Welcomed by familiar surroundings dabbed with Christmas decor.
Super quiet – looked like super low occupancy period with local folks still travelling, and not many foreign visitors at this time!
We take a similar photo as our last visit.
Then (Jun 2023)Now (Dec 2024)
Snagged the same Lady Astor Double room (911) after having stayed at 811 last year (exactly same configuration/facing).
Welcome amenities.
Butler sent some welcome drinks (coffee/tea and iced lemon tea), and a personalized note for Daddy who’s a real sucker for our notes 🙂
We check out the pool (Daddy says its unfortunate we again did not get to swim!), we head to the (again very quiet gym) after dinner (to check out weight and BMI!) and Didi here soaking in the tub!
At Changi Singapore to catch SQ308 from SIN – LHR, at almost 14hours this would be our longest flight thus far! We were originally planning to be back by the 18th Dec 2024 which was when Secondary School Postings for 2025 would be announced, but had we known we didnt have to ballot to our dream schools we would have either gone later, and/or extended our trip!
Arrived in late afternoon to some really turbulent weather into Heathrow – the last 15mins or so before touchdown was particularly rocky, some of the pax were visibly shaken and heard coughing violently – likely sick from the bumpy ride (we know jolly well how that felt like!). For now everyone was glad to have arrived after the long flight. Cleared relatively quickly thanks to the fast clearance for *G in Heathrow.
All visibly tired but glad to have arrived in one piece!
Weather was wet and cold, London was facing some really strong gale winds that day (we later heard about the culprit Storm Darragh that hit, causing widespread disruption to flights and ferry services).
We were literally blown away on arrival, due to the gale force winds, thankfully we got to our apartment in one piece! This would have been our first holiday in a rental apartment which we found available through the almost 2 weeks of our time in a nicely tucked away corner in South-East London.
Compton House.
We were so tired arriving in (traffic in London is horrendous!) to the apartment after almost an hour and a half from LHR. Alas, a nice respite and a home away from home.
Hit the sack early to recover – weather still looking wet and dreary the next morning (Sunday), so typical of London; but we didn’t allow that to dampen nor thwart our plans! We take it easy and hang out at M&S, Tesco Express (and Extra!) along with Sainsbury to get acquainted with the surroundings, and setup the Christmas tree! Oh we did also binge watch “Is it Cake?” and got acquainted with the “Paddington” series on Netflix!
Getting acquainted with M&S and the Bakery!Royal Arsenal Woolwich
On Monday we made our way to Green Park tube station via Bond Street en route to Buckingham Palace to catch the changing of guards (happens only 11am Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays – a ceremony marking the official handover of duties from one group of soldiers to another). It seems there are different guards/uniforms for summer/winter months (along with different music accompaniment. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Guard) so that day we were able to catch the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment (complete with their Household Cavalry brass band in tow).
Where’s Mah Mah???
Fun fact – Daddy says when the flag is up, the King is in! 🙂
Along the Mall outside Buckingham PalaceThe spritely mounted Royal Horse Guards
Pro-tip, go in at least 45mins before and stakeout the ‘roundabout’/circular landing (Queen Victoria Memorial Monunent) for best vantage views if you’re at Buckingham Palace. Note also there are changing of guards at St. James Palace. Once that was all done, we walked around St. James Park (saw many friendly squirrels who seems ‘accustomed’ to visitors trying to feed/pat them!), and covered a far bit of the gardens while making our way to Westminster Abbey, past Big Ben, north along Parliament Street to see 10 Downing Street, Household Cavalry Museum (Royal Horse Guards) ending at Trafalgar Square (Charing Cross station).
Westminster AbbeyBig Ben and London Eye10 Downing StreetHousehold Cavalry Museum
We spotted a super cute Peppa Pig Afternoon Tea Bus Tour on the way!
We finished up the day completing upwards of 10,000 steps (follow our trail below)!
Finishing up at Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross Station…
Tuesday
Next day, onto Oxford Circus – saw @HarmonieLondon outside John Lewis Oxford Street.
Headed to Covent Garden Apple Market and Christmas Markets.
Enjoyed some entertainment from some good ‘ol street buskers – fire/torch jugglers, some half-naked men juggling knives while balancing on a ladder, street soccer performer, and many aspiring singers!
Oh yes, we also bumped into the Grinch in the subway on the way back (reminiscent of The Horseman Pianist we chanced upon in the subway/MTR in Hong Kong)!
Wednesday
What a hearty brekkie whipped up by the J-crew! Our very own (Hilton-worthy) hot breakfast.
Hearty brekkie before setting out!
