See The World: Paris-London (Part II)

On the 4th day of our trip, KU and I woke up bright and early to take the Eurostar to London. 

A personal note I'd need to file for future reference is that taking the Eurostar requires going through customs at the train station, which I was unaware of. I set the alarm for us to have just enough time to grab a quick breakfast, travel to the train station and check in. Imagine my horror and panic when I saw that we still had to get through customs.

For the 5 nights in London, we stayed at Marriott Hotel Marble Arch, which was about a 10-minute walk from the Marble Arch tube station. What I liked about our hotel was the easy access to the touristy parts of London, and the many cafes nearby. There were also a couple of supermarkets in the vicinity which we patronised many times.
 

Wall mural on the platform of Marble Arch station - most tube stations had some form of art on the platforms

Cos we arrived in London close to noon, lunch was at this pub near our hotel called The Tyburn (18-20 Edgware Road, Marble Arch, Greater London, W2 2EN). There's a promotion every day, and we were quite fortunate that our visit happened on their Steak Day. For about GBP7 each, KU had a steak set with a beverage and I had huge slab of ribs with a beverage. In our opinion, the food quality was very decent for that price. It didn't hurt too that there was free WiFi in the pub! We didn't know at that time that we were going to return to the pub every single day for the whole duration of our stay in London.


Day 1 in London: Steak Day lunch

Day 2: Eggs benedict for breakfast

Day 3: KU's breakfast set and my toast and yoghurt

Day 3: Chilli con carne for my dinner

Day 4: KU's steak dinner and my Tyburn burger which came with Jack Daniel's sauce for the fries!

With nothing much planned for the rest of the day, we decided to take a trip down to see the Big Ben and soak in the fresh air along the River Thames.

River Thames

Hello, Ben!

The London Eye and er.. some building

The London Eye and the iconic red bus!

The next day was pretty relaxing for us (read: nothing planned). All that was on the agenda was afternoon tea at Grovesnor House. So we made an impromptu decision to visit Covent Garden Market since it came highly recommended by KU's best friend.

The Market is made up of a few different smaller markets, like Apple Market, Jubilee Market, etc. But because we there early in the morning on a weekday, the other markets were not opened. :(

A word of warning: when you take the tube to Covent Garden station, please please pleaseeee take the damn elevator to the street level. Not many tube stations have elevators - everyone takes the stairs, and when KU and I saw everyone going to the elevator, we thought that there wouldn't be space in there for us and, thinking that we don't want to wait for the next round, we decided to take the stairs. BIG MISTAKE. We were so winded from climbing the spiralling staircase, and it was quite a loonngg way up. Another couple followed us up the stairs too! *giggles* So, the lesson here is, follow the locals.

My very winded husband. LOL.

Jamie Oliver's restaurant

There wasn't very much to shop for at the different Markets. Or maybe the stuff just didn't pique my interest enough for me to buy anything. The stalls at Apple Market were selling mostly handmade art like jewellery, drawings, cards, and even clocks! Jubilee Market was mostly made up of stalls selling clothes. I was on the lookout for cheap baby clothes and I saw this really cute onesie for infants which read "Best Aunt in the World". It was pink, and plain, no cartoons/patterns etc. and it cost GBP16. *faints* So, no purchase there either.

The only thing I bought from the Market was this abso-fantastic lemon raspberry cupcake from The Cupcake Bakehouse. It wasn't cheap at all, at GBP3.50, but OMG it was seriously hands-down the best cupcake I've ever had in my life. Twelve Cupcakes? Baked By Lace? Pfft pffft and pfffttttt.

The cupcake base itself was perfectly light and moist, not so light that you feel like you've eaten nothing when it's gone, and definitely not oily, with bits of tangy raspberry fruit in it. The lemon frosting was not overly sweet and dense, and has the right amount of volume to match the cupcake. It was so good I was reluctant to finish it, cos I wanted the enjoyment to last longer. :(



Gorgeous cupcakes with delicious-sounding names - had a hard time choosing!

I still dream of you sometimes, my beautifulllll

Cos we'ved booked ourselves an afternoon tea session at The Park Room & Library, Grovesnor House, we didn't have any lunch, so that we could save our stomach space for it. Heh..

Grovesnor House is also under the JW Marriott name and it was a couple of minutes walk away from Marble Arch tube station too. They really gave us quite a huge amount of food, and for approximately GBP35 each, it was worth the price (taking ONLY the amount of food into consideration). Sadly, the same can't be said about the quality of food. The sandwiches were either tasteless or too salty, the best-tasting being the cucumber sandwich. HOW SAD IS THAT?? The desserts left much to be desired too, as the cakes were dry. The best items on the menu were their scones and tea. Meh. And I really wouldn't recommend this place to anyone. :(

The smile was because I hadn't tasted the food yet. Lol.

As KU had just bought himself a turntable, he was on the lookout hunt for cheap vinyl records to bring back to Singapore. A kind gentleman at our hotel gave us the addresses and directions to the vinyl record stores he frequents (being a vinyl record buff himself) and we started on our hunt.

Sister Ray (34-35 Berwick Street, Soho London W1F 8RP, United Kingdom) is a shop which sells good quality, secondhand vinyl records at amazing prices. Even I was very enthusiastic after seeing the various genres of music they had and the records of many familiar artistes in the shop. We found the records of The Carpenters, ABBA, Boney M, Queen, Rod Steward etc. going for only GBP2. And there was even a sale corner where records were going at 3 for GBP5! KU bought aproximately 20 vinyl records from this store alone and spent only about GBP30? It was unbelievable.

Our next stop was M&M's World (1 Swiss Court, London WC2H 7DG; Tube: Leicester Square), which was 4 levels of crazy, fun, chocolatey goodness! Pity though, the merchandise was quite pricey, and I really couldn't bear to part with the cash to get anything much there. There were many great photo ops though, and everyone, young and old, were queuing to take pictures with the many different lifesized M&M's figures.

After which we visited Hamley's, the World's Largest Toy Store, to buy some toys for my little baby niece!

Dinner was Pret-a-Manger, which my sister encouraged us to try cos apparently they make their sandwiches and soups fresh every day. I love their soups!

On the sixth day, we indulged my obsession for animals, dinosaurs and bones - we went to the Natural History Museum (Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 5BD; Tube: South Kensington)!

The museum has 4 different zones (blue, green, red, orange) and many different galleries (Wildlife, Ecology, Human etc.), it was really mind-blowing. Before going there, I didn't know the museum was so huge, and alas, we couldn't spend as much time as we would have liked there cos there was other stuff on our itinerary. :((

BUT. I spent all my time in the Blue zone, where the dinosaur and animal galleries were located, and I had a really good time marvelling at the exhibits! Hard to imagine that we were treated to such a visual feast for FREE.

We were going to watch Les Miserables (the musical) that evening (Queen’s Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1D 6BA).

Hello, Their Royal Juiciness

Dinner was at Chinatown, where we had Four Season's famous roast duck and char siew with rice. I don't take duck meat (dislike it, in fact) because I find that duck meat usually has this distinct shao smell, but the roast duck at Four Season's was really good and didn't have that smell at all. The char siew was very good too, albeit abit too salty, but the meat was juicy and nicely charred on the outside.

Walking dinner off before the show

The musical was great! The stage props, singing and songs were awesome, but because we were seated in the circle seats, I couldn't see the expressions on the singers' faces and hence didn't really feel the emotions in the songs. The musical was a little too long to me too, and I erm.. fell asleep towards the end of the show. :S I was glad we did this though, cos I've always had people tell me that we should catch a musical when we are in London, and that's another item checked off out to-do list!