Day 3: Bath

This morning, we boarded the train out of Pandington Station in London, enroute to Bath for a 3 night stay. Bath is an ancient city where there are Roman ruins. The place came highly recommended from Suzanne’s coworkers.

The Padington station was huge and crowded. While lining (or queued up as the Brits would say) up to ask for boarding information, I encountered some rude and aggressive travelers who had some pretty nasty words for this Italian couple who was holding up the line. Suzanne grabbed some coffee and breakfast pastry while waiting for me. The apple-filled pastry she got was incredibly delicious, by the way. We’ll have to get some on the way back.

The train ride was pretty smooth and lasted about 90 minutes. It was neat to watch the country side rolling past us from the windows. With distinctly-English town names like Dorset, Sommerset, and Wiltshire, I started to conjure up movie images of 19th century Jane-Austen era. Austen did spent 6 years living at Bath.

We got of the train and decided to walk to our The Holiday Inn Express. We lugged the luggages across the Avon river. The hotel was a bit further than the lady from the tourist office at the train station lead me to believe. I was sweating under the warm morning sun by the time. I remined Suzanne how we over-packed and we both laughed at how amateurish we were as travelers. I remembered how Vince, who travels extensively, told me how packing light is an art. No doubt from me that it is.

After a quick afternoon nap, we took a 20 minutes stroll to the town center of Bath. Most of the buildings in the town center are pretty old. Their exterior are unpainted and the entire town seemed to be of the same earth tone that come from the building materials of stones or bricks. Very neat and pretty.

The original abbey was built in the 8th century, and the current one was rebuilt in the 1499. It was a large and was impressive with its imposing height and decorated exteriors. I was simply in awe. We missed the last guided tour of the day so we didn’t go inside. We grabbed a quick drink and strolled around the place. We were happily snapping pictures.

This trip reminded me how I haven’t been using my camera this past year as I had in the past. It was the combination of the new job at Netflix and the new house that I found little time for snapping pictures. It took a few days to get comfortable with my camera again. It wasn’t so much that I was bumbling with my camera, it just took awhile to get away from shooting the touristy shots. It’s odd. Good opportunity to dust off the cobwebs I guess.

But I diverge… We had dinner reservation at Sally Lunn’s House. We got lost looking for the place. A local gentleman came to our assistance. A friendly chap as the Brits would say. We did exchange emails, we both laughed when we heard each other’s last name: Wooley & Lam. Thank you Terry Wooley for your help.

The restaurant was founded by a French lady some 300 years ago. The place billed itself as the oldest house in Bath, completed in 1482. It was decorated with many of interesting old items: a cupboard where Sally’s secret recipes were stashed and map showing Sally’s escape from France to England. In fact, upstair was a museum. She’s famous for her Sally Lunn’s Buns, which were well-known through out Bath in her time. She used them as “trenchers” which, before the wide use of plates, were bread that doubled as plates. People eat them as part of the meal. We had some liver pate’ on Sally’s Buns– yum! Our lamb shank and beef medallions came on the yummy buns as well.

With our tummies stuffed, we headed to the Huntsman Pub to meet up with others for a “comedy walk” called Bizarre Bath. Right off the bat, the comedian cautioned that we should expect no history nor useful information about Bath from the 90-minute walk. The guy was good, very funny and improvising. The group was about 50 people large, and at 8 pounds per, this guys is doing well I thought. He called me up to the front at one point and want the group to give me the cold stares that he taught us to do to tagging strangers. He made a joke about how I look like a floating head because I was blend in the walls with my beige top & short, which is funny because I made the same comment to Suzanne earlier in the day!

So as I was receiving the disapproving stares from 50+ pairs of eyes, Suzanne came to the rescue and shouted to the group “Hey, lay off people. That’s my husband!” To which the guy responded “she’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” “Yes, she is…” I said loud and proud.

Day 2: Victoria & Albert Museum, London Bike Tour

After a light breakfast, we started the morning with the visit to Victoria & Albert Museum. The collections in this museum were enormous and extremely impressive. We snapped a lot of shots of the items. Highlights included a large collection of Asian arts, color stained glasses, paintings by Raphael, busts and statues etc… There was also a Grace Kelly fashion display– I didn’t appreciate it but Suzanne enjoyed it. I thought the Horace Walpole collection was very good. The items this guy collected over his lifetime were impressive.

We grabbed sandwiches and had our lunch in the courtyard while waded our feet in the large shallow pool, watching little kids having fun with the water. We head back inside for another hour.

After about 4 hours of museum time, we walked to the Kensington Gardens. The park was big, with big tall trees. The afternoon was a tad humid, so the placet was a nice way to enjoy the breezy afternoon. We took a quick nap on a park bench and then stopped by Lady Diana Memorial Children’s Playground for ice cream before exiting the park. One thing we noticed is that the Brits seem to really enjoy hanging out in their parks– more than in the States, it seems to me.

