I recently went on a 10 day trip to London and Paris with my mum and 2 aunts hence the bit of radio silence on the blog. It was a pretty eventful trip and there was drama even before we left the country. LOL.

We were on the redeye flight to Heathrow so we were doing last minute packing of the luggage at home when my mother started screaming. I went to take a look and I saw this black thing flying in circles in the living room and haphazardly fly in my direction every now and then I started screaming too.

At first, my mother said it was a bird but at 7.30 pm (SG) or so, birds don’t fly around any more!! After a few more screams, I realised that it was a fruit bat. WHAT THE HELL!

The entire time it was flying around in my living room, I was so scared that the bat will rest/shit in my luggage that was lying open on the floor in the middle of the living room. Thankfully, after about 30 minutes of us screaming, ducking, scaring the dog and all the useless advice to throw ultraballs at the “zubat”, we managed to get the bat to fly out of the window unharmed (but probably slightly traumatised by our screaming).

We were just meant to holiday in the UK but my aunts wanted to add another city because “just London would be a bit boring” (boy are they so wrong) so Paris was added to the itinerary.

Also on a last minute whim (like 2 weeks before departure), Mum and I decided to take the 5 hours train down to Bayonne in South West France to visit a friend who moved there. We nearly got lost at the train station and missed the TGV!! Fortunately, we managed to asked for the correct directions and made it on the train with barely 5 minutes to spare before it pulled out of the station. The town was really picturesque and the duck confit & brownie cake was so good!!!

While we’re in Bayonne, my 2 aunts remained in Paris and they managed to tour the Louvre and make their way to the top of the Eiffel Tower on their own capabilities. To commemorate their achievement, they sent us a photo of the interior of the toilet at the top of Eiffel Tower. -.-”

Also, it was raining a lot in Paris and it was much colder compared to London. My mum and 1 aunt was sick since Singapore so combined with the cold, rain, slight dehydration (coz we didn’t drink a lot of water while on the move) and a cup of extremely delicious hot chocolate in Bayonne, I was downed with a very bad case of flu. Bummer.

Adding on to the case of bummer, there was a near emergency at work and I had to call in favours from a colleague in the London office to go in and do a bit of work to avert a crisis. 🙁

Fortunately, this is not my first trip to London or Paris so it wasn’t too bad that I didn’t do or see as much as my mum and aunts during our time there.

It was a shame that I went to Gordon Ramsay when I was so sick. I must say that despite being quite sick, I could still tell that the quality of the food was really excellent and that taste was good. More details about the experience in a separate post; it deserves one post by itself.

I also managed to eat at Burgers & Lobsters when I was feeling a bit better while in London. Amazing!! And the most “amazing” part was how I was due for a health check blood test the day after I return to Singapore. Hahaha. My results would have definitely gone through the roof after the foie gras at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and 2 lobsters at Burger & Lobster… BUT I haven’t done the blood test as I type this because of the flu. So thank God…?

I’ve always liked London and I guess it’s in part due to HMV and Primark. Hahaha. I introduced my mum and aunts to Primark (this is their first trip to London) and thanks to the favourable exchange rate resulting from Brexit, as expected, everyone’s luggage was full and bursting. And burst it did alright; my aunt’s luggage burst open on the street as we headed to the Tube Station en route Heathrow Airport.

Fortunately, she had a strap around the luggage so scene wasn’t so dramatic like the contents of the luggage scattered all over the street; but imagine the sight of her transferring things out of her luggage as she repacked it and tried to close her luggage again… in the middle of the pavement.

The drama didn’t end there. We received notification from Singapore Airlines earlier in the morning that our flight would be delayed by just below 2 hours and when we arrived at the airport, we saw on the displays that our flight was still listed at the original time! There wasn’t a note to say that the flight was delayed/re-timed. The horror! We thought we would be late for our flight as we still needed to do our tax refunds!!

We quickly checked with the counters who confirm that our flight has indeed been delayed and we had panicked for nothing. Phew.

So despite the eventful trip, all was good in the end even though I didn’t get to eat as much as I wanted and I’m still not fully recovered from the flu as I type this. I managed to catch the Book of Mormons at the theatre, which is probably the biggest highlight of this trip that I will share more details over the next few days in a few blog posts.

Till then~