London

London means family reunion to see my two aunts and all the cousins and any new addition to the family like my cousin, Robert's baby son, Sebastian. I got everyone together for dim sum at London's Chinatown, Soho. It was great to see everyone at one place. The bill came to 70 pounds which I thought was really reasonable, I paid it gladly, money well spent. Most of our time in London usually is spent visiting with family, so there's still a lot of places in London I haven't been in spite of the many times I've been there, too many times to count. LHR has been like LAX to me. We came in and left at the new terminal 5, it was great, we love the new terminal 5. It is so easy to get to and from London Heathrow, the Piccadilly line goes straight to the airport. We stayed with one aunt in North London.

Soho, London's Chinatown.

We met outside Loon Fung supermarket on Gerard street.

The ethnically mixed neighborhood in North London. I can't count the number of times I've stayed here at my aunt's house near here. The same thrift shop has been here like forever.

Same neighborhood.

Roast duck at a Chinese restaurant.

It was an absolutely beautiful day in London, rare for September, everyone was outside and enjoying the day.

The icons of London, or one of them, the open top tour bus that circulate around the city to the major sights.

A London cab.

The old telephone booths, do people still use them? This guy was on his mobile phone outside the phone booths, I thought it was kind of funny.

This trip is coming to an end and I'm ready for another trip, I am planning my next one. It's been a great trip and a great year. I'm ready for the new year and new adventures to new places.

Leaving Barcelona

We are entering into the last leg of our trip, we would leave Barcelona to go to London for a few days and then home. What a trip it was, full of sights, full of activities. It requires lots of motivation and energy to carry out this kind of trip. I've been doing this for over 8 years, making 2 such trips a year. When I stay at a cheap hostel, I worry about wake up calls for those early morning flights. We had a 9 am flight for London and needed to be at the airport pretty early. This place does not do wake up calls, instead the guy (nice guy) at the front desk loaned us an alarm clock, it worked, got us up at 5am. We were going to take a taxi to the airport, but he said, no need. The airport bus starts at 5am every morning, there's one every 20 minutes and it's just parked across the street from the hotel, costs 4 euros. So at 5.30 in the morning we boarded the airport bus and in less than 1/2 hour we were at the Barcelona airport. We were ready to go to London. We couldn't because of fog over London Heathrow. We were delayed for 3 hours at the airport together with a few other flights going to Stansted and Norwich, England. We gave up our seats and sat on the floor while we waited.
Finally we were off, we were expected at my Aunt's house at 12 noon but instead we arrived at 3pm. Nonetheless we arrived. I called up a few cousins to remind them about getting together the next morning for dimsum in London's Chinatown. We were grateful that we only have a few days on the road left and would be going home soon. The 2 things I like about traveling is leaving home and coming home.

More Gaudi

Casa Batllo, another Gaudi building. We didn't have time to pay to get in to see the interior. From pictures, I can tell it is absolutely gorgeous. Next to it is Casa Amatller, a Moorish style building which promised to be incredibly beautiful, promised, because it is under renovation. In 2 years I intend to come back to see it.

Not Gaudi, it is a beautiful building on the same street as Casa Batllo. It is the home of a store, I forgot what store. Don't ask me about stores, I'd sooner forget about big stores. Who has money for shopping?

Passieg de Gracia, a very fashionable and pretty street in downtown Barcelona. It was getting late in the evening after we returned from Montserrat, we rushed over to look for Casa Mila, another Gaudi building. It started to rain also, so we had to hurry. This was our last night in Barcelona, we would leave the next day for London. I'd love to return to Barcelona and soon.

Casa Mila or 'La Pedrera' (the quarry). They had to bring so much rock from the quarry to build this place that it's other name is 'La Pedrera'. It is now an apartment building but tours to the roof can be purchased at the entrance. This building doesn't have any straight lines, everything is curved and curvy. Outside, Gaudi buildings are playful and exhibits an air of frivolity but inside it is serious functionality. He hides the chimneys, the pipes and every other building equipment with sculptures and mosiacs. Don't be fooled if you see funny shapes and sculptures, they hide some important part of the building.

Come to Barcelona and be enthralled by Gaudi.

christmas take 2

Here is the other christmas video. This gift keeps on giving, I'm having so much fun.

Christmas, take 1

I went to my brother's house to check if the video I emailed him got uploaded. He couln't open it because of some incompatibililty. So I went on youtube and signed for a youtube account. You can see on youtube under 'annechung'. I uploaded the video onto my youtube account and now am lifting it from there to post here. Hopefully it'll open up for some of you.

Christmas, getting ready

It's getting closer, soon, it'll be upon us. Christmas, I mean, are you ready? I'm getting there, just a few more gifts to buy and wrap, then the finalization of the menu and the shopping for the menu. My sister called, she's at a mall in her neck of the woods, New Jersey, she's shopping for gifts to bring to us. It's an exciting time of the year and my most favorite time of the year, a time to fuss a lot. I haven't been to the mall at all, as one blogger puts it, I and her are 'conscientious observers'. My stuff came from the flea markets and a few specialty stores, like the English store and the Italian store and Barnes and Noble.

English candy and Christmas crackers from the English store in Santa Monica.

Panettone and torrone from the Italian store.

Mmmmmmm, panettone, it's great for making a bread pudding, a favorite in our family.

My French heart will go on the Christmas tree.

Twelve fabric stars made from vintage linen will grace this year's tree, very homemade and homespun, no kitsch from China.

This is how I've always brought home the Christmas tree, everybody who sees it, laughs but it works. The tree guy asked if I want the tree on top of the car, I said, no, just shove it into the back seat.

Here it is, kind of sparse but it makes for easy putting up and easy taking down. Nothing to it because there's nothing on it.

A star, a star, high above the sky....

A very home spun Christmas.

The presents grace the base of the tree. This is so much fun and so exciting. I've been using recycled packing paper as wrapping paper, saves a lot of money and it has this home spun look to it.

One doesn't have to spend a lot of money, use and reuse things like paper, use newspaper as wrapping paper, it gives this look that is priceless. Buy unusual gifts, don't be sucked into popular gift giving like the latest electronic gadget. My family will never guess what they are getting but the gifts are more meaningful than expensive.

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Christmas, take 2

To view this series of video, click on the bottom left arrow. I'm like a kid in a candy store, I bought this little point and view video camera and is having so much fun with it.

Christmas, take 1

video, take 2

Richard's birthday

I bought this cute little point and view video camera and is having a lot of fun with it. Here is a short video clip of my brother's birthday dinner. I hope it turned out good, this is the first time I'm uploading my own video clips and not lift them from youtube.

ex votive

is the offering given after the fulfillment of a vow. The pilgrims come to Montserrat to press their requests on the 'virgin of Montserrat'. When their prayers have been answered they come back with an offering and they leave their testaments in the room dedicated to 'ex votive'. They write notes of gratitude, maybe for a healing, of anything, any body part whether an eye, a leg, an arm etc. We saw a lot of wedding dresses, maybe a lot of women asked to be married, after they do, they come back with their offerings and they hang their wedding dresses in that room. I don't know. I've been in many churches but this was my first encounter with 'ex votive'. It's kind of hokey and funny.

That's supposed to be the centre of power.

The plaza outside the church.

Here we are leaving Montserrat and descending on the cable car.

There is Montserrat, above those rock cliffs. It's amazing how those monks thought to build a monastery up there, the thought of hauling all the building materials up there at a time when there were no roads leading up to it. It's a pretty amazing place.