A hard lesson learnt

I will never forget Monday 16th January 2017. The 15th wasn't much better, but the 16th was when I looked at my phone and saw the step count for 2 days shopping in London. I had traveled to England to see my mother and the last 3 days before flying back I would be doing some errands. I had traveled Business class so I had 2 suitcases to fill.

I booked into The Strand Palace hotel which is near Convent Garden and not too far away from Regent Street and Oxford Street where the shops are. When you are not in normal surroundings you don't realize how much walking you do as you don't really know how far anything really is. I checked on the map and I had to go to my clothing store somewhere in Edgeware Road. It was about 6 Kilometers so not too far and completed that task with the return trip to the hotel.

The hotel has a Gin Bar which I never even got to visit.I need to go back and this time relax.

I had lists of things to get from all over so it wasn't planned as I had no idea where all the different shops were. I had a back pack to carry everything to reduce my return trips to the hotel. Like an idiot I answered the messages from home and one of them said where are you exactly? They were at home on Google street view looking at the shops I would be walking past racking their brains if they had forgotten anything.

The one shop I went into I handed my phone to the shop assistant showing her the shopping list and she obliged by running around for me gathering the two baskets worth of cosmetics. It was painful on the Credit Card, but I had agreed to this before I had left.

On the evening of the 16th I had finished and there wasn't much room left in the suitcases. I glanced at my phone and noticed I had the Samsung health tracker working, similar to actifit which counts your steps etc. It showed serious activity for the last two days and totaled 87 513 steps which according to them is 68.42 Kilometers and what I found funny was 79177 was at a healthy pace.

Thinking back now it is most likely correct as it was a 15 minute walk from Piccadilly Circus to the hotel and I was going back to the hotel on regular occasions. I know on Monday alone I did that walk on no less than 4 occasions. According to the map that is 2.7 kilometers on its own each way. As I said when you are in foreign surroundings and everything is new you just walk and don't realize how far you are travelling.

I told my family never again and it was a one off. To cap the trip off I was caught at customs and had to pay some duty on perfumes I had purchased as gifts for staff members. I had about 5 x what was allowed and lied through my teeth at what they cost and paid a small fine. One tip I have never forgotten is that you don't keep shopping receipts if you are shopping and returning through customs.

Image source booking.com