More of England

We wanted to fully utilised the rental car so we planned a big day trip around England and to Cardiff in wales.

We started out with a visit to the Windsor Castle



I was approached by a castle guard who told me all about the castle. Windsor has been inhabited for nearly 1000 years ;) HEHEHE and he pointed out to me some quarters outside the castle which used to be the residence of the king's favourite mistress/concubine. it started to rain when he's about to wrap up his talk. we quickly went into the dollhouse and then started the tour inside the castle. anyways pictures are not allowed although we sneaked some photographs (like 1 ...and it turned out blurry)

anyways, the pics above were some of the selection i put together...started out with the eateries with names like King and Castle. i noted throughout Uk they have really fancy and amusing names for their eating joints. The 4th pic shows picture of the castle..again the famous tourist bus in every town..
more views of the castle from the outside. Some little shops in the area that stood out of nowhere. The plaque on the floor was the highest order of knighthood one can get in UK.
it is called Order of the Garter

More views of the castle ground. We were introduced to the charming element of the dried moat that encircle the castle to help defend the castle from intruders. in the middle ages, it was probably filled in water to further deter the intruders.

After Windsor castle, we drove to Winchester. have I already mentioned that everything in england is OLD. Winchester is an OLD city. The houses were constructed way back in the 1200s.

The gardens are immaculate..like any English garden.

Posing with King Alfred the Great statute.
High street..

pictures of One side of the cathedral. I read that the Winchster cathedral is the longest cathedral in Europe. It was constructed in 1079.

Posing in front of the cathedral...
Guidhall...

Another Tudor construction.

Following Winchester city, we drove to Salisbury ..again, there was a Cathedral. It's of the Gothic type construction.. and it boasts the tallest spire in UK at 123m.

Here's picture of the town of Salisbury. Again, another eatery has a fancy name (Slug and lettuce which I later found that it's a chain eatery)

The Slug and Lettuce eatery
High street
Old gate
Salisbury and its Spire

Salisbury cathedral was under renovation when we went.


the back of the cathedral.

The front of the Salisbury cathedral..

Oxford

Following Cambridge and Stratford upon Avon, we drove to Oxford. The famous place where our oxford dictionary was published :P I think Oxford is the oldest of the English speaking universities. We went to one of the musuem and walked around a little. It was pretty late in the arvo and most colleges are closed.

We posed outside the famous 'dining' room that was in the Harry Potter movies.

Above are just random shots of various shots of buildings and university lecture hall. (the round building).

Stratford upon Avon

Stratford upon Avon is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. We had an opportunity to visit on our way to Oxford. Here, a fake statue of the man himself :)

The streets were lined with 'banners' of all the works of William Shakespearer himself.

We took pictures with what I believed to be the 'characters' of his works. The lady likes my sunnies.

3 of us had to take picture with the famous residence of Shakespeare. Note, it is a tudor type architecture. Can you spot the crooked windows?

We took picture with dancers on the street.



Dancers dancing to the 'medieval' type music :)

UK - Cambridge

Blogger has lost its versatility to upload pictures to the position I liked ..but before I whinge any further, here's another load of pictures I like. karen told me about the history of england ie War of The Roses..for details, please ask our historian, Karen. 3 of us walking down the street. Me and Jake posing in front of a college, and then I posed in front of the 'residence' of Issac newton. I also can't help but posed with the 7 foot or was it 10 foot grand piano :P Finally it was the Bridge of Sigh...the one place that I had to go in Cambridge. The tour bus that operates in every 'tourist' place in England. There's also people punting down the river. Cambridge also has its own mall. Seen here are Fai and friends.

Cambridge is a beautiful town. It thrives on the student population. Lots of people use bicycle and the lawns were carefully manicured. There are lots of signs that forbade people from stepping on the grass.

Above were some pitures we took. There were tulips, streams, bridges and ducks...it all makes picture composition so easy. Fai and his friends were trying to find where all the buildings are by looking at the 3D directory. I can't help but posed with the hemp bicycle. Jake and Fai posed with the electric bus. We had Cornwall pasty for lunch.

