5 Feb 2016 Fri
Whole row to myself at 50A to the envy of other passengers heehee.
Food served by SQ
Baileys Irish Cream with peanuts
Icecream
Aerial photos taken while on the flight.
Pamir
Half-way mark between Singapore to London.
Landing at Heathrow, photos of Windsor as seen during landing.
Can you see the train running in the picture?
Cloudy at where I land, sunny at the far end.
Landed in T2, no luggage so can straight away transfer to T4 by airside bus.
Waiting for the bus to T4 from T2. The auto door will not open until the bus driver come and pick up any passengers waiting. The ride from T2 to T4 is a good 12 minute. Far.
T4 passport control very long queue. Thru immigration and collected luggage for them. Collected our car from Hertz, got upgraded from Ford Focus to Nissan Qashqai in diesel, tank pre-pumped, with GPS. Moved off to Windsor. Finally reached our first Airbnb. Owner M was out. She left a message on Airbnb that she went for the theatre and had left the key at the planter. We managed to find the key after asking her neighbour what could be the possible locations. Moved the luggage in drizzle to the house.
Had dinner at KFC nearby. Felt warm instantly. Bathed and water pressure was good. Went to crash.
6 Feb 2016 Sat
The next thing I knew was the chatter between m and parents. M offered to cook us full English breakfast and we simply couldn't refuse the offer. It was simply delicious.
Full English breakfast done by our Airbnb host.
Went to Windsor castle. Found a long stay car park but it only take credit cards. Time has changed.
I went ahead to the royal mile while the folks were inside the castle. Long walk in intermittent drizzle. I only managed to reach the horse statue and there were really people riding horse for god sake !!
Chinese new year decoration seen in a shop in Windsor.
Royal Mile
We went to boots and took meal deal. Went bath. A Chinese that I met led me the way to the Royal Bath.
We thought 5pm is a lousy time to enter the bath. So wrong. There was a queue. We didn't know why though. We only realised when we reached the bath. Heated water flowing into the pool. Blue hour. I joined a guided tour shortly after the tour started.
Drizzly. Hard time getting to the car near the railway station and even harder finding the next Airbnb location. Finally with the help of GPS, I managed to find the pub. The drinkers had absolutely no clue what Airbnb I was talking about and ushered me to the boss. The boss called his wife down and she quickly showed me the room. Very neat and warm. Cereal breakfasts all ready for tomorrow. I asked her for permission to let us parked our car in front of her garage for the night and she agreed. It was a very narrow entrance but we did it nicely.
7 Feb 2016 Sun
It was drizzly still the next day but as soon as we are out of Bath, glorious sunlight awaited us on m5 and m6 between Bristol and Manchester. We were totally not prepared for the sun and stopped to capture some photo while its still possible.
Reached Windermere around 230pm and we quickly rushed up to Orrest Head to have a good view but the winds are too strong.
We had a hard time looking for the B&B that I used to stay and even harder to find the B&B that we are staying tonight. It started to rain-snow. We went back to the tourist office and asked for direction. We managed to find it in the end and it was another narrow entrance into the carpark.
The Airbnb that we rented was a very nice house with fire place, built using slates.
Masterbed room.
Second bedroom
Living room. Sofa bed.
Fire place built using slates.
Finding dinner in a rainy late afternoon proved to be challenging but magic wok came to our rescue despite today being Chinese new year eve. It only closes on 2nd day so we are all saved. Ordered our dishes and connect to the Wi-Fi, viola everything starts to work.
Went to coop to buy food for tomorrow. Found cherries!!! From Chile no less. So crunchy and sweet. The kiwi was sour though.
Went back to watch TV but didn't bother with the fire place. The TV off automatically after awhile but we couldn't find the remote to on it back again. We slept well in this spacious house.
8 Feb 2016 Mon
Drizzly morning. It looks like a dog day to start with. First i gave P a call from the tourist centre to inform him that the main door cant be locked. But the call didn't go through so I left a voice message. We drove to Keswick through Kirkstone Pass.
Little did we expect to see the views that will be presented to us...it was simply magical. Plus the drizzle stopped from time to time allowing photo op. We opened up the car top window to let the sunshine through. The car lit up instantly.
Window at the top allows sunlight into the car.
We saw swans swimming graciously inside the lake. Saw snow capped mountains. The cafe at Kirkstone Pass was closed though.
Aira force was in full force. A chinese lady with her angmo bf saw me at the top of the force and asked me if i came from China. We greeted the couple as well as their old folks. The other couple that we met told us they never saw Aira force in such fury for the last few years. The strength is to be reckoned with.
Had full English breakfasts at Keswick. Managed to exchanged my old English 50 pound notes for the new ones at a local bank. Shopping in Keswick is always satisfying. We bought so much! There was free Wi-Fi in the town so all the new year greetings started streaming in. I managed to get reply from P and understood how to lock the main door properly. The water in the lake gets higher near Keswick and it certainly looked like the end of the world somehow. We quickly drove home.
We drove back to Windermere by M6 but the road back was slightly confusing due to some bridges being damaged (there was a flood on Dec 2015 that caused huge damage). We have to detour through the Kendal town centre before reaching Windermere. Those cars that got impatient trailing us did not hesitate to honk us the moment they had chance to overtake us. Fogging inside the car made night driving in the hills even more challenging and i had to constantly wiped the windscreen from inside using my gloves.
We were still quite full when we reached Magic Wok so we just ordered something simple and quench our Wi-Fi thirst there.
