Eye Heart London

Today was exhausting and exhilarating!

Today's journey started with a train at 7:30am. Our first destination was Bethel. We got to London Bethel at 9:25. Just enough time to freshen up before our 9:45am tour. The facilities were larger than I anticipated. They print in London but don't bind books. So they do lots of magazines and brochures for numerous countries and languages. We were able to pick up the 2013 calendar and daily text as well as the January magazines. The new magazines feel funny as they are so tiny. I was able to read one after we left Bethel before we even got to central London. Anyway, back to Bethel. Our tour guide has been in Bethel for 25 years. He got married 6 years ago and she serves in purchasing.He is in electronics. The printing presses were running so that was exciting. This was Aubrey's first time to any Bethel branch. She was impressed with the printing operations. There was a man on a tour, I assume he was a brother. He thought he was funny, trying to stump our tour guide with silliness, but he was super annoying and disrespectful. He complained to our tour guide about pages of his song book falling out, as if it was the responsibility of the tour guide. I wish he wasn't on our tour.

We grabbed lunch at a little pub right next to Bethel called Adam and Eve. I wondered if a brother or sister owned it. Nope. There were lots of paintings of nude Adams and Eves all over. But the lunch was good and service was friendly.

While the weather was good, we got to the London Eye as quickly as possible. Every time we want to go, it is foggy and raining. But we had sunshine and made the most of it. After an hour or so in line, it was finally our turn. It was a blast. Liz calls this thing the London Ipod as up to 25 people are in each pod. It rotates like a ferris wheel but super slow. It takes about 30 minutes for a pod to do a full rotation. The views of London are fabulous from there. Definitely worth the wait in the line!

Liz says no trip to London is complete without a shopping spree at Harrod's. Harrod's is a massive high end department store that is quintessential to London natives and visitors. Originally we wanted to have tea and scones in their tea room but it was packed. The whole place was unbelievably crowded but we waded our way through the crowds to do at least a little shopping. Harrod's has several cafes and food vendors. We each grabbed something for dinner and stood outside under the covering of the building to eat our dinner as it was raining. It felt like a very British thing to do.

Then...Phantom of the Opera! Our seats were amazing, especially Liz and Aubrey's seats. We got our tickets last week and the show was already almost completely sold out so Ben and I sat separately from Liz and Aubrey. Alexia and Reuel chose to go solo today. Guess I should have mentioned that at the beginning of this post. But I digress. This was the first time seeing Phantom for Liz and Aubrey. We were a little concerned the strobe lights might trigger a seizure for Liz but she was okay. All four of us thoroughly enjoyed the program. The woman that played Christine looked remarkedly like the Christine in Love Never Dies (sequel to Phantom). I'll have to look it up to see if it is her.

All in all, it was a super fabulous day. We had nothing but fun. On the train ride home, Liz, Ben, and Aubrey reminisced about crazy things they did as little kids. Batteries up noses. Eating cat poop. Getting electricuted by sticking keys in outlets. Us Nishio kids didn't do anything like that...that I can remember. The amusing stories were a nice way to end a wonderful day.

Pictures taken today: 378 (Good thing Liz had an extra SD card as I forgot to bring my extra cards today)