Coming Home

It's 2 days before I leave Torino, the city I lived in for the past 11-months... I'm happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I'm returning to sunny bay area to see my family, homies, and have lots of great Asian food; sad because my adventure in Italy is coming to an end.

It has been interesting 11-months: I learned to speak some Italian (mostly ordering in restaurants); how to make a few of Italian dishes (beef stew, walnut puff w/ gongorzola cheese, and calamari pasta); how much Europeans dislike Bush; how freezing Europe can be during winter ($%@#); how to be a friend to a cat; and how 'Californian/ American' I have become. I miss the warm weather, abundant various Asian cuisine, the beach, Sweet Tomato/ Fresh Choice, Jamba Juice, bagels, corn dogs, hamburgers, driving, speaking and listening English, watching Dancing with Stars and The Amazing Race, and playing Wii. But most important of all, I miss my family and friends. Being with Syd 24/7 for 11-months have proved that we won't kill each other, but we now need to embrace other people in our lives. :) It's time for me to hug and kiss a new person in my life: my newborn niece, Angelica.

Ok, so here is a photo of an Armani male model in the latest Spring fashion. If my memory serves me correctly, one of the first photos I posted last May when we first arrived in Torino was also an Armani Ad. 3 different Ads have been on the outer wall of our living quarter to accompany our journey in Italy/ Europe.

Arrivederci, Torino! Goodbye, Turin! Zai Jian, Du Ling!

Missing Cafe della Basilica

Cafe della Basilica, our favorite cafe in Torino, creates delicious pasta dishes and the most refreshing tasting beer. Ahhhhhh, I'm gonna miss it so much!

Biggest Accomplishment

So if you ask me what was the biggest accomplishment I did in Torino, I'd answer without hesitation: finished reading the masterpiece, War and Peace. It took me literally the entire 11 months to read it because 1) it has 1400+ pages, 2) 45% of the content is history, 3) other "more interesting" books are available, 4) I want to travel, eat, drink, play, sleep, and... you get my meaning.





The novel is indeed a masterpiece... the history between Russian and French wars, the complicated characteristics of each individual of 3 Russian families and their relationship with each other are like puzzle pieces that the reader needs to take time to absorb. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to finish it since the beginning was very slow... but once I got passed the first 200 pages, the scenes start developing in my mind. However, this is a difficult book... I don't know how high schools get students reading it?!

But Yeah! Wow! Sigh! I finally read War and Peace!

Torino has Cherry Blossoms too!

Bordeaux, again!

Bordeaux is really a lovely city... we had so much fun visiting Sera last August that we decided to go there again. No wonder people like to visit Europe in Spring... the flowers are blooming, the weather is perfect, and the scenery is unbelievable.

Photo on Left: Window view from the train on the way to Paris

Photo on Right: Guess who also came to visit Sera? Antonia and Teresa! Sera's friend, Francois (in the photo), was kind to lend us 2 mattresses so we all can get good nights of sleep. But how did we manage to move the mattresses from his place to Sera's? That's a question you must ask Sera and Syd. Actually, we are waiting to see how Sera and Francois are going to move the mattresses back to his place on the tram... And yes, Syd was the only guy who shared an apartment with 4 women.














We missed the Big Clock last time in Bordeaux so we had to pay it a visit. Sera took us to a medieval tavern near the Big Clock for some home-made meade. The meade was difficult to drink at first... I didn't like it and didn't think I would be able to finish it. But as I continued sipping the meade, it became easier and easier to drink. So either the drink gets better tasting when exposed to air or my taste buds have learned to love alcohol... any kind of alcohol.

Oh, I also tried to juggle in the tavern, but with the amount of wine and meade I had that night, well, let's just say the tavern was lucky that I didn't break anything there.

Photo on Right: My favorite statue in Bordeaux























It is always wonderful spending time with good friends. We exchanged news, gossipped, laughed, joked... simply enjoyed each other's company. Living in Torino for the past year has given me the opportunity to get to know Sera a lot better since we have met up in Bordeaux, Torino, Barcelona, and Lisbon. Sera still needs to study in Bordeaux for 1.5 years to become a wine maker. I know she'll do well and wish her all the best.

Sera, looking forward to see you back in CA and perhaps our next travel destination would be Tokyo? :) Thank you so much for being our next door neighbor in Europe.

Sicily!

Aiya, are we in Greece? Well, Sicily culture is a mix of Italian, Arab, and Greek. These temples were built like 2500 years ago! Since we haven't had a chance to go to Greece yet, this was our first time admiring Greek architecture. However, Agrigento, the city that hosts the most famous temple site, Valley of the Temples, is not accommodation friendly. The hotels may be the best choice but they are expensive. Other types of accommodation (such as hostels) are economical yet quality is questionable. We stayed in a centrally located hostel with helpful owners (which was highly recommended online) but the street noise and 3 cockroaches proved to be too much for our nerves. We actually liked another Greek temple more in Selinunte (on the southwest coast) because we can walk inside the ruined temple (photo on the right from above).

