Sunday, September 13, 2009

I'm so behind! London: Days 1-2

Hi all,

So as promised I'm going to blog my travel diary from my trip to London.

But first I must congratulate myself on finishing all 200 episodes of the Japanese version of Sailor Moon. It was a most enjoyable experience and I have now moved onto the English dub of Samurai Pizza Cats which is nothing if not funny. :D I have been influenced by some awesome anime geeks that live in my building. :D

OK back on task. This is copied directly from my travel diary which I kept while in London. It's amazing how much I have forgotten more than a month on, thus the need to copy out of le book.

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11 July

I traveled ALL day! It was exhausting but it's all good. Long days happen in life. To get to London, Leytonstone specifically [fyi this is where Alfred Hitchcock was born], I had quite an ordeal.

Osaka to HongKong was no problems mate. Except for the ahving to dispose of my just purchased frappucino at security, argh, how much more annoying can you get. They made me stand there and drink it, bad brain freeze!!

Hong Kong Airport was interesting. Yay for Ben and Jerry's! I'd written a note on a piece of paper and put it somewhere but I don't know where I put it so cannot add it in here. I think it was something about it being so incredibly cosmopolitan and multicultural in comparison to Japan maybe.

Hong Kong to London: LOL!!!! 'Ladies and gentlemen, we're just having a few problems getting engine number 1 started...' it was the bloomin' starter motor. We had to sit in the plane for AGES in the heat and humidity while they changed it because the air conditioning does not come on until the engines do! Meanwhile I'm sitting there swearing left and right that if the group of boys seated near me is like that [aka noisy as heck] for the entire flight shoes might start to gly. They were annoying on and off for most of the flight and I got very little sleep as a result.

Then (!) I arrive in London and jump on the tube to get to my sister's place in Leytonstone. Not gonna happen! Sorry, ah ah, nope. We actually, I thought it might happen but due to 'person under train' I had to get a cab as the line was delayed indefinitely that night. Argh! Bye Bye 50quid. It was in fact only 40 but in my 'I've been traveling for more than a day' state I gave him a 20% tip not thinking, I am a genius! Anyway, finally got 'home' and went straight to (air)bed.
Lucky.

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12 July

I woke up about 11am (properly) having been in and out of sleep since about 7am. My sister made waffles with lemon curd for breakfast, YUM! Then we both got ready to go for high tea with her friend from way back.

High Tea was A-mazing! But of course I can't get into that yet...
Dressed in our most fabulous outfits we went to Harrods with our shoes in our bags and flip flops on our feet... haaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha, it was funny.
I didn't realy enjoy Harrods, it's just like a place I used to work and didn't really do it for me. But High Tea in the Caramel Room at the Berkley was fabulous.

We looked stylish. The cakes were all based on designer outfits or shoes and when they found out that I'm allergic to yeast and can't eat sandwiches they brought me out an even more fabulous fruit platter (I regretted that later, a year without loads of fruit in Japan, oops). The cakes looked and tasted amazing as did the champagne and the tea. It was all a little rich though so the fruit was a nice refresher. The cakes all looked like the things they were based on and the green mint marzipan and chocolate handbag looked exactly like my big green bag. It was well worth the 43pounds that it cost, that's for sure.
My sister's friend and I made a few mistakes though. We tried to order tea before we'd finished our champagne (oops) and my airplane toothbrush managed to fall out of my handbag onto the floor only to be picked up by the waiter. OMG, how embarrassingly funny. There were so many laughs!

On the way home we walked past the NZ War Memorial, Buckingham Palace, through St James' Park, past Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, along the Northbank and past St Pauls to the Central Line tube station. We even took photos of the oldest monument in London, Cleopatra's needly. It was an awesome walk and an awesome day.

After 2 and a half years of them dating, I finally got to meet my sister's boyfriend too. He's a great guy and probably reads this blog so I am going to cease now before foot goes into mouth through me talking him up too much.

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And so ends the first 2 days of my trip. More good times to come.

Raewyn

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