WEEK 12 - LONDON - wednesday 14 july - saturday 16 july 2010

today we left holland. henk and marina took us to the train station at 6am, where we caught the train to schiphol, then brussels, went through customs easy as pie, chilled out for an hour in the nice cafe, the caught the eurostar to london. we arrived at 12.30, then caught the tube to josephs friends alex and hirikos house in wimbledon. its a really nice area. we caught up with hiriko, then went and met jo currie at the mall for a coffee and to watch eclipse. oh my gosh, it was so good to see someone from home, and to drink a flat white for the first time in 3 months [the cafe Sacred is run by kiwis], and go to the movies. we headed home and hung out with alex which was cool, since we havent seen him since we went to japan last year.

on thursday we went with hiriko and their baby karika to the mall where we went with jo [westfields london] and spent the day there looking around. its so huge! we enjoyed nice coffees, pretzels, lunch and window shopping, and they had great mothers rooms for hiriko to feed karika, which was really nice]. she is such a good baby, and charmed all the commuters on the commute home on the tube.

friday today, and we spent the day sorting out our trip to new york and trying to find accommodation, which is proving tough, but we managed to find something apparently half decent in the city for $800 for 5 nights, so we’ll see how it goes. ive got a splitting headache, so im feeling rather anti-social today :(

saturday today, and with headache almost gone, we are off on a family outing to the portobello markets. goodness me they are crowded! its like christmas in downtown auckland but worse! 

we inched down the street, then gave up trying to navigate the stroller through the crowds, and went to mini china town and had shanghai food for lunch, yum yum, wonton soup and satay beef [which had chillis in it - whaaaaaaaaaat!?!]
we spent the afternoon strolling through hyde park and enjoying the sunshine and the gorgeous scenery.

and stopped to take a few quick family snaps :)



we cruised home and had a snooze [still trying to shake the evil headache], then headed out to cam and michelles farewell drinks, our kiwi friends who are heading back home after living here for a while. [and i get to shoot their wedding in january, exciting!] :)