London 2014 Part 1

Wifey had to go for a work trip to London (and Birmingham and Gloucester) for first 2 weeks in Oct and the plan was for me to join her at the tail-end of her trip and to extend her vacation in London and Iceland for another 2 weeks!

Her work would end on 17 Oct (Friday) in Gloucester and she and her colleagues would travel back to London on 18 Oct where I would meet her. My plan (after factoring cost of SQ ticket, timing of flight, my work, etc., etc.) was to travel out of Singapore on 16 Oct night, and arrive on 17 Oct morning (after a 13-hr flight!) which would leave me with a full day in London before meeting her.

We would then stay in London until 22 Oct (tonight) and fly to Iceland early morning of 23 Oct and stayed until 27 Oct to fly back to London.

Happy couple

And you would have read from previous posts on the whereabouts and foods that we had tried in London for this first part of our vacation. This post is sort of to fill in the gaps, wherever we can. 🙂

Here’s the Flickr album for London 2014 Part 1!

What we did:

• Day 0 (17 Oct) – Arrived in London, Borough Market, Checked-in Premier Inn St Pancras, Dinner at Haché Burger, Jet-lagged and knocked out
• Day 1 (18 Oct) – Windsor Castle, United at Paddington Rail Station, Dinner at some place in Soho
• Day 2 (19 Oct) – Trafalgar Square, St James Park, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Oxford Street, Lunch at Patty & Bun, Dinner at friend’s place
• Day 3 (20 Oct) – Cambridge punting, Lunch at Chinese Canteen, Cambridge strolling, Dinner at Russell Square
• Day 4 (21 Oct) – British Library, Lunch at Burger & Lobster, Kopi at Nude Expresso, Oxford Street, Dinner at Chinatown, “The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time” play at Gielgud Theatre
• Day 5 (22 Oct) – Checked-out Premier Inn St Pancras, Lunch at Tiles, Natural History Museum, Dinner at Cafe TPT @Chinatown, “Les Misérables” musical at Queen’s Theatre, Setting off to Luton Airport around 2am next morning (yawn)

Useful Links:

• CityMapper – Very useful mobile app to get around London with “A to B journey planning, real-time info on all modes of transport wherever available, weather, alerts, disruptions, taxi booking through Hailo and everything you need and may not even realise that you need to manage your life in the city”, as described on its app page.
• Premier Inn St Pancras – This is a new hotel by the Premier Inn chain, which is a budget chain but with clean rooms and value-for-money. Read our review on TripAdvisor.