Category: family

There weren’t any plans (from my family) for Friday, so I suggested to visit the Bike Shed in Old Street. It’s partly store, partly restaurant, partly motorcycle repair and club, and you can even get a haircut there if you like.

But on the way there, I first saw this strange architecture:

Looks like its maker fell in a whiskey jar before the first drawings… anyway, here is a nice custom Duc:

The shop also had some very nice Belstaff jackets for slightly less than 500 quid, and even a normal T-Shirt was 35 pounds (kids’ shirts far smaller than for Zuleikha were 15 pounds), so we passed on buying something.

Instead, we first went to Baker Street, but only took photos from outside the Sherlock Holmes museum – my next idea & suggestion was Harrods, so from Baker Street we hopped on the 74 bus to head there – via Hyde Park again, and this time I took a photo of the traffic around Hyde Park Corner:

We didn’t stay in Harrods for too long – it may well be “all things for all men” – as long as you can afford it. Coming out and going around the corner, you see their clientele’s car’s parked:

These two had licenses from Kuwait – maybe my colleague Nabil was in for a short (and fast) trip as well? 😉

Back in the tube, I asked a local (very friendly officer) for a restaurant tip again – it was our last day in London, and both Mitchie and Zuleikha have never tried the famous fish & chips. He sent us to the Rocks and Sole Plaice near Covent Garden which again was a very good tip – thanks so much, sir!

The best of the day was yet to come: Mitchie had contact to a friend with whom she studied in Wisconsin, and who lives about an hour from London – so both Salma and her husband came in via train at Waterloo station. And after some coffee they took us to a pub and then to another (this time Indian) restaurant, so we had very good food again, and in wonderful company. They’re now off to Malaysia but promised to visit us around here as soon as they can.

So we were ‘home’ (at our hotel) a bit later than planned – we had to pack and leave early, so that was our Friday then.

For Thursday, it was the “Sea Life” aquarium which was on the plan, and for which we had tickets already, so this was where we went. Here are a few photos:

I often wondered about using flash on animals – lots of people do this “just to get the shot”, or simply because they don’t care or think. But I’ve never flashed an animal (like bugs and/or butterflies, an exception is our cat), and I later read that indeed doing so can ruin their eyes forever – so I was glad to see signs like the one above. So don’t “shoot” what you love – take photographs with a bit of care and consideration instead.

The Sea Life in London has very nice and funky lights anyway – you can take lots of great photos if you just see the lights as they are:

And that includes the animals:

All in all, a great place to be, and well worth the time and money. It takes about two hours to get through, even if you let the occasional school classes pass, and wait a bit until they’re gone.

Then, once you’re out, you’re just beneath the “London Eye”:

And starting from there you’ll see and hear street musicians, some of them really good. Couldn’t support them all, but Zuleikha dropped some coins whenever she liked one.

Plans were to see the bridges, but for me, I didn’t fancy all the walking – so I suggested to see them from a boat instead. Mitchie and Zuleikha accepted, and we looked for a TfL boat to book a roundtrip to Greenwich. So here are some photos from the rest of our day:

After the boat tour we were hungry, and this time Mitchie found some address on her phone, a very nice restaurant with Italian food. On our way to it, we passed Westminster Abbey:

As you can see, the sun was low already, so after our meal we made it back to the hotel. By the way, Mitchie liked the Jubilee line of the London subway (“tube”), but Zuleikha loved the announcements on another one:

This is a Hammersmith & City line train to Barking…

The tube is still the best I’ve ever seen…

On Wednesday, Zuleikha’s plan was to see the British Museum, so this was where we went. After walking around the complete first floor, Zuleikha and Mitchie also wanted to see a Manga exhibition, so I decided to wait outside in front of the building.

There, I met a young lady from Korea who finished her studies as a BBA (like Mitchie), and who now worked as a tour guide in the museum. I took her portrait which I also sent to her already this morning:

There were more opportunities, but I mostly helped other people with their (phone) cameras, to get group shots of the whole family (or groups of friends) – so this one from Joeun Lee is the only one I’ve made with *my* camera.

Mitchie then wanted to collect some things a friend of hers brought for her from Malaysia. That friend was gone again already, but she left the stuff at her office at Petronas in London, which is close to the Thameslink station, so this is where we went. While waiting in the lobby, I took another photo of Zuleikha in some fancy visitors’ chairs:

I also followed the rule “ask the locals” when Mitchie and Zuleikha said they were hungry, so the colleague of Mitchie’s friend sent us to a nice restaurant nearby which was called the “Hare & Tortoise“, and which is kind of a Japanese/Asian fusion food chain (we were at #2 of several on the map). Very fancy, and the food is very nice, just like promised.

After that, Camden:

But by the time we arrived at Camden Market we were all to exhausted to “go shopping for vintage clothes” as Shi sang so nicely, and Zuleikha also didn’t want to see the nearby zoo anymore, so after searching for the next overground station we all went back to the hotel. Enough for a day.

So we had more or less lost the Monday, 8th of July waiting at Brussels “South” station, and arrived late in London. But the room was nice, and after waking up on Tuesday, I took a picture (Zuleikha took more than double as many, haven’t seen them all yet). So looking out of our hotel room (4th of 4 floors), slightly to the left, it looked like this:

A cable car, which reminded me of Cologne. Plus, further left (not in the picture) is the city airport, so from time to time we could see planes leaving. To the right, also not to see from our room but nearby was Canning Town station – and we had tickets for the whole week. So we went to Canning Town station by double decker bus – a first one for Zuleikha & Mitchie.

Mitchie’s first action: renew her passport at the Malaysian High Commission, so we went there and had to return at 1500 to pick it up. The time in between? Mitchie and Zuleikha went through Hyde Park, and I waited, couldn’t walk that far.

After the passport was received, we went to the National Gallery, one of the museums Zuleikha wanted to see:

There was an area for the younger ones, and at one place there was kind of an invitation which was hard not to accept, called #takeonepicture:

Flickr has a cool selection tagged #takeonepicture, which is also nice to see. For us, I took another one in the room nearby:

As I wrote already, Zuleikha (and also Mitchie) took more photos and videos, but I haven’t seen everything yet, so these are only a few of mine.

We had some pasta during the day, and sandwiches in the evening, and called it a day.