Author: Swathi Namburi

After the pandemic hit Washington state (first in the nation) in March 2020 we spent a lot of time at home and with family. By the summer, the case load decreased and we wanted to try going on a little controlled adventure to visit the Llamzon side of the family in Orem, UT and took a little trip to Bear Lake to stay in an airbnb.

We went on an unexpectedly arduous hike in the Alpine Loop near Sundance area that was much longer than anyone anticipated but was also quite beautiful. The kids all put in great efforts.

There was an exciting outdoor dinosaur museum type thing we went to near Logan UT that was a big hit. This was just as Meera’s dinosaur obsession had started in the recent lonely months at home during the pandemic.

Breaskfast at our airbnb. The kids just loved this place!

A fun time was had by all in this very shallow and child-friendly lake.

We had the chance to celebrate Georgia’s 75th birthday and Clark’s 35th birthday together which was just wonderful.

Abe had a terrific idea to go fossil hunting in the South eastern corner of Wyoming, which borders Bear Lake, Utah. We even found fossils of 65 million year old fish that we got to bring home!

Back at Lily and Abe’s house, there was much fun to be had. We also went on more local hikes near Orem. It was a terrific week!

At the end of December 2019 we decided to take a week and spend New Years in Mexico! We stayed at the AMAZING Xcaret hotel and visited all the associated theme parks. It was way beyond anything we expected. The hotel provided rides everywhere in buses. Since we are back-logging quite a bit, memories can be fuzzy, so I will try to rely on the pictures! We had a truly amazing time, and little did we know that we would not leave the country again for quite a while. The parks had several areas throughout with automatic cameras that linked with our bracelets to capture and save photos of us! Known as “Xelfies.” Unlimited food which meant Soren had the chance to eat a lot of rice and beans, which he loves. It was really quite an amazing, action-packed, and sun-filled trip.

In May of 2019, We (Clark, Swathi, Mani, Meera and Soren) traveled to Orem as a home base and then down to St. George Utah for an exciting adventure. After we arrived we spent the evening in Orem, then headed down to Zion National Park.

We then went to our cozy airBnB in St. George, a wonderful place if you are traveling in a big group including very young children and grandparents. Everyone had a comfortable place to sleep and I do admire how the house is furnished specifically to be able to host large groups. The kids loved it. Soren especially loved the foosball table, and the bunk beds were adorable.

The next day, we headed off to.

Our final international leg. It seemed so far away back when we were planning in spring of 2018 that we, well, kind of forgot to plan for it! That was of course an unfortunate turn of events because Hong Kong is, by far, the most challenging destination for our dynamic quartet of intrepid travelers. Imagine NYC with tropical weather, bigger crowds, more wealth, with an Asian twist. We also chose to go during the worst time of the year!!! I will get into the gory details.

We had to board Hyderabad at 1am to get to HKG at around 9am, so we flew all night and the children were surprisingly spry and awake. We landed and wandered around the ginormous airport until we found our luggage, and since we were starving and it was a little early to check into our Airbnb, we headed to the lounge outside the baggage claim area to rest and eat. We got a glimpse of the best part of HKG: the food!! Even the lounge food was delicious. We got a taxi and got into our airbnb, which was a re-furbished small apartment inside a really old apartment building called a “mansion” (common term for the city). The elevators were small and cramped and we often had to stand in line to go up and down them. We got in, napped, then headed out into the city to discover…intense humidity and intense crowds. We stayed in a fairly busy neighborhood called Tsim Sha Tsu. It was overwhelming. There was no room for our stroller. We ducked into a grocery store and by this time I was starving again so in a moment of desperation, I ordered some food. And of course it was delicious, because practically all food in Hong Kong is delicious. We then wandered around some more and headed back to our apartment where we met up with our friend Adam! Clark and Adam were in the Peace Corps together years ago, and Adam has been living in Hong Kong for the past 2 years. We headed out for dinner at an authentic Chinese restaurant and then headed home and to bed afterwards, exhausted from the little we saw of HKG.

Here is Soren enjoying some tea (quite dilute!) while a chef is cutting us pieces of Peking duck.

