Day 8 - Dublin in a Day

We arrived in Dublin on time without any issues and went through the passport control and customs very quickly. Next we had to go to the rental car section and pick up our car. If you think car insurance in New Jersey is expensive you should come rent a car in Ireland. We had to pay a lot more on top of what we had paid online to book the car! There are so many different kinds of insurance required before you can drive away. We had done a lot of research before getting to Ireland and there really isn’t anyway around this especially if you want to have comprehensive insurance and this is your first time driving a stick shift car on the left side! Let’s just say our respond to the amount due was “Zoinks”!! Better safe than sorry I suppose.

We got in the car and put the children’s carseats in place and buckled them up. Kids safety? Check. Ok. Let’s drive. or…stall…and stall…and stall…! Hmmm…could we just roll in neutral to the hotel? Thankfully we didn’t have to find out as we discovered that instead of 1st we kept putting the car in the 3rd gear! We will just blame it on the confusing markings on the stick. Although the car is very new there is no display to tell you what gear you are in but it does tell you what gear you should be in for optimal efficiency. 

Our Irish Steed :) 

We could not check-in the hotel yet but I spoke with a lady at the reception desk and she recommended the Halfway House as a good Irish Pub to eat at.

Halfway House Pub

After lunch we parked the car at the hotel and took a bus to Dublin City Center. A double decker bus! and of course we sat on the top. As soon as we got out of the bus we saw a small chocolate shop that also had cupcakes and coffee called, “The Sweetest Thing”.  We popped in for some coffee and cupcakes for the kids. The shop was very uncrowded when we walked in so the person who works there had a few minutes to chat and recommended a number of places for us to visit. 

Declan - The man from the Sweetest Thing Shop who gave us recommendations of what to visit in Dublin

We headed out of the shop and walked towards the Trinity College. 

View from the Bridge

The Trinity College is the oldest college in Ireland and If I heard the tour guide correctly they are affiliated with Oxford university. The campus is beautiful. 

Trinity College - Dublin 

We walked on to see the “Book of Kells" exhibit which is remarkable. 

The Book of Kells exhibit

here was an additional exhibit in the library about Brian Boru. The library was the most amazing one I have ever seen with bookshelf lining the walls from floor to ceiling.

Library

Old Book on Display in the Library

After the exhibits we headed towards the Dublin Castle. It was a bit smaller than I had envisioned but the intricacy of the design wowed me nonetheless. We played a bit in the Coach House Garden, took a few pictures and left to find a place for dinner. ​

Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle

There are a lot of cobble stone streets in Dublin with alfresco dining. We picked a burger place called “Gourmet Burger Kitchen”. The food was really good and Hannah made friends with our waitress and danced with her and played peek-a-boo with her. Silly Hannah!

Cobble Streets of Dublin

Gourmet Burger Kitchen

Menu

GBK Salad

Habanero Burger

Kid's Cheese Burger

After dinner we hopped back on the bus and headed back to the Hotel for much needed R&R.

Day 7 - London moves to No. 1

“I love London more than New York City” said Kian on our last day in London. I wonder what other cities will become his favorite as we travel on.
The day started off with lots of sunshine. We decided it was only fitting to explore the Wapping neighborhood and headed down towards Waterside Gardens, a small park with nice views of the river. The streets of Wapping are very historic and despite renovations the buildings still hold their olden day charms.

Waterside Gardens in Wapping

We had a great time playing tag and took some fun pictures.

Kian taking a selfie

Flower

for mommy

Super Baby Ginger

Flying Ginger

Gliding Batman

Playing Tag

Playing Tag

with Boney

Big Hug

Happy Hannah

It started to get windy and cloudy a little after noon. We headed to Captain Kidd, a famous restaurant in the neighborhood for some traditional British grub.

Captain Kidd Restaurant in Wapping

When you are inside the restaurant you feel like you are on a ship. The rooms are all wooden with wooden walls and lots of wooden beams and you can see the river from all the windows. The restaurant filled up quickly with lots of families. We all enjoyed our lunch.

Captain Kidd's Menu

Spaghetti Monster

Fish and Chips

Roast Turkey

with veggies, gravy, and Yorkshire pudding

Kian and Boney

Enjoying Lunch

We headed back home to grab our raincoats, since in had started to drizzle, and to figure out what we wanted to do in the afternoon.

Finally, we headed out to Southwark and South Bank to check out the Festival of Love.
Before getting to the festival we came across a small opening off the walkway with lots of boutique like stores.

