half price bus

If you come to London as a tourist you will almost certainly be shocked by the public transport fares. A single journey on the bus is £2 and on the tube you pay almost double I think.

Most Londoners have the fancy blue plastic card that is shown in today's photo which has an RFID chip integrated - called Oyster card. And it's a really nice piece of technology: You top it up like a mobile phone pay as you go card and can use it on bus, tube, Docklands Light Railway and also most of the overground trains in the London area. Using this card with pay as you go a bus journey is only £1. And tube prices are similarly slashed. I assume the reasoning behind this is that it causes significantly less hassle than paper tickets. Thanks to the great new world of technology you don't even have to take the card out of your wallet but simply hold you wallet above the reader and a friendly beep tells you your money is gone and the gates open for you.

So without telling much more on the great Oyster card I just want to point out that at a cost of £3 it actually makes a lot of sense to get one of them as soon as you arrive in London if you plan to do more than two tube journeys. The friendly chap in the ticket office of any underground station will help you. And considering the weather (!!!!!!) London is really worth a visit at the moment.