A few days in London

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The next morning we awoke in London. We found a place that sounded like it would do a good breakfast that was on the way down to Waterloo station, a cafe, bar, bistro in an old firehouse. While the breakfast was ok, I certainly wouldn't go back again. The poached eggs were overlooked, the orange juice not fresh and just disappointing all around given the reviews.

From there it was the tube and DLR down to Cutty Sark and Greenwich area.

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship built in the late 1800s to ship tea between China and England. It was then replaced larger by steamships which were much faster so the ship was instead used to move wool from Australia. For ten years she held the record time to Britain at 73 days.

Eventually it was transferred to a nautical training college until eventually being put out for public display. Anyway we wandered around the ship looking at the iron and wood hull, learning about life on board and enjoying what was a lovely sunny London day.

From there we wandered across to the Royal Naval College as there was supposed to be some impressive painted ceilings, and the chapel was supposed to be quite good too. We failed on both accounts, with the painted ceiling being closed for repairs for the next month (despite lots of signage around suggesting otherwise).

We also couldn't go into the chapel either as there was a Sunday service underway.

Instead we wandered over to some food stalls that had been set up and had lunch while doing some people watching. It was actually quite a warm day by London standards - blue skies, sunshine and was even mid 20s!

Then it was a walk through the park and up to the Royal Observatory. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation and is best known as the location of the prime meridian (Greenwich Mean Time).

The place was ridiculously crowded and the included audio guide didn't do anything for me. In the end I wandered around and moved through the place pretty quickly and let Stuart wandered at his own pace. Most of it just wasn't interesting to me - the old clocks were cool to look at but the whole engineering/math side of the observatory was more interesting to Stuart than me!

Then it was back on the DLR and tube to Oxford Street where we hit up a few shops on the hunt for various things but nothing too specific. Needless to say, we bought nothing.

Back to the hotel for a quick freshen up and rest before we headed into the west end to see a show called 'The Play That Went Wrong'. Grabbed dinner at Nandos on the way. The play was quite funny and the title of it really sets the scene on what it was about. Perhaps a little too I over the top and predictable but still funny regardless.

The next morning I got stuck into doing the last washing of the trip while Stuart grabbed some breakfast and brought it back. We then headed off a bit after 10am for our 11am walking tour of the City of London.

The tour covered the old city, and the guide Nick (also an actor and writer) was a good guide and told a lot of stories about the old city, plus fun facts about the queen needing to be invited into the city even today.

We started the tour by hearing about Tower of London and its various uses, including as a prison, over the years. We saw the Monument, built in recognition of the Great Fire of London, and heard stories about various skyscrapers, including the new Sky Garden building, burning cars and melting plates.

We also saw the Royal Courts of Justice, Mansion House, Bank of England and all of the financial district.

We grabbed a late lunch at Coventry Garden before heading back to do a little more shopping and wrapping up for the afternoon. Also stopped by a branch of what was one of my favorite places to get cake on the way back - Konditor and Cook and the curly whirly cake. It was still great - although my memory had made it seem better than what it was.

That night we grabbed our final Indian curry for the trip at a place fairly close to our hotel, and headed back to the west end to see Aladdin the musical. It was a good show, the theatre was significantly larger than the one the previous night. We were also seated fairly close to the toilets, which was an advantage.

The show was good but we had five French girls sitting in the row in front of us who were incredibly over excited by the whole show, specifically the magic carpet scheme where Aladdin and the Princess go for a ride. They were quite annoying to be honest and for most of the show their heads were blocking a large chunk of the stage, but continually moving. Assume I was also driving the people behind me insane too as I kept moving when the people in front moved, presumably causing a bit of a domino effect going back the next few rows.

The next morning we were up relatively early to pack up and check out.

Grabbed breakfast at a cafe in South Kensington as first stop was the Natural History Museum. We sussed out the dinosaur exhibits but we're disappointed that the animatronic t-ex was closed. Well, not disappointed about the animatronic part, but that was the only t-Rex they had and it wasn't available. But we looked around at the other dinosaurs anyway. And the building that the history museum is in is quite old and impressive to look at.

