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We left home in the evening and woke up in London. Not a bad way to start the day, unless of course you get stopped at customs for having a defaced passport.
So I walked up to the customs officer and showed her my passport. She looked thru my passport and we went thru the normal questions... Why are you here? Where are you visiting? What will you be doing? How long are you here for? She then proceeded to flip thru my passport. She noticed that I had written several city names on various pages. This was my way of remember where I've been and what each of the stamps represented. She said, "while it is nice to remember where you've been, you know this is a government document and it's illegal to write in it?" In all honesty, it never dawned on me that i was defacing a government document. I was dumbfounded by her statement and question. Her boss happened to be standing behind her and proceeded to order her to call "homeland security." He then proceeded to say that they will probably want to take me downstairs and could arrest me. She said are you serious.
He continued to insist that she do this. She was dumbfounded at his request and asked once again, are you serious. All this time, my heart is racing and I'm thinking "oh crap.... this was just a dumb idea on my part, i meant no harm and I did it seriously not thinking/realizing that I was mutilating a government document." He paused after she asked again and then said... "No, but I bet she won't do it again." I was too relieved to say anything but thank you. Quickly retrieved my passport and moved on.
Once we got over that incident, we purchased our tube tickets and hopped on the Picadilly Line towards Hyde Park Corner. After a couple of missteps, we finally made it to our hotel. Since we were early, the Four Seasons didn't have our room ready yet. However, they did have a relaxation room and allowed us to use that to freshen up and rest a little bit. So we headed up there. The views were amazing from the 10th floor. You got a great view of London City. They also had tea, coffee and biscuits for us as well. The FS definitely lived up
The Collage
The lion was too pretty to not post, and the flags were outside of the National Gallery of Art. People were throwing coins on their flags of choice. I looked for the US flag, but didn't find one. to the 4 star hype.
After resting a little bit, we went to pick up our London Pass and get on the hop-on, hop-off bus tickets. This go around we took the Big Bus Tour. I think the last time, we were on the original bus tour. I think the Big Bus Tour had better lines and more stops. We took the blue line around all of London and got off back at the National Gallery of Art and headed towards Chinatown. We had lunch at Wong Kei. I had congee and Diane had noodle soup. Not bad. After lunch, we walked around Chinatown a little bit. Had some Chinese Bubble pancake and then walked around a little bit. Diane wanted to do the Ghost Tour, but I was too chicken and adamant about not doing it. So we decided to split ways. She would do the Ghost Tour, I would walk around and we would meet back up at the National Gallery of Art. I was going to try to find Bond Street and do some window shopping, but as I was walking by the Gallery, I ran into Diane. Unfortunately, the Ghost Tour wasn't available this night.
So we both went into the Gallery and looked at some pretty cool paintings. We saw Monet, Manet, Picasso, all the great artists...
Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to "check-in." It had been a long day, so we decided that we would just order room service. We had Fish and Chips with mushy peas, Tomato Mozzerella salad and Green Salad. All very yummy! All I all, a good first day.
Weather was cold, 40s. Needed long coat, hat and gloves.
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