London #1

Oh, good lord! As you may know, I ventured to the big old city of London not so long ago to sample the delights of the capital city that I had yet to explore to my hearts content. Despite the rather torrential rain we both had an amazing time so I thought I'd give you an overview of our little trip away! I'd just like to say a big big thank you to all you lovely people who gave me advice about where to go, what to see and what to do in London. It helped greatly and made the trip absolutely awesome! I suppose I should start with Day One....


Day One began with an early start and what is known as a 'Pizza Express' moment at the bus station....I won't go into details simply because it's vulgar but basically the boy is a nervous traveller! MEGA LOLZ! After a loooooong coach journey (for which I slept for most of) we arrived in Hammersmith eager to get our travelcards and get let loose on central London. We got a 7 day travelcard just to be safe which cost us around £27. This covers you for all bus journeys, tube journeys etc so it's rather worth purchasing from the tube stations! I'm a complete over-planner so I had a three day itinerary typed up with word for word instructions on what to do and when. However, on the first day this kinda went down the swanny because we met with the boy's brother and fiancé in High Street Kensington to spend the day with them. We wolfed down some Wagamama's - so fast that I accidentally forgot to take a photo (woops) so I've nicked one off the web! Yaki Soba is just that good - especially when it's not you paying! After a hearty lunch we waddled over to Harrods to stare at homeware we would never be able to afford and lust after designer gear. We had a few photos outside (just to be mega touristy) but they came out a tad too bright :/ 

After browsing the designer handbags and practically sending the boy to sleep we headed to Camden to chuck our bags down at the studio flat we were staying in. The boy's brother and fiancé kindly lent us their studio flat that they've just moved out of (: This was a relief because my arms were killing me - why are bags always so bloody heavy?! The studio flat was small but really lovely and modern. I hope the boy & I get something like it later this year! I was really excited to pop into Camden because I'd always heard so much about it - mainly because of Winehouse and her drunken antics but hey....It's a shame we didn't get to explore Camden Lock Market on a Sunday but the bits we did see I really liked! I could've totally bought quite a few quirky things whilst there! Alas, I'm unemployed and on a budget - boo! I'd really recommend popping into Camden for a little while just to have a quick browse (: It's such a fun place and really big on culture. The camera was playing up but I managed to take a few photos! 

By this point we'd managed to master the tubes although we did kind of miss our stop that morning thanks to a load of ignorant people that wouldn't let me off - bastards! The people at the next stop got my bags smashed into them in order to let me out. Take that city dwellers!! At the reccomendations of other bloggers we popped along to Covent Garden. It seemed really quaint but we didn't really get to see it in full swing because it was raining so everything was pulled inside. After a quick look around a couple of shops we headed to Leicester Square. I don't know if it's just us that thought this but the square looks a lot smaller than it does on television :/ I imagined it'd be a lot bigger / more of a deal than it actually was! I took some snaps then we headed off to meet the boy's brother in Chinatown to catch something to eat. There's sooooo many Chinese restaurants! How the bloody hell are you meant to pick?! Even Google reviews didn't help us so we just picked the nearest one and quickly found a table. Our tummies were rumbling so we decided to pick the set menu. Oh, what fools! Our eyes were probably bigger than our stomachs. We started off with h'ordeuvres then moved onto Crispy Duck pancakes. At this point, the boy's brother's Brazillian fiancé went 'Are we having Dessert?!' Haha. Her face dropped when we told her we still had Satay Chicken, Singapore Noodles, Crispy Chilli Beef, Stir Fry Vegetables, Prawns, Honeyed Pork & Duck and Special Fried Rice to go!! I have never experienced a food baby so large! I looked/felt/walked like I was six months preggers. 

At the end of the first day it was already pretty clear that I had fallen in love with London and the majority of what it had to offer! I was also absolutely bloody knackered! With the thought of an 8am alarm we headed to bed and talked about all the things we still had to look forward to. We awoke to torrential rain so after a quick look at our itinerary we decided to edit our plans and head to South Kensington a day early. Oh sweet lord, what I wouldn't give to have a house in South Kensington! Absolutely gorgeous. We decided to explore the Natural History Museum in an attempt to hide from the rain and immerse ourselves in facts. I learnt some very interesting things about the mating rituals of animals, how so many crystals look like penises and the activites of the dung beetle. What a lovely couple of hours! After a few hours our tummies began to talk to one another (they do that a lot for some reason?!) so we decided to head over to Westminster in search of food. We stayed at a hotel near County Hall in Westminster which only cost us £69 for the night so that wasn't bad! It also made a really good base. Westminster seemed so smart and conservative - a far cry from the cultural diversity that we'd seen in Camden just a day beforehand! We snapped a few photos of Big Ben and the London Eye then took refuge in the poshest looking Maccy D's I've ever seen! 

 

After warming ourselves up in our hotel room we headed out to Oxford Circus to embrace the crazy shoppers and do a bit of wishful thinking. After regressing back to childhood through the medium of Hamley's we explored Carnaby Street and Fouberts Place. I adore little cobbled streets so I quickly came to really like the area. Of course, I just HAD to go to Lazy Oaf! After years of stalking the website it felt really exciting to finally walk through the door and gaze at everything they had on offer (: After much deliberation I decided to purchase the Geo Heart necklace. I'll probably blog it soon! Chuffed with our purchases and once again hungry we decided to go back to our hotel to eat dinner in the pub. Cheap and cheerful was very much the aim of the game! Furthermore, by this point we were walking as if we had shit ourselves because our feet were absolutely killing us. You have no idea just how happy we were to discover we had a bath in our ensuite! Dinner was really lovely though  especially the Caramel Apple Crumble and Profiteroles. We talked to each other about all the things we wanted to see together and decided that we'd love to go to so many similar places. We've decided that we're gunna try and head to Paris next year! I already cannot wait. The evening ended with a bath, a well deserved cuppa and a nice bit of telly. 

It became pretty clear to us that even after just two days we had fallen in love with the city. I would honestly love to go back right this second instead of returning to normality. Oh well, I spose if I lived there I'd only take it for granted. I'll be back soon with part two. I hope you've enjoyed this post! The second part has much better photos because I managed to sort my camera out! Haha. Thanks for reading. I hope you're all well (: