waking up to the moon light

DayThree. 

So there was some effect of jet lagg, but it worked to our benefit i believe. As sydney time is 9 hours ahead of London time, we gained not only an extra day but extra hours in our day. I slept that night at 8pm (!!! never happens at home) and i woke up to the moon at 6am (!!! again, never happens by chance). I'm going to say "quite surreal" a lot over the duration of the blog so bear with me people. But honestly (another thing i will be saying a lot), it is just quite surreal to be waking up to the moon.

So anyways, early morning and i was chirpy (being in a new country and all). I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that i was in London, literally half way around the world from home. we began our morning with a fat injected breakfast, bacon, eggs and the likes because we're english like that. Then lagged trying to get ready because quite honestly, 6am is crazy early to head out anywhere. So what seemed like hours later amounted to us leaving the apartment at 9am .. like what? we were literally just sitting in front of the tv chilling before we decided to drag our lazy asses out of the apartment. 

Contrary to popular belief, the weather was amazing. Not a single evil cloud in sight, mebbe some nice ones hiding in the crevices of the sky, but they were nice, light and fluffy :D 

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AHHHHHHH! i remember what i forgot to add to the previous post! It was about the weather :D by 4pm my room was amazingly bright, by 6pm my entire room was much too hot and bright to sit in. so i sat in the corner behind the wardrobe, neatly sorting out all my clothes xD** Then, 20 mins later the rain began to pour, i was completely confused. Then the rain stopped 5 mins later followed by wind, then sunny breaks, then a tiny shower, then sun again. CRAZY LONDON WEATHER. completely trumps Sydney weather. 

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back to where i was earlier. Ah yes, we left at 9-ish with the intention of heading towards westminster by means of the underground. 

* should start a drinking game with how much i say "quite surreal" and "but honestly"

** shame i don't have a picture of this!

New kids on the block

DayTwo.

I'll begin day two with, leaving heathrow. Honestly not proud of how i look in any of these pictures, but anyways ...

I actually walked around london looking like that with my hair like that. shocking, i know xD

So our first 30 mins trying to understand the tube vs. the normal train line was confusing.* We finally got the hang of it and sorted ourselves out with an oyster card, best thing out! So anyways, we had to make it from heathrow to central london to collect our keys for the apartment. It was a lovely, (standing) ride from heathrow to Camden Town.** the country was beautiful, meadows and flowers everywhere, mmm so pretty! (i have videos not pictures of this). My sister was mesmerised by this boy who got on with the clearest blue eyes, he was not white btw, it was seriously cool. Anyways ... Man, the underground is amazing, there are dedicated trains (colour coded by the line) and the trains come every 2-3 mins! so no worries about missing your train.***

One disadvantage is, many stops on the tube don't have lifts or escalators D: so i attempted and failed so hard at trying to lug my suitcase around. And since the trains come so often i had little time to try and get up the stairs before the next train came, i was not fast enough because before i knew it a new horde of commuters bleed out of the train. However, at Piccadilly a lovely gentleman with lovely blue eyes, actually carried my suitcase up two flights of stairs.. how amazing is he?

I wish i had a picture of all my luggage but sadly, i don't xD so i can't show you the amount of excessive weight i was lugging around. Our short stop at Camden Town to pick up the keys landed us straight outside american apparel, i was so tempted to run in there, but i refrained**** Anyways, from Camden it was onto The London Bridge stop on the tube. I only have love for the tube, except for lack of lifts whilst we had suitcases xD 

i look terrible but this photo has many things i wanna show. 1. red double deckers :) 2. union jack taxis, they look super awesome. 3. mini cooper :D 4. look at the traffic! So crazy how people drive around here!

so anyways, after our mission around london to get the keys for our apartment, we got to london bridge station and was confused as to the direction of our apartment. LOL, so silly of us. so we walked for 10 mins up and down the streets, admiring as we went, but getting further frustrated at our luggage at the same time, at least i was :( the jet lag didn't help, good thing london time is behind tho i guess. 

So my sister and her boyfriend planned an early flight so we would have a full day and not waste it, due to a late flight, made no difference lol. so after about 20 mins of aimless wanderings we managed to head in the direction of tower bridge. once in view of this iconic blue we knew where we were :) and ta da, 2 mins later we were turning the key to the door of the apartment :) weeeeeeeee yay. 

so after dropping off the luggage. we went in search of a grocery store. left our apartment and turned left then we ended up at sainbury, 8 mins away, pretty convenient (so we thought). It was pretty awesome, had everything and HEAPS of fresh fruit for around a pound, lol they charged 18pence for a banana sounds quite weird to pay per banana ayes? but oh wells we had nectarines and plenty of strawberries (2 packs of 1kg varieties of berries for 5pounds, sounds good to me). so we set off back to the apartment with our purchases, i just wanted to dig into the strawberries, mmmmmmm.*****

got back to our apartment only to discover that there was a small grocery store 3 doors down on our right, biggest LOL! not to worry the fresh fruit selection at the other place was much better so not too devo, but still lol since it had everything else we needed xD good for anything else we might need i guess.

What i love: there are bike stations every where. So like you can hire a bike for the hour, day ... etc and return it at any of the bike stations all over london. honestly, you can't go 500m without finding a bike hire station. damn, fit europeans! hahahahaha, such a cool thing tho.

i honestly don't remember what else i wanted to add to this so i'll just end it here. hahaha, perils of doing something after it's happened, only worsened by the fact i left it this long to complete hehehehehe. oh wells.

*Totally professional now, LOL not really but i understand how it works and i ADMIRE IT!

** PEAK HOUR, so many people squeezed into the train ... people leave for work at 9-10am unlike the 7-8am we have in sydney

*** Cityrail, you just FAIL so hard!

**** luggage was holding me back, damn you silly julia, PACK LIGHT NEXT TIME! I'm sending half my shit home soon xD

***** The grapes here are amazing! so sweet :) so cheap!

Catch this flight

DayOne.

I will state now, i was an idiot for not sleeping before we left, i had spent all morning/night trying to unlock my iphone which i don't think i succeeded in :( I think i had about an hours sleep? TERRIBLE!

Anyways ... Late start, our flight was at 2:30pm so we thought we had plenty of time to do stuff before heading to the airport. So my sister had to go to the bank and i needed to pop by woolies to buy some stuff. Such simple tasks, yet we still took forever to get it done. Our plans to leave the house to head to the airport by 11, failed miserably. by 11:30 my sister's boyfriend was still at home, oh how unorganised we were! No biggie tho, we would still make it to the airport on time, but it would mean we missed out on pho for lunch with my older sister, brother in law and papa :( check in was quick as. Lady behind the desk exclaimed that we were the first bunch who actually had a decent amount of luggage with us, she were worried that seemed suspicious. she laughed and joked that they would be more suspicious than us.*

So check in was done :D so we wandered the airport looking for a place to eat, new airport is too different for my liking :( LMAO we walked the opposite direction from the "foodcourt" boooooo. LOL so hunger just grew. We decided on thai cuz it was more of an eat in dining area. I had my favourite, pad see ew, just cuz. i didn't mind it, cuz it wasn't sweet :D but yeah besides the point. It then dwelled on us that in 2 hours we'd be leaving sydney! I haven't spent more than a week away from the parentals, so i was already missing them. At one, my sister and brother in-law had to return home in time to pick their kids up from school so i hugged papa once more and assured him we'll return home safe in 5 weeks time.**

So the family unit left. thus, my sister, her boyfriend and i (struggled to) make our way to the departure gate xD***

I honestly think i look like a mess. Which was only to become exacerbated as the journey continued (i blame my lack of sleep xD). Anyways, i'll try skip over the flight part as best i can.

FACTS and Whines

1. i dropped my side bag containing my macbook just before reaching the security check, i was devo! i just wanted to get out of there so i could find a seat to check if my poor baby was still okay.
2. sydney to hong kong was an annoying and long 9-ish hour flight
3. no fresh air in connection from hong kong airport to london, close to two hour wait in the stuffy airport :(
4. i thought the hong kong flight was long, i was wrong. jumped on the connecting flight only to be told the flight was 12 hours and 20 something minutes, FUUUUUUUUU!!!!
5. guy next to me sneezed every few seconds, waking me up from my precious sleep, he also didn't get out from his seat at all, i needed to pee >.< and stretch my legs so bad!
6. i hate aeroplane food, sister ate everything i didn't which was almost everything 
7.  made it out alive from the flight, with a horrible migraine, eugh
8. arrived at heathrow at 5am london time D: 
9. that makes the entire commute around 24 hours, with no contact with fresh air or sunlight .. i am not a happy camper 
10. exiting heathrow took many series of ramps, elevators, stairs, twists and turns
11. customs was a breeze and before we knew it we were out of heathrow

I'll leave it at that, haha. We had breakfast in heathrow to delay some time xD**** Anyways, i'll leave you with the headlines for that day, hehe.

*if going to london, and you plan on using the underground PACK LIGHT! many stop on the tube don't have lifts, just stairs!
** i miss my mumma and papa :(
*** i definitely OVERPACKED! ~ 1 suitcase (checked), 1 carry-on, 1 camera bag, 1 side bag (with macbook) >.< over 20kgs +
**** the place we booked our apartment at wasn't open till 9am, so we had plenty of time to kill