After a hard day of sightseeing we hit the ice skating rink at Queens before dinner at Obeno. We first tried Okonomiyaki during our trip to Tokyo for Alex and Chiaki's wedding. I'm sure that Chiaki and Alex will be very impressed with Carolyn's new Okonomiyaki cooking skills. The excellent food and Sapporo beer helped us relax after a long and busy day.
We stopped off at Stamford Bridge to take the Chelsea stadium tour. We didn't really support a specific football team, but after the tour we were avid supporters and Carolyn even picked up a Chelsea T-Shirt. The tour included the media room, locker room, stands and tunnel. We also had our photo taken with the FA Cup and Charity Shield
The London Pass included a guided tour of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club as well as access to the museum. The guided tour was excellent and included Number 1 Court, Centre Court, Henman Hill, Competitors Area and Media Centre. Highlights from the museum included the Jon McEnroe exhibit, competitors outfits (Roger Federer's outfits with his logo on everything were hilarious), trophies and taking on one of the museum staff on the reaction test game (he saw me thrash Carolyn on it and wanted to kick my ass - which he did).
Despite living down the road from HMS Belfast I haven't been to visit since my Dad took me some twenty years ago. HMS Belfast served as an Artic escort and was one of the first ships to open fire on German positions during D-Day as well as being involved in the Korean War. We had a great time looking around and were amazed at how technology advanced the old girl was. It was especially great to see the photos of HMS Belfast in Sydney Harbour. After we finished looking around HMS Belfast we visited the London Bridge Experience.
Don't press the button Carolyn ;-)
We rarely take time out to appreciate how amazing London really is, so this long weekend we bought two LondonPass tickets with the aim of seeing all the tourist stuff we normally neglect. Our first port of call was Horse Guards Parade to see the Changing of the Guard. The star attraction was the chap in the photo to the left who kept the crowd amused with his lewd comments to the soldiers such as "Tom, Tom, kiss me and I'll turn into a Prince" and "Tom, Tom, Tom you are my dreams come true". After the ceremony was over we used our pass to visit the Household Cavalry Museum.
My Grandmother and Mum have always wanted to visit the grave of our Aussie relative (from Singleton, NSW) who died during World War One. Joseph Morris joined the 5th Australian Pioneers on the 27th of May 1915, was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal on the 6th of October 1917 and was killed in action on the 2nd of December 1917 aged 26. The following text explains the justification for Moris' DCM and is taken from the London Gazette dated 19th of November 1917 and the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette dated 27th of June 1918 - "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty as one of a party detailed to remove a dump of shells outside a burning building. About seventy shells were removed and thereby a large explosion prevented".
We stayed the night at the SuiteHotel before exploring the sights of Lille. Favourites included the most intricate cake shop any of us had ever seen and an amazing praline hot chocolate:
