London - Marylebone

We departed for London on a fully packed A380 last Wednesday night, the last one out of Hong Kong that night, and planned to land at Heathrow shortly before 5 am.  The economy section was a 3-4-3 configuration, and we were on the lower deck.  Michael and I were crammed into a window seat and a middle seat on the left of the plane, but the twelve hours spent in cargo actually didn't feel unbearable.  While I got barely any sleep due to a screaming baby (to call it crying would be a vast understatement as she shrieked with eardrum blasting force, and she did not tire easily), I actually felt okay upon landing.

From there we rode the underground (Picadilly line) to our hotel, The Marylebone Hotel, in the lovely neighborhood of Marylebone.  Coming from Hong Kong, London felt quite cold. 

The first thing we did once shops opened was try to procure a hat and gloves.  It proved a difficult endeavour.  Finally, we wandered into Debenham's desperately seeking the women's accessories section.  The shopkeeper laughed and told us any winter accessories would be in clearance bins, as they were getting ready for spring with swimwear and beach hats.  Seriously??  Our incredulous looks gave us away as tourists from a warmer land, and she chuckled and told us condescendingly that "this is actually really nice weather for us."  Oh, okay then.

Actually, London was pretty nice.  It didn't really rain and the sun was out and shining for almost all day while we were there.  But I did feel pretty chilled.  Thank goodness I packed some thick wool socks.  Below, some pictures of the neighborhood we stayed in: