Airbuses, Airports and some Arbitrary Alliteration

Day Two - London

Not sure how long I can keep these titles going. Jenni has already commented on how I must have spent half the flight working on Orcs, Orchids, etc. Not quite true. A good hour maybe?

So, where are we now?

The flight from Singapore to London, despite being 13.5 hours, was a lot more comfortable compared to Sydney to Singapore. The Airbus A380 is brilliant - quiet, roomy and modern. The seats recline a long way and even for me there was plenty of leg room. We all got a reasonable amount of sleep. Anna and I managed close to 5 hours each I think. The rest of the time was spent either eating or faffing about with the (fully working!) inflight entertainment system. We all watched films and I also watched some old Young One and Blackadder episodes. The most entertaining thing of all though is "Skycam", a tail mounted camera that looks down the length of the plane so you can see where you're going. Landing in London, even in the dark, was bloody good fun.

It look about 1.5 hours to clear customs which wasn't too bad. Certainly there were no dramas, just the inevitable queues. The airport express to Paddington is so quick you hardly have time to sit down and we got a cab straight from there to the hotel. All this produced our first real "problem" in that we were all pretty knackered but having gotten to the hotel at 7:45am we couldn't check in. We left our bags and went looking for food which turned out to be Maccas as pretty much nothing else was open nearby. Guess what? It tastes pretty average here too, surprise, surprise.

So what to do next? Tired, badly needing a shower and a change we were stuck having to entertain ourselves until at least midday. The weather was being helpful, clear and sunny and not too cool.

In the end we opted to go on the London bus tour we had planned to do regardless, on the grounds we'd find out a bit more where things were, it would kill two hours and it was sitting down! We got lucky in that the tour picks up right across the road from the hotel and they were already selling tickets. We were just a few minutes early for the first tour which was great. Gordon the Guide and Martin the Driver (yes, in caps) were brilliant, slowing down to let us take pics, doing a really friendly, entertaining commentary and answering all James' questions of which there were unsurprisingly plenty. The best one of the lot involved the TARDIS and when it was last seen in London ;-). Martin fielded that one with expert ease, even offering his opinion on the best recent Doctor.

We went right round the whole tour without getting off, just enjoying the early morning ride and seeing all the sights. I took a pile more photos, the majority of which turned out really well considering we were moving the majority of the time.

We arrivied back at the hotel around midday and they managed to get our room ready not long after that thankfully. Showered and teeth brushed we all promptly crashed for a few hours. Getting the kids up for dinner proved difficult but we managed to get out the door again by 6pm. A short walk got us to the Bombay Palace for dinner - not a bad effort, first proper meal and I'm already in a curry house! The food was cracking, amongst the best Indian I've ever had, Tandoori chicken and a *mental* Roganjosh Kashmiri. Garlic naan for that extra <PARP!> factor as well lads. Russ, Nug and Bob you KNOW what I mean.

Back to the hotel via Sainsbury's and we were done for the day. Everyone was still well tired and I was last to bed just before 10pm. Tomorrow... Hampton Court. Can't wait!

Cheers,
Millsy