To celebrate, James had booked us into the Shangri-La hotel in the Shard for the night. Flipping excited and surprised I couldn't wait.
We dropped Henry at my parents, headed home, packed and jumped onto a train to London Bridge. We were destination Shard in no more than 40mins.
Checking in we were told it was "Golden Week" something celebrated in China, which meant we had free late checkout till 4 and breakfast included.....result!
After security scanned my bag we headed up to the 35th floor, to the "Ting" where we could grab a coffee while we waited for our room to be checked over by a senior member of staff....ooooooo errrrrr!
We got seated at a lovely little table and I ordered a jasmine tea and James a coffee. After chatting a bit to the young american waiter he came over with the sweetest gesture, he had written "Happy Anniversary" in chocolate on a plate of sweet treats! A lovely start to our stay. We were shown to our room and answering my question the room had electric blinds. They did a brilliant job so much so we didn't wake up till 8.40 the next day! bliss!!! We opened our gifts to each other. James bought me 2 Pandora charms for my bracelet, a heart with happy anniversary on the back and a cat in a basket to represent our cats :-) all my charms represent something meaningful to me and James is staying in keeping with the theme. As the 2nd year is a "cotton" anniversary, I bought James a Hugo Boss handkerchief for his suit(s) and got our initials and wedding date embroidered on it :-).
The room was extremely luxurious! As its a Chinese hotel we had a Chinese toilet with all the cleaning functions known to man! Front spray, back spray you name it your bottom could never be cleaner. The toilet was well kitted out with notepad and pencil, telephone and a TV in the mirror! A mans paradise! The room laid on everything from a stationary kit with a staple, paperclips and SCISSORS to a RAZOR and shaving cream! I was a bit surprised as thought these may be a "health hazard" but nice to have something decent and to be trusted and I forgot my razor so suited me perfect ha! The room also came with binoculars! They were great, James and I enjoyed a good old spy, so much so I could see what was happening in part of Guys Hospital! I felt like an assassin or something, was very cool. Our room was South East facing so we could see from the London Eye, Crystal Palace, Guys and St Tommys hospital was directly underneath us, all the way round to the left of our room until we picked up Canary Warf from higher up on the 56th floor in the swimming pool.
We popped up to the sky pool that overlooked the Tower of London, HMS Belfast and The Millennium bridge, although we pretty much got a 180 view all the way round to Battersea Powerstation. The pool was big and cold but we had a dip for the novelty and ended up having the whole pool to ourselves at one point. We were in our own little world kung foo'ing each other in the pool, when the pool guy walked into to tidy up that we realised we weren't alone! hehe.
We headed back to the room to get ready for dinner at 7.30. We ate at the Ting restaurant and I opted for the 4 course meal and James a starter and a massive steak dinner. We went for a drink after at the Gong Bar and by this time we were shattered so I only managed a cuppa tea and James a G & T.
Again at dinner :)
We got a lovely uninterrupted night sleep and scoffed the hotel breakfast (my most favourite thing about a hotel stay) before leaving. They were serving dim sum and noodles for breakfast too, as part of the Chinese culture of the hotel it was very odd to think people actually eat that for their breakfast! It was truly a "WOW" factor stay and we are very lucky to be able to experience such things.
long way up!
Long Way Down!
The fancy toilet
TV in the mirror
"Spying"
so we had a bottle of Piper.....
not your every sunday evening view....
Thankyou Hubs I love you more than anything :-) xxxxxxxx
