allright, my wife is coming to england

[RedRed]

sorry

streetalker = 'lady of the night' um......

you know....

err

hooker?

[gt40]

[Umfriend]

Were I living in London, I'd give you my address and phone, just in case your wife ran into an emergency or other type of troubles....but I don't.

Having said that, I typically feel alot more comfortable in London than I do in Amsterdam (let alone Paris).

I believe London is supposed to have a few great musical things as well.

Of course, if she's a Genesis fan, she'd have to go to Epping as well (I *think* epping forrest is near Epping, but I'd love to get that confirmed).

[THE_Editor]

Things to Avoid ?

How about ....

LONDON

I'm being serious. Its an incredibly dirty place, A blatent rip off money wise. How about £4.00 for an Ice cream (I kid you not).

How do I know this ? I took my three daughters to "Do" the London thing !! Big plans, all to waste (or practically all).

Queued for FOUR HOURS to get into Madame Tussauds, Which IS Good, but not worth queuing that long for especially for a five year old (the youngest was still in a pushchair).

Infact, By the time we got out of the planetarium we only had time to go to Buckingham Palace... It was here that we got suckered for the Ice creams.

We then had arsewipes staring us out on the train back to Peterborough cos my (Exhausted) children were sitting in a seat.

No .. Avoid London like the Plague. It simply aint worth it.

Try Warwick Castle, Stratford upon Avon etc. or York..

ANYWHERE but poxy London.

( I spent NINE years driving into London twice a day in my job - Then I grew a brain and quit !!)


Oh yeah .. I've been around Balham as well... (Galbani)

[spadnos]

@GNEP: I only put Tooting in there because the last time I was in London, I had dinner with a friend and her sister, and when they brought me to the Tooting Bec train station they both cautioned me to hold my computer case very tightly, and more-or-less run to my train. Not that I had any trouble personally.

@GNEP 2: You should probably keep ignoring the tourist stuff - it's not really worth it, except to say "Been There, Done That".

@Chrono_Wanderer: Yeah - the Eye can be annoying if there are crowds. My wife and I went on an overcast, drizzly day, so there weren't really any lines. The sky was amazing as well (why look at clear blue when clouds are so much more interesting?).
If there are crowds, just duck into Costa Coffee, and have some Tea or Coffee, and one of their excellent chocolate nut bars (I forgot what they're called, but my wife likes them enough that she asks me to bring some back for her when I go to London on business).

@Umfriend: Yes - I totally forgot Royal Albert Hall. I really wanted to see a concert there, but the shows when we were there last weren't interesting. (The Moody Blues will be there in October - maybe I can convince someone that there's business to be done then. )

@THE_Editor: I'm sure London sucks a lot when you're taking the family to the tourist attractions. Unfortunately, small children are usuaally not interested in things like seeing the Rosetta Stone or the Magna Carta. If you have to go to Planet Hollywood and Madame Tussaud's, you'll have to wait way longer than is humanly possible (usually with rude Americans thrown in for good measure

THE_Editor brings up a good point, though. There are some very interesting places that are nowhere near London (York, Durham, the Lakes District, etc.).

Ah well - there's always the possibility that both gt40 and Mrs. gt40 could go together sometime

- Steve

[GNEP]

All very good points.

York is indeed much much nicer (it's where I come from...)

@gt40 - pm me if your wife needs a contact point. Am generally pretty busy but am always on the end of a phone for emergencies.

George

[gt40]

Ill let Liz (my wife) soak all this in for a bit and formalize a plan of attack. She is basically doing this trip for her mother, who is getting on in age and would love to see her relatives before the trip becomes physically impossible.
Liz would just like a few days away from the elders who would mostly be drinking tea and catching up on gossip and news. And if you are going to England, you should atleast have a day or two in London, even to just be able to say you were there.
Again thanks for all the insight (good and bad points) and I'll have her post once she finallizes her plans or has some other questions.
@Gnep, thanks for the offer - we may take you up on it. It's always good to have someone that you know is willing to help if the need arises.


Pat

[GNEP]

no probs.

[spadnos]

Hey - we all forgot about Indian Food!!!

If she's into Indian,there's plenty of great food to be found.

(surprised I forgot about this, as I'm generally pretty food-centric when I travel )

- Steve

[GNEP]

Yup. Brick Lane is good. So is Tooting! Also Chinatown for decent chinese (dim sum is great if you can get a mandarin-speaker to order for you!). Plenty of v. good (albeit expensive) restaurants around:

http://www.toptable.co.uk/

George

[az]

What is dim sum? I keep reading about it, but don't know what it is...

AZ

[Wombat]

Chinese breakfast, kinda buffett style.

[GNEP]

Not quite buffet, but all served at once (ish). You just pick the bits you want.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Dim Sum...

Origin I believe comes from southern chinese cuisine. The idea is the have lots of very fine, small, delicate plates of these "dim sums" to fill yourself up for lunch. They should come in wooden steaming round box... Northern Chinese do this differently, they probably eat dumplings for lunch.

And that's right, we don't eat them for dinner.

Most Southern Chinese eat plates of food for dinner, and we share them with our own rice.

I personally like northern Chinese food (for example, Shanghai food), but I think its because I have too much Southern Chinese food, and I mean this DAILY)

Dim Sum can be really good tho. Esp. in Hong Kong. And in Hong Kong we have virtually the best food on Earth for cities (I think its even better than Paris because of huge varieties) Basically, Chinese people goes by the saying "People live to eat". (And the French I had in HK is even better than the French I had in Paris, let along other food like Japanese etc)

[Chrono_Wanderer]

like wtf? why are we talking about Chinese food when you're going to London :?