I finally got around to post some of our Santorini pictures after we've been back for three weeks!

 We arrived at the Santorini airport very early in the morning after having to stop at Athens airport. When the hotel personnel picked us up, I could just vaguely see the ocean wave gently patting the shore from far away. It was still dark outside and on our way to the hotel we could only see bakeries with workers inside, the town was still asleep. The driver dropped us off at a rather sleepy little town, I saw short houses and narrow, crooked streets, and having never been to Santorini before, I didn't quite know what to expect. Once we started decent from the hotel entrance door down the little pathway, this view started to reveal itself, and I thought it was quite breath taking.

During our stay at Santorini, we had the best food out of all three cities that we visited. Walked many narrow and steep mountain roads, got quite a lot of good work out from it, and enjoyed the view. The sky was never clearer, the ocean was never bluer, you can say that it was a world outside the real world!

In the morning we slept in, breakfast with pastry, coffee and orange juice was delivered around 9 am. At first we ate whatever was brought to us, but then we realized that we could order Greek yogurt with fruit, so we had that and it was delicious! Having our breakfast and coffee on our patio looking out the ocean was quite a pick upper first thing in the morning!

We saw lots of pets just hanging out on their own in Santorini. It seems that they were all pretty used to seeing the tourists, and they never even budged when I took their pictures. The little brown dog on the last picture belonged to a girl who worked at the restaurant we dined at. On our first day I gave him a piece of fresh catch of the day fish, but he refused! After I asked the waiter why, he said the little dog didn't like fish, he ate mostly meat, and only fish when he was very hungry! Being the dog lover that I am, I ordered meat at the second meal, and he got some!

When we started our European trip, I was very grumpy whenever we had to walk, but by the time we got to Santorini, I had gotten used to it, and loved walking everywhere! I'd insist on walking to places even when my husband thought it was a good idea to take a bus! It was quite an experience to walk under the warm Mediterranean sun, with ancient stone path under our feet.  The next town was about 30 minutes away, we did some sight seeing on foot while popping in and out of little shops along the way. Mostly, we were just so impressed with the beauty of this little island, and tried to enjoy every minute of it as much as we could!   

Almost every evening, I'd jump into the hot tub on our private patio with some local wine in hand and watch the sun set.  One thing is for certain, you cannot beat the sunset in Santorini, it was the most beatufiul sunset I've ever seen!

Usually, after the sunset my husband and I got dressed and walked out in search of a great restaurant. It didn't take long to find one tucked away in some little corner. If we heard wine glasses clinking and people's laughters, we knew good food was near by! There were many such little restaurants with great ambience, food, and the breathtaking ocean view on the side.

The dish on the last picture was called fava. It was grown on the island, and prepared with some kind of fusion twist. We enjoyed every bite of it because it was so delicious and the taste was something I've never quite experienced before!

It usually was already pitch dark when we finished our dinner. On our way back to the hotel we must be very careful walking on those bumpy roads, but on a lucky day the moon would be out, reflecting beautiful silvery lights on the ocean, and needless to say it was very romantic!  

The days quickly passed, and soon it was time to say good bye! I left the island loving it whole heartedly, and hope that we will come back there again soon someday. This European trip was really my first trip traveling for an extended period of time, and it had opened my eyes and filled me in ways I never imagined before.  If one thing I learned, would be that I love traveling and seeing the world, and I want to make an effort to do more of it from now on!

We are finally back from our trip! It lasted a little over two weeks, quite a long time to be away from home for me. My husband and I traveled to death yesterday changing three flights from Santorini to Athens to London to LAX. From the time we left our hotel in Santorini early in the morning at 5 AM to when we got in our house, a whole 24 hours went by. By the time we picked up Kelly from our friend's house and had dinner, we were so sleep deprived that we could barely walk or talk. Was is worth it? Absolutely! I loved traveling and I think we will try to do more of it from now on! So now I want to share some pictures of our trip and document it while the memory is still fresh!

When we got married last year, with moving to a new house, having a wedding in China (nuts!) and receiving relatives and hosting new house parties, we completely ran out of both time and money to have our honeymoon, since these things require planning and we were so planned out, the honeymoon trip took place this year.  Actually things were not any less chaotic when we left our house this year than last, but we just went for it anyway!

When we arrived in London, I immediately forgot how to speak English since I didn't have the British accent that everyone around there seemed to carry. Our hotel was in the Covent Garden, not necessarily a family neighborhood because I saw mostly very young working professionals in their 20s and almost no kids. It was quite convenient to take the Tube everywhere, it seemed to be the preferred form of transportation for Londoners, so that was what we did aside from coming from the airport. The city has a way faster rhythm than LA, and it was also very exciting. We arrived at our hotel in the early afternoon, not wanting to waste anytime, we headed out immediately to see sights. We visited museums that day and after heading back to the hotel to freshen up in the evening, we head out to search for some dinner. The thing I noticed about London and also Paris is that it can be quite unpleasant to be on a major street with all the noise and traffic, but if you turn into the small alleys you quite often discover a string of cafes and shops, adding in that the surrounding buildings are so very old and full of history, it instantly becomes a magical place!
That first evening we had Indian curries for dinner and walked on those old cobble stone streets dimly shiny reflecting the street lamps. After dinner we looked at shop displays, ( everything closes way early) and found a British pub, or as they just call it in London, a pub. We sat among Londoners and watched people having a jug of beer at the end of day and chatting away with friends. It left quite an impression on me, as it was everything I imagined London to be, but better because I was actually there.

It was quite a task to find a breakfast place for Jeff and me. We Californians are used to sitting in breakfast cafes sipping coffee and having some waffles or scrambled eggs, not so in London, or at least not where we stayed. I decided that it would be a good idea to have some London breakfast, after much walking and searching, and found that super cute kitty in the picture above standing by the window sill, we found a very good place with beans and poached tomatoes.  The way coffee works there, correct me if I'm wrong, is that people don't really drink drip coffee. Black coffee is just a small cup of espresso, and white coffee is the general terms of coffee with milk.  Depending on the amount of milk you want, you called it cafe latte or Cappuccino etc. It took me a while to realize what this white coffee business was about, so I thought it was worth mentioning. Coffee everywhere was pretty good though, I have no complaint on that!

In my touristy mind, being in London you have to have fish and chips and at least see the sights once. Certain places like the Buckingham Palace is only open a few months of the year, so it is a good idea to keep these things in mind when you time the trip. I loved the Buckingham Palace, since it is still functioning as a real palace, it is in pristine condition and a great pleasure to visit. We made a half day excursion outside of the city and visited the Windsor Castle, saw the Queen's dollhouse, which was such a inspiration for me to start working on my disgruntled little dollhouse. We also got a tour to the Royal Kitchen in Windsor Castle, there were so few people there that it practically felt like a private tour, which was so enjoyable!

Before we left home I wanted to see a concert of some sort in London. The one we managed to see was a piano recital in Wigmore Hall. It was so funny that one of the piece was composed and originally premiered a hundred years ago or so on the same day in Wigmore Hall. After the concert Jeff and I went to get some late night dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant near by, and the pianist and his friends sat down not too far away from us and had dinner at the same restaurant.

It is quite amazing when we were at some of the restaurants or pubs and saw signs of the restaurant established from the 1800s, definitely not something you regularly see in the U.S.

Dinning out in general though, seemed extremely expensive. It is twice as expensive to eat in London as it is in the U.S., so we didn't see restaurants packed like in densely populated cities such as San Francisco.

Before our trip in London draw to a close, we visited a few shops and I snatched up a little purse in Jigsaw London. A vacation for a girl is not complete without a little shopping, right? But more on that later!