Category Archives: Travel
Happy 2nd Birthday Leo!
Happy 2nd birthday to my amazing prince Leo! Leo weighs in at 25 pounds (~11 percentile) and stretches 34 inches tall (~50 percentile)! Leo is getting really good at pulling himself up to stand and is cruising a lot more and very easily now too! He’s starting to imitate me more like when I blow raspberries, he will try to do the same. He is making lots more sounds and it sounds like he tries to say “bottle” when it’s meal time too. Leo is getting stronger in his core and is able to keep his head up when he falls down so that he doesn’t smack his head into the ground, and he is crawling up the stairs and the couch now. He’s trying to climb up almost everything so that’s good he’s learning to explore more and be curious. A huge milestone that Leo is coming upon is that he is finally allowing the straw in his mouth for the first time! I’ve tried many times in the past and he would just fight me and not let me put any milk in his mouth from the straw. This is called Mr. Juice Bear that was created by therapists for children who have trouble learning to drink from straws. You can find it HERE, and the best part is that it’s spill proof too! The bear is soft and the straw is durable but soft as well, and you just squeeze the bear for the milk to come up so that Leo doesn’t have to suck it up. Eventually, he will learn how to suck and I won’t need to squeeze the bottle for him anymore! This was a huge success and step forward for Leo! He actually put the straw in his mouth and tried to get milk from it! He doesn’t know how to suck up the milk yet, but simply having the straw in his mouth and drinking some milk from it is huge progress!!! I’m so proud of you Leo!!!
Leo also had his first plane ride when I took him and Lily to Oahu, Hawaii for vacation to celebrate their birthdays! He was very restless on the flight there and only napped for about an hour, but on the flight home he did awesome and slept for about 3 hours and was calm the rest of the time. He did great in hawaii and adjusted to the time difference just fine and loved all the sight seeing! He also didn’t like the sand at first from the beach, he would hold his hands up in the air like “what is this I’m sitting on?!” but he eventually warmed up to it and even tried to lick the sand! Haha! He also got to pet a dolphin and went to his first luau too! He’s already a little adventurer! Let also got a shot at his 2 year old check up and cried from the shock of it but quickly settled down, he didn’t even flinch for the blood prick on his finger though, what a brave boy! I realize I’m ending every sentence with an exclamation mark but I’m really that proud and happy for my little prince haha! Leo is such a happy easy going little boy and he is developing and improving each day. He has the brightest smile and I feel so blessed and lucky to be his mommy. Happy 2nd birthday my baby boy, here’s to many more adventures to come! I love you Leo!!
Click HERE are more photos from Lily and Leo’s Hawaiian vacation! Enjoy these videos of Leo!
Holidays 2014
I’m a little behind on my blogging lately, but better late than never! Here’s what we did during the holidays 2014!
This year for Thanksgiving I decided to take on the challenge of cooking my very first turkey! I brined it the night before with broth and seasoning and gave that bird a salt rub down massage too haha. It was pretty simple after that, just wash the turkey the next day when I’m ready to cook it and then put some season on it, stuff it with veggies , bay leaf and thyme, and surround the pan with veggies as well. Then just let the oven do the rest of the work with the occasional basting every hour or so. The turkey came out delicious and was a big success and I’m very glad I got to share it with some wonderful people!! I’m definitely thankful for many things in my life, but most of all, I’m thankful to be going through this crazy journey of life with the people I love.
In December, we took lily to the Queen Mary’s Chill for the first time to see the cool ice sculptures and walk around the Queen Mary as well. There were 2 million pounds of ice sculptures, even a 10 foot ice slide, and a bunch of fun activities that Lily was unfortunately too young and small for, but we will definitely come back for her to enjoy them. They had tubing, a carousel, swings, ice skating, and games too! The Ice Kingdom was 9 degrees inside and so they gave us all parkas to wear over our normal clothes, but be sure to bring gloves or else taking pictures in there will turn your hands into popsicles! It was a very “cool” experience though =P. We then took her to see some fun Christmas lights at IlluminOcean at Dana Point. She loved going through the tunnel of lights where they had bubble stations and blew bubbles everywhere. She also really liked looking at the light sculptures and pointing out all the sea creatures too! It’s amazing how lights can bring so much joy to a toddle, it’s very nice to see her eyes light up from wonder and happiness =).
Then all the Christmas festivities began and it was nice to be with all our family during this time of year. You can view more pictures from all our Christmas celebrations from this year HERE!
For New Years, we took Lily to her second trip to the snow and had a fun little getaway at Lake Arrowhead with some friends! We all stayed in a cozy little cabin and got to enjoy each other’s cooking and spend quality time with one another. It was fun to see the kids play with each other and create wonderful new memories. This is also the first time Lily was old enough to actually play in the snow, instead of just sit there and not know what to do. She LOVED sledding, thanks Emmy for letting her play with it, and it was so cute to see her pull the sled back up the hill be herself and climb on, hold on tight and ready to sled down with the biggest smile and silliest giggle down the hill. It melts me heart to see her have so much fun! You can view more pictures from our trip HERE!
Happy 19 Months Lily!
Happy 19 months to my sweet little Lily pad! Right now Lily weighs at about 21.25 pounds and stretches about 31.5 inches tall! I realized I forgot to post her 18 months, but her stats hasn’t really changed TOO much in the past month. Her weight was in the 1st percentile, she fell off the charts, so that’s a little bit worrisome, but she seems to be healthy overall. We’re giving her pediasure at night so that she can retain some extra calories, since her weight percentage needs to be higher than her height percentage. We’re trying to give her more red meat and that’s a hit or miss right now, she tends to like chicken more than cows…haha. We had her 19 month follow up today and she gained almost 2 pounds from her 18 month check up, putting her back up at the 5th percentile, placing her right on the line of the growth chart. At least she’s not out of the curve so that’s very good progress! Other than that, she’s growing up to be a very bright and smart little toddler! She’s going to be moving up from the Infant Willow class at LePort to the Toddler class in a couple weeks! She already got a chance to play in the toddler playground and her teachers say she loves it. She’s becoming a pro at drinking from her little glass, and she knows to point out all her facial features when you ask her! She even knows how to say “eyes” and other words very clearly now!