We met up with Matt from Fat Tire Bike Tour at Queensway station for the afternoon bike tour of London. Matt took us through Hyde Park and St. James Park. It was a fun alternative to the typical double-decker bus tour of the touristy sights. We saw the Kensington Palace (Lady Diana’s residence), Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Trafalgar square.

The biking and all the walking totally exhausted us as we headed to dinner. We stopped by a local Thai place we stumbled upon on a whim. The place had the worst Thai dishes I ever had. They don’t even taste like Thai food. The best thing from the meal for me was Coke– refreshing after a long day. What a forgettable meal.

Another long walk as we meandered through the small streets and we made back to the Kensington Hotel utterly exhausted. But instead of passing out, Suzanne & I found ourselves up at 1 AM writing and packing for our next stop: Bath. We’re still jet lagged still I suppose.

2 airline meals, countless drinks and 10 hours later, Suzanne & I landed in Heathrow. It was 8AM London time (midnight Californian time), the next day. The 10 hour “red-eye” flight would hardly been tolerable had it not been for season 1 of Big Bang Theory. At least it was a direct flight.

We hailed one of those ubiquitous black taxi cabs and made it to the Kensington Hotel through the gnarly morning London traffic. First impression: construction everywhere. Apparently, London is on an expanding and/or modernization.

After checking in, we took a 20 minutes walk to The Natural History Museum. There were buses unloading school kids in cute uniforms. There was a long line (or queue as the Brits would say) of people waiting to enter. We were immediately struck by the architecture of the museum. The museum was a lot bigger than we both imagined. The walls were a layered of gray/blue and yellow bricks or stones. The reaching spires were imposing.

Every inch of the exterior was elaborately adorned. The details simply overwhelm you. My two favorite features were the entrance with its complex arches and columns and the numerous ferocious gargoyles perched on top looking down at you– leaving no doubt in your mind that they are ready to defend the treasures in the museums!

I entered the museum I was immediately stopped cold by this massive dinosaur skeleton in the middle of the museum, greeting you. This thing was huge and long. We saw all sorts of stuffs while dodging excited school kids. The collection of skeletons were amazing. Too bad, we didn’t get to see all of the impressive dinosaur collections. We also saw a complete fossil of a pliosaurus, one of those swimming dinosaur. It was huge.

At one end of museum, atop a massive flight of stairs, sit a life-sized white marble statue of the most famous of British sons: Charles Darwin. There was a display of Darwin’s stuffs but we didn’t make way to see it. We also saw an impressive collection of stuffed birds. There was a display of hundreds of types of humming birds. And I saw 2 stuffed dodo birds! Never seen those in “real life.” That was anoher highlight for me.

There was also a massive collection of minerals and gemstones but that section didn’t seem to attract a lot of people especially kids. We headed back to the hotel after spending 3 hours in the museum, overwhelmed but totally exhausted. All these treasures and the museum charges no entry fee! Sweet…

After a nap, we walked toward Earl’s Court, checking out the local restaurants that lined the street. The place was pretty happening. The Greek restaurant I targeted proved too far for tired legs, so we sneaked into a place called Nandos Chickenland– mixing with the locals and other tourists. The people next table to us sounded like Italians. After a light dinner of marinated olives, roasted chicken and Brazilian beer, we headed back to the hotel to turn in early.

Day 2 will be a busy day, capping with an afternoon bike tour of London which is something I’m looking forward to.

This year, Suzanne and I decided to take a trip to England and France as a way to celebrate our 10th year anniversary. I decided to blog a bit of our experiences as we travel. Since I will only blog as time permits and the fact that internet access might be limited in the country side, the blog posts will not be regular nor up to date. Also, please pardon the typos and grammar errors as these will be quick and raw posts.

Snapshots of our trip will also be updated on the gallery widget on top right of this blog but they’re better viewed on my flickr. Again, they’ll quick post processed and probably not be regular.

Let’s start with how the trip begins with a little unexpected drama.

The day started out with me coming within inches stepping on a snake that found its way into our backyard. With a box in one hand and a stick in the other, I did my best imitating Steve Irwin. Katelyn & Allison cheered their old dad on like a hero. After a few attempts and many involuntary girlish screams, I got him trapped in a box. There wasn’t time for me to call animal control. So I covered that box with a lid for Doc to come by after work.

I didn’t want the poor thing to suffocate and I didn’t close the lid all he way. Rookie mistake. Half hour later, the snake proved I’m no snake handler by getting away. Probably for the best, but snake charmer, I’m not.

Anyway, with the little drama over we loaded up our 2 gigantic suitcases (Suzanne over-packed again) and took off to SFO. We kissed the girls goodbye and off we went on our 10 hour flight to London. Our 17-days adventure to celebrate our 10th year anniversary was underway….