Epilogue

Well thats it.  The cronicles of our holiday to London and Paris.

Its been a great opportunity to be able to come to London and Paris and explore the interesting places. Although we were not able to see alot more than we had planned, it was still an awesome experience.


Before we went I had prepare a schedule, I am such a planner and I love to plan everything!  I always do this when we go on holiday so we could stick to plan and not at lost on where to go and see and waste time. Its some sort of a plan on where we wanted to go and which day or date. I researched all these places, checked the opening hours (if applicable), how to get there, which buses or which tubes to use, etc etc.

However, I think I was being too optimistic, I had this whole list of places to go and we only managed to go to about 11 out of 24 places on my list hehehe. Too ambitious....   But I guess its not too bad, considering the weather, fighting the jetlag and the shorter days.

The places we went to:

Kensington Garden
Trafalgar Square
Oxford Street
British Museum
Eiffel Tower (Paris)
Cruise on River Siene (Paris)
Galeria Lafayette, Boulevard Haussman (Paris)
Harrods Dept Store
British Museum
Buckingham Palace
Madame Taussauds

And these were the places on my list we didn’t get to see:

The London Toy and Model Museum
National Gallery
Winter Wonderland Hyde Park
The Louvre or Musee d 'Orsay (Paris)
Christmas Market (Paris)
Champ Elysees (Paris)
Piccadilly Circus
Tower of London
Big Ben
London Eye
River Thames
Covent Garden
Portobello Market

Emmm... maybe next time. Although we had so much fun but I don’t think its our best vacation ever. I was not well, the days were shorter (did I say that again? Maybe we shouldn’t go on holidays in winter lol, but I love cold weather, thats the reason we went in December)

If I were to rank London/Paris with the rest of our holidays, I think its on par with our holidays to New Zealand. But its a good experience nevertheless.

Next holiday is already in the works, yay....   March will be here soon enough.

London Holiday - Day 6 (The day we left London)

Today was the day we left London, went back home and wrapped up this holiday. Huhu.. I didn’t want to go home yet. Although to some extent its nice to be back home and back to normal and routine again. Its not very comfortable to live from a suitcase lol. But its even nicer to be away from normal, lives as the day came, went out and explore new places, did not have to worry about work and about traffic jam.

We woke up early and did the final packing of our luggages. We packed almost everything since last night so today we just need to pack the things we used for today and tidy up the apartment a little bit.

Its Christmas day today (25 Dec 2011). And our flight was not until much later, 10.30pm to be exact so we had one whole day to kill. We also knew there was no tubes, buses and even taxis today, unless we book in advance, which hubby did last night, with extra fee. Our taxi arrived around 11am so we checked out and said goodbye to the lady owner of our apartment and left.

London was deserted, not many cars on the road except for a few tourists walking about, at least in the city. Its Christmas day afterall.

We didn’t go straight to the airport but we went to Victoria station (supposed to use the tube – Gatwick Express - to get to the airport). We actually booked a return tickets by tube via Gatwick Express but since there was no tubes today, the management of the Gatwick Express provided the passengers with a coach (bus).

I think it took longer to reach the airport by coach but we got to see the sceneries and the every day lives of London. Our daughter took lots of pictures and videos and I managed to capture a few which I share below. I didn’t know where the coach passed through but the area was not as deserted as London though.

In the coach on our airport from Victoria Station

We reached Gatwick Airport around 12.30pm. Imagine how long we waited at the airport! And the airport was empty. I mean really empty, just look at the picture below. I was a bit worried since we didn’t have anything to eat but luckily M&S was opened and a few other small stores at the airport. So we bought some snacks and fruits as lunch.

What a long wait. We didn’t have much to do, airport was quiet, nothing to do or to look at except some magazines and our handphones and Samsung Galaxy. I was thinking of Singapore Changi Airport where there were lots to do, you didn’t realise how the time fly!

The gate opened around 7.30pm, we checked in and got our boarding pass. And the lady at the counter weighed our luggages wrongly, we almost got charged for extra weight! Hubby insisted she should weighed them again and waalaa... she was wrong! There was no way we had excess baggage, hubby had increase our allocated kg before we left for London the other day.


 

See how empty the airport was.  Maybe because it was christmas day and there was not flight during the day

Killing time

Our lunch

I like this shrimp cocktail

Our daughter lunch - Spinach Pasta.

M&S Fruits, yummy.....

More wait at the airport before our flight. We walked around the airport to kill the time and hubby and I bought a pair of sunglasses each while waiting. Talk about impulse buying! And I didn’t even need a new one.

We finally queued for boarding pass, see how tired I looked!

Our luggages

Our sunglasses bought at Gatwick Airport

At last we board the plane and left London. Reached KL after 12 hours. Another long flight but it was ok this time because I fell asleep for 4hrs, maybe I got used to London time by now that I easily fell asleep, although I might not be able to get to sleep when I reached home. Anyway, we reached KL around 7pm Malaysia time, checked in at a small motel near LCCT and catch another flight back to Brunei the next day.

Us when we were in Malaysia stayed overnight and getting ready in the morning to catch a flight back to Brunei

I didnt realise I bought so many stuff

Phew... thats it!  Thats the end of our holiday cronicles to London and Paris.

What a memorable experience.  We will be back London!  And Paris!

London Holiday - Day 5

Continue post from London Holiday - Day 4!

Oh.. before I start, i wanted to share some pictures of Hammersmith.  I remember I mentioned in my previous post that we didnt have any pictures of the area but we do have some!  Just found them.  I need to post these few pictures because I like Hammersmith too hehe.

Ok.. today was shopping day!  We planned to go to Harrods and Oxford Street. We wanted to see the Christmas lights and the buzz of these areas.  I know Harrods being the upscale department store of London and Oxford Street is Europe's busiest shopping street!  Not that I liked being in a crowd but we thought we need to go and see the place for ourselves.

So off we go then.  Our first stop was at Harrods.  We arrived around 10am nice and early but the place was already packed with shoppers.  The weather was lovely today too.  So its a good time to stroll around and enjoyed our outing today.

We spent a few hours here going round and round, looked at some items and bought some items too.  But I didnt take too many pictures here since I was so busy looking and shopping hehehe. 

Harrods was having a SALE!!!!!!!!!!

Especially at their perfume department.  The perfume were really cheap, cheap, cheap.  We couldnt believe our eyes!  We bought 5 perfumes here.  They were really cheap.  Our daughter bought Tommy Girl perfume for 15pounds only, thats around B$30.  You would never find such price in Brunei, I tell you. 

So its so worth it going to Harrods today!

See.. how cheap.  This perfume just cost 15 pounds at Harrods, around B$30 only

Then we had lunch at Tuk Din Restaurant again.  Not that we liked this restaurant so much, but because we had no choice and dead hungry, especially me, I wanted to eat something heavy and fulfilling.  This cold weather made me starved for food!

I ordered Kue Teaw goreng, hubby opted for nasi goreng and Ayang chose mee goreng.  I think the whole dish (all of them) tasted the same.  Well.. other patrons may not realise it, but we have been to so many restaurants and ate too many kue teaw goreng, that we can differentiate. 

From the internet, people also mentioned how nice the tea tarik was.  So we ordered that too.  But... our verdict?  Too much milk and less tea.  So thumbs down!

Another thing, the owner of the restaurant was around, both of them (husband and wife, I reckon) but I was hoping they were more friendly to their customers, at least greet them with a smile, rather than being so ignorant.

The overall meal cost us 41 pounds!  Thats about B$84.05 for three.  Quite expensive but we were in London afterall.

Us at the restaurant

My Kue Teaw gorent, looked so yummy but tasted so so

Ayang mee goreng

Ayang ordered this fried garlic chicken, similar to last time

The tea tarik

After lunch, we went to Oxford Street.  We tried to figure out how to get there so hubby suggested we used the double decker bus.  Oh yes.. we should try at least once.  We havent been to one yet so its about time.  Oh we still can use the Oyster card to ride the bus so we used that to go to Oxford Street.

We reached Oxford Street when the day started to get dark, so all the christmas lights were now on.  The place was so busy, so many people around doing shopping and shopping.  So we just mingled around and join the crowd.  It was awesome! 

After lunch we were waiting for the red double decker bus to go to Oxford Street

Oxford Street

Behind our favourite store - M&S

What a busy area

So many people here

Nice lights

Alot of tourists took pictures as well

More picture with the lights

I wish those two ladies were not there!  Otherwise this picture of us would be perfect.

We took lots of pictures here

I like that hanging umbrella and boxes

Some sort of sale was going on here

Survenier shops (I dont seem to get the right spelling for that!)

Oxford Street at its most glorious night.

Closer look

We also went to Selfridges.

Inside Selfridges

Ayang excited to be here

Ayang favourite place at Selfridges - bookstore!

Alright enough of those pictures.  Time to go back to our apartment.  It was a good day today.  I enjoyed our day immensely.  Maybe we were amongst the crowd and the shopping.  Very very happy!  hehehe.

In the tube, time to go back to the apartment.

Today was the last day of our London holiday.  Tomorrow we were heading back to Brunei via KL.  Huhu.. we've been here in Europe for 8 days, it felt so long, maybe I was not at my best.  But it was an enjoyable and fun filled trip.

Update on our last day will be soon.