Lily 18 Months
Lily 19 Months
We had her 2nd Christmas celebration and it was even more fun than last year. This year, she knows how to rip open the wrapping paper and is eager to find out what’s inside! She pats on the box once it’s open and wants us to open the toy for her so she can play with it! So smart! She loves her new kitchen set from my parents, and she also really loves her new Trike from us! The video below is of her seeing and riding her Trike for the first time!! Also, Jennifer and Andrew came to stay with us for 5 days for Christmas, and she was super nice enough to take our Christmas pictures! You can view all the beautiful pictures HERE! We’re so lucky to have such a talented sister to capture these yearly photos for us, thanks sissy!!!
Lily also got to go to Vegas for the first time! We managed to sneak in a picture of Lily hitting the slots at the airport, she was very intrigued! Haha, but it was only for 30 seconds and then we wiped her hands right after that to clean all the germies off!! We had a very local experience at Vegas since I didn’t want to take Lily to the casinos where all the second hand smoke were, so we did a lot of local things around Alvina’s community like taking her to park, and then we visited the Container Park, the Children’s Discovery Museum, and we even got a private tour of Zappos where Alvina works!! We also got to see AMAZING Christmas lights at the cactus garden at the Ethel M’s Chocolate Factory as well! I’ve never seen soooo many lights in one place before, it was so cool! Lily loves looking at the lights and pointing at everything and saying “woooo”!
Happy New Year – 2014
Lastly, I leave you with this super cute video of Lily dancing with her teapot in her jammies and a video of her running off with a new toy she wanted at target! Enjoy!
Lily’s Adventures in San Francisco!
This is Lily’s 1st time in San Francisco and technically my first REAL time here as well! What an adventure this trip was, we definitely made most use of all our time there and luckily Lily was a big trooper and was so good with all our travelling and activities! Her naps worked perfectly into our schedules as well! I’m feeling very tired (and lazy) to go into a detailed blog post about everything we did, so here’s a “quick” and sweet rundown of what we did!
We got in on Tuesday night and met up with Diana and Sean (friends from the great white north), and ate at a really yummy ramen place called Katana-Ya! We then went to Bi-Rite Ice Cream but arrived right when they were closing, but Diana and Sean told them they came all the way from Canada and so they let us in! YAY Go Canada!!! It was so good to see them considering these things don’t happen often! And Diana taught Lily how to say “yes!” Check out the video here!!
On Wednesday we started our day by eating lunch at HDR’s Coffee Shop, a Korean restaurant that serves Mexican food with Korean food instead (i.e. kimchi pork burritos, bulgogi tacos, etc!) It was quite good!! We made our way to Lombard street, and then grabbed a really yummy blueberry pancake cupcake from Susie Cakes. We visited Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf! It’s really cute and fun, I really liked the touristy vibe there. We tried to visit the bridge but it was completely covered in fog, so owe tried to go to Land’s End, but we didn’t go on the hike because we didn’t wanna carry Lily up and down all those steps haha. We visited the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts and then we wanted go to the Academy of Science but it was closed by the time we got there, so we went to the Japanese Tea Garden instead, and it was really pretty! We then met up with Vy, Chris and Scott for dinner so that Chris and Scott and finally meet Lily!!! That was fun and great to see them after so long!
Thursday we have a very pretty scenic drive south to Harley Farms in Pescadero, where we took a tour on the goat farm and got to pet the goats and a llama! We got to see how they milk the goats and how they make all their cheeses! They also had lots of samples and boy were they tasty! It was a really pretty farm too! We then continued our drive south to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! It’s by far my new favorite aquarium now, it’s so nice and big and we even got to see them feed and train the sea otters (my favorite sea creatures!) Lily had a blast in the splash zone too and she loved the baby corals corner too, a play area just for babies!! We then went up to San Jose and had dinner with Joe Goan, Joe & Karen Cheng and got to meet their baby Kaylee for the first time too! Thanks for making the time to meet us on 4th of July! We didn’t do any 4th of July festivities, we saw some fireworks during out drive home, that was good enough for us!
Friday visited the Golden Gate Bridge and boy was it cold that morning! It was a lil foggy but we managed to get a clear enough picture with the bridge! We then drove north to Healdsburg for Tian and Tony’s Wedding! It was such a beautiful wedding!!! I loved all the details and the view was just so pretty! It was great to see all my friends and celebrate T&T’s special big day! You can view more pictures from Tian & Tony’s Wedding here!
Saturday morning we went to Tian and Tony’s cottage for their goodbye breakfast and got to see my friends before going home. We then went to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the north side of the bridge, and the view is MUCH better from there, so if you ever want to see it, see it from the north looking south! You’re on top looking down at the bridge rather than looking up, so I think it’s much nicer. We then went to the Twin Peaks to see the amazing view of the city, but man it was quite windy! Afterwards we went to meet up with Aarin and his friends where Aarin tried to give Lily coffee and made her race around the lounge haha. On the way to the airport, we HAD to stop by Kara’s Cupcakes to get the smores and passion fruit cupcakes, so devine!!! We ended up having to go to the San Jose Airport instead of SFO due to the unfortunate accident that happened that morning at SFO, and it made me quite nervous flying home, but we made it home safe and sound! It was a great vacation and we had so much fun!!! It was nice to be outdoors and experience these new adventures with the two people I love most, Khoa and Lily! =) Lily had so much fun looking at all the new sights and meeting all these new and old friends! She most likely won’t remember this trip, but I will, and we can always show her pictures =). You can view more pictures from our vacation here!
Lily’s 1st Trip to Canada!
