Meeting the Relatives...so many

My 97 year old grand mom who was shy of camera. We tired so hard to get her in the picture and here she was...waving to say 'no'. After meeting grand mom, Josh wondered... will I ever shrink that much like grand mom when I get old. He is concerned that he will have to bend so much just to hug me.

Photo time after catching up...most of them ran and went hiding. They refused to be famous on our blog. We only got two uncles, my mom's older brothers.




We went to see some old things in Tainan city. Mom's older sister and her husband joined us in 安平古堡(Anping Castle) which was called Orange and Zeelandia. Information for Anping Castle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Zeelandia_%28Taiwan%29



Relatives in Taipei... all the uncles, aunts, and some cousins. It's been a very long time since I last saw all of us together. It was great to see everyone.

Sevilla and Cordoba Spain

First time to Spain... my impression? peaceful courtyards with fountains, warm weather (compared to Germany in February), fresh sea food, gorgeous tile works in the beautiful old buildings, and big churches. So do I like Spain? I love it!!

We spent 8 days in Sevilla south of Spain. It was wonderful although we got a couple days of rain. Most of the time, Josh was working so I was on my own. The hotel we stayed at was far from downtown and on the other side of river. This time I didn't bother to find out the bus system because of the convenient and cheap bicycles that city provides. I used my credit card to get an account and all I needed was to pull out a bike and started riding to wherever my agenda was. As long as I put the bike back into one of the bike stops in 30 minutes, it was free. Everyday I biked alone the river and was feeling good that I might lose a couple pounds with all the hard work I put into riding the bike. The truth, I was just comforting myself because the tapas was so good. I was lucky that I didn't gain weight after eight days.

Another thing that is special about Sevilla was the orange trees. Wherever you are in the city...church, park, palace, streets, restaurants, bus stops, bicycle stops...there are orange trees. The smell of the orange blossoms would just put you in a vacation mood. They are beautiful to look at too.

Josh also did one thing that could be the top 5 romantic things he ever did...insisted that I put it on the blog so here it is... He took me on a horse carriage ride. I have to say...that was the best way to tour Sevilla....romantic (so many women looked at me with the eye that says I wish I am on the carriage too) , relaxing, and easy (no walking).

We also spent one day in Cordoba where an interesting mixed Christian and Islamic church/ mosque is located. It was amazing and incredible. With all the churches I have been to, I would say besides the Saint Peter Church in Vatican, the cathedral/mosque was the most memorable church we visited.

I took so many pictures that I had hard time to pick a few to show you of how beautiful the south of Spain is. You can click on 'our photos to share' to view them.

Salzburg Austria

The beautiful old town of Salzburg... snow on the mountains, a fortress on the hill, beautiful old buildings, a river running through the center, and sweet dessert.
Salzburg is known as the birth town of Mozart and the 'Sound of Music" movie. We did visit the birth house which was totally a rip off. The birth house/apartment is a so called museum which contained a fake baby in a bassinet, a piano surrounded by Mozart family portraits, and strings of his hair, and other person stuff. We didn't lean much more about Mozart's life than we already knew.

Our favorite things during this weekends trip were having beers at the Monerstary Braüstüberl in the city district of Mülln (Josh's favorite) and attending a classic concert in Schloss (palace) Mirabell (Ally's favorite).

Pisa

We had pizza in a piazza in Pisa. Not only was it fun to say, it was great actually having a chance to do it. We went to see the Pisa leaning tower after we arrived. It was raining and cold. Since it was during the off season, we had no problem to get tickets to go inside the tower. (Because of the tower's structure, the tower was limited to certain number of people each day. It was recommended to purchase tickets online two weeks early.) Walking inside the tower was more difficult than I thought... the stairs were narrow and it leans so much to one side that I had to walk against the wall. It was very beautiful even on a raining day. We could see the green fields surrounding Pisa, and the mountains beyond the field.

Next day, we decided to check out Luca... however the train was on strike. Bummer! But it was okay...because we could take bus... so we were told. It took us a while to find the right bus stop and we waited for an hour....and the bus never came. Super disappointed. The public transportation is just not that reliable in Italy. Anyway, we spent the second day wandering Piazza die Miracoli and took more pictures. Although, we were disappointed of not going to Luca, the food in Pisa were surprising good. We were impressed that we could eat cheese with onion jam.

I am so looking forward to seeing more of Tuscany. Next time, I am going to rent a car for sure since we have a GPS now. (Yes...we have a GPS but we don't drive and don't have a car in Germany.)

Holiday with Family in Florida

Family - what makes us smile!

Time in Florida was short and flew by fast. We ate... talked..., and ate... talked, and more food... more conversation to catch up with everybody's life. The food and conversation were excellent! It was fun.

Our 20 minutes on the Florida beach. Blue sky and white super soft sandy beach. Lovely.

Games on... we played Trivial Pursuit from the 80s (before my time in this country)... tough game by the way. All the cousins got together...second time in one year... a record. Last time was at Aaron and Becca's wedding. Aaron and Becca continued our tradition of meeting for New Years!!!! (Well almost...we had new year's on the plane :-( but the general timeframe is good enough)!

Christmas Market in Germany

If you like Christmas, you would love Christmas Markets in Germany. One of the best time to be in Germany - feastive cities/towns and cheerful people due to the side affect on glüh wines. We usually ate tons of food and had a few glüh wines while walking around.

We saw several Christmas Markets that were close to Stuttgart. Some were local Christmas Markets so they were small. I went to one of the small ones in Tübingen. It was cute surrounded by old buildings. Since it's a local market, there were kids playing instruments instead of caroling - trying to earn a few extra holiday bucks. Tübingen Christmas Market only lasts for a couple days over a weekend. Thus, the market was super crowded. There was a time that I could not walk or move unless people started moving around me.

Ludwigsburg - a professional Christmas Market. It started pouring rain after we were there for about one hour.


Stuttgart - one of the biggest professional ones in southern Germany. The booths were heavily decorated and sold various products from Christmas ornaments, candles, sausage, sweets, glüh wine, to household kitchen wear and clean supplies. They also had small rides for children.

Finally, my favorite Essilingen - a professional medieval Christmas Market. Forgot the camera so...no pictures. Hopefully... next year. Besides the traditional Christmas Market, Essilingen had a separate Medieval part that was lite with electrical and oil lanterns, fire torches, and random wood fire places. The booths sold medieval clothing, containers, and food (a roasting pig on top of fire, big chunk of meat with bread...) They even had two huge wooden bath tabs with real naked people taking baths and a porto-potty that would amaze you.

Fun Birthday

It was a great and fun birthday except a little incident with the chocolate that Josh brought home with a bottle of champagne. They took out Ally's tooth! What a tough chocolate!! Guessed when you get old, your body just started falling apart. (Fortunately, we had insurance here and it was easily fixed.) Anyway, I couldn't let a fallen tooth stop me from having a delicious dinner at an African restaurant. In fact, our order was a big platter that included Ostrich, antelope, and crocodile. They were very delicious. Everybody's dish turned out to be great. That was definitely some food I don't know how to make. I am not even sure where to buy Ostrich, antelope, and crocodile...perhaps if we are living in Africa, I would be able to find them in the backyard.