It was one of those early mornings where I felt going out for a walk and I wanted to get something to eat but I wasn’t sure what. There was light rain but it was on and off as I was walking, I was around Marylebone road and Baker Street so I walked to the WH Smith to check out the magazines they had and topped up my cell phone at the Vodaphone there.
After a little bit I got even hungrier and I headed towards my Chineses place which is around the corner from that intersection, it was only a 5 minute walk from where I was. That day wasn’t too bad, it was cold but there wasn’t any wind so it wasn’t too bad. The best part was walking with the camera in hand and snapping away.
Traveling with the family you have a lot of preparations to make for your flight and I have to check all the things. We headed to the airport 3.5 hours early for our flight and I was happy about that, that would give me time to walk around Terminal 4 for the last time before the switch over to Terminal 5. A lot British Airways has already switched to Terminal 5, they are starting services already at Terminal 5 and flights begin on March 27th but that is for short haul flights, long haul flights like Kuwait will be landing there by the end of April.
We got on the plane just in time, and even before the plane took off I was passed out in my seat. This flight back was 75% full and there were lots of Kuwaitis on the plane. There were a Kuwaiti couple up front that looked real good together, the girl was beautiful and the guy looked relaxed. It is very nice to see normal couples in Kuwait, and it was funny how most of the women were telling the girl “You are beautiful, who are you? Oh.. please say hello to your mum, I am so and so”
We got into Kuwait around 6:30 am and my sleep has been messed up from that point, I slept from 12 – 3 and then from 6 – 7, and I have no clue how it is going to be at work the next day. One thing is for sure, I really don’t feel like work, this brake was too short and I didn’t get to do everything I wanted.
I love going to them movies especially in London, there is something about the movies in London that is different then other places. The best part is going in when its cold outside, then when you enter its nice and warm. After finishing and enjoying the movie you go outside in search of taxi cab to head back home, sometimes its a 2 minute search and sometimes 20 minutes and you end up walking half way in the direction you need to go. The one thing that I look forward to when I go to the theaters in London is the sweet popcorn, I could have had lunch or dinner before the movie and I will still order a large bucket of sweet popcorn because I love the taste. All the cinemas have good tasting sweet popcorn but some are better then others, so I have ranked them. On another note I hate cheese and caramel popcorn, sweet popcorn in London is just different.
Popcorn Ranking:
I’m walking around London getting a few things done, meeting up some family and while all this is going on I can’t help but snap away. There were times I was just walking on my own to go to a few shop, and this weather is nothing short of insane. It says on the machine that its two degrees outside, but I honestly I’m loving walking around in this weather.
I went to Apollo Cinema to get some tickets for 27 Dresses since when you are in a group and you are the only guy there isn’t much choice. When we went it was not showing yet and it was a mistake on the website, so ultimately I got to go to Step Up 2 and it was a great movie. We went to a cafe after just to warm up, I wanetd a hot chocolate to keep me warm then I went to dinner with the family. It was a great day to walk around, I do like the cloudy weather and I didn’t mind the snow much, it was refreshing.
I have been wanting to go to the London Eye for a while now, I just haven’t gotten around to it. Except this time I thought I would have enough time, I had an appointment later in the day so I thought I had time. What I didn’t know was that there was so much construction going on in London we were rerouted about 6 times before getting to the location, a 15 minute drive turned into a 50 minute drive.
I got to the location at 2:00 pm instead of 1:00 pm, and I had an appointment at 3:00 pm. I wanted to get on but the line was long as hell so I had a chance just to take pictures around the thing, I wanted to take pictures from the top. There are a total of 60 capsules for people to enter and it takes about 30 minutes for the whole thing to revolve. I didn’t have a chance this trip to get on it, but next time I will. Then there was Big Ben, I have been to London so many times yet I haven’t been to Big Ben.
I arrived 30 minutes early into Heathrow airport, my plane was relatively early. I slept most of the way since I didn’t get much sleep the night before. I asked for an early lunch and passed out right away. I left the plane fairly quickly, picked up my luggage and headed into London. There was some traffic due to construction which kept me on the road for a little longer then expected.
The day was nice and sunny, it was a crispy cold around 11C but it felt colder then that. The day looked like it was going to be a nice day, and the first thing I wanted to do was go to Harrods Pizzeria for a late lunch. We headed over there but stopped at few shops on Sloane Street before heading in. As we are walking about it started snowing, and it got windy very quickly. It just kept snowing more and more so we headed towards Harrods to eat at the Pizzeria. There was a que but it didn’t take long to get a stool, and it was just right. There were a lot of Emirates there for some reason, a few Kuwaitis but thats about it.
Went home after a little shopping and I bought some movie tickets on the way. I was tired but I really wanted to go to the movies so we went and I really enjoyed it. Getting back to a very cold bed helped me fall right asleep for a good 11 hours.
As usual I didn’t get anything done earlier in the week, at night around 11:00 pm to 2:00 am I was packing my clothes and getting things ready. The clothes were simple, it just took about 25 minutes and I was done and ready for my trip. The rest of the items such as credit cards, other sim chip, some paper work, loading up my external hard drive, and a multitude of different items is what took so long.
I wasn’t worried about sleep much, since I knew I could get some sleep on the 8:50 am flight. The flight seems to be relatively empty since the lounge is just filled with a few British People. The funny part is that during the early mornings I managed to clean out a lot of my room from all the open boxes, old magazines, and items that I don’t use. I was happy with the results of getting things organized in my room, but I still didn’t manage to finish packing my carry ons.
I woke up around 6:20 am, jumped in the shower and got a KDD Rocket before heading off to the airport. The best part is the roads were empty and I was enjoying the morning drive.
I’m taking a quick break with family to London. I haven’t been to London for a little while now, I have had this flight booked for over three weeks now and I didnt know that Thursday was going to be a day off. I’m leaving on Friday and it was too late to make any changes to the booking, my flight is confirmed so I don’t want to change anything. All the flights to everywhere on Thursday are all booked.
I’m going to test my new British Status, not sure exactly whats going to happen with it. Hopefully nothing will happen and it all goes smoothly, but knowing my luck I am bound to run into something. Its going to be cold and thats one thing I really enjoy in London, running around in the chilly weather. I’m looking forward to food, cinemas, motorcycles, and lots and lots of book stores.
Terminal 5 is now officially open, it has been years they have been talking about it. It supposed to lessen the traffic at Heathrow, and all of British Airways are switching are switching over to Terminal 5 and it is only for their use. It is officially open for their use on March 27, I hope they have some more entertainment since I always liked a couple of hours at the airport during a lay over.
Its now official Emirates Airlines have now started daily flights from Dubai to Los Angeles. The flight takes off at 8:25 am and lands at LA around noon, then it takes off at 4:50 pm and lands in the Emirates around 7:30 pm. So those are excellent flights, I would like to try this out for sure. This will change the routes of some people to LA.
I don’t have the technical details but it seems that Dubai’s Metro is going to be ready very soon, maybe just a matter of months until they have their full Metro system and hopefully it will lessen the traffic they have.
If it even stops 10% of car travel then that would be fantastic, but I wonder how it is inside those trains. We will know soon enough, but for now they have done a good job in investing in their infrastructure, hopefully this progress in their infrastructure will continue.
