London, United Kingdom (2nd Visit)

The exciting part about my job is that on certain days of the month, I won't know where the next destination is. I will have my mobile phone by my side at all times, and if it rings, the notification could be a 4-day trip to Europe, a 9-day trip to the United States or merely a 1-day trip to neighbouring countries.

I just came back from London last morning. I was supposed to go Auckland but like I mentioned above, there is an element of surprise in my job and things change spontaneously. During my first visit to London, I fell sick so I didn't really do much over there. I knew there would be many chances to visit London again. And I am right. In less than 2 weeks, I was at London again.

I am lucky to have Sunil, Sham and Cindy accompanying me on this trip. We ate at many places together, like Bugis Street Restaurant, Malaysian Hall...And we chatted about many things. Sometimes, it's not exactly what you do that matters; it's whom you hang out with that makes the trip interesting. Besides eating, we also did shopping at Oxford Street. Primark is really cool. It is a 2-storey departmental store and everything in the store is so gorgeous and cheap.

On the second day, almost my entire set of crew went to Bayswater and we had a sumptuous lunch at Gold Mine Restaurant. This restaurant is must-go; somehow the crew will always make it a point to have a meal together at this restaurant when we are in London. Anyway, we had an oriental-style lunch consisting of many courses. I ate so much!

Water cress soup, roast duck, roast chicken, oyster omelette, salmon fishcake, braised tofu, stir-fry spinach, deep-fried squid...I can't remember what else.
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One thing I realize is that the things in Singapore are generally overpriced. To be more specific, I am referring to the personal care products for hair and skin. I guess the reason is because we don't have any local brands to begin with, and so we import foreign brands like L'Oreal, Dove etc. Obviously they would cost more in Singapore.

A 100ml hair spray (Toni & Guy) only cost about 2 pounds!

And you know what? I repeated a same stupid mistake.

I forgot about the LAG restriction for all flights departing out of London and I didn't pack my luggage carefully before I checked out of the hotel.

I had a huge bottle of body fragrance (from Bath and Body Works) in my cabin bag and I only realized it when I took out my laptop at the security checkpoint. By then it was too late.

It had to be disposed.

Security staff: "Hey, this (bottle of fragrance) is too big. You can't bring it in."

Last time it was manuka honey (in Christchurch). And now, a rather new bottle of body fragrance. It should have been checked-in in my cargo bag.

Argh.