Saturday, December 31, 2005

More London Sights


Westminster Abbey


Marble Arch


Nelson's Column in Trafalgur Square


The horse guards riding from Buckingham
Palace down The Mall to Horse Guard's Parade


Slipstreaming ducks in St James' Park


It was cold and the pigeons were glad
to sit around in the sun and wait for food


The halls of Westminster from Lambeth

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

A Touch of Snow

The snow may not have made an appearance for a white Christmas, but it did fall heavily enough to stay on the ground for the day. The snow shower lasted less than 10 minutes.


A white morning out the window

Our street, Grantbridge St

Grantbridge St, Angel

Getting that London Feeling

We arrived in London on the night of the 22nd December. The next couple of days were filled with helping Dave and Karen move into their new flat and with Christmas. We were so busy we sometimes didn't appreciate that we were actually in another country! So to rectify that we decided to have a walk around some of the more recognisable sites of Westminster in London on Boxing Day.


Big Ben from Southbank

Kelly and Big Ben across Westminster Bridge

Liam and Parliament, Big Ben and
Banqueting House from Southbank

Kelly and Banqueting House from Southbank

Lambeth Bridge from Victoria Tower Gardens

Just what is down there in the Thames?

The London Eye

London Eye and Westminster Bridge

The Burghers of Calais and
Westminster Parliament

Kelly and an old Royal Mail post box

Crypt Halls around the
Cloisters of Westminster Abbey

The Blair family Christmas Tree

Admiralty, home of Room 39 where
Ian Fleming created James Bond, 007

A break in the clouds gives a nice sunset

Queen's Guard (one of)

Admiralty Arch

Looking down Whitehall to Big Ben

Telephone boxes on the Strand

Monday, December 26, 2005

(Not So White) Christmas

Christmas wasn't quite as white as everyone had hoped. We woke up to a dry, snowless and cold (probably no more than 1 degree) Christmas morning which was a change from the usual 30+ degrees of a Queensland Christmas. We opened a few presents in the morning and had a late breakfast around 10:30.

Christmas lunch was to be at Vanessa and Dave's new flat in Finsbury Park, about 4 km north of Dave and Karen's place at Angel. There is no public transport on Christmas Day, so the four of us packed up some drinks and started walking. Vanessa and Dave a ex-pat Aussies that Kelly went to school with. As we walked towards a hot Christmas lunch there were a bunch of keen punters in bikinis and shorts on the roof of a local store having a few cans of beer from an esky. Even without the Aussie flag it was easy to see that they were Aussies.

Kelly and Liam

Dave and Karen

Vanessa and Kelly

Lunch, which was ready by dinner

Thursday, December 22, 2005

The Start of an Adventure


The snowy valleys of South Korea

The main dome of the Incheon Airport

It was a bit cold (-8C)


We stayed at the Hyatt just near the airport



The view from Korea to London was quite monotonous