{"id":662,"date":"2012-02-22T06:28:07","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T06:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=662"},"modified":"2016-03-29T02:56:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T02:56:47","slug":"londonmoscowhong-kongsydneyhome","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=662","title":{"rendered":"London\/Moscow\/Hong Kong\/Sydney\/Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The images on this page are linked to the main gallery for this section.<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

Wednesday \u00a018\/1\/12<\/span><\/h3>\n

Packing the car, and saying goodbye to Chris and Ruth, (and paying them for the fuel we had used, as per agreement,) we drove through my Devon into Plymouth. We saw Lesley and sorted out the last of the customs paperwork. She agreed to hold our parcels in her office until the day we were due to leave the UK, so there\u2019d be no chance of them getting home before us. We left Plymouth via the same diversion we had taken the day before, we ended up somewhere, but god knows where, thank Christ for GPS.<\/span><\/p>\n

The drive up the M5 was nostalgic to a degree for me, but not in any way nice, I wanted to turn around and head back. Just to add to our woe, Mary the mother-in- law rang to tell us that Barnum\u2019s heart condition had taken a major turn for the worse, and he was unlikely to be alive on our return.* We all had a damn good cry over that. <\/span><\/p>\n

We stopped off in Reading to get the car cleaned, but the garage vacuum was out of order. We drove to the car hire return and the bastards stung us for valeting it. We took a train into London, then a tube to our hotel. It turned out to be rather fab.<\/span><\/a> We walked into Bayswater for the evening, had a bite to eat at a pub, texted a bunch of people, then went back to the hotel and crashed.<\/span><\/p>\n

*Don\u2019t worry, put your hanky away, he\u2019s still with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thursday 19\/1\/12<\/span><\/h3>\n

We took the tube to the Tower of London<\/span><\/a>. At the cafe there they were flogging cheese and marmite toasties, which were fantastic. We got tickets for the Tower, and joined one of the guided tours. Paul, our Beefeater Guide<\/span><\/a>, (or Yeoman warder, to give him his correct title,) was very funny, and a wealth of information. The tower itself is a fantastic visit, and well worth the money. The history there is unbelievable, we stood on Anne Boleyn\u2019s<\/span><\/a> grave! There were sculptures of baboons made out of chicken wire on one wall, Christ only knows why. The Ravens of the Tower<\/span><\/a> are now so used to people \u00a0you can get close to them, big buggering birds though. (I was tempted to scare them off, just\u00a0to see what would \u00a0happen.) The \u201cBloody Tower\u201d<\/span><\/a> was worth the admission price on its own. We had to go and see the Crown<\/span><\/a> though. Once inside the doors I saw Lee-Anne on the other side of the glass from me, and fired off a shot. This earned me a huge bollocking off the (female) beefeater. Not my fault I\u2019d missed the \u201cNo Photography”<\/strong> sign, luckily though she didn\u2019t run me through, nor make me delete it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Outside the vaults, on guard duty, was the dorkiest looking soldier I have ever seen, he reminded me of Eccles from the goons. “The Queens safe with him about”<\/em>, I giggled to myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Next stop? Tower Bridge<\/span><\/a>. They\u2019ve opened up the high level walkways on the bridge, and, (for a price,) you can now go up and get what must be one of the best views in London. I was more taken though by the old engines, which used to power the opening of the bridge, they reminded me of the heavy industrial components I had worked on during my apprenticeship.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a>\"\"\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We took a walk along the Thames, and stopped off in, you guessed it, another pub. \u00a0I had a pint of \u201cCherry Porter\u201d there, it was rather good. The pub is called the “Horniman Inn”, and so, <\/span><\/a>as you can imagine, Bethy had some fun with that name. (“How far is the Horniman inn?”) <\/em>That evening we went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie, \u201cA Game Of Shadows\u201d<\/span><\/a> not bad at all, if a bit frantic. For supper we stopped off at an Indian restaurant, and I had the fish curry I\u2019d been promising myself since eating fish at the Fat Duck. “Not as good as I had hoped it would be”<\/em>, is the best I can say about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Friday 20\/1\/12<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0This would be our final shopping day, so where else\u00a0 to go but Harrods?<\/span><\/a> But first, another marmite and cheese toasty! We took a stroll through Harrods, nothing quite seemed to grab us, it was all a little disappointing. So we went to Topshop<\/span><\/a> instead, from the sublime to the ridiculous. After Topshop we decided to go hit HMV<\/span><\/a> and to buy some Britcom DVDs to take home with us. We knew there was a HMV in Knightsbridge, and so strolled up and down Brompton Road \u00a0looking for it, we couldn\u2019t see it anywhere. We then looked up the address of HMV up on the i-pad. It\u2019s in Harrods, we\u2019d walked past it three times. We went back in, but didn\u2019t find anything we actually wanted, so we left again. Hmmm….<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Outside Harrods one of the most astonishing events of the holiday happened. We were strolling down Brompton Street when Bethy yelled; \u00a0\u201cTia!!\u201d<\/em><\/strong> which puzzled me immensely. She ran off\u00a0a short way down the road, through the crowds of shoppers, and stopped at an equally astonished looking young lady. Bethy and Tia went through Primary and High School together; they were part of the same cookery team which won the Canberra cooking comp. They hadn\u2019t seen each other since they went their different ways leaving high school to go to college, and now had bumped into each other in London. \u00a0Amazing, I actually lived in the UK for 43 years, and I didn\u2019t see a sodding person in London I knew, and here\u2019s two Canberra girls bumping into each other by chance. They swapped tales, and we exchanged pleasantries with her folks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following this we decided to split. The girls went shopping; <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0UK retail sales rose 0.9% in January compared with December, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).\u00a0The figure was much stronger than forecast as many economists had expected sales volumes to fall.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0I went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum<\/span><\/a>. It was a bit packed, mainly with Asian\/Oriental people, but still fun. I joined the jostling throngs and picked my way though the exhibits. I got my photo taken, wearing the obligatory Deerstalker<\/span><\/a> and Calabash pipe<\/span><\/a>, by a young girl dressed as \u201cMrs Hudson\u201d. <\/span><\/a>\u00a0She was damn good, I asked some increasingly difficult questions on the canon, and she took it in good spirits, and got a fair few right. There was a gift shop, inevitably, before leaving. I had a look, nearly bought a bust of Sherlock, a deerstalker and a pipe, but chickened out. There was, I was disappointed to find, no books for sale on the canon which I didn\u2019t already have. Three young Asian (Japanese I think,) girls seemed to be buying one each of everything in the shop. Later while shopping on Oxford street<\/span><\/a> I kept running into them, there was no mistaking them, not\u00a0with their wearing\u00a0deerstalkers and carrying huge magnifying glasses. They give me smiles and embarrassed little giggles whenever I tugged my forelock to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I took a tube to Oxford street,\u00a0 I was on a mission on Oxford street to buy some Doc Martens<\/span><\/a> shoes for work. They can cost anything up to $200 in Aus, so I knew I was on a winner by buying them there. By walking the length of Oxford street, I found five shops on selling them. I ended up back at the first shop, handing over 65 quid for a pair. Now I\u2019ve got a fitting, I\u2019ll be buying them at 63 quid a pair off Amazon UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

We met back at the hotel for a cuppa. We took a London cab to the West End, and joined the throngs for \u201cThe Mousetrap.\u201d<\/span><\/a> What with Bethy being a major fan of Agatha Christie\u2019s stuff, how could we miss it? It\u2019s been running since 1953, older than me then, this was its 60th. year. We saw performance number 26,451, and It was fantastic! Though very professionally done, it\u2019s now played as high farce, and as camp as a row of pink tents. It was a hoot from start to finish. If you are in London, go see it. Seriously, it\u2019s fucking fantastic. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Afterwards we went to Jamie\u2019s Italian Restaurant<\/span><\/a>. We had to queue for a fair while, but we knocked back some wine, and people watched, and that was great. The food was great too, and our waitress was wonderful. How she kept that bubbly \u201cnothing is ever too much trouble,”<\/em> demeanour going, (it was now gone 11.00pm at night,) while working under such high stress circumstances, I\u2019ll never know. She got a fair tip.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday 21\/1\/12<\/span><\/h3>\n