We continued on to the Festival of Love. There were a lot of street performers around, cotton candy, people singing. I believe earlier in the day they had a few speakers that talked about a various topics focusing on love of humanity, love of self, love of family, etc.

South Bank Festival of Love

Cotton Candy Eaters at the Festival of Love

As we headed back home we encountered our first hiccup of the trip. We wanted to return our Oyster cards to get our deposit back but you can only return Oyster cards at underground stations and the closest train station to our flat was an overground station. I mistakenly thought we could return the cards at Canada Water station and walk the rest of the way. Little did I know that we were on the wrong side of the river and the shortest way to cross the river was a tunnel for motor vehicles!!! Ummm…Ooops! Of course it was raining and the kids were tired so they wanted to be carried.

We walked a bit but then finally decided to buy a single one way ticket for the overground and got out at our Wapping stop.
An early dinner was in order since we had to catch a flight at 8:05 AM to Dublin which meant waking up at 4:00 AM. We ate a review of the week and sent the kids to bed :)

Last Dinner in London - A review of the week

With the kids in bed I went on the computer to check-in online for our flight only to find out…dun dun dun….that there was another monkey wrench being thrown our way! The fine print on the confirmation said, “You must print and bring your boarding pass with you or you will be charged when you check in”. I believe the additional fee was about 20 GBP per person. Print?!  Dude! It was almost 9 PM on a Sunday by the time I read this. I will spare you the details of us weighing pros and cons. Thank god for our friend Simon who saved the day by printing our boarding passes at his friend’s house and dropping them off. YAY SIMON! THANK YOU!!

We finished all the packing as quickly at we could and finally went to bed around midnight. Goodbye London. It’s been amazing!!

Day 6 - Rain Rain Go Away

A cold and rainy day here in London but we are not afraid of getting wet.  The day started with some delicious pastries for breakfast from a bakery right down the street from our apartment called P&J. Bakers.

P&J Bakers on Wapping Lane

Chocolate Eclaire, Vanilla Pastry, and Cinnamon Danish

Because of the rain and the gloomy day we took our time leaving the house. We ate a quick lunch at home and left around 1:30 PM.

Hannah showing her "feather" she was protecting in the Overground train.

Once again we had no real itinerary for the day. I knew I really wanted to go to Baker Street thanks to my newly discovered obsession with Sherlock. We had to change a few trains to get there due to construction happening at some of stations. 

When we arrived at the famous 221B Baker street there was a long line of people waiting in the rain to go inside the apartment/museum. We decided to skip the wait and just took a few pictures from the outside.

If you have been watching the BBC Sherlock show you know you want to start whistling or humming the main theme now :) 

Fact Check: Apparently the building for the museum lies between 237 and 241 but despite all the controversies the city gave permission to use the address 221B

After seeing the residence of the famous detective we headed towards Oxford Street as the rain raged on. 

We came across the Disney Store and went in to take a look. A Disney Store can never be boring and this one was definitely one of the better ones we have been in.

Oxford Street Disney Store

Hannah & Merida

Hannah & Sophia

Kian & Spider-man

Hannah & Repunzel

Kian and Mickey Mouse

Hannah and Anna

Afterwards we were all ready for an afternoon snack. As we headed out of the Disney Store a sign for Ben's Cookies grabbed our attention. A hole in the wall shop filled with delicious cookies. 

Ben's Cookies

Oxford Street

A box of delicious cookies

and two happy kids

Cookies

Yum!

Next stop, Harrods. Because no trip to London is complete without a visit to Harrods.

Harrods

There was a protest going on outside against a designer and the ground floor was overcrowded and a bit hectic to get through. We made it through the crowds of people and made our way through some fancy designer sections to the 3rd floor and the Toy Kingdom.  What a fun place :) 

Harrods

Hannah didn't want to leave the Gingerbread House

Harrods

Kian kept trying to get this saucer to stick to his hands like the guy that worked there

Harrods

Harrods' idea of "dress up" clothes

Harrods

Mr Perfect

Harrods

Miss Trouble, so fitting for her face

It was time for dinner by the time we made it out of Harrods.  We had all intentions of making our way to West India Quay, as we were in the mood for Indian food and had heard good things about the Indian restaurants in that area, but halfway through the subway ride we realized it was too late and decided to get off at Covent Gardens instead.

We're glad we made the change, as Kian (and his Batman toy) got to meet Batman!

Kian, Batman (in Kian's hand), and Batman.  Kian's comment of course was that this Batman was lacking a Utility Belt.

