Weekend Shopping in London, Day Two!

This morning we got up early and had breakfast before the Mad Hoards of foreign students!!!  We had cornflakes, kwussant, toast wiv jam and seriously strong coffee!

Then we went up the road for our adventure of the day!!

First we got the subway here at Rotherhithe station.

we only went a couple of stops to Shadwell and then changed to the DLR railway.  I like taking this one!!!

We went past the O2 arena - you can just see it on the side there with the yellow pokey outy things.

We're going here to the Manga show at the Excel centre!!

They've changed it now - we don't go in the main entrance anymore.  We get shown round a different way to a really large plane hangar room where we show our tickets and get the wristband that lets us in the show and then we walk straight through to the main building collecting a goodie bag on the way.  But the goodie bags aren't very goodie any more, we only got postcards and posters and a badge.  No more books, t-shirts and DVDVVDVDVDs like we used to get.

We were supposed to get into the show for half past nine but they were running late so we didn't get let in until quarter to ten and the show was HUGE!  It's at least doubled in size from last time we came, if not  tripled.

The first thing we did was find the Steampunk stand!!!

This was fun!

They have spiders too!!

And I saw some friends trapped in a cage!!  I managed to nibble through some of the bars though, so they escaped!!

I like those top hats too!!

And the fancy outfits!

We spotted some Storm Troopers too - keep out of their way!!!

We were looking for book stalls that had deals on them but we couldn't find any.  Nobody had anything that was a "three for £5" or "Buy two for £1.50 each and get one free" anymore - the cheapest books there were at least £8 just for one.  This seems to have changed now to a "let's screw as much money as we can from the people coming in" and we didn't like it.  Plus it was way too big now...... we had trouble finding the stalls that we wanted.

But we did find this chap!!  His name is Kit Cox and he wrote that book!!  He signed it in the front for me, Beanie Mouse!!!!!

After that, we'd totally had enough of the place so we decided to leave.

We decided to walk back to a different Underground station and go into London a different way..... and we left another book for someone to find!!

Canning Town that way..... let's go there!

This looks vaguely sort of familiar..... there's lots of building work going on here.

There's that O2 building again!!!

And we found a giant acorn on a building!!!

We got a bit lost after this, but found our way to the East India DLR station which was really scarey!  It was an elevated station with the track one side and a sheer drop back to the pavement the other side!!!  We didn't take any pictures... but it took us to Bank station....

Where we changed lines to the District and Circle line.....

And got off here!!!

By now we were starving hungry so we came to this Italian place for lunch.

We had a fizzy drink

And a Pierino's Pizza!!!  That was yummers!!!

Then we had a short walk up the road to the V&A Museum to do a spot of shopping!

I love that chandelier!!!

After looking round their gift shop, we went back to the bus stop and got the C1 bus.

And we're off....!!!

We got off here at Horrids!!!  Now for the PROPER shopping!!!  Huzzah!

First we went to the food hall and looked for salted caramel hot chocolate.  We couldn't find it so we asked a Very Nice Lady if she could help so she went to look too.  She couldn't find any either and said it might be sold out but she'd look "Round The Back" to see if they had any.  And they did!!!!!!  So we got that, and then we came here to get Birthday Cake!!!!  Andrea let me choose!  After that, we went back to the Food Hall and found where the caviar was.  There were a few to choose from, ranging from over £200 for a big tin of Beluga down to £50 for a Gift Box of a different brand of caviar with a mother-of-pearl spoon.  We got the gift box with the spoon!!!  The man behind the counter was ever so good, he put in a fresh ice pack at the bottom of the gift box, and then put that into a special Horrids chill bag and then put that into a posh Horrids paper carrier bag!!!  That was fun, shopping in the food hall!!!

Then we went back to the bus stop to get another bus!

I tied a weathergram on the rail too!

And we're off!!!

We got off here near Victoria Station because we had to cross the road and get another bus.  It had started to drizzle a little bit by now, but not much.

Then we found a funny flower display!!!

It was commemorating the Battle Of Wellington Boots!!!!!!

I think Napoleon was in that one, and he lost.  Wasn't wearing Wellies.

Ah, here we are.  We're getting the C10 again!

We tied a weathergram onto this bus too!

And we're off!!!  I love riding buses!

AND we found a decorated cable box, too!!  How exciting!!

Here's our stop!!

And here's the hostel again!!!

When we got to our room, the bunk underneath us at the bottom was empty, so we traded bunks again!  Bottom bunks are easier to get into!!!

A little later on, we started getting hungry so we went out for dinner.  We left our last bookcrossing book on a bench!!

And then we found a funny "Take your poo home" sign on the floor!!!!!

Here's the Brunel Museum again....!

And here's the Simplicity Restaurant!  We're going to eat here again, yippee!

We had THREE chorizo sausages on the yummiest mashed potato ever, with veggies underneath and absolutely yumtastic rich onion gravy!!!!  It was spectacular!!!

It filled us up so much, we didn't have space for pudding!!!!!

(But we do have some real Birthday Cake from Horrids though)

We found this muriel on the way back to the hostel - it's really pretty!!!

And here we are.....!

I'm pooped ....... what an exciting day!!!