Day out in London – a little tradition

When I first met Nick we went to London in January for a one day trip. The year after that he got me tickets for ‘We will rock you’ show (I LOVE QUEEN) in London, again January. We didn’t have any major plans this year but decided to keep the tradition going and bought the train tickets to London while they were cheap. I booked the tickets with trainline.com back in December and paid around £30 for both of us which was less than half of the usual price.

When I sit down to plan a little trip like that, first thing I take into consideration is the budget. How much money have we got and what do we want to spend it on. We knew we wanted to go to a Japanese restaurant as this is a part of our tradition (sushi for dinner). Someone recommended ZUMA which is not a cheap place. We have therefore decided to splurge on dinner and keep the day time spending to a minimum.

First we went to Daunts Bookshop in Marylebone High Street. I bought 3 books which cost £23. I know I could have bought them cheaper on Amazon but I like supporting lovely places like these so I didn’t mind paying a bit more.

We stopped at a coffee shop which was so busy that no one noticed that we had our own pack up sandwiches with our pret-a-manger lattes. Saved us money and they tasted better than the shop bought anyway.

Then we headed to the Science museum (free admission). We got confused (as in ‘I got confused) couple of times and jumped on the train going in the wrong direction. That Direct line is so perplexing! We have lost quite a bit of time and walked into the museum at 5pm. This only gave us one hour to explore which was four times less than what you need to see everything in the museum. I definitely need to go back there to see the rest. I purchased a compulsory fridge magnet for £2 and we headed for dinner. (I always buy a fridge magnet from places I visited, I will need a second fridge soon).

Zuma was very busy as expected. We didn’t have a reservation so had to wait for hour and a half at the bar. Waiting was not a problem, we had a chat and a laugh. The problem were these delicious and expensive cocktails they serve. I was being all sensible at first and was only gonna have one or two. But once that alcohol hit I was more like ‘I don’t give a f**k how much they cost, keep ‘em coming’.
The food was absolutely beautiful, although I wish my asparagus salad had more than one asparagus in it. There was a couple that sat next to us who ‘ahed’ at our bowl of sashimi. Nick said to them that we didn’t really know what it was but we are adventurous so ordered it anyway. That’s a great way of showing that we’re not sophisticated nor we are posh.

 

We had a great and fun day. I could never get bored with London.