Overall, I like Sicily a lot. It's surrounded by ocean, has wonderful food (more salty and spicy), nice weather most of the year, and friendly people. We skipped big cities (ex. Palermo, Catania, etc.) this time because we wanted to drive through Sicily by countryside roads. It was a cool destination to wrap up our expedition in Italy before our return.

PS. I thought only Japanese would sleep in a confined cube... apparently I was mistaken. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a German tourist bus pulling a rollable hotel. I wouldn't like to travel like that.

Sicily, Sicily!

One of the goals we want to accomplish while living in Italy is to see Sicily. With only 3 weeks left of our adventure, it's time that we go to Sicily!














WOW, how beautiful and green Sicily is in April! It's like we went to a different country! The island is filled with vineyards, valleys, mountains, and rocks. Syd and I were fascinated with the rocky castle in Erice (on the northwest coast near Trapani)... as the matter of fact, the pavement and most of the buildings were built with rocks. The view from Erice was simply fantastic (see photo above).

Our favorite city in Sicily is Trapani. It offers delicious seafood cuisine as our first night dinner consisted octopus salad (which we couldn't get enough of and therefore looked for it on every menu), pasta with sea urchin, and calamari couscous. We also had the best Sicilian anchovy pizzas: Syd ordered it with Pecorino cheese while I swallowed it down with artichoke hearts and onions. More importantly, we encountered an emotional Pre-Easter procession in the old quarter of the city. We followed the procession like other Italians, listened to the powerful melody performed by a marching band, and felt the sadness of the passing of Jesus.





Easter is a big holiday in Italy, especially in Sicily. The entire week before Easter is dedicated to praise the lord. Here is another procession photo taken in Noto (on the southeast coast) on Good Friday. We waited 2 hours for the procession to begin. See how many people were following Jesus and Virgin Mary? This procession was silent... no band, no music, just people in mourning.

So is This How Italians Stay Sexy?

Missing Gelato

Hey, I finally found out what the flavor, zuppa inglese (English soup? What heck is that for a gelato flavor?), is after living in Italy for 10 months! It's Rum!

Oh, I'm going to miss pistachio and pineapple gelatos so much!

Missing Focaccia

My favorite focaccia in Torino - SFashion style. Warm fluffy perfect dough with prosciutto crudo, ham, spicy salami, cured octopus slices, green olives, and mozzellera cheese. I'm going to miss this focaccia so much!

Drinking, Drinking, and More Drinking

Many of you know that Barolo is a signature red wine of Piemonte region in Italy, but do you know that Barolo Chinato (the dessert wine is a bit sweet... it tastes similiar to Port) is really, really, and I mean reallllllly good with chocolate?

We tried 6 different Torino chocolate with 6 different Chinato for only 10 euros per person. Syd can always eat more chocolate so the hostess gave him one more plate of 6 chocolate for free (and of course more chinato for both of us!) We were in heaven! Man, I'm going to miss Italy so much!

PS. Excuse the lousy photo as it was taken with my cell.

Spring is Here!

春神來了誰知道, 梅花黃鶯報告。
梅花枝頭先含笑, 黃鶯接著唱新調。
歡迎春神試身手, 快把世界改造。

Wow, Torino is really getting warmer these days. Today it is a wonderful 17C so Syd and I don't need to wear jackets at all. More vegetables and fruits are available at Porta Palazzo. We have been eating fresh strawberries for the past 3 weeks... we're going to miss the ripe and delicious fruits here so much!

An unknown plant is blossoming in the front balcony. Spring is in the air!

Hiking in the Snow

Time sure flies fast!

We are coming home next month after living in Torino for 11 months. We had a lot fun living and traveling in Europe... it is certainly one of the life experiences we'd never forget! But we are also homesick so we are looking forward to see our family and friends. We have tons of stories, photos (4000+), and chocolate to share! :) Well, maybe, if Syd doesn't eat all the chocolate first.

As the date to return home gets closer, we still have a few activities that we'd like to do in Italy such as hiking in the Snow in Bardonecchia (our favorite town in the Alps). It was a beautiful sunny Tuesday. We wanted to have tripe stew and steak with gorgonzola cheese at a typical piemonte restaurant but it was closed on that day (shucks!). It's okay, imperfection is sometimes perfect... this way we'll always remember this little restaurant in this small town. After lunch, we hiked in the white powder, enjoyed fresh air, the view of the Alps, and peaceful moments. At one point, Syd went off exploring while I played with snow. I made snow balls, one little snow man, and various weird creatures. I turned around, well, where is Syd? That's alright, here are his foot prints, I'll just follow them.


And here he is!

