all we did was eat...

when we first arrived in spain, we were on the mikepih diet. it consisted of waking up at 8am with no breakfast, walking for 6 hrs, eating lunch as fast as we could at 2 or 3pm, then walk for another 7 hrs then finally eat dinner at 9 or 10pm. after a few days of starvation, the girls took over... dunh dunh dunh....the end result was:

during our first food adventure in spain, the girls got mike back by making him eat cow kidneys. ok, the girls weren't that mean. we didn't understand the menu and the waitress described the dish to us as "part of a cow." assuming it meant flank, or something of the like, mike went out on a limb and ordered it, and discovered, to his disappointment, that it was not quite what he expected...

the bad Paella in Barcelona....



Chocolate con Churros! yummy chocolate.. slurp slurp

karen and andrea going crazy on the train with all the snacks...

bob and joseph eating a giant broccoli

as usual, bob is the last one at the dinner table.


yummy bull's tail in seville.

spinach pocket with Gorgonzola cheese.. yum!


yummy rioja vino (red wine) and jamon (iberian ham)

ice cream! pistachio and tiramisu.

our last meal together in Seville.. whiskeeeey! it's been fun.

Food, food everywhere and not a bite to eat

Since food is such a big part of the trip, here are the shots that I was able to capture with my camera.



Brick's duck with pear in Cordoba.



Ojo Bizarro's lamb with honey sauce, in Cordoba.



Doc's venison (deer) with red berry sauce, in Cordoba.



Doc's fish and shrimp skewer, in Sevilla.



Frodo's shrimp with stuffed melon, in Sevilla.

What's in a name?

A vacationer by any other name would still have really memorable experiences... but wouldn't be immortalized in cyberspace like we are.

Being the caring people we are, the faithful chroniclers of this trip know that not every reader out there has sufficient understanding of Spanish to understand the bulk of the nicknames in the post below. So, instead of forcing you all to babelfish it, I'll translate for you and offer some context (aside: I got to watch "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on the plane flight back to Cali, which finally helped me understand the sci-fi geek culture of stuff like babelfish and the significance of 42 - the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything).

Without further ado...

Karen "Gato Negro" Chiu
Why?
The picture is pretty much self-explanatory. In Madrid, outside of the Palacio Real, Karen, Joy, Andrea, and Mike finished up the tour and were sitting outside, waiting for the rest of the group. Karen took out a snack from her purse, when all of a sudden, the (pictured) black cat came out of nowhere and began racing immediately at her... food. All the girls screamed, and eventually the cat took up position very menacingly close to Karen. She then uttered plaintively, "Why aren't you a dog?"

Esther "Frodo" Huang
Why?
Esther was perhaps the only sane person on our trip. Thus, we dubbed her basically as our social conscience. She carried our burdens.

Bob "Brick Steve" Lin
Why?
Frankly, I'm not totally sure how I acquired my nickname. I mean, sure, I made good use of the Rick Steve's travel guide at a couple of sites to offer trivia and details about the things we were looking at, but I certainly wasn't reading it "like the Bible" as I've been accused of. Heck, towards the latter half of the trip, I was reading the Lonely Planet guide more often since it had a more in-depth history of each city. But I must admit, I kind of like the "Brick" moniker. I'm sure it'll come in handy on the basketball court. It's certainly better than the "Lonely Man" nickname I'd probably have gotten if I had been reading the Lonely Planet guide from the very beginning of the trip.

Joy "Ilicito" Lok
Why?
Joy was probably the most mischievous member of our group. No other person was quite so persistent in performing illegal acts like taking pictures when cameras aren't allowed (the Beatles paraphernalia picture was in the British Library exhibit, with no cameras permitted), sneaking into barred off areas, and the like. Hence, "Ilicito".

Joy was also the subject (victim?) of more than a few hilariously weird and embarrassing situations that probably merit their own entry.

Mike "Ojo Bizarro" Pih
Why?
Mike had the uncanny Forrest Gump-like ability to be present for just about every weird experience we had. While generally walking the furthest out in front, he still managed to come back to the group in time to catch the latest cat attack or illegal picture... almost as if he knew they were going to happen ("He can see things before they happen"). Hence, "Ojo Bizarro", or the "Bizarre Eye," one who witnesses weird things. It also happened to be the name of a restaurant in Granada.

Andrea "Jamon" Wang
Why?
"Jamon" is Spanish for "Ham," which is most appropriate for Andrea. As our resident food expert, she led us to many Spanish restaurants with big hocks of ham hanging in the window. Ham with melon, ham in sandwiches with cheese, ham with chocolate (kidding on that one, but I wouldn't put it past the Spanish, actually). The dual meaning of the nickname, however, is Andrea's inimitable ability to put on a particular face whenever a camera or video camera is pointed in her direction. There are tons of pics with her attempting to look innocent, diabolical, or like a bull - "ham"ming it up for all it's worth.

