{"id":1364,"date":"2015-03-15T22:37:49","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T21:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1364"},"modified":"2015-03-15T22:47:05","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T21:47:05","slug":"week-11-london-with-the-children","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=1364","title":{"rendered":"Week 11: London with the children"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the exception of the first two cloudscapes, all the images this week were taken during our weekend in London. My son, who now lives in the US, had a weeklong company event to attend in the UK, so we took advantage of the opportunity and spent the weekend together.<\/p>\n

11_1<\/strong>
\nBut first a couple of nice cloudscapes from my neighbourhood, captured while walking the dog in the morning:
\n\"1000090\"<\/p>\n

11_2<\/strong>
\n\"1000092\"<\/p>\n

And then on to London, with the images presented chronologically.<\/p>\n

11_3<\/strong>
\nMy wife and I flew to Gatwick Friday morning, arriving at London Victoria around lunchtime. Our daughter was already waiting for us there, having arrived by bus from Cardiff a bit earlier. First of two happy reunions:
\n\"1000097\"<\/p>\n

11_4<\/strong>
\nWe immadietely made our way to the Chandos, a pub right off Trafalgar Square, and one of my favourite watering holes in London:
\n\"1000106\"<\/p>\n

11_5<\/strong>
\nMonica studies the beer selection:
\n\"1000103\"<\/p>\n

11_6<\/strong>
\nI like the Chandos because it has excellent beers from North Yorkshire, reasonable prices and a friendly, non-touristy atmosphere despite its location close to Trafalgar Square:
\n\"1000104\"<\/p>\n

11_7<\/strong>
\nMonica has made her choice and she seems happy with it:
\n\"1000111\"<\/p>\n

11_8<\/strong>
\nAfter 5 p.m. the Chandos gets pretty full, but we were there early, so I could pose Monica in a booth:
\n\"1000107\"<\/p>\n

11_9<\/strong>
\nLater, we went to our hotel in the Docklands, where we were spending the first night. My wife and daughter did not feel like going back into the city, so I hopped on the Underground and made my way to Charing Cross Road to visit Foyles, probably the English-speaking world’s best bookshop. This display in the window marks the 80th anniversary of Penguin Books:
\n\"1000132\"<\/p>\n

11_10<\/strong>
\nI did not set this up, but I found this somewhat incongruous collection of books in the caf\u00c3\u00a9 amusing:
\n\"1000221\"<\/p>\n

11_11<\/strong>
\nOne of the pleasures of being in a big city like London is people-watching, here on Charing Cross Road:
\n\"1000135\"<\/p>\n

11_12<\/strong>
\nThe London Underground is particularly good for that. Lovey couple:
\n\"1000138\"<\/p>\n

11_13<\/strong>
\nPensive:
\n\"1000139\"<\/p>\n

11_14<\/strong>
\nSaturday morning we moved to our hotel for the second night, much more centrally located, close to the Westminster Bridge. Around 11 a.m. the moment we were waiting for arrived. Moses had arrived at Heathrow from New York, and made his way to our meeting place. We left our luggage at the hotel and went for a walk along the Thames with our jetlagged son. Our first stop was the Southbank book market:
\n\"1000176\"<\/p>\n

11_15<\/strong>
\nMoses may have been tired, but not too tired to have fun:
\n\"1000179\"<\/p>\n

11_16<\/strong>
\nWe descended into the Underground and made our way to Brixton:
\n\"1000181\"<\/p>\n

11_17<\/strong>
\nThe main reason for going to Brixton was to visit Monica’s favourite vegan bakery, Ms. Cupcake:
\n\"1000195\"<\/p>\n

11_18<\/strong>
\nOne does not have to be vegan to enjoy Ms. Cupcake’s products. They are fantastic:
\n\"1000190\"<\/p>\n

11_19<\/strong>
\nSmoke break:
\n\"1000193\"<\/p>\n

11_20<\/strong>
\nInside Brixton Market:
\n\"1000196\"<\/p>\n

11_21<\/strong>
\nWhile travelling back to central London, I used the escalators on the Underground to make some portraits of my family:
\n\"1000204\"<\/p>\n

11_22<\/strong>
\nStrange, just strange:
\n\"1000206\"<\/p>\n

11_23<\/strong>
\nLunchtime pint:
\n\"1000207\"<\/p>\n

11_24<\/strong>
\nWe had an early dinner in Chinatown:
\n\"1000217\"<\/p>\n

11_25<\/strong>
\nA Japanese restaurant is proud of Japanese players in the Premier League:
\n\"1000223\"<\/p>\n

11_26<\/strong>
\nAround midnight, I went for a walk around the hotel, not least to photograph this view from the Westminster Bridge:
\n\"1000233\"<\/p>\n

11_27<\/strong>
\nOn Sunday morning, the rest of the family slept late; but as usual, I woke up early and decided to go for a long walk along the river. I walked alomg the Queen’s Walk. The first stop was the Southbank Centre and this very urban small photo exhibition:
\n\"1000255\"<\/p>\n

11_28<\/strong>
\nThe Southbank skate park was deserted early in the morning. Saturday night’s activities were clearly in evidence…:
\n\"1000267\"<\/p>\n

11_29<\/strong>
\nA bit further on, some of the book sellers were beginning to set up shop:
\n\"1000270\"<\/p>\n

11_30<\/strong>
\nA memorial to three teenagers who died in a bus accident in Thailand where they were spending their gap year:
\n\"1000276\"<\/p>\n

11_31<\/strong>
\nMorning smoke:
\n\"1000277\"<\/p>\n

11_32<\/strong>
\nAfter a couple of miles, I passed the Blackfriars Bridge and took one of my favourite photos of the weekend. I originally posted it in colour here<\/a>, but decided to convert to black & white following a suggestion from a visitor to my web site:
\n\"1000292\"<\/p>\n

11_33<\/strong>
\nI crossed the river on the Millenium Bridge. A couple were using the location for a photo shoot:
\n\"1000301\"<\/p>\n

11_34<\/strong>
\nI then walked back towards my hotel along the Victoria Embankment, passing the dragon that marks the border of the City of Westminster:
\n\"1000306\"<\/p>\n

11_35<\/strong>
\nThere are many memorials along the Victoria Embankment. Here one to the aviators in World War I:
\n\"1000310\"<\/p>\n

11_36<\/strong>
\nOn the base is the inscription for World War II:
\n\"1000311\"<\/p>\n

11_37<\/strong>
\nThe Battle of Britain memorial:
\n\"1000312\"<\/p>\n

11_38<\/strong>
\n\"1000314\"<\/p>\n

11_39<\/strong>
\nAround 9:30 I was back at the Westminster Bridge and crossed back to “our” side of the Thames. On the way across, I saw the ubiquitous Asian tourist posing for a goofy photo involving Big Ben:
\n\"1000317\"<\/p>\n

11_40<\/strong>
\nOnce the family was fully awake and showered and packed, we left our luggage at the hotel in order to enjoy the last few hours of our reunion. We first went to Tate Modern. Crossing the Millenium Bridge, was saw this couple making a fashion statement:
\n\"1000323\"<\/p>\n

11_41<\/strong>
\nTate Modern is in a building that used to be a power plant. This is the Turbine Hall, where one always finds some monumental installation. This time, textile art by Richard Tuttle:
\n\"1000326\"<\/p>\n

11_42<\/strong>
\nIn the afternoon, our weekend together came to an end. Monica took the bus back to Cardiff, and Moses went with us to Victoria from where my wife and I took the Gatwick Express to begin our journey home. My last picture of the trip is Moses chatting with his girlfriend back in New York:
\n\"1000330\"<\/p>\n

In addition to the pictures in this blog, a fuller gallery of my London weekend can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the exception of the first two cloudscapes, all the images this week were taken during our weekend in London. My son, who now lives in the US, had a weeklong company event to attend in the UK, so we took advantage of the opportunity and spent the weekend together. 11_1 But first a couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1321,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1364"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1366,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1364\/revisions\/1366"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}