Trip to Harrods

Today was our sixth day in London of this trip, & it was also Father’s Day. So there was a little get-together at Mausi’s place. Basically Renuji, Aman, Liz, Anjali & of course Oli were coming over for breakfast (these names would be familiar to people who had followed my last year’s London posts). Post the get-together at home, Honey (my mausi), mom & I had planned to go to Harrods for a bit of shopping.

Aman, Liz & Oliver were to reach at about 9am, so everyone had to be ready by then. I got up around 8:40am, took a quick shower, dressed up (kind of formally, in a blazer & tie) & was downstairs & ready to greet them by 9am sharp.

They arrived on time. We said our hellos & all sat down in the living room to chat. We opened the cookies bought from “Taste of London” & made ourselves comfortable. Settled on one of the big leather seats with a glass of milk in my hand & a plate full of cookies at arm’s length, I sat a content guy. Oliver, Aman’s two year old son was the star of the moment – there was at least one picture of him getting clicked every two minutes by anyone of us.

Anyhow, we sat there chatting till about noon, post which everybody had to go about their daily schedule.

Honey, mom & I left with Aman, who was going to accompany us till Liverpool Street via Overground & then we would take this complicated route to reach Harrods. The whole journey from home (Hornchurch) to Harrods would take us at least one & a half hour, but we managed to chat our way through it in 90 minutes only.

We emerged from the underground station to a really beautiful area. There were tallish buildings on either side; the outside of some had very intricate & beautiful designs carved into the stone. So basically by just looking around you could tell that it was a posh area.

It was a short walk from the station to Harrods, & on the walk, Honey, who had been to London a lot, played a little bit of tour guide pointing to buildings & telling us about them.

As I had mentioned earlier, the walk to Harrods was a short one, & so we were at its doorstep in no time. The store was several stories tall & it looked quite huge from the outside. Honestly, I hadn’t a clue about what Harrods was until 2-3 days ago, when Honey & mom told me about their plan. Mom was quite excited about this, to her this was probably like watching a live match at the Emirates stadium, & so without any further ado, we walked into Harrods.

Harrods is a famous departmental store located in Brompton Road in Brompton, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. The store occupies a 5 acre site & has over one million square feet of selling space spread over 330 departments.

It being a Sunday, the place was kinda full, but the fullness of it did not take away the splendour, grace, elegance & overall beauty of the place. There were beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, antique looking furniture was scattered everywhere and there were, of course, beautiful mannequins in windows. The décor of the place somewhat varied from section to section. The toys section was done in tones of cheer, with streams of holly adding to the gaiety, while the fragrance section was done up in subtle tones, so that the focus was totally on the brands displayed.

Anyway, after getting inside, we just generally started walking in a certain direction, and ended up in the fragrance section. We hung there for a while, and I bought myself a Ralph Lauren perfume.

We then proceeded onto the toys & souvenir section. We stayed there for about an hour, I bought Harrods key chains for my friends from there, honestly the time spent there was quite boring.

We decided to look around a little bit, but it was too huge to be covered in a day. The store had an Egyptian theme in the non-retail space – the lobby areas, corridors, elevators, escalators and even the ceiling. There was a Diana & Dodi memorial as well.

Post that, most of the rest of the day was spent in the women’s section, with my mom and Honey embarking on a shopping spree. They shopped as if they were the lone solution to the world’s economic crisis.

Anyway, after about three straight hours of me playing shopping-bag-holder-person, we finally decided to do something up my street. We planned to café-it-out at the Harrods food court, the world famous Food Hall; unfortunately by the time mom’s shopping got done, food court had closed down, & so had every other place in London. Yes, it was 5 in the evening on a Sunday.

So we got our shopping billed & packaged; & headed out looking for a bite. Honey suggested a few different places, but we just decided to go to Wagamama’s, which served Thai food. I ate a steak with noodles, which was quite awesome. We then said our bye to Honey (for now) & left for home.

From then on, I am sure you guys know the routine. We ate a light dinner, watched re-runs of WW2BM, Two and a half Men & Scrubs, & chatted almost all the way through the night.