Below is an example of how crowded the metro system is in HKG! It seems busy like other cities except…the metro station is HUGE. It is a vast underground system and it is this busy in the entire station! You can pretty much navigate half the neighborhood underground. There are places to eat, shop, everything. It is clean and quite well maintained despite the ridiculous crowds and the hot humid and rainy weather. It is much nicer than the NYC subway. The only fault is that they could use a few more entrances and elevators for those on wheels, such as our gang; it took us twice as long as freely ambulatory citizens to traverse the MTR system. Clark had to use his brute strength to carry Meera+stroller up many flights of stairs on this particular leg of our trip. Check out those muscles****Swooon**** We had to take the stroller when we planned on staying out all day because otherwise Meera does not really have a good place to sleep and it is impossible to carry her for hours in the baby Bjorn in such hot humid weather.

Journey to Hong Kong Island

We got up and accomplished much more this day thankfully! First we headed to N1 Coffee where we indulged in truly decadent coffee to pump up our day (and a chocolate treat for Soren):

We then walked over to the “The Avenue of Stars” which features various film-oriented statues and is usually on the boardwalk by the bay; they were temporarily moved to this park near the water while the harbor area is undergoing renovation.

We headed across the bay over to Shau Kei Wan and walked around the neighborhood and indulged in some local treats. This egg waffle thing is quite common here, but Soren was of course skeptical:

Then we took a tram to Adam’s neighborhood around Quarry Bay Area. There we learned that one of the behemoth old-school apartment buildings was the site of one of the Transformers’ movie shooting. So of course we had to go. I was the scary Transformer and Soren the oblivious civilian!

Clark daringly tried some chicken feet with Adam during our lunch break:

Our lunch was of course delicious! I love Szechuan food! We finished it all.

We then took an extremely long escalator up the mountain that the Central neighborhood is in…actually perhaps the longest escalator in the world!

Then we went up even higher (this time in a taxi) to Victoria’s Peak to enjoy some views of the city. HKG is a gorgeous city of tropical vegetation, mountains, islands, and bays in the middle of which is this dense metropolis of 8 million people. We got to appreciate that, albeit in a foggy fashion:

We returned on a ferry back to TST, where our home is and got to enjoy this view:

Journey to Lantau

We took a day trip over to Lantau to visit the village of Tai-O, the big buddha, the nearby monastery, and the big famous cable car down from the buddha to the nearest MTR station to return home. What a big day!

We first took the MTR to Lantau island and then took an unexpectedly long bus (1hr) that only cost 10 HKD to the village of Tai-O.

Tai-O was a magical fishing village and indeed it smelled kind of fishy! Very beautiful and picturesque. We wandered around and went on a boat ride followed by lunch at a local Chinese diner type place.

We then headed to the Buddha statue and nearby monastery. The view was beautiful from the top.

Here is Meera on the grounds.

Then we got to ride most amazing cable car we have ever seen, called Ngong Ping. We paid a bit extra to get one with a “crystal” clear floor, so you are really flying through space. Some people seemed to be scared (grown adults) of this experience, but our little Meera Vijaya was fearless and quite enjoyed the journey:

Final Day in HKG: main city areas.

On our last day we mostly relaxed and ate a lot of food because really, the food is just so amazing in HKG. In the morning we headed to Kowloon Park, which is just a beautiful amazing inner-city park.

We then enjoyed a Dim-Sum lunch. At this point it started raining pretty heavily and Meera and I were already starting to show signs of illness (upper respiratory infections) so we thought it best to go home and rest for a bit.

We then headed to the Penninsula for high tea, followed by some window shopping, and then a delicious Thai food dinner in Admiralty neighborhood with our friends Adam and Jenny. Of course, right at the beginning of dinner, Meera vomited all over me and Soren refusing to eat any dinner, but such is the nature of travel with children in tow. We could not leave without a dramatic event! But we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

The next morning we headed to the airport for the long journey home via Korean Air to our new home in Washington state. We connected through Incheon (Seoul) airport, which was an amazing gorgeous airport, planting new ideas in our heads about future travels to Asia. Soren was particularly excited to see the Tayo themed children’s play area.

And just like that, 10 weeks abroad ended so quickly, and we are back in the USA, this time on a new coast.

 

“A vacation within a vacation.”

