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This journal is about raising identical twins.One Hundred and Twelveth Month
Previous entriesNote: This page may contain Chinese text in Unicode encoding. Some web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer 5) can display the text without any user intervention if the fonts are available. Some web browsers (e.g. Netscape) will display the Chinese text only if you switch Character Set under the View menu to Big5 traditional Chinese.
Monday, Nov 6, 2006 (9y+3m)
The twins are 111 months old today.They went to school as usual. Mommy tried to get the battery replaced in her car at Sear's auto shop. She gave up after waiting in the shop for over an hour. The shop were totally disorganized and clueless in handling customer's appointment.
Mommy bought another replacement goldfish. She negotiated with the store owner to trade our aggressive mollies with goldfish. Hopefully, when we don't mix species in the fish tank, the fish would not die as fast. Mommy moved the mollies into an isolation jar until we could do the exchange later.
Tuesday, Nov 7, 2006 (9y+3m+1d)
Daddy got a phone call at 7:30am in the morning. Aunt Elaine's car broke down with a failed brake. Daddy went to take a look. She also called his friend who is a mechanic to help.The twins went to school as usual. Today was election day. The twins followed mommy to the poll to cast her vote. The twins got a sticker that said "I voted touchscreen". The twins had piano lesson in the afternoon. Mommy exchanged the mollies for two goldfish at the store. Now we only have goldfish in the tank, hopefully they would survive better without stress.
When daddy came late home from work, the family had already finished dinner. The twins were reading some Chinese story books. They had already finished their homework and practiced piano before dinner.
After daddy had dinner and went out to help uncle Ronnie practice for his upcoming driving test. Daddy kiss the twins good night before they went to bed.
Wednesday, Nov 8, 2006 (9y+3m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual. Everything else went as usual too. Daddy worked late as usual and went to help uncle Ronnie straight from work. Daddy said goodnight to the twins on the phone.
Thursday, Nov 9, 2006 (9y+3m+3d)
The twins went to school as usual. Aunt Elaine took uncle Ronnie to the DMV for his driving test. He failed the test. The examiner said his driving skill was good, but his decision making was not good. For example, he slowed down before a green light and hesistate to go without reason. Daddy thought otherwise, uncle Ronnie was too nervous and had too much in his head to focus on the road. He had the same hesistation numerous times during practice.Daddy came home late as usual. The twins were all doing their free time because they had no homework today. Joanne showed a spider in a plastic box with a magnifying lens on the cover. She said she could see the details of the spider through the lens. Joanne said she found the spider on her shoulder at school. She was very scared but still managed to capture it into her box without hurting it. However, the spider was already dead by the time daddy saw it. Jasmine said it must have suffocated inside the air tight box. Joanne got the magnifying box from the teacher as a raffle prize. The teacher hand out raffle tickets to students that did well in class. The more raffle tickets a student collects, the bigger chance to win some goodies at the end of the week. It was a pretty good motivation for the kids to behave well in class, yet the teacher did not have to give out a prize in every single instance of good deeds.
Since they had no school tomorrow on Veteran's day, they got to stay a little later than usual. Daddy marked their height on their growth chart on the wall. Jasmine grew three quarter inch taller than Joanne since last measurement. Joanne grew about one eighth.
Friday, Nov 10, 2006 (9y+3m+4d)
It was Veteran's day. It was a school holiday. Daddy went to work as usual.The night before was very cold. The weather forecast recommended people to move their animals and plants indoors because the nighttime temperature would drop to freezing. The twins said that their comforters were not warm enough. Jasmine said she was shivering in bed.
The twins were old enough to take care of themselves. They had been in charge of their own bedding for quite sometime. In the last changing of duvet covers, Jasmine told daddy that she forgot to put the second layer in. We bought dual layer silk comforters for them. They would use one layer in summer and use two layers in winter. Both layers fit inside the duvet cover, so the comforter works as one piece. Since it was not cold over a week ago, daddy said it was okay to just leave the spare layer of comforter at the foot of the bed. That was what they did. When it was cold last night, Jasmine said she didn't pull the extra layer up because of two reasons: 1. It was not inside the duvet cover, she might make the comforter dirty because she often kicked her comforter around like crazy during her sleep. 2. The spare comforter was stacked next to the wall and she worried there would be spiders in it. Fortunately, the twins' beds were side by side. Joanne just threw her comforter over on top of Jasmine. They shared their comforters for the night.
