As usual we visited a few tourist attractions.  If you are an art-lover, I highly recommend you to visit the Picasso museum, La Sagrada Família and the Gaudi Park.  I am honestly not too excited about the works of Picasso as I think my artistic sense is not really up to that level, but I do like some of his works and bought a few postcards.

The La Sagrada Família is a church designed by Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) and is still under construction.  It is truly an amazing design – blending nature, modern art, cryptic and biblical stories into the church building.  A picture is worth a thousand words – which I will post later.

The Gaudi Park features more of Gaudi’s works.  Magnificient is the only word that can describe them.

We also ate a lot, well, as usual.  There are 3 things I must try: Sangria, paella and the suckling hog.  I only knew there are other variations of paella when I arrived.  Apart from the traditional paella, we tried the paella cooked in squid ink and the paella in noodle instead of rice, named Fideua.  The paella in squid ink is our favourite.  I had Sangria with my meals every single day, and Doris was complaining that I talked too much when I drink.  Oops that sounds like my dad.

We had big problem finding restaurants serving the suckling hog.  Finally we found it in a traditional restaurant.  It was lucky we went early as there was a long queue when we left!  They also serve very well prepared fish and I must say all the food that they serve are truly stunning.  Although it was the most expensive meal we had for the whole trip, it well worths it.

We also tried a lot of tapas in the tapas bars and cafes.  Not all of them are nice, I must say, but generally they are tasty and make a good snack between meals.  Spanish usually have dinner after 9pm.  Spanish hams are also very famous and we had that for breakfast (!!) on the first day.

Our next ‘big’ trip is going to be Lisbon.  Before that, I seriously need some rest…

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

We happened to be visiting Holland on the coldest weekend of Europe.  It was very windy.  However it has such a nice scenary!  I especially like the houses along the canals.

There are a lot of bicycles in Amsterdam as it is well planned for cyclists.  This is a ‘bike park’ near the train station:

Bike park

As you can see it is full of bicycles.  If it was not that windy, we would have hired some bicycles and travel around.

View our photo album here

We have also visited Willeke’s place in Leiden.  Thank you for the lovely dinner!  And we also had a very nice chat.

Kat stayed in Leiden for 2 weeks as she was working in Willeke’s lab to gain some experience.  And hence we had a tour at the lab and the hospital (which was attached to the lab) and I have seen a lot of things which I have no idea about!

The trip was great fun and relaxing.

嫲嫲給我的印象一向是和藹可親的；記得從小到大，每逢佳節，我們都一定會去探望嫲嫲。等待著我們的，除了一桌子的佳餚，一箱一箱的玩具，印象最深刻的，就是嫲嫲的笑臉。不論我還是小孩子的時候， 或是已長大成人，每次見到嫲嫲的時候， 她總是會以那和善、溫柔而燦爛的笑容來迎接我。由於我們一家已離開香港到外地生活十幾年，可以探望嫲嫲 的機會並不多。 但嫲嫲從不會因為我們對她的疏忽而感到不高興， 反而總是掛念我是否過的好。我知道嫲嫲是打從心底裡疼愛我們每一個，她那份無條件的愛令我深深受感動。雖然嫲嫲現在不在我們身邊，但她的教導將會永記在我腦海中， 她的愛會永遠不變的深印在我心裡。

嫲嫲，妳的離開，雖然令我們心痛，但我深信妳是到了一個更美好的地方， 也知道這只是暫時的分離。將來，我們我們一定會在天家再見面。那時候，我們要再一次在妳的笑容中，與妳閒話家常。我答應你，我在地上的日子會好好的生活，好好的照顧自己，請妳不用掛心。

嫲嫲，願妳安息主懷。

Until Leo is back on Sunday afternoon, I am home alone this week. I stayed in the lab for a little bit longer than usual. After I got home, I cooked myself a simple meal and watch HK drama for whole night. It is a strange feeling to be alone in a house, there is nobody else except myself and the computers. It has been especially cold this week, under 10 degree! It feels especially cold when there is noone sleeping next to me at night.

My dear, although I miss you very much, you don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myself and you need to take care of yourself there too. Don’t get bully by others .

This time we travelled with Faith & Christy.  Surely, we had a very enjoyable and fun time!

Nice scenary, nice food, nice chats.

Amongst the 3 cities, I like Cannes the most.  It has the best scenary and very enjoyable walk-path by the beach.  Living in Switzerland, different from in NZ, causing us not having a chance to see the sea for a very long time!  And for the last 3 days, we have been walking along the beaches, smelling the smell of the ocean, feeling the breeze, walking on the sand…

Not to be missed are the nice seafood, wine, steak, cocktail, ice-cream…

We spent the last 1/2 hour in a beach-side restaurant drinking nice cocktail.  It was a pity that we had to rush to the airport.  It would be so great if we could sit there for only another 1/2 hour…

Unlike most of our trips, we didn’t bother to visit the tourist attractions.  We just have a relaxing weekend, walk around, lots of chats, eat eat eat, and I did some reading as well.

We visited a big toy store – 7 levels full of toys!  We bought 2 new Lego sets, which are basically board games built by Lego.  The set that I really wanted was out of stock   And by reading the catalogue, I found that there is another set that I want ….

We watched the “Dirty Dancing” musical and it was surprisingly good.  Love the dancing and the stage design – superb.  I give 8 out of 10.

We stayed at Mary’s place this time (thanks Mary) and as usual, we are being taken care of very well.

(Photos to be uploaded)

After we reached Waiheke island, we drove straight to the holiday house that we booked. After driving through a curve unformed road, we were finally there! The house is huge and nice with a big deck and with a beautiful view looking out to the sea! magnificent! Lolly was overwhelmed and was running around everywhere!

At 5:30pm, we got a called from Christima that she has just missed her ferry and she won’t arrive until 7:00pm. Hence, we decided to go out for dinner first. We went to this italian restaurant and had couple pizzas and salads. They were absolutely delicious! Then, we went to the ferry terminal to pick up Christina and went back to the holiday home.