British Heritage Museum / Natural History Museum featuring a cool earthquake simulator / room with a mockup of a Kobe supermarket amidst the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Checkout the vid below.
Hintze Hall at the British Natural History Museum.
Famous British Fish and Chips – The Fish Plaice (also found on the London Guide Daddy made us read up on prior to the trip).
The Fish Plaice, 32 Museum St., London
We tried the Cod and Haddock fish, but truth be told, the Halibut @ Small Fish & Big Fish in Singapore is so much better (below 1 week after getting home)!
Thursday
British Museum (skeletons of dino).
The very expansive British Museum
Bayswater Duck – the famed Four Seasons and Gold Mine. We settled for Gold Mine this time as YYMM were there just May this year and had some great reviews on the duck.
After a very late lunch, we head to Harrod’s at Knightsbridge.
Friday
Next day, we head out on our own to Tottenham Court Road, we check out London’s West End Tickets – sprawled around Leicester Square (TodayTix, Leicester Square Half Price Box Office, but eventually settle for Mrs Doubtfire for Sunday’s matinee via TKTS. Never buy full-fee musical tix in London!
Walked around the Leicester Square Christmas Markets, checked out the really huge Lego Store on Leicester (we made our very own personalized miniature Lego figurines) and visited the ‘world’s largest’ M&Ms store (have you ever seen another M&M store this huge)? Dig the M&M’s on steroids!
Look who’s here? Mr Rowan Atkinson himself!The Brats staking out the Bratwurst store which seems to be a staple at every Christmas Market!
Around the corner to the world’s largest M&Ms store @ Leicester Square, spanning 35,000 square feet across four floors.
Lego store at Leicester Square!
Aston Martin in Lego!Mr Beefeater!Big Ben using 344,020 bricks, 1035kg and 2735 hours to complete!
Personalizing our own Lego Figurines…
Strolled around Chinatown.
Rode the tube to Paddington Station.
On the platform where the bear donning a red hat and blue coat first arrived, fresh off the boat (or train) from Peru!
Please look after this bear, thank you!Mr and Mrs Brown first met Paddington at the Paddington Station platform in 1958.
Saturday
Next day had some really glorious weather. Went back with YYMMGG to (guess where?!) Tottenham Court again, Chinatown, Leicester Square Christmas Markets and had more Chinese food in Chinatown! Walking around we couldn’t help notice there was a lot of horse poop along the streets. Looked like the police horse had a bad case of diarrhoea from last night’s dinner! yikes!
Four Seasons Chinatown, 12 Gerrard Street Chinatown London
Sunday
Sunday, we take it easy and head to Spitalfields Markets (via Liverpool Street Station). Note – pronounced “Spiitafields, not Spite-a-fields!”.
Rushed back to Tottenham Court Rood and made a dash to Shaftesbury Theatre for Mrs. Doubtfire. We had underestimated the time to get to the theatre from Spitalfields (having had lunch at the markets and finding our way back to Liverpool St. Station via a different route!), consequently super worried about missing, or being locked out (if late) for our 3.30pm matinee! Thank God we literally made it in the nick of time – our guide who got us to the right exits and straight on to Shaftesbury!
We finish up the day playing Monopoly with Daddy.
“Who comes to London having not played the original Monopoly”?
And so we get acquainted with Liverpool St. Station, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street (Marylebone Station!) and the infamous Parklane and Mayfair both of which were mine before Daddy and Didi landed on got bankrupt!!!
Monday
Sky Garden observatory at the 43rd floor of the Fenchurch building (aka the Walkie-Talkie), a 10min walk from Liverpool St. Station.
Dazzling views across London far as the eye could see (pictured below the HMS Belfast with The Shard in the foreground).
Tower BridgeTower of London
Walk along London Bridge (humming a familiar tune?) towards Burrough Markets. We even saw a stall selling Singapore Laksa!
Bade farewell to YYMMGG, continued on our own… back to our fav spot Tottenham Court via Piccadilly Circus, walked to Leicester Square and back, checked out some shops – Foyles Bookstore, Flying Tiger (which we saw in Amsterdam last year!) and more street performers!
…had Five Guys for dinner (Mummy had her fav. Pret A Manger)…
by the way did you know Five Guys has the best chips (or “fries”, depending on where you’re from)? Apparently cooked in peanut oil (sorry all you peanut intolerant peeps), and… they even have crates loads of ground nuts free for all – with a note however that says only for consumption within Five Guys restaurants only (yeah right!)…
At Tottenham Court RoadWhere’s the 5th guy?
Lola’s 🙂
The next day was time to head home… it was a morning flight and because it took >1 hour to Heathrow we had to leave by 5am. At LHR it was pretty long walk from the main terminal (A gate to B38-B44). Take note the (newly renovated) SilverKris Lounge is closer to the B gate area and will take a good 15 mins walk at least from the main area!