As if our vacation visiting family and friends in Hyderabad wasn’t enough, we decided to indulge ourselves in…another vacation! This time we headed off to Goa, with our children, my mother, and sister in tow! We debated for awhile on whether to go to Goa or Kerala, and decided on a beach vacation due to Soren’s love for sand, water, and swimming. As it turned out, the state of Kerala has been experiencing a very severe monsoon season, the worst in a century in fact. It has been a terrible natural disaster.

The monsoon was also active in Goa, but in a much more pleasant fashion I am happy to report. It was cloudy most of the time and humid, with occasional light rains lasting 10-15minutes 2-3x a day. The beach water and the pool water felt amazing – cool and comfortable. It was off season in Goa, so the markets were not as bustling as usual and the resort was not fully occupied, which all suited us just fine. On talking to the resort staff and outside vendors, we learned that Russians are now the major international tourists that visit Goa to escape their long and cold winters. I had no idea!

The plane ride to Goa was only 1 hour long and we had no travel issues. The hotel had a bus that picked us up as soon as we stepped out of the airport. We arrived on August 7th at the Park Hyatt beach resort in the evening and settled into our rooms and had dinner at the resort.

The next few days followed a similar pattern. Breakfast, then beach time, then pool time, then pool-side lunch, followed by more swimming or time in the kids’ club, then clean-up time and dinner. I LOVE pool side lunches…only second to afternoon naps! Here are some of these moments captured.

Here we are enjoying a nice breakfast:

Due to the monsoon season, the beach was rough and windy, but somehow still pleasant. Clark is getting good at taking these panoramic pictures. The sand was very soft and lovely to walk on and play with.

On our third day in Goa, we finally ventured out of the resort. We hired a driver to take us to a spice plantation. We all enjoyed the tour and learned about where our favorite spices come from!

The farm itself was quite beautiful and tropical. We had a lovely time!

Here were are in front of Clarks’ favorite crop, the coffee tree.

On our way out, we stopped briefly to take pictures with 2 friendly elephants. Soren was brave! One of them opened his mouth widely and we were quite impressed. The elephants then retired to their lunch of tree branches and leaves.

On the drive we passed many churches and other buildings with Portuguese design. Goa was a Portuguese colony/terrority for a few hundred years prior to being rightfully annexed by India and is currently the (smallest) state in India. It was interesting to note the Iberian influences as we drove around. I had been to Goa 8 years ago with friends from medical school for vacation, but didn’t appreciate this element as much back then, but after having recently visited Portugal just over a month earlier (where has the time gone!!), it was fascinating to note the similarities and differences. We are very excited to see what Macau, another former Portuguese territory, looks like as we are planning on a trip there while in Hong Kong.

The children had a wonderful time in Goa. Meera started sitting up independently for longer periods of time, and Soren really improved his swimming abilities!

Soren loved going down the slide, and splashing into the pool below:

Meera enjoyed the children’s play room where she had plenty of space to try to learn how to crawl and chew on many toys:

She also enjoyed tasting the many different delicious dishes at the resort:

On the last day, we relaxed at the beach and pool before heading to the airport. I spent an hour walking on the beach, cooling off in the water and listening to my audio book, All the light we cannot see; this was my personal highlight of the vacation. What a trip!!

During our last few days in Barcelona, we really started to feel like locals. Of course, we were still not effortlessly chic and glamorous, but we could get around town easily and even started visiting places more than once. And we have settled in long enough to host an actual guest from another part of Europe! Cue in visit from Isha, a dear friend of mine from my hometown in NJ: East Brunswick. We met when we were young teens and have stayed in touch through the years (thank goodness!). Isha now lives in Basel, Switzerland after spending 2 years in Paris, France, which is of course our favorite European city. Our lives have oddly intertwined over the years, despite our many individual moves, which I think gives our relationship a sense of magical destiny.

As Clark mentioned, before Isha’s arrival on the 20th of July, we learned an oddly great amount of information about the seafaring history of Spain and particularly Barcelona. I loved this re-creation of the first ship to circumnavigate the world, the Victoria, which was accomplished by the Spaniards, and which proved the earth was not flat after all. Ahh nautical science!! What a crazy, dangerous, scurvy filled tour that must have been. As I admired the ship, Meera shed a single tear during our selfie as she was thinking about nautical history.

This was then followed by our own seafaring adventure, a 90 minute boat ride around the port and into the Mediterranean Sea. We all LOVED it.

