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Monday 8 April 2013

Great Britain: A quick hop

It was England actually. We did not get to visit Scotland and Wales. In fact it was just London, and the route to London and out of London. We could say, we went to the Country where Greenwich is, the Greenwich of the G.M.T. As this blog goes online at 14 Hrs KL time, G.M.T should be 8 Hrs. Perhaps I'll just say, GOOD MORNING London. And we have "G" today ;) So especially to fellow A-Z Challenge participants, we wish you a very GOOD week ahead as we all start with the letter G.

London is the fifth city after Paris, Antwerp, Belgium and Gent of our almost around the world road trip. It would had been an around the world in six months if we did not take a U-Turn when we reached Los Angeles. Ironically it was cheaper, plane ticket wise to turn back then fly back to Kuala Lumpur from Los Angeles. And interestingly London is the midway between Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles.

For Digi and I, we had a big problem in London. We knew since Belgium that our flight from London-New York had been cancelled. Although I managed to talk to customer service of Expedia to alert our situation, and asked them to call back with solution, nothing came out of it. Instead, we went to British Airline office, at Heathrow Airport Terminal itself, and got our new flight. Now, Expedia is a great online travel agent to get tickets with good prices, but once you are in trouble, and away from your home base, or out the USA, it can be frustrating, and worse get you stranded. Once our flight was settled, and as we had only one full day in London, we took to the street. By bus and on foot.
























Just one day in London was too short. This is a fact that I have learned the hard way of our hurried itinerary. I have good knowledge about it about giving us enough time as we do like to take our time when stopping at a place. Yet London and Paris was meant as stopovers, a couple of days and a couple of nights each. But when we were already in a particular place on the other side of the world, to just be swinging by? I truly need to examine my head. Actually cost was the main factor that we had a short stay in these two world cities of Paris & London. Flight cost was so much less in February & early of March compared to later dates. But coming earlier to Europe could also mean getting snowed in. But we could certainly organize a better itinerary, activities and accommodation, in our next trip.

As for hopping around, we paid the price for it. Our new flight from London to New York was at 10 am, which mean we had to be at the airport by 8 am, or leave London Paddington station before 6.30 am, and to wake up at 5.00 am. I woke Digi at 4.30 am, and he dutifully showered. When he came out of the shower he was shaking so badly, so uncontrollably that got us scared. We had no idea what was going on. I got him dressed in his day clothing, and tucked him back to bed. He went back to sleep.

Reluctantly I left him to sleep, and went to the foyer to access the internet. Reluctantly I opened the BA website and checked in online, something I had not planned. That allowed us to have time to just drop our luggage before boarding the plane and thus be at the airport 45 minutes before departure, instead of 2 hours. At 7 am, I woke Digi again, and he woke up relatively much calmer. The receptionist gave us our packed breakfast, one each and we walked to Paddington station to take our train to Heathrow. All went well.

Alternative Foodie.

p/s
London places are so iconic, so for this post I leave the photos as there are, no description.

10 comments:

  1. Looks like you saw many interesting sights. I hope that you and your son enjoyed your globe trotting adventure. Great photos!

    Julie

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    1. Thank you, Julie. It was only the beginning of our road trip, and the 7th letter of our A-Z, we have a lot more coming ;)

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  2. London has been my home for the past 12 years, so I'm always interested in how tourists view it. You are right, it's a shame to only have one day in London...but at the same time, there are so many iconic sights and things to do, that you can have a great day and see so much..as your photos show! What I love most about having a day in London is that it IS possible to see so much on foot and bus.

    Looking forward to more of your A to Z posts

    http://www.mydestinationunknown.com
    A to Z Participant

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    1. Kelly, thank you for visiting and saying hello. I always feel very much at home in London; what more with a Malaysian Hall right there in the middle of London. One day, way back in 1993, I was walking on the street with rows of apartments with a good friend and her family, suddenly we heard a voice from above, greeting us, first in English, then in Malay. We responded, yes, we are Malaysians on vacation, and we all had a short chit chat before moving on. This post highlighted my 3rd (may be 5th, if I included all the passing by as well) visit to London actually, but the first for my son. My son thought London is just amazing ... and we did return to London on our back, and had a couple more days, then in a gorgeous summer weather. I hope to include that story towards the end of our A-Z Challenge.

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  3. Replies
    1. Lynn, we had too much fun in London really. Though we did not go to the Natural History of Museum, which I had planned in the beginning, we managed to spent some time at the National Gallery Museum (at Trafalgar Square), and though there was no Mona Lisa, the extensive collection of various periods including that of Leonardo Da Vinci other paintings were extraordinary to me. But so far we have been coming to London only as visitors. So we still have a lot more to explore.

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  4. Thanks for sharing about your trip! Sounds like you had an interesting time!

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    1. Betty, thank you for stopping by and wrote us a comment. I hope you too have great fun with the A-Z challenge.

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  5. One day in London is never enough. Actually, even a week isn't enough. I live in Brighton (less than an hour away by train) so when my family come to visit from Scotland we usually go up there a few times.
    Love the photographs! :-)

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  6. Thank you Ermie. It is wonderful to see you again at nuttybean. And I'm with you, there is so much to see in London. Heh, we might just decide to move to London .... now my son is going to exclaim, "What! We are going ABROAD again?" ;)

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