London – Day 4 – Food, Shops and Museums
Breakfast
With the race done and dusted, it was time to enjoy our trip to London. Saturday started with the big breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant. And I mean big. Mine went something like this.
- Orange and Cranberry Juice
- Large Bowl of Granola with a pot of Yoghurt
- Cappuccino
- Fry up – 3 rashers of bacon, 3 hash browns, 3 sausages, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and a mountain of scrambled egg with brown sauce
- More orange and cranberry juice
- Another Cappuccino
- 2 croissants and a couple of choc-chip muffins
- A 3rd Cappuccino
- Another large bowl of granola topped with banana, pumpkin seeds and a vanilla yoghurt
- Two pieces of toast with butter and jam
- A 4th Cappuccino
- Another Croissant – warmed this time with butter and jam on it
- 6 more choc-chip muffins
I’m sure there was something else as well but I can’t quite remember what. We did manage to smuggle a few bits and pieces out for out lunch as well in the form of croissants, choc-chip muffins and yoghurts, although we should have made some sausage sandwiches and taken them with us as well.
Shopping
We then jumped on the tube and headed to Oxford Circus so that we could go to Hamley’s toy store for Morgan. We passed the Apple Store on Regent’s Street on the way there so popped in to drool over the iMacs, MacBook Airs and iPads.
It was then onto Hamley’s which was really nice. A proper toy shop just like in the movies, I can only imagine how nice it must be at Xmas. Morgan was like a ‘kid in a toy shop’ really! Not quite knowing what to spend his money on. We talked him out of buying anything too big though as the prices were a little steep and he could of course get much better deals online. There were people acting like kids demonstrating various toys all over the store, but we did feel as though they were trying to con you really. Most of them were showing off magic tricks and gadgets. Clearly they were experts at these things and made them look easy, but were trying to make out that by buying a magic set or a flying saucer that you too would be able to do this and amaze your friends. The tricks, the flying saucer and even the gliders all looked really impressive when demonstrated by them, but Anna and I knew full well that this wouldn’t be the case if we bought them and tried them out. All of these tricks and gadgets required slight of hand that only comes from skill, dexterity and years of practise. Simply buying a magic set with the necessary items in it wouldn’t suddenly turn you into a master magician. Unfortunately the people demonstrating these tricks were trying to sell the items but were making out that you too could become as good as they were at them just by buying the sets. That obviously wasn’t the case.
Hamleys
It was still nice to wander around and see them demonstrating them though and we did spend most of the time simply wondering how half of it was done. It was a bit like being in a fantasy world for a while. Morgan bought a couple of gliding planes that were being demonstrated with amazing precision. We have since tried them out without quite so much precision, but they do at least fly well!
London Landmarks
We then walked back up Regent Street and onto Oxford Street towards Marble Arch, passing plenty of shops including Selfridges & Co. We had a little look at Marble Arch and then crossed the road back into Hyde Park where we walked along to the Italian Garden and stopped for a picnic lunch. The Open Age-Group races were taking place today so we saw plenty of people cycling up and down North Carriage Drive on our way there.
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- Fountains
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- Horse Head
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- Italian Gardens
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- Italian Gardens
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- Italian Gardens
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- Marble Arch
We then wandered through Hyde Park and onto the Serpentine Gallery where there was a strange sculpture to admire and climb on.
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- Serpentine Gallery Sculpture
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- Serpentine Gallery
Museums
We then headed back down Exhibition Road and into the Natural History Museum. Now, this was somewhere that Anna and I had been before. We obviously only scratched the surface as far as visiting all of the exhibits was concerned and unfortunately the dinosuar exhibit was closed, but we still enjoyed wandering around, as did Morgan. Judging by this sign though some of the technology behind their exhibits may well come from the historical technologies exhibits in the Science Museum next door!
Modern Technology
We checked out the Earth Sciences exhibit and wandered through various displays on ecology and the environment. We took a look at the birds, the mammals and of course the huge Blue Whale. It doesn’t matter how many times you see it, being up close to a full size model of a creature this big is always awe-inspiring.
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- Blue Whale
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- Cetaceans
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- Cocoon
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- Ground Sloth
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- Morgan with Darwin
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- Natural History Museum
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- Natural History Museum
We also went into the Cocoon and took a look at some of the displays and hands on exhibits there. We then went outside and wandered around the nature garden too where they had various UK habitats, and some beehives as well.
It was so much nicer than the Science Museum next door, but we had promised we would take Morgan back to the Launchpad there as we had dragged him away early yesterday as I wasn’t feeling too well. We therefore headed back to the Science Museum and straight up to the top floor to the Launchpad.
Well, if we thought it was crowded, noisy and a complete nightmare yesterday, today was a hundred times worse. The entire place was jam-packed with shouting screaming kids, getting a go on any of the exhibits was impossible without pushing and shoving to do so and even then there was no way you could actually do what you were supposed to do as other kids would barge in and ruin the experiments. Even Morgan hated it I think. The exhibits there could be really good but with so many people there and with other children (and their parents) having no manners at all it’s impossible to use them in the way they are designed. We did manage to fight our way in and do a couple of them but for the most part it was a futile endeavor.
Morgan is quite into the actual science of it all and how things work, but the other children there were just running riot yanking at levers, pressing buttons and throwing things all over the place without any interest of what they were actually doing. Most of them didn’t even look at the consequences of the lever they pulled or the button they pressed, they just pressed, pulled, yanked and then ran away pointlessly creating havoc whilst Morgan and probably a few others tried to make sense of it all.
Needless to say we didn’t stay too long before walking back to the hotel and heading out for Dinner.
Tower Burger
After the debacle of dinner last night we decided to give the hotel restaurant a miss and headed to another Garfunkel’s. We’d had a nice dinner in the one near Trafalgar Square a couple of days ago so though we’d try again. Unfortunately as it was Saturday there were no vouchers available for any restaurants tonight so we would have to pay full price.
I had a ‘Tower Burger’ and have to say I was impressed. Not only was it huge, but it was even bigger than it had looked in the menu. Two massive beef-burgers, with salad, bacon and cheese in a massive burger bun served with chips and coleslaw. Mmm Mmm. Anna had a pizza which I helped her finish off and Morgan once again had pizza meaning that he was still on track to have a pizza everyday whilst in London. We all had puddings too, with some lovely waffles with ice-cream for me. Some how, I think that was enough calories for one day!