Joseph "Doc" Huang
Why?
The nickname was something of a duh moniker, since Joe is our only PhD, but he also played the role of unintentional amateur psychologist for much of the week, asking probing serious questions in an attempt to get to know the group better - questions like, "What types of nonfiction books do you read?"

introducing...

even though i'm the only person who seems to be posting on our blog... i realized we haven't introduced the cast of the London & Spain trip (someone else who hasn't posted, ahem bob or joy, can explain the nicknames, although for some i've tried to pick pictures that explain them.) So, without further ado:

presenting
London & Spain, aka Chips & Churros 2005
starring in alphabetical order by last name...


karen "gato negro" chiu

esther "frodo" huang



bob "brick steves" lin



joy "illicito" lok (one picture to show her "illicito" and one to show herself):




mike "ojo bizarro" pih



andrea "jamon" wang


and...

guest starring for one week...

joseph "doc" huang

we hope you enjoy the show!

columns everywhere!

time for more pictures! see if you can identify who's who.

these are all in park guell in barcelona - a park designed by barcelona's famous architect, gaudi. if you wonder how gaudi died, he walked out on the street and got ran over by a tram. lovely, huh. even lovlier is the children's book that actually illustrated this incident. unfortunately, i don't think anyone bought that book.

an innocent set of columns... or so you think:

the first picture that started it all:




karen & andrea:




all the gals:




all the gals again:




can you identify the arms & legs?:




where's the second arm? what's that black stick sticking out? ;)




and finally... the boys tribute to the girls (or er... the boys mocking the gals) (in cordoba, which the girls skipped to stay in seville & shop). the second arm is kind of camoflauged into the background:

which picture is your favorite?

caught in the act

since joseph claimed no one caught him sleeping... new picture has been added to the sleeping post below. check it out.

Siesta!

You gotta love Spain and her siestas. Spain is not the only country to do this, but it could be the longest. Germany has her 2-hour lunches, and Italy has siestas as well, but Spain shuts down from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Now, I know that it can get hot there, but to work 6-hour days is...flabbergasting.

One time, we went to a restaurant near dinner time, only to be told that the chef will not show up for work until 8 p.m.

We typically see stores open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. And then it will open again from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. I will give this to the Spaniards: they know how to party. Dinner is typically 8-10 p.m. with desserts at midnight. By the end of the trip, we were living like the Spaniards, minus the siesta part. Being Americans, we kept on charging throughout the day.

one of these things is not like the other

guess who was the party pooper in this picture?

Spanish Cooks

Girls will be girls. They tried on the aprons...and didn't buy a thing.

all we did was sleep...

since i have everyone's pics on my laptop, i'll be the first to post pictures :) time for sleeping pictures! by these pictures you'd think all we did was sleep on the trip, but fear not, we did more than just that!


sleeping on the flight to london. definitely fly virgin when you have a chance. fun airline.




joy & mike sleeping in front of the british museum when we were homeless.




sleeping at the heathrow airport when we were supposed to fly from london to barcelona. unfortunately, our 6:20am flight (with the shuttle picking us up at 3:30am) was cancelled... long story short, what should have been us arriving in barcelona at 9:20am resulted in us arriving in barcelona at 8pm.




bob, aka brick steves, sleeping at heathrow airport.




mike sleeping at our gate at heathrow airport.




sleeping at the madrid airport. to elaborate on the above story, we were forced to fly from london to madrid and then madrid to barcelona.




blurry pic, but us sleeping in the barcelona subway station at 6:20am. our train from barcelona to madrid was at 7am.




most of us sleeping at the barcelona train station. *yawn*




bob sleeping on the train from madrid to seville. bob probably got the most sleep out of everyone on the trip. our newfound discovery is that the boy can sleep *anywhere*.



okay, that's it for sleeping pics. more to come later. joy will probably post food pics, but there's tons more to come!

**edit** new picture! here's proof of joseph sleeping:

HOME!

we're back and alive! had loads of fun and laughs. we took a bajillion pictures and videos. will share some time in the near future. for now, we're trying to stay awake. i'm getting pretty drowsy and it's only 4:44pm...

Cold showers

¨This is worse than China,¨ Karen said, in reference to the lack of hot water in the madrid apartment.


--Doc

holy redwood forest batman!

that´s where we are rite now! joseph has joined us and brick steves is leading the tour. adios!

hola!

we´re in spain right now, but unfortunately could not steal free internet from our neighbors in barcelona. so no pics this post. we´re headed off to madrid tomorrow, so maybe we´ll have better luck then. you can ask us later about our wonderful day of travel to barcelona later... that was fun. okay, tune in next time for pics and updates of what we´ve done!

what do YOU see?

we're homeless.

check us poor people out, homeless in london.


esther & andrea with all our luggage... guess where?



maybe this picture will give you more of a hint. bob, joy and mike loitering in the courtyard since we were homeless.

come back for more updates soon! (if we can find free wifi to steal in spain like we did in london).