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More day 35 photos |
London
- Canary Wharf & Greenwich Park After a sleep in, Tracey and I walked the 20 minutes to Hammersmith and back before grabbing some lunch. After lunch, Emma joined us for a 1 hour trek across London (west to east) by tube to Canary Wharf. This was the first time in London I'd seen large scale modern skyscrapers. Next we boarded the DLR (Docklands light rail) for the trip south to Greenwich Park. On arrival we walked by the Thames before walking through the grounds of the National Maritime Museum (old Royal Naval College) and into Greenwich Park to the Royal Observatory where GMT is taken from. After that we grabbed a snack and I headed for Jonny's for the evening. |
With severe delays on the tube lines that I needed to use, I spent a lot of my day waiting for trains! Over an hour after I left, I arrived at Euston Station to pick up my Southampton train tickets. I grabbed a coffee before walking the streets around Euston and Kings Cross stations. After that I took the tube to Camden Town, to visit Camden markets. I stumbled across Regents canal and walked a couple of kilometres along its banks before sitting and writing some e-mails and re-writing parts of the diary I'd lost in Europe. I found some chinese takeaways for a late lunch before spending a lot more time at stations waiting for any train that would take me closer to Tracey's place! I stopped off at Bayswater and had a look around the shops before making it home just after 5pm. At 6pm Tracey and I ventured out again to Putney to have dinner with a family friend, Sheila. An hour later we were knocking on her front door. We went out to a pasta/pizza restaurant before returning for a nightcap and "another" tube ride home! |
 More day 36 photos |
  More day 37 photos |
Southampton
sightseeing I left early to get to Waterloo in time for my 10:30am train to Southampton. The train was empty and we arrived on time just before 12noon. After a quick lunch and a stop to pick up a city map (at a cost of £1.50!) I wandered toward the waterfront and caught the ferry to Hythe as the ferry route passes close by one of the three cruise berths. Hythe has a famous pier (650m long) and even has its own pier train to save you walking the length of the pier. Hythe itself is across the otherside of the harbour. Its not the sort of place you'd visit if you were suicidal as you'd be bored out of your mind after 5 minutes or kill yourself in frustration at the number of slow walking old people visiting for a tea and a scone! After I returned to Southampton I walked around to Mayfair Park where the other two cruise ships were visible. I returned to the shopping area in search of an internet café. I finally found one! By this stage it was almost 5pm, so I returned to Mayfair Park to view the cruise ships depart. I caught the 6pm train back to Waterloo, grabbed some dinner and returned to Tracey's. |
London sightseeing My bag was looking a bit full with all the brochures and extra clothing I'd picked up on tour. So I went down to Chiswick Post Office and picked up a box to send back to NZ. After filling it and paying a reasonable £20 for the postage, I headed for the tube station. It really began to rain (first time in London on this trip!) so I headed for an ill fated latte at Café Nero. The coffee cup was filled to the brim and I didn't realise the table was wobbly.......glad I had a saucer! (or was it actually a moat for my cup?) I got to the tube station and got off at Earl's Court in hope for some lunch and an internet café to pass the time till the rain ended. I had planned to go to Wimbledon Tennis Museum but knew there was a good walk from the tube stop and I wasn't keen to get saturated. As the weather cleared I headed on the tube to Wimbledon however, with all thc tube delays, I missed the stadium tour which was disappointing but was still able to visit the newly renovated museum, which was fun and interactive. I was due to meet Joost at Liverpool St Station for drinks and dinner. Wimbledon was on the other side of town. I took a mixture of National rail and the tube to get there. Joost had booked us in to Vertigo42. This was an exclusive champagne bar on the 42nd floor of a building overlooking the Thames and the other central sites. Expensive bubbly and nibbles were the only things on the menu, and for an hour we were treated like royalty! After that we had dinner at a sushi bar, before the 1 hour tube ride home. |
  More day 38 photos |
 
More day 39 photos |
Oxford
sightseeing For my last day in London, I'd booked some train tickets to Oxford. The journey from Paddington took an hour. I walked into town and started by visiting "The Oxford tour" which interactively took me through the history of the university and colleges. I then proceeded to walk around the town looking at the old buildings. I only toured "Christ Church" college as they all charged to visit. After lunch I went up on of the church towers which had great views of the city. After some more wanderings, I took the 4pm train back to London and proceeded to Covent Garden where I met Tracey for our theatre night. We ate dinner at Pizza Express and then headed to the Cambridge Theatre for a performance of Chicago starring Ashlee Simpson as "Roxie". We had seats in the second row which meant we had a close up view (including seeing all the sweat flying) Not being one for the arts I wasn't expecting to get too excited, but I was disappointed when it ended. It was a very professional show with skimpy clothing all round. Even Ashlee managed to hold her own, probably because she wasn't staring in a reality show! |
Flying from
London to Kuala Lumpur Basically a day in the air. I walked with Tracey to the tube before getting on the tube to Heathrow Terminal 3. Check in, security and customs took an hour and a half without any great controversy. I picked up a coffee and food and went to the departure gate where we were bussed to the plane. I had a great seat one row in front of the emergency exit meaning I could rock me seat right back with no worries. The flight left 30 minutes late as we missed our takeoff slot. 12 hours later we arrived in KL. |
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 More day 41 photos |
Kuala
Lumpur sightseeing The day turned into more sleeping than touring.... On arrival I made it through immigration, fended off every taxi driver in KL and found my prebooked transfer driver. It was only 8am but it was already 25 degrees. The drive through the constant haze took 1 hour. The hotel was a lot nicer than I had expected and they let me check in at 9am which was great. I had a shower and went back down to the restaurant for a nice buffet breakfast. After breakfast I went to sleep as I hadn't slept in 22 hours. I woke up at 3pm, but went to sleep for another 1.5 hours as there was a tropical storm and I wasn't keen on getting wet. When I awoke I walked through the neighbourhood night markets (Bukit Bangtang) and then on to the Petronas Towers (the tall famous ones) The mall inside was huge and after a walk around returned to the hotel for a Malaysian buffet (yes my mouth was on fire by the end!) |
Flying from
Kuala Lumpur to Auckland Due to jet lag and my weird sleeping pattern, I spent half the night awake. After finally getting to sleep I woke up at 9:30am and went for breakfast. I checked out, leaving my bags at the hotel for some more mall time as that was the only place I could reasonably expect to keep cool enough until my 8:30pm flight. These malls were huge, 11 stories high and hundreds of metres long. After lunch I returned to the hotel where I was due to be picked up and taken to the airport. After some confusion as to the pick up point I enjoyed another hour in a car. I had a few hours to kill as the airport was fairly quiet and there were no checkin queues so I surfed the net using the free Internet they provide at the airport. The flight departed a few minutes late with general chaos as they boarded everyone at once. The flight itself was good and in no time at all we were almost there! |
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Arrive
Auckland We arrived on time at 11:40am and once my bags finally came out I made my way quickly to the taxi stand for a cold wet trip back to my apartment.... It was good to finally be home!! :) |
Other Diary Pages
Part 1 - London, Bath, York, Edinburgh, Loch Ness Part 2 - Rome, Pompeii, Venice, Munich, Vienna, Budapest Part 3 - Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brugge, Paris Part 4 - London, Greenwich, Southampton, Oxford, Kuala Lumpur |
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