Gone a-courtin'

Heart attack on a plate. The almost-complete British breakfast, including the tea but minus the fried tomatoes, at the Arosfa Hotel

As they say, the third time's the charm. 1974, 1996 and now 2017 - Hampton Court Palace always seems to end up on the itinerary each time I find myself in London. This last time the decision to go was made by my daughter, which is how we found ourselves on a hot Monday morning in front of England's most famous Tudor structure:

Some history: the palace was constructed by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1514, before being "gifted" in 1528 to King Henry VIII. In the 17th century famed architect Christopher Wren built an extension, and the palace served as home to the Stuart kings. The last monarch to reside at Hampton Court was George II; Queen Victoria opened it up to the public in 1838. We began our tour in the Tudor Kitchens:

Real meat being cooked in conditions a lot more sweltering than those of Tudor England, when Europe was in the midst of the Little Ice Age:

The King's Staircase, described by Lonely Planet as "a suitably bombastic prelude to the King's Apartments:

A few scenes from the apartments:

The Clock Court:

The Great Hall:

Steak-and-ale pie and lager for lunch:

The gardens, 24 hectares in size, are another highlight. I had a look while the girls took a break from the heat:

Any visit to Hampton Court has to conclude with getting lost in the 300-year-old maze:

The headline said it all as we rode a very stuffy train from Hampton Court back to Waterloo Station:

At my wife's urging, we visited Borough Market, where Shu-E and Amber tucked into a plate of Dorset scallops. "We fish it - We shoot it - We serve it":

Living with two native Mandarin speakers means I'm often interrupted before sentences are concluded and statements can reach their logical conclusions. If it isn't being expressed in Mandarin or Taiwanese, it isn't worth listening to, as reflected by the expression on my face:

It was after five by the time we finished at the market, and London Bridge was crowded with commuters heading to tube stations for their commutes home:

So we took a walk along the Thames in the direction of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge in order to wait out the Monday evening rush hour queues:

In the end, we decided to have dinner just outside the Tower, at the Perkin Reveller. Fish-and-chips is best eaten from takeaway corner shops, wrapped in newspaper and applied with liberal does of malt vinegar, but the upscale version was also acceptable:

The view from our table:

London old and new:

That evening, after returning to our hotel, I took a long walk, making it back to the Thames and savoring my own Ray Davies moment:

London, my late mother's hometown...

A girls' day out in London

A well-respected residence

The title of this blog post is derived from the fact that having seen many of London's sightseeing attractions (the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral etc.) on previous visits, I left it up to my daughter and wife to decide what to do during the two full days we would be spending in the British capital. So where do you want to go first when you're an eleven-year-old girl? Why, to the London Eye, of course!:

Visiting the 135 meter-high ferris wheel was a first for me as well, as it wasn't around on my last visit to London back in 1996 (a year after the city's previous heat wave). Amber enjoyed the views from our (thankfully) air-conditioned egg-shaped glass pod:

The Arosfa Hotel, where we stayed during our three nights in London, is close to the BT Tower, in the center in the photo above

I watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain's TV show the other night in which he poked fun at "tourists" in London (as if that non-resident, non-British subject could be anything other) and congratulated himself on having never visited the London Eye, but I'll take the joy of a satisfied child over the smugness of a pretentious hipster every time.

Meanwhile, back on terra firm in South Bank, we reunited with Shu-E, who had inexplicably opted out of going up in the London Eye and was mortified to learn it was air-conditioned (she had a very difficult time with southern England's heat wave, despite having lived most of her life in hotter, more humid climates):

At my daughter's urging, we crossed over the Thames on the Westminster Bridge to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben:

Amber wanted to have a look at Buckingham Palace, so we continued on in that direction, catching the end of the Changing of the Guard as the old guard were coming off duty and returning to their barracks:

Onward to the palace gates:

 Queen Victoria Monument

After taking a break in the shady confines of Green Park, we plotted our next move. My wife wanted to visit Borough Market, but as the day was a Sunday, it was closed, so she opined that she wished to see the Sunday UpMarket, sensibly presuming it would be open. We took the tube to Aldgate East, then stopped for some Thai food and English ale at Chun Easy Thai @ The White Hart:

The pub's claimed link to history:

The writing on the wall on Osborn Street:

Shu-E was disappointed with the Sunday UpMarket. Instead of traditional British foods for sale, she was confronted with food stands offering goods from all over the world for our dining and drinking pleasure. I tried explaining to her that the market is actually representative of today's cosmopolitan London, but my wife tends to look at the world through stereotyped goggles. My daughter, on the other hand, couldn't care less about the origin of certain sweet goodies:

From the market we took the tube back to our hotel, where the heat got the best of Shu-E. Amber and I, on the other hand, were still bursting with energy (her more so than me), so it was back on the Underground:

London isn't cheap, but there are a surprising number of free attractions, such as the Natural History Museum in Kensington, housed in a beautiful ornate building:

Letting my daughter be the guide, we checked out the dinosaur gallery...:

...and the exhibits on Volcanoes and Earthquakes:

The blue whale skeleton also proved to be a hit:

A Japanese-themed festival in London? What more could an Anglophile/Japanophile ever ask for?:

Returning to the Arosfa from the museum, we roused my wife from her heat-induced stupor and ventured outside and around the corner to Byron, part of a British hamburger chain that shows the UK has come a long way on the burger front from the days of Wimpy. They also have their own brand of lager and pale ale - take that, McDonald's and Burger King!:

That evening, with the girls back at the hotel and getting ready for another hot, stuffy night with the windows open and the lone fan on its highest setting, I took a long walk into Camden, passing by a building that apparently needed some exterior support...:

...as well as a sobering reminder of one of the many wars that were won and lost: