City of Westminster

After a very early arrival in London, we dropped off our bags at our hotel and headed over to Westminster. We walked across the Thames and by Big Ben and headed into St. James Park. We walked past the lake, taking some time to look at all the British birds. We arrived at Buckingham Palace in time to get a good spot to view the changing the guard ceremony. Afterwards, we headed directly to Wellington Arch where we caught the Underground to Piccadilly Circus where we had lunch. We then continued onward through Leicester and Trafalgar Squares, soon reaching the Thames once again. We crossed via the Jubilee Bridge, continuing along the Thames back to where we started our day!

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Jurong Bird Park

We headed out to Jurong Bird Park in time to catch the first free shuttle from the Jurong East MRT station. We ended up spending the morning there, catching the hawk show and seeing most of the enclosures and aviaries. Jurong Bird Park is only going to exist for a few days more as everything is moving to become the Bird Paradise and will be adjacent to the rest of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve parks.

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Great Falls and Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

We started our day at the Maryland side of the Great Falls, a section of rapids on the Potomac river that separates Maryland and Virginia. This area is part of the C&O Canal National Historic Park. It was foggy when we arrived but rather nice when we got to the viewpoint in the middle of the river. Afterwards, we headed to an early lunch and then onward to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. We were there to see what birds were around and to check out the fall foliage. But it seems we’ve missed much of fall already!

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