LONDON - Amazing Playgrounds & Animal Encounters

We were amazed at the quality and quantity of playgrounds in the central area of London. 

The playgrounds are all beautifully landscaped with a charming wooden aesthetic - no plastic playgrounds insight-  and best of all,  they are totally free to enter!

Diana Memorial Playground - Kensington Gardens

Our absolute favourite was the Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens, next to Kensington Place, where Princess Diana lived at one point. 

It’s a fitting tribute to Princess Diana and is inspired by Peter Pan, evoking a true sense of NeverNeverLand for children. There are many different sections, separated by hedges and landscaping, with all sorts of forts, clubby houses, swings and  climbing structures. The central focus of the gardens ins the huge wooden private ship that is surrounded by sand and water play. 

While it would be easy to lose track of your kids amongst all the foliage and hidden sections, the whole playground is fences with only one entry point that is manned but park staff, so there is no chance of kids running off complete. In fact, adults who are not with children are not allowed to enter. 

We were there on slightly rainy weekdays so it wasn’t crowded at all, however the website indicates it can be very busy at times and you may have to queue to get in. 

Afterwards, we enjoyed walking through Kensington Gardens, watching the swans and ducks in the ponds and spotting all the squirrels that can be seen running around. Squirrel spotting became one of the favourite things for the kids to do. You can find squirrels in most of the large parks around London and they can be quite confident when approaching people - I guess they are used to being feed. We also saw a fox in Hyde Park which was very exciting, although it was hiding in the bushes.

We also found an amazing playground near Hyde Park Corner, not far from the Knightsbridge Tube Station and near the dining area at the end of the Serpentine Lake. (also not far from the Natural History Musuem)

There was also a great playground super close to Buckingham Place, the St James Park Playground. 

And also right next to the London Eye in the Jubilee Gardens. 

All of them catered to toddlers right through to young teenagers, with plenty of climbing structures and obstacles. They were all fenced which means parents can also relax a bit and maybe enjoy a coffee. Our girls loved the playgrounds, it really helped break up some of the long walks and kept them in good spirits.

LONDON - The London Eye & Other Iconic Sights

Big Ben was our biggest priority in terms of London sights as Hallie has had a unqiue fasinaton with Big Ben (or more correctly - Elizabeth Tower ) ever since she found out about it at kindy. So we decided that the London Eye, with its spectator view of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament would be one thing to splurge on.

It was definitely a budget buster but it was worth ever cents! The views were amazing! And it was suprisisng not anxiety inducing being up that high. The little pods seems really stable and spacious, I could bear feel it move and I din’t feel at all dizzy when I looked down from the top.

One recommendation I would make is: pruchasing your tockets online in advance will give you a slightly cheaper prices. We purchased the tickets onsite and didn’t have to wait long at all to get on.

Below is the exterior of St Paul’s Cathedral. We didn’t go inside and we actually didn’t go into Westminster Abbey either. St Paul’s Cathedral is around 60 pounds for a family of 5 while Westminster Abbey would have been around 90 pounds, so we couldn’t really justify the price, maybe if the kids were a bit older, old enough to really understand the significance of each church.

Below is the Globe Theatre, a recreation of the original Globe Theatre that was constructed to house the performances of Shakespearean plays. We paid to do the guided tour which in a large group and went for about an hour. The girls were really great during the tour, very patient and listened intently. Both Braino and I enjoyed the historical context of what London was like during Shakespeares life.

I’ve always had a mild interest in Shakespeare and his works. I do remember studying MacBeth, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet at high school and one of the short films we made at uni was inspired by Macbeth as well. Farley has a general understanding of who Shakespeare is just from references she has picked up from books and shows and also the fact that the moons of Uranus are named after character from Shakespeare’s plays. She had a big planets and space phase too.