La Grande Festa del CioccolaTO

It's here! It's here!

The Great Festival of Chocolate: 10 days of tastings, entertainment, and culture in Torino. Free choco workshops, labs, and chocolate to bringing in choco-lovers while free concerts and street performances to attract the general crowd. The huge Piazza Vittorio was filled with people; of course the sunny weather (16C) helped as well.

Photo on Right: The famous Gianduia - 1) a mask/ person representing Torino and the Piemont Region of Italy and 2) a chocolate containing hazelnut which was first prepared by Caffarel (a well known chocolate factory in Torino).














Syd and I are already enjoying the yummy chocolate from the festival: dark chocolate with hazelnut and dark chocolate with chili peppers (spicy like me, haha). We will go back for more later this week.

The Battle of Oranges

Prologue

Lily: "Syd, I'm thirsty. I want orange juice."

Syd: "Ok, let's go to Ivrea. I heard it has a lot of oranges this weekend."

Thus we are in Ivrea today looking for fresh and free oranges all over the town. For some reason, many people are wearing a red hat. As we are thinking about how pretty they looked, a red hat appeared on top of our head from no where. Wow, this town must be magical!


We start exploring. The further we walk into the town, the more people in different uniforms. They all seem to be preparing for something. I'm really thirsty now. I look around and see uniformed people holding oranges in their pouches and hands. I want to ask them if I can have an orange to eat but then all the sudden they start yelling and running. People wearing red hats retreat to the corners of the piazza or behind the protective nets. I try to find out what is causing the fuss and then there it is -- a big horse cart with 7 or 8 guards inside.


Without warning, these guards put on face masks and ... oh you can never guess what they do... they start madly THROWING oranges at the crowd. Have you ever seen anything so absurd? The people on foot and the guards in the cart keep throwing oranges at each other fiercely. I try to grab a few oranges in the mid air, from the crates, or on the ground to save myself from dying of thirst but Syd is holding me back.


Mayday! Mayday!! Syd's hit! These crazy Italians! We just want some OJ (and pasta, pizza, buffalo mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, wine, tiramisu, and ...)


Ok, ok, we get the point. We'll not touch your oranges. Geez!

These people continued to throw oranges around for the next 3 hours. It was a lot of fun watching them as we went through 3 different battle fields in Ivrea. The result was a mess of oranges & dirt and a great waste of vitamin C. I didn't want anymore OJ after I walked through the orange mud. Yucky!


The story of the Carnival in Ivrea

In popular tradition of the Middle Ages, Raineri, the lord of the Ivrea who in-keeping with the custom of the time, claimed the right to practice "jus primae noctis', in other words to spend the wedding night with the brides. Until Violetta, the beautiful daughter of a miller, rebelled against the lord's will, cut off his head with a dagger and showed it to the people gathered beneath the castle walls. There followed a popular rebellion, which led to the destruction of the castle and which is today symbolized by the Battle of Oranges played out between the orange throwers on foot representing the rebels and those on the carts representing the tyrant's guards.

Violetta and the spectating crowd wear red hats which symbolize freedom. The red hat means you won't be throwing oranges and therefore no one will throw oranges at you.

The heroin: Violetta

Abrigato, Lisboa! （下）

The next day we took a train (1 hour ride) to a nearby town, Sintra, which was highly recommended online and by Sera's Portuguese friend. Sintra was beautiful with lots of trees and hills, no wonder it was where Portuguese kings retreat to during summertime.

We wanted to go to 3 palaces but Sintra National Palace was closed for renovation. :( But it ended up okay since after we finished touring the other 2 palaces, it was already 5pm.

The first palace we explored was a ruined castle, the Moorish Castle. It was very impressive as the entire castle, the defense walls, and the watch towers all were built with and into the rocks. What a tough job it must be back then! As a matter of fact, I admire Portuguese sculptors more from this trip because rock is such a difficult material to work with yet the result is amazing. I prefer the simplicity of the rock carving without any additional decoration or coloring. Oh, by the way, doesn't the defense walls of the castle look like the Great Wall? Well, not with the Portugal flag of course.






Next we went to Palacio de la Pena, the most famous palace in Sintra (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Ippar-palacio-pena-aerea.jpg). This palace is still in good shape as we can also explore the interior and admire the decorations and collections of the royal family. The palace was designed with colorful tiles and detailed rock carvings (as you can see from the photo with 2 silly CAL band alumni :p ).








After the historical/ architectural education, we need cultural experience to balance it out. For the next 2 nights, we tasted 10 different port wines at Solar do Vinho do Porto, organized by the Port Institute. Sera recommended and explained the various port to us while asking us (the typical consumers who only drink wine for the sake of drinking) in return how we liked them. Somehow Syd and I always liked each other's selection better. :p Now we need to get 2 bottles of port when we return to Milpitas. We also couldn't leave Portugal without listening to fado (Portuguese folk songs which are usually sang by sailors and their wives). I found a local hole-in-the-wall wine bar which was highly recommended online. Boy, was the bar LITTLE! It has 7 or 8 small tables and jam packed with locals and tourists standing and sitting everywhere. The bar is known for listening to the fado amateurs (most likely the person sitting next to you). Each performer simply went to the middle of the bar and sang. Their emotional singing was accompanied by Spanish and Portuguese guitars. Sometimes the singing was sad as the sailor was missing his lover back home while other times it was more light-hearted as he was remembering the better times. Sera was able to chat with a performer (the lady in the photo) in French. She told us that even an amateur takes more than 10 years of learning to sing fado.














And yes, we were a bit buzzed in the photo with the tram cuz that night we each had 3 glasses of port and also shared a bottle of white with the seafood dinner. :)

I'd like to end our adventure in Lisbon with the following geocaching picture since we have found the most puzzle caches here than anywhere in Europe. This photo with the American flag behind us is our 2,396th cache. Syd was a very happy guy dragging 2 tired Asian girls who were desperate for coffee that day.

Abrigato, Lisboa! （上）

Sera, Syd, and I had a "wild" idea: travel to the warmest country in Europe in February! Lisbon's weather was wonderful as everyday was sunny with an average temperature of a super comfy 16C!

The first area of Lisbon that we explored was Belem because it has many museums and famous monuments. We were lucky as the museums are free on Sunday mornings so we get to see Museums of Maritime and Archaeology for free. Afterward, we couldn't wait for lunch to eat the well-known pasteis da nata (egg custard) from the famous cafe, Pasteis de Belem. I had tasted these custards in Taiwan before as they were very popular a few years back. Chinese also have its own version of egg custard (蛋塔) which doesn't have the black spots. The custards were delicious! Syd insisted going back for more but Sera and I held him back by telling him the danger of cholesterol... NOT! :p We didn't get anymore that day simply because the line at the cafe was tooooooo long!














Guess what? Belem also has a Golden Gate Bridge! (See the bridge directly behind Syd?) It has a different name, Ponte 25 de Abril, but it's designed by the same architect. One of the famous monuments in Belem is the huge sculpture behind us, Padrao dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries). It's to celebrate the Portuguese who sailed out to the unknown in the 15th and 16th centuries. I thought for sure that the figure at the tip of the monument must be Vasco da Gama but it turned out to be Henry the Navigator, the sponsor of the Discoveries. Well, it makes sense as expedition requires financial support (like everything else). Vasco da Gama is still one of the figures in the monument though. (More details of the monument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padr%C3%A3o_dos_Descobrimentos)



PS. I forgot to mention that Lisbon is built on 7 hills so ladies, leave your heels at home. Tennis shoes are the best foot gear.

Simple Pleasures

You guys already know that Torino is pretty cold these days... well, after snowing a bit last night, it was actually relatively 'warm' (7C) when we went to farmer's market this morning. :p

Every Tuesday we went to Porta Palazzo (the biggest farmer's market in Europe) to buy fresh ingredients for the week, have lunch and a beer at our favorite cafe, and then leisurely stroll back to our apartment. Today we were in the mood for something hot and sweet after lunch... quindi una cioccolata calda con panna per Syd e un cappuccino per me! Perfetto!

Ahhhhh, the simple pleasures of life.

Sho-Lan-Ka, Marrakesh! （下）

Yes indeed, desert temperature is unpredictable. We had to wear layers in the morning yet a T-shirt was just right in the afternoon. We were actually sweating when we were having skewers for lunch sitting under the sun. But no complaints here, I welcome the heat with all my heart (especially when Torino is freezing: 1C :().

Today we explored on our own. We finally went to tourists' spots: Saadian Princes' Tombs, Palace el-Badi, and Palace de la Bahia. What impressed me the most was the tile work. Beautiful complicated flowery designs seem to be the favorite and the specialty.

















We had lunch at a small restaurant near the big square. Its name is Chez Chegrouni, located at the upper right corner of the square. The food there was the best we have ever eaten (besides the riad) and the price is unbeatable. We had chicken couscous and beef tajine with raisins & almonds... mmmmm, I'm going to organize a group trip to a Moroccan restaurant in the bay area when I come back! Who wants to sign up?? :)


Marrakesh is certainly an interesting city to visit but one has to be prepared for it. It is a mixed bag of European, African, and Muslim cultures. Arab and French are spoken everywhere. Cars, mopeds, bikes, buses, horse carriages, donkey pull-carts, and people fight for the right of the way on the streets. The smell of sweets, dirt, Moroccan honey pancakes, sweat, grilled sausages, and sewers compete to reach one's nasal sense. Marrakesh is not a place to rest but an experience to challenge one's senses and finding a way appreciating it.