Mommy played tennis with Ashley's mom. The twins went along and played with Ashley. They went shopping in the afternoon.
We were invited to Christopher's birthday dinner in the evening. Terence, Claire and Benjamin's family were invited. Claire's family brought their karaoke machine again. The adults had fun singing after dinner. The kids continued to play on their own. The kids joined in to sing some of the children songs too. Only Terence and Christopher picked up the microphone, the other kids refused to sing along.
Saturday, Nov 11, 2006 (9y+3m+5d)
The twins' swimming class should have ended last week. But due to two cancelations in a row, the class extended to this week and next week. Since it was so cold these few days, the twins refused to swim. We needed to work with the coach to make up the missed class next summer.Grandma Chui prepared lunch for us. Deanna's mom dropped off Deanna with us for they had some errand to run. Addison had tennis lesson in the afternoon, so he would be busy. We all went to grandma's place for lunch. Grandma had not seen Deanna for years and could not recognize her. After lunch, we dropped off Deanna at her art class before 3:30pm. We went shopping for Claire's upcoming birthday. We gave the present to her because we would not be attending her birthday party next week. We picked up Deanna before we went to dinner. We had dinner with grandma Chui, aunt Elaine and uncle Ronnie, Deanna's family joined us too.
After dinner, we all gather at our home to continue chatting. Uncle Ronnie brought some travel DVD he made himself. We gathered around the TV to see the Disneyland in Hong Kong, the great wall of China etc. After Disneyland the kids asked "Can we go now?", then they went off to play on the computer with Deanna. There were so much to see that the party was over at around midnight.
Sunday, Nov 12, 2006 (9y+3m+6d)
We went to great grandpa's grave in the morning. Great grandma, mommy's uncle and her cousins were there. Mommy's sisters and their family were there too. We didn't go last year, the twins said they didn't remember the place although they had been there many times when they were little. After we attended the grave, we went to the restaurant for lunch.During lunch, mommy's cousin was talking about his triplets. His wife and triplets stayed home because it was a handful to bring them to the restaurant. He asked mommy how she managed the twin babies all by herself. They were having a hard time handling the triplets with 5 to 6 adults to help. We shared some of our tricks and routines. Whether they could follow was up to them to adjust.
After we left the restaurant, we bought some pastry from mommy's favorite bakery. We went straight to Jasmine W's place. We asked the twins to take a nap on the way because of a traffic jam on the highway. Jasmine got up after awhile because Joanne didn't leave her any room to rest her head.
When we were at Jasmine W's house, the moms chatted and the kids played on the computer. Daddy lied on the sofa and took a nap. In the evening, Jasmine W's daddy came home before we all went out to have a Japanese dinner. We spent half a day at Jasmine's house today.
Monday, Nov 13, 2006 (9y+3m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins did a report on their birthstone a few weeks back. Daddy bought a couple of peridot loose stones from eBay for them. The stones arrived today and they were very happy about the gift.
Tuesday, Nov 14, 2006 (9y+3m+8d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano class in the afternoon.
Wednesday, Nov 15, 2006 (9y+3m+9d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006 (9y+3m+10d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy worked late and came home after 9:30pm. Mommy said the twins took a long nap in the afternoon, so they were allowed to stay up till 11pm. Daddy took the opportunity to talk to the twins about what they did. The twins said they did the usual things. Jasmine said she played basketball as usual. She said she used to throw the ball underhand. She grew tall enough to throw the ball the regular way now. Joanne said she like to play in the playground everything. She said she climbed on the monkey bar today and sat on it 5 feet off the ground. A boy from 2nd grade was very mean and tried to pull her legs to make her fall down. Joanne struggled to shake him off but kicked his face by accident. Daddy said it was not nice to kick a little boy. Jasmine said Joanne only kicked him by accident while defending herself from falling off the bar. It is a good thing that the twins knew how to defend themselves. They took a nap when they came home. After they woke up, mommy gave them a dictation test in Chinese because the teacher would test them tomorrow. Both of them did quite well in writing the Chinese characters from memory.
Friday, Nov 17, 2006 (9y+3m+11d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had a Chinese dictation test early because they took the winter break 3 days early. In the evening, they went out to dinner with Jocelyn's family. Mommy and their mom sat at a coffe shop after dinner. The kids played in side their mini van. They turned on the music, the heater and the dome light in the car. After half an hour, they couldn't start the car because they drained the battery. Mommy called Rachel's mom who lived the closest to their location. They went over there to pick up a jumper cable. The twins said they wanted to say hi to Rachel. As soon as they passed the door, they disappeared into the rooms. Mommy took the cable to rescue Jocelyn's family car. The twins got to play with Rachel while mommy was in her rescue mission. When mommy returned to pick them up, it was past 10pm. Rachel's bed time is 8pm usually. The twins kept her up way past her bedtime. Her mom said it was okay because it was a Friday.When they came home, daddy was home from work busy fixing the cable TV box. Our cable company Comcast downloaded some new firmware onto our cable set-top box this morning. The box was not working since then. It turns out that the new firmware is not compatible with any HDMI or DVI connection. As soon as the TV was turned on, the cable box would go though a power on-off cycle. That rendered the cable TV not watchable. Daddy unplugged the DVI cable and connect the TV using the component cable.
Saturday, Nov 18, 2006 (9y+3m+12d)
We went to lunch with Ashley's family. Ashley's mom would have her birthday tomorrow. We treated her lunch in advance because we would go out of town starting tomorrow. After lunch, the kids requested to go to Borders bookstore. We spent couple hours there. Daddy showed a Disney's book on fairy to Jasmine. She replied, "Didn't I tell you I don't like Disney anymore?" Is it the loss of innocence?
Sunday, Nov 19, 2006 (9y+3m+13d)
We prepared our house for a long trip. For example, we shutdown all the computers, turned off the furance, unplugged most heating appliances, locked all the windows and doors etc. Hing took us to the airport at 12:30pm. We had pizza for lunch at the airport. A group of our friends was travelling together for the Thanksgiving holidays. Our group included Kenny, Betsy and their 4 year old Cornell, SiuLing and her husband Ed and her sister Joanna, Agnes and her husband Ken. There were more that we would meet at the destination. We gathered at the gate. We boarded the plane at 4pm. The flight attendants gave a game pack to the twins which included an electronic game. The twins were very excited about the new toy. We spend 10 hours on the plane. We lost some hours due to the time zone difference.
Monday, Nov 20, 2006 (9y+3m+14d)
It was Monday morning when we disembarked the plane at London Heathrow airport. We waited 2 hours for the connecting flight until 1:10pm. We arrived at Madrid, Spain at 4:30pm local time. At the baggage claim area, we met Evon's cousin Virna and her husband Henry and her ex-coworker Ellen. We then spent the next hour or so doing what tourists do at the airport: waiting for luggage, asking for directions, exchanging currency. We already did some research on the Internet at home. We just were confirming the information.We took the shuttle bus from terminal 4 to terminal 2. The Metro (Madrid's subway) station under terminal 4 would not be opened until next month. The twins were very helpful in lugging the luggage from place to place. We took the Metro under Terminal 2. Line 8 took us to the Neuvos Ministerios station where we switched to line 10. It was rush hour when we commuted with a trainful of Spaniards. We got off at Principe Pio station and looked for our hotel. We asked for directions from the Policemen, the passerby, the newsstand sellers. All of them gave conflicting instructions. The policemen and the newsstand guy even got into a heated argument due to their disagreement. We looked at the map and the landscapes and decided to trust the newsstand guy because it was his turf. We walked about 5 minutes to the hotel. The trip on the Metro was pretty short, perhaps around half an hour include switching train lines. But getting a group of 14 people to move at the same time took a lot of waiting around and wasted time.
It was 7:30pm when we checked in to the hotel. The hotel room could accommodate 3 people per room at max. We were given two joining rooms. The twins could run back and forth between the two rooms. Cornell also came to check out our joining rooms too. Evon and Ronald were already in their room taking a nap. They started their trip a week earlier to cover more cities. We walked to Plaça de España for dinner. We went to bed early after the long trip aross the Atlantic Ocean.
Tuesday, Nov 21, 2006 (9y+3m+15d)
We got up at 7am in the morning. We had complimentary continental breakfast at the hotel. They offered the famous Spanish cured ham. We carved the meat from a leg of ham on our own. The twins enjoyed the yogurt and hot chocolate, cereal etc.We walked to Palacio Real (the Royal Palace) at 9am. We spent a couple of hours touring inside the palace. We had lunch at Plaza Mayor. We tried the Paella, but it wasn't good. The paella had a brandname called OK Paella, and I guess the brandname told the truth. We visited Museo Nacional del Prado till 5:30pm. Unlike the Louve in Paris, no photography was allowed inside the museum.
