Day 7 - 3rd August 2009

Our long and seemingly never ending holiday like all good things finally came to an end. We checked out of our hotel around 10 A.M well before the mandatory check out time but our flight is scheduled to depart at 10.30 P.M, we had to spend almost 12 hours lingering around at Heathrow. We spent the bulk of our time at Costa, enjoying sandwiches and coffees slowly to kill of some time. After somewhat more than 2 hours at Costa, we sat around Terminal 3 waiting area and read books that we brought along with us. It seems like that we had to wait for an eternity before being allowed to check in our luggage.

My wife spent the last 2 hours of our vacation on a shopping spree at the duty free area and considerable damage was done to my increasingly shrinking bank balance. We arrived home approximately around 4 P.M after 12 hours flight. What I can say is, the money that we spent for this trip was well worth it but if you ask me whether I want to go again to London, I would say not in 5 years time at least.

We're planning to go to Australia this coming January provided that our doctor give the go ahead for my wife to be on a 7 hours flight to Australia and it will be definitely depends on my budget as always. The cost to fully furnish our home is mind blowing... and we're still without any living room set and bed room set yet...come January if I don’t have the dough to make it to Australia, I guess domestic vacation is in order and it will do for now.

Until then,

Regards,

MARK

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Muslims "Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri dan Maaf Zahir dan Batin" from both of us - Abid & Ely

Day 6 - 2nd August 2009

Determined not to miss out on Madame Tussaud wax museum again, we set off to Baker Street very early on the day. We reached in front of the museum approximately at 8.20 A.M and discovered we're the second couple to arrive there. We sat for the next 40 minutes in front of the museum while watching the queue starting to build up and the entrance to be opened. I'm glad to say it was worth all the extra effort to get inside the museum, the statues being displayed was shockingly lifelike although not all of it are exactly the same with their real life counterpart. We spent the next 40 minutes taking pictures with the wax statues and started progressing towards the lower area where London Dungeon is situated. London Dungeon is basically a ghost house where paid actors dressed as a ghost would jump randomly and scare off any unsuspecting visitors. One of the unfortunate visitors happens to be my wife =p....

After wax museum, we made our way to Trafalgar square to visit the National Gallery. There were a lot of paintings being displayed dating back from 14-15th Century. Most of the paintings here are influenced by religious and Romans culture. We then scoot of to Oxford Street to do some window shopping although not as tiring as yesterday it was still pretty exhausting.

Our last stop for today was Emirates stadium, the home ground of Arsenal football team. Coincidentally, today was a match day between Arsenal and FC Rangers so we could see Arsenal fans swarming and thronged the streets to Emirates stadium. The authorities even cordoned off access to certain area to ensure smooth flowing traffic and to allow non-stadium-goers like us get the opportunity to take pictures and return back to our hotel safely and comfortably. Arsenal went on to win the match 3-1.

Until then,

Regards,

MARK

Day 5 - 1st August 2009

The pass 3-4 days, we had to wake up very early just to be at the designated meeting point on time and not to miss the pickup time scheduled by our tour agency but today is totally different. We sat in our room for hours watching TV and delayed telecast of football matches, we really spend time leisurely as there's no guided tour anymore for the rest of our stay in London. Only at around 10 A.M did we go to have breakfast at the hotel cafe. Sigh! Another round of toast with butter and cereals, by this time my stomach is already yearning for Malaysian food! I need Nasi Lemak and Teh Tarik not cereals with orange juice...I could see in the horizon that a comprehensive session of gluttony with Nasi Lemak and Teh Tarik is in order when I'm back in Malaysia.

Our first stop for today was Baker Street. Beneath Baker Street was the first underground train station to be built and somewhere nearby this station is the popular wax museum - Madam Tussaud Wax Museum. We reached the wax museum around 11 A.M, up from a distance we could see a very long queue is forming up to get into the museum entrance. It will take more than 2 hours for us to get into the museum if we decided to line up as well based on various signages put up by museum staff. I'm not a huge fan of standing up for 2 hours idling and doing nothing so we decided not to queue up with the rest of the crowd much to the disappointment of my wife. It's not exactly cheap to get inside either, it will cost you 25 freaking pound for one person to get in.

We left Baker Street for Oxford Street so my wife can do some shopping but mostly window shopping. We walked around for hours from Oxford Street to Bond Street to Holborn and back to China Town. She ended up buying perfumes and that's about it, imagine walking around for 3 hours to buy only a couple bottles of perfumes. We stop for a while at China Town to get some rest and to surf the internet as my Blackberry could suddenly pick up a wireless signal. When I said suddenly I meant after hours of wardriving effort and when I said wireless signal I meant *free* wireless. My batt is running low by then so I could only check a couple of email from work and the batt went dead when I was about to reply one email to my boss. We had lunch at Subway and ordered sandwiches, this Subway outlet is one of the outlets that are certified to be Halal.

