The London Eye is a great way to get a birds eye view of London.

For those that don’t know, the London Eye is an observation ferris wheel.

Unfortunately it  was fairly overcast on the day we went on it … this  is London after all…but we still got a great view of the city.

The trip takes about 30 minutes and you are stuck in a capsule with about 20 other people but even so there is plenty of room to look out over London,  to move around and  to take plenty of  photos of the view.

Above  is a picture of Chilli, the stuffed dog that the girls at work gave us to take on our travels.  He really had a great time.

This is definitely another one of those ‘must do’s when you visit London.

Overlooking the Thames and Big Ben. The weather was a bit dodgy so the photos aren’t as nice as they could have been.  But the view from the London Eye is great and on a clear, sunny day I am sure it is quite spectacular.

The day we arrived in London the temperature was over 30c so the trip to our hotel was a bit uncomfortable.

Coming from Australia where the summers are hot, hot, hot means that everything is air conditioned so when you get into a mini-van in London with NO air conditioning with 10 other people on a really hot day and drive for two hours to get to you hotel you start to feel a little uncomfortable. Added to this is the fact that you have been sitting on a plane for 24 hours prior to this.

The hotel itself was pretty interesting. Fantastic location (we were opposite the tube) but the rooms were the size of closets. You actually had to step over the bed to get to the bathroom and if you dropped the soap in the shower you had to get out of the shower to pick it up.

As you can see in the photo above, this was our attempt at cooling down the room. We had to use a bottle of water as a weight to keep the window open.

There was a fire drill in the middle of the night which is apparently a customary exercise. So we all filed down to the lobby, my friend and I dressed before joining the rest of the pajama clad bunch in the lobby.

Breakfast was the usual, sausages, bacon, baked beans, toast, eggs and deep fried bread, which I hadn’t dared to eat since I was a kid. No worries here about cholesterol and transfats.

We had a lovely time visiting the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace.

Because we were a bit jet lagged and out of sync with our own timezone, we ended up sightseeing at 4am in the morning, if nothing else we got some lovely tourist free photos.

Here is Paula relaxing before we set out to go to the train station.

London is certainly interesting with lots of historic places to visit and we will return for a longer visit, and maybe in the winter next time.

If you have to be stuck in an airport then Singapore is the place to be. The terminal is set up with a mini picture theatre (which is free) as well as free XBox games that you can play. Other facilities include:

- swimming pool
- transit hotel
- free sightseeing tour (if you are there for more than 5 hours)
- shopping
- free internet access

These are just a few of the facilities offered. Changi Airport is really made for the tourist in mind.

This is one thing that shouldn’t be missed. The Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo is a great experience. We took the tram ride through but you can follow a trail through the park.

The animals are held behind barriers that are well hidden so it feels like there is nothing separating us from them.

Overall this was a great experience and I would definitely go back again on my next visit to Singapore.

We had been to the day zoo earlier in the morning so it was great to see the nocturnal animals roaming around at night.