Paris London - Day 5

Date :04.12.2009

Day : Friday

Activities : Unplanned..:D

Considering it was our last day in London, we (as in Mom and Dad) decided to take a tour just around our apartment. And it so happens that it was near to Hyde Park. After a very early breakfast and our clothes were fully packed, we made our way to the infamous Hyde Park. Strolling along the paths made me miss the days when you just don't have a care in the world..No worrying about the dogs or the 'leftover' the dogs might have left, no worrying about homework or school..just plain normal life walking about..the weather was exceptionally nice that morning..A cool breeze, the not-so-shining-hot sun that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside..hhmm..

In the midst of it, we came to a pond, and surprisingly a raft of ducks were just paddling through the waters nearby. Mom, being Mom, wanted a closer look and asked me to go over the fence to stand at the dock to take a picture. And the end result are shown below. haha.

Actually, there was a dog that went past me before this picture was taken. The Horror!

The ducks and I.Quack, quack..*The look of fear on my face is due to my impulse imagination that one of the ducks would fly right into my face and bite my nose*

Not really sure if my Mom wanted to capture the scene behind or the swimming guy.*Note : NO DIVING does not mean NO SWIMMING. :D

On the opposite of the lake/pond, was the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain. As told by my Mom, this fountain is normally open to the public where they can dip their feet or even swim (for little kiddies) in the fountain.Just for the fun of it, I'll put in a picture of it when it was open.

Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain.

That's my Mom dipping her feet in the fountain back when she visited the place.

Walked ahead a little bit to spot The Eye of London nearby. Took time to find the right light for this picture considering the sun was still halfway up. Jeez, even the sun decided that it was too early to wake up yet.

The Eye of London from afar

The Eye of London from up-close.

So, the story goes that, I'm suppose to take pictures with 'magical' characters to show to my little nieces, and apparently the snowman and his kid seems to be 'magical'. Maybe it's because it's not snowing, and yet there's a snowman.which makes it...magical?

The abominable snowman and moi.

After exploring the park (which was surprisingly calm and quiet with just a few people walking their dogs and jogging) we made our way to Edgeware Road to find a bus stop. Like the top of the post said..today's plan was unplanned. Instead of finding the bus, we decided to just walk all the way from Edgeware to Marble Arch. Since it was a looong way back to the hotel we ended up late checking out of the hotel. And as usual, Dad being, well, Dad, he was like "Abislaa dah lambat dah ni.cepat3X.Nanti die soh bayar plak.tula tadi xnak naik bus, skrg dah lambat, pastu kelam kabut.." -___-'

Fortunately for us, the hotel didn't have any problems with us checking out late. They just said 'ok'.But there were problems getting our bags out of the teenie tiny hallway in the hotel. since it was still 12pm at the time, and our train leaves at 3pm, mom wanted to go souvenir shopping. But someone had to stay with the bags in the hotel. I almost had a 3 second heart attack knowing that I was going to be left out in the hotel, but Dad voluntarily said he would wait in the hotel with the bags, because he was still tired from all the walking.

We walked around the area of the hotel for souvenir shopping, while dad waited at the hotel with our bags. We bought magnets, keychains, food (kebab) and mom bought me ankle boots! Then we walked to Whiteleys where mom bought some scarves at Tie Rack. After browsing through the shop, and paid for the items, we went back to the hotel. We weren't surprised to find that dad was fast asleep on the hotel couch after our long absence.We immediately called for a cab (or a Black Top) to get us to the train station. We waited at the St. Pancras station until it was time to check in. Mom bought some hot chocolate and cappucino to raise our body temperatures and we sat there while we ate our kebab.

Still had time for a lil' picture!

We checked in the train around 3.00pm and waited for a few minutes for the other passengers to board. Departed from St.Pancras at 3.30pm. There's a possibility I slept throughout the journey, hence, I have nothing to say here ;)

We arrived at Paris Nord at 6.40pm which was already dark outside, as if it was 10pm. As we made our way to Cergy Le Haute, mom lost her phone signal and couldn't call Uncle Osman to help pick us up at the station. The great part was, my phone was out of battery and dad's phone was.......nevermind. Greatttttt..really helpful....

Finally, mom decided to just buy the tickets, get to whatever station sounds familiar and pray that her signal comes back on. On the train, I switched my sim card to my mom's phone and sent out a message to Uncle Osman, asking him if he could pick us up.

With much hope, we sat in the train hoping really really hard that UNcle Osman got the message. When we arrived at the station and waited outside, we saw Izan (my choldhood friend) in the car waiting for us at the taxi stand. Phew!

We went to Uncle OSman's house. Chatted for awhile, drank, ate, and shtuff. Finally we went to bed as it was already late. Slept in the guest house outside..ZZZzzzzzzzzzzz