Legoland - Windsor

In case it wasn't obvious, the pictures in the last post weren't actually taken from London.  They were actually taken from Legoland - Windsor.

We actually spent several days in Legoland which was a good idea as the place is pretty big and the first day was a little wet (it is the UK after all).

Can you spot which one is made of Lego?

Fighting fire - Lego style

By far the most popular attraction for the kids was the driving school which let the kids drive little go karts around a track.  They actually had 2 driving schools - one for younger kids where they just drove round in a big circle and one for older kids which was setup like a proper network of streets, stop signs and traffic lights.

Gordon leads the pack!

Gerry after shooting through a stop sign (without stopping)

Boats!

The kids second favourite attraction - shooting water at people!

Key London tourist attractions

Naturally, being in London, there are certain key tourist traps that you have to visit.

Tower Bridge

London Eye

Big Ben

Buckingham Palace - changing of the guard

Wembley!

:)

Lazing around London

As promised, some pictures of our recent adventure to the UK.  Huzzah!

Well, except for the fact that our first two days in the UK were spent in London recuperating from the long flight.  To be honest, we weren't actually that keen on spending time in London as we wanted to head into the countryside.  However, after a 13 hour flight, we thought that a couple of days in London to rest would be nice.

Turned out to be a good idea as on the second day, the kids fell asleep halfway through dinner and didn't wake up till the next morning!

The Monument, which if you are familiar with London, will tell you that...

... we were on our way to London Bridge

By the way, walking across London Bridge while singing "London Bridge is falling down" - totally did that!

Gerry managed to find a giant pearl

Ice cream!

Pro-tip - always take kids to London Bridge before Tower Bridge otherwise they will be completely underwhelmed by London Bridge.

And naturally, while in London, we had to go see the dinosaurs

Disneyland Parade

Woo!  Finally back in Hong Kong after an extended period of travel.  Will upload pictures of our holiday next week but for now, I quickly wanted to wrap up the Disneyland post with some pictures of the parade.

The last time we were in Disneyland, we actually managed to get a great spot to watch the parade.  We were basically right at the front so I decided to see how close up I could get with the zoom on my digital camera.  With that said, its a point and shoot so don't get too excited.
:)

Still, the close ups of the parade are interesting in that it gives a very different feel to looking at the pulled out shots which I have taken in the past.

Love the colours on Minnie's dress

I always feel a great deal of pity for the poor guy in the suit given HK is over 30 degrees and 90% humidity :)

Check out the size of that grin

Can't help but wonder how much their jaws ache after completing one parade

Disneyland! Again!

Summer has now officially arrived in HK.  I know this is true as our Disneyland season has started!

That's right - some more pictures of Disneyland!

As you can tell, it was sunny.

Gangsta!

Teatime

Ironmen

Get Bit!

I'm slowly (very very slowly) trying to get the kids to play more geek games.  My latest attempt at this is with the deluxe edition of Get Bit.

Get Bit is quite a fun game which involves each player in control of a pirate who has walked the plank and found himself in shark infested waters.  Hum - quite the pickle.  Luckily, being pirates, we are all good swimmers and immediately try to swim away.  Not so luckily, the shark, who isn't happy to see lunch swimming away, is a faster swimmer.

As in the old adage, you don't need to swim faster than the shark - you just need to swim faster than the other pirates!

In terms of gameplay, the game is basically a card game.  The higher the number on the card you play, the faster you swim.  However, if your number matches another number by another player, then neither of those players move that turn.  The player at the back gets bit and loses a limb.  Once all limbs are gone, that player is eliminated.  In order to avoid player downtime, we played a variant where the game ends as soon as one player is eliminated and the winner is the pirate at the front.

Group photo!

The shark, getting ready for lunch.

A common site - with the limbs of each pirate start slowly being eaten by the shark

Gordon got bit

I win!

Fergee - King of the Big Smelly

Time for some further adventures in my miniature painting.

I've finished up all of my Castle Ravenloft miniatures and have currently branched out into some sci fi.  With that said, you really wouldn't know it from the pictures below!

Anyway, the below mini is from Mongoose Publishing and is from their line of Judge Dredd miniatures.  As you probably guessed from the title, this is Fergee, King of the Big Smelly whom fans of old stony face will recognise as the dimwit who saved Mega City One during the reign of Judge Cal.

For comparison, the professionally painted version can be found here.

And yes, I just copied the colour scheme used by the professionals.  Don't have anywhere near the confidence necessary to start playing around with my own colour schemes yet!

No, he isn't playing baseball...

No, he isn't running away...