After my wife has finally got tired of all the walking we hop on the tube to get across to Holborn station where we went to British Museum. There was a lot of items being displayed here ranging from British historical piece to North American civilization artifacts and even scriptures belonging to Asian tribes and civilizations. We could not roam every possible hall and exhibition inside the British Museum as my legs are starting to feel sore from all the walking that we did. We left Holborn station for our last destination for today on southern part of London.

Our last station for today was Fulham station, about 5 minutes walk from here is the home to one of the richest and most successful club in European football - Stamford Bridge. Stamford Bridge is the home ground for Chelsea football club just in case you're not fans of English Premier League like I am. We had coffee break at Starbucks as it was raining before taking picture at the vicinity of the stadium. Initially thought of buying a few Chelsea merchandise but it will be a waste to non-Chelsea supporter such am I. We head back to our hotel shortly afterwards to have dinner and rest.

Until then,

Regards,

MARK

Day 4 - 31th July 2009

We had to get up very early today as the tour guide will be arriving around 6 A.M. Our train will depart from St. Pancras International station by 6.55 A.M and because of early departure time we decided to skip hotel breakfast which we're starting to develop a strong distaste for or in simpler words we're fed to the gills with the choice of foods. We're given tickets for both Eurostar train and Sien river cruise when we arrived at St.Pancras and we boarded the train shortly afterwards. Train ride took approximately 2 hours before arriving at Gare Du Nord station in central Paris.

Upon arriving at Gare Du Nord we decided to take the Metropolitan train to our first destination which happened to be in Anver and since this is a free and easy package, we had the liberty to choose our own destination and be in control of the time spent there to our own liking. We meander along the streets in Anver for souvenirs and there were plenty to be chosen from and it is reasonably cheap but considering the fact this is only our first stop and we wouldn’t want to spend rest of the day carrying along gifts we decided to buy stuff later on this journey. Major attraction in Anver is the Sacré-Coeur Basilica; this basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.

We left Anver for Charles de Gaulle — Étoile station after walking quite a distance from Anver to Villiers. Arriving at Charles de Gaulle, we went to see arguably the most visited landmark in Paris second only to Eiffel Tower which is Champs Elysees. My wife is kind of disappointed with the structure and the location of this landmark as her expectation is higher, to her it’s just a normal monument erected in stone much akin to any other structures in the city.

After spending not even 30 minutes here, we head back to Charles de Gaulle station for our next stop but not before stopping for breakfast at the underground station. I mean come on; you can't visit Paris without tasting their puff pastry that's so famous the world over. We bought Croissants and French loaf, I'm not sure whether it taste good because it was genuinely that good or it's simply delicious because I'm too hungry since i didn’t have breakfast. We stopped by at Champ de Mars Eiffel Tower where we're greeted by one of the most iconic structure of all time that could be seen from the distance - Eiffel Tower. Naturally a long and arduous photo session is due especially since we're surrounded by Eiffel Tower, Palais de Chaillot and École Militaire. We decided not to take the elevator ride up the Eiffel Tower as the queue is kind of long just to take pictures on top of Eiffel Tower and as the results of that we head to Sien river which is just alongside the site Eiffel Tower was built.

Bateaux Parisiens is an assortment or river cruise that ranges from private cruise, school cruise, lunch cruise and dinner cruise. The one that we took was sightseeing cruise, with the sightseeing cruise we cruised alongside Sien riverbank much like Thames cruise in London where we managed to get a glimpse of Asemblee Nationale, Mascott of Paris, Grand Palais, Le Louvre Museum, Musee' de Orsay' and the majestic Notre Dame. The river cruise itself took more than 1 hour under the scorching hot weather - must be due to summer I thought to myself, where we're brought back to Eiffel Tower.

My wife insisted to set off Le Louvre Museum, so off we went from Eiffel Tower station to Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre station. The Louvre — is the largest national museum of France, the most visited museum in the world, and a historic monument. It is a central landmark of Paris, located on the Right Bank of the Seine river. This is the location where Mona Lisa is stored. Another major attraction in the compound of this museum is the Louvre Pyramid which is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard.

Our last stop for today is Galleries Lafayette while this not ancient or historic monument, it is one of the most visited location in Paris for shopaholics. It is the flagship departmental store in Paris which stood 10 storeys tall, you could find the latest designer clothes, perfume and accessories but the price is not exactly falls within my expectation. I bought a Gergio Armani Acqua Di Gio perfume at Pavillion KL for 160 while the going price at Lafayette is 360 after conversion. Why on earth would I pay more for the same item?

