And it was amazing! I don’t think I have had such a busy weekend in all my life, and if I have I can’t even recall it.
We’ve been back home nearly two days now and I’m still feeling sluggish and tired. London is such a huge place, bigger than I expected it to be and not to mention very busy too.
We had so much to do everyday and night that we never ran out of things, so much so we didn’t get to do half the things we had written down and planned, which sucks but that can be for another trip to London in the future.
So I’m basically going to explain to you what we did! There will probably be mostly iPhone pictures used for this post as I only took my camera out with me one day and that was the last day we were in London.
We set off pretty early in the morning and it was a nice trip down… The only thing I hated about that day mind was my hay fever. I suffered really badly that day and I was trying so hard not to let it get to me. I Bristol last year my hay fever was awful and I let it get me down on our first day there.
The hotel we stayed in was lovely and in a perfect location. Not only that, the staff were amazing! We arrived two hours before check in and the receptionist sorted it out so we could check in early. After having our packed lunch and sorted everything out in the room we headed out to the center of London to go shopping. We weren’t planning on doing much as we didn’t go to shop. We were meant to go to the Natural History Museum that day but if we weren’t getting distracted, we were getting lost.
Let me just talk about The London Underground. Oh my God. I hate trains and how fast they go, it can make me anxious and only recently due to traveling back and forth from Coventry to see my boyfriend and Cheltenham for university I’ve started to feel a little less anxious. The first time I got on one of the trains I felt so anxious. But I felt a little better after that. Our experience with The Underground was a pretty good one! We didn’t get lost, found our way around each line with ease, and even got on trains in good time. No delays and half the time the train we needed was there, or was just turning up as we reached the platform.
I won’t lie, I wish we had an Underground in Birmingham… But our trains are pretty decent anyway. Also the DLR was pretty awesome! Although it didn’t feel like a train to be honest… OH and speaking of trains, The Underground train was TINY! I don’t know how tall people deal with it to be honest. It was also baking in there due to the heat outside.
That was something else we were blessed with, gorgeous weather. The only day the weather was crap was the day we were due to leave and we had prepared ourselves for it with my huge umbrella and less summer clothing.
So onto what we did on the Friday! The first place we went to was the Lush store on Oxford Street and boy, was it big! Three floors and plenty of yummy things around to sniff and test out. I don’t want to talk too much about that here as I want to write a separate post for that. I spent quite a bit of money in there, but it was so worth it. I already can’t wait to go back to the store, or at least hear from Lush that they’re releasing the limited edition products into more stores very soon.
As we walked around by Oxford Street we ended up getting onto Regent Street, we don’t even know how and we saw so many awesome stores, including Hamley’s. We only have a look on a couple of floors as we intended on going back but alas, we never did. I saw a cute plushie German Shephard I was going to buy my boyfriend… But due to how much it cost I left it. BUT that being said, the plushies and toys in the store were gorgeous and well worth the money.
We went for bubble tea before this and I can’t remember for the life of me what the stall was called… It wasn’t the best matcha bubble tea I’ve had in my life but it wasn’t terrible either.
Stumbling upon Trafalgar Square we ended up watching an awesome street performer from Australia for about half an hour. His performance was amazing and we made sure to give him some money before we left. It’s a shame that we didn’t catch his name as I would have mentioned it here otherwise.
Not long after this we headed towards where we were planning to go and watch The Book of Mormon and I got so excited by how many posters and decorations were around for it on the building. I was literally “star struck” even though there weren’t any stars around…
Before we headed back we ended up walking to Westminster and I felt so touristy and stuff when I saw The London Eye and Big Ben. I took so many pictures on my boyfriends phone and on the Sunday we went back to get loads of pictures. That moment I really did feel like a tourist. I had zero fucks to give!
We went back to the hotel and got freshened up and dressed into our evening wear for the musical. Once again I don’t want to talk about this too much here, as I wish to talk about that in a separate post.BUT it was amazing! I’ve not been a huge fan of musicals for years and I can imagine due to how many cheesy ones are around lately… And hyped ones too. This isn’t one I had heard about until my boyfriend and his friends discussed it around the end of 2014 as they had been to watch it. But this has definitely converted me again to watch more musicals as it was just mind-blowing. Very different and as it’s written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, it’s just made me realise how much I love those guys.
