We all had our own shopping agendas – for Bhavana, it was looking for something different and buying gifts for the extended family, for Abhishek, it was toys and more specifically cars (Hamley’s or Imli’s as he initially called it), and for me, it was books. And we found it all in the Oxford-Regent Street areas.On our first day, with no Tube, we walked from our hotel to Oxford Street. Took about an hour and a half. But it was a nice walk diagonally through Hyde Park. Except for a little drizzle on the first day morning, the weather was just perfect through the trip.

I found plenty of bookshops – Waterstones and Borders on Oxford Street, Foley’s (it is huge – five floors of books) on Charing Cross Road, and Border’s and Blackwell opposite it. I wanted to buy a new board game “Settlers of Catan” (had read about it in a Wired magazine article a few months ago), and I found it in Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue just off Charing Cross. Border’s had Starbucks in them, so that was a good place for Abhishek and me to eat our ‘tiffin’ every once in a while.

Abhishek’s two favourites were The Disney Store (Oxford Street) and Hamley’s (Regent Street). He had left India with six of his cars to play with, and we augmented that collection by another eleven during the trip.

Bhavana spent hours walking around Oxford Street. We would leave her on her own for the most part, using SMS to co-ordinate when and where to meet again!

The other nice place we liked was Covent Garden. We had visited it during our previous trip. Abhishek loved the Transport Museum.

Tomorrow: Sightseeing