We didn't really have any plans for today, except dinner plans at 6:30 p.m., so we weren't really sure of what we were going to do. When we got up we got a major surprise, almost 2 inches of snow on the ground, and more snow continuing to fall. It was so beautiful. We weren't going to let that stop us, we wanted to get out in it. We took the dogs out, and Daisy Adair enjoyed playing in the snow for the first time, while Willow continued her favorite past time of eating the snowballs.
Some of the snow around our place:
A beautiful snow covered tree:
When we got inside I looked on the internet to see what the best way to get to Benihana for dinner was and noticed that there were a few bus routes that were going to be interrupted today so I looked further and found out that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Torch Relay was passing through London at 11:00 am. As it was 11 am at that time we decided to get ready real quick and go into town to see it pass. We decided we would go to China Town to watch it. We were glad we did, there was so much more ambiance there than just on the main streets.
Greg at the torch relay:
Tami at the torch relay ceremonies:
There were Chinese dragons and tigers entertaining the massive crowd until the torch arrived. There were thousands of people in China Town to watch the torch go by, and lots of them with flags for Tibet. After the torch had gone by the 5 mascots for the Olympics went by as well, dancing and bouncing down the street in their inflatable constumes. My favorite is the panda bear, although the flame had a lot more bounce and energy.
Here is the main mascot:
The flame mascot:
The cute Panda mascot:
A 4th mascot:
Once the torch went by we decided we would go up to Trafalgar Square, since that was the next stop, to see it go by again. Here there had to be over 10,000 people around. When we got there we were trying to find a spot to watch the torch go by and about that time someone took off through the route and was tackled and dragged away by a bunch of cops. This was apparently the theme of the day, the "Free Tibet" protestors were constantly trying to get the flame or put the flame out, one person even tried to use a fire extinguisher to put it out, to no avail. We started walking down the stairs to the main part of Trafalgar Square and we saw some protestors who swam through the fountains to the top to wave their flags and shout.
Protestors in the fountain:
We began to wander through the massive crowds and realized that most of them were just there to protest and not really there for the torch, so we decided we didn't want to be any part of that and headed out of there.
We first walked over to Covent Garden and had a snack and some tea at Paul's, a great patisserie. We then caught a bus, one of the Old Routemasters, out to Harrods. This was exciting because it was the first time that we had actually gotten to ride on one of the old buses. When we got to Harrods we walked around and killed time, only buying some tea and triple sec, before heading across the street to rest our feet and have a drink.
The view from the window of the Old Routemaster:
After our drink we caught a bus down towards Regent Street and Oxford Street to kill some time before dinner. We went in to Godiva, Apple, and Hamley's. Hamley's is almost the equivalent of FAO Schwartz, it is London's very large and popular toy store. I was able to get a couple Hamley's Ty Beanie Babies and a pound puppie, I named him Torch. Then it was time for some food, we had both been looking forward to Benihana for a couple of days, and man was it worth it.
We were soooo stuffed when we left there but man was it good. When we got back to our flat we saw Jamie in his kitchen so we spent a few minutes with him, catching up, before heading back to the flat to finish watching the race and to get ready for bed.
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