Inspire Me Tea

We're back from our vacation, and I think I'm experiencing post vacation depression disorder! I wonder if there really is such a thing. I'm really just in a little bit of a post-vacation funk. It was so much fun that it's hard to come down from such a great time. Today I'm doing things around the house, laundry and whatnot, but also thinking of some fun London places to visit. One place on my list is afternoon tea at the Haymarket Hotel. A friend told me about tea at the hotel and said it's sort of like having tea inside an Anthropologie. I could handle that. It does look inspiring, doesn't it? I wonder if they have high chairs for the wee tea drinkers.

The Fun We Had

Woah, long time no post! I was so busy with my mom that I didn't realize how many days have gone by since I last wrote on my blog. I'm sad to say my mom flew home yesterday (and made it back safe and sound), but we had so much fun the few days she was here. I'm sure she probably feels like she needs a vacation from her vacation because I think I wore her out! I wanted her to see so many things and go so many places that we didn't dillydally too much, and we barely scratched the surface. Poor mom, so excited, with her eyes wide and mouth hanging to the ground, most of the time I was saying, "mom, come on, we have to keep moving!" She could have spent days instead of hours in the few places we went. So what did we do, you ask? Well, here are the highlights. Her first day we went to the Thursday Spitalfields antique market, went to Caravan, walked around Brick Lane and had a great lunch at Leila's. I forgot the camera battery on the charger that day, so I don't have picutres, but it was so much fun. Mom loved the antique market.

On Friday we went to Liberty. Mom loved it! We spent most of our time in the fabric, notions, and yarn section where we looked through craft books and picked out some fabric and yarn for a few projects. Then we had afternoon tea in the cafe. It was soooo delicious--equal parts sweets to sandwiches, just the way we like it. Lois liked the cupcake best.

On Saturday we went to Portobello Road. I thought mom would flip, but then again I could say that about everything she saw everyday she was here. She had such a good time looking at everything. Antiques and vintage treasures, second-hand junk, handmade wares, food, flowers, people watching--it's all at the Saturday market on Portobello Road. As touristy as it is, it's filled eye candy and makes for a very entertaining morning. If you go, definitely go in the morning! The crowds are crazy by 11am.



Later on Saturday we did the touristy bit and rode the London Eye and wandered around The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the Thames. I thought I'd be sick on the London Eye. It made my knees weak, but Lois loved it. She had her head right up against the window the whole time.


Sunday may have been our favorite day. We went to the Columbia Road flower market and wandered around the shops on Columbia road. We stared with a yummy breakfast at Campaina.

Mom, who is a great gardener, loved seeing all the plants and flowers.


We had so much fun in Jessie and Buddug's shop, where mom bought this crow headband for me. I wore it for a while, and she wore it for a while. We looked ridiculous, but it was really fun. I think we ate 9 of those cupcakes too. My mom hates seeing pictures of herself. I can just hear her when she sees this, "Leigh! Why did you post that picture!" Sorry mom, I like it.

On Monday we went to Painswick. I really wanted mom to see the countryside and stay at Jill and Brett's B&B. She thought it was just as beautiful as I did and loved being there. We spent most of our time in the house looking through Jill's stacks and stacks of decorating and craft books. Why leave when you have all those books and the view looks like this?


But we did get outside on Tuesday. We had a great lunch at the local bistro and two of the best desserts (puddings here) that we've ever had, banoffee pie and bread and butter pudding.

We walked around the town, and took the footpath to the stream. I wanted mom to see everything I saw before.

And that was it. The sun set on mom's short visit, and after one night at Byfield House, she had to go back home. On Tuesday afternoon we took the train back to London and then mom left Wednesday morning. I wish she could have stayed longer, but it was so much fun! Love you mom! See you again soon.

Footpath This Way: Painswick, England

When we weren't spending time in our comfy room at Byfield house, we were out exploring the area. It was overcast a lot of the time, so my pictures aren't nearly as pretty as these, but it was still so beautiful in person. Jill and Brett told us about the Stroud farmer's market (the larger town near Painswick), so we started Saturday morning there. The farmer's market was great and packed with people. We walked the winding streets, popped into a few shops, and grabbed some bread, cheese, and fruit to have later on our walk.

I thought this bouquet was so pretty. A florist at the market was making it, and she said it was for a bride's wedding later that day. Obviously it's upside down here, but it was so pretty. I wonder what the bride looked like holding it.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday we spent our time walking around Painswick. Jill and Brett gave us a map and pointed out some nice walks. We started by going down into the valley and found a footpath that led us through pastures, along streams, and through some of the local's gardens. On our walks the air was crisp and cool and smelled like a mixture of fresh cut grass, fire smoke, and with all those animals around, manure! But the combination was a perfect match for the scenery. I think Andrew got a little tired of me singing, or I should say shouting, "the hills are alive with the sound of music" over and over again! I know, wrong country. But I couldn't help it. Lets stroll, shall we?








On Sunday we also went to the Rococo gardens, which was wonderful too and just a few minutes walk from the town center, but I'd probably recommend just sticking to walks through town and the immediate areas. There's an entrance fee for the Rococo gardens, and you get to see a lot more for free just walking on your own through Painswick.

Both Friday and Saturday nights we ate dinner at a few of the local restaurants. Both had highchairs (whew) and were open early enough for us to bring Lois, so it was perfect. Painswick and Stroud were very family friendly towns. One restaurant in Stroud even advertised a playroom with wooden toys for the little ones. And our view with the sun setting each night was better than dessert.


Where should we go for our next weekend getaway? Maybe Marseille in a few weeks!

Portland

We had a great time in Portland! We packed a lot into one long weekend--too much to tell you about in one post, so I'll start with one of our favorite parts of the weekend, which happened to be the hotel itself, and later this week I'll post more from our trip. The McMenamins Kennedy School Hotel was one of our top favorite places we've ever stayed. We love places that feel homey, and we usually prefer B&B type lodgings over your typical hotel. The Kennedy School felt much more like a B&B than a hotel. Not only are the rooms large, cozy and comfortable, but they're unique in that each was once a classroom and even has the original blackboards. The hotel also has a courtyard heated pool surrounded by lush plants, a few pubs, a movie theater (which is in the old auditorium ), and a great restaurant with yummy casual food. Oh, yeah, and there's a brewery in the hotel as well. The McMenamins brothers are known for their craft brewed beer. They even have their own brand of coffee as well, which is really tasty. If you go to Portland, we'd highly recommend staying at the Kennedy School Hotel. I imagine their other hotels are just as great and worth checking out as well.

The grounds around the school were beautiful. Gardens surrounded the entire building.

I love the lighting in the restaurant. All kinds of pendant lamps hang from the ceiling in various styles and colors. This is one I especially liked.

There are no TVs in the rooms, which we thought was refreshing. It pretty much forces you to relax. They had a good selection of books in the bookcase. Andrew almost finished a whole book in the short time we actually spent in the room.

We loved the blackboard panels and the way they opened up to a long closet with kid height coat hooks in the closet.

Nice, soft bedside lighting.

I loved our headboard! It has all the colors I'm always drawn to--red, green, yellow and blue. I wanted to take it home with us.

The theater is amazing! It's really intimate and cozy with random miss-matched sofas for seating. They have a popcorn and drink stand where you can order beer and food as well. We saw a really good movie one night called In Bruges.

The halls are lined with huge, beautiful old windows, and the walls are covered in artwork, most of which has something to do with the history of the school.


Some of the art.

More from our trip later this week!