Lily had her first big trip to Canada! I must warn you, this entree will have a lot of food pictures, so do not read when hungry! =P I was really nervous about how Lily would be on the plane, so we figured we’d try to pull a modern family and try to keep lily awake as long as naturally possible before the flight so that she’ll be sleepy and sleep on the plane. She did get drowsy when we arrived at the airport, and eventually slept for maybe 10 minutes when we were going through check-in and security. Then when we got on the plane, we gave her a bottle while we were taxi-ing, hoping she can drink as we take off to deal with the elevation change, but she finished it before we even took off. But luckily she fell asleep in no time and slept through most of the plane ride! She did so great and was a champ! She didn’t seem to be affected by the elevation change at all! When she woke up near the end of the plane ride, she was very curious and liked to look outside the window, and look at the people behind her. 
Everywhere she went she attracted all these attention from everyone, just by smiling at them, people had to stop and say hello to her! She sure is her father’s daughter =P. We also had this AMAZING egg salad sandwich at the airport in Denver during out layover, it’s at this deli called Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli, and the sandwich is called the Hell’s Kitchen Sandwich. It’s egg salad, with lettuce, tomatoes, swiss cheese, and a spicy chipotle sauce!!! Mhmmm, so good I had to give it a special shout out! haha. So next time you’re there, GET IT! It’s by the gates B80’s.
When we arrived at Jennifer and Andrew’s house, first thing I noticed when I got inside was a big pretty banner that said “Happy Birthday Lily!” There were macarons and mini cupcakes on the table and when little Lily water bottles too! They had dumplings and popcorn chicken as appetizers too which were really tasty with the dipping sauce. They got take out from the Spicy Hut Thai Restaurant, and we got to try some really good food, my favorite was the duck curry! The restaurant gave us free chicken fried rice and crunchy chicken as well since we ordered a lot of food! What great service in Canada hey? Haha! After our delicious meal, we all sat around while we all sang Happy Birthday to our Lily pad and ate a nice fruit cake that Andrew’s parents bought for Lily! We then went to the living room and opened Lily’s birthday presents, she was actually interested in some of the clothes, maybe cause of the bright colors on some of them haha. I think she still liked the tissue paper the most! Thank you Chan family for throwing our Lily pad a wonderful party, she truly is so loved and you made us feel special for allowing us to share this with Canada (yes the whole country…haha)! Our room was pretty much set up like a fancy hotel.
There were chocolates on our pillows, a little pack n play all set up for Lily, a little space heater to keep us warm at night, and even our cirque du soliel tickets were all printed out and ready for us at the desk, with a printed itinerary for the week as well! We had complimentary bottles of eye drops too, talk about fancy! 
Our bathroom was nicely decorated with 3 types of scented body wash, it had a brand new bottle of shampoo and conditioner, and one of the drawers under the sink was stocked with contact cases and solution for us, and the other drawer was stocked with diapers for Lily! Wow!!! We had our own set of towels hung up and even Lily had her own special froggie towel too! Talk about a warm welcome!
Jennifer and Andrew took us to the First Alliance Church (a Christian church) so that we can experience our first Christian church experience. It was quite interesting that they had free coffee and you can bring it inside. It was a good experience, not the usual formal ritual that we’re used to, but I’m glad we got to see it! The minister had a great message and it was all very practical and educational too. I liked it! After church we went to Thompson’s Resaurant at the Hyatt Hotel and got the all you can eat brunch buffet! They had so much food, and they even had an omelette station and all sorts of desserts (my favorite part)! They originally had plans for us to go to the Calgary Zoo but since it was snowing, we skipped that. Instead we just hung out at the house and prepared some dip for game night that was held at Bobby and Ivy’s house! Their house was SUPER nice and very modern. We got to meet their cute little doggie Joey too, who even got his own seat at the table because he likes to be part of the party!! They grilled some really tender yummy Alberta steaks and we improvised on the salad dressing but it came out pretty good (mixed some oil, balsamic vinaigrette, honey mustard, salt, pepper, and maple syrup!!). Bobby had some pretty nice (and expensive) wine, and all the guys polished off 3 bottles of wine and took a shot of PB&J vodka…Lets just say Khoa was not in great condition that night, and I had to “clean up” after him…haha.
River Cafe
On Monday morning, Jennifer had a groupon deal for a Skin Science Make-Up Lessons. The lady examined our skin and told us what we can do to keep our skin looking young and to present rapid aging and damage that can happen due to time and environment pollution/UV rays. Then she taught us how to best put on make-up on ourselves, and then did our make-up so that we can look fabulous for the rest of the day haha! Of course this groupon deal was super cheap, but the catch is you want to buy all their clinic products afterwards…but I’d say you must put some tender love and care to look good, so it was worth it! (I hope…haha). We all went to lunch at the River Cafe by Prince’s Island Park, where Amanda’s friend Matthias happens to be a chef there. He gave us complimentary oysters for visiting him, and boy were they good, I got to eat Khoa’s oyster since he hates seafood, woohoo!! We then stopped by Yaunn Hautte 
Bakery, this really cute yellow house that has a whole bunch of macarons and other really good smelling pastries! We went back to the house and played this new board game called Carcasonne, it is quite an addicting game that we went home (to the US) and bought one for ourselves to play!!! hehe. We then had dinner at Cravings with their friends Diana and Sean, who would be babysitting Lily the next day! That place a Monday special where all pastas were only $5, so we ALL got pasta, woohoo! They also had pizza, steaks, burgers, etc too. I then got a really moist tre leches cake for dessert too, see the trend of this vacation so far…food food and more fooooood!
On Tuesday, Jennifer had to work, so we got to spend the day with Andrew! For lunch we got these HUGE chicken schwarmas at Jimmy’s. They were the BEST schwarmas ever and boy was it an adventure in eating it. You cannot eat it without making a mess all over the table, your hands and face; we all felt like savages, but it was totally worth the mess haha. He then took us to the TD mall to visit the Devonian Gardens! I was super impressed because all the plants looked SO fake because it was SO perfect! Lily really loved the garden, she liked looking at the funny monkey head sculptures on the wall, touching the plants, and watching the koi fishes swim. The koi ponds were her favorite!! She loved it so much she was bouncing with excitement and I thought she was going to dive in with them! Haha! We then visited Jennifer at her office so Lily can play with the machines haha.
