London, England

It has been more than a month since our London trip ended but the memories of the trip are still so fresh as if it was Yesterday. So before my recollections of the trip fade away, I am putting it down in my travelog.

So the trip started with a very positive news from London about Simi & Rohit (My sis-in-law) getting blessed with a baby boy. I was excited to join them in London during these happy moments. Rajni and Ranit were already in London from past one month so seeing them after so long was itself a great feeling that I was looking forward to.

As usual we didn’t have a very well planned agenda for our 7 days of London sight seeing trips, as I was relying completely on Rohit for that. Thanks to Rohit for planning all our trips perfectly so that we can see as much of London as possible without exerting ourselves to death :-). It worked out very well for us and we will cherish the memories from that trip forever.

So on our first day we went to see the Kingston Riverside where we spent most of our time hanging out along the river side on that sunny day. While I was enjoying my beer, Rajni ensured that kids don’t jump into the river while feeding ducks :-). Afterall they are Indian kids so anything is possible. Specially Ranit is quite capable of doing such stuff. It was overall a relaxed day where we warmed up ourselves for the rest of our trip. One thing that I remember from this day was these two old women, probably in their late 80’s, sitting on a bench under the most beautiful tree on the riverside. That was the perfect place to click some snaps, so we decided to wait for sometime for these ladies to move. We waited for some 4 hrs and eventually gave up the hope to get a snap in that area. These women were like glued together with the bench and sat there throughout the day. For my satisfaction I went a little closer and was relieved to see that both were alive.

On our second day we saw a lot many popular places of London like O2 Arena, Greenwich Observatory, CuttySark and Canary Wharf. Rajni liked the skyscrapers rising from the Thames river in Canary Wharf and Ranit and I liked Greenwich Observatory for its greenery and huge parks and play areas for kids.

Third day was Rajni’s birthday and was reserved for the best sites of London. That day we visited London Bridge, Big Ben, London Eye, Footbridge on Thames and the famous Tate Art Gallery. London looked very beautiful and tiny from within the LondonEye capsule. We unanimously agree for London Eye to be our favorite from this day.

We were a little tired so decided to rest on the forth day. We also visited Usha Didi’s house on that day where Ranit got a foot scooter as a gift. He was so exited and possessive about it that he refused to open it fearing that Gungun (Simi’s daughter) will take it.

Fifth day we saw Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Saint James Park, Madam Tussuad, Trafalgar square and Oxford street. In Madam Tussuad I got the opportunity to pose with, hold and kiss the likes of Julia Roberts and Angelina Joli while Rajni was hanging out with Johnny Depp & Brad pit. Ranit found a hiding place near the legs of Marilyn Monroe.

Sixth day was the most special one when Rohit drove us to Brighton beach which was some 60 miles from their house. Gungun was also with us on this trip. It was a nice sunny day again like on all other days during our trip. This was kind-of rare during that part of the year. We spent full day on this pebbled beach and it was so much fun. We spent some time playing some games in this casino-for-kids kind of thing. Gungun managed to win a few gifts from the games which were later distributed between Gungun and Ranit. Rohit also demonstrated his skills by winning us couple of toy dolphins by beating all his competitors in the fish race. He did that not once but twice and second time I was also competing with him. He won by a second or two. I was at second position.

Seventh day we spent at home. Usha Didi and Jija ji also joined us at Rohit’s house and in the evening Rohit stuffed us with a lot of chilled beer and delicious pork which he cooked himself.

Gungun, Simi and Rohit were awesome hosts throughout our stay in London and we thoroughly enjoyed each and every minute that we spent there.