Out and about in London

Before we got here, I made a mental list of the “must-do” things but in the end I don’t think we even did a quarter of them. And this was fine. Both times by the time we got to London we were all so tired from the travel we’d done that we were just happy to have some quiet time at home. Still, we did manage to tick off a number of the sights on my list.

Sunday evening stroll across the Westminster Bridge.

Chinatown for yum cha.

Riding the London Rail on our girls’ day out to Borough market.

The “real” Platform 9 and 3/4 at King’s Cross Station

Off to the school of magic!

While we girls were wizarding, the boys went and did their thing, a haircut was top of their list.

Styled and cut by a Malaysian hairdresser that they stumbled across in Lewisham.

Museums, museums, museums. London has so many wonderful museums, but we only had time to visit three of them. Top of the list was the British museum. 

The Rosetta Stone, a replica of it which is why fingers, arms, face etc are allowed on it!

Holding an old roman coin.

Next up was the Natural History Museum. The last time we were here, I was on my own with the kids and Ryan was five while Mia was still in her pram. Ryan was fascinated with dinosaurs then and loved seeing all his favourite dinos here. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, both kids have no recollection of their visit so for them it was like seeing everything for the first time.

First time on the ice. Skating at the ice rink outside the museum. She picked it up so quickly.

Face-off 💪🏼

The last museum we visited was the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, in fact Ryan and Shad went twice. Once on their own while Mia and I stayed home as she nursed a bad cough. They enjoyed it very much and Ryan was very keen for us to go so the day before we left London we all went again for a quick visit.

Tracing our steps, from the start of our journey in July to this point in time... 3 months on. 

Seems like no matter how much time we give ourselves here in London, the days all pass much too quickly. So it was time to say bye, and this time we will not be returning. It’s been good to spend an extended period of time with Tania and Graeme. We were all very sad to leave.

Pudding treats in Greenwich at Bill’s. Our last sisters’ outing, I’m going to miss her very much when we leave 😢.

Very sad to say bye. 

London Take Two

We’re back in London and this time we won’t be rushing off so quickly. After being in South America for so long, we were all, the kids especially, looking forward to coming back to the comfort of Tania and Graeme’s place. But this time around, we’ll miss having Tania at home everyday doing stuff with us now that she’s started working. Still, we got to spend lots of quality time with both of them.

Ryan has been looking forward to this so much since Tania told him what his birthday present was, a ticket to watch the Barbarians play the All Blacks at Twickenham! After a close and very entertaining game, the All Blacks emerged victorious.

The atmosphere was buzzing.

Spot the serious rugby fan. The one not busy stuffing his face of course!😆

Fantastic view of Guy Fawkes Day fireworks from Greenwich Park. We were the only people there, apart from the group near us who’d sneaked in illegally. 

London Chinatown 

The three smiley girls definitely look like they belong together, maybe that grumpy boy is with the other woman??

Finally we’re eating at a Chinese restaurant! The dim sum was good too! 

Who can say no to egg tarts?

Walking “The Mall”

Little nephew is no longer so little anymore. Both are now the same height.

A visit to the Queen

Or could he be taller now?

Missing Uncle G who was home working.

Good choice Yee Chai! One weekend Tania brought us to this Taiwanese restaurant. All kinds of bao for lunch.

Something different for a change, Mexican for dinner.

Across the continents

South America has been nothing like I imagined. Before we started this journey, we were somewhat worried about our safety, the food, our comfort as we moved through the less developed countries but we didn’t encounter any major problems at all during our entire stay. Of course we have also taken all the necessary precautions as any traveller should. Shad and I are very proud of the kids and how they’ve taken everything in their stride. Of course there was whining and whinging, temper tantrums, tempers lost (by the parents!) and punishments dished out but all in all, these two have travelled extremely well. There were days when things were challenging, extremely early mornings, uncomfortably long car rides, delayed meal times, very long travel days, discomfort from altitude sickness, but they both pulled through with minimal amount of fuss. And they’ve absorbed all these new experiences and really enjoyed themselves. I hope we have shown they enough that they will want to return and discover more of this intriguing place when they are older, and bring us with them 😄. In the two months that we’ve been here, we’ve only touched a small part of this incredible continent. There is still so many places we have not been to and so much we have not seen. I really hope we will come back again very soon. 

To get back to London, we flew from Bolivia to Lima...

Our last time on a South American carrier.

Where we had just enough time to enjoy a delicious Peruvian influenced Japanese lunch at Osaka. 

Finally some proper sashimi!

We demolished this super yummy deep fried rock fish in minutes.

Then from Lima we flew to Miami...

Where we once again only had time for one more yummy Japanese meal and of course a feed at the Cheesecake Factory(at Ryan’s request!). 

He’s been dreaming of this gumbo for a looong time! 

 Chicken fingers and chips for this little one. 

And from Miami we finally made our way back to London.