After the tour there was an afternoon performance of The Taming of The Shrew, which I decided to stay for. This is actually the play that the movie Ten Things I Hate About You, which one of my all time favourite movies. I purchased the cheap 5 pound standing tickets which meant I had to stand up in front of the stage for the whole 2.5 hour performance, but it wasn’t too bad really. the performance was impressive - how actors remember all those complicated Shakespearean lines of dialogue is so amazing, but the hodge-podge, op shop chic costumes kind of left me a little confused. I was expecting full on historic Shakespearean costumes. Initially I was hoping the whole family could watch a show at the Globe but it would have honestly been hard for the girls to follow along. And the sitting tickets were definitely not cheap.

Whether you’re a big fan of the Royal Family or not, I feel that visiting Buckingham Place is a must see sight in London. You can actually go inside and do a tour but it’s only available for a very narrow window of time from July to September, it’s around 32 pounds for adults and 13 pounds for children over 5 years old. Farley has had a bit of phase of interest in the royal family so it’s always a special thing to be able to show her sights like this for real, not just in books and video.

The two very iconic sights of The Tower Bridge and the Tower of London are right next to each other, further east along the Thames from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. You can do tours inside the Tower of London, which actually houses a collection of royal crown jewels and also the TowerS of the Tower Bridge, however we decided to forgo any inside tours and just enjoy the sights from the outside.

We actually found a Wagamamas restaurant right next to the Tower of London! Wagamamas went out of business in Australia in 2014 but it’s still going strong in London, it was our favourite restaurant so Braino and I were excited to take a trip down memory lane.

LONDON - Family Friendly Free Museums & Art Galleries

I won’t detail out what we did on each individual day In London because it’s all a bit of blur now but I’ll recap our highlights to perhaps give other families an idea of what kid friendly activities there are in London. This post will focus on some of the free museums & art galleries. 

We were obviously conscious of our budget and the fact that one Australian dollar is worth basically half a British pound had us second guessing the necessity of every purchase. But I was quite surprised by how many free attractions there are in London so we actually experienced London is a relatively budget-friendly way. 

Natural History Museum 

One of our highlights was the Natural History Musuem which is absolutely free! It’s a huge collections of all things zoology, palaeontology, geology and mineralogy, including animal specimens that were collected by Charles Darwin! The architecture of the main building is simply breathtaking and the main hall features a blue whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling. (Interestingly, the blue whale’s skeleton was found in Wexford Harbour, Ireland in 1891 and was in storage for 42 years before being displayed in the hall with all the other whale and animal specimens. It moved to the main hall in 2017, replacing a skeleton cast of ‘Dippy’, the Diplodocus )

The girls loved the huge array of taxidermy animal specimens and I was particularly excited to point out the ichthyosaur fossils that were discovered by Mary Anning, a girl from the south of England who we had read about in a book we purchased from the Queensland Musuem called ‘Stone Girl, Bone Girl’. We also discovered that the Natural History Museum is the musem from one of the girls favourite shows ‘Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures’ and we were able to locate the clock that is used in the show.

We spent a good solid hour in the geology area of the museum which has countless rocks and mineral specimens, including gemstones. It also features a gallery dedicated to natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanos and tsunamis. This was particularly interesting after our time in Japan. Actually, in the Natural History Museum is as a room that is designed to look like the interior of a grocery shop in Kobe Japan which shook, replicating what it would feel like to be in the earthquake that occurred in 1995. There was even CCTV footage playing on small TVs from inside the shop at the time of the earthquake. After being in Japan and seeing a volcano - Mt Fuji - and learning about Tsunamis from seeing warning signs on the beach of Kamakura, it was a great experience for girls to see all the information presented in a museum format. 

The other huge highlight for us was the dinosaur section where they have a massive robotic T-Rex, which roars and moves! Initially, we had seen a short clip of the T-Rex on a YouTube video and the girls said they would be too scared to see the T-Rex for real but after a bit a pep talk from Braino and I, the girls braved it and loved the T-Rex! Such a relief, because it was really impressive. 

I would absolutely recommend the Natural History Museum! It’s amazing that its’ free and while it is recommended to book a time slot online, we did and it didn’t seem necessary on the day. It’s located ver centrally in South Kensington, not far from Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. 

Science Museum 

Right next door to the Natural History Museum is the Science Museum, which is also free to enter and there are loads of exhibits included in the free admission. So much so that you could really dedicate a full day here. After an hour or so we felt a bit museumed -out and there were still many levels we hadn’t gone to yet. 

I feel like the Science Musuem would be amazing for slightly older kids, even teenagers - like maybe 10 years and up. There is an amazing collection of airplanes and space shuttles and other feats of engineering. Our girls loved the area called ‘Who Am I’ which explores genetics, in particular the touch screen interactive games that focused on health, physical changes and peoples different appearance. 

If I were to dedicate a full day the Science Musuem, I would buy tickets to the Wonderlab area, which is an interactive area for kids to learn in a really hands on way. It looked rather similar to the SparkLab Centre at the Brisbane Museum, which is why we didn’t initially prioritise it. 

I’d also book tickets to one of the different nature based IMAX movies that are showing like Antarctic 3D and Ocean Odyssey. 

Tate Modern

The Tate Modern is a huge art gallery, housed in a gigantic old power station on the banks of the Thames, near the Millennium Bridge and next to Shakespeares Globe. It was refurbished in the late 90s and opened in 2000 as a stunning gallery for modern art. It’s free to enter and there are a few sections that are kid friendly, we spent about an hour and a half there before visiting the tour at Shakespeares Globe Theatre. 

There is a section in the foyer area with books, colouring in and blocks for toddlers an d young kids to play with while parents chill out on the surrounding couches. There are also a few digital art stations around the gallery were kids (and adults) can create art on a iPad style screen and then see their artworks appear in the large frames along the walls above. 

We also wander though one of the galleries full of art - there is so many different levels of galleries, we just found the closest one to have a look at. Some of the modern art was bizarre and kind of creepy, some of it raised a few questions from the girls, but overall, it’s always thought provoking and educational. It’s free to enter and depending on how patient your kids can be when it comes to modern art, you could easily spend a couple of hours there. 

The British Museum 

This is one of the only really disappointing things about our stay in London. We intended to go The British Museum which is also free to enter, but one the afternoon that we went, we found that the line to get in was out the front gate and down the street. It was actually our last full day as well, as we had no option to come back another day. We didn’t book tickets in advance but I’m not sure that would have made a difference as we couldn’t even see a separate line for ticket holders. It was kind of mind blowing to see the line that long. We were there for about 15 minutes and the line didn’t move at all, so we decided to call it a day and not wait around. 

The British Museum has an extensive collection of ancient artefacts, including Egyptian mummies. I have been many years ago but I only have vague memories of it. It would have been a good learning experience for the girls. So if you do have your heart set on visiting the British Musuem, I would recommended booking a ticket online, even though they are free, and arriving first thing in the morning. 

Other suggestions 

Another free Musuem that we didn’t go to but would be interesting is the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is located right next to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum. It a museum / art gallery that focuses on art,  design and performance, for example there is an upcoming exhibit focusing on the songwriting and costumes of Taylor Swift. 

There is a Young V&A which is further across London in Bethnal Green, near the Tower of London. It appeared to have similar themes to the V&A just in a more interactive format for kids. 

The Discover Children’s Story Centre was on our list but we didn’t make it as it was a little further east, beyond the Tower of London and it also required paid tickets. It is basically an imaginative, indoor play space that is themed around storytelling. It says it’s designed for babies to 11 year olds but I would say, from the looks of the website, it’s probably great for toddlers and younger kids rather than 6 and above. But that’s just my guess. 

IN TRANSIT - From Singapore to London

I absolutely love London and arriving in London felt like reuniting with an old friend. 

Even though I’ve only visited London for short periods of time on three different occasions many years ago, it feels like I have a certain familiarity with London. Maybe because it’s featured so much in history lessons, literature, movies and monopoly, but it was a great feeling being back in London, recognising all the buildings and tube station names. 

Traveling from Singapore to London

The flight from Singapore to London was an extremely long journe.y I have to hand it to parents who fly from Australia to the UK in one journey, it’s so long to be sitting on plane, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to keep a toddler occupied for that length of time. 

