiculous even outside London and that you should definitely visit other places outside London to see the real England such as Bath, York, the Dorset coast, Cornwall, the Lake District ❤️
Oxford is beautiful! Bath and Oxford are my favourite UK towns. Unfortunately, I have not visited Edinburgh due to the high cost.
I'd add Cambridge, Chester, Shrewsbury...
Yes she would love the Lake Distict!
Ohh I would love to see Uyen and German bf experience the Lake District!
I live near Bath, and it’s so beautiful!
I’ve never heard someone speak so positively about the UK😅
Yep... makes me wonder if she's talking about the same city I was born and raised in!
Uyen, thank you for your kind words about London and the UK. I'm glad you and your partner enjoyed your visit so much - you're welcome to come back any time.
Uyen, this was really touching. Thank you for reminding me why I moved here 10 years ago! For some reason watching you fall in love with this city and country brought tears of joy to my eyes, because it mirrored my feelings exactly. Hope you return soon and visit even more of what this beautiful country has to offer!
14:48 I mean, the poor woman is clearly insane but I'm glad she liked it here.
British are the best! I had an amazing time while living in London for around 1 year. British humor is THE BEST! even at the times they have been cynical towards me. London is a tough city, is really expensive, salaries are low and housing is not as good as other countries; however you can really enjoy it if you’re around with respectful, chatty, helpful , funny, empathetic and charismatic people as the Brits and foreigners I met there; if you don’t integrate in British society I have no idea in which society you would be able to do it, despite me not having the best working experience either salary in London, I feel for ever thankful for my experience there. It is a shame salaries are low and now I’m relocating to Munich where I will have double the salary in an IT position, but if I could afford London, I would definitely live there the weather is not that bad, it is a very green city, things work, there’s always an interesting activity to do. Thanks Brits for making my time there so special and amazing! 🥹
Depends where you look and where you go. If you live in Victoria ( and there are mix of housing tenancies) you shop at the market or Sainsbury's which is cheaper than the little tesco.
Yes London and a lot of the surrounding cities/areas are very expensive and wages really don't compare, they are far too low to be expected to live especially if you are single. I think people love to be sarcastic and deal with negative situations by joking about them, it's our way of coping 😂
Thanks for visiting ✨
It's nice to see you so happy and hyped about the trip. My sis also was surprised and infatuated by England when she went to visit it. This is a unique place in Europe, for sure.
You are awesome! Your positive energy and attitude pouring through the screen. Have a nice time in the UK!
Very pleased you enjoyed your visit and the nice things you said. The rain and grey days are not so bad, there are even songs about it.
Lovely to hear so much positivity along with your usual funny comments. Do please come back and see the rest of the UK too! Theres so much more to the nation than London. Come up north and make sure to visit Wales and Scotland too!
Uyen: "How do normal people in the UK live on a normal UK salary?"
Answer: We don't :/ People are just very poor! It's such a shame.
We are sufferingggggg ✌️
The vast majority of people don't live in central london and go to larger groceries. The shop you visited was a smaller shop where they tend to raise prices (I think a Tesco Express is around 15% more expensive than a regular Tesco on average). Still, they can be expensive.
Yeah people working full-time to be on breadline, it's so sad.
Why are people actually being fooled into believing that everyone is poor.
Around 20% of the UK population earns more than 50K, which means that on average about 1 in 5 people are earning over 50k. It's much better than you think.
If you want to be rich you just have to go get a time machine and make sure your relatives were friends with William the conqueror.
Wow, i'm really surprised that you don't think of the UK as somewhere for Theatre!! Most of the most famous "Broadway" shows in the world actually started in the West End. There's hundreds of different shows in the West End every night, and the quality is amazing. And that's not even counting the Globe, the Rose, the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon, and all the Royal Shakespeare Company shows that perform almost entirely Shakespeare plays. They might not be as enjoyable for tourists since the language they use would be almost impossible for EFL learners to follow, but Shakespeare has left us with a 500+ year theatre legacy.
Obviously we're not doing a good enough job of advertising our theatre scene in foreign countries 😂
Wow I never thought about the 500 year part. Something in my mind connected him with Victorians when I knew he was Elizabeethan. Crazy!
Largest theatre capacity globally
She is not familiar with that fact probably because she's Asian. For us in Europe it's common knowledge.
Love Uyen's enthusiasm as always. I had so much fun watching it.
Thank you for sharing! Very well spoken with natural delivery. I really enjoy your videos
7:32 honestly my sisters friend lives in London and we have been there multiple times and it is NOT safe like the chances of getting your phone stolen are so high that my sisters friend and many others get literal straps to physically attach their phones to them to make sure they aren’t stolen 🙏
Lived in the UK my whole life, happy to see her enjoying the UK!
Having watched the video now, she really did a good job :0
I love that you are only visiting and talking about the weather - now you know why we do it 🤣
Glad you enjoyed the UK. It's not jaywalking over here it's just crossing the road, if it's a busy road it's best to wait at lights but if there is space it's fine to cross. The supermarket prices you saw are London prices so a lot more expensive then other places although prices have really increased a lot in the last few years.
I think this is the first full length video I've watched from you, having seen dozens of your shorts. So wholesome. I think the weather in the UK is beyond a meme at this point. It's early December here right now and a few days ago I woke up when it was freezing, it was sunny in the afternoon and by the evening we had torrential rain. Wouldn't have it any other way.
The umbrella analogy is so perfect 😂 Brits know the rain isn’t the problem it’s the wind!!
As someone who's watched your content for a long while, I'm so glad that you liked your stay in our country. Not too many positive comments can be found these days about it (especially from residents) so it's nice to be reminded of some of its good parts.
It's fun seeing London from and outside perspective and hear what people find surprising about it. As I commute to London two-three times a week for work, I just take it for granted and everything becomes a blur. But I like watching these type of videos as it makes me reappreciate the city! Hope you had a nice trip 🙂
I have moved to the UK from Germany where I lived for 17 years. I have been living in London for 12 years. Everything you have said is correct. I love the quality of your videos. Maybe one thing I have to say that the unpredictable weather is compensated by the lovely, friendly and helpful Londoners. I was quite miserable in Germany and am so happy in England. ❤
Thank you
You’ve made me smile 😊
I hope your trip was fabulous
Come to Dublin soon.
The weather is terrible
But we are super nice
I'm signing the petition for Uyen to visit Dublin ✌️
Agreed. I love the Irish people.
I agree as an Englishman. For many reasons I believe Ireland is the most similar country to England, in my opinion
I lived ireland maggie.
I experienced the weather there LOL
My god it can get very windy there and lots of rain. I had many of my umbrellas wrecked not mention how many times my skirts and dresses had blown over my head LOL
As an Englishwoman...
*THE SIX COUNTIES* *_WILL_* *BE FREED!*
Your long form content is a breath of fresh air. More please 🥹❤️
I’m glad you enjoyed it here! Hope you can come back some time, love from Scotland 🏴
You are lovely. You really are lovely. Thank you for being so kind about the UK
9:16 i’ve never witnessed this lol. but tbf i live in a small town so people tend to be more chill. when you’re waiting at a crossing usually the car stops for you (pedestrians have the right of way) and you put your hand out like this 🤚🏻 to basically say “cheers mate”
I've lived in London for ten years now, and it's an amazing city. It's very, very expensive, and the housing market is brutal, but it's a great place to live with world-class infrastructure and culture. It is a global city and one of the most diverse places on the planet, which means no matter what, you'll always be able to find something new and interesting around. It just needs to be more affordable.
The theatre part surprised me, as I would have thought William Shakespeare is known everywhere 😅
😅 Right? This is madness
He hasn’t put out anything new in a while, to be fair
@@stellangios😂😂😂
@@stellangioshahaha I’m dead 🤣🤣
She was brought up to far away. Guess more common for western countries than Asian. But we surely are guilty of similar stuff when going there.
6:52 you’re right to mention the phone snatchers. They do exist in London. My mother in law had her purse pickpocketed while we were visiting a gallery in London. They found the purse later with all the cash missing (She is Japanese. They carry a decent amount of cash with them)… it was a horrible experience.
The bus drivers here are lovely, yes. Brit tip- always say "cheers " or "thanks" to the driver when you get off the bus. In London less people do it but outside London it's generally good manners. And we cope with the weather by baking ourselves to a crisp in the summer!