We then dropped Lily off with Diana and Sean and saw and amazing cirque du soliel show, Amaluna, at the Calgary Stampede at The Grand Chapiteau!
On Wednesday, we had most of the day to ourselves since both the Chans were at work. So I got a massage at Jennifer’s massage place she likes to go too, and got a nice relaxation massage! Afterwards, Khoa and Lily picked me up and we got lunch at a really good thin crust pizza place called Without Papers! They were playing Toy Story 3 at the restaurant, what an awesome place right??? Haha. We then we went at the Chinook Mall! I hit up all the stores that we didn’t have in the states, and they have some nice clothes, but I only ended up getting a few things from one store, called Suzy Shier! There’s a carousel there too and Lily was curious to see what that was all about haha. We all got dinner at Notable and that was a recently new restaurant that opened up and it was really good! Everything we ordered from the soup, the appetizers to the entrees were just really well done! It was a very enjoyable meal.
Thursday we had lunch at Over Easy Breakfast Co. They had really good Benedict eggs, breakfast bagels, waffles, french toasts and more! The decor of the place was really cute too from the lights to the ceiling art! The girls then got dropped off at home while the boys went go-karting, however the karting place was full to they went to shoot guns instead at an indoor shooting range! Jennifer and I watched Glee while Lily napped and then we took Lily to the local Farmer’s Market! The market was quite impressive. It was a really big indoor market with tons of fresh produce and lots of food! They even had samples at some of the food stations! They had some other miscellaneous shopping stations as well, with a kid’s play area and live music performers too. It was pretty fun place, I wish I knew of a market like that near home!
After that, we all met back at home so that we can go to dinner with Amanda, Diana and Sean again at an all you can eat Hot Pot place!!! I NEVER experienced this type of hot pot eating style before, so it was quite and interesting experience. The had all sorts of meats and veggies and tons of dipping sauces. They even had a variety of special drinks, including sugar cane juice too!! They had a lot of ice cream flavors and hot bean soups as well. Jennifer likes to eat her red bean soup with vanilla ice cream, it sounds weird, but it’s a really yummy idea haha!
Friday Jennifer took us to a good sushi place called Globefish, it’s right outside the Chinook Mall. We then went into the mall so that Jennifer and Khoa can get some really good coffee at Phil’s and Sebastian’s Coffee shop! Then we headed home so I can rest a little bit to ease the flu symptoms. They she took us to this cute little park behind their house to take some photos of Lily, then we went to Prince’s Island Park for some husband and wife photos! We then met up Andrew at Shikiji Ramen for some super delicious ramen! We had a reservation, but we had a wait a bit for this family to clear out, so they gave us complimentary appetizers of these mushrooms on a cracker…it was tasty! Haha. After dinner we went back home and had our last game of Carcasonne!!
You can see more pictures from our vacation here! I wanted to say and big THANK YOU to Jennifer and Andrew for working so hard to setting up our room and bathroom for our stay at their home. We appreciate all the efforts and hard work you’ve gone into making our stay as comfortable as possible!! Lily definitely had a great time and put that play mat to use as well! We could not have had a better time without you guys! Thanks for taking us around and showing us the sights and introducing us to all the yummy food places. So now I’ve saved the best for last! Check out this beautiful video Jennifer made that documented Lily’s 1st Visit to Canada!! Thank you so much Jennifer for making this time capsule for us, so that we can show Lily one day her first vacation to the great white north! We miss you both already, we hope to come back again soon! =)
Lily Visits Canada from J.N. on Vimeo.
Thanksgiving 2011 in New York!
Since this was going to be our last Thanksgiving with just the two of us, we decided to go on vacation to spend our first holiday away together. We did everything from visiting the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Central Park, Battery Park, to the Rockefeller Center and more! We got to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade up close in person as well, but our favorite event was the Jason Mraz Concert at Carnegie Hall! We had such a wonderful time together and even though I will still having a little bit of morning (more like all day) sickness, it did not prevent me from wandering around eating my way through New York City! Here’s an awesome video that Jennifer made from our many video clips we too of our amazing trip! Thanks Jennifer, you do magic behind the camera!
Jackie and Khoa Do New York! from J.N. on Vimeo.
Europe Adventures 2011
Khoackie’s Europe Adventure – March 30-April 11:
We went on such an amazing trip to Europe and here are some of our favorite photos from our 12 day trip! We went to London, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Nice, Monaco, and Paris! On the way back to the states, we took advantage of our layover in Chicago and did some sight seeing in the city of Chicago as well! This trip was definitely a great adventure and we are happy to share our memories with you! To see more pictures, visit our gallery! Enjoy!
Here’s the recap on all our Khoackie Adventures in Europe through the eyes of Jackie (because Khoa was too busy vacationing once again to document this trip)! (These entries are a compilation of our emails to home at the end of each night.)
Day 1 – London:
‘Allo mateys!! We landed safe and sound! When we got off the plane, I wanted to take some pictures and stuff and I got yelled at because they said I’m not allowed to use a camera inside the airport…So I told them I didn’t take any pictures so it was then ok. It took us a really long time to figure out what to do when we got off the plane. We didn’t have a sim card yet so we couldn’t look up directions to the hotel, and the first person we asked was no help and was really mean. So we walked around and went to see how much it would cost for a taxi, and it was 50 pounds (about $80) and it would only take about 35 mins. But that was really expensive and an all day train and bus pass was only 8 pounds a person, so that was a lot better. We finally figured out what trains to take, and it took us 1.5 hours to get off the train, and then we walked for about 15 and then got to our hotel! I think we could have taken the bus… But at least we know now! We bought a sim card with 200 minutes on it, so we can call home everytime we get to a new location. Also, we get all day internet on the sim card for 1lb a day, so that’s really nice too. The room is nice, it’s just like a normal hotel room and we get free breakfast at this place too! The weather isn’t too bad, it’s not raining, it’s just a little cloudy but not that cold either, so it’s good!
