London Sightseeing

This trip was a quick three night visit, so I packed as much as I could into our first full day in London.

We stayed at St. Ermin's in Westminster which is an historic hotel with an ideal location for sightseeing.  It's just a minute or so from St. James's Park and right near Scotland Yard.  We walked to The Goring for afternoon tea the day we flew in, and enjoyed nice walks to Buckingham Palace, the Royal Mews, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament the next two days.  We found the St. Ermin's staff to be warm, welcoming, and very helpful - and we were able to book a family room for five. The history of the place is quite interesting - you can read a little about its past involving spies and covert operations during WWII here.

In the morning we toured the state rooms at Buckingham Palace and saw the special exhibition of the Queen's coronation.  Buckingham Palace is only open certain dates in the summer and the Royal Collection Trust website says 2014 dates will be announced shortly.  I see there will also be a special winter guided tour December 6th - February 2nd - information here.  I did not reserve tickets in advance and our hotel did not have any available the morning we wanted to go.  They advised us however to try the walk-up and happily we were able to get tickets that way.

After the state rooms and coronation exhibit (and cappuccino, profiteroles, and a pricey gift shop visit), we found a cozy English lunch at The Colonies.  It was a classic English rainy day and this was a great spot to dry out and warm up.  I had fish and chips, of course, and also had to try the special "It's a Boy!" celebration IPA they had on offer.  After lunch, we were on to the Royal Mews.  Snapshots below.  We went out to Leavesden for the Harry Potter tour in the afternoon.  That post up next.

in the hotel lobby

perfect, rainy London

No photographs in the state rooms but here are some profiteroles and my son's hot chocolate from the outdoor

Buckingham Palace cafe.

fish and chips

My 10 year old had them with the mushy peas and she is now a fan.

"It's a Boy!" celebration IPA.

one of the signs posted around town

My son's new souvenir bear "George" joins his Danish friend, "Soren".

This sign rotates.  We had fun doing spy poses and taking pictures in front of it.

audio tour at The Royal Mews

I liked these framed maps folded into a dress and shirt at St. Ermin's.

A St. Ermin's signature cocktail at The Caxton at the hotel.

xoxo

Afternoon Tea at The Goring Hotel

I first heard of The Goring Hotel when photographs of the Middleton family emerging from the front door the day after the Cambridge royal wedding were published.  At that point I was focused on Pippa's gray handbag, which turned out to be the Modalu Bristol (now the Pippa).

When we added a flight to London from Copenhagen to our summer itinerary, I started thinking about afternoon tea.  The Goring has been serving an English afternoon tea since 1910 and was awarded the 2013 Top London Afternoon Tea Award by the UK Tea Guild not long before we began looking into reservations.  As you can imagine, it's a popular spot.  A local friend helped make arrangements and secured a reservation for us.  You can also book online.

Every staff member we encountered was warm and welcoming and set out to make us feel at home.  The room where we sat was painted
a sunny yellow to match the teacups and we had a beautiful view of the back garden.  The scones were some of the best I've had.

Here are some snapshots:

gold raspberries = gold lips

my son chose the hot chocolate

More pictures from around London, and the World of Harry Potter in Leavesden, up next.

xoxo

Travel Posts Coming Up

Well, it's been quite a break between posts... my last one was July on packing for our summer vacation.  We had a wonderful summer and school, activities, and office responsibilities are in full swing.  My closet is a mess and my house is far from perfect but I've got the rhythm of our schedule and the kids are happy, fed, and getting where they need to be on time so I'm going to get to work on some travel and shopping posts.  Not much in the way of exciting cooking has been happening lately but I'm inspired by some new recipes out there so I'll try some new things soon.

This summer we were in Denmark, France, and London and were able to see and do quite a bit.  One of the highlights of London was tea at The Goring, so I'll begin my posts with details on that tomorrow.

Happy October!

xoxo

Packing

My children's outfits are sorted for our next trip.  Elliott loves my packing piles.  Max does too, but when I snapped this picture he stayed graciously off to the side, while Ell plops himself in the middle of everything.  Love how he has his foot tucked in between two of my eleven year old's blouses.

Max

I'm still in process, but packing for myself is about decided.  I started with a  shoe line-up:

 LK Bennett Maddox, Chanel ballerines, Banana Republic Ashley, Stuart Weitzman Minx, Soludos for J Crew, Tory Burch Miller

Then for the clothes... I started with a scarf again - my newest printed silk - and added two more big, light, and gauzy ones.

scarves by Hermes, H&M, Target

I then added two cardigans - bright green and camel - and a patterned jacket (I'll wear a plain black blazer on the way).

With the bright printed scarf and the colorful jacket, I'm keeping everything else very neutral - white, cream, navy, black.  I'll pair everything with dark denim or black cropped pants.  Also bringing along a couple of casual dresses (the Gap polka-dot tie waist shirtdress and a navy striped one from Loft),  and a DvF wrap.

Definitely still in process.  Haven't tried to put anything in suitcases yet.  Also still without a hotel for a couple of nights before we fly Paris-Copenhagen and working on our itinerary... but it's coming together.

I usually tweet here and there while we're traveling and as of yesterday I'm back on Instagram so I'll likely use that too.  I'm at seaandtea on both.



xoxo

Qingyan Ancient Town

Our last day in Guiyang - on the way to our flight back to Hong Kong - our friends took us to Qingyan Ancient Town for sightseeing, shopping, and lunch.  This amazing gated village dates back to 1378 (Ming Dynasty) and is about 18 miles south of Guiyang city.

my seven-year-old walking up to the town

rice drying

a cat on the roof

we dressed up and bought some pictures

a silver shop

I bought some beautiful hand made earrings that are made from thin strips of silver rolled to form flowers and dragonflies.

lunch (more dishes arrived shortly)

The plastic gloves on our hands are for the pig feet at the center of the table - the local specialty - which you eat with a gloved hand.  Only two of us (my husband and son) actually gave them a try but we all donned the gloves.

this was very, very, very good - a sort of mashed potato dish

we received many photo requests here also

Waiting for our flight back to Hong Kong I was a little concerned we might not be in the right place because very few other people were there.  Turns out there were only eight or nine passengers on this flight - and we were five of them.  It felt a little eerie at first for some reason.  They sat us all together in the center of the plane.

I'll post some pictures from out and about in Guiyang next.

xoxo

Huangguoshu Waterfall

I posted back in May about our visit to a beautiful scenic area southwest of Anshun in Guizhou, China.  After lunch that day we saw Huangguoshu Waterfall.  Here are a few snapshots:

 

We were able to walk behind the waterfall and there is a place where you can reach out and touch the running water.

Since I started working yesterday on my packing for our upcoming trip to a few places in Europe, I thought I should get the rest of my China pictures posted (these are from this past October)... an ancient village visit and a some pictures from around Guiyang will wrap it up before I post about the latest shopping and packing.

Hope your Monday is going well.

xoxo