We were wanting to have dinner beforehand, but had no time so ate afterwards. We went to a really nice Japanese restaurant called Shoryu which we had spotted in the daytime and wanted to visit. I won’t lie, I was a little sad that they didn’t have any sushi on offer as it was purely for ramen… But the ramen we both had was delicious! I had curry and it was super yummy, with one of the nicest boiled eggs I have ever had. I would recommend it if you want some good ramen at an equally good price.
We didn’t get back to the hotel until late and went straight to sleep, as we had an early start the next day…
On Saturday, we spent pretty much most of the day at Hyper Japan and it was just as good as I imagined it was and more. We wanted to be awake at 7am to get ready, have some breakfast, and head over to the O2 where it was being held. This didn’t go to plan… We woke up at 8am, was ready for around 9am and went to eat. Our breakfast was perfect and not long after we were on our way to the O2.
We ended up getting on one of the cable cars over to the O2, which I was shitting myself about! I hadn’t been on one since I was in year 7 at school when we went to Alton Towers and then my anxiety was that bad. I was anxious for the majority of the trip over, however back it wasn’t so bad and I really enjoyed it. We were sad that we couldn’t go onto the cable cart again when we were going home from Hyper Japan, as it closed at 8pm. We wanted a late trip over as it was dark, alas we will have to wait until winter when it’s dark early to get a gorgeous light view.
Anyway, Hyper Japan! Once again I won’t go into too much detail as I want to write a post about this too. But it sure kept us busy for the day and it was so much fun. However, me and my boyfriend have read nothing but negativity about the event which were a little sad about… But of course I’ll talk about that in the other post.
When we got home from the event we had a lovely bath with one of the bath oils I bought my boyfriend and we had a snuggle together and then went to bed. We were shattered and were making sure we had a lie in.
Which we did as we woke up at 9am the next day. We both grabbed a shower and got everything ready to head home. The hotel was lovely enough to let us leave our car in their car park which we went up to London for the day. But before we headed into the centre, we decided to go to Shoreditch to check out the Cereal Killer Cafe for breakfast. It was somewhere I had discovered online and we knew we had to go! Once again, I will be writing a review about this place. I just wish so badly that we had something like this in Birmingham as it was amazing. I regret not having the cereal my boyfriend had. But mine was yummy and I can buy it (for a hefty price!) if I really want it… More about that though in the post.
We headed back to London so that we could go to the Natural History Museum and get some Japanese lunch from the Japan Centre. We also intended to do a little more shopping but we never got around to doing that purely because the weather went from okay to worse in a matter of minutes! We luckily had my umbrella but it was busy and the weather was crap. Plus we were exhausted after two days of constantly being on our feet. So we headed back to the hotel and we were soon on our way home.
I won’t lie, I wasn’t sad about leaving London… Not like I was about Bristol anyway. I was crying on my way back from Bristol as that was a city I really do love and want to go back as soon as I can. London was just too big and busy and there’s just enough time in a day to do everything you want to do. You do need to live in London, nearby London, or at least stay there a week to get everything done.
I would like to go back for Hyper Japan’s Christmas Market in November but due to how expensive London has been, this may not happen…
So, would I recommend London? Hell yeah! If you wanna go see a musical make a weekend out of it for sure. If you wanna go shopping, definitely go as there’s so many shops and most of them don’t shut until something crazy like 10pm! The only thing I had a problem with in London was food… I didn’t feel like there was anything special, but me and my boyfriend experienced this in Bristol too… But that might just be us.
Japanese related, I loved London. There was the Japan Centre, as well as some Japanese shops we visited nearby that we loved.
I will be making a separate post of places I still want to go into in London, but that may not be for a while.
I apologise for how long this post was, but I just wanted to share with my readers how much fun we had and all the things that we did. I just cannot wait to talk more about the things we mainly went to London to do. This is the order they’re going to go in:
Lush Oxford Street and a Haul.
The Book of Mormon and a Haul.
Hyper Japan and a Haul.
Cereal Killer Cafe.
London Haul.
As well as a couple of more. When these posts are written I will link them back to this post.
I cannot wait to share these experiences with my readers. The rest of July is going to be London heavy, which I apologise about.
I hope everyone had as good a weekend as I did. Until next time, take care all.
There Might Be Coffee 