Day 16: Buckingham Palace, Harrods and more...

March 12th, Friday.

This is our "first" day back in London and we are greeted with weather forecasts that says gloomy and wet.

We were given complimentary usage of the Regency Club again which is really great, and truly a blessing. Helps us save a lot on money too but most importantly, we didn't had to rush out in the morning to get food or purposely buy breakfast the night before.

But this morning we decided that the kids should eat something else than the cereals and ham from the Club. We warmed up the rice and yummy minced pork from last nite's over the boiling kettle.

The night before hubby picked up a door sign for us to indicate if we wanted any special breakfast (to pay) or complimentary coffee and tea. If complimentary, why not? So I happily filled up the door sign to request for complimentary english tea and herbal tea (hubs'choice) to be served in our room before 8am. I think that's a safe time when the kids would still be asleep and hubby and I can have a nice breakfast in the lounge.... just the two of us.

But alas, our little William decided to wake early too and he happily explored the breakfast tray, which came with NOT my engligh tea, but coffee instead, and hubs' herbal tea, with honey and lime and if I remember correctly, 6 lovely butter cookies. William took most of the cookies and left his mark on the rest of them. (I must say these are the yummiest shortbread cookies that I've ever tasted!)

As it was nearing 9am, we woke Vic up, got her to clean up and the two kids to eat some of the rice and minced pork before we headed downstairs to the 8th floor. Yesterday when we checked in, William already made "friends" with the receptionists there, and they now call him by his name when they see him. What a charmer!

Today's plan is to visit the Queen at Buckingham Palace... haha. We plan to walk from St James' Park to Buckingham Palace. We hop off the tube at St James' station. The park is dull and hardly the way I remembered first falling in love with it. I guess this is pretty normal since it's not spring yet. We see greenery, dried branches and empty trees. We see some pigeons and further down along the river, there were naturally ducks and swans. We didn't stay long because it started to drizzle and we were walking with our umbrellas.

We reached Buckingham Palace to snap some pictures, again as "proof" that the kids have been there. Then we headed towards Harrods to find food near the area. On the way, Vic wanted to pee near the Wellington arch, and the nearest public toilet was at Hyde Park. From the map, it didn't look that far. But as we walked through Hyde Park, there were no signs of a public toilet at all. We got deeper into Hyde Park before checking with some workers there who directed us to another direction. I was so close to putting Vic on a diaper but then we would still need to find a bush to hide behind. Here in England, better not risk baring naked otherwise we can get fined!

Finally found the loo, and I snap some dull pictures of Hyde Park as well. William fell asleep here.

We continued our journey and found lunch at Knightsbridge, pretty pricey for each non-vegetarian main cost is priced at 10.50pounds. I ordered BBQ chicken breast with mashed potato for Vic and myself to share, and hubby ordered beef lasagne to share with William. The boy woke up without any appetite for lunch at all. Vic did her "business" again at the restaurant before we leave.

Shortly after we got out from the restaurant, we were hit by strong winds and took shelter in a hotel side entrance to dress the kids up more warmly. When we stepped out, it was raining cats and dogs!! Hubby quickly flagged down a cab which took us the short distance to Harrods.

Spent a couple of hours in Harrods and did not come out with any Harrods bag : ) That's an achievement! Love the food halls and the pet kingdom. I thought the apparels for the kids are so-so, pretty much the highstreet boutique stuff, but the kids were totally amazed by the luxuries for the pets. William protested when we wanted to move on.

In Harrods we checked if they sold soda bread or yeast-free products for people with allergies. Apparently they stopped. Well, guess they are big but not that caring.

Anyway, I was getting bored being indoors. We went out again, and the weather has settled although still no sunshine.

Next stop was Chinatown.

Wanted to do the same arrangement again, of taking home the kids' dinner whilst hubby and I take turns to enjoy the delicacies at Regency Club. We got a little fickle minded choosing which restaurant to pick and finally decided to take away roast duck rice and stirfry siew pak choy for the kids.

Dinner was as planned. I fed the kids in the room first whilst hubby have his meal downstairs. When it was my turn, I had smoked salmon, tortilla chips with salsa, bacon with goat cheese and 2 glasses of champagne ; )

After dinner we decided to walk out to the local Sainsbury to buy Vic's yeast-free Irish brown soda bread and potato farls just in case they don't have stock tomorrow. We are flying tomorrow night and plan to bring some of these bread back and didn't want to risk being disappointed.

It was a nice night walk out and took us less than 30minutes, in which on the way back the sky started to rain again. Hubs carried William and ran back to the hotel, while I pushed the stroller with Vic. She was laughing away as she thought it was such fun!

Tonight is our last night at the hotel. When we got back, we discovered that the housekeeping was in our room, and the superviser dropped by too to check. This was because during dinner, we wanted to ask for tea cups with saucer to use the saucer as dinner plates, but the housekeeping brought tea mugs without the saucer instead, and then gave us another set of kettle and tea/coffee tray (miscomm!)

Anyway, it was a nice surprise to find that they not only vacuumed the room, cleaned up the bathroom and replaced the used towels, they even folded our clothes lying on the sofa and helped tidy our office table. Wow, maybe they think we are such messy people!

Hubby did what he does best... packing up with the help of a gorgeous little girl, whilst I put William to sleep.

Good night London... tomorrow night we bid farewell.