Just back (ok when i started this post a couple of weeks back) from a weeks holiday in London. We had a great time, meeting old friends, eating all sorts of yum food, playing in the parks with the girls, going for musicals and general lazing around. Am splitting the London post in 2 parts, with the first focused on what activities we did with the kids, and the next one on all the restaurants we ate in and some of the non kiddy stuff we managed to squeeze in!
London is amazing , among other things for the range of activities it has for kids. I had shortlisted 4 musems to take S to (A would tag along but did not really expect her to appreciate much there!) but we managed to go to only two.
The first one was the Musuem of Natural History which had a special exhibition on dinosaurs. As soon as you enter the musuem there is a big skeleton of a dinosaur, and inside there was an entire section dedicated to them. S was not much interested in the history, but was quite amazed at the range of dinosaur skeletons on display. I was taken with a skeleton which it had taken them 19 years to research and assemble, what patience! At the end of the exhibit they had set up a dinosaur replica which was quite big and moved around and growled (is that the correct term?). S was a bit scared when it came near her, but A was most non perturbed and cheerily waved bye to it! After the dinosaur section we went to the animals section of the museum, which had a wide range of animals (stuffed, not the cuddly types). There was a section on mammals, and tons of stuff for me to learn as well. Both the kids like animals (we've been to the zoo some 5 times in the last 5 months) and spent quite some time in this section. These two sections itself took more than 2 hours and the kids patience was running out, so we decided to call it a day at the musuem and left to grab a late lunch outside.
The growling dinosaur
After a couple of days we went to the Science Museum. This was located right next to the Musuem of Natural History and very close to where we were staying. The Museum's basement has a Garden section for young children (2-5 years) and S and A were happy playing with boats in the water, learning about shadows, music tones etc. Then we tried to involve S in a bit more advanced scientific stuff and took her to the automotive section which had a range from steam engines to rockets. But she was not that mpressed and wanted to go back to the Garden area
and play! Finally we compromised on a Imax 3D movie about animal rescue and the hubby took her for a 45 mins show while I walked around the musuem with A. A was asleep in the pram so I decided to check out the Maths section and felt most ashamed that I remembered nothing of the integral and differential calculus and was amazed at some of the stuff on display- such as the complex polygons etc. It would have been nice to explore some of the other sections of the Science musuem, but after the movie S had had enough of the Science museum and was raring to get out and play!
In the Garden section of the Science Museum
Then there were the parks....
Lady Diana Memorial Playground: This is in a corner of the Hyde Park, and with its collection of varied playitems quickly became the favourite for S, and we ended upgoing there 2-3 times. The main attraction is the ship and you could climb right upto the top. They also enjoyed the series of musical instruments- drums you could hit with a stick, xylophone with a hammer, a piano you could jump on, a rotating inward drum, two spinning circles etc. The teepees were also interesting and many kids were inside having their own picnic. There was a section which had wooden sheep and tunnels and S had a ball climbing on top of the sheep, crawling through the tunnel etc. There were the usual swings, slides, sandpits etc, but the main attraction were these offbeat items.
Battersea Park : This is such a beautiful park and my favourite. We only had a couple of hours to explore it as we were meeting friends for a late lunch elsewhere so we immediately headed to the adventure playground. It's for 5 years plus, but many of the activities could be done by younger kids so S managed to go on most of them, and we avoided the slightly elder (and more adventurous activities) like the bouncy castle (there were older kids bouncing so vigorously on this I was sure S would fall off the minute she went on it). Her favourite was the tyre on which you sit and are swung from one side to the other, and the really high slide ( i was scared to go down it as the speed at which you went down was directly proportional to your weight). She enjoyed the ropes (you had to climb up an incline holding only the rope) and a sliding platform (a kind of box which is about 10 ft X 10 ft ) which keeps inclining from side to side as you run from one side to the other. After some time we went to the younger playground just outside so that A could have a go as well, and some of our friends joined us there. They have a daughter who is S age and both of them ran around the park having a blast. We then went to the children's zoo in Battersea Park and that was really nice as well. It's got smaller animals like ponies, goats, otters and children can reach out and pet some of them. There were also many playareas within the zoo and S was more interested in playing on them with her friend than seeing the animals. They were busy going down tunnels, bouncing on the trampolines, sticking their heads in animal cutouts and climbing up fire engines, and I had a tough time getting S to leave the zoo (we were getting terribly late for the lunch) and she agreed only with a promise that her friend will come and visit us in Zurich soon.
The sliding platform in the adventure playground
Kew Gardens : This was a bit poorly planned by us and we ended up reaching there with only 11/2 hours to see the entire gardens and have our lunch (before leaving to catch the matinee of the Lion King musical, detailed below). We went straight to the kids section which comprises an indoor "Creepy Crawlies" with an interactive exploration area for children and an outside Treehouse section which is a playground with high structures for children to climb up and run around in. There are many different kind of playstructures in this like thin inclined blocks for kids to walk on, a large swing to swing from one tree to another, bug shaped bouncy things (i f
orget the correct termn!) The cafe had a nice children's menu and for once S ha something new (baked potato with cheese). I was most unhappy in the cafe as there were two agressive pigeons jumping onto tables looking for food and I am moritified of birds, especially pigeons. We had a quick lunch and ran from there. We missed out on the greenhouse which a friend mentioned had a lovely collection of lilies and the main attraction the Xstrata Treetop Walkway, a 18 metre high 200 metre walkway around treetops. Note to self - next time keep at least 4-5 hours for Kew Gardens.
Wandsworth Common: We were meeting my school friends and their families in an open air cafe in this park and the kids got a chance to enjoy this beautiful big park as well. This was a bit far from where we were staying - we had to change two buses and walk about 1 km from the bus stop to reach the middle of this park, but it was worth it. The cafe had a great kids menu and was next to the playground and once we were through with our lunch, the guys kept the kids busy in the playground outside while we girls caught up for a gossip (I was meeting these girls together after 18 years! and there was so much to catch up on). But the playground must have been nice as the kids played for ages, finally only coming back inside after it got too cold to play outside. The park had the usual lake, bowling green etc in addition to large football fields and lawns.
Hyde Park: We went to Hyde Park a couple of times as well. The first time it was late in the evening and we just walked by the lakeside, went near the ducks and spent some time running around in the grass. The second time it was afternoon and we played frisbee on the large lawns, and S and A were thrilled seeing squirrels running around looking for acorns. The squirrels are quite brave and come right next to you and don't move away even if you go closer to take a pic! But overall I found Hyde Park a bit too big. We missed finding the kiddie playgrounds both times, and the weather was a bit too cold to just sit down and laze around in the grass.
The other kiddie things we did were:
Lion King the Musical : I took S to see this musical. She's seen the movie about a 100 times,
and I've read the book to her another 50 times. She knows all the characters and is quite excited about seeing animals. The website said that children above 3 were allowed, but it was recommended for children above 5. The site also said that if the children make noise then we maybe asked to leave without a refund. So S was warned many times that she had to be very quiet in the theatre and not talk loudly. We went for the Wednesday matinee show from 2:30-5 pm, and it was still housefull. It was awesome to say the least. Amazing. The characters, the singing, the dancing, the way they've done the dresses for animals (the cats especially) and the main characters- Pumba, Timon, Zhazhu, each one of them was exceptional. The young Simba and Nala were acted by children and I was really impressed how well they could sing and dance and were so natural on the stage. I would highly recommend this for adults and for children. S was fine most of the time and thrilled when Pumba and Timon came on and Hakuna Matata was performed . She got a bit tired by the end of it, being asked to keep quiet for 21/2 hours was a bit much for her and we'd had a hectic morning at Kew Gardens, so she dozed off and missed the last climatic scene in which Simba fights with Scar. But she had fun, and so did I.
Hamleys : We rounded up the holiday with a trip to Hamleys, one of the oldest and largest toy stores in London. The girls were enchanted at the entrance itself...there were people dressed up and blowing bubbles while you enter and a man inside blowing balloons and giving them to the children (he was demonstrating a tube of balloon paint which you could mix and blow into a balloon with various colours). The store had employed a pretty smart marketing tool, they had employes demonstrating the wondrous toys at many points on every floor, starting from magic sets, to remote control cars, to boomerangs which come back to you after doing a full circle, a hoop you can control without touching, and I was tempted to buy quite a few, for myself, in the name of the girls. A's favourite part was the cuddly toys section and S insisted on candy from the sweet shop. We ended up buying quite a few toys and books for S (English books in Zurich are very expensive) including her current favourite from school "Stick Man".
It was overall a great time for the kids, and we were lucky to have taken a service appartment so close to the parks and the musuems. Must go again soon, next time I'll try to take S to a puppet show and a circus! They have them here as well, but they are in German!!
