My mom Caryol and me with our brand new English style hats and scarves.

I had my first company here in London a few weeks back.  It was enjoyable having my mom come visit.  It had been quite a while since I had seen her last, and I was excited to go on site seeing tours with her that I haven’t been to yet.  Luckily for me I have an incredibly generous mom who shares in my love of site seeing and yummy food.  Thanks mom for spoiling me for the 5 days you were here.

To begin with mom rented two hotel rooms for us next to the Heathrow Airport as she and I both like to have our own private space.   This was quite a long trip for me to get there from where I am currently living.  It took me 2 1/2 hours after 2 subway rides, a hop on a bus (twice as I got on the wrong one the first time), and a 5 minute walk to the hotel.  I’m getting pretty proud of myself with my ability to travel and make it to my destinations safely.

I did learn that I don’t like to travel on the Underground when it is rush hour.  The people tend to be a little more (okay A LOT more) impatient and rude.  I once put my suitcase down on the ground for one second to look at the map, and a gentleman behind me scoffed and bitched under his breath letting me know his disappointment of having to walk around me.  I think I might have killed 1-2 seconds of his travel time right there.  How unthoughtful of me.

Enough of my sarcasm, and on to the fun time I had with mom.

First we (okay mom had a hankering to see this) decided to head to the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum where the oddities of the world are located.  I’m including some of my favorites in this post, just because I’m amazed at one can do with postage notes, gum balls, and dryer lint.  Impressive indeed!   My favorite part of this whole entire museum was the light and mirror maze.  It took my mom and I forever to make it out of here.  We kept running into the glass mirror dead ends.  We felt like little trapped rats.  Squeak!

1000's of Bubble Gum Balls create Ripley

Princess Diana created with dryer lint!

Artist James Butman suffers from agorophobia, so his friends give him stamps to create beautiful art work like this Saint art.

Red Light Mirror Maze...took us forever to finally get out!

After we were done with this crazy event we headed to the Pizza Hut (mom doesn’t really care for the UK foods) and ordered up some pasta, pizza, and cheesecake.  I have to include the cheesecake picture, because I absolutely love the desserts (or as they call them puddings here).

Raspberry, Chocolate Fudge, and Ginger Lime....oh my....

Our next great adventure took place at Windsor palace.  Oh, that was a marvelous castle.  Luckily for mom and me, the crowds were minimal and we could enjoy the spacious castle even more.  There was one little blonde toddler who amused us named “Isabella.”  In fact, she made me giggle hard when at the beginning of the tour they have you wait at the gates until you are given permission to go pay for your tickets.  Well, little Miss. Isabella had no intentions of waiting.  That cute little blonde girl busted through the gate running and smiling with her great achievement of breaking and entering a top notch security zone.  It took 3 security guards to chase the little cutie pie down, and she was eventually corralled like a baby calf, and returned to her mom whom was blushing in dismay.  Down below are all the different pictures of the castle from the outside.  It was HUGE!  Unfortunately you couldn’t take pictures of the inside which held Mary’s doll house which is the exact replica of Windsor castle, and the luxurious decorated royal rooms.

One of the things I found fascinating was going into the Cathedral inside the court yard.  Inside they actually have all the different people from royal past buried there.  Imagine the look on my face when I realized I was stepping on memorial graves.  No one warned me about that part, but yet I found it incredibly fascinating.  I love the architecture here, and the cathedrals are beautiful with their stained glass and large ceilings.

A view before entering Windsor Castle...it's HUGE!

More Windsor and you can see the infamous toddler Isabella being held by both parents. Teehee

Entering Windsor Castle

One of the main towers at Windsor Castle

Entering into the apartments of Windsor

A view of the side of the tower. There was a beautiful garden and waterfall.

loved this horse statue in the middle of the Windsor court

More Windsor Castle views from inside the court yard

One of our final stops with mom was visiting the Queen of England’s home Buckingham Palace.  I remembered as a little girl watching this from the states, and being in awe.  Little did I know I was going to grow up, and live here some day.  I’ve included some pictures from that day as well down below.  The chuckle I have with my mom is she didn’t believe the guards were real people because they held still like manikins.  Too bad we were too late to see the changing of the guards to prove that they were real.  *giggle…snort….giggle

Yes, mom, they are "real live" people. They are not fake!

I took this shot of Buckingham Palace from the large statue across the street.

the gates of Buckingham Palace

The statue at the round about across the street from Buckingham Palace

Another angle of the statue at Buckingham Palace

After a really fast visit mom left back to South Korea.  It was very enjoyable.  She’s trying to get me to visit her next time, but I tease her that I really have a difficult time sitting on my knees to eat and I really don’t like my food to still have it’s face on when I’m eating.  Sorry, mom, don’t know if I’m quite ready to visit, but quite glad you came here.