We walked to the Parque del Buen Retiro. By the time we got to the entrance, it was too dark and we decided not to go into the huge park. We took many pictures of the Puerta de Alcala, a gate built by Carlos III in 1778. We spent the night shopping on Calle de Serrano. We took a snack break at a bakery. Then we continued to shop until the stores closed at 10pm. Many stores closed much earlier, but El Corte Ingle's stayed open until 10pm. We were told that this British company had the monopoly and it was the only department store chain in Spain. The twins played in the playground outside of the department store when mommy continued shopping.
We took the Metro to the famous Restavrante Botin. The restaurant was all booked and the only reservation we could get was at 11:15pm. Yes, the Spaniards had really late dinner. The door wouldn't open before 8pm. This restaurant dates back to 1725. It is in the Guinness book of reacords for being the earliest restaurant in the world. We tried their specialty suckling pig and baby lamb. But it was not as good as Chinese suckling pig. The irony was that we visited the kitchen before we got our table and noticed the pig chef was Chinese. During dinner, a group of Spaniards performed guitars in their skirt-like Spanish costume. We took the taxi back to the hotel after dinner. It was 1 am when we were back.
Wednesday, Nov 22, 2006 (9y+3m+16d)
We got up at 7 am. We left the hotel at 9am after breakfast. We took the Metro from the Principe Pio train station to the Estacion de Atocha. As tourists, we spent a long time to figure out which train to take and where to buy tickets. By the time we got everything worked out, we missed the 10:30am train and we had to wait past noon for the next train. The train station is built of glass & wrought iron back in 1891. It was expanded in late 1980s. It has an in-door palm garden and turtle pond. We took the RENFE (Red Nacional de Ferrocarries Españoles is like the high speed bullet train) to the town of Toledo.The Toledo train station itself was a piece of art with beautiful architecture, mosiacs, stained glass windows etc. As we walked out the train station, we noticed a local tour bus package to the center of town. Even though the tour was in Spanish, we decided to spend the €10 per person because it would save us time trying to figure out transportation. The bus driver doubled as tourist guide and he said a lot about the town. But since everything was in Spanish, we didn't understand a word. The tour bus stopped midway on the hill across the river from the town. We got to take some gorgeous pictures of the town from afar. We were sent off the bus when we reached town. We went to Plaza de Zocodover, the town square, to meet our tourist guide. As expected, he also conducted the rest of the tour in Spanish. We followed him go through town along Calle del Comercio. Though we didn't understand what he said, we enjoyed the scenary nonetheless. The tour ended outside Le Catedral Primada de Toledo.
We paid €6 each to go inside the Cathedral for a self guided tour. It was huge cathedral and it was awesome. We took a lot of pictures, but since no flash was allowed, not many came out very good.
We had a late lunch at a nearby restaurant. We did some shopping for kids clothes near the town square. We caught the local bus back to the train station. The tourist guide told us in his broken English that the bus fare was €0.25 each. But it turned out that the fare was over €1 per person. After a few days in Spain, we realized that the Spaniards gave out false information without hesitation. Instead of admitting they didn't know the answer, they just made up something for you. Over time, we learned to ask at least 5 people hoping to get a few matching answers. I know it is unfair to stereotype, but it is the impression we got.
We took the 5:20pm train back to Madrid. The train travelled quite fast, it only took half an hour to travel the more than 50km. The twins fell asleep on the train. We had to wake them up by force to disembark. The twins were so tired that they closed their eyes while standing. We didn't get enough sleep last night due to the late dinner and we got up early this morning. The jet lag also started to kick in. It was understandable because even the adults were tired too. We said goodbye to the rest of the group because we decided to rest a little at the train station before we returned. We found a bench in the station, and let the twins lie down to take a nap until 7:30pm.
After the twins woke up, we walked from the train station to Plaza Santa Ana. We asked for directions from a policeman on the street. I pointed to destination on the map and he said a lot in Spanish and pointed us which way to go. Before we left, he pointed to my backpack and gestured that I should carry the backpack in front of me. Even the policeman warned the tourist about the pickpockets in the city. They are just everywhere.
We rendezvoused with the rest of the group at Plaza Santa Ana. We had dinner in Restaurante Taberna there. We shared some famous Spanish tapas and each ordered an entree. The dinner was not cheap and it was not very good either. We took taxi back to the hotel.
Thursday, Nov 23, 2006 (9y+3m+17d)
It was Thanksgiving holidays back in the US. But in Spain, it was just a normal day. We got up at 6:30am. We checked out of the hotel by 8:15am. We took the airport shuttle to the airport. The shuttle cost us €10 per person. Though the Metro only cost €1 or actually €0.65 when we shared a 10 pass ticket, we decided we didn't want to take chance during rush hour. The flight was delayed until afternoon, we spent the whole morning at the airport. The twins worked on their art book to kill time.We arrived at Barcelona in about 2 hours. We took the taxi to the hotel. It cost us €13.5 plus the luggage fees, the fare came to €22.8. The hotel is only 3 minutes walk from the train station, we could have taken the train. The fare would have been €6 (€2 each adult and half price for kids) instead. Since no one seemed to be interested in taking the train, we followed the group. We were given two rooms again, but they were not joining from the inside. The two doors were adjacent at a 90° angle and we could slipped between the two rooms easily. The twins decided to sleep in mommy room so that daddy could snore as loudly as needed.
We took the Metro to Sagrada Familia. We had a late lunch first and then walked around the outside of the church to take some pictures. We decided to return the next day because it was almost closing time. We went to Liceu and walked down La Rambla which is famous with artists along the street. We strolled down the street until we reached the port de Barcelona, Mirador de Colom and the piers on the shore of the Mediterranean sea.
When we strolled back, it was kinda late for our 8:15pm Flamenco show. So we just ate a subway sandwich near the show venue. We paid €30 for each adult, the kids at half price. The flamenco show was pretty good, but loud. The twins were covering their ears in the beginning. But after a while they were numbed. We were surprised that the clapping of the dancers and singers were actually much louder and than the stomping of their shoes. The clapping was so loud that my ears rang and popped. Both twins were tired towards the end of the show. Jasmine fell asleep next to mommy while Joanne leaned on daddy's shoulder despite the loud noises from the show. After the show, we left the group and took the taxi back to the hotel because the twins wanted to sleep. The taxi fare cost almost €9.
Friday, Nov 24, 2006 (9y+3m+18d)
We got up at 9am, finished breakfast by 9:45am. We took the Metro to Sagrada Familia again. We took the 11am English guided tour. It cost €11.5 each adults and the kids went in free. The tour was pretty good because the guide told us where to look and what each part of the building symbolizes. Ronald and Evon took the elavator to the top of the church which cost them another €2 each. We chose to go to lunch instead because we were too impatient to wait in line. We enjoyed our lunch till 2pm.The group rejoined and went to Museu Picasso, it cost €6 each adults and kids were free. Again, no photo was allowed. So we had nothing to remember by. When we came out, the group split into two. One group wanted to go shopping. The others wanted to do more sightseeing. The twins and mommy decided to join the shopping group.
Daddy went sightseeing with Agnes, Ken, Henry and Virna. We checked out a house covered with colorful tiles, it was supposed to be quite famous. Then we walked down the Gran de Gràcia until we reached Diagonal station. We took some pictures of the funny apartment building Casa Mila by Gaudi. Then we started looking for restaurant for dinner. The tourist info center directed us to a Mediterranean cuisine nearby. But that one was all booked up though it wouldn't open until 8pm. We picked an affliated restaurant based on the business card of the first restaurant which was a few Metro stops away at the Catalunya station. We enjoyed our dinner till 10:30pm.
On the Metro train we had a close encounter with the pickpockets. Before I took a seat, a young woman was behind me lifting up the tail of my jacket which covered my rear jean pocket. Agnes was nearby and saw the hand on my butt. She snapped the pickpocket's hand. The lady gave her an angry look. The young man sitting across from her said "nei ho, hei ho" and then he left with the other lady. The man sitting next to me left his seat just a few seconds later too. Obviously, these people were working as a team. One person to distract and the others to steal. A few stops later, that lady came back towards us with 6 to 7 other men behind her. We stared into their eyes to show them that we were aware of them. We knew we were outnumbered. We discussed the situation among ourselves in Chinese. We worried that the pickpocket attempt might be turned into an armed robbery. We planned an escape route. We decided that we would get off the train one stop before our destination. If the gangs followed us off the train, we would jump back onto the train when the door buzzer sounded. If the gangs didn't follow us, then we would wait for the next train. All of us looked in the direction of the gangs before we got off to show them we were prepared. The gangs didn't came off the trains and we escaped.
