Dublin, May 2010

One day Roger came rushing into McBear's office.
"McBear, McBear! They are here! They are here!"
McBear was busy surfing the Internet finding bear websites.
"What's here?" he asked baffled.
"Our new cards! I've ordered Travelling Bears business cards and they've just arrived. We'll bring them to London..."
"To Lon.... What? Hey, what's going on? Why am I not being updated?"
"Well, you're a top politician and organizer, but... you're not a gossip!"
"A GOSSIP? C'mon, Roger, you're not a gossip yourself!"
"Weeell, I agree, but still there is no harm in keeping your news channels open ... Anyway, our owners are going to a conference, and we're invited to join them on an extended weekend..."

Click each photo to enlarge

Roger turned around and whistled loud.
"HEY! Bring'em in!"
McBear witnessed Chong and Sam moaning loud while pushing in two huge boxes.
"One-two-three-PUUUSH...one-two-three-PUUUSH!" Roger moaned even louder as he was conducting the heavy work.

Dublin, May 2010

Chong and Sam opened the boxes and took out samples of business cards. They came in two versions: one with the bears in Monument Valley, USA, the other one with the bears snowboarding in Ellmau in Austria.
"Notice our website www.travellingbears.dk is printed on them!" Roger said proudly.
"Fantastic! They are so ... COOL!" McBear said in recognition.
"I'm glad you like them. Now we can leave business cards in all the hotels we visit..."

Three weeks later we had seats on an Aer Lingus flight to London Gatwick. From here we took the train to the city centre. It was getting late, but we managed to find an open restaurant, All-Bar-One near St. Paul's Cathedral.
"That's a mighty church!" Tom said.
"Well, it's not actually a church, it's a cathedral," McBear said and continued: "It's a miracle how it survived all the German air bombings during the Second World War."

London, June 2010

Next morning we got up early and went out the door. We were staying at the lovely Hilton hotel near London Bridge Station. It was to be a sunny day so Tom bought a cap as protection against the sun. "I love London" it said.
"Very appropriate!" Roger said in recognition.

The Hilton was located close to River Thames, so we walked down to the river bank to have a look. We were met by the sight of the imposing Tower Bridge.
"Wow!" Roger said. "That is a fantastic bridge! No wonder it's one of the landmarks of London..."
"This could make a nice photo for our bear calendar next year," McBear noticed.

We walked a bit up the Thames until we passed some tall buildings.
"What's the weird shaped building?" Tom wanted to know. "It looks like a giant dinosaur egg or a pickle..."
"Yeah, well, I suppose that's why they call it the Gherkin!" McBear replied.

London, June 2010

Further up the river we could see St. Paul's on the north side and we had to cross the Thames by walking the Millennium Bridge. The origin of St. Paul's cathedral dates back to 600s, and the present day cathedral was finished around 1705.

Approaching St. Paul's, we stopped to have our photo taken with the cathedral as a background. Curious people watched us - and the lady with her kid in the pram even stopped to ask what we were doing...
What we were doing??? Well... it was obvious, wasn't it? Our photographer was a bit embarrassed, so he just mumbled: "I'm taking photos of the bears..."
As we moved on, Tom said: "Sometimes people ask odd questions, don't they?"
McBear and Roger agreed and nodded their heads.

London, June 2010

From St. Paul's we walked down to have a look at the impressive Tower of London. This is a famous medieval fortress. The oldest parts of the fortress dates back to before 1100. Nearly 200 years ago it became a tourist attraction, and today more than two million people visit the fortress annually.

As the sun started to set in the west, we reached the famous Buckingham Palace.
"Is this where the queen lives?" Tom asked.
"It is," Roger replied. "It's gas, back when we were forming our band, Bearlife, I used to visualize us playing at Rockingham Palace! I'm sure the queen would have appreciated our performance...!"

Brighton, June 2010

Next day it was another scorcher, so we decided to escape the city heat and flee to the beach in Brighton. This was the sunny south coast of Britain. Now, the beach was lovely, but... it wasn't exactly sandy. More like chippings - or stones, as Tom put it!
"I'd never be able to promote this place as a tourist destination for Tom Teddy Tours!" he said with disappointment.
"Imagine the posters: Wear you feet out on Brighton rocks - or this: Lying hard on our beach; you'll never get your back back!"

We went to visit the famous Brighton pier. Amusement halls were everywhere. McBear discovered one of these machines where one can put in a coin and see if one can grab a toy animal with metal claws. McBear tried to communicate with the TA's on the other side of the glass, but our attempts to fill in coins and let the TA's inside grip a claw failed. So no freed bears this time...

Brighton, June 2010

There were lots of lovely cafés around Brighton, and - surprise, surprise - we even found an Irish pub selling Guiness. Tom said he wouldn't mind a pint in the heat so we went inside...

Brighton has another famous attaction: The Royal Pavillion. Built by King George IV, the pavillion looked like a British inspired version of the Taj Mahal in India. It is said that around 400,000 people visit the pavillion annually.

London Gatwick, June 2010

The weekend ended much too quickly and we had to pack our gear and head back to Gatwick. To our pleasant surprise, the Air Lingus lounge turned out to be a lovely spot, and the nice young gentleman brought us tea with biscuits - and honey for McBear!

McBear wanted to study the airport and some of the aircraft. Unfortunately, the frame around the window was very large, so only Roger was tall enough to be able to look out. McBear and Tom had to borrow a book and a laptop to build a platform. That enabled Tom to look out, but McBear additionally had to borrow a jar of honey. Then he was able to study the airport. Exited, he spotted a Jumbo jet from Virgin with its characteristic red tail.

London, March 2009

For St. Patrick's Day in March 2009, James, Chong, Christmas Bear and Sniffy were invited for a weekend to London. We went to see some of the hot spots that the other travelling bears had visited in 2005, for example the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

We also went up the London Eye. Boy, as the gondolas went up, it felt like we were reaching the sky!