Our Final Day in London before heading home

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It was our last day to see the city, and we had to pack to go home. It was so exciting to be finally heading home. As much as I had enjoyed the trip, it was just time.

We headed out early, and it was only when we got to Kings Cross station (I think we walked there), that I realised I had left my scarf in the hotel room. I was in a total panic. We needed to get to platform 9 & 3quarters for Joel to have a proper shot of going through the wall. The funny thing was, as soon as he touched the cart it broke! Talk about oh man! It was wasteing precious time, but I had to go all the way back to the hotel to get my scarf. It was so cold out.

The second time we were on the streets we headed straight to Leicester Square. There was that National Gallery that I needed to look in. Honestly for it being free, it was probably one of the highlights of the whole tour! The paintings we looked at, weren't deep within a gallery all spread out. It was basically you move from one room to the next and we saw the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Monet, Renoir, Seurat and van Gogh. Oh lord I was in another world totally. I mean you stood so close to these most amazing and totally famous paintings. Some of them were massive. By far the peice that totally totally blew me away was Leonard's The Virgin and Child. It was simply amazing!

Once Joel managed to pull me out of there, we went down to Trafalgar Square and played with the layers of ice that had formed in the fountings. Joel found it amusing to shatter and skim the ice. Hey, it kept him entertained for five minutes.

Deciding to try and see the Palace again, we wandered down the street to once again walk the Land towards Buckingham Palace. I decided to detour through the park and we found squirrels! It was kind of funny watching some of the other tourists so excited to see them. Was kind of like, they are just squirrels people (we got our fill of them in the USA 😊 ). I have to say the city was totally buzzing this time. Probably also due to the later time of day and all, plus the sun was shining beautifully and not a drop of rain!

We made our way to the Palace, and it was a fight to get a photo with the crowd! Where were you all when it was pouring down people? We were there! Joel tried to visit the queen, but they had locked him out. Funny that.

From there, we decided to head towards Hyde Park, and check out that region. Upon arriving there, we stumbled across a little German Winter Wonderland. It was their last day. Talk about bringing back memories of the Heidleberg town! They had warm wine and all! We settled for hot chocolate this time, with lashings of whipped cream. After we wandered around there for a while, I had to walk back down to the other corner of Hyde Park to check out the horses head again. It totally cracked me up the first time, and not being on a bus was a better photo opportunity!

It was from there that we headed down another street, which amazingly enough turned out to be Oxford Street! It was so lovely just walking around getting lost in this town, which being my third visit (ok, so within 5 weeks), it hasnt lost its charm. It felt like a second home. I was supposed to be doing some "major" shopping as it was our last "chance", however I'm not that good a shopper (ok, I'm crap!) and didn't actually buy much, other than a couple more t-shirts for the family at home. I was so determined to buy myself something, and it kind of never happened. Oh well, i have the photos at least.

From Oxford Street, we wandered down Regent Street, and couldn't resist back go back into the Hamleys toy store. Well worth going into if you get the chance! Joel convinced me to buy him McDonalds (I can't believe he didn't get sick of that food), before we wandered around some more.

It was so cute finding China town. The smell was Hong Kong all over again, and kind of like the last grand hurrah before having to head to the airport I guess. We incredibly found our way back to Leicester Square to get back to Euston to get our bags and start the final treck to the airport.

This time there was no throwing up on the platform floor at Heathrow. It was a fairly uneventful, yet very long wait to board our plane. There were delays due to the frost. It was kind of cute boarding the plane, to see them spraying all this mist over the wings. I told Joel it was just them putting out the fire so we could take off! Obviously it was anti-freeze. The downside with your plane being late for take off, it takes a good half an hour or so before they re-fit it into the schedule of take offs. Yet before we knew it, it was up into the air for our flight (very long flight), all the way home, with just an hour and half cross over in Hong Kong.

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Photos

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outside thistle euston

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trying to fix the cart (he broke!)

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playing with ice

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eat him!

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ninja rabbits

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to the palace

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to let the squirrel amongst pigeons

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i swear they paint their pelicans pink there!

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how cool a shot is this!

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A gift from NZ to the queen

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check out the girl at the top of the photo, just before she fell in! just kidding, but looks like she could have!

Comments

[Corporate photographer London]

http://www.specialimages.co.uk/blog/
Pretty much exactly what we did with our kids on a day out in London- our day was a bit warmer though- Thanks Grant

[bluekat]

totally adore London, and hope to go back there again one day. Was just grateful the sun was out! Something that wasn't the strong point on the other two fly by stops!