We're going to London!!

 

We're going somewhere today...... 

So we headed off to the train station!!!  Apparently we don't need to get there too early so we're getting a slightly later train than usual.

And we got a window seat!  Hurrah!!

AND we were given a free fizzy drink when we came into the station because it's hot today.

So we drank it on the train!

Love this bit....

And we got off here!  We're in London!

We got off at London Bridge Station!

We had to go down here for our bus.....

We're getting the 381, but we're not going to Rotherhithe today.

We tied a CD to the rail!

Bye bye station!!

We got off here and had to walk through the tunnel.....

We're on Blackfriars Road now!

We walked down the road a bit and tied another CD here!

And went through another tunnel!!

OH!!  Are we staying over?!?!  OH WOW!!

We got a room on the 3rd floor! 

Bit of an interesting view!  We got a train track truck parked outside!!!

We checked the hotel room out - we have tea making facilities!!  Get the kettle on, Andrea!!!

While she did that, we checked out the eNORmous bed!!  Yep that'll do!!

We got a TV too!!

But we discovered it was more interesting watching the trains go past!!!

After a while, we started getting hungry so we went out to find a restaurant.

We spotted some interesting stuff too!

Ooo!  Andrea says there's a good place to eat over there!

We spotted this murial first!

And another murial there!  Andrea says they may be different muriels to last time we was here.

Aha!  Bala Baya!

That's where we're going to eat!!!

LET'S GO IN!

We got a table, and perused the menu!  We had trouble decided what we wanted, there's so much good stuff on here!

But we eventually put an order in and then checked out the ceiling pipes.

We got a drink which was a blackberry and lavendar gazoz.  No clue what that is but it tastes nice!!

First we got a Fried Cauliflower steak with balsamic vinegar - we think it had a yoghurt based sauce thing and maybe chilli powder (that orange stuff) but in any case, it was spectacularly tasty!!!

Then we got three kebab dumplings with pine nuts on top and again, we think that's a yoghurt sauce thing.  We also think there's tahini used in this as the meat had a heat to it (not the "just cooked hot" type of heat!!)  We're not sure about this one.  We couldn't finish it all anyway because we were stuff full with the cauliflower!!

THEN they go and tell us there's a dessert menu!!!  WE GOTTA HAVE DESSERT!!!

WE got a midnight malrabi which had cherries on it and a sesame brittle.

THIS WAS YUMMY!

Oh we're glad we came here!!!

After that, we staggered back to the hotel - and spotted this fun map of London in the hotel!!

Then we went back to our hotel room, had a cuppa tea and went to bed!

What a fun day!

We're in London!!

Andrea didn't get up for work today - she's got some time off and we're going off on an adventure!!!

First we got a bus....

.....to the train station!!

SHRIEK!!!  oh no, it's dead.  It's a skeleton.

We used the facilities and left them a CD.  And then washed our paws forever afterwards.

And then we got on a train!!!  They got a floppy disc.

And we got a window seat!!  Wonder where we're going.....?

We're going past Millwall football stadium here.... what's that in the distance??

Oooo...... I think I see......

The Shard!!!  We're at London Bridge Station but we didn't get off here.

We went a bit further along......

....and got off here!!!!  HURRAH!

We came out on the south bank exit and left a CD on the railings!!

There's St Paul's Cathedral over there!

And there's some of them weird modern things!!

We then walked through to the Blackfriars pedestrian/car bridge and passed a muriel that we don't remember seeing before.

Oooo now that's an interestin' view under the bridge.....

We even got St Paul's Cathedral in this version!!!

Anyway, we got up to the street level and the we started walking away from the Thames.  Where are we going???

We've never been down here before..... what's going on?

We left a floppy disc on this railing...!

Oh.... !!

We've just come from there!!

...random info point.....

OH!! Are we staying over??  ARE WE?!?!!

We got a whopping huge bed on the first floor in room 106!

How fab is that?!?!?!

Not sure about the view though......

But we're not here for that!!!

BTW, that brickwork turned out to have the train tracks on top of it, and we occasionally heard a very faint rumble when trains went by!!!

Ooo goodie, we can make cups ov tea while we're here!  Excellent!

Unlimited breakfast?!?!  HUZZAH!!!

After we unpacked, we decided to have a wander round the neighbourhood to see if we could stake out some decent eateries for dinner.

That colourful pub "Lord Nelson" over the road does burgers.

So that's a maybe.....

Down the road a bit is the Old Union Yard Arches.  Looks like there's a few places down there, but looks a bit weird.....!

But when we investigated, we found a place called Bala Baya.

They've got outdoor seating as well as indoor - ground level where the open plan kitchen is and then upstairs too.

It's an Israeli restaurant.....

There's a few plates on there that we quite fancied, so maybe that's a place to go.....

Oh!  When we looked back towards the hotel, we saw a curly thing on the wall!

And that was on the other side of the road!!

Anyway, I digress.  We walked to the end of the road and turned the corner and left a CD on a railing!

And a few doors down was this painting on a wall!

Over the road from that and coming back in the direction we came, we found a Gordon Ramsays Bread Street Kitchen and Street Pizza place!

Well, there's a maybe.....!

That's the pizza choices.....

And that's the Bread Street Kitchen menu.  Hmmm....

We walked back past our hotel towards the main road and spotted a cousin eating his dinner.  Don't think monkey nuts will be enough for Andrea, she's a bit of a hog.

We left a CD tied to a railing!

On the other side of the main road we found another Tas restaurant!  Good to know where it is!

They had an A board outside with menus on.  That's one side.....

And that's the other side.

Then we turned round again and went back towards our hotel.... we saw this weird building on the corner of the main road!

It's very odd....

And then we went back to our room for a cuppa tea and a think about where to go for dinner.

Later on when we were all starving hungry, we decided on Bala Baya!!

There's the sign.....!

Let's go in!!!!

We had an indoor table - that's the open kitchen and you can just about see the upstairs seating above it.

First of all we got a drink.  It was a strawberry, rhubarb and Persian lime gazoz with lots of ice and fizzy soda in it.  (we got the non alcoholic version).  It had strawberry in it, plus I think it was a lychee plus a sprig of something green

For our main course we got kebab dumplings (three of them) which was lamb meat with a date jus and shawarma spice, semolina, garlic yogurt and buttered pine nuts.....

AND IT'S FANDABBIDOHZI!!!!!

Oh, this is seriously epic......

For pudding we got a Midnight Malabi, which is coconut, white rhum, black tahini, morello cherry, vanilla, rose and sesami brittle.

We're having this again.  Practically licked the plate clean, with this one!!!!!

When we asked for the bill though, they brought a little square thing with a QR code on it.  We had no idea what to do with it - we thought it was a thick mint chocolate we could eat - so they brought the credit card machine instead!!

That was an absolutely STONKINGLY FABULOUS DINNER!!!  Andrea out-did herself!!

She gets several thousand brownie points for that dinner!!!

(She told me later it was an early birthday dinner specially for me!!! I love early birthday dinners!!)

We then had another cuppa tea in our room and went to bed.

That was an epic dinner, that was!!!