Our last day in the UK\u00a0\ud83d\ude41<\/span><\/p>\n

We packed up and cleaned our room. Or rather, we packed up and left a tidy tip for whoever would be stuck with cleaning our room. We arranged for the hotel to store our bags, and for a taxi to take us from the hotel to Heathrow at 6.30 pm. Just down the road in Bayswater, was a Greek cafe. We decide to have breakfast there. I ordered a cheese and mushroom omelette, it was great, and came with toast. So, much to Bethy\u2019s disgust, I made it into a omelette toastie, which was even nicer. On the TV in the cafe the video for; \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m sexy and I know it\u201d<\/span><\/a> was playing, this had me half torn between hysterical laughter and half put off my omelette toastie.<\/span><\/p>\n

We took the tube to the V&A<\/span><\/a>, mind blowing stuff, undoubtedly the greatest museum of art and design in the world. Again, one of those places you wish you\u2019d set a day or two aside for. Some of the medieval stuff<\/span><\/a> was, to my mind, the apex of religious iconography. It brought out the Goth in me. Lee-Anne was grabbing some gifts from the gift shop<\/span><\/a> when an elderly lady behind her dropped a big vase, which nearly resulted in Lee-Anne following suit, or following though.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

We went to see the fourth plinth with its \u201cShip in a bottle\u201d;<\/span><\/a> I thought it was rather jolly. (Though, embarrassingly, I was under the impression it was one of Anthony Gormly\u2019s works.) The girls watched a street performer doing his stuff, I love these guys, but we then found we didn\u2019t have any change to give him, I drew the line at giving him a 20, and sneaked away embarrassed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately our last experience of a Brit pub was also the worse. We dropped into the\u201dStar Cross\u201d pub just off Trafalgar Square. The girls grabbed seats, I stood at the bar. The girl came along asked me what I wanted, I named my pint, and before I could ask for the girls drinks she buggered off. Lee-Anne approached me and gave me the food orders. The girl came back with my beer, a poor pint of Fullers, and then vanished. She eventually came back, took the girls drinks orders, and then pissed off again. Eventually she returned, I managed to hold onto her long enough to put the grub order in and pay. The food took ages, and when it arrived it was mediocre at best, and cold. I went up to the bar again\u00a0in the vain hope of getting a second pint.Tere was one guy in front of me, two then appeared behind me. A bargirl came up and took\u00a0an order from the guy in front of me. She went off and we waited, and waited, and waited, and she didn\u2019t come back. I looked at the guys behind me, and we all walked away.<\/span><\/p>\n

We hit a currency exchange, and got some Euros for Moscow, and some Hong Kong dollars for… work it out yourself.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Back at the hotel, we retrieved our bags and suitcases, and begged the use of some scales\u00a0 off reception. By juggling, repacking, and forcing stuff into our three suitcases, we got them each under the 23 kilo limit. The guy from the hotel who was watching us was impressed and amused by our fighting over this, but mostly impressed that we managed it at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our taxi arrived and we set off, with really nice Indian chap driving us in a swish Merc taxi. He was very touched by our tip. Though seeing as he went some extra miles to help with bags and got us to the very front of international departures, he deserved it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Flight 1 London to Moscow.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Poor old Bethy had the indignity of getting body scanned and a full \u201ctouched up by a butch lesbian\u201d<\/em> frisking. Why her and not me I don\u2019t know, at least I would have enjoyed it. The flight, yet again had no entertainment on it, apart that is from the rather attractive Russian lady who sat next to me. Her attractiveness was severely diminished when she took her shoes off. Her feet stank. Another point of interest was the alleged \u201cmeal\u201d I got; I couldn\u2019t even work out what it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

Landing in Moscow<\/span><\/a> was another \u201cskid pan\u201d test for the pilot, he also got a well deserved round of applause. When it was daylight we got to see what he had landed on, and in, which was a thick and continuous blizzard that laid a foot of snow on the ground constantly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We had a four kilometre walk between terminals. As we were transiting and our baggage had been checked through (we hoped,) Sydney, we had no problems. However we did have a 14 hour wait ahead of us. We set up base camp, and all looked well. There are huge \u201cduty free\u201d<\/span><\/a> shops in Moscow Airport, but these seemed mainly for show, no one seemed to be buying anything, and the assistants looked bored out of their minds. The place, as on our way out, seemed to be populated by gangsters and \u201cRussian Brides\u201d. Some of the women were stunningly attractive, though when you got close to them they had eyes like sharks, very scary. We found out that, even though the duty free shops sold things in Euros and Roubles, the food shops only took Roubles, of which we had none. We found a machine which changed some of the Euros we had into Rouble, I don\u2019t think it ripped us off. Much.. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Irish Pub there was serving Russian Beers and food, so not fucking Irish at all then. I had a pint of Ruskie beer, it was ok, a sort of flat weak lager. Lee-Anne, by hiking back and fore between terminals, found a place that sold food which looked at least edible, so we ordered some \u201cRussian\u201d nachos. They were foul, buggered up beyond belief. How do you bugger up nachos?<\/span><\/p>\n

