A Warm Bath

Well after living in London for a month we decided it was time to get out! So we headed out to the town of Bath about 3 hours west by bus.
Bath is famous for the Roman Baths that were built there almost 2000 years ago. There is a lot more to Bath than the Roman baths though, and we were blessed with amazing warm weather so we took full advantage of it.

We arrived on Sunday before lunch and headed to this tiny pub and had a steak and ale pie and a pint of local ale. Monday was a public holiday so we booked into a hotel Sunday night. In summer the Roman Baths are open until 9pm so we were able to stroll around the complex while the sunset. On Monday we checked out Bath Abby which is a Gothic cathedral that was built in the 1600's. The weather remained sunny so we took a boat cruise on the Avon river which ran out through the green country side.

We really enjoyed our time in Bath and it was nice to get away from the craziness of London for a few days. We took a lot of photos and have attached quite a few below
cheers
Luke

Pics here

From old to (Tate) modern

Well we thought since we have been here two weeks we had better do something touristy! We decided to experience the free things that London has to offer so headed on the tube to St Paul's Cathedral and the Tate Modern Gallery.
First stop was St Paul's and seeing as it was a Sunday no tours were on but we were allowed in part way to have a look around and hear the choir warming up. when i was in Europe last i saw a lot of churches and i have to say that St Paul's is the most impressive I've seen so far.

From St Paul's you can walk in an almost straight line over the Millennium bridge to the south bank of the Thames. The bridge is pedestrian only and offers some great views back towards the Cathedral. The bridge heads directly to The Tate Modern which was constructed inside the old power station.

On the bottom two levels of the Tate is an exhibition space that changes every few months. At the moment it houses a Global cites exhibit which explores some of the worlds largest cites and how rapidly they are growing and changing. We spent a few hours in the Tate but barely got a chance to cover much of its seven floors. We did make it to the top floor which offers spectacular views over the river towards London.

All in all we had a great London day out and we snapped quite a few photos.

*In other breaking news Renee has found full time temping job and has already worked a few days. I have had one interview and have another tomorrow so things are looking promising!

See our St Paul's and Tate Modern pics here

London Update

Well we have survived our first week in the UK!
We are enjoying ourselves and have been getting out and enjoying the sunshine and catching up with friends. Last Thursday night we caught up with Neil and Jenny Schiller (Neil was Renee's grade seven teacher) and they are the parents of our good friend Jo den Otter. They have been been traveling around Europe having loads of fun so it was good to have a drink and here some stories.

For our first weekend in London we were blessed with beautiful weather. For some locals it was a bit too warm getting up over 30 deg. Saturday morning Morgan and Esther and Steve and Larissa took us out for an old fashioned fry up. We had Salty bacon, fried eggs and sausage, and baked beans. It wasn't as greasy as you'd expect though. From there we made our way to Holland Park which is a large are of gardens , forest and sporting fields not to far away. Plenty of locals were out embracing the sunshine and lying around with there shirts off or in bikinis trying to get a tan or sunburn...
We were there for a different purpose which was to try and feed some of the local squirrels. We managed to find a few but these ones were a bit shy and wouldn't take the food from our hands. The did come pretty close and they were very cute.

Saturday night we entertained Penelope and Renee cooked dinner and i chucked on one of our cheap DVDs we picked up in Malaysia

Sunday Renee went with Penelope to the Spitafield markets ( Food and Fashion ) and i met a mate Luke whom i used to work with and we went to the old dock/port area to watch the London Triathlon. It was held in a revamped area where the ships used to dock but has now been converted into a nice residential and commercial precinct. It remedied me a bit of Teneriffe...

I have been getting into the local tradition of embracing all things football (soccer) and have been watching many games on sky TV and this afternoon i went to a local park for a kick around with Morgan and Steve.

I have uploaded some more London photos if you want to check them out below

Click here from pics

London "beautiful one day perfect the next"

Well let's start by dispelling the rumours that London is always miserable and rainy! Since we arrived we have had nothing but blue skies and sunshine and temps of around 22 deg. We are enjoying it as we are sure it won't last.

So far we had fun staying at and catching up with Morgan and Esther and Steve and
Larissa. It has been great to see so many familiar faces. We were met at the airport
by Renee's friend Penelope and headed back to Hammersmith for a beer at the local pub. We didn't really suffer the effects of jet lag so on Monday we headed out to checkout Hammersmith wich is the suburb or "Borough"
Where we are staying. Its a great area and is right on the river and we have had good times exploring the local parks where we saw our first squirrel.

Tuesday we went and checked out "Harrods" but didn't purchase anything this time. At night Penelope took us to a great pub at Barnes on the river where they do a BBQ in summer and had good times as we watched the sunset.

Wednesday night we went to meet my high school friend Trent and his girlfriend Ainsley at Shepherd's Bush and then headed into the city (Oxford st) and had dinner at a Turkish joint. We walked along Carnaby street and window shopped before heading to Piccadilly Circus to check out the crazy giant illuminated billboards you see on TV.


clik here for Malaysia pics

Click here for London pics