We then had dinner and retired to our home as we awaited Isha’s arrival. The kids went to bed and Isha finally got in around 10pm. The 3 of us excitedly caught up on our lives. Isha and I went out for some tapas and went to bed late at night, as one is required to do of course under such circumstances. Everyone was duly impressed at my ability to stay awake and be social.

The next day we got up at a reasonable hour (9am) and got out the door in order to get breakfast at the Boqueria, something we had been trying to do all trip but never woke up early enough for. We then wandered around the Gothic quarter and went to Palau Guell located in the Raval neighborhood; this is a mansion designed by Antoni Gaudí for the industrial tycoon Eusebi Güell and built between 1886 and 1888. It was impressive although a bit dark and forbidding at times. What I also found impressive is that the house-now-museum had a baby carrier to lend to us!!! I have never seen that before. They also stored our stroller and bags and gave us an audio tour to listen to as we wandered free through the house.

The classic Gaudi chimneys were featured of course, which gave the rooftop a whimsical tone. Here we are with our personal matching chimney tops:

We then headed to Barceloneta where we enjoyed some drinks at the beach while Soren played in the sand. We tried to take the big cable car but the line was too long…as there are only 2 cars running and a long queue of people. So we headed home to re-group and found a vegetarian tapas restaurant called Sesamo. Clark was of course suspicious of any place that did not serve jamon but he actually found the restaurant to begin with and the food was delicious and inventive. This theme continued as Isha and I went onto our 2nd and final dining destination, the famous restaurant Tickets. Clark made reservations 2 months ago and since we lost our sitter (my mom was supposed to come on the trip) and Isha arrived, the two of us got to go! Thank you Clark!!! Did I mention I have the most wonderful husband? He not only got us to the best restaurant in Barcelona, he also took the kids home and got them into bed at a reasonable hour and was genuinely happy that Isha and I had such a wonderful night out on the town. Tickets is #32 on 2018’s top 50 restaurants. It is a tapas, or small plates, based dining experience that is supposed to be more accessible to the commoner (cue in Isha and Swathi) with the features of molecular gastronomy that make El Bulli the world’s best restaurant for a long time. And it was amazing!!! We were seated, and the waiter basically asked us our specifications (we said some vegetarian, seafood and little to no red meat) and told us that they will just start bringing out dishes and when we were done we just let them know. Technically we were given a menu but we returned it to them right away as it was, well, kind of pointless. We also had a sommelier who made 2 awesome cocktails for us to start off with.  What an experience! So many flavors in our mouths! I guess that was the point. Here are some highlights.

We started off with a  “tea” version of gazpacho, which is a cold tomato soup.

Then I got to really experience the sensation of eating an olive with…a fake olive. But it was the more “olive” than an actual “olive.” That is what they do in their magical kitchen.

And yes if you do the math…Isha and I had by the end of the night been out dining for well over 4 hours that evening. Gotta love Barcelona!

The next day we went to the Gracia neighborhood to eat at a family friendly restaurant for breakfast followed by shopping before we headed back closer to home. There were very few if any tourists in this area and we sort of just blended in and had an amazing time. As in, we literally blended in with this weird Frida Kahlo mural:

Isha and our children got along great and we all had a fabulous time!
We then went to rooftop lounge for some R&R and relaxed at home before saying goodbye to Isha.

The next day was our last full day in Barcelona. We went to the beach (Nova Icaria again) and to my favorite vegetarian tapas restaurant again before coming home to put the kids to bed and pack. We already started missing this wonderful place.

     

Our adventures continue as we board a flight to Hyderabad, India via Dubai. Goodbye perfectly-delicious-partially-carbonated-with-a-slight-hint-of-salt-beverage from Barcelona!  Anyone know if I can get Vichy Catalan or Malavella in the USA?

We departed Porto and flew with Vueling Airlines to arrive in Barcelona. Porto airport was small, new looking and convenient! Soren decided he was quite tired by the trip while walking around the Barcelona airport and decided to take a quick rest…as Meera looked on incredulously.

