Driving All the Way - England | Welcome to Sweet Surrender

More than 18 hours taking flight and transit, finally we arrived at Heathrow Airport Terminal 4. It’s quite an agony in the plane as it’s a non-stop flight direct from KL to London. The entertainment system wasn’t that up to date and nothing much to do. Trying to sleep but the seat didn’t favour short people like me, there’s no foot rest!

We went to Travelodge at Wembley for check in before going for dinner.

You get what you pay for (if not mistaken, 20 Pound/night). Not so bad. We booked 2 family rooms, each room slept 3. There were 6 of us.

Don’t really need to stay in anywhere posh, we’re just staying for a night and this is good enough. We’re on a budget too.

I wasn’t feeling very well as was just recovered from a bout of fever one week before the trip and what’s more with Aunty Flo came for a visit. Was having headache and was so tired but still had to go out to eat. No time to be sick! I’m not gonna spend so much money and let my sickness ruin my holiday.

We went to Four Seasons, a Chinese restaurant that specialised in Roasted duck. So many people! We had to queue for a table. They have quite a number of branches in London. The one we went was at Queensway (84 Queensway, London, Greater London) if not mistaken, I didn’t even bother about the location, was already half dead! 😛

Seriously, I’m already half dead, I didn’t bother to find out what the the food they had ordered. I even didn’t bother with the taste.

Left: The condiments.
Right: Vegetables with garlic.

Left: A type of tofu dish.
Right: Another vegetable dish this time with egg.

Left: A type of fish dish.
Right: Orange and mints to conclude the meal.

Opsss… Where’s the duck? I forgot to edit this photo -.- Anyway, it was pretty blur to be able to see much. The duck wasn’t bad.

After dinner, we headed back to the lodge and called it a night. EXHAUSTED!

Got back on Wednesday night. Only managed to update something now. Even so, it’s just a summary (I don’t even quite remember where we’ve been to as there’s too many places!) and it’s just a compilation from my Twitpic while I was on the go the past 2 weeks. So, here you go… Click the pictures for bigger and complete version.

20/6/2013: Arrived Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 then check-in to the travel lodge followed up with dinner at Bayswater 4 Season Restaurant.

21/6/2013: Went to Westfield London Shopping Centre to have lunch at The Bull before heading to the train station to take the train, Eurostar, to Paris.

21/6/2013: Arrived Paris, check-in our apartment and had a rest preserving energy for the adventure the next day. There was a music festival happening down where we stayed.

22/6/2013: Pantheon, Luxembourg Gardens, Notre Dame Cathedral, and Tube Building. The highlight of the day, Eiffel Tower, queued in the cold, long queue, and tonnes of people.

23/6/2013: Arc de Triomphe, window shopping at Champs-ElysÃ©es (cannot afford to buy anything but nice to look and touch them first hand), had the most expensive lunch in my whole life (portion was small and not nice which cost us more than EUR100!), Grand Palais, Pont Alexandre III, and Place de la Concorde. It rained and we had to called it a day.

24/6/2013: Tourists are everywhere in Paris! The crowd was massive at MusÃ©e du Louvre where you can find Mona Lisa half-length portrait. Seriously? Is there even anything special? Sorry but I can’t see any hahaha… I’m blind towards this thing. The crowd just couldn’t stop taking pictures of it (including me ;p)! In the afternoon we headed to the Sacred Heart Basilica of Montmartre and had a souvenirs shopping spree. For dinner, we had French food in a restaurant near where we stayed.

25/6/2013: Check-out of our apartment and went to the train station. Went back to London using Eurostar, finally saw the train went into the Euro Tunnel. Once we reached London, we drove to Cambridge, lucky to be given with a new travel lodge!

26/6/2013: Headed to Nottingham and York for sight seeing. Then, went back to my sister’s place at Thornaby, one hour away from Newcastle.

27/6/2013: Shopping day near my sister’s place and in the evening we went to Newcastle for another shopping spree! Bought a lot! So cheap! What’s more, found my size.

28/6/2013: Went to Whitby for a change of view. Something different from what we’ve seen the previous days. Had fish and chips dinner at Magpie Cafe.

29/6/2013: Bowness-on-Windermere where you can find the largest lake of UK. Another different view. Found nicely made soap and sweets. From the photo alone, it’s confusing whether it’s food or soap. We then drove almost 3 hours to Birmingham for another shopping spree but came back empty handed.

30/6/2013: Got to touch and see those branded stuff for the second time in my life. Tried on Jimmy Choo, Bally, Prada, Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Coach and more! Bags and shoes cost thousands of Ringgit, so far fetch for me. Yet I made an unbelievable purchase at Bicester Village. A Micheal Kors tote bag, my biggest buy in my entire life for a bag. I still can’t believe that I ended up buying it! It’s an outlet store so the price is cheaper but still expensive! Let’s put it this way, original price cost almost RM1K and I got it for almost RM700! One thing I don’t understand, it’s such an expensive bag but no storage bag provided. A bit disappointed. Oh well… No more turning back. After shopping, we drove back to London.

1/7/2013: Visited some tourist spots in London.

2/7/2013: Went for a drive to the Warner Bros. Studio featuring Harry Potter, then to B&Q and lastly to IKEA for lunch before heading to the airport. Time to leave London and go back to Kuching.