Getting settled into SQ 305 for our flight back to SG.
Zoning out midway!Gotta love the Christmas deco/holly decked out across the plane during Christmas time!
For now, we’re super glad to be home, thanks for joining us on this journey and Merry Christmas everyone from the Christmas Carnival @ Leicester Square!
Last day of school on 14th Nov 2024 where we head back for the penultimate time (prize-giving day, in anticipation to the final day on 20th Nov which would be release of the dreaded PSLE results! Yikes!)
With only 5 days to juggle with Daddy had planned for us to Scoot to Sydney to visit (after living in SYD for 2 years, we have actually not had the opportunity to go back until now) – so this would be our 1st trip back in 10 years! Whoa!
Believe it or not we’d actually not packed until getting home on Thursday afternoon, frantically chucking all our barang-barang into the suitcase (we only bought 1 check-in bag allowance of 20KG and managed to snag additional 5KG free) so that wasn’t very much after half of it was filled with stuff/gifts for friends.
Diggin’ the Hello Kitty 2024 Golden Jubilee Fest at Changi!
Our flight was TR2 scheduled for departure at 230am which unfortunately got delayed by an hour plus; it wasn’t until almost 4 in the morning that we had wheels up. We tried to get some shut eye given there was no IFE. We did prebook 2 meals (Nasi Lemak and Ginger Chicken with Rice) to share amongst the four of us but unfortunately we were already stuffed (after visiting the Plaza Premium Lounge at T1 – using Daddy and Mummy’s Priority Pass/Dragon Pass respectively), plus we were just too dead tired. The food didn’t look so good either, so we just took the drinks and candy through the flight to keep us perked! And by the way Daddy was a little unwell in the tummy the whole trip…
Despite the announcement over PA reminding pax to take note of boarding their respective boarding sequence, overall it was a hugely messy exercise with priority-boarding free for all – almost like a frag-fest rampage! So much for priority boarding (more like hoarding!)!
Still awake and wide-eyed!
[1:58am] All smiles – checkout Doc Brown at the back![3:13am] Still waiting…
Kind-deed Mummy decided to bless an uncle seated in front of him with one of the meals we didn’t eat. We also gave away another meal. And no, for avoidance of doubt it wasn’t to Doc Brown lurking at the back!
No drama getting into Kingsford Smith Airport Sydney (FYI did you know there are still curfews enforced in some AU airport, with no flights allowed to arrive/leave AU between 11pm-6am). Thankfully for the free forward seats we were allocated we were able to get to the immigration counters fairly quickly and ahead of the rest (on the flights, and other flights). Can you imagine with flight-bunching, many other airlines arrive around the same time! We even requested to have our passports stamped with the Aussie arrival chop – not so easy these days with electronic clearance rolled out to most airports! There was also quite a wait for the bags at the carousel but we made up for good time after being waved through without any bag checks (oh we did miss seeing the cutesy beagles sniff our bags as we saw in Perth last trip!). Collected our car from Avis where daddy got a free upgrade to a swanky BMW X3 despite having booked the smallest category Suzuki swift given his Avis President membership (thank you #Amex), which was apparently the same car he got when he was there few months back in July!
SYD Airport!
Nice weather when we arrived. It was about a 45 min drive to Burwood, where we pretty much stayed at. Headed straight for Westfield and strolled K-Mart and Target before heading to Strathfield for Korean dinner with Gong Gong and Popo.
Day#1 – Koala Park Sanctuary – West Pennant Hills
Surprisingly the highlight wasn’t so much the Koala viewing and Kangaroo feeding, but our Cockatoo friend (checkout his funny antics!). He must have been craving much needed attention that he was trying to follow us when we were about to leave! He was always following us around and saying “Hello!”
Mummy Koa at Koala Park Sydney!
#Throwback to 10years back at Featherdale Wildlife Park Sydney – easily an hour North-West from Burwood which we didnt have time to do this trip, hence the closer option of Koala Park at Pennant Hills (30mins away) where we still get to see Koalas and Kangaroo. Lookit those cutie pies, both with headgear and without!
The OG Mummy Koa!Wide-eyed Jo, after being the one sleeping last trip at Caversham Wildlife Park. Perth, WA.
Lunch at Pyrmont Fish Market! Daddy and Mummy’s go-to location for one-stop seafood each time!
Glorious seafood galore!
There was so much food there, and our favourite was the fish and chips!
SYD Pyrmont Fish MarketGlorious SeafoodYums!
We also ate takoyaki with bonito flakes. Mmmmmm!
