London Day # 2

23 March

There is nothing quite like a full English breakfast to kick start your day. Thankfully we managed to get free breakfast with our room-Thanks Sheila. The breakfast was terrific, could eat it every day which we did when we were there.

Breakfast

After breakfast, while Ken did some work- the guy was working every spare moment for his festival The Asian Festival of Children's Content-I headed for a  walk along Oxford Street, picked up an Oyster Card for travel by tube before we headed out for a trip to Leicester Square

Post breakfast morning walk

My head was too big for the Foyles sign so I had to retake the photo

Of course we had to stop by the famous Foyles...

Me in front of Foyles

We picked up some tickets for Zach Braff's new play 'All New People" which we intended to see after lunch at London's Rules restaurant, the oldest restaurant in London the following day.

While Ken headed off for a lunch appointment, I wandered around, picked up lunch at Selfridges- a delicious roast beef sandwich and some cupcakes before heading back to the hotel. 

In the evening, I dashed off for dinner with Gee at a nice little Italian restaurant around the corner from the hotel with not so little prices. We started with a seafood salad, shared a Dover sole and I finished with strawberries and cream.  

Gee and the Dover Sole

After  Gee Yung took us for a walking tour around London before we headed back to the hotel for hopefully a full night's sleep...

London

22  March 2011

So with our trip to Bologna behind us, Kenneth and I jetted back to London on British Airways and there was another familiar face on board - Arthur Levine who had flown on the same plane as us to Bologna six days earlier. It was  thankfully a smooth flight and we got into London shortly after 1pm.

Our hotel: The Millenium Mayfair with a view of Grosvenor Square

After a few harrowing moments, wondering if our transport would actually show up, we headed to the carpark for our two hour ride from Gatwick into London and to our hotel, The Millenium Mayfair. I have to confess after a while, we both fell asleep.

 We finally got to our hotel at about 3:30pm and checked into our room, but the Wifi was not working and neither was the hotel safe. At least we managed to get the safe working after a call to the front desk and then we ordered room service- we were famished as we hadn't had lunch yet. Ken ordered lamb rogan josh and since there was no roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, I ordered the next best thing--fish and chips.

Room service at the Millennium Mayfair

Our hunger pangs satiated, we headed out with map in hand, Kenneth leading the way to Oxford Street for some window shopping and, perhaps, a spot of the real thing. One of our first stops was to Boots to stock up on some supplies and then after a trip to the Nike Store and the Mac Store for Ken and the Disney Store for me...we headed back to the hotel to rest up before dinner with my friends Gee and Chris.


We were both K'oed when I got a message saying "I'm 3 minutes away." After a literal quick change for both of us we were out the door and in the cold London air waiting for Gee to pick us up for dinner.


I can't remember the name of the restaurant we went to but it was good. I had crab on toast as a starter, followed by pork belly and I was too stuffed to partake of any dessert. After dinner Ken and I headed back to the hotel by cab and knocked out for the night. The events of the week really left us exhausted.

Ken, Gee and Chris at dinner