As my fever is starting to acting up, we decided to return to Gare Du Nord for our journey back to London. We spent time there by having light meals and drink while waiting for our train to depart. It’s already dark when we reached London so we head back to hotel for some rest.

*I'll upload some pictures when bandwidth is more accommodating than today*

*Some of the information is taken from Wikipedia*

Until then,

Regards,

MARK

Day 3 - 30th July 2009

Windsor Castle in the distance

En route to Windsor Castle

Our third day started with the usual complimentary breakfast and while we're waiting for our tour guide to pick us up, we wandered around the hotel lobby and discovered a travel information booth. This booth or should I say desk since it is so small anyway, offers a lot of information and travel package for any would be tourist to assist them to get around London and United Kingdom. Some of the places we saw from this adverts was Oxford Univ where Harry Potter was filmed, Loch Ness Lake and some far away places in Scotland. What caught our attention was the package offered for tourist to go to Paris, the price that was quoted was half the price that was given to us by the staff manning Eurostar train counter. We quickly made our enquiries at the concierge and decided to book a trip to Paris once the price had been confirmed to be valid. Guess we'll be going to Paris after all!

Walking towards Windsor Castle

Replica of a train

Windsor Castle Entrance

Round Tower

Changing of guards

Overlooking Eton Town centre

Lower Ward

Windsor Royal

Queen Elizabeth Statue

Round Tower

Lower Ward adjacent to St George's Chapel

Our tour guide arrived shortly afterwards and fast forward 1 hour later we're on our tour bus on the way to Windsor Castle. The journey to Windsor Castle took about 1 hour through rural area where the green is still plush and well taken care off. Upon approaching the area, we could see in the distance where Windsor Castle stand erected majestically as it should. This castle is by the way the oldest castle in United Kingdom where Queen Elizabeth will occasionally visit.

We're given 2 hours to explore the area; we walked past aping and recreational centre before stopping to take pictures at the gate to Windsor Castle. There was a lot of ground to cover as the castle compound was huge, we took our audio guide and started walking along the path leading up to the main entrance to the castle. From inside the castle we could see the area surrounding the castle which is quite mesmerizing. Our first stop inside the castle was Queen Mary's Dolls House where a miniature of real life Windsor Castle complete with furniture was built inside a glass wall. There were quite a number of dolls with expensive clothing being displayed here but unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures here. Next stop was the State Apartments where foreign dignitaries or head of a state would normally stop to rest, there were a lot of paintings, armories and weaponries from 15th Century being displayed here. All of them are in good condition compared to the sorry state that our museum is being in. Exiting the castle on the way back to our tour bus we stumbled upon another instance of changing of guards taking place, just perfect opportunity for snapping pictures!

Journey to Roman Bath

The Roman Bath

Bath Abbey

In front of Mallory

Gay Street leading up to Roman Bath

Sacred Springs

First terrace of The Great Bath

The Great Bath

The Great Bath

Inside of Roman Bath

Looking at Obelisk

Mock up castle

Bath Street

Bath Bridge

Lunch time

Obelisk

It was raining quite heavily when we left Windsor Castle for Roman Bath, the scenery to Roman Bath was breathtakingly beautiful with all the houses built in English and Roman architecture and green areas. It might not be packed with hustle and bustle of London but there's more than meets the eye. The Roman Bath itself is a very old Roman architecture styled building where Romans would previously taken their bath here and to socialize among themselves. This site is declared as a world heritage site by Unesco much like our own Historical City of Melaka. It’s a pity that the water could not be used anymore as it is not treated and deemed unsafe for consumption. The Romans built an aqueduct here to distribute water but we did not manage to snap a picture of that. We stop at one of the shops here to quench our thirst and bought some brownies as well.

Last stop for today was Stonehenge, the journey from Roman Bath to Stonehenge took substantial amount of time where we passed by a field where we could see British army conducting their training regime and helicopters flew by over our bus to assist them in their exercise. Stonehenge is basically a collection of stones built resembling an altar like building, one of the questions that could not be answered even to this very day was - How on earth did they move a structure made out of stone weighing 50 tonnes from a location as far as 200km away? Even modern machinery is not equipped to move that kind of weight unless a proper specialized machine is used.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Jorney to Stonehenge

Our day ended with our journey back to London, today's trip took about 12 hours overall. We were exhausted by the time we reached our hotel but it was exciting nonetheless.

Regards,

MARK