The girls found a shop selling traditional Babushka dolls<\/span><\/a>, and got one each, they are rather sweet. I found a shop selling the sort of T-shirt I knew would endear me to all my American chums.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Flight 2 Moscow to Hong Kong.<\/span><\/h3>\n

This was on a half decent Aeroflot 330<\/span><\/a>, and so quite comfy. The fact that it was half empty and that we had two seats each made for a much more comfortable flight. We caught up on a few zzz\u2019s. I was lucky to wake for breakfast, not because breakfast was any good, (it was yet another fruit omelette,) but because I got to watch the sunrise over Bejiing. I watched the two \u201cTransporter\u201d movies. I only watched the second<\/span><\/a> as I couldn\u2019t believe it could be as bad as the first<\/span><\/a>. I was wrong. It was worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hong Kong Airport<\/span><\/a> came as a breath of fresh air, what with us being back in civilisation after Moscow! We found a place selling decent food, well in fact we found a huge food court<\/span><\/a> with masses of Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian and other foods on sale, luxury! The girls had Chinese, as you do when you\u2019re in Hong Kong, which was fantastic by all accounts. \u00a0I had some strange but not unpleasant, Chinese pasty type things. The airport was so civilised that they even had sleeping benches there. We grabbed three and crashed out. Someone, me apparently, attracted a crowd by giving a display of virtuoso snoring. The one downside, and I wish I\u2019d bloody remembered this, is you cannot take more than 100 ml<\/span><\/a> of fluids onto the plane, so I couldn\u2019t buy any duty free Scotch. If I\u2019d have bought it in London and put it in our suitcases, it would have been fine. Not that we had any room, nor weight allowance, left in our suitcases, but still.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Flight 3 Hong Kong to Sydney.<\/span><\/p>\n

We slept most of the flight. Then watched \u201cThe Guard\u201d<\/span><\/a> again, just as funny as the first watch, watched \u201cBjork\u201d,<\/span><\/a> (who I don\u2019t think I\u2019m alone in finding totally certifiable,) and watched a doco on Everest. I bought two litres of \u201cCask Strength\u201d Laphrohaig<\/span><\/a> at Sydney, duty free, but at twice what I would have paid in London.<\/span><\/p>\n

Customs let us in without any hassle, and I got another stamp on my Aussie passport, (the \u201ccitizens\u201d queue was shortest.)<\/span><\/p>\n

We hired a car at the airport, a weird \u201chybrid\u201d job, and drove home. Home again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to come back. There\u2019s no doubt in my mind now that I want to live in the UK again, in Devon to be precise. I want to spend time with my mates. I want a lunchtime pint or three in a Dartmoor pub, some grub there too, and then to spend an afternoon in front of a log fire at home watching Sherlock Holmes movies. I want to spend time on the moors, and by the sea. I want the weather,\u00a0I want the TV,\u00a0I want the history. I want MY history. \u00a0I want the food and the fun, the people and the places. Oh don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m not going to do anything stupid like pack it all in and come back, not \u00a0without a lot of planning and forethought first. Of course, Lee-Anne and Bethy are going to have to agree to come too. Lee-Anne will not leave her mum on her own in Aus, so that\u2019s a factor. Bethy will be looking to go to Uni, so that\u2019s another factor. At the moment we both have good jobs we enjoy, both have good incomes, and are setting ourselves up for good retirement. The exchange rate is fantastic, but may not stay that way. We have a house in Cornwall which is almost paid for. Lots and lots of different factors.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I will be back.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The images on this page are linked to the main gallery for this section. Wednesday \u00a018\/1\/12 Packing the car, and saying goodbye to Chris and Ruth, (and paying them for the fuel we had used, as per agreement,) we drove … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2150,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-662","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/662\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}