Visit to London- part 2

We had taken combined tickets online for London Eye + Madame Tussauds + SEA LIFE, so later in the evening we chose to visit London eye.

First of all let me tell you that London eye is one of the most fascinating mega structure for me. A visit to London eye has always been in my bucket list ever since I saw the movie Fantastic four (for that most memorable superhero action scene)

Even though the location was flooded with tourists I must say the ride was well organized, peaceful and quiet. It was easy to get inside the capsule as it has just enough people in it so you don't feel over crowded.
After getting inside the capsule it was a 30 minutes smooth and relaxing ride with some of the most breath taking views of the entire city. But more than the views, I remember us spending most of the time admiring this immense cantilever construction.

The design has two large tapered legs that stand apart, they are held upright by cable ties. Together this supports a load of the wheel, the rim, capsules and cables. The spindle itself carries load and cantilevers the wheel which rotates over the River Thames. How is that not fascinating!!!!

The day had come to an end we spent our evening having dinner at a fancy romantic Indian restaurant. It was a perfect way to end this special day in our memories.

Visit to London- part 1

On our 5th wedding anniversary we decided to visit London for an extended weekend trip. I was 18 weeks pregnant and wanted to enjoy every opportunity of travelling before getting really heavy.

On the very first day in London we visited Jai’s good old friend from his college days who is currently settled in London with his wife and baby girl. They picked us up from the hotel and we spent entire evening travelling all over the city. Late evening we visited the very famous London Bridge which is the oldest bridge over the River Thames. We took a long walk on the monument and we were really pleased with our experience. Later we stopped at our friend’s house, were we had lip smacking Kerala food. After 12 they surprised us with an anniversary cake. It was really a heart whelming experience and an excellent start to our anniversary.

Late night we returned to the hotel and took a good night sleep. As it was my first visit to London Jai wanted me to do all the traditional tourist stuff! So early morning we left for Madame Tussauds Museum.

We booked our tickets in advance and paid online in a hope that it would save our time. But after reaching there it seemed that everyone had done the same thing as the queue was quite long. After standing there for good 45-50 minutes or so we finally entered the museum.

After doing the traditional photography with movie, sports, royal and cultural icons we visited behind the scenes studio and Spirit of London Taxi Ride which was a fun filled experience too. We avoided the Chamber of Horrors & scream as it was the most advisable thing to do for a pregnant lady :p

In the end I must say the show stopper was the Heroic new attraction ‘Marvel Super Heroes 4D Experience’. I thoroughly enjoyed this 360deg animated 4D cinema with high impact special effects from water and wind to tremors, making you feel like part of the action!

Before leaving we managed to get some souvenirs of this fun filled afternoon.

Visit to Edinburgh

We never planned for this trip; I was in my 16th week of pregnancy. Just came to know that Jai’s very good friend is in Edinburgh for some official visit, so initially we were thinking of calling him home for visit, but instead we thought it would be a great idea if we plan a weekend trip there and discover the place with him.

So there was some last minute bag packing followed by a three hour road trip till we reached our destination. We picked up our friend and went to an Indian restaurant nearby for lunch. There, we made our plans for present and next day sightseeing.

Majority being boys we planned to visit British Golf Museum after lunch which is situated right next to a beautiful golf course. Neither I am a golfer nor a big fan, but I was stunned by seeing these guys actually reading and going through all the information available in the museum. The place is definitely informative full of antique/ modern clubs, balls and bags, has a beautiful gift shop too.

We also visited St Andrews Aquarium which was just next to the Museum, which was not all that great but we enjoyed seeing species of all the creatures including penguins, meerkats, shark and seals.

Next morning we planned a trip to Camera Obscura and World of Illusions, which was a real hidden gem. We had hours full of entertainment, really amazing experience. The best part was walking through the Vortex Tunnel; I could barely manage to keep my feet on the floor. To convince my mind that it’s just an illusion I tried walking through it 2-3 times, but every single time it felt the same! Wow!! There is no way one can describe this place, it was something I have never seen anywhere in life. Its just you have to be there to experience every bit of it. Before leaving I remember buying lot of goodies from the gift shop.

We also saw the Edinburgh Castle but there was no time left to do the complete castle tour so we decided to leave with the outside picture memory of it.

Later we finished our day with a grand Moroccan feast, a lovely end to our journey.