London Nov 2017 253 - Chinatown on a wet Saturday afternoon

            I made my annual trip to London in November, as ever, the only bloke in a coach full of women. I think it’s my 16th year now. A fund-raising trip in aid of Slaithwaite Brass Band it started as a one day trip and eleven years ago we started to stay overnight Sat/Sun at The Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch, a superb central location. Leaving at seven we are usually at the hotel for 11.45 subject to traffic. We usually have really good weather, this year though Saturday was really wet, I was probably the only person on the trip who wasn’t bothered, having made the trip so many times I was looking forward to getting photos on the busy streets in the wet, all reflections and umbrellas, something different for a change. I headed off with my camera and backpack as soon as we got there. Currently struggling with a damaged ankle, I tried to keep the kit to a minimum and in the end, I decided to stick with my 16-35mm lens all weekend. I started with the Selfridges Christmas window display and worked my way to Piccadilly, making sure I found a licensed café for late lunch and a glass of wine (two actually) I was meeting my daughters and two of their friends to take them out later so I was working to a bit of an agenda.
After eating Italian, we popped along to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park only to find that they stopped serving food and drink at 10.00pm-it was the drink that we were after needless to say so we went back to the City of Quebec pub near the hotel. We were directed to the night club downstairs. Having been upstairs many times we had no idea the Quebec was a gay pub- we soon realised when we got downstairs. We had a good laugh and a drink or two and made it in before midnight.
I checked out loaded up with a beautiful breakfast at 8.15 on Sunday. It had dried up and was a glorious sunny day, a complete contrast to Saturday. I felt like I had London to myself for a while and made good progress, I made it to Covent Garden by 9.15. I walked through Seven Dials, Theatreland, Chinatown, St Pauls, crossed the Thames and down to Tower Bridge. I covered about ten Miles each day and took around 800 shots, mostly in the rain on Saturday.
I was father Christmas again on the way home, we all buy a mystery present and I get the job of going around the coach distributing them, there’s some serious drinking on the way home so things can get a bit boisterous at the back of the coach. We left at 3.15, had an overlong break at Tibshelf services and we were back in Slaithwaite for 8.30. A few of us dragged our bags to The Little Bridge wine bar for another latish night, followed by an early start for me unfortunately.
   

Taken on: November 18, 2017

Tags:

LONDON

STREETS

SHOPS

SHOPPING CENTER

SHOPPERS

CHRISTMAS

WET

RAIN

POURING

DOWN

UMBRELLA

PICCADILLY

CIRCUS

NEON

REFLECTIONS

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Sets appears in: • London • London November 2017

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, f/6.3, 1/125 sec, 23mm, ISO 2500 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens:	EF16-35mm f/4L IS USM
Aperture:	f/6.3
Exposure Time:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Focal Length:	23mm
ISO:	2500
Exposure Bias:	-2/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 7.0 (Windows)
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