So for the pictures that I attached, you can see our hotel room and the view from our hotel room! I took a picture of the money here as well. The next picture is of Hype Park, just the edge walkway of it, and there’s a little lake and I saw some pretty swans! We ate dinner at this sushi place where all the food is on a conveyor belt! It’s pretty cool, the food tasted ok…but it was good experience. We also went and walked around West End and originally wanted to eat there but it was so late all the places were already closed! We did go to Picadilly Circus, it’s the famous multi-intersection street in London, kind of like Times Square in New York, and they have big giant screen advertisements and billboards. There filmed a scene of Harry Potter VII Pt. 1 here too! We then walked to Trafalgar Square where they had a lot of fountains and sculptures and it’s suppose to be really nice looking, but by the time we got there, there was no water and it wasn’t really lit up so it didn’t look as impressive at night. So we decided to head back to our hotel room. There’s also a picture of us in the train station as well. It’s easy to learn once we knew where we were going! Oh and apparently, right by our hotel is the Wembley Arena and there was a big concert going on by a UK Pop Boy Band called McFly? Apparently that band is really big because as we were walking back to our hotel, so many people were leaving the arena since the concert just ended and there was a lot of young teenage girls with their moms haha! And we found out that a lot of celebrities who have concerts there like to stay at our hotel room, like Bon Jovi! Neat huh? We will send more updates as the days go by!
Day 2 – London:
Today we did a lot of stuff! First we got free breakfast with our hotel and the breakfast here is a lot better than most continental breakfasts back at home. It was buffet style and they had all sorts of food, like sausages, ham, bacon, cheeses, toast, scrambled eggs, omelets, yogurts, fruits, potatoes, has browns, cereals, grapefruit juice, orange juice, coffee etc! We couldn’t eat meat, but everything else was good! We went to the London Eye, it’s a REALLY big ferris wheel and you can see the whole city and Thames River below you. We got to see a 4D Experience before we went on the London Eye and it was really cool, like footage and effects in Soaring at CA Adv. Afterwards we took pictures by the Westminster Bridge, Big Ben (the big clock tower) and Buckingham Palace! We then to a Coach bus, the one with the 2 levels and they have comfortable leather seats too, and went to Windsor Castle. The drive was about 1 hr. 25 minutes and we made it just in time to see get into the castle for a tour. The Windsor Castle is the oldest and I think one of the largest castles, and the Queen her majesty herself lives there 2-5 days a week! What was really cool because we got to see most of the rooms in the castle and a when the Queen is staying at the castle; they put up the Royal Flag instead of the Union Flag. So near the end of the tour, we saw the Royal Flag go up, so it was really cool that we were so close to the Queen!!! After the Windsor Castle, we went to Westminster Abbey, and then did more site seeing things like the London Bridge and the London Tower and Bridge! We then also ate some really good vegetarian Indian food right by the London Bridge Tower.
Day 3 – Rome:
Last night we got to our hotel room by 11:30 and then I was uploading pictures and didn’t go to sleep until 12:30, only had about 2.5 hours of sleep, then we had to wake up at 3:15 so we can take the taxi to the airport for our flight to Rome! I don’t know how we didn’t fall asleep rome-ing the streets of Rome but somehow we did it! Going from the airport to our hotel this time was easier because we decided to just spend the money on a taxi because there probably isn’t a train or bus that will go to our hotel since the public transportation system is also very confusing. However, the downfall was that Khoa forgot his back cushion in the Taxi! I told him before we went on the trip not to bring it because I knew he would lose it and that it would be a hassle to carry around everywhere, but he insisted! So what happens? Only 2 days into the trip and he loses it! I hate to say it but I told him so! =P He gave that taxi driver a whopping $20 tip! Anywho, the biggest challenge today was to not let our feet bother us. It hurts really bad from all the walking we’ve been doing for the past 2 days…but we’re managing ok!
Once we got to the hotel, the taxi driver was nice enough to take us to Vatican City since our hotel is really far from central Rome. We didn’t know it was really far, but at least the room is nice and cheap. We went to the Vatican Museum and was really impressed with all the art and architecture there. We also went inside the Sistene Chapel and that was REALLY amazing as well. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside there, but I managed to get 2 video clips…so maybe I can get some screen shots from that footage! We also went inside St. Pete’s Basilica and that was REALLY big and amazing too. There were a lot of bishops doing something at the very end of the Basilica and but we didn’t know what it was, but that was cool to see. We then made it just in time to the Coliseum right before they closed the gates. It was cool to see the inside of the coliseum in person and Khoa was really excited to see that. We got to see the Constantine Arch and the really big monument to Victoria. We then had dinner at an Italian restaurant, well I guess it’s just restaurant over here, and we had really good Prosciutto Pizza and Linguini Pesto Pasta. They gave us free champagne, Khoa enjoyed them both, and we got the Canoli alla Sicilian. The best part was our view though, we sat on the 2nd level right across the street from the Coloseum! Today was really cool, but definitely a big toll on our feet! Time to recuperate our feet for tomorrow! Ciao!
Day 4 – Florence:
Buona cera (good evening)! Today we took the train and went to Florence for the day! We like Florence a lot more than Rome. It’s smaller so it’s a lot easier to just walk everywhere, but it’s also nicer, more friendly and has more of a relaxing feel to it. At first when we arrived in Florence, I was wearing shorts and a long sleeve shirt, but it was really cloudy and chilly compared to the sunny warm weather in Rome. So that really bummed me so we started look for a jacket or something since it was cold. I settled on a cheap scarf that can act as a shawl for 3 euros, and we carried on with our day. 35-40 mins later…it was bright and sunny and hot almost! Good thing I only spent 3 euros on the scarf instead of 20+ on a jacket! So that was a relief!
