Whakapapa

The reason for this trip are two fold; to visit one of our son's in London and to see where our surnames came from.
She who can not be named has some of her whakapapa in Scotland, around Sterling Castle and around Bath. For me it is Happisburgh (Norfolk), Scotland and Sweden. Needless to say the kids refer to it as the "Grave site tour".

So begins the tales of woe and travel.

We left Wellington on Tuesday September 11th. Flew to Singapore via Melbourne. Stayed in a transit hotel at Changi before flying to London the following morning. Changi is impressive as was the hot showers in the hotel and 7 hours of sleep.

Arrived at Evan (who is our tour guide for a few days) late on Wednesday night. Isn't Urber wonderful...very painless as they have your credit card.

LONDON

So lets start with Evan's Tours.... wonderful, well, yes, organised, well, perhaps, entertaining and full on, definitely, YES.
So on day 1 of Evan's magical mystery tour we were introduced to rail and tube travel London style, I don't think acting like a troglodyte and packed in as sardines is much fun...but overall an interesting experience....being upclose and personal with sway of Londoners...is a unique experience.
First stop was at Oxford Circus . From here we visited Liberty..Regent Street. The Tudor style building began life in the 19th century as an outlet for th Arts and Crafts movement..today this shop sells young designer clothes at astronomical prices....they were selling Levis 501's, ripped etc for 180 pounds (NZ$360), I have two pairs exactly like those back in NZ (I use them for mowing lawns etc as she who can not be named won't let me wear them publicly. From here it was off to Carnaby street, Regent Street....finally arriving at Selfridge's. This was a must see stop, having watched the TV show of the same name.

Here we are just 50 years too late.
Next on the magical mystery tour was Hamleys toy store-to visit Harry Potter and Star Wars, Evan loved it.

She who must be named meets one Rubeus Hagrid!!!!

We finally arrived at the Wallace Collection; a museum containing the collection of the 4th Marquess of Hertford...it was full of paintings from the different schools of the time like the Dutch school etc. It contained paintings from Rembrandt and Poussin (you will have to google these). It also contained a vast collection of furniture and objects d'art. The museum has a vast array of eastern (mainly Indian) and European weaponry and armour. Interesting, kept us busy while our guide went to to his hair appointment.

Following his return we hit the subway again and headed to the Natural History museum. Visited the dinosaur, human biology and earth science wings. All very well presented.

By now I was all museum out, plus very tired. So subway and trained back to Clapham Junction for a wee bit of grocery shopping, after all we had offered to cook, the menu, yes guessed it Mexican lasagna.
I believe in total we walked 15 km's today.
Only one word for it BUGGARed.

Finally to finish, let me introduce our guide, Mr Ooh, La la (aka Evan).

A  great introduction to London, enjoyed the day