There were some other random street performances going on, nothing too spectacular.  Luckily for us, the universe knew we wanted Indian food, and someone came up to us with a flier advertising a nearby Indian restaurant call Masala Zone.  

The service was amazing and the restaurant was extremely kid friendly. Any place that has coloring pages, crayons, and a kid menu is good in my books! The food was very delicious and everyone had a great time. Thank you universe!

Masala Zone

Masala Zone

Kian's tiger

Masala Zone

Yummy, spicy appetizer

Masala Zone

Indian pizza for the kids

Masala Zone

Grand Thali

Masala Zone

Regular Thali

Masala Zone

Of course no meal is complete without ice cream

After dinner, we realized the best way back included a stop we've been looking for an excuse to make at King's Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4!  Like everything else in London, there was a line (or as the British say "a queue") just to take a picture with the cart, so we snuck in a picture of just the cart.

Harry Potter's cart at Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station

Finally time to get back to the flat, it was late but the kids were still in good spirits and wanted to play the whole ride back.

Hannah the gymnast

Kian the gymnast

Tomorrow is our last day in London and we are hoping for better weather. 

Day 5 - Who says traveling with kids is no fun

A nice early(ish) start to our day as we headed out a bit before 11 am to go to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. It was built in 2000 as a memorial to Princess Diana & her love of children. 

An adventure playground geared very much towards the Peter Pan and Pirate enthusiasts. 

Kian on the Pirate Ship in the main section of the playground

The playground has many different sections so the kids could be entertained forever.

Hannah on a small boat

We had plans to meet my friend Joan-Ann for lunch at Giraffe. We had to promise the kids that we would go back since there really wasn't enough time to explore everything and the weather was just wonderful. 

We walked through Kensington Gardens towards Kensington High Street and grabbed some lunch. Giraffe is a great place to eat with Kids. The atmosphere is very relaxed and the kids liked the food.

Love.Eat.Live

Coloring Super Giraffes

Kian enjoying his meal

Chicken Nacho Burger

Lunch at Giraffe

Thanks Joan-Ann for coming and meeting us for lunch. Was great to see you.

After lunch we took a detour on our way back to the playground and walked by the Kensington Palace and the beautiful flower gardens.

Kensington Palace flower garden

Hannah and Baby Ginger

We went back to the playground and the kids had a blast playing for another 30 minutes.

See-Saw Fun

The crazy swing...Kian's favorite thing on the playground

Hannah's favorite section...a bit of water a bit of sand...perfection!

Baby Yogi - Downward Dog on the Sand

Before heading out of the park the kids enjoyed some soft serve ice-cream with "flakes". 

Yummy ice cream

After ice cream we decided to walk the entire length of the Kensington Gardens to the Marble Arch. Along the way we discovered a few things we didn't even know existed. Such as the Italian Gardens and the Peter Pan Statue.

Hannah at the Italian Gardens

Peter Pan

We headed home after this with two tired kids riding on mommy's and daddy's shoulders. Dinner consisted of ravioli, chicken, salad and fruit. The grownups also got some fried onion on the chicken.

Hannah started eating before I took the picture. She was too hungry to wait.

After dinner we had a friday family movie night and watched Tangled.

Everyone lounging together and watching a movie

If you are looking for more pictures feel free to check out our England Gallery.

Day 4 - A Spontaneous Day

"I told Yah"...."I told Yah"....That's what I woke up to. Hannah repeatedly telling daddy "I told yah" in the other room. It was around 8:15 AM but we still did not leave the house until shortly after lunch. We are definitely still very jet lagged. 

Simple lunch at home

We headed out with all intents and purposes of going to Trafalgar Square but then randomly changed our mind when we heard the lady robot voice on the underground at Green Park say that we could get out to see the Buckingham Palace. We walked through park and towards the Palace Gates.

Buckingham Palace Gates

There was an event going on in the Palace for what we thought was for War Veterans. We got to see lots of fancy dressed ladies with awesome hats :)

After taking a few pictures we headed towards our original destination, Trafalgar Square. Again without any particular planning we ended up walking through St. James's Park and decided to let the kids take a walking break and eat some apples.

Taking a walking break in St James's Park

Hannah had fun picking flowers from the field and giving them to mommy, daddy, and Kian. 

After that we took a nice long walk during which Hannah was picked up and took a short nap to Trafalgar Square in search of the ice cream shop where, in 2006, we first talked about picking 'Hannah' as our daughter's name if one day we were going to have one. We didn't end up finding it. So we picked just picked the nearest cafe called, Pompidou.

