What a day!
A train to Marylebone station then a train to Waterloo station to drop MIL off who was catching a train to Bournemouth near Dorset.  She is going to stay with one of her old friends for a week or so.



I took this photo of this old building. Don't know what it was or is, but it looked very old so thought I would take a pic.





Next we walked past the Hop Exchange which served the centre for hop trading for the brewing industry.
Now its just an office building.  There were quite a few of these buildings in London which served as exchange buildings. Most of them were destroyed during the war and this is the only one that remains.



 We were on our way to the old Operating theatre at Southwark. I thought it would be really interesting and it was quite fascinating. The Operating Theatre (operating or emergency room) is found in the roof space of an English Baroque Church. Read more here.I took lots of photos as you can see I have added quite a few below.

This was a late flight - about 1100pm so 1.00am aus time, which were more or less still running by.  We were really tired - the overnight stopover is good but only if you stay atleast two nights.  Not really worth one night stop over.

Anyway we boarded and BT wanted to watch Ben Ten,  ho hum... trying to tell him we should sleep... Anyway he fell asleep even before we took off.  I don't remember the take off either so I think I fell asleep too.  We woke about 5.00am and then Braedon did watch Ben Ten and I watched Book of Eli which was really quite good.  Then guess what BT wanted to watch...... Yep  How to Tame a Dragon....  I watched Dear John, which was also quite good.

We went back to sleep after this and I was losing track of time, it was still dark outside as we were traveling into the night...not day. anyway I think I got another 2 hours or so... So tha'ts the most time I have ever slept on a plane.

Arrival

Touchdown Heathrow at 5.20am and again quickly got through Customs to be met by my mum, and both Aunts.  We caught a cab back to Northolt, about 20 mins outside London

Had some breakfast and a good cuppa tea. We couldn't check into the Harvester Inn keepers cottage which was just down the road until 3.00pm so we just had a catch up at Lindas (Aunt) until about 1.00pm and then went to the hotel and had a quick lunch,  We new this would be our dinner too. I think we finished about 3.00pm and checked into our rooms.

Showers, BT was still awake watching Garfield.  When it finished we crashed about 4.30 or so - its very hot here and the rooms are quite stuffy not air cons... We slept until 5.00am.. So now we're all up and I'm catching up on Bloggin.

We woke up about 8am and got ready to go down for breakfast.  Braedon of course only ate his normal cereal and we told him French toast was pancakes and covered it with Syrup - he didn't know the difference.

After that it was a walk to check out one of the new buildings in Singapore. A three building sky scraper with a boat on the top

See  what I mean lol - very strange, apparently there is a garden up there. Braedon took both these photos with his swank new camera.



Next a quick look at a photography exhibition of Life in Borneo Held in - this exhibition by acclaimed National Geographic photographer Mattias Klum is a powerful and revealing testimony of the devastation of Borneo’s tropical rain forests, which are among the oldest and most biologically diverse in the world.with the Orangutans. Find a lil more about it here.

A quick walk round Chijmes - we had been here before and we like the little shops and the atmosphere.
Chijmes is a converted convent and church that has been made into a multipurpose eating / drinking complex. Nice courtyard location with several levels. Read more about it  CHIJMES -

Next lunch at Raffles Hotel, a Singapore Sling and just a rest up for an hour - we were starting to feel a bit jet lagged.  The next few hours shopping - bought two pairs of cargo pants as I was a bit short of trousers.  I was starting to think I had over packed a little.in some areas and not enough in others.. see how we go but I might post some clothes back.

We didn't get many photos here this time as we already had lots we from our last trip to Singapore. Will have to add them when we return home.

A few more pics to download later.

Anyway the morning started off as a disorganised nightmare as we still had all the camera gear to pack and other bits and pieces to get organised, dog dinners to finish off preparing and and freeze.. lol – yes I know but they don’t eat dog food – they eat cooked rice, beef or chicken mince with their biscuits. So we had one more batch to prepare. 

Anyway Bev dropped us off at the airport and we had plenty of time to do some duty free shopping. Braedon had money to burn as he has been earning money doing odd jobs. He bought himself a magazine and I bought him a travel journal. So he could keep notes and jot down things he saw.