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Around 1pm, we settled into our AirBnB, a 3 bedroom apartment we shared with Roby, Ashley and Tony. We then found a quick take-out spot that made both doner kebabs and chicken curry (for Soren), so we placed our orders and…waited…and waited. We got our first taste of Spanish time sensibilities. Finally our food was done and we returned to our apartment to relax, eat, and plan out our evening. We walked over to Placa Catalunya and started our tour of Las Ramblas, a long pedestrian street walk/fair. In the middle of it is La Boqueria, a large market where people sell, well, everything and anything you could want! Food! Juices! Street Food! Restaurant quality food! Groceries! Spices! Nuts! Souvenirs! We walked around a bit and I picked up some nuts to have handy around the house. Here are Clark and Meera checking out the Mercat:

I then found a pretty cool restaurant for us to relax in and enjoy one of many delicious meals in Barcelona. This is the Fabrica Moritz Barcelona:

By the end we were pretty tired and sweaty from the hot Spanish day, and we retired to our home and settled in for the night. Spain runs on a slightly different schedule than, well, the rest of the world, and we all wanted to adjust accordingly. Essentially, everyone wakes up late, eats breakfast at home, and may go out for lunch around 1 or 2. Most restaurants and places of business simply shut down in the mid-afternoon for siesta time. Yes, for nap time. Wait until 4:30PM for businesses to re-open. This is my kind of country!! Everyone knows I LOVE a good nap. Tapas and snacks are enjoyed in the early evening hours. Dinner can be anytime from 9-11pm (later if you are young and cool) and if it is the weekend, many places stay open well into the morning hours. It is not unusual to find playgrounds full of children and their parents at around 8-9pm. We often lose track of time here and find ourselves wandering home close to midnight.

July 12

We explored the beautiful Gothic Quarter of Barcelona and saw several beautiful cathedrals and buildings.

There were also plenty of interesting stores for the children to explore, like an entire store dedicated to toy ducks. Yes, the kind you take into your bath with you. Exciting stuff!

Everyone enjoyed our extremely long stroll through the Gothic Quarter and into the Revel area:

We topped off the trip with a visit to a hip coffee shop, and this is the last picture I took with my Iphone 7+

As most readers of this blog already know, my phone was then stolen. We took a bus back home and Meera started crying (unusual for her) and the bus was kind of crowded and I was distracted from my belongings for about 2 minutes. I won’t go into the gory details, but lesson learned. Always secure belongings first then attend to crying baby. The extra 10 seconds does not change anything!!

We then relaxed at home for a bit and went out to a restaurant to eat Paella and continue to enjoy our night despite the unfortunate events from earlier in the evening. I was grateful that we were all healthy, happy, and had our passports and wallets intact. Barcelona is too awesome to be bummed for long!

July 13

Meera turns 6 months old!! She is really an awesome baby to travel with and we are so happy she is part of our family.

Clark found this awesome Alice-In-Wonderland type French Cafe in Barcelona. Weird huh? It was beautiful. Soren got to celebrate with chocolate cake. Meera decided to nap.

In the evening we had tickets for La Sagrada Familia, the most quirky and beautiful Cathedral I have ever visited and the #1 tourist attraction in possibly all of Spain. It has been under construction for about a century and will be done in the next decade, apparently, but who knows? The original architect is Gaudi, who has also created many of the other landmark attractions around Barcelona. It is just amazing. How does a toddler visit this place?

By finding a nearby playground and plopping down in the sand, followed by a full on sand bath, really for no apparent reason, 5 minutes prior to our appointment for entering said historical and cultural/religious landmark. You can see the cathedral in the background. Roby and Ashley graciously took some good pictures of all of us. Clark pointed out that La Sagrada Familia does kind of look like a bizarre giant sand castle…

By the way, ALL of the playgrounds in Barcelona have a sandy ground, so if you are bringing young children to this glorious city, please also bring sand toys. Needless to say we bought some here and Tony the toddler already had some from his escapades in Cascais, Portugal a week earlier.

Having exhausted ourselves, we ate a light dinner at a cafe and headed home.

July 6-8

We absolutely loved staying at the Pousada in Guimarães. In Portugal, there is a “small luxury hotel” chain wherein a company, Pestana hotel group, converted old castles and monasteries to, well, small luxury hotels! It is a truly wonderful and unique experience, something neither Clark nor I had done before. I was craving a stay in a Pousada and some time in the countryside since so much of our trip is city-based, and Clark wanted to check out the Duoro Valley.

