More of London sights and food

We are back in Hong Kong from our 3-week Europe trip, but not before enduring 2 flights from Venice, 6 hours transit in London, and dealing with a toddler in his Terrible 2s while surviving on only 30 minutes doze on a 33-hour day. Honestly, we always feel like needing a holiday after getting home from a trip with our toddler. Italy was gorgeous, and I was very snap-happy with my cameras, so much so that I ran out of space on my dSLR about 3 days into our 7-day itinerary in Italy. Of course, the more photos I take, the more sorting and editing I have to do. I have lots to share about the things we did, where we stayed, what we saw and the fantastic food we ate in Rome, Florence and Italy, but for now, here are some snapshots of London on our second day out and about.

Waiting at an underground station to board the train for Hyde Park:

One of the entrances to Hyde Park, the Marble Arch which has a giant horse head structure nearby (something I hadn't noticed while snapping away on my camera until Rob pointed out the obvious):

Hyde Park was immense with lots of open flat fields, quite different from the beautiful St. James Park we saw the day before:

Catching one of the palace guards leaving Buckingham Palace. We'd missed the changing the guard process because daylight savings had started on that day and we were 1 hour late:

We headed to Brick Lane for lunch at one of the many Indian curry houses. Brick Lane hosts a market every Sunday, and the street was packed full of people when we arrived:

Zak eating briyani, one of the dishes we got for lunch. It was hilarious watching him eat the spicy rice, as he would enthusiastically shovel spoonfuls of rice into his mouth, chew and swallow, and then stick his tongue out complaining "Hot!" but shortly later would proceed to shove the next spoon into his mouth. Here he is simultaneously sticking his tongue out in protest of the spiciness while spooning the next heap of spicy rice into his mouth:

After lunch we headed to Primrose Hill to visit a friend's sister working at a bakery. Truly a beautiful part of London:

At Primrose Bakery, we bought a chocolate cupcake for Rob, a lemon one for me and a mini vanilla flavoured cupcake for Zak. They were all delicious, and we especially appreciated the fact that the frostings weren't as tall as the cupcakes themselves (which is apparently how the Americans like them, as I recall from our first trip to New York). It was on the crumbly side, but we did get in to the bakery only 5 minutes before closing (that was when we realised about daylight savings):

Zak polished off his mini vanilla cupcake really quickly. I wished he would do the same for vegetables:

Zak and I headed to the Science Museum during the week, and this was a great place for kids to hang out. Free entry, loads of educational stuff and plenty of fun and interactive activities for the kiddies.

The world on display. Zak loves planets (something he picked up when we visited HK's (outdated and ancient) Space Museum last month), and he would sometimes answer the question "Where are we?" with "Planet Earth" (occasionally he would get it right and answer "Hong Kong" or "London" or wherever we happen to be at the time):

Zak had a ball in The Garden gallery of the Science Museum which is targeted at 3-6 year olds:

The night before our flight out of London to Rome, I caught up with an old friend from primary school whom I hadn't seen for 6 years! Neither of us live in Perth anymore, and it was a little bit out-of-this-world catching up in London. We ate dinner at a pub because it was a British thing to do. Pretty good grub for a pub. I can't remember the name of the pub, just that it was near Liverpool Station.

Warmed Duck Salad with hoisin:

My friend's vegetarian burger, which looked really good and I was told it was delicious:

I do have a couple more food-related posts on London, so stay tuned for more!