City Break

Since both our birthdays are looming, we decided to take a last minute overnight trip to Birmingham. We chose this hotel as we got a good deal on it. I am very picky about hotels. From experience, hotels in Europe always fell short on standard compared to the ones in Asia. Even if it's freezing outside, a hotel that is worth the money MUST have good and silent air-conditioning. With city trips, opening up windows for fresh air also meaning letting traffic noise pollution in. Anyway, this one is perfect and it provided us a restful and quiet retreat even when it's smack right in he middle of the city centre.

Tobey loved the changed of surrounding.

He's definitely not afraid of height at this point in time. Kept pointing to the cars at the roundabout below.

Here's my little boy looking adorable for mommy.

We started of our day with Dim Sum with BIL at our usual Birmingham chinese haunt Wing Wah. Tobey only took TWO scoops of the lunch I made for him! But I let it go to teething. He eventually ate two bear biscuits.


After that, we brought Tobey to the National Sea Life Centre. We made use of a Buy-One-Get-One-Free Voucher from Tesco and only paid £15.50 for 2 adults and a toddler. It was educational..really, both for Tobey and for us. Who knows a Barracuda is the next most dangerous predatory fish after the Shark.

One of the many aquariums with colourful fishes

We tried our hardest to scare the puffer fish just to see it double in size, but it remained calm..hehe.

SK and Tobey, string-ray spotting

This is the Sting-Ray section. Not very clear from the pic, but string-rays were popping their heads up at the surface of the water above. The caretaker actually told the visitors to not touch them as they are capable to bite fingers off! When you look at the bottom of string-ray, you can actually see a pair of eyes and a smiley mouth. I found that so cute.

Here's the Jelly fish room. Tobey found it awesome when his beloved muslin started to glow.

Then we also visited the Otters, Turtles, Sea horse and a mirror maze area.

We ended Tobey's sea life introductory session with some souvenirs. Mr. Crab can crawl sideways when it's winded up. Tobey kept running away from it. Ms. Fish feels very real and can be stretched in all direction without breaking.

After that we walked around more and went back to the Hotel for a rest. Then we went for dinner in Chinatown.
By end of the dinner, it was way past his bedtime and he was getting really cranky at the restaurant (as you can see from the pic above).

So did we went down for a drink in the bar when he's finally sleeping on the bed in the darkened room? Hell no! We both read quietly in front of the only light source in the room, coming from the bathroom! Cheers to parenthood!