London Second Visit
Sightseeing
Friday, February 1, 2008
The Tower Bridge from the river.
David S. and Mary drove us to London to have lunch with Rona and Keith, good
friends of theirs, and now I am happy to say, good friends of mine too. After
lunch, David S. and Mary dropped us off at Paul and Wendy's home in
Westminster, where we will stay until Monday when our flight leaves for Japan.
It was so great to see Wendy and Paul again, but it was
also sad to say goodbye to Mary and David S., who have been such great hosts
to us and fantastic travel friends. See you both in March when we will
safari with you in South Africa.
Paul and Wendy are hardworking doctors. Julia and I
cannot thank them enough for going to the trouble of making us all a
delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner after they had both put in
a full workday. Thank you, Wendy and Paul!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Lenka and Sacha.
Wendy and Paul left for a family get-together in Devon
this morning, leaving their lovely home in Westminster to us.
Julia and I got up early, posted mail, sent back my busted PC to the States,
and obtained Japanese money for our Japan trip. It was not easy getting the
Yen, as we had to find an American Express office in London while we were
standing on Oxford Street in downtown London.
Julia and Charles.
So we called the Mary 24-hour hotline information
service. As always, Mary looked after us and found the nearest American
Express office on her computer and then called us back. Thanks, Me-Moz!
Sacha in the playground.
After all of these mundane tasks, we headed for Hackney, which is where Lenka, Sacha,
and Charles, Julia's brother, live. We stayed with them in December when we
first arrived in London.
It was great to see them all again, and Lenka and Charles
made us a terrific lunch. Then Sacha got up from his nap, and we took him to
the playground, where he climbed, jumped, and slid down everything.
It was really cold again in London, so we soon headed
back to Charley's place and the warmth. Lenka bought Charley the complete set
of Laurel and Hardy DVDs, so we watched a couple of their better films.
From Julia: It was so great to see my gorgeous and cute
nephew Sacha. I felt very sad to say goodbye to everyone over the last
couple of days, but very happy to be heading off to Japan to meet Lawrie and
Andy.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Julia at Greenwich Observatory.
We went to see the Royal Observatory today. This is where
the zero meridian is located, and so you can have one foot east of the zero
meridian and one foot west of it at the same time. I am not sure what this
really does for you, but it seems cool. To get there, we took a Thames ferry,
so we also got to see the views of London from the river. It was a nice
sunny day (although extremely cold), so the view was particularly good today.
The Belfast.
My Dad served in the Royal Navy during the Korean War on
a ship called the Belfast. The Belfast had a distinguished career during the
Second World War and Korean War and has been moored in the Thames since 1971. It is open to the public. I
visited it on one of my earlier visits to London. My Dad had an operation
performed on him in the infirmary on the Belfast; you can see the operating
theatre on the tour.
Westminster Video
Greenwich Video
Japan Plan Video