I’ll wrap up our time in London into the one post.
Firstly – we didn’t do as much as we have in other places, we got very tired and so we took things slower, which in some ways was better than how we’ve seen other places. A lot of time was spent just walking around and enjoying the city. On our drive to London, we made a list of things we wanted to do, so over dinner Friday night, we worked out how we could tackle them in a fairly short period of time (3 days). The list went something along these lines…
- Lion King – we had to do a show and the Lion King is a particular show that Deb absolutely loves and Deb’s parents also saw whilst they were in London. We managed to get a couple of the last tickets of the Saturday afternoon show so we dressed up, had a quick brunch in the theatre district. Just as we were about to choose a place, we had our first celebrity sighting – Sir Michael Gambon, theatre and movie legend. He was just casually sitting out the front the of a cafe having a coffee right next to the theatre with his current play. I managed to get a happy snap, see below. Anyway, back to the show. It’s a stunning presentation, great music and thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended
- Piccadilly Circus – we all know about it, we’ve all seen it in real life or on TV but we had to go and see it ourselves. Very “Time Square”-esque and with a sea of people absolutely everywhere, it was quite the experience. The whole area around Leicester Square down to Covent Gardens and the Circus – people galore. We went looking for dinner nearby in Soho and then Chinatown and we finally found a place where we only had to wait 5mins for a table. Crazy place. It was also where we saw our 2nd celebrity sighting… Steven K. Amos, a well known British comedian, just having a chat with a person down a sidestreet
- Hyde Park – again, similar to New York City, Hyde Park is the equivalent of Central Park. I didn’t realise just how big it actually is. I walked through it coming back from dropping the car back Saturday morning, but Deb & I went again on our way to Notting Hill on Sunday morning. The locals certainly make good use of it with joggers, walkers, cyclists, horse riders, inline skaters and even skiers on roller blade-looking things! We went past Kensington Palace and checked out the walking trail tribue to Princess Di… Very nice walk
- Notting Hill – we were keen to do the very touristy thing of seeing where the movie was based on but unfortunately it’s mainly Saturdays for the big markets, and we were there on Sunday morning. No matter. So after our walk through Hyde Park – we picked a random cafe to have a late breakfast in. One looked pretty nice so in we went. To prove the world is indeed a small place… whilst waiting to be seated, I had a look around and who should be seated right near me… Olivia from school. We’ve gone to school together since we were 8 years old, and of the maybe 10 people I know in London to bump into 1 is pretty damn unlikely. We had a good chat and was pretty freaked out by it I must say! Very cool
- Premier League Game – I’m not a massive soccer/football fan, but you have to do it if you get a chance… Fulham was the closest team to where we were staying and they were playing Manchester City on Sunday afternoon. As you can guess, tickets are hard to come by particularly considering their massive following and small capacity grounds (Craven Cottage where Fulham play only holds 27,500!), so I wasn’t sure if I’d get a ticket, particularly as it was Saturday morning and they were playing Sunday afternoon. The website said it was booked out, but I rang the number anyway. 15mins later after being on hold, I was told there was just 3 tickets left in the entire stadium. Winner! I bought one – row ZZ right behind the goals and the very last row in the stand, but I couldn’t care less. I walked the hour there after dropping Deb off at the local department stores (Primark – her new favourite) and walked in with the locals. What an atmosphere! I was quite close to the Manchester City supporters and they didn’t stop chanting the entire game. No doubt helps when they won 4-1! Fulham sucked but I was very pleased to see 5 goals. And when they score, the crowd just erupts. It’s a very different kind of supporting as well to AFL or cricket like I’m used to… lots of “oohs and ahhs” but no “coaching” or “umpiring” from the stands. All in all, absolutely fantastic time and so glad I got to go
- Pub meal – what would a trip to London be without a good pub meal. We had a couple, one near our hotel and one in the city. Both were excellent and we can highly recommend a sample platter of pies (who ate all the pies? we did!) if you ever come across them
- Harrods – again, very touristy but since we’ve done our fair share of shopping, it seemed a bit dopey not to do one of the best known shopping destinations in the world. The store is huge and obviously very upmarket and expensive. The Egyptian elevators was a highlight. Definitely something to experience at least once
- The usual sights – as we were leaving Tuesday morning, by Monday night we were a bit disappointed we hadn’t seen the usual places people travel half way across the world to see, so we thought we’d better. And we’re pretty damn happy we did. We got the tube to Big Ben, photographed the London Eye and the River Thames, walked to Westminster Abbey then around to Buckingham Palace before heading home. They really are spectacular places and given it was night time, they were lit up beautifully
After a good old English Breakfast on Tuesday, we headed off to the airport ready for our marathon air travel to our next destination, Singapore!
Photos soon.