15th SEP: One day late, but the day had finally arrived. After being treated to a huge buffet breakfast by the Stamford, we were off to the airport, and onto our cramped little Airbus A360 on our way to Hong Kong. The only good that can be said about the flight was atleast we got movies to pass the time. Around midnight, we landed in Hong Kong for a two hour wait for our connecting flight to London.

16 SEP: Hong Kong international airport is weird. I really wanted a drink but could not find a teller machine to get some local currency, which is probably a good thing as there weren't any drinks machines anyway. There was, however, some coin operated leather couches which, I assume cause I didn't have any money to try them out, that they would have alleviated any cravings you had for food or drink by the time you had finished with them. Anyway, on to London a few hours later on a Boeing with a bit more leg room. I think I managed three hours sleep, and I think the girls may have got 5 or 6, but we all arrived feeling quite dreary for our first full day in London, and the line up waiting to come through Heathrow airport didn't help too much. We landed at 6:35am and we got out of the airport at about 8:30.
On to the London Underground and we were whisked overground (go figure) to our hostel in Bayswater. After a refreshing shower, the girls decided to hit the shops early, Kims already got a few new outfits, and Gill snapped up the trendy items like a bowling bag and rings etc. etc.
After a spot of lunch, we headed into Hyde Park, and a considerable time later, navigated our way out the other side - it is HUGE! The girls got sick of my navigational skills after about 3 hours of walking, so at about 4pm we purchased a 24 hour open top bus ticket and jumped on a bus to see the sights. We did one full loop of the city, and today (17th Sep) we're going to hop on and off at a few places, do a Thames cruise, and we saw some really trendy shops near Trafalgar Square that we're going to stop in at.

17th SEP: We went on a bus tour around London today, saw the changing of the guard, and had a Thames river cruise. We're all feeling like we've seen all there is to see so far, so we're hanging out for this tour to start. London's great and the different architecture really has you intrigued, but I think we're over it for now. Tomorrow (18th) we're hitting the Oxford and Regent Street shopping strips, and then in the evening we have a short Contiki meeting. See todays pics below

The London Eye
Changing of the Guard
The Hostel we're staying at
Gill with the London Bridge
The boat cruise
The room at the hostel

18th SEP: We hit the shopping strip of Oxford/Regent street, and there was so much too look at I'm so over shopping now. It appears no-ones making clothes for stocky guys any more, and after a full 6 or so hours i ended up with one shirt. Nice store though, the Officers Club, it was 70% off everything. They had jeans two pairs for A$50, but for some reason the inches in the UK don't equate to the same in Oz and I couldn't be stuffed shopping around till I got a pair that fit....
Tonight we went to the Contiki pre-departure meeting. It wasn't much, just filling in a few forms and that was it. Having an early one tonight, cause we have to get up at 5:30 to go for the tour... and the girls won't come and sit with me in a pub and have a beer anyway :-(
Kim as usual walked out of every store with an article of black clothing, she'll probably turn into a Goth soon, black lippie and white face....Gill went for all the trendy store, but didn't find too much that she liked.

Interesting things I've noticed about London so far:

- Service with a smile.... Forget about it!
- I've seen 1 200SX, 0 Skyline's, 4 WRX's, 5 Ferrari's, and about 5,000 Mercedes, Porches and Jaguar's... Either i'm doing something wrong or I live in the wrong hemisphere!
- The beer is 'warmer' than Australia, but I wouldn't really say warm. The Stella Artois I had at lunch yesterday cost me $8 (btw, I don't know if it's the tester in me, but every time any of us buy something, I say "that's $xx in Australian money". It's driving the girls mad knowing exactly what they're paying for things)
- The cost of food and other things isn't nearly as bad as I thought. I think every meal so far has come in under the A$10 mark.
- I've been lied to all my life... London is a constant 27 degrees, always totally blue sky, never a hint of rain.... Hyde park is brown, looks like it hasn't seen a drop of rain in months!

Day 1: Well day one of the tour kicked off at 7:30 on Friday morning, and we were away on the bus over to Dover. The ferry ride took about an hour and a half and the views of the White Cliffs was awesome. So on to the land and the eternal nose picker. Paris is an interesting city, daunting in some respects, but spectacular in others. Friday night we went to the top of the Eiffel tower and the views were absolutely breathtaking. A quick tour of the city took in the Champs Alysee, Arc De Triomphe and the great old building in the centre of Paris.

Day 2 (Birth of a superstar): Today we went into Paris for a day of sightseeing. First stop was the Louvre where we saw an astonishing display of art including ofcourse the Mona Lisa, the Dying Slave and heaps of other stuff. Then we went for a stroll up the Champs Alysee and did some shopping and eating, we then walked up about 20000000 steps to the top of a spiral staircase within the Arc De Triomphe. We got another great view of Paris, this time during the day. We then navigated (slowly but successfully) the Paris Metro, and got back to our hotel in the early afternoon.
At 6pm we set off for a memorable dinner in a restaurant where I think everyone sampled the Escargot (snails to those who don't know), and were treated to a spectacular show by the Parissiene equivelant of Rod Steward and Mick Jagger, playing the accordion and guitar, The whole place erupted when they started playing Waltzing Matilda.
Then it was off to the French Cabaret at Nouvelle Eve about 100m from Moulin Rouge, where, after being treated to some great theatre by some second rate actors, George was asked up on stage and had a VERY close encounter with some bowling pins during a juggling act, and then Yours Truly was asked up on stage to dance solo for the 1,000 strong crowd. After a blistering opening act in the four person competition, I was awarded second place close behind an old Canadian guy who had to throw some hip thrusting action into his routine to take the prize. His prize - a topless French cabaret dancer (as you can imagine, I was spewing and surely would have put in a better performance if I'd known what was at stake)
After the Caberet we kicked on at an Irish Pub till 2am in the morning. The whole group stayed out and we had a great night of dancing. The night was only spoiled (marginally, it could have been alot worse), when we hopped into what we thought was a taxi, which was just a big black guy trying to milk tourists, and we ended up paying 50 Euro for a taxi when we had been told that it should be about 15 Euro... We got out of it for 10 Euro each, so in light of the fact that this guy was sending SMS messages and trying to ring people during the whole trip, well who knows what he might have done. It's made us alot more aware of things now so it wasn't all bad,

Eiffel Tower by night
Dinner in Paris
Another from dinner in Paris