my son & a friend stayed in a 2-bedroom apartment near king’s cross. this period they were away, so my 2 close RI bros joined me & planned for this London/Wales trip.

i arrived via Qatar (S$1,035) 1 day earlier on 27apr, as the pricing of direct flights by SIA (about S$2,200) & BA (S$1,580) simply made no sense to me.

my 2 friends arrived via MAS on 28apr.

my son & his friend kept the apartment pretty clean & neat. a good space of sitting, dining & kitchen.

& 2 bedrooms, the master room which my son used (& i used during this period) was the bigger room.

the room my son’s friend used has the same double bed, which my 2 RO bros used during this period.

this the King’s Cross St Pancras exit direction of regent’s canal.

i arrived late in the evening, about 11pm when i reached the apartment. flight arrival was 8.40pm & still quite long queue at immigration, and the piccadilly line from Heathrow T4 to King’s Cross St Pancras about 55mins.

the apartment may be near King’s Cross St Pancras, but it is still 1km 12mins walk.

this looking back at the station exit.

i kew i would be lazy to go out just for makan myself so i brought along 2 packets of instant noodles.

the convenient stall along yorkway & copenhagen street corner was still open at 11pm so i grabbed a bottled water, milk & tray of 12 eggs.

on 28apr, i took 1 hard-boiled egg for breakfast.

& later i decided on the soup noodles for lunch & added another egg. did not in the end took the goreng noodles so left it in the apartment.

& helped myself with the nespresso.

there was NOT enough nespresso for 3 of us for that many days so i brought along a packet of 3 in 1, and also bought a freeze dry coffee from waitrose later.

anyway my friends don’t take coffee like i do, so most of it were left in the apartment.

my friends were arriving about 7pm on 28apr.

i went early & passed dishoom. the queue was 1.5hrs, and it is a physical queue not by queue numbers, otherwise i would pick up a 1.5hrs queue number, settle my friends in the apartment then go dinner at dishoom. too bad!

i went by the harry potter magic 9 and 3/4 platform. there is like forever a queue here of fans or people out for a good time paying money (all £9.50 for on photo) to have a go at being photographed as the next wizard or witch.

well watching is FREE!

& of course the shop next to the platform to magically spend more money.

google had committed to building a vast campus for 7,000 employees (apparently to continue despite Brexit) next to its existing google building.

very exciting of course!

ii took some photos & the next day my RI resident photographer friend took more photos.

there were a few new dining outlets at this quite new google building – mexican tortilla, a middle-easrtern & a fast japanese joint with packed sushi sashimi, curries for dine in or take-away.

the king’s boulevard walkway from the station exit to regent’s canal now has semi-permanent street stalls, even branded KERB!

something that beckons…

like a mini mini maltby or bricklane market….

looking in the direction of St Pancras clock tower along pancras road.

the open space at King’s Cross St Pancras exit.

google map showing the station exit to king’s boulevard, 9 & 3/4 platform, google building & St Pancras where we collected our rental car on 30apr.

after collecting my 2 friends, we walked past regent’s canal.

this like the cleaning up of singapore river, haha!

walked past granary square, past the Arthouse, then along copenhagen street to our apartment.

after that we went to Greek Larder, located at the Arthouse, for dinner.

c.h.e.f andy