Kian had a delicious chocolate pastry with milk and we enjoyed an apple caramel crepe. Hannah woke up at some point during our afternoon dessert feast and got a strawberry ice-cream. 

Kian and Boney the dog enjoying a delicious chocolate pastry

After everyone had regained their energy we walked to Trafalgar Square and had fun with the fountains and the lions.

Fountains at Trafalgar Square

Kian on the back of one of the lions

We also saw a cool street performer do a neat balancing trick with a few crystal balls.

Street performer at Trafalgar Square

We then decided to head to Piccadilly Circus which was not a very long walk away. On the way we encountered another one of our favorite telephone booths and Hannah and Baby Ginger made a quick call.  

Hannah and Baby Ginger making a call

We have no particular interest in shopping during this trip so we just walked through Piccadilly Circus. We didn't even stop to take any pictures since Kian was falling asleep. We had enough time to just walk to the South Bank from Piccadilly and since we don't mind the exercise we skipped the underground. 

We ended up having another random experience and walked through the Horse Guards Parade where Hannah had lots of fun collecting mini rocks and we enjoyed the view.

Playing with rocks at Horse Guards Parade

Horse Guards Parade

For dinner we met up with an old colleague, Simon B, in the South Bank at a South American restaurant called Las Iguanas. 

Las Iguanas Outdoor Menu

The food was good and we were able to sit outside.  The service wasn't so great, no servers for outside so there were repeated, lengthy trips to the bar to order food and drinks, and the bartenders were clueless on how to take meal orders for children.  Simon informed us bad service is pretty typical of London where there isn't much of a tip culture.

Crazy Quesadillas

Meaty Mini Burgers

Taco Sampler

Gambas

After dinner we were caught in the famous London rain but found refuge under some trees, and by the time we headed to the underground the rain had turned into more of a mist.  Thanks Simon for coming out to meet us, sorry, we forgot to take a picture!

Day 3 - A Bit of Sight Seeing in London

We ventured out after the kids played for a while at the apartment and walked about a mile to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. A great way to get a 4.5 and a 2.5 year old to walk a mile without complaining once is to just give them 2 kid friendly cameras. These kids wanted to take a picture of everything. 

Taking a picture of a patterned wall on our walk

Walking through St Katharine's Docks we came across some awesome art work along the walkway and had fun being tourists and took a few pictures with them. 

Hannah making one of her silly faces

The weather was absolutely wonderful for the walk. Sunny and breezy. We walked across the bridge both ways and enjoyed some beautiful scenery on the Thames River. 

Looking at the river

We skipped going inside the Tower of London but did walk around the outside and read some of historical facts to Kian who seemed to have a thousand questions after each section. Some of which we did not know the answers to :( 

Kian especially found the stories of beheadings to be particularly disturbing.

Kian definitely does not want to be beheaded

We headed back home and on the way bought some fruit and a few other grocery items. It is not hard to eat meals at home on a trip. You just need to do a bit of planning. 

Dinner plates for the little ones :) we had a similar meal. 

After dinner we headed out again and had a blast seeing the famous Big Ben (which the kids know since Peter Pan flies to it with Wendy, John, and Michael and in Cars 2 they call it Big Bently). 

Big Ben

Then we walked over to Westminster Abbey. We had great timing as the sun was just starting to set and Big Ben looked very golden. 

Westminster Abbey

That wrapped it up for us for the day. 

Day 2 - Arriving in London

Another amazing flight with Icelandair. Despite the 2.5 hour flight they still provided free food for the little ones and a smaller entertainment pack. They even provided mini ipads, which had movies and games, for free to any passenger that wanted one.

Going through passport control took a while although we had a great conversation with the officer who called us "brave". Deep down I think he was convinced we are crazy. 

Much to our dismay we had to take a cab to the apartment as we were running a bit late and had to retrieve the key at 10. The kids had a blast in the cab and we made it shortly after 10.  

Our cozy apartment in Wapping

The apartment is lovely and perfect for our family. It is clean has a great kitchen and enough places for all of us to sleep comfortably. 

So much so that we were all asleep until almost 11am! 

We walked to a close by supermarket and bought a few things and headed back home and ate "brunch". 

Eating Weetabix Weetos - Chocolatey Hoops

The kids have already made themselves very much at home.

Batman and Wonder Woman coloring

We will head out to explore our neighborhood in a bit.