After we landed, shortly before 9am local time, we went through immigration and customs, which was almost pleasant compared to the Orwellian police state treatment you get coming into the US nowadays. At "customs" you didn't even need to stop if you had nothing to declare.
We got a car to the hotel, where we were promptly informed that it wouldn't be possible for us to check in early, even though we had specifically asked for early checkin a few days previous. The problem, you see, was that they were fully booked and the previous occupants of the room were not even out until noon (the official checkout time). There were about 3 hours to kill before we'd be allowed to check in, so we did what any sensible person in our situation would do and tracked down the nearest Starbucks and engaged in latte goodness.
After we got to our rooms we napped for a bit and then for dinner (or, as they say in England, suppfastertime) we joined one of Erika's friends who had moved to London earlier this year and her parents for Indian food, which was quite yummy. Although I suspect Y was deeply disappointed by the total lack of samosas on the menu.
On Day 2, we boldy woke up shortly after 11 (which is 6am in New Yorkese), just in time to not be able to enjoy the free breakfast provided by the hotel (hours 7 to 11) . But it was okay, because we met the same friends from last night for a traditional English Chinese Dim Sum lunch/brunch thingy, and then we took a trip over to the London Zoo which featured much rare and unique fauna from all over the world. In particular, the girls liked the okapis because they peed for us and the inflatable bouncy room where you could jump around on for 5 minutes in return for a pound.
Day three saw us waking up around noon and then zipping off to visit one of my old friends from Tokyo (and University of Washington!). We decided to take the bus because it's pretty much required to ride a double decker bus at least once if you're in London. On the way to the bus we noticed that despite the rumours (notice fancy British spelling) of being dark, grey, and gloomy all the time, it was actually quite bright. So I decided to purchase a pair of sunglasses which is evidently a non-trivial operation in England, because it took about 3 minutes to find a pair to buy, and another 27 minutes to enter all the information into the computer. Perhaps terrorists use sunglasses for nefarious purposes such as not being blinded by their own bomb blasts.
After a while, we finally made it onto the bus and over to my friend's house. He has three girls and had also invited over another half-Japanese couple with yet another daughter. But more importantly, he has a trampoline. Upon which, I can confidently state, at least two spider webs have been built because Erika went to some effort to point them out to us in between jumping gleefully. They also have blackberries and plums in their backyard (or "garden" as it is called) and somehow the girls got it into their heads to pick a bunch of plums and blackberries and sell them to passers by on the street. So all of them, including Erika, went out front and were yelling and jumping and generally being very cute and selling their fruits. Allegedly they got almost 16 pounds, of which Erika received 15 pence and an American dime which some unscrupulous customer had passed off as a 5 pence coin.
Day four rolled around and it was finally time for some actual touristy stuff. We actually woke up in time to eat a Traditional English Breakfast, and then we walked down to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. Although you can see the "guards" with their band march by pretty much anywhere in the area, it turns out you need to be close to the fence to see the ceremony itself, which mostly takes place inside the fence. So, sensing that we weren't going to see much else, we boldly strolled down to Westminster Abbey which has lost of famous historical church stuff which was wasted on me and doubly so on Erika. But Yoshie was interested, so I got her to get an "audio tour" which is a little walkie-talkie size thing that explains all the fascinating historical features of the church, and even in useful languages such as Japanese. Instead she got angry at Erika for being cranky and bored, and we sort of rushed through the abbey without seeing anything. After we left, she then revealed that she was looking for Lawrence Olivier on behalf of her mom who was a big fan. Left unmentioned was why we couldn't have asked one of the dozen or so worker type people there for directions thereof (or why we couldn't have read up on the Wikipedia article which clearly states that he's hanging out in the Poets' Corner now).
After the abbey we grabbed a black cab back to the hotel (and I maintain that it was cheaper than a Tokyo cab although clearly more expensive than a New York taxi) and then went off for another Chinese dinner.
Day five was Erika's birthday, so to celebrate we overslept and had to rush to get to the London Eye on time. The London Eye is a big Ferris Wheel type thing. We pre-booked our "flight" over the internet, which is very clever and sensible and avoids queues (that's English for "lines") except that we had no idea where to pick up the tickets. After some confusion it turns out to be quite clever (you just swipe your credit card at the appropriate machine and it produces tickets for you). We had "fast track" tickets which meant we got to go straight into a long queue rather than having to wait in a long, long queue like the plebes. Anyway, we eventually got into a car with about 15 of our closest tourist friends and, uh, well, uh, maybe it's just me but London just isn't that interesting to look at from up high. But Erika had a fun time climbing on the rails and we got several pictures of people in front of Big Ben.
After that we met our friends from days one and two again for High Tea including ... scones! Don't tell anyone I said this, but a "scone" is pretty much the same thing you can buy at your local grocery store as an "English Muffin". And "clotted cream" is not too different from (soft) butter. But it was fun anyway. The girls wanted to run around and twirl about and stuff, but we were at a stuffy hotel so the kidly shenanigans had to be kept to a minimum. Later that evening we went to a Japanese restaurant where Erika was treated to three orders of ikura (salmon roe) sushi and Y ordered herself a yummy "wagyu" steak before realizing that she was subjecting herself to the horrors of Mad Cow Disease. We arranged for them to bring out a little birthday pastry with a lit candle and we sang Happy Birthday for Erika, and that was when she really grokked that she was 4.
On our last and final day, Y woke up early so she could go shopping while E and I slept in. After Y came back with her loot, we returned to the Starbucks from day 1 for some celebratory English lattes, and Y managed to sneak around the corner to buy some more loot. We then got our car to the airport, and after some fun in the lounge with hanging chairs, we made it onto the airplane where Y availed herself of some duty-free loot from the in-flight catalogue (or "catalog" in American).
So, much fun was had by all, and because we never really lost our jet lag, it should be easy to re-adjust to New York time.
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