We visited the Boboli Garden, a really BIG garden with lots of sculptures, grass, fountains, and it is really high in elevation so we had many nice views of Florence. From the garden we went on the famous Pointe Vecchio, which is a small bridge but has lots of stores on the bridge for shopping, mostly expensive jewelry, but they have tons of Gellatio places so that’s where I tried the Nutella (creamy chocolate) Ice Cream, it was nutella swirls mixed with vanilla! Khoa got the Pistachio. Both were very good but my new favorite is Nutella! We then went to the Mercato Nuovo, and that’s just a little plaza that has carts for shopping, but it was mostly all the same type of stuff you can get at Chinatown. There’s a statue of a bronze boar there if you rub it’s nose, they say you’ll be able to come back and visit Florence again some day, so we definitely rubbed it’s nose! After that, we went to the Piazza del Duomo, with is a VERY large church that is still in service today. We got to take a peek inside the church and it’s REALLY big, it can fit 20,000+ people in there! From the church, we went to Piazza della Signoria square where they had lots of statues, including the replica of Michelangelo’s David! Then we went to the Galleria dell’ Accademia where it’s a huge museum of sculptures, mostly done by Michelangelo, and we got to see the original David statue. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures again at that museum, but it was pretty cool to see it in person. Also, that museum had a museum of musical instruments and lots of religious art as well. From there we went back to the bridges in Florence and relaxed and took more pictures, then took the train back to Rome and ate some Panini’s! Tomorrow we are off to Venice!! Arrivederci (goodbye)!
Day 5 – Venice:
Bounjourno (good day)! We woke up at 4am today to get to the airport for our flight to Venice! The flight was only 1 hour 10 mins, so we got to Venice pretty early in the morning, around 8:20am. From the airport we were able to take a Boat Bus that took us to the island of San Marcos so we can visit the Doge’s Palace and the San Marcos Basilica! First off, a Doge is what they call their ruler here, and he was pretty much like a Medieval King during that time period. The Palace is REALLY huge and we weren’t allow to take any pictures inside the actual palace, but it was really cool to see it. All the ceilings and walls are really fancy with intricate paintings and gold trimmings and detailing. There were apartments inside the palace for where the government people stayed, and there was even a prison in there! The prison looked really old like what you would see in the old movies with the stone walls and only a little window, like the prisons in the dungeon of a castle or something. They opened one of the prison rooms so you can walk inside it too, so that was neat. After the Palace we saw the San Marcos Basilica. We didn’t go inside because you have to pay to get in and you couldn’t take pictures inside of it either. We were pretty tired, so we just took pictures of it from the outside.
We wanted to go on a traghetto ride, which is a cheaper version of a gondola, but we were going to take a boat ride to the train station, so we figured it’s pretty much the same thing for a lot less in price. While taking the long boat ride to the train station, we got to see the Rialto Bridge, which is also a famous bridge in Venice and it’s the biggest bridge in Venice I think, and it also has restaurants and shop on it as well. I took a picture of it passing under it while on the boat ride on the Grand Canal! The city is really nice, the water smells though because people sweep cigarette ashes and dirt and other things into the water…but the atmosphere itself is fun. We didn’t stay here too long since we’re tired from lack of sleep and we want to spend more time in Milan.
The train ride to Milan is pretty cool at first because you have to cross the water to get into the mainland of Italy. So we were just on the train tracks surrounded by water!
Day 6 – Milan:
Today was a very busy and good day for many reasons! Firstly, we got a lot of sleep last night so that really helped us recharge our batteries and have more energy for the day. We originally only had 2 things planned to do today before we take our train ride to Nice, but Khoa got a tourist guide from the Hotel lobby so we ended up doing a whole lot more!
We had a free breakfast buffet at the hotel in the morning. It wasn’t as big as the buffet in London, but it was still good. There were scrambled eggs, ham, bacon, yogurt, fruit, pastries, toast, juices, and best of all, Nutella (smooth chocolate) spread! I never ate chocolate spread on toast before, but now it’s the only way to eat toast in my opinion!! It was very yummy! After breakfast we walked to the Metro to go to the S. Maria Delle Grazie Church hoping to see the original Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. When we got there, we found out that you can only go by reservation only and all reservations for that day was full. But we got to take a picture of a copy of the last supper…and it was nice to know we were in the same area where the real thing was…! After this we went to the P. Za Castello where there was a huge Sforza Castle Museums where they had a lot of Michelangelo’s architecture there and it’s a real huge castle fortress with a moat too. It’s all dried up, but it’s still cool to see. We then went to see the Duomo Cathedral, which is the largest gothic cathedral in the world! You can go inside and go to the rooftop of the cathedral and have a really nice view of Milan, but we decided not to do that because of time constraints and we didn’t want to wheel around our luggage and be loud inside a bug cathedral. Our next stop was the Fashion District in Milan right down the street from the Duomo. It was just a few street with big stores like Louis Vuitton, Guess, and other Italian designers, but also H&M too! We didn’t shop there because everything was too expensive, and we didn’t go into the H&M since we have one back at home. We then tried to go to the outlet stores instead. We couldn’t really find it since we only had so much time left to catch the last train to Nice, so we just looked inside some stores only the streets while walking back to the train station. We mostly went on the Metro to get everywhere in Milan, and the Metro system here is pretty good and very easy to understand. I think we’re beginning to be pro’s at learning the subway system now, and it was only 3 euros for an all day pass (unlike 8 euro in London)!
So we didn’t really get much shopping done since almost everything was pretty expensive, or it wasn’t anything too special. So now we had 30 mins to get to the train station! We were walking really fast and the train station wasn’t that far away, but wheeling around the luggage slowed us down a little, but we made the last train departing at 5:05pm! Khoa used the restroom on the train, and he told me that the bottom of the flush hole of the toilet stayed open for a little bit and he saw that the water just went straight down into the ground!!!!!! So I guess next time you’re walking on the railroad tracks…just watch your step…ewww! The train ride to nice is 4 hours to our first stop, then we switch trains to the second train that will take us to Nice, and that’s for another 50 minutes. We got to Nice around 10:25pm and then take a taxi to our hotel since it’s so late we just want to go straight to our room and sleep for the next day! Now we have to switch language mode from Italian to French! Our trip is already half way over can you believe it??? Bonne nuit (goodnight)!
Day 7 – Nice & Monaco:
Today we went to the Park Phoenix, which is like a garden and zoo combined and it was only walking distance from our hotel! It was a pretty nice park, they had a big pond and they had lots of different types of ducks, birds, ferrets, even a peacock! But also, this park specialized in lots of different plants and flowers. There’s a huge pyramid that’s a greenhouse and they had a little waterfall and rainforest environment in there and they had tons of different orchids, hibiscus, cacti, and other exotic plants from all over the world. It was pretty cool. We spent most of our time there, and then took a bus to Vieux Nice (Old Nice) and went to the Cours Saleya Flower Market (Avenue of Flowers ) there. There’s tons of flowers that’s for sale, all different kinds, and they span across multiple streets just selling flowers! Nice is a pretty nice area, sorta like La Jolla in San Diego, but with European buildings. We had lunch there since there’s restaurants on both sides of the Flower Market. I ordered stuffed muscles that had a pesto tasting sauce on it, it was pretty good, and I got khoa to try half a mussle!! That’s pretty good, he didn’t like it, but he survived. After lunch we walked along the Promenade der Anglias, which is the beach along the coastline of Nice. It had a nice view of the ocean and Nice, minus the people on the beach. We then walked to the train station and took a 25 minute train ride to Monaco, and went to the Monte Carlo. We walked along the coastline to get to the Monte Carlo Casino and it looked even nicer than Nice. But Monaco is a pretty rich area, so it makes sense. We then took the train back to Nice and ate dinner at our hotel again so we can get rested up for Paris tomorrow!! The funny thing about the food here in Nice (or at least in our hotel) is that the condiments come in little jars! I attached a picture that I took yesterday, it’s really fancy to have ketchup in a little glass jay than in the little packets. The food is REALLY good at our hotel, so we get something new each time to try more things. Ok, bonne nuit!
Day 8 – Paris:
Bonsoir! Today we flew to Paris in the morning, our flight was at 8:55am, so we got to sleep in a little bit today for once! Once we arrived in Paris, it wasn’t too bad to figure out how to use the Metro system there! Our check in time at the hotel wasn’t until 2pm, we landed around 10:10am, and got to the hotel by almost 11am, so we just left our luggage with the hotel in a locked room with our name tags, and then we started our adventure in Paris. We walked along Blvd. St. Germain and had lunch at this restaurant called Loulou’ Friendly Diner. The food there was really good! We then walked to the Luxembourg Garden nearly. It’s a really big park with lots of trees everywhere and in the middle is a really big pond. There’s the Luxembourg museum there too but we didn’t go to that. After the garden, we went back to our hotel to check in and rest for a little bit, get use to the new paris maps and circle all the train stops to the place we wanted to go, and then we were out and about again!
We went to the Eiffel tower, and took a slanted elevator to the 2nd level of the tower, which isn’t that high up yet, and then we took another elevator ALL the way up to the top summit of the tower! We took some pictures from the top to show you! We spent a long time up there just looking all around us, and it was pretty cool to be really high up and see everything! After this, we went to the Champs Elysees and walked around and ended up at the Arc de Triomphe. You can buy tickets to the Arc de Triomphe museum and go to the very top, but we decided not to because we were lazy to climb 200 steps of stairs since the escalator broke and we didn’t want to spend the money. We then had dinner at a place on the Champs Elysees St., and had REALLY good food there as well! That’s it for today! Hope everyone is enjoying the pictures! =) Bonne nuit!
Day 9 – Paris:
Bonjour! Today was another busy but really fun day in Paris! We got to sleep in a little bit till 9:30am, and then woke up and took a train to Disneyland Paris! It was nice, a little smaller than the one in California, but overall, it was still pretty fun! The big castle is definitely a lot nicer than ours, but we were a little bummed because they covered part of the front of the castle because they’re renovating it. But from what you can see, it looks pretty nice still! We went underneath the castle and you can see the big dragon which is really cool, and the inside of the castle is a lot prettier too. We then had lunch by the castle, and then went on It’s A Small World. It was also pretty cool and impressive like ours. We then went on Alice Curious Labyrinth which is a big maze that leads to the Queen’s castle! Indiana Jones was next and it was ok, ours is better, but it was a neat experience because the atmosphere waiting in line was cool, and the ride itself was a roller coaster. We then went to the Haunted Manor, which is Haunted Mansion and the outside leading up to the mansion was really nice and pretty, I like it more than ours. The inside was pretty similar in format too and the look was also pretty nice! It was scarier than our Haunted Mansion! The Space Mission 2 was really cool. It’s a little different in look, but the ride we felt was better than ours because of the meteors effects and stuff! We also went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, and it’s pretty much the same as ours, except Buzz Lightyear had a British accent at the beginning, and the controls can be removed from the cart. The only difference that we were bummed about was that you can’t email the picture at the end, you have to buy it. Also, there’s a lot more Disney characters walking around and they really act like their character too! We saw Chip & Dale, the Queen and Twiddle Dumb and Tweedle Dee and the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Aladin, the Madhatter walking around, and then all the other characters during the parade! The big castle though is probably my favorite there! It was really worth seeing!
