Did I mention that we were staying at the Chelsea Football Club?
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| Serious.. |
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| .. holding hands.. |
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| .. with Adam.. |
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| .. posers much? |
We had originally intended to spend one of our days in England checking out the Manchester Football Club but jet lag and Chris the taxi driver convinced us our time would be better spent in London. My cousins had suggested a few shops we should check out and recommended we do said shopping on Oxford Street so off we went. First stop: Primark - England's answer to Kmart.
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| Subway sojourning |
I had been warned that Primark is not a place to visit during any kind of peak hour and that even in the early hours of the morning it was already likely to be busy. The advice was spot on. We got there at 9am and it already looked like The Warehouse on Christmas Eve - people everywhere. We bought some nice warm clothes and then ventured out to explore Oxford Street.
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| A deceptively quiet street - everybody was inside the shop |
Another place that had come highly recommended was Selfridges, but
I can't remember why. It was fancy but not overwhelmingly so, and I would say
it was the Smith & Caughey's of London. Anyway, we got a photo (it looked
way fancier in person), Adam had a ride on an expensive toy car, and we bought
something (2€ toy robot for Adam)
so we could get the obligatory yellow Selfridges bag. Oh we also used their
bathrooms. For some reason we had real difficulty finding public toilets in
London so with a freshly toilet-trained-child any find was a good find. Happily
we continued on our merry way.
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| Those Christmas adornments at street level were quite spectacular with twinkling lights and all |
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| "Adam's car!" |
Next stop: Hamleys. AKA:
AKA:
Mister Magorium's Wonder Emporium. It was
awesome. They had people everywhere demonstrating how the flying toys worked
and the shop was cosy and cluttered and vibrant and wonderful. This was in
their lift..
.. this was on level 3 (of 5)..
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Life-sized Lego
figurines of Will & Kate's wedding, looking over the balcony |
.. and this was at the entrance of the shop. She had a bubble
blowing gun and Adam was enthralled.
Oxford and Regent streets done (living inside a Monopoly board), it
was time to jump back on the ever-handy tube and head to the elusive London
Eye. After queuing for our tickets we headed straight up and were treated to
expansive views of London. It was an okay experience but considering it cost us
the same amount as the bus tour and as eating out at Fridays, we would
definitely choose to do either of those two things first if we had the
opportunity again. We would give it maybe a 5/10 as an attraction but perhaps
we had built the idea up over the past couple of days and had unrealistic
expectations. Anyway, we got photos!
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| Adam's memorable ride |
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| Hey look, there's Big Ben! |
Once on the ground again we headed inside to where they have a 4D
experience. That was my first encounter with 4D and it was actually pretty
cool.
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| I'm pretending to freak out at how high we're sitting |
Hisham met this guy...
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| That's Beckham, for anyone living under a rock |
.. we saw a few elves and hobbits..
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| Hobbit premiere in London town! |
.. and we finally headed to Hyde Park to check out Winter
Wonderland.
It was wonderful. They had rides galore, stalls everywhere, a
Christmas market, countless varieties of food, a massive ferris wheel, and it
was actually cold and Christmas-y! Definitely worth going, and definitely worth
waiting until the Monday evening. Hisham introduced me to waffles:
Divine. And then we headed home to pack. A full, eventful,
glorious last day in London.
Tomorrow: Paris!