#throwback to Babypower 10years ago at SYD Fish Market, our fav one-stop seafood joint, *munch-munch*…
Sydney Opera House!
In the middle of the road outside Aunty Luan’s house in Killara!
SYD Harbour BridgeSYD Opera House
Dinner with Gong Gong Popo and Aunty Luan at Ipoh Hawker (what was previously Sambal). After dinner, while mummy and daddy went to shop at Coles, we baked Black Forest cupcakes with Popo. (Chocolate cupcakes with cherry filling, whipped cream and a cherry on top)🍫🧁🍒
Day#2 – Cornerstone Church Eastwood
Old friends at Cornerstone Church Eastwood
Woolies at Marsfield after checking out our old house, look who we spotted!
Woolies!Iguana!Yikes!
Lunch at BBQ Wang at North Ryde – we had initially rendezvoused there in hopes to find an old Viet haunt we used to visit for rice paper rolls but found the new Korean joint instead which Daddy and Mummy said served even better food than Korea (yes they were in Seoul again just a week before SYD while we stayed home – thanks Gugu who stayed over with us during that time!). We all agreed that the food was excellent and wanted to go there again on Monday. However, little did we know that they would be closed on Monday. Boo-hoo, another hurrah another day!
BBQ Wang – the Wagyu Specialist!
We went to visit Rhodes Shopping Centre (lookit the playground we used to play at, Gugu says where only us Asian kids were the usual suspects frolicking around past 10 in the night when all other kids were already in bed by that time!) and then our house in SYD. Come to think about it, we really don’t remember anything much about our early life here though the waters seem to be a wee bit familiar now that Daddy mentioned he used to cycle around with us strapped in the back of the trailer!).
56 Walker St.Rhodes Riverside
We were able to go in a take some photos – thanks to our gracious tenants!
Look at this blast from the past pic!
Peek-a-boo! OMG who are those little kiddos straddled at the back of the baby trailer?
Updated to recent year(s) [May 2019] – almost outgrowing the max weight supportable and working our old man really hard…
We managed to catch a game of mini-golf at Holey-Moley at North Strathfield.
Day#3 – More shopping (I was looking out for squishmallows)
Since it was daddy’s birthday and he was at work, we decided to surprise him by making a chocolate birthday cake with “magic” candles— they wouldn’t go out no matter how many times Daddy HUFFED and PUFFED. In the end, we had to use a wet towel to douse the flames.🔥
Burwood Chinatown!Daddy’s Birthday!
Day#4 – finally time for us to head back to take our results!
Again another delay wherein we arrived back at 4am (originally scheduled for 3am!) after almost another hour’s delay (seems to be a trend here on TR flights hmmm….).
We head back in for some shuteye and then it was back to school (again!) for the final time to collect our results!
OMG so amazing Praise the Lord!
Both didi and I achieved AL4 and Distinctions on Higher Chinese which means we will be headed to our dream schools!
YAY! AWESOME!!! WOOHOOO!!!
With South View Primary School Form Teachers!With South View Primary School Form Teachers!TheJTwins rock PSLE both with AL4 and HDs on Higher Chinese! PTL!
So Daddy and Mummy get the yearly invite for a free movie night out courtesy of Singapore Airlines PPS Club, this year for a preview of Red One (having missed previous years’ – in 2023 it was Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom on 20th Dec which we missed as we were already on holiday). Jumping at the invite this year, they ditched us at home to binge-play our video games.
The event was again held at Golden Village Vivocity and food was catered for at the annex adjacent to the level 6 box office where apparently private events (birthday parties, corporate events) were usually held.
SQ PPS 2024 Movie Night – Red One
Daddy snaps up the pix (and food), and while there were heaps of delectable food and sweets, Mummy indulges in some bubbly, but the grownups quip that the satay wasn’t half as good as the on 40,000 feet up in the air. For some reason it just wasn’t the same. There was of course also the signature SQ laksa akin to the ones usually found at Silverkris (SKL) lounges.
SQ Satay!SQ Laksa!_cuva
There was a card which participants had to keep, to redeem their goodie bag after dinner, en route to the movie hall. Inside were some chips, bottled water and a pair of reusable shopping bags (how very thoughtful and practical indeed!). Before the movie, some SQ and Krishop/Pelago ads were aired adding to the touches which continue to make SQ a ‘Great Way to Fly’.
Overall a very nice touch by Singapore Airlines.
SQ PPS Club Movie Night 2024 – Goodie Bag.
Oh yes, disclaimer, both the red and Polo blue SQ bears are blasts from the past – they didnt come with the goodie bag (though Daddy wished otherwise!).
