Let’s Walk everywhere – Day 10 & 11

Today was our tenth day here in London, and our plan for today was, er… nothing. We were basically going to sleep and rest for the first half of the day, then we would go to The Garden Café for a quick bite, and then for the second half we would come home and sleep and rest a bit more.

Thus, again left without any incentive to get up early, I got up around 1:00-1:30pm. We decided to not do bacon for breakfast today, since we had lunch planned out at Garden Café. So, we decided to go a little easy and ate just sausages, turkey ham, scrambled eggs, baked beans and toast for breakfast :P

We then watched Scrubs till about 3:00pm, and left immediately after the last re-run. It was a 15 minute walk to the Café, and so we comfortably strolled down clicking anything even remotely clickable; billboards, direction signs, double-decker buses, non double-decker buses, general vehicles, houses, pubs, shops, if they were on the way to The Garden Café, we have them on our camera.

We decided to play a little game of taking pictures of the signboards that came on the way. So, if you want to go to The Garden Café from Wheatley Close, all you have to do is follow Haynes Road – Ardleigh Green Road – Butts Green Road – Burntwood Avenue – Brooks Fishmongers Ltd – Euromaster – Humps for ¾ mile – Parkstone Avenue – Berther Road –Havering Therapy Centre – Nelson Road. You have the option of going till The Chequers – Leather Lane – Nelmes Crescent if you so like. The sun was going in and out of the clouds, and so we felt cold and warm and cold and warm….

Anyways, we reached the Café and ordered this lamb curry and rice dish for mom, and a steak with fries for me. The food was, as usual, fantastic. We first sat indoors, but as the sun came out, so did we. We wound up with lunch in about 30 minutes, post that we chatted with the owners for a while. They wanted to visit The Taj and the lady wanted to buy a saree. We exchanged names and mail IDs before heading out into this ‘general direction’ (I should have known something was fishy then itself).

Actually that ‘general direction’ was the direction in which mom had spotted a Dorothy Perkins store. Well, by the time I realized that, it was too late. So, the next hour and a half was spent at Dorothy Perkins buying shoes, bags, clothes and god knows what all else. The reward for my patience was 2 pairs of socks.
Post the shopping we decided to generally walk about Hornchurch. All that walking had made us thirsty, so we stopped at Mc Donalds for a milk shake. While we were generally strolling around we were spotted by Mausi Ji, who was returning from work, and so she picked us up, drove us around a little before taking us home, for another extraa-loong run of re-runs, as we ended Day-10 of our London Trip.

The next day was our 11th day in London, and the plan for the day was another trip to Harrods, and then a movie at ‘Illford Cineworld’.

Well, since this was the first time in 3 days that I had any real incentive to get up early, I got up around 9:30am (which, by our standards was like waking up in the middle of the night). Post getting up I went for a nice loooong bath. How long? Well, I came out at 10:17am. Mom had no clue I had woken up already, thus I went downstairs after my bath to find:- (i) The proceedings for breakfast hadn’t even begun, and (ii) Mom hadn’t even brushed yet. So, in a rather hurried manner, we prepared our breakfast. We did some bacon, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, bacon, turkey ham, bacon, sausages, and how could I forget, bacon. That breakfast took us a solid half hour of eating to finish, post which mom ran upstairs to get her act together, while I sat myself down in front of the TV for some more Two and a Half Men re-runs.

Anyways, we finally managed to leave by 12:30pm. Today we decided to walk down to the tube station rather than taking the bus. It was a beautiful walk, but it meant that we reached the station no earlier than 1:00pm. We braved some drizzle on the way too, but all in all, enjoyed the half hour walk. We then got on the District Line, and once again took a complicated route to Harrods.

The main agenda for Harrods was to buy a pair of jeans for my dad and my mausa. We entered Harrods around 2:30pm, and exited around 6:00pm (that too only because the store was closing), 3 and a half hours, and 6 full shopping bags later. This little trip had re-defined my definition of the phrase ‘shopping like crazy’. Actually, all you need is a few people who shop like my mother, in each country, and VOILA! Economic crisis would be unheard of.

Anyhow, post leaving Harrods we decided to go to Wagamama’s for a quick bite. I quite like the place, it’s somewhere between a fast food joint and a sit down restaurant. They have rows of long tables arranged parallel to each other, with benches on either side. You come, take your place, eat and go. It’s usually crowded and you have to wait for a place if you come around mealtimes. We missed the crowd, as we had got in just before people started arriving for dinner (at 7:00pm). I ordered for myself ‘steak on noodles’, with a special request for it to be ‘well-done’, but what came still had a certain amount of rawness to it. Honestly, I hate my meat to be raw in any-which-way, but with those slightly tangy and inanely spicy sauces, the dish as a whole was quite amazing.

Anyways, we then made our way to ‘Illford Cineworld’ for our movie which was actually a Hindi movie called ‘Dhamaal 2’. Mausi ji and my Mami had already reached, and so we ran all the way from the tube station till the movie hall, shopping bags and all…. in the rain. People had taken shelter under awnings, and were looking at us as if we were nuts. We reached just in time for the movie, which was okay, I guess.

It was fun watching a Hindi movie in London, with crowds cheering at dialogues and clapping at scenes, someone even whistled. Anyhow, post the movie we came home with Mausi Ji, and although we were drop-down tired, just to maintain tradition we still watched re-runs as we ended Day-11 of our London Trip.