When we exited the Metro station, we saw a lady walking towards us. After she passed us, she turned around and went in the same direction as ours. In Chinese, I loudly told the rest of the group to watch every move of this lady and keep a safe distance from her. She followed us for about a block failing to get close to anyone of us. She then turned around. We eluded another pickpocket.
When I got back to the hotel, the twins were watching TV in their room. After they heard about daddy's adventure, they told their own. They said in the store, there was a little Spanish boy kept playing with Cornell's stroller. The twins moved the stroller away and he kept coming back. The twins said he was the smallest pickpocket and the store clerk laughed. Before we parted in the afternoon, daddy told the twins to help mommy watch her purse. Mommy said Joanne held an empty water bottle as a whacker and Joanne was ready because the purse was right at her eye level. We went to bed at around midnight.
Saturday, Nov 25, 2006 (9y+3m+19d)
We had breakfast until 9:30am. We took the Metro to the Diagonal station. We took bus #24 to Parc Güell. The park was famous for Gaudi's archetecture and colorful trencadis (mosiac of ceramic). We spent the morning in the park. We walked 650m to the bus stop and back to Diagonal station. We took the Metro to the 4Cats restaurant for lunch. The restaurant was famous because Picasso used to hang out there when he was in Barcelona. They only offered set lunch at €22 each. The twins shared an order as usual. The food tasted pretty good, the dessert was yummy too.After lunch, we walked to Portal de L'Angel just a block away. The street was blocked off just for pedestrains, but it was packed with people. Many kids were there spending the Saturday afternoon with their family. It looked like that there were more local people than tourists. We walked to the Palau de la Musica Catalana (Opera house) and did some shopping along the way too. The group split up to shop individually.
Our family later strolled along the street until we reached Plaza de Catalunya. We entered the El Corte Ingle's department store to look for the restroom (W.C.). We only shopped a little on the first couple floors. We bumped into our group again before our agreed meeting time. We told the group that we decided to leave early because we were very tired.
We took a taxi back to the hotel. We had dinner at the hotel's restaurant. We were back to our room by 10:30pm. Daddy filled the bathtub with hot water and soaked the feet for half an hour. Jasmine and mommy went to sleep early. Joanne came to daddy's room to watch TV. Joanne didn't mind daddy's snoring because she couldn't hear it when she snored herself.
We later found out that Cornell's family had an encounter with the pickpockets on the Metro train after we returned to the hotel. Betsy and 4 year old Cornell fell on the floor without knowing how, Kenny tried to help them. Later a tourist told Kenny that he saw someone picked something out of his rear pocket while he was busy helping his family. Fortunately Kenny only put decoy in his rear pocket and he didn't lose anything valuable. But on afterthought, the mother and child were made to fall so that the pickpockets could attack. People can get seriously hurt by falling down the wrong way. Come to think of it, these animals were ruthless to tourists and no small kid was spared from such dangerous tricks.
Sunday, Nov 26, 2006 (9y+3m+20d)
Agnes, Ken and Carnell's family left for the US on an early flight today. They were gone by the time we woke up. After breakfast, the remaining group split into two. One group wanted to see more architecture of the city and the other wanted to visit the Spanish Village (Poble Espanyol) and the Olympic park (Anella Olimpica). Our family picked the latter and went with Henry and Virna.We arrived at the Plaça d'Espanya Metro station to catch the bus line 50 or line PM to go into Parc du Montjuïc. The road into the park was blocked off. We later found out that there was a running race through the park and the finish line was at the plaza. We asked the policeman with no help due to the language barrier. We stood in line to talk to the tourist information booth. The lady told us where to take the line 50 bus, she even told us where the bus would reroute due to the road closure. When we tried to board the bus and show the driver where we wanted to go, he sent us away because the route into the park was cancelled. While we were frustrated with the usual false information from the information booth, the bus driver came off his bus and pointed us to the PM line bus which just arrived. It turns out that the PM bus would not start until noon.
We waited at the bus stop until the bus started. The bus took a detour around the park and it didn't stop at the Spanish Village. We were told to get off near the Botanic Garden and walked down hill towards the village. We passed through the Olympic park and stopped by the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya which overlooked the plaza below. We took some nice pictures of Barcelona before we headed towards the village.
