Gor took Monday off and so we took the time to visit Westminster Abbey since we both didn't get to go in the last time we were there. However, this post isn't going to be about Westminster Abbey etc. I'll leave that for my following post. This post is about the sudden flood of rude people that we met in a day.

Incident 1: We were just outside Westminster Abbey and walking around it as they were not allowing visitors inside anymore (Note: if you're visiting Westminster Abbey, please visit www.westminster-abbey.org to check out the visitor timings for that week).

Just then, this Caucasian guy was trying to get Gor's attention by waving in front of him and pointing to his camera and gesturing. At this point, Gor was tempted to say, "Yes, how may I help you?" but he resisted. That person finally said, "Help, take picture?" or something like that. Of course, Gor answered him in perfect English and even asked whether he wanted his picture taken either portrait or landscape.

-__- How rude to assume that just because we're Chinese, we can't speak English? Even the English themselves don't assume that. Hate to say this...but....silly Americans. Don't get me wrong, I do have some close American friends who are really intelligent but even one of them said that she finds her fellow countrymen rather silly and ignorant. Yes, it is all about ignorance. Weird...considering that America is a multi-racial society too. Hmms.....

Incident 2: We had just finished dinner and decided to have ice-cream at Thornton's, which is a chocolatier. Gor gave them a 20 pound note and he received a lot of change in coins. Gor then asked whether he could exchange the coins to a fiver (ie. 5 pound note). The immediately reply was, "No." -__-; Err....customer service??? If you don't have the note, you could've replied with a "Sorry, we don't have a 5 pound note in the till right now." People complain about poor service in Singapore but at least cashiers are apologetic when they pass me a bunch of coins and explain to me why they're giving me so many coins. An outright "NO" is rude.

Incident 3: It was time to go home and we stopped at this store called Superdrug, which was next to the tube station. We saw the Dove bath creams on sale...2 for GBP 2.95. On that particular shelf, there was only one bottle of the normal white Dove bottle and several gold Dove Silk type. If you were me or my bro, you'd take one of each right? Since there was only one white one left and several gold ones.

Gor went to pay for it and the amount came up to GBP 3.16. My bro then pointed it out to the sales assistant that the tag on the shelf is 2.95. His reply was, "This one's more expensive" while pointing to the gold one. Yeah...but the price tag doesn't indicate so, so how were we to know that? He then called his manager out...who said the exact same thing.

Bro: Yeah, but there isn't a price tag that shows the different price right? So how was I to know?

Manager: Yeah and that's our fault but this one is more expensive. I can't give this to you at the cheaper price

Bro: But there's only one bottle of the cheaper one on the shelf, so...

Manager: There are more... (and she brings us to another shelf)

You know, a simple "Sorry" would have sufficed. "Sorry, it is our mistake for not labelling it properly. We have another bottle of the cheaper one over here. Would you like to change your purchase?"

Gosh...I've met with a similar incident in Singapore and the manager gave me a bottle free since it was their fault for not removing the promotional "2-for-1" tag.

Guess what's the common link? All these people are NOT British. Is it a language thing? Or a culture thing? Or they simply were not trained in customer service? Or it is plain ignorance? Hmm...I shall be kind and say that it is just ignorance.