London - Day 1
We arrive after about 23 hours of travel. 8 hours to Singapore, 2 minute change-over, 13 hours to London. Not at lot of legroom, the flight is endless, but we survive.
Our old friend, Andrew kindly picks us up from Heathrow with his wife Ewa and we head to our Shoreditch hotel. We check-in and drop our bags and head for some food.
We meander towards Spitalfields markets (via Salesforce/Dark Tower) and now we have some choices! Of course Jeff falls for the burrito option, and Courtney gets sucked in as well. At least the coffees were good!
Onwards up Brick Lane, where we are getting some strong Newtown vibes; Graffiti, vintage shops, record stores (with what looks like bootleg vinyl of Arctic Monkeys and Lana Del Rey?)
We shuffle across a couple of streets through what looks a bit like social housing, hence the up-and-coming badge Shoreditch wears. We find the Sunday Spitalfields Flower Market.
But first, the pub on the corner is offering a wide selection of Brew Dog beers to go. The sun is out, its a gorgeous day, everyone in good spirits and we need a pick-me-up to keep us going. A refreshing session IPA does the trick.
The flower markets are going off. And it's great to see people actually buying plants and flowers, and not just looking at them. The setup is down one long street with the stalls on one side, and cute shops on the other.
We loop back towards our accommodation and say goodbye to Andrew and Ewa and head in for a shower. The cheap and cheerful easyHotel comes with a not very easy shower, but it does the job.
We can't stay in the room otherwise we'll fall asleep so we figure we better get out there and tick some boxes.
We take the tube from Barbican to Embankment and head down the Thames to Big Ben for the obligatory photos. There are too many tourists here for our current state of mind so we decide to start walking back into town.
We head up through Trafalgar Square and then Piccadilly Circus before agreeing that we need some more sustenance to not succum to jet-lag. And by sustenance I mean beer. How about a beer at the oldest pub in London? The Olde Cheshire Cheese? Sure!
We wander down Chancery Lane (a prominent feature of Dickens' Bleak House which Jeff has sheepishly DNFd) and duck our heads into this rickety old pub. There are some hand-pumped cask ale Sam Smith options on tap and a dangerous looking set of stairs down to the cellar. A good combination, we think. Down we go.
Two pints later and world is starting to look a little hazy, but we must push on. Jeff is keen to see some of the West End tonight, if we can. We get the tube to Covent Garden and take the 192 stairs (much against the announcer's advice) and wander around. Trying to figure out what to eat is tough going. We sit down and look at a ramen menu but its all becoming too much for our poor brains.
How about Pret-a-Manger to go.. to bed..