The admission to the Village was €7.5 per adults with a restaruant discount coupon or €15.00 per family. We went inside the village, there were many handcraft shops and gift shops and restaurants. We parted with Henry and Virna because they wanted to skip lunch. After we visited a blown glass shop and a guitar shop, we went to the restaurant. We took the set-lunch at €13 each, the twins shared an order as usual. One of the appetizers was seafood paella and it tasted totally different from the crappy one we had in Madrid. It was one of the better lunch we had for the entire trip despite the lower price than the others. We found that the food in Barcelona tasted much better than those in Madrid and cheaper too.
The lunch took a while and we wanted more time in the village. When we met Henry and Virna again, we told them we would be on our own for the rest of the afternoon. They went on to take the funicular tram down to the piers. We continued to visit the rest of the shops. It turned out that like most Spanish shops they closed in the afternoon after 2pm. We visited some of the shops that were still open.
We stopped by a shop for weaving wicker baskets, the twins were interest to see. I was feeling sick after a few minutes inside because of a strong odor of cats in the shop. Somehow the presence of three cats in the shop triggered some kind of allergy and I had a very dry sinus for the rest of the trip. After we strolled around the village, we returned to the plaza and took the Metro back to the hotel. We all took nap for the rest of the afternoon. Mommy ordered a pizza, chicken breast and two pots of hot water from room service. And we cooked some instant noodles with the hot water. We found that the chicken in Spain were much tastier than the chicken in the US. We went to bed early after dinner. The rest of the group were more energetic and didn't return to the hotel until 11:30pm.
Monday, Nov 27, 2006 (9y+3m+21d)
We got up at 5:30am. We checked out from the hotel by 6:30am. We took the taxi to the airport. It cost us €27 including the luggage fees. We took the 9:20am flight to London Heathrow airport. Then we took the 1:10pm connecting flight to San Francisco. Daddy had a stuffy sinus due to the cat allergy from yesterday. During take off and landing, the unbalanced air pressure in the sinus and inner ears caused some pain. The twins slept through most of the 10 hour flight. Jenny picked us up from the airport and we were home before 6pm.We found that San Francisco was hit by a cold snap. We were in the upper 60 to 70's in Spain and we came home to the low 50's. The furnance at home was turned off for a week and the house was very cold when we walked in. It took a couple hours before the house was warmed to a comfortable temperature.
When we asked the twins which part of the trip was their favorite, Jasmine said she liked the Olympic park the most. Joanne said she liked the mosiacs in Parc Püell.
Daddy's allergy developed into flu like symptoms. We all went to bed early.
Tuesday, Nov 28, 2006 (9y+3m+22d)
The twins returned to school after a week long vacation. They had to take 3 days off regular class to lengthen the Thanksgiving holidays. Daddy returned to work as usual too. Mommy cancelled their piano lesson because they had not practiced for the past week. The twins said they practiced their keying with an imaginary keyboard on the table top. The twins said all their classmates missed them and were happy to see them again.
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2006 (9y+3m+23d)
The twins returned to school as usual. We heard news about British Airways jetliners contaminated with Polonium-210 due to the ex-Russian spy poisoning. More than 33,000 passengers would be notified if they were exposed to the contamination. We have not heard anything from the airline yet. I just hope that my flu-like symptoms were not caused by radiation poisoning.Daddy stayed overtime at work. The twins were already asleep when daddy came home at 9:30pm. The cold snap continued to hit the area, the forecast predicted temperature below freezing tonight.
Thursday, Nov 30, 2006 (9y+3m+24d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins needed to do a Chinese dictation today. It was a rhyme they had to recite and write. They said it was unfair because their classmates had a week to study the text, but they only had one day. Nevertheless, they did okay. Joanne got a 4- and Jasmine got a 4 on a scale of 6. I believe the 4 was the highest score given out. Joanne said one of the boys in her class did a "fall on four on the floor" when he was called to do the dictation. Joanne even demonstrated what it meant by collapsing on the floor with all limbs hanging out. Jasmine said one of the boys in her class mispronounced many words. When all the classmates laughed, he blushed and which brought more laughters and his face got really red. I beleive she meant it was a vicious cycle of red face.Daddy worked overtime again. Joanne was packing her school bag near the entrance when daddy walked in. Jasmine was already in bed. Daddy got a goodnight kiss from them before they fell asleep.
