2023-08-02: Arrival in London

We arrived in London today!

After getting a bit of sleep and breakfast on the plane, we landed at London Heathrow airport around 11:30am. We got off the plane and began the long walk to passport control and customs. They have implemented new kiosks at customers for certain countries including Canada. It’s an automated system where you scan your passport and it takes your picture. Then the gate opens and you’re on your way. We made our way to the baggage carousels and our bags were already waiting for us. We grabbed the bags and headed to the exit.

We decided to take the Underground to our hotel. The Piccadilly line connects the airport to Leicester Square where our hotel is. It was training when we came out of the Underground station. Thankfully, it was a short walk to our hotel. Check in time for the hotel is 3:00pm but it was only 1:30pm when we arrived. We dropped our bags at the hotel and went exploring the area.

We headed to the largest Lego store in the world. It was just down the block in Leicester Square. There was a bit of a line to get into the store but it moved quickly. We were in the store wtithin 5 minutes. The place was impressive. They had all sorts of lego sculptures built including an Aston Martin car, Elizabeth Tower, Harry Potter scenes, and a double-decker bus. After perusing through the store we headed back to the hotel to grab our rain jackets. We thought we could handle the light drizzle without them but the rain seemed to be getting a little heavier.

After grabbing our jackets, we headed back to Leicester Square and got in line at the M&M shop. Again the line moved quickly and we were in the store within a few minutes. It was another enormous place full of M&Ms and M&M branded accessories. It’s incredible how much M&M merchandise they have. After buying a few M&Ms, because we couldn’t go to an M&M store and NOT buy any, we left the store.

There was a TWG Tea Store across the street from the M&M store that we decided to check out. I have to assume the teas they make are good because the prices were outrageous. Tea pots ranging up to £650. Small packages of tea started at £22 and got more expensive from there. Needless to say, we didn’t walk out with anything from that store. It was after 3:00pm now and the kids were tired so we returned to the hotel. We were able to check in and get our bags in our room.

We relaxed in the room for a while and Amanda and I had a quick showers. At 5:00 we headed out to grab some dinner. We walked for a few blocks to a restaurant called The Spaghetti House. As you might have guessed, it was an Italian restaurant. The service was slow, but the food was tasty. After dinner we took a look at a monument dedicated to Agatha Christie just outside the restaurant and then headed to a nearby supermarket called Sainsbury. We like to explore the supermarkets when we travel as they always have different items than what we have at home. We grabbed a few snacks and some bottles of water and continued on our way.

We walked through China Town on the way back to the hotel. We only made one wrong turn on the way back which took us a minute to figure out, but we were soon back at the hotel. It was just after 8:00pm at this point. We were all starting to feel the jet lag set in. We relaxed in the room and got ourselves ready for bed. We’re off to Windsor Castle tomorrow morning.