We flew out of Singapore at midday but we would have woken up around 7am that morning so we could get to the airport with plenty of time to look around again. Singapore Airport is so amazing efficient, it was no stress at all. 

The girls were great on the plane;  the inflight entertainment kept everyone occupied, we didn’t need to even get out any of the games or colouring or the iPad. It was the first flight where we have had meals and inflight entertainment included , so we were all excited to just binge watch whatever we wanted to for the next 13 hours. I watched an amazing documentary about Alanis Morreette and a few other cheesy rom-coms and then The Killing of The Flower Moon with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro which was three hours long! And I missed the last 15 minutes because the damn flight was landing and I had to get off, haha! 

The food was honestly excellent too, obviously relative to airplane food in general. The only downside of the whole flight was that no one really got an sleep. Rooney slept for about 3 hours and Hallie maybe for an hour or so, but Farley - not at all. Neither did Braino or I. We landed in London at 7pm London time, but that was around 2am Singapore time, so it was a very long day. 

One thing we have decided is that airport transfers are 100% worth the money. We had one arranged for when we landed in London (which we booked through booking.com) and he was able to meet us at the arrivals gate and take us straight to our accommodation. Which was an absolute blessing after such a long flight. 

Jetlag

I’ve never been to London in the summer months, only in winter and early spring, so it was a bit of an adjustment getting used to the longer daylight hours. We arrived at our accommodation around 10pm and it was still daylight, or just on sunset. Which actually worked out well as we just had showers and went to bed and were able to get a full night sleep and wake up at a usual morning time the next day.

I thought this would  help a lot in terms of avoiding jet lag. We did manage to get out and about the following day but it seemed like jet lag really hit on the second day. It was mainly Farley, she never naps, getting her to nap as a baby was such a mission, but she was the one that fell asleep on a train in the middle of the day. I certainly felt tired every night, and slept well for the whole week we were in London. 

The accommodation 

The accommodation we were staying at was one block back fro Edgeware Road, north of the Edgeware Road Tube Station on the Bakerloo Line (for those of you who may be familiar with London) It was a two bedroom apartment that we booked via booking.com and it was overall ok. The building itself was about 20 floors high, (we were on floor 17) with four apartments on each level. It kind of reminded me of an old disused uni campus that we once shot a short film in during my film school days. It was probably built in the 70’s and felt a bit like a council flat.

Fortunately the interior of the apartment was in better condition, but only just. The bathroom was in need of an update, there wasn’t a plug for the bath and the thing that holds the shower hose onto the wall had broken off so showering was a annoyingly tricky. But at least the water was hot! Little things like that could really get under your skin, but Braino and I have been good about putting things into perspective and focusing on the bigger picture. I’m mean we’re traveling the world for a whole year, a dodgy bathroom is really just a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. And anyway, I kind of feel like that apartment was probably pretty standard for London, in that price range anyway. 

Actually, initially we had booked a hotel room in a hotel on Sussex Garden, which was off Edgeware Road, a little closer to Paddington Train station and Hyde Park. 

It was actually the same street I stayed on with my family when I was there in 2007 and I remembered the location being fairly central. From memory it would have included breakfast but it was only a hotel room with 4 or 5 beds in it. And after the Sinagpore capsule hotel accommodation and even the small room we had in Tokyo, Braino and I decided to see if if we could find something a little bigger, like a 2 bedroom apartment. And we were fortunate that the original accomodation was refundable and that we could find the new accommodation in a similar area for a similar price.  

The kitchen, dinning room and lounge area made such a difference for the week. We were able to buy groceries and cook dinner every night. Obviously the  exchange rate to British pounds is a huge thing to factor in, so being able to eat breakfast and dinner at home and even occasional pack a lunch, meant we could keep the budget in check. Also, the kids go a little crazy in restaurants after a long day. I’ve started bringing Uno or a pack of cards out to restaurants just to give them something to do while we’re waiting for our meals. 

I’ll share more about what we did  during our stay in London in the following post….