Through the London eye

Day 1 – SINGAPORE – LONDON

I must say that this is really a long day. And we finally arrived in London! We pre-booked our stay at the Berjaya Eden Park Hotel. This hotel definitely has a feel of Asian culture with so many Asians treading in and out alongside their oriental decorations.

We set up our luggage in the hotel and off we go for the start of our adventure.

On top of our list was definitely breakfast and so we decided to head over to one near our hotel to freshen up before we start the rest of the activities. So this place, Granger & Co was an apparent hit even to the locals as we arrived at barely 9am and there was already a queue. Talk about being early.

Like typical Singaporeans, a queue is a good sign of a wise choice. Nevertheless, we didn’t have to wait long before we get our seats and our tummy filled. 

ricotta hotcakes, banana and honeycomb butter

We then headed to the Hitchin Lavender fields. You can imagine our determination since it took us more than an hour to reach there. The routes on google were quite accurate apart from the fact that buses don’t operate on Sundays. So do take note. We took a cab in the end that costs us about GBP 8 for a short 10 minutes ride. 

Once we arrived, it was all worth it. The vast field of lavender, as far as our eyes goes.

We had a cup of tea while we contemplate if we should hitch a ride out or request the nice staff of the coffee house to help us get a cab out. We chose the latter. Don’t want to risk our lives for petty cash I guess.

We headed back to London city center and decided to head over to the Wembley stadium to get our cravings satisfied at the designer outlet mall.

And so we settled for a lunchner at handmade burger Co. I was already a fan of fries and this here, is just off the charts.

HIPSTER CHIPS – that’s what they called.

“Our famous handmade chips topped with jalapeño slaw, finished with Sriracha mayo & fresh spring onions”

And this, is the best fries I ever had. The fries (Brits called them chips), fat and flavourful, fried to the absolute right crisp and top with my favourite jalapeño slaw and Sriracha mayo. I could remember the taste while typing this. Yums.

See their menu here: http://handmadeburger.co.uk/menu/#ffs-tabbed-8010

We took a long stroll and head back to our hotel for the night.

Day 2 – LONDON

We woke up leisurely and decided to head over to some sights of interest around London to mark our stay.

And so like all tourists, we went to the Big Ben and participated in the ceremony of the horse guard parade. I can only say even the thousand words pictures illustrated was not enough to describe the magnificence of the architecture and the parade.

We went back to Wembley stadium since we had some time to spare and we obviously had to make our stop at the handmade burger Co for obvious reasons. We tried a different menu – the Denver Chips with the pulled pork. Whilst it was still great, I would still strongly recommend the Hipster chips we had the day before.

We went ahead to have our favourite past time doing shopping and stopped for our early dinner at the Burger & Lobsters. Lobsters’ lovers really need to try this one out whilst in London, or you might as well say you haven’t been there. 

The lobsters are fresh and the sides that goes with it complements the mains totally.

Who could miss a chance for musical at the mother of all theatres in London West End? We pre-booked our choice for Les Miserables Musical a few days before since we have missed it in our home country recently. What a better chance to catch it here while we‘re here.  Really, catch it if you are in town. It’s really worth it.

After indulging our ears and eyes, we thought we ought to feed our stomach. But we had a failed mission at Flat Iron. They were almost close (last orders out) when we arrived.

Day 3 - LONDON - IRELAND 

Guess what, WE MISSED OUR FLIGHT! But oh well, haven’t we been through some crazy things throughout the past decade.

So the story goes, no wifi, online check-in and woke up late. I guess you could have imagined how the story goes. We missed our flight and went ahead to put our luggage at the airport concierge.

*Tip: Concierge - GBP 8 for 1 day

So we went back to London and caught up with what we have missed. Talking about bad luck and crazy weather. So we’ve heard how the weather in London is quite unpredictable, we diligently brought our umbrella everywhere we go, everyday, except today. We’ve thought that we will be heading straight to the airport for our flight to Ireland. Little did we thought that we might have missed the flight, so we jolly well left our brolly in our check-in luggage. And it has to be today to meet the legendary downpour. 

So to uplift the mouldy spirits from the missing flight, we decided to travel back to the city center to catch up on the things we missed instead of getting a flight to another Irish city, considering our plans.

We head back to the Buckingham Palace to catch the changing of the royal guards. And just as it was ending, the downpour came. We ran and it rained heavier. We finally found shelter but we were already soaked and drench. I was dripping wet, literally. As our luck goes, we decided to hop across to the Flat Iron for our long awaited GBP 10 steak that we keep hearing. Truth to be told, I was quite skeptical prior to that but once the dish was served, damn, I was impress with the quality of a GBP 10 steak.

We loitered awhile longer in the city before going back to the airport, before another storm hits us. We dutifully arrived in the airport real early to prevent any hiccups and took our much intended flight out from London.

And we arrived in Ireland.