After Disneyland, we stayed there for almost 6 hours, we went to Montmartre, which is like a Bohemian area of Paris that is located on top of a very big hill where a lot of the artists go to paint and get inspired. We first visited the Sacre-Croeur, which is a Romano-Byzantine church. There’s a really long stairway that leads up to the church, and once you get to the top, there’s a REALLY nice view of Paris. You can go inside the church since it is still an active church I think, but you have to be quiet and you can’t take any pictures. It’s really big and really nice and impressive! Right next to the church, there’s a long stairway down the big hill, and this is the famous Rue de Foyatier! Many painters painted these steps and a lot of people would paint on the and do their art along side these steps! Also right to so this is the Funicular, which is a little slanted tram that goes up and down the hill! Luckily, our metro tickets work for the Funicular, so we rode it down the Rue de Foyatier! After this we got dinner back in the Avenue of Champ Elysees at a different restaurant, and then went to take a picture in front of the Moulin Rouge! They still have big elaborate cabaret shows there but we had to go and take a picture in the front since Moulin Rouge is one of Khoa’s favorite movies! And that concludes our second day in Paris! Bonne nuit!! =)
Day 10 – Paris:
Bonjour! Today we went to the Marche aux Fleurs in the little Island on the Seine River called La Cite. We walked over to La Chapelle to take a picture, and then over to the Notre Dame Cathedral. We got to go inside and a mass actually started when we got in. The cathedral is really big and really nice and I was able to take pictures in there! We went to a Crepe place for lunch, called Briezh Café, and the wait was an hour long because it’s so popular! So we did some window shopping while we waited. The food was pretty good, authentic French crepes! It was really tasty! After lunch, we went to George’s Centre Pompiduo, a technological museum where the exterior of the building is all high tech and is too suppose to look like a bunch of wires and tubes and stuff. It’s a really big building so it was pretty to see it, and there’s a pond on the side of the building with weird spinning sculptures too. It was interesting. We then went to a French Bakery called Pierre Hermes and bought some macarons to eat at at our hotel. The bakery was right next to the big Paris Opera house though, so walked there and took a picture in front of it! We got back to the hotel and ate the macarons in like 2 minutes! They’re really good! We then headed out again to see the original Statue of Liberty! I knew it was suppose to be smaller than the one in New York, but it looked still pretty small in person. It’s still big but not nearly as big as what the one in NY probably. Yet it’s still cool to see! You can see the Eiffel Tower from the Statue of Liberty too, they’re not too far away from each other! There’s a nice little island called Allee des Cygnes where the statue is located and it’s right it the middle of the Seine River. There’s a nice walking path there with trees on both sides of the path and benches for people to just relax and enjoy mother nature.
We then got back onto the Metro and went to eat dinner at a place we found online on yelp.com, and it’s a really popular steakhouse. They’re really special because they don’t have a menu, the only serve you bread and a salad, and then steak with a creamy mustard base sauce, and “frits” (French Fries), and they don’t have ketchup. Once you finish your steak, they pull another piece of steak and refill your French Fries for you! They only do that once, but it’s really yummy! The wait was also pretty long, almost an hour, but it was worth it for the food. The service wasn’t that great and it took awhile for us to get our food, but overall it tasted really well! After dinner, we went to Laduree, another French Bakery that’s really fancy and popular on the Avenue of Champ Elysees, and we bought some more macarons for a late snack when we got back to our hotel. Before we went back to our hotel though. We stopped by the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up at night! It’s really pretty and after awhile, it starts to sparkle and twinkle like Christmas lights! We took a picture before it sparkled, I think the picture looks better this way, but it was pretty cool to see it twinkling! Ok, enjoy the pictures! Bonne nuit!
Day 11 – Paris:
Hello! Today was our last day in the wonderful city of Paris! We started our day by going to the Louvre Museum and saw the Mona Lisa amongst many other things! It’s a really big museum so there were way too many things to see, so we just went to a few of of the specific things that we had to see, and went straight to those things. We were probably there for about 3 hours, but you can probably spend a whole week there because there was so much to see. After the Louvre, we went to get lunch at the Avenue of Champs Elysees again, and ate at a restaurant called George V! All the tables inside are faced towards the street so you can people watch. The food was pretty good, we got a French Onion soup, although they only called it Onion Soup =P. It was pretty good! Khoa got a ham, egg, and cheese crepe and I got a roasted chicken with French Fries (or just fries as they would call it=P), and then a nutella and banana crepe!! The nutella crepe was REALLY good! After that, we did some window shopping along the street, and then went to Laduree (the French bakery) for some more macarons and got an isaphan, which looks like a big macaron, but has raspberries in the middle with lichee and cream! It was REALLY yummy!!! The isaphan is probably my favorite French dessert, we ate it in like 2 seconds because it was so good! After the Laduree, we went to La Defense where they had the Grand Arch, which is a GIANT hollow cube! It’s so big that it can contain the entire Notre Dame Cathedral! It’s used as an office building and they hold conventions in there as well! It’s pretty modern though, built in 1989, but it’s pretty impressive! We then rushed over to the Eiffel Tower again to take one last look at it in person before we headed back to our hotel to get our luggage. We checked out of our hotel in the morning, but they let us keep our luggage in a locked up room for us while to roam the city! So we then got to the airport and are back in London! Au revoir Paris!
Day 12 – London -> Chicago -> Home:
Hi everyone!! We are finally home sweet home! Today we took our first flight from London to Chicago where we had a 6 hour layover. The flight from London to Chicago was a little over 8 hours and they gave us 2 meals, it wasn’t too bad, we got ham and cheese omelet with fruit and crackers for the first meal, and then pizza calzone and pasta with candy and crackers for the second meal. Khoa really liked the calzone! I slept a lot during the first flight but Khoa didn’t sleep that much because he wanted to watch a lot of the movies on the airplane. When we arrived in Chicago, the weather was pretty cold and cloudy, unlike the nice sunny weather in London! We got a car rental and went to the city for some sightseeing. We went to the Millenium Park and saw the Cloud Gate, which is a giant reflective bean that allows you to see all the big buildings and the cool cloudy sky above! We then had lunch at subway, oh good old American food haha! We continued the day by looking at more things at the millennium park, like the Jay Pritzer stadium, the Boeing Gallery where they had 2 interesting looking sculptures, the Faces Fountain, and the Wrigley Square. The faces fountain is a big rectangle space with 2 big rectangular blocks with screens on them. The screen shows a person’s faces and it changes expressions every so often, and then they blow out water from their mouth. The water for the faces fountain wasn’t on so it wasn’t as cool, but the images still was interesting. We then headed back to the airport to finish our long journey home!! =) Oh how good it feels to finally be home after a wonderful adventure! We love you and hope you enjoyed our emails and pictures!!