Thankyou Uyen, as a Londoner I really appreciate your lovely comments about the city I live in. Bless you.
If you had told us beforehand that you were coming to London, I am sure we could have organised a welcome committee!
agreed
I would have joined 😂
me too
Everyone would have joined her, I suppose. Uyen is one of the most likable human beings we "know", isn't she?
We would reserve a whole pub for that
to be fair, Harry Potter was written in Edinburgh, and the graveyard they took you to was (I assume) Greyfriars Kirk, which is where J K Rowling took the names for some of the characters in the book. So the stretch isn’t they happen to share the same names, it is that the names are directly taken from that actual grave. J K Rowling stood exactly that spot. The connection isn’t as tenious as you think.
hamburger. FYI JK Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter, is English, born and bred. She comes from Gloucestershire in the Forest of Dean.
@@valeriedavidson2785 JK Rowling lives in Edinburgh and wrote the Harry Potter books in Edinburgh, famously at the Elephant Cafe.
@@dangerouslizzy I am fully aware of that. I was merely stating that she is English and not Scottish. I thought that was obvious.
@@valeriedavidson2785 what’s your point?
@@hamburgermcgrath3493 End of conversation. What is your point?
About the prices - London is way more expensive than elsewhere (people are mostly paid more there). In the Midlands and the north, things will be like half the price.
I’m a fan of you from the UK and so glad you visited !! Ever since I started watching ur content I’ve always thought you’d like it here. I’m glad you had an amazing time !!!!
Uyen, thank you for being so enthusiastic about the UK! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
😊 Please come back, see more places like the North of England and rest of Scotland.
You look very happy. Contagious. Love that!
So glad you enjoyed London, Uyen & German bf! It was so lovely to see such a positive take on the country, thank you. We do complain a lot about things like the cost of living (which is, indeed, especially ridiculous in London), government, weather…, and Seasonal Affected Disorder is definitely a thing, but I think we have a bit of “keeping up appearances” ingrained, too, so we usually only show our real feelings/complaints with friends. I promise other parts of the country are much safer for phones. I think you’d really enjoy a bit of time in the countryside if you can manage it to see the contrast.
Good comment gemma.
I work in london and I do complain myself about the weather, especially when my umbrella keeps blowing inside out and end up getting wet or my dress or skirt is blown up over my head from the wind in London. I think london is a wonderful place and enjoy working and exploring the city. So much history here xxxxx
Thanks for such a lovely video
To a Brit it is customary to compliment a foreign country when talking to it's people
Whereas so many non Brits are truly disparaging about the UK
Really enjoyed this. Good work!
Glad you enjoyed your time in the UK. Do come back and see some of the places.
As a British person who has lived in London her whole life, I love your take on London! You’re awesome!
London is actually a bigger theatrical centre than Broadway, with all the big shows but marked by many experimental ones and everything in between. At the end of the day, it has more theatre seats -1 million - than even stadia seats, which it's also the world leader (think 12 Olympic sized stadia).
Yours have been the best video about London I've ever seen so far, how a normal walk is like (that's what I want to see), the subway (that's what I wanna know about), none of the stupid trendy restaurant reviews (I don't care for that at all), the helpful bus explanation (I love that), and I thought was so funny when the phone started talking 😂. Thank you very much.
This was lovely! It's so nice to see somebody do positive and complimentary of our little country.
Very insightful too! I think you hit upon two of the biggest reasons why alot of Brits like to visit or relocate to other places...weather and cost of living. Both do get us down quite a lot sometimes.
Welcome both of you!🇬🇧🏴🇬🇧🏴 Enjoy your stay. Lovely to have you. Thank you for your honest observations! Sorry about the weather love. Can't fix that! ❤
Just an FYI, London is COMPLETELY different from the rest of the UK.
In what sense?
@@krishna_sakhaaa Only 38% of London is English, whilst most English regions are 95% English.
She said in the video she went to scotland
@@krishna_sakhaaa Everything is a few quid more in London. Probably the main difference.
It's different but not completely different.
Lmao you are 100% correct about the weather. There's a reason it's our most popular small talk!
