London Day Four – The one with the eye
T-Rex’s bag had gone the way of her coat, that is it broke. Having only used it for a week, it was pretty frustrating to say the least. Luckily, if you remember from yesterday’s post, we had accidentally stumbled upon the location of a shoe repairers. So in the morning we headed off to the Arches.
The man who we spoke to at the repairers was a typical English blue-collar worker. Much like the immigration officer at the airport, we exchanged some light banter such as T-Rex’s clothing is much like London; constantly needing repairs. He warned us that his attempt to fix the buckle could break it completely, T-Rex’s face went grey as the London sky. We took the risk and he struck down on the buckle, to everyone’s relief it held. However, T-Rex still doesn’t trust the repair and can still be seen carrying the bag whilst it is over her shoulder to this day.
For brunch, we decided to go to the German sausage shop that had narrowly missed out on being selected for breakfast last time. It was named Herman Ze German and the person who served us was very clearly German (or had put on a great accent). I ordered a Bockwurst-dog + chips and T-Rex got a Bratwurst with curry sauce + chips. Both were absolutely delicious, or maybe it was the taste of victory after defeating another self-destructive clothing item.
We went back to the hotel room, planning to have a quiet chill day. It was immensely sunny (although you never see anyone wearing sun glasses) and we thought it would be an awful shame to waste the day locked inside. So instead we got home, loaded up the repaired purse and headed back outside, this time towards the London Eye. On the way we walked past Matthew Perry’s show, which was cool but not cool enough to spend money on seeing.
Arriving on the banks of the Thames, we were greeted with so much culture and activities, from street performers, singers, human statues and a weird person pretending to be a cat in a tiny canvas box. The queue for the Eye was long, everyone must have had the same idea as us, but it was moving quickly. We exchanged our triple attraction pass for a ticket and joined the queue.
The London Eye itself was great, sure the view was amazing on such a clear day, but knowing you were stuck in your bubble with nowhere to go for the next 30 minutes forces you to take stock of where you were in the moment and not planning the next activity. It was truly one of the most peaceful experiences we have done in this busy city.
We decided to try our luck at our local pub, the Moon under the Water for dinner for the third time. We were unsuccessful again, with it being to busy and we being too impatient. So instead we decide to try a cool trendy Thai restaurant, Busaba. It was unique from the get-go, with incense burning in the entrance to a very open air seating, with extra-large tables with several groups of people sharing on each.
The meals all sounded delicious and we couldn’t easily decide what to order. I decided on some chilli beef and some naan with a sweet green tea and T-Rex decided on chicken Pad Thai. The meals came and it did not look very large, especially for the price – however once we started eating we realised how filling it was. They were running a promotion of 25% off your order if you pay with their app.
Obviously I couldn’t resist the temptation to save a buck (or pound in this case) so I downloaded it. It was a really well designed application however it didn’t accept my credit card (probably because they wanted a UK postcode) and PayPal froze my account as it thought it was suspicious activity. So we were forced to pay full price which was about 30 pounds when you add-on the service tax, so a lot more expensive than our regular Royal Sri Thai at Indro back home.
My desert stomach was still empty so T-Rex stomped back to the hotel whilst I went searching for something sweet to eat. I came across a Cinnabon shop selling huge sugary rolls drizzled in chocolate, how can I say no to such delicacy? Needless to say I slipped into a food coma that night.
About the Author
Mannan
Mannan is a software engineering enthusiast and has been madly coding since 2002. When he isn't coding he loves to travel, so you will find both of these topics on this blog.