We be Parents

We had a busy couple of weeks in the middle of September. A couple months ago we made plans for a vacation to Hawaii…and then a few weeks prior to the trip I got word that I needed to go to London for a few days for work. Yenari was luckily able to rearrange some of her work days so that she and Hazel could come along too. The only problem was that these two trips were separated by just two days…leading to lots of travel with a little toddler/baby combined with an 11 hour time difference!

London was the first on our list. We got into London on a Wednesday afternoon and I had a couple of busy days in our European headquarters right on the Thames. Yenari and Hazel spent most of the mornings and afternoons sleeping, making both of them slightly nocturnal. Yenari did manage to crawl out of bed on day and visit the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern museum:

To celebrate the end of my work week in London we took the tube to the London Eye, the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, for a nighttime ride. Hazel was passed out for the beginning of the half hour ride but soon woke up and started walking around the massive cabin and checking out the view.

Our flight back was on Monday morning, so we had the whole weekend to be tourists. Saturday was our Museum day where we went to the British Museum to check out the Greek exhibits of the Parthenon, the mummies, and all of the other items items plundered/discovered/recovered/bought from the British empire over the past several hundred years.

Hazel slept during most of our museum visits, but she did find some time to check out the exhibits:

Speaking of sleeping Hazel….here she is passed out at the museum followed by another one of her passed out with Yenari at Trafalgar Square, following our visit to the National Gallery the same day. She was a sleepy baby.

After the museums we spent the rest of our afternoon at the Tower of London. Hazel slept through the tour of the Crown Jewels and the Royal Armory to enjoy the nice afternoon whether and check out the Tower Bridge:

After all the museums and the Tower of London we were tired! We made our way through the city all day on the Tube…which is just one of the key examples of London as a stroller unfriendly city. Most of the tube stations and even many of the museums have only stairs which meant carrying a stroller with a sleeping baby inside up and down many many flights of stairs…a fairly awkward and not so fun thing to do…over and over again in London. It would have been a lot easier if Hazel had been awake, but hey, we were in London, so I’m not complaining (too much).

After crashing for a while we took the tube down to the Thames where they were throwing the Thames Festival…a weekend festival of food, shopping, and entertainment on the Thames. Yenari tracked down a chocolate truck and thoroughly enjoyed the hot chocolate and brownies while I ate a Indian-spiced lamb burger.

For our last day in London we started it off with the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. It was packed so we didn’t get anywhere near the gates and Hazel wasn’t able to attempt my sister Liza’s (HI LIZA!) feat of getting her head stuck between the fence surrounding the palace. That would have been made for a good picture, but alas these are from afar:

After the changing of the guards we hopped on a bus tour so that we could see a little bit more of the city. Hazel had fun on the bus, repeatedly yelling ‘whoa’ right in the the ears of the guy sitting in front of us.

When we got nearby the Thames we hopped off the bus and went back to the Thames festival for an encore cup of hot chocolate and to checkout the tent and events that KOCCA (the Korean government agency that Yenari’s father works for) was hosting. Hazel was (of course) asleep and missed out seeing a huge cut out of her favorite cartoon character, Pororo.

From there we head across the river and took a roundtrip boat tour of the Thames, where Hazel woke up for a few minutes to enjoy the ride:

We rounded out our tour of the city by hopping back on the bus tour and making our way to the beautiful St. Paul’s Cathedral.

It was a fairly hectic five days, but we had a great time in London. Hazel will surely have fond memories of sleeping in hour stroller in all of the beautiful museums, sleeping while we ate our meals, and sleeping on our tours around the city.

We had a leisurely 11 hour flight back, followed by 2 days at work for both of us, followed by a vacation in Hawaii…covered in the next episode…