London Was Calling...

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Back to travelling again!

This time, I'm on a long business trip, starting first with London. I haven't been here since my visit in between the two bombings in the summer of 2007 and we arrived right on the heels of the terrible shootings in Cumbria.

After London, we're headed off to Singapore for our Annual Meeting. I was a bit worried about having to leave the office so close to a big conference, particularly since we had to move the conference from Bangkok just about four weeks ago. But it turns out that I was more than able to handle the email details remotely and it gave me a mandatory break from work today, which was nice!

We took the day flight from New Jersey, which left at 8am - I've never done that before, and it was great! Although I wasn't too excited about getting up at 4am, getting to the hotel by 9pm and being tired enough to fall asleep by one made jet lag so much easier. The flight itself was good too, reminding me immediately why I like the British - and it has nothing to do with me being British myself! They loaded a full plane of people quickly and without incident, they apologized several times for turbulence (clearly something they have control over), and were just generally so polite and pleasant. We landed, and I got to use my UK passport for the first time - very exciting! I didn't get the "welcome home" that they typically offer, but that's okay.

We took the train from Heathrow to Paddington Station - and what a beautiful place that is! I could have stayed there all day just photographing the architecture and hunting for Paddington Bear, who I understand resides there. But it was off to catch a taxi and head to the Sherlock Holmes Hotel.

I've stayed here a couple of times before, and while normally I find my room so small the closet door is blocked by the bed, it's also always a good hotel. Since the last time I was here, the hotel has been bought out by Park Plaza and while it's still a nice hotel, it has dropped a bit in service. My room is great in terms of size - big, clean, beautiful. But it was fortunate that I brought the bottle of water from the plane because the mini bar is empty minus a few bottles of alcohol. And it's stayed empty the whole time. When I ordered room service that night, it came up quickly, but it was cold. And tonight, my room keys just decided to stop working. Plus, they changed the pens to Park Hotel pens (silly, I know, but I loved those little Sherlock Holmes pens!) and shower products from Molton Brown - just little things, but still a bit less nice than the last time. And maybe it's the marketer in me, but if you were running a hotel called the Sherlock Holmes ON Baker Street, wouldn't you have a copy of one of his stories in every room? Wouldn't you have portraits of him and Watson around the hotel and in the rooms? Give the place a little atmosphere? But at any rate, it is a very nice hotel, with a great location and a very comfortable bed - I don't really need anything else!

Yesterday was a business day - we started with a lunch meeting, had a couple hours at the hotel to work, and then finished with a dinner with one of our lawyers and his wife. Since we really enjoy their company, it was certainly less work than pleasure! We went to Galvin Bistrot de Luxe which is just up the street from our hotel. It's a little French bistro, recommended by our friends. The wait staff there is decidedly French, not just in nationality but also in demeanor. But boy, does the food make up for it. I started with the salad of endive, Roquefort & walnuts - my usual salad at home has cheese and walnuts on it too, but I also prefer some salad dressing, like oil and vinegar. There didn't seem to be any on the salad, and it was the only thing to disappoint. I wasn't sure at first about my main course, but it was one of the only things on the menu I'd eat. When faced with caramelized veal brains, cod, tuna, a tranche of calf's liver or new season lamb, I went instead with the bavette of Scottish beef, glazed carrots, pomme puree and shallot jus (Though I must confess to having lamb at lunch yesterday - not by choice).

And Oh. My. God.

It was delicious - perhaps the best piece of meat I've eaten (save maybe for the wasabi encrusted beef I had at Buddakkan in Philly). It was tender, the sauce was wonderful and the potatoes (pomme puree) was out of this world. So good.

For dessert, each of us ordered the apple tarte tatin - typical, but also delicious. I had mine with creme fraiche and it was wonderful. I was definitely stuffed.

Today was a day of leisure, which was desperately needed. The weather here in London has been perfect - very unusual, but I would move here if it were always like this! Today was a bit more humid, but that was fine. We started out with a coffee at Starbucks - there's one just a block from the hotel, which is very convenient for me. And they don't seem to have adopted the new program in the States of having the frappuccino customized, so it actually tasted good - unlike the one I had the other day at home that tasted like crayons.

