Hyde Park--Day Three

Sunday morning-- and our first order of business was Church at the Hyde Park Chapel in west London.  This was the nearest Church to our hotel and also a place that Gary K. had served while on his mission.

Like our church building in Hong Kong, it is on several levels with stairs and elevators in between (actually no elevator that I remember in Hong Kong).  It has a beautiful pipe organ in the chapel with many of the pipes exposed.  They have so many visitors that they have a Sunday School class just for visitors with a teacher called.  She says that she teaches between 30-100 people each week--always changing.

After Sunday school I tried to get a picture of
the pipe organ but they were starting another
Sacrament meeting.  You can see it at the front of the Chapel.

The lobby of the building is also a small visitor's center where people can be greeted by missionaries and learn a little about the gospel.  One of the sister missionaries serving there is from central China.  Isn't that amazing!!

 Even a sign outside indicating that people can stop in and get a free Book of Mormon.

It was another beautiful day in London which was great because the plan for the afternoon was to spend some time at the famous Hyde Park which was just a block and half north of the chapel  (I think it is north--lack of mountains makes directions tough in a big city.) 

It's London so there must be a pigeon somewhere---and there were lots of them!  This is the road outside of the Hyde Chapel building.

Entering Hyde Park---

We are not in Syracuse anymore---our parks don't have quite as fancy of gates and fencing.

Prince Albert's Memorial--This is what you do when you are the Queen and your loving husband dies.  (Sorry, Gary, I love you that much as well, but don't think I have the resources to build you something like this.)

 

Each corner represented a different part of the British empire at the time.

And when you are in London, you must squeeze yourself into one of their iconic phone booths even if this one did not have a working phone.

Princess Diana's Memorial Fountain--didn't expect a water place for kids to play in, but it did seem like a fitting tribute to her.

And Charon and I couldn't resist walking in the water ourselves.  It was quite refreshing.

The pond inside of the park complete with swams, ducks, and geese.

We ate pondside at a cafe and some people had their first official fish and chips in England.  The fish is cod and it is usually big and lots of fried breading on it.

Our walk through the park continued along the pond/lake

then out and down to the Memorial gardens which honors people who have died in the many wars that Britain has been in over the hundreds of years they have been a country.

We then reached the famous Buckingham Palace and spent some time walking around and admiring this huge building.

Queen Victoria's monument in front of the palace.

A shot of an actual guard of the palace.  It turns out that they just aren't located at the Buckingham Palace but at other palaces as well and we were able to see the changing of the guard at Windsor Castle a few days later.

Their hats are made of bear skins from North American (which I hate the idea of) and weigh several pounds each.

So many details to see and to talk about.

A posed picture in front of the Palace

An important reminder for all of us who live where traffic is on the other side of the road.

Gary K. wanted to ride the subway so we decided we would head for the nearby tube station and head back to the hotel that way.

City sights along the way:

Apartment buildings

A "growing green wall" on the side of a building

A shop on the ground floor with housing above it.  Everywhere the old and the new are mixed together.  Many of these places are over 100-300 years old.

We didn't try to do a play but next time (if we go back) we might give it a try.  Sometimes you can get much cheaper seats than in Salt Lake.

 A bit of a challenge as some of the subways are not wheelchair compatible, but with the help of the staff at the Tube, we figured it out and we all got our first ride on the subway in London.  Gary and Gary K reported that they have really been upgraded and improved since the last time they had ridden them. 

While on the subway, Charon got a phone call from her husband back in Utah.  How crazy is that!  We live in an amazing world.

Our subway top was near the West Field Mall which is a very high end shopping area near our hotel.

We stopped for dinner there and had some great hamburgers and the sweet potato fries were the best I had ever had anywhere.

We then managed to figure out our way home with some help from our waiter and our map. 

Day three was done...and we all fell asleep early again that night.

Day One and Two

We boarded our plane for the 8 1/2 hour direct flight from Salt Lake to London for the 6:30 pm flight.  Sasha had told us to stay awake until crossing over the eastern edge of the US and then try to sleep the rest of the way.  Then stay awake when we arrived in London on Saturday morning until about 8:00 in the evening.

None of us were able to sleep on the plane, even Gary who used to be a master of it.  We were a bit tired when we headed out of the airport...and missed the driver holding the sign for our party on our first pass through the waiting area.  We were all looking for Hall party.

Gary was the one awake enough to find "Charon Bird"--Gary's sister--on the driver's sign!  We were a bit tired as it was about 2:00 am Salt Lake time.

We got the experience of cars been driven on the "other side of the road"--Gary K. was just beaming as we drove through the streets of London that Saturday morning.

A fuzzy but only picture of our hotel which was located in the west end of London.  It turned out to be a great location with good access to many of the places we were going to see.

We unpacked our bags from our van from the airport, dropped off our luggage at the hotel where our rooms were not yet ready (It was about 12:00 pm at the time.)

Then we grabbed two taxis and headed off for our first adventure.  Taxis in London were quite amazing.  They all took credit or debit cars and they all easily accommodated the wheelchairs.

One of the ancient gates in the city where
traffic narrows to one or two narrow lanes.
This one was called Admiralty Gate, one of the many
street and area names which were also seen in
Hong Kong-as it was a British colony that makes sense,
but it was unexpected to me to be reminded of
Hong Kong so much while we were in London. 

Gary paying one of the taxis.  One driver said that there were over 20,000 taxi drivers in London and only about 1% of them are women.

Our first view of the London Eye, a ferris wheel type of ride with cars big enough for about 30 people with amazing views of the London city.  That was for later in our day.

We headed down to the South End which is famous for its street market of food vendors.  So many choices--Gary and I settled for some excellent Indian food.  Others had fish and chips, hamburgers, and salad.  The market was colorful and amazing and I am sure the smells were crazy as there were foods from so many different countries.  I guess I was more worried about food rather than taking pictures at this point, because I don't have any pictures from here.

We must be in London---

Our first tour was the River Thames River Tour:  We traveled down the river west for a couple of bridges and then circled back and traveled east to the Tower Bridge and back again.

You know that I love bridges so traveling along a river with SO many bridges was amazing way to start our visit to London.

We crossed the Westminster Bridge to get to the starting off point and we traveled under seven of the 33 bridges that cross the river in the London and surrounding areas. There are four bridges in this photo-- first the Millenium Pedestrian Bridge, then The Southwark Bridge (the green one), The London Bridge (hard to see, but is the grey that you see under the Southward bridge on the right) and the Tower Bridge in the background.

 Approaching the Tower Bridge

The shores along either side are lined with either very old buildings like this one....

...or new skyscrapers like these.  In London, the guide said that each skyscraper has a nick name, some of which are not appropriate to say in mixed company.

Another view of the Tower Bridge as we went back under it.

After leaving our river tour, we headed to wait in line at the famous London Eve.  It was built specifically for people (tourists) to grant them a view of the city of London and has over 3.5 million visitors a year.  It is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel at 440 feet high. You ride in booths which can hold up to 30 people and slow rotate up and down the wheel while seeing the London skyline.

Charon at the beginning of the ride

Gary sharing something funny with his mom.
(I love his laughing.)

We are almost to the top at this point... the weather was perfect for viewing--blue skies everywhere.

A look down at the wheel and the building below....

London everywhere---after a few days we would know a bit more about some of these buildings we were seeing.... 

A view of the inside of the booth-

By now, the sun was beginning to set, and we had been up for over 24 hours.  We headed to the hotel to get settled into our hotel rooms, had dinner at the hotel, and crashed for the night.  I think Gary and I were asleep at 9:00 pm London time.

Day One and Two was in the books!