UK part 1

We arrived at heathrow. The next day, we drove our little rental car to Cambridge. Cambridge has many 'colleges' and the buildings are rich in its design and architecture. We were given a quick overview by our tutor re the different types of building design, Karen *grin. Took pictures with the tudor building. Notice the crooked windows..Amazing how the building is still holding together. Then we went to King's college the famous college...it has a mixture of Gothic building and neo classical I suppose. Me trying to enter one of the bookstore which sells all cambridge paraphenalia. The buildings are very very old here. I don't think you can find anything younger than 100 years old here.

Our journey begins..

with late snack at the Koru Lounge. I can't remember what they are now. but they are pretty delicious and pretty to my eyes.

12 hours later, and many movies later (enchanted, Juno, etc) we arrived in HK airport. Went to the Thai Lounge to refresh.

I am so happy they serve bee hoon and char siew pao and some light dim sum. And i get to drink VITASOY! happy happy joy joy!

back from long absence

i am back from a really long absence this time. i wonder what i should write about. let's have a report about N then...

Pic below: N and his first tooth.

-n's eyesight has really improved, he can see us from at least 3 metres now, so we can't really hide now :P he will shout for us if we try to hide.

-n's really good at doing commando crawls. He recently graduated to real crawlings. tummy's off the ground...and his commando crawl is really quick now. if you don't look for 2 secs, he's at the other end of whenever you've left him

-N's also has his first tooth when he was 7 months old...another one pop up in about 2 weeks.-N's also has his first tooth when he was 7 months old...another one pop up in about 2 weeks.

-N is not a great fan of pureed food. he is a firm believer of 'if i am going to have anything, i shall be able to see it in its original form, and i shall be able to hold it and FEED Myself". hence the eating banana like the adults do..

-n's also a master at wriggling and rolling. Changing him has become the ultimate challenge..it can take 15 minutes with all the winter layerings. he wriggles and rolls and crawls at every opportunity. doesn't help either to have the button up stretch n grow...i could be buttoning the first one from one end of the bed and finish at the other end. (maybe i should pin him down somehow) but i have discovered that if I let him have his little sparkly book, he could actually stay still for a while..i just have to speed through with the buttons (which I now discovered that zip ups overalls is absolutely god send)

-n's also good at 'crying' his crocodile tears to get attention, or to get out or away from anything.
his crocodile tears can become real tears should we ignore him a little longer.

-n babbles from time to time. it is always pa pa that he babbles. we doubt he knows it means daddy at this stage but it made jake swoon..of course i try to get him to call mamamamama but he seldom do it yet.

-n can pull himself to standing in his cot too...*time to bring down the cot to a lower level so it doesn't become safety hazard.

-n could also bang with the flat on his hands. on good days, he will high-five with us.

Walk to Hyde Park and Breakfast @ Mother Chus

the fountain that we search high and low for at hyde park.

went on a walk one morning to Hyde park with Mil. I love the shades the tree provide. the one thing i noticed about the park was the lack of the ramp..now that i have a stroller to push, i had to spend extra time searching for ramps ..when we couldn't find it, the two of us just carried the stroller and walked up the stairs ..

then we went to have breakfast at mother chu's in chinatown. mother chu's or chumama in mandarin is a taiwanese eatery. the above is their noodle. I forgot their name..it's a bit like kampua in soup. the other one is 'zak bing you tiaw' (it's something like the yaw cha kuay being stuck between a longish kompia). we also had hot soya milk served in bowl..

Hillsong LiIve Recording at Acer Arena

it was a coincidence for our sydney trip to clash with the Hillsong live recording.

Jake has been to their recording 2 years back so he was excited to go again this time round.

after our sydney fish market episode, we left N with grandma and we took the train to Homebush area. the staff at train station were incredibly nice to us too..giving us more direction..