We also bought a digital camera for him - we didn't want to spend too much but good enough to get some good photos. We bought one duty free Sydney and priced it in Singapore - we saved $150 - that's just unbelievable difference in price considering they were both supposed to be duty free prices. Anyway shock proof, Water proof underwater up to 10m and Braedon proof.
We made our way to gate 10. Of course he was getting excited about getting on the plane, we could see the plan right there in front of us. So of course whipped out the camera and took some pics

We boarded the plane and got settled – of course checking out what movies were on was the number 1 priority. So Braedon settled on How to tame a dragon, and I watched Diary of a whimpy kid – which I wouldn’t recommend as its a bit hoh hum..... Next one of the list for me was How to tame a dragon, as BT kept talking about it and it sound very good so I thought I would check it out. BT even watched it again, next we both watched Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang which was quite good. So there two I would recommend. I think DH watched Shutter Island which was a long movie – he said it was really good.

We arrived in Singapore about 1000 and it was fairly a quick check through customs. Into our pickup and transfer to the hotel about midnight Aus time – but we were pooped – so we just crashed.

Day 1 Leaving Australia (Journalling by DH)

We arrived at Sydney without too much of a problem. We took a cab from Margery’s (Aunt) at NorthSydney and the driver engaged us all the way. He had recently been to the US and gave us some good oil.

We checked into the flight, the lady at the checkout counter asked us where we were going to stay, she said it was extremely important that the address in their system matched what we had put on the electronic pre-approval. I showed her and she started to type in Hotel TBA, I explained that TBA meant To Be Advised. I had however forgot to update it and wasn’t really sure where we were staying so I gave what I thought was right.

After going through customs we headed for the internet terminal to check out which hotel we had booked and where it was. Suffice to say I (Ian) was wrong and panic set in. We didn’t have any confirmation back from the Ramada at Barstow and I gave the address at the checkin counter as Ramada Inn Kingham. We were able to send off another booking to the Ramada at Barstow and then update our electronic entry authorisations. Then it was a matter of updating the QANTAS system. We headed for the QANTAS Club because I knew that if anyone was going to be able to help us and update their system they would. After searching around a few screens they were finally able to update our hotel information. Thank goodness, I am sure they would have finally let us into the US after a bit of mucking around but it was surely better to fix it before we got there.

Journalling by me:

We settled into the flight and started to watch movies. We both watched Grand Torino, I watched, Marley and Me, and The day the earth stood still,
The flight went reasonably quickly, I didn’t however enjoy the food much – Qantas is usually better.

Day 1 Ground Hog Day- We called it this as we actually arrived an hour earlier than when we left so we lived this day twice. DH named it ground hog day.

We arrived in Las Angeles four hours before we left Sydney at about 9:45am. We went through customs which took about an hour as they check passports, destination address and they take your fingerprints electronically.

It then took about half an hour to get to the Thrifty car rental and get the car which turned out to be a Dodge Avenger or something like that? It sounds like a sewing machine at high speed.

Drive to Barstow, California

We wanted to get at least out of LA and make it to Barstow which was about 3 hours drive. We decided to hire a Navman so it reasonably easy to navigate our way out of LA with all the highway flyovers. We passed the San Bernardino Mountains on our right and it was very smoggy – later heard that there were fires in Santa Barbara so maybe it was this.

I had to take a photo of this pic - Tassie Devil on the back of the truck.

We arrived at Barstow about 4.00 where we check into Ramada Inn. First we grabbed dinner at the Sizzlers restaurant next door even though we were more than ready to get some sleep. We weren’t sure about the tipping process, ie do you leave the tip on the table, give it to the waitress or put it in a tip jar on exit. We decided to leave it on the table.
After dinner went back to our room and crashed. The problem was it was too early really and we were both awake by 1.00am and couldn’t go back to sleep. It didn’t help that every train that went throught Barstow honked it horn numerous times just to wake everybody up.

As the states was built around the railway line we found out that every town along this route would be the same. Anyway all very frustrating as I still felt tired but just couldn’t get back to sleep. We managed to get back to sleep about 4.00am.