London #2

Sunday---   Pen, Pam and I got on a hop on hop off bus for a tour around the city. We got off at Harrods where we viewed the food department and bought some drinks and filled rolls which we had to eat outside.

The food area was amazing with everything you could imagine. I'm sure most people were like us and just tyre kickers. We couldn't afford the fish and chips as it would have set us back by £35 each.

The streets around the area were full of rows and rows of very smart apartments with some of the big brand name shops nearby. 

Next day we got a bus then a cab to the Silver vaults in Chancery Lane only to find that it was a Bank holiday and most of the shops were closed. Big disappointed for the girls but life goes on. 

The London 10 km marathon was being held in the streets around there so we watched some of the thousands of young and old taking part.

London #1

We left Singapore at about 1.30 am and were fed a dinner straight away which we didn't really need.  The plane was a new double decker A380 with the upgraded cabins. Very smart.

 

They weren't quite as purple as that.

The flight was 13.5 hours to London and we arrived quite fresh after sleeping for 7 hours. 

Caught the tube then a cab to the hotel across Westminster bridge from the houses of parliament so really very central. I walked along the river bank and watched a great street performer near the London eye - the huge bike wheel. 

Sunday-   Pam arrived this morning from Washington DC after visiting her brother. It was great to catch up again and swap travel stories. 

Singapore #2

Orchard road is several kilometres long and has all the big brand name shops and once again has trees lining it. As with the malls, there didn't seem to be many people in the shops.

Views of the city centre.

After another stop off in little India a little man led us though a maze of market shops to a lady who measured Pen up for a shirt. The woman had a regular customer from Oamaru who used to come over every year to get clothes made. Unfortunately they are not as cheap as we expected - maybe we didn't haggle enough.  The only problem was that although the tailor had made a beautiful job of the shirt and delivered it to the hotel the next day, he had made it with the wrong material. 

Another stop was Chinatown where there were many more markets.

Our impressions of the city were the cleanliness, the lack of bikes and we saw 2 police men the whole time. No sirens and people picking up leaves and the smallest pieces of rubbish. 

On the last day we checked out of our hotel at 2 pm and had a long wait at the airport for our flight to London. It was meant to leave at 11.30pm but due to a new fuel pump having to be fitted we finally took off at 1.30am.

Singapore #1

We had a fairly uneventful flight to Singapore yesterday and managed to eat 2 dinners separated by a 6 hour sleep. The only negative was a sniffling Asian gent up the front. Looks as though Pen was happy enough with the tucker.

We arrived in Singapore at about 6pm after an 11 hour flight. Luckily the airport had lots of moving platforms to get us to the baggage claim. The thing that struck us was how many green areas there were and the trees along many of the roads.   The hotel was very central with several malls close by. I got a cab across the river from the hotel and had wondering views of the city. 

We took a hop on hop off bus trip the next day and drove through the CBS area of the city with its sky scrapers and lots of trees lining the streets and plenty of green areas. The botanical gardens were very tropical as Singapore is right on the equator. 

Akaroa #2

We had a great weekend with our three grand sons as well as Mike and Tori .

Akaroa

 

We are getting ready to leave our home in Akaroa for another exciting trip to the UK and Europe.