Kyoto

Real geisha in Kyoto! Okay, maybe they're not real--people do pay to get made up like this for fun. But aren't they so pretty with all the pink blooming behind them? This last weekend we went to Kyoto. As our guide book says, "Kyoto is where you find the Japan of your imagination: raked pebble gardens, poets' huts hidden amid bamboo groves, arcades of vermilion shrine gates, geisha disappearing into the doorways of traditional restaurants, golden temples floating above tranquil waters." It was just that. Well, it was just that with hundreds and hundreds of other people soaking it up. Our book didn't leave out that part either. It warned us that Kyoto is an incredibly popular tourist destination, especially during spring. Still, the scenery beyond the masses of people was beautiful. Andrew was a great tour guide for our weekend. Although we picked out which places we'd see together, I was a little more indifferent just because I was up for anything and there were so many choices. Also, Andrew's great at navigating the various train stations and maps we used. He has a compass too. It actually came in handy a number of times. So here's a peek at what we saw.

Comfortable geisha shoes, I think not. Wooden platform flip flops, ugh. And these are sooooo expensive. We passed a shoe store that only carried these, and all of them were between $200-$500! Other places probably sell them cheaper as this was in Kyoto and looked like a specialty geisha shoe shop.

We visited a number of shrines and temples. I looked on the map to double check which ones are shown here, but it's hard to remember just by looking at the names on the map. So for the sake of me not making a fool of myself by naming them wrong, I'll just say I know we went to Kodaiji Temple and Kiyomizu-dera Temple and the surrounding shrines of each, and the next few pictures are from those areas.



The buildings aren't just beautiful outside, but inside as well.


The landscape.


On Saturday night we stayed in a Machiya, a traditional Japanese house. Thanks again to Frances for telling us about this place! We were going to stay in a hotel until she mentioned this place. It was fun to stay in a real Japanese style house. Below is the front door of the house.


The bathroom was our favorite part. All cedar. It smelled great. What you do is sit on the little stool (or stand up) and shower first, then get in the bath. The tub didn't look too comfortable, but it actually was!

Our bedroom. Futons with fluffy comforters.

The sitting area off the bedroom.

The kitchen. Behind that door is the bathroom.

The entryway.

The view from the living room to the garden.

This is a lovely canal that ran through the main restaurant district near our place. In the water are big lights that throw light on the trees above at night. It looked really pretty at night and during the day.

The wonderful restaurant where we ate lunch, Heikichi, which was on Kiyamachi road. We got to sit on tatami mats! This actually wasn't very comfortable. I was wearing a dress and had a hard time sitting nice and lady like, and Andrew's legs fell asleep! Still, it was fun and lunch was great.

Our meal was delicious and probably our favorite Japanese meal so far. We got a lunch set. We had no idea what we were ordering because the menu was only in Japanese and our waitress didn't speak English (and as you probably figured out by now, we don't speak Japanese beyond basics like thank you, which I still have trouble with for no good reason). The lunch was a stew of meatballs with tofu and green onions on top, a side of rice with fish, miso soup and a cabbage and mung bean sprout salad. The meatballs were great! So was the sauce they were in.

On Sunday we went to Fushimi-inari-taisha, which was dedicated to the gods of rice and sake in the 8th century by the Hata family. There are dozens of stone foxes throughout the shrines, which is the god of cereal grains. There are also hundreds of torii, the big orange wooden gates that you see in the pictures. They line a few miles of pathways throughout the shrines. This place was beautiful. The pictures don't capture the atmosphere and the landscape very well, but there were far less people here than the temples and shrines we went to on Saturday, and Fushimi-inari-taisha is nestled in the woods where you can hear birds chirping, water rushing and just take in the beauty of the surroundings in a more peaceful way.


Origami garlands.
Torii lining the paths.

After we left the shrine, we walked to a cafe that Andrew picked out in our guide book and we passed this funky house.

We went to Cafe Bibliotic HELLO! I loved this place. I would like to live in here. It would make a really neat loft apartment. The desserts and tea we had were great, but they also had sandwiches that looked great too. If you go to Kyoto, I really recommend making a stop here. It's just a few blocks from the Imperial Palace Park. You can kick back and flip through the books and magazines they have as well.

Goodbye Kyoto!