London, England

Here are some pictures from our first day in London. We walked around the corner from our hotel and there was Westminster Abby and Big Ben. We did your normal sightseeing and hit up Parliment and Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. For lunch I made Grant go to my personal favorite, Harrods. Little did I know however that Grant wanted to walk around every level (there are 7) of the massive place. He even found his very own "Johnson's" fresh squeezed orange juice. Lastly we went to the Science Museum. We were greeted by an actual set used for Wallace and Gromet (only my mom will appreciate that picture). It was a good, but tiring day. In the evening we saw Les Miserables, which was an excellent ending to our day.

We landed safely in London and are exploring the city today. Unfortunately we do not have immediate access to the internet, so we cannot update this blog with pictures for a few days. Hopefully we will have access when we arrive in Oxford on Friday.
Love you all. -Grant and Ahn


!UPDATE!
Had a blast in London. Heading to Oxford tomorrow and will have a tour right when we get there of the places that Lewis and Tolkien hung out. We'll also be hitting up the Rose Cafe Bec! More to come when the internet is not so expensive. Love to you all.
PS. the updates are primarily for our parents.

Cliffs at Moher

Today we took a ferry across the Mouth of the Shannon with our car. Thanks to the handy GPS we have not felt the effects of Grant's former "directionally challenged" condition. We decided to drive a bit north (aka 2.5 hrs away), but it was definitely worth it. We ended up at The Cliffs of Moher and once again, it was an incredible experience. Grant let me know that if he were to fall off the edge, he would pull me down with him. Lucky me.

Drive to Mizen Head

You may not be able to tell from the pictures due to the fog, but the colors were incredibly vibrant. It was a beautiful ride to Mizen Head Signal Station where we saw more of God's glorious creation. The magnitude of the coastline was pretty overwhelming...and you could tell why so many vessels have shipwrecked in this region over the years.

Kinsale

Blarney Castle

Today we visited Blarney Castle. It was incredible to walk around in such an old historical structure and imagine what it would have been like to live there during the 15th Century. It makes you thankful for heating. We both got to kiss the famous "Blarney Stone" and explore the caves hidden underneath the castle.

Rental Car in Ireland

So we landed safe in Shannon, Ireland. We needed some wheels to get us to Kinsale where our hotel is. We had a tiny automatic Nissan Micra 1.0 reserved for us at Hertz, but they were out, so they upgraded us to a Honda Civic, but they smart guy realized they were out of those as well and we ended up with a manual Toyota Avensis.
Driving on the wrong side of the road with the stickshift on the left and steering wheel on the right in rain and considerably jet lagged is definitely a test of ones driving abilities. Luckily, I almost went off the road only once.
We made it safe in just under 2 hours. When we got to the hotel, I noticed that I must have gripped the steering wheel too tight because the inside of my hands were starting to blister.
The Trident Hotel is beautifully set along the water's edge in Kinsale, Ireland.
We took a nap for several hours and woke up hungry.
We grabbed dinner at a little place called "The White Lady" at 21:30 at night (9:30pm).
When we got back, sleep never felt so good. The howling of the wind and the rain helped us fall to sleep.

LAX, Newark Liberty, Shannon IRE Airports

We left Santa Barbara at 5:30AM hoping to arive early enough to the airport. After seeing a bus that had recently caught fire on the opposite side of the freeway (101N) we hit traffic, pushing our arrival time to 7:30. Checking our bag at LAX was easy, but the TSA guards at security are enough to give anybody an anxiety attack. There was something in our carry-on rolling back-pack that must have excited these guys cause before we knew it, there were 5 "professionals" looking at the x-ray screen. After putting it through again, then taking everything out of the bag, including all of Ahn's makeup, they concluded the mystery object was a massage travel pillow (thank you Dan Michealsen). Now that sounds dangerous if you ask me.
While Ahn was dealing with this which literally took 30 min. I ran to our gate and pleaded for the lady not to shut the doors (since our plane was scheduled to take off in 5 minutes). When we finally got on, they had given away our seats, so we were forced to sit separately. It wasn't too bad though because Ahn sat in the middle seat in the row directly behind me. Thus began our journey to beautiful Newark, NJ for our connecting flight.

We chowed down some bluecheese burgers and split a chocolate milkshake at Ruby's Diner in the airport. I hit up the duty free shops and sprayed myself with Hugo by Hugo Boss (the cologne I wore in college) to surprise Ahn with...(she fell in love with a guy who used to wear it :).
The flight to Shannon, Ireland was about 6 hours and we were tired (with the time change and all.) I did manage to watch a little bit of "Casablanca" and "Back to the Future" however.
HIGHLIGHTS:
1. The guy sitting next to me on the aisle that smacked the back of the flight attendant after he didn't serve him a egg & cheese biscuit breakfast sandwich right away. "WHO just hit me?!?"
2. In-flight entertainment screens
3. Seeing New York from the sky.

4. ZZZs...