Summer Holiday 09 - Journey To London

9 July - The Journey

We took a morning flight which is not favoured by most especially with kids but because of that we had a lot of empty seats behind the plane which I had chosen for this flight. This is a big plus as my restless kids could spread out and run around the plane and stretch out for their naps that I insisted they take so to reduce their jet lag. We flew on Cathay Pacific, It was a 13 hours flight arriving at late afternoon in London on Thu. 9 July.

Through their website and my husband Marco Polo membership I was able to choose the seats months before we fly. Their website provided me with the seating plan of the plan which was convenient. We also ordered Muslim meals which turns out quite delicious albeit to spicy for my boys. Because of our special meals we receive our food first too.

Day 1 - London (Fri. 10 July)

Buckingham Palace

Left our 2 room family suite serviced apartment at Harrington Court early at 8am. We took the tube from South Kensington to Victoria and walked about 10 Min's. Weather was sunny but coldish.

I had brief my 2 older kids before the trip on the 2 cities we are visiting and they were given a file with all the details and our daily schedule so the were aware of our holiday itinerary. I had also given them each even the little one a digital camera thus ensuring that they were occupied and I would have some pictures of myself on the trip. My husband was in charge of my mini web cam.

Victoria Memorial

Victoria Memorial

St. James Park

St. James Park

St. James Park

St. James Park

We walked from the palace to St.James Park which the boys loved. There were plenty of squirrels and ducks, birds and dogs to photographed and they played the paper planes I bought for them.

Pall Mall

Trafalgar Square

They reluctantly followed us to Trafalgar Square when it was near 10am. I have been in London twice before and never manage to visit the National Gallery. I thought the boys would have the same feeling I had when I visited the Louvre a few years back in Paris, how the great arts had moved me and stirred feelings in me but no such luck ....we were out of there in 1 hour.

National Gallery

We went to Hamley's as we had promised the kids. The famed Hamley's Toy Shop is a big 6 floor toy shop in Regent Street. We had lunch at their cafe situated at the top floor. We bought them each a toy and ended the day early as they were exhausted and my husband and I had a musical to attend to that night.

Harrington Court was rated 4-star but I was very disappointed with the serviced that they had provided. The 2 bedroom came with 2 bath, a kitchen, dining room and living room. It had ample storage room but it was old, the carpets were old and stained....and although equip with washer dryer etc no proper instructions were given on how to operate it.

When asked for assistance it took a day and a half before the maintenance man arrive. Plus the air con was not working and we were given fans instead. Although they offered supposedly a better apartment to us I had already unpacked for everyone and was not keen to move to another apartment. I think the management should have ensured that all amenities are improper order before any guest arrived and I wrote a forceful letter to the management citing my disappointments.

We had a babysitter that I had acquired through the net arrived at 6.30that evening. She was a gorgeous Russian girl and my boys were falling all over themselves to impress her which was really cute. We went to see "WICKED". It was great but very female-centric me thinks so harder for Peter to appreciate it.

A man who was sitting in front of me told me that this was his 36th time watching this show. He had queued early in the morning to get the front row tickets. I was seating on the second row right in the centre, I had bought the tickets months before on a website called ticket master. We did go to a west end show the last time we were here but had bought tickets on the day of the show. So we had watched the producers high up on the upper part of the hall. It was uncomfortable , I did not enjoy it as much.

We were exhausted by the end of it, It was only our first day there and we were still adjusting to the time difference and so we were glad to be home by midnight and so thus end of our first day!