While we were there we also looked at the giant mammals - mostly of the stuffed variety - including a giant whale.

After spending a good hour or so browsing we headed back onto the tube through to the City of London to visit the Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street. This is the 'new' building that is full of glass and windows and when first built was radiating the heat to the cafes and people below and causing lots of damage, resulting in some additional metal needing to be added to the windows.

Entry to the Sky Garden is free but you need to prebook a ticket which we had. I went up to the Sky Garden last year without Stuart while we were in London but given we had some free time figured we would do it this time around.

We arrived early but went through and up and had a wander around the garden looking at the views. It was a foggy kind of day so visibility wasn't great, neither were the views as a result. But it's a nice free thing to do.

From there we grabbed some lunch at a Hummus Hut (or something) which was actually very tasty and something different too.

Then it was on to the London Transport Museum to learn about rail and travel in London.

The early part covered horse drawn carriages and a move to rail. What I found the most interesting was when and how they started creating the underground tube network - mostly excavating by hand - and how it then continued to expand and evolve. The museum also included lots of early carriages and also buses too and was quite interesting.

From there it was a brief coffee stop before we headed to the film museum to see the Bond Exhibition. It contains the largest collection of original James Bond vehicles apparently, and alongside each of the cars and boats and bikes in display they had lots of video clips and other memorabilia. That being said, I have never seen a James Bond movie before so while I found it interesting I dare say for big Bond fans it would have been even better.

Then it was back onto the tube, getting off though early to walk over Westminster Bridge on the way back to at least see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Sadly, Big Ben was covered in scaffolding though.

Then it was on to collect our luggage from the hotel and make our way to the airport.

First was the tube, then the prebooked Heathrow Express from Paddington. All easy enough. Got to the check in queues at about 6:45pm and went into the business queue as Stuart is one world gold so we can. And usually it moves faster. Not tonight. About 45 minutes later, maybe more, we finally checked in and made our way towards where you collected VAT refunds. Discovered a long, windy queue so astuart opted not to bother and we instead made our way to immigration/ customs and security.

Immigration was automated and easy. Security was anything but. After trying to do some hopping between queues because of slow checks Stuart got through and I ended up stuck. In the queue with the new girl. Now I get it - at some point it is everyone's first day and with increased terrorism attacks recently you wouldn't want to let something nasty through on day one. But equally, 99.9 per cent of people going through the airport aren't doing anything wrong.

The security girl was staring at each day for sometimes minutes at a time, before rejecting them for a physical inspection. Mine was about ninth in line for such an inspection.

So I sent Stuart ahead to the lounge while I waited. And waited. And watched her continue to reject nearly every bag that went through her screener.

There was only one guy at the end of her queue looking at the X-rays and doing the physical bag search, with another one who stepped in at some point to help with the back log.

I got him, and he took me to a queue at the far end of the security screening area. I guess if you were smuggling drugs this would be the time when you would be really really concerned as he asked me to follow him as he wheeled my carry on luggage away. Which consisted of my passport and purse, a backpack which essentially had the camera, lenses and all chargers and cables, the two iPads and the liquids and gels.

So I follow him down, he scans the tray my stuff is in, takes one look at the x-ray and tells me I can start putting things away, my belt back on, etc. He double checks the liquids and gels, tells me that's the only reason I am here (even though they are in the required bag) and sends me on my way. Ridiculous.

By this time it is after well after 8pm and I make my way to the lounge where I managed a quick shower, some food and a beer and a half before we have to board. Not the relaxing lead up to a flight that I like but anyway!

Joined the business line to board and since we were on the upper deck we managed to get on and settled pretty quickly. This time we had the two seats on one side which had a heap of leg room plus this nifty little side pocket under the window where I could put all the things like books and iPads and headphones rather than shuffling them in and out of pockets and under seats etc.

Then we were off, the fourteen hour trip to KL, Malaysia, ahead. Had a bit to eat straight up, then slept for a good seven hours (on and off), making sure I woke up and didn't sleep for the final five hours of the flight to try to get into the right time zone.

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