9 Feb 2016 Tue
Set off to London. Glorious day. Blue sky and bright sun. I managed to get hold of the next Airbnb host J while stopping at a service station that has free Wi-Fi that works but requires tonnes of registration etc. Not helping that a line built up in the filter to the service station due to a minor accident before. Plus unexpected lane closure at A1 due to road works. We reached the apartment at about 330pm, half an hour later than the timing agreed with J at the service station earlier. Lucky J colleague waited for us. Parking the car was another hassle. No street parking pay by coin only by phone. I went to the grocery shop nearby and the owner actually can help me process the payment if I pass him the parking bay number. Once that's done, we lugged our luggage to the apartment. By then we were already 30 minutes later than the agreed time I had with J earlier at the service station. Lucky his colleague waited for us.
The view from the apartment was totally fantastic but I had no time to admire as I had to return the car to hertz. We drove off skirting the congestion charge zone to reach the office in marble arch. Some minor jam along the way but with careful map guidance and GPS, we reached the office and returned the car successfully.
Just nice at this time N was already nearby for meet up, obviously done with his few- hundred-pound shopping. We had a good time catching up. He has a string of travels coming up. Envy. He showed me the photos he took when the van he and his family took skidded near Hunza. The road that the van was on was paved with white snow and the van was going down with 2nd gear. N's dad smelled trouble when he noticed the van was on 2nd gear and true enough. They escaped unharmed but the few turns that the van made before stopping at a drain freaked them out.
Considering that the other side of the road was a valley below. Too close to the edge for comfort.
Packed dinner for the folks from China Town before we returned to the apartment. Took some nice shots from the window. Can see Kings X station and Euston Road and the neighbourhood skyline.
The apartment was spacious. J sent someone to fix the basin that didn't drain the next day. We slept like a log after a long day.
10 Feb 2016 Wed
The next day the change of guards at Buckingham was cancelled due to drizzly weather. If only it were as good as yesterday. Many squirrels scouring for food within St James Park. We went to Whitehall, then Westminster, then Tower Hill by circle line, followed by British musuem before we went for dinner at china town.
Squirrel
Protest
Uber protest
Sent the folks home before I went to meet M at Burgers and Lobsters near the Bank station. The announcement in the station stated that the circle line would not serve Kings X station as the line was down. Just took the circle line this afternoon and it looked so new!!
London cabs protest against Uber and choked the traffic of London. Luckily we returned the car yesterday.
M works near to the Bank station. His gf H joined us for dinner. We had a very good time exchanging stories. M and his gf had a rather miserable time the first day they reach London cos they took the subway from Heathrow to their temporary accommodation. Not all stations have elevators and they were carrying a lot of luggage with them....you can imagine. People on the street were reluctant to show them directions cos they looked like beggars with all their belongings. A wonder they managed to find the place by looking at signs and map.
Of course i also asked them about their adventure in Iceland which was unforgetable.
M told me that people who work in London generally live outside. 500 pounds a month can get you a decent 3-4 bedroom landed with small garden if one is willing to travel 1 hour to work. If 1.5 hour is tolerable, a decent 4-5 bedroom with big garden can be rented at that price. Somehow rental in central London is always expensive due to persistent demand and inadequate supply. Building height restriction and the requirement buildings can only be torn down provided front facade stay added to the perpetual high-rent problem facing the Londoners.
11 Feb 2016 Thu
The next morning we took the eurostar to Paris. The Parisian were helpful to answer us questions on direction. We managed to find our airbnb apartment but the host's helper was late to come to us due to her train stopped somewhere.
As soon as we sorted out everything we went to have lunch near the Lourve. Eiffel Tower followed by Galleria Lafayette then the Lourve exterior. Dinner was near our apartment. The honey glazed pork recommended was very yummy.
mouth closed
Montmarte in glory
Blue sky
Lourve
Eiffel @ Night
Lourve @ night
12 Feb 2016 Fri
Good weather in Paris said bye bye to us. Drizzly the whole day. Went to Champ- Eylsee, arc de triumph, Sacred Cour in Montmarte and the Notre Dame. All in wet weather.
Montmarte
Seine
I went inside the Lourve to have a visit but the museum was far too huge. Managed to find Mona Lisa though.
13 Feb 2016 Sat
Packed fried rice for the next day breakfasts as the folks had an earlier flight to catch. The driver came punctually at 5 to pick them up (50 euro for 3 people with luggage, mandarin speaking driver). I half-slept till 645am and received a call that the host helper will not be coming to collect the keys. She asked me just leave them on the table. I went out for a quick breakfasts before I went to take the RER train to CDG (10 euro). Midway there were staff came on-board to inspect my train ticket.
God knew what he did I couldn't get out of the platform of CDG T1 platform, which was unmanned. Some quick wit got to me and I managed to came out of the station. I quickly went to sq counter to get my boarding pass and I was ready by 830am.
Much bigger challenge ahead. The immigration control officers decided to strike and a looooooong queue built up at the airport passport control. At first I didn't know but was very puzzled why there was such a long queue. So many people prepared to miss their flight. They mentioned timing like 920am, 1020am etc. My 11am flight look chancey, let alone any flights before mine.
Slowly the queue moved and more passport control officers came to work. 13 rarely works out for me. This is just another one of those that convinced me that while others chide me for being superstitious. Time and again I reminded myself to give allowance of 3 hours in airports overseas. I am glad I stick to my own rule.
Straits Times on the SQ plane from Paris to Singapore.
Flight route
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