After our coffee and people watching (people dress strangely all over the world by the way) we walked up Baker Street to Marylebone - the point at which they meet is such a cute, quiet little spot. You can almost imagine what it looked like years ago, before all the modern shops moved in. We started in Emma Bridgewater and if you've never heard of her, you have to check out her stuff. She has the greatest ceramic pieces, as well as other little things - you may remember her as the origin of my tea towel that says "I had a really lovely dream last night about Daniel Craig..."

We kept ourselves from buying anything, since most of it would be too heavy to truck to Singapore and back home and headed to the bookstore a few doors down. The bookstores here are wonderful - this was a dark little place with books everywhere. Not that I don't love Barnes and Noble, but this just had so much character. I found a book on falling in love with food and a man in Paris, that includes recipes and I've added it to the approximately eight or so books I have on this trip with me. We continued down Marylebone until we got to Oxford Street - it felt so busy in comparison! There were London buses all up and down the street, people everywhere, and my dad said it wasn't even busy yet! Here were tons of stores, including the Gap - it's always kind of a bummer to see American stores abroad because it's nice to be able to buy things abroad that you can't also get at home, and there's less and less of that these days.

We checked out another bookstore - not as much character as the first, but I did pick up a book on how to be English. If I'm going to be a true Brit, I should probably practice. Then, it was off to look around Selfridge's, a department store. I was excited to go because we were planning to head to Obika for lunch, which is this wonderful mozzarella restaurant we first went to in Roma. Mmm, mozzarella.

First we browsed a bit, and downstairs in the home section, I saw one of the Parade of Elephants - it's the largest outdoor art show ever to come to England and features 258 painted elephants designed by artists from around the world. They're being auctioned off to raise money for a fund for elephants - many of them are injured by land mines and need lifelong care. The show isn't here for very long (only a couple of months), but it will be in Copenhagen next year in June and July. The elephants are ALL over town, and we've seen a couple while in taxis and two in front of the hotel, but here in Selfridges, they had not only one of the full-sized elephants, but also smaller replicas for sale! There are so many wonderful ones that it was hard to choose, but I ended up with Bowie. Each of the replicas was hand-painted in Thailand and some of the proceeds from the sales also goes to help the elephants. And if you'd like an elephant of your own, I do believe they're available for sale online too.

We wandered around Selfridges some more and I got to see the Food Hall, which was fairly impressive, though my dad cautioned me to wait for the Food Halls at Harrods. We hunted around for Obika, but never found it - I was so disappointed! But we found a little Italian place called The Lucky Spot. It was a funny little place because it looked like an English pub, with lots of dark wood, extremely high backed wooden benches for seating, etc, but there were tons of teapots lining the molding around the ceiling and everything on the menu was very Italian (and very good).

We decided on an antipasta plate with mozzarella, parma ham, sausage, olives, and bruschetta and green salads - it was delicious. The mozzarella was soft and fresh, the parma ham was salty and perfect, the sausage was a great addition, and the bruschetta was also fresh and tasty. The salad was good too, but the oil and vinegar bothered my acid reflux a bit, so I had to give up on it after a while. As we were eating, we overheard a conversation with a very LOUD diner, who apparently was an aging actress/singer. She said she'd toured with Hall & Oates and spent a lot of time telling her companions that if she ever met Simon Cowell, she'd throw a bucket of cold water on him and say that she has no respect for him. What a character!

With full stomachs, we headed to Harrods by taxi. I got to see a lot more of the elephants - too bad I wasn't counting at the time to see how many I've seen! Arriving at Harrods, there was an anti-fur demonstration going on out front. We thought it best not to tell them that we'd just eaten a big plate of meat and I was glad not to have to hide a fur coat on my way out.

Harrods is an experience.

I went there as a kid a lot time ago, and so I only remember bits and pieces. But wow. Seriously. Calling it a department store just does not do it justice. It is where people with money go to shop (at least for non-touristy/Harrods-logoed things). We saw the perfumes and makeup departments, which were endless and smelled so lovely. We had fruity smoothies in a coffee bar steps away from where a women's fashion show was going on. I found the perfect collar for Barney with the Union Jack on it, only to find out that it was 209 sterling (about $300) - so no present for the pup. I did pick up the Harrods Annual Bear, who has a three-piece suit on (well, minus the pants), and is irresistible. We even browsed the kids toy section, which was unbelievable. They had every stuffed toy you could imagine, including a lemur! They even had a life sized hippo baby - for 1000 sterling - and a life-like looking basset hound. I could just see Barney thinking he was competition though, so he stayed behind. It was incredible.