I am so happy you are doing more long form content, and I really enjoy your podcasts so much!
I loved watching this, it made me feel proud of my country and I'm so glad you enjoyed your visit ❤.
I am a Londoner living in Germany and I miss people's cheerful character also. I am glad you enjoyed London and you are right about the mobile phone theft, it is now a huge problem in the UK but overall it is still a safe place for tourists
I am so glad you took advantage of the West End! Mostly because I love theatre and want more people to see more shows and fall in love with theatre as well. The last time I was in London I did the same thing and got a really great seat. Highly recommend, and also highly recommend if you can, catch a show at the Globe, especially the standing seats because it's just a different theatre experience (also super cheap) and fun
You're so right about the UK! I love it here. As noted by others, London isn't representative of the entirety of the UK, but it certainly is a magnificent part of it! The unfortunate thing is that many UK citizens don't recognize that at all. They focus too entirely on all the tough bits. I'm glad you saw all the beauty and wonder. 🙂💕
Familiarity breeds contempt
That was so nice to hear! If you're ever back in the UK I'd love to hear what you think of one of our other cities, or the countryside. Glad you had a nice time here!
I am glad you had an enjoyable time in London! Thank you for being so openly positive about the positives. Here are my two pennies worth:
Architecture - Quite stunning, I agree. I love that we record & preserve our rich history.
Underground - Refreshing to see someone appreciate the vintage of the Tube! They say there's more under London than in it.
West End - It isn't that we're obsessed w Harry Potter, it's that tourists are. The UK is historically renowned, not for Harry Potter alone, but for literature in general!
Phone Boxes - A lot of them are defibrillator or book sharing points now! (esp outside London)
Phone snatching - Only happens in London, but is a real blight, esp for tourists. London is a honey-pot for opportunists.
Politeness - Manners Maketh Man.
Weather - I actually appreciate the variation, the changing of the seasons, and the comparative stability/mildness granted by the gulf stream. (No wildfires or hurricanes et c)
Crossing the road - A road is not just for cars, but for people! And pedestrians have priority (as they should!).
Buses - I still love sitting at the top of a double-decker, like a childish joy.
Pubs - are even better, and I think pub-ier outside Lunners! And the people even happier too.
Prices - largely down to decades of poor governance and high population density.
Kyiv has far deeper underground than London. Minsk has the one with the least amount of advertising. Both of them, and Tashkent have really beautiful stations.
Ah I love your enthusiasm, it’s nice to hear a glowing review of London for a change!
To be honest with the bus thing as a local, you sometimes have to go down the stairs while the bus is approaching the stop because otherwise you might miss the stop. You just have to hold the rails tightly. Also yeah sadly our food prices have skyrocketed since brexit/covid :( still going up, london is also more expensive for food. It's surprising people were friendly, usually in London we all like to keep to ourselves and mind our own business, but we do say sorry/please yes! outside of London people are more friendly!
We may keep to ourselves, but this doesn’t stop us being polite or courteous when necessary 🥰
Thank you so much for sharing this video with your experiences! I am from Northern Ireland and it’s very similar.
We get a lot of good theatre shows but it can’t be compared to the West End. I’m so happy you figured out to ask for last minute tickets to the shows, they do that at a lot of theatres over here and it’s wonderful - the performers are happy to have a fuller audience, the theatre makes money and we get to see things we would have missed out on otherwise. I think once you go to the theatre a few times it’s something you can really appreciate.
Also, I really appreciate the longer form content!
Sending love to you and German boyfriend from Ireland!
the best wayt to tell whos a tourist in england is not umbrellas, its when they sit at the top of the bus, then ring the bell andd wait till it stops, then walk down the stairs. making everyone wait for them. you ring the bell and get up, and if you have to go down the stairs you just go while its moving then brace for the stop. thats waht the handrails are for.
I’m so glad you enjoyed your time here! Would love to hear more about your travels outside of London, if you ever get chance to visit again I would definitely recommend travelling round more. It’s also super easy due to the trains.
Bus drivers waiting for you if you're running definitely depends on the driver and how good a day they're having 😅 also you can usually tell who gets a bus a lot by if they get up before it stops or not
True. Yo UK own you have a nutter of a driver when nobody braves standing up before their stop