18th. December 2007
Finally the day came for us to leave on our anticipated trip..luckily today it was a holiday for Azlan and the kids due to Aramco announcing it as such bcos Arafat day is on Tues 18/12/2007.. and Eid Adha will fall on Wed 19/12...so we will be celebrating Eid on the plane..huh..hu..hu..first time ever for us...If not..a sure thing will be to have a feast a home for friends and family...a reprieve actually from having to prepare lots and lots of goodies although I love doing it when everybody seems to enjoy them...usually I get lots of help and contributions from friends for these occasions..which now reminds me that i got to learn or get some new recipes for myself...
Anyway..back to the trip...I guess everyone was excited...great help from Hannah to ensure that the listed things are packed and ready...as usual Zayd did not pack his things maybe just his toothbrush although he was given a similar list..ends up Ayman and Hannah pack for him..Hannah is turning out into a very reliable little missy for these kind of stuffs.. packing... finding out things etc...sometimes in the end her things got left behind or even lost as she was too busy taking care of others..like her Nintendo Dx that was lost last summer..
We left for Bahrain abt 3 in the afternoon eventhough our flight is at 2am next morning..as we planned to have late lunch at Ponderosa...locate the parking space near the airport as we were driving our KIA there. Also..so that we have ample time for whatever comes up...anyway..we end up having too much time to wait b4 the flight...at the airport we met many of Aramco staffs especially the teachers...some are going to Europe & some back to US & Canada...Ms. Cave and Mr. Owens were there to give some pointers. Met Margaret Loftus also..and JP being Zayd's buddy in school...it was a good farewell for him a sthe Loftus family were leaving Saudi for good due to retirement...Jefry's family were also on the same flight going to Ohio-US... The flight was OK..British Airways..seats not too bad in terms of space..good selections of movies available...I planned to nap and I did just that even b4 the plane took off...I was surely tired from the packing..cleaning the house and etc...not sure what but I was really tired...
Arrive in Heathrow abt 6:00am..went thru the immigrations with no problems although Zayd was cited by the officer not to knock on the counter..he needs to learn all these lessons as most times he thinks he is above it all...teenagers..sometimes they think that they have a big pass to do whatever they want..Collect our baggage..go to find toilets..and decided where to solat subuh as no "surau"at terminal 4...make it simple..go to a corner with chairs and solat there...everyone was actually relieved after that...found the underground without any trouble..and it was full of travellers so the kids were a bit uncomfortable with bags,people and all..but we feel it will be good for them to experience this...we miss getting the right change of train from Piccadilly Line to Circle/District line to get to Bayswater...we came down at South Kensington intending to take the Circle line but instead board the District line which changes at Earl's Court...so from Earls Court we finally got on the right train to Bayswater to get to Berjaya Hotel....we have to climb up stairs and looking for the way out of the station where a funny thing happen...upon deciding which stairs to take...and arguing about it shamelessly...we find out either stairs out of the station is the same as they will get to the same platform...we have to pull the luggage up the stairs was the wee bit troublesome thing at the start of the holiday...
The Berjaya Hotel was just a turn from the Bayswater underground station and easy to find....checking in was no trouble as everything was as per reservation. the funny thing was in order to get to our rooms we have first to climb a flight of stairs..than take an elevator down one floor and reach our rooms..there was no thru way from the lobby....
After unpacking and change everybody's mind starts to think abt food...but I decided we still need to go out and pick up the train tickets to Paris from St.Pancras Eurostar counter..since we do not know where and how to get there..before start with food...at the lobby we met a Msian student with her family and they told us that Malaysia Hall is just a street away and we can get food there easily and cheaper...alhamdulilah..it was something I never thought of to locate...
I am putting the photos of our first 3 days here...will continue with the captions & write up later..
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