The recording was due to start at 5pm. We got there at 4 15pm and it was already jammed pack with mom and dads, toddlers, teenagers, young adults, youths ....it's just so packed...We got in there at 4 30pm..we sat quite near to the stage...and by 5pm, the places all filled up!!!

The performance was great. they even had string accompaniment and wind instrument accompaniment together with the band. I really liked the drummer and a few of the electric guitar 's playing. they blew my mind away!

Check out the excerpts


This is my favourite song

more of sydney fish market

again the pic has come out single-ly instead of in the collage.. we tried the baby abalones from one of the restaurant.

N resting in his stroller while we eat. :P this is the 2nd stroller we got him ..it's so much more mobile and lighter compared to the travel system that jake got him. he's kinda watching the boats etc

another seafood platter from Doyles. The lobster mornay is quite nice although we think it could be better. thus, we learn that we shan't buy from Doyles next time.

Sydney Fish Market

on 3rd day, we took the tram to Sydney Fish Market ..it was convenient. saved us walking under the scorching sun with all those unnecessary perspiration. seafood were in abundance..

besides selling fresh seafood, each shop also operates a 'restaurant'...most of my seafood pic were taken at Peter's ..i like the layout of the shop..it's also the biggest shop at the market. pic are all self-explanatory (see the label ) :P

i also discovered that we have eaten the 'bugs' in the seafood platter the night before. Kinda wish they could have name the 'creature' better rather than "BUGS" ..i mean Bugs like insects but it's actually almost crab like ...i notice there's at least 3 types of 'BUGS" for sale..see the pic above...

i made this into collage but somehow came out without collage..oh well...
the night view i was talking about

Jordons Seafood

we stayed close to darling harbour during oursydney trip. 2nd night dinner at Jordons with pinkcocoa and shinchan. We were lucky Jordons were able to accomodate us at short notice. we sat outside to a good nite view but photo of food is not as good ..
again, we had seafood platter, and I had the seafood pasta. t

Yum Char at Zilver Restaurant

Sydney has a big Chinatown so on the saturday that i meet up with pinkcocoa& Shinchan, she brought us to Zilver . It is a new Chinese restaurant. The decor is contemporary and we ate the usuals and also a few of their signature dish. Some of them were pictured below. Eg watermelon jelly salad, waterchestnut jelly, porkfloss and egg roll with mayo wrapped and presented like sushi and black sesame roll.

I can't remember the names of the dishes but they are named appropriately.. The watermelon jelly lady with her cart and big watermelon 'cauldron'. (see 1st pic)

Sydney Part 1

just pics from trip to Sydney. Mostly foodies pics. we had dinner at i'm Angus at Darling Harbour. I liked how they name al the parts of the cow. We had mixed platter and I particularly liked the passionfruit sauce. Later, we had dessert at the Lindt chocolate shop.

N at 15 weeks

N during his tummy time ..

B.I.A

*pic taken in january 08.

i have been neglecting my blog. i been religiously reading other people's blog though.

here's what i've been up to:

-i rushed to apply N's passport. over here, we had to get somebody to witness the photo of the applicant, and also for the witness to certify that they know applicant etc..

-we went to sydney (hence the above). packing was a challenge..an infant sure needs lots of things. many stretch and grows, rompers, what have you...his stuffs alone took 1 trolley bag.

-because i am breastfeeding (via pumping)i had to also pack my breast pump with me and due to the enormity of the pump, it had to be checked in.

-flying with infant is a new experience for us. I brought limited breast milk with me onboard (i thought we have liquid restriction but actually not for baby food) so N was crying a bit on descent. Funny how I put down N's occupation in the arrival & departure card as INFANT.

-met up with pinkcocoa in sydney. she loves playing with N and vice versa.

-me and jake went to Hillsong Live Recording. Awesome awesome concert.

-on the way home, our flight was delayed and then cancelled causing additional night spent in sydney. we stayed at four points darling harbour courtesy of Air NZ. Pinkcocoa & shinchan came to see us again.

-after we rested a few days, we went for overnight trip to Hamilton (which is one hr drive from auckland). I shall leave this for another post.

photos to follow...