It felt kind of surreal staying at the Pousada. The pictures certainly do not do it justice. The monastery is around 1000 years old and updated through the centuries. They preserved a great part of it and the rest updated for modern hotel living. Everyone was quite nice. The main restaurant had some of the best Portugese food we have eaten to date, which is saying a lot, because generally I am not a fan of Portuguese food. The gardens were extensive, beautiful and …well organized! I could imagine Gregor Mendel in such a monastery hanging around his garden. Science is after all mostly organization and painful repetition and 0.01% exciting discovery time. I could see how a monk would be well suited for such arduous tasks.

I tried to impress Soren with botany when we discovered some giant mushrooms. He quietly contemplated our discovery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Duoro Valley is the premier wine making region of Northern Portugal that lies along the Duoro River which empties at the city of Porto. Port wine and red table wines are made here. For Clark’s birthday on July 7 we took a trip to a small “Quinta” and went on a 20 minute tour (yes with the children in tow!!) followed by Port wine tasting and a small lunch. We discovered there is such a thing as Rose Port, which is delicious! The drive to and back was gorgeous. Northern Portugal is full of deep mountains, rivers, and steppes with grapes, orange trees and olive trees. Everyone talks about how the Duoro Valley is pretty but actually it seems most of the area is remote and beautiful. As we had to drive on highways with top speed in our Mini Clubman, we could not capture the beauty. Alas. Google it!

July 8:

We packed up yet again and this time headed to Porto, the rivaling major city in Portugal to Lisbon. Which is better according to us? Next blog post…

Sintra is a magical town located on top of some hills/mountainous area full of romantic castles and cobblestones and extremely steep hills. Add onto that the fact that the 3 year olds who are accompanying us on this trip, Arya and Soren, are both quite prone to motion sickness/vomiting in general. This is indeed not a trip for the weak of heart. Or stomach, as it were. But onwards we went, barf bags in hand…I won’t go into the gory details.

This is the main one everyone visits, Pena Palace:

The toddlers were often tired and wanted “up!”

 After we descended back to the entrance, we found this adorable picnic area to take a break and regain our strength prior to castle#2. Meera was her usual adorable self so I couldn’t help but snap this photo.

 

 

 

 

 

Then we hit up the Moorish Castle, which is older, 10-12th century timeline. We were quite high up!!

Because that apparently still was not enough activity for the children, they spent the evening jumping on a trampoline back at the hotel. Therefore all in all, good times were had by all, just at different points of the day!

The next day we checked out of our hotel and headed into Lisbon, where we will be for a few days. We caught the Brazil-Mexico game on the town square and of course everyone here was rooting for Brazil! Happy they won!

Then we went on a leisurely walk to dinner. There are a lot of streets just for pedestrians where we staying downtown, so it is great fun to explore:

More Lisbon exploration awaits us. Unfortunately I have come down with a bad sore throat, but the rest of the gang is doing great and are out exploring the Alfama area as I catch up on blogging…

Veijle, Denmark (June 27)
Veijle was interesting in that it truly felt like we were in Denmark. We ordered off of Danish only menus and many people greeted me in Danish or would respond in Danish even when I talked in English! This is not the case at all in Copenhagen.

We took the speed train back from Vejle to Copenhagen and were all in good spirits by the time we returned. Our children stopped expelling various bodily fluids and Clark and I enjoyed plenty of caffeine and water. What more could you ask for! Our train ride led Soren and I to feel quite famished, so we picked up a quick snack at our favorite little grocery (been there twice, so favorite) in the train station and started eating on the steps out of desperation:

Then we walked around the city again, and we walked through the beautiful area around the Danish Jewish museum main library:

We then headed to Christiania, which was kind of disappointing. I think it was partly deterioration of the place over the past few decades and partly our own fatigue from the previous night and partly being grown boring professional adults with children which led us to kind of quickly walk through it- we probably missed parts of it. Who knows? Not us apparently.

We then returned to Pedja and Ditte’s home for the last night in Denmark. It was another long and trying night as Inga was teething and Meera was still sick, but they are just so totally adorable it is hard to be bitter or upset.

Cascais, Portugal (June 28)
We headed off to Portugal and had no trouble with the transportation as Pedja graciously dropped us off for our 4hr flight to Lisbon. And now we are in Portugal!! We are relaxing in Cascais Portugal as we write…

More photos from June 27-29 in Denmark here.