Speaking of incredible, we then went through the Food Halls.

Wow.

There was so many different kinds of delicious foods there! They had a sushi restaurant, a pizza place, even a restaurant just for ham! There was a whole huge section of cheese, another of meats, another with prepared foods, a whole room of candy and a whole room of fruits & vegetables. It was crazy. Everything looked so delicious, but we left it behind, quickly checked out the Harrods-logoed items, which was the most popular section and headed back to the hotel. Whew.

But our day wasn't over yet! After a brief respite at the hotel, we headed out again, this time to Madame Tussaud's. I had been there as a kid, but haven't been back since and couldn't believe how much it's changed! I knew Daniel Craig now had a wax figure there, and I was most excited to see him, as well as check out the scary section, which my mom wouldn't let us see when we were younger (smart). We got there at just the right time - the lines were short fortunately, but there were still SO many people in there - I can only imagine what it's like a peak times! Also, I wanted to pat a couple of people on the shoulder and say "you know that's not really a person, right?" because they were getting a little bit TOO excited. Like the woman yelling at her kid so that she would get exactly the right picture of her with the Pope.

It really is an incredible place though because some of them look SO lifelike! We started out in a room full of very famous Hollywood stars like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Helen Mirren. Even the kid from High School Musical, and what's-his-face from Twilight (I know his name, I just don't care for him) made it in there. In the next room was more movie stars, though focused more on characters, like Indiana Jones and of course, my favorite, James Bond. I didn't think it was a very good likeness of him, but that was more than okay. We also saw political and historical figures, sports people, and music stars. I even got my hand cast in wax to take home with me! Talk about a unique souvenir - very cool. Then, it was time to go through the scary part - apparently, it used to be made up of serial killers, but now they've put in live people to scare the daylights out of visitors. The girl who gave us the intro was tough as nails - pounding the signs on the walls, she told us no photography and no touching the people. No worries there.

There were a couple of points where I was startled, but not scared - I was always looking around for someone ready to jump out, and found that when I did that, they didn't try to scare me (since I'd seen them). The girls behind me got a little friendly because they were so freaked out, but we made it out without incident. It was disturbing to see some of the instruments of torture and capital punishment from years ago, but nothing that will give me nightmares fortunately!

Another interesting fact - they have a wax figure of Hitler, which I was really surprised to see. But in reading the guide, I learned that they cast the figure when Hitler became German Chancellor, before the war and when everyone realized how crazy he was. Madame Tussauds didn't escape damage from the war, but although many of the figures were destroyed, Hitler's survived. I thought that was an interesting fact.

The tour finishes up with a London "taxi" ride through the "spirit of London," a tram journey in small replica London cabs that takes you through London's history and deposits you at the end of the tour and in the gift shop (shocking). I did look for a picture or magnet of Daniel Craig, but I guess he's not very popular as they didn't have any - disappointing.

By then, we were starving, so we went to The Rajdoot, an Indian curry restaurant nearby. Because I've been having trouble with an ulcer and acid reflux, I wasn't sure how this would go - but the food was brilliant. We started with some grouping of dips/toppings and a hard cracker/wafer type bread. I wasn't a fan of the raw onion topping, but there was an interesting creamy/spicy dip that I liked, another strange bitter type of dip, and then a very delicious spicy & sweet chutney type of dip. Yum.

My dad had a very hot lamb curry, while I had chicken tikka masala. We also had rice and a vegetable dish, and of course, naan bread - my favorite. Holy cow, it was good. The tikka masala has a lovely coconut flavor (which of course, I love) and wasn't very spicy at all. The sauce was delicious with the fresh naan bread, which I learned is baked by throwing the dough at the side of the tandoori ovens and letting it cook there until it's done (which accounts for its weird shape). I could eat it every day. We were too full for any dessert, so we walked back to the Sherlock Holmes to call it a night. But thinking about it now is making me hungry all over again.

Being here again in London makes me realize how much MORE there is for me to see still! I really want to do the Jack the Ripper tour (which was sold out tonight), wander around taking photos, check out more of the train stations, go back to the Tower of London and London Bridge, and so much more. But unfortunately, we leave tomorrow morning for Singapore, so it was only a small taste. Hopefully I can get back here again soon and do more exploring!

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