Friday, Dec 1, 2006 (9y+3m+25d)
At breakfast time, Jasmine was playing with a plastic Anime figurine uncle Ronnie bought them sometime ago. The character was wearing a skirt and holding a sword. Jasmine took off the skirt from the character and hung it on the tip of the sword like a parasol. Joanne got a good laugh because the figurine looked funny in her underpants.The twins went to school as usual. The twins went to a field trip today. Mommy went to dinner with the 4th grade moms. She dropped off the twins and a bowl of pasta at Christine's house. The three Js in their household enjoyed the pasta too. Jonathan said the pasta was different from what they used to have. He didn't complain because mommy told him that if he did not like the pasta, she would not cook for him anymore. Jocelyn was old enough to go to party. Jessica, Jonathan and the twins were watching the movie "Yours, Mine & Ours" on DVD when daddy came to pick them up at 8:30pm after work. Since they own the DVD, they offered to let us take the movie home instead of having daddy wait for them to finish the movie.
When we got home, daddy had the pasta for dinner and the twins took a shower. The twins spent the rest of the night watching Hanna Montanna recorded on the DVR. When mommy came home from dinner, the twins went to bed.
Saturday, Dec 2, 2006 (9y+3m+26d)
The twins played daddy's decade old Sega GameGear when they got up. We had lunch with Jasmine W. family. Ashley's family couldn't make it. Jasmine W's mom took us to a Korean restaurant where they served a thoroughly cooked beef bone broth with noodles and ox tails. The restaurant assumes all their customers to be Korean because the menu on the wall is in Hungul and romanized Korean. We had to insist on a menu with English translation and the waitress almost refused to give it. She just pointed to the Korean writing on the wall. We had a great lunch and Jasmine's mom insisted to treat us. They came home with us after lunch because they wanted to see our vacation pictures from Spain. Mommy served some very strong English tea she bought at London's Heathrow airport.After the guests left, mommy wanted to take an afternoon nap. She suggested daddy to do so too. She ended up staying awake because of daddy's snoring, or the strong afternoon tea.
Daddy spent the whole night organizing the vacation photos. Notes were added to the photos so that we would remember what the places were called when we look at them in the future.
Sunday, Dec 3, 2006 (9y+3m+27d)
Daddy slept in late in the morning due to the late work on the photos. Mommy took the twins to a belated birthday party for Claire. They held a party at the new Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. The kids had fun with the games there.Claire's mom treated a few families to a Japanese lunch afterwards. Joie's, Terence's and one of Claire's neighbors' family were invited. After lunch, all the kids followed Claire's and Terence's family to see a Christmas musical performance at Terence's school.
Mommy has fallen ill. Daddy's flu like symptoms from a few days ago eventually got to her. She took an afternoon nap and wanted to skip dinner.
Daddy went to pick up the twins after the musical show was over. The families, Terence's, Joie's and Claire's decided to have dinner together, we joined them too. After dinner, daddy bought a Chinese rice porridge to take home. Mommy was already up from her nap and she took the porridge for dinner. The twins told us that they found their classmates Kimberly and Karrisa among the performers in the afternoon show.
Monday, Dec 4, 2006 (9y+3m+28d)
The twins went to school as usual. In the afternoon, Claire and her mom visited. Claire's mom knew mommy was sick yesterday, she brought takeout food for us so that mommy didn't need to cook dinner. They also wanted to see our vacation pictures from Spain.Daddy worked overtime as usual. When daddy came home after 9pm, the twins were already in bed. They tried to pretend to be asleep when daddy went to check on them. Jasmine couldn't stop giggling and blew the cover. We talked a little. Joanne said Jasmine coughed at her on purpose and now her throat felt funny. Looks like the flu has gotten to everyone in the family. They could have gotten from daddy or from the crowded Chuck E. Cheese.
Tuesday, Dec 5, 2006 (9y+3m+29d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano lesson in the afternoon. Mommy seriously considered changing the piano teacher. She found that the teacher may be overworking herself because she yawned a lot during the lesson. The major concern was the cats in her home. Mommy found cat's hairs and danduff on the twins clothing after each lesson. She worried that the twins might develop allergy over time.
Wednesday, Dec 6, 2006 (9y+4m)
The twins were 9 and 1/3 year old today.
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started on Dec 18, 2006