Things I Learned in London

I was in London for a brief 3 day trip last week. The weather was actually quite cooperative and I even saw the sun emerge for a few minutes one afternoon. I stayed at my favorite hotel, the Churchill in Portman Square - it used to be an Intercontinental and is now a Hyatt Regency. They just redid their rooms last year (while we were there on holiday, as a matter of fact). Anyway, the location is the big plus for me - plus the Montagu, their lobby restaurant is really nice. I can get to M&S and Selfridges within minutes as they're just 2 blocks away.

I managed to dine at my favorite restaurant, Nobu and also tried out MintLeaf, a nouveau Indian restaurant on Haymarket. And had afternoon tea one day at Liberty's little tea shop, imaginatively called "Tea". They served their tea in beautiful Burleigh Black Willow teapots with scones (choice of fruit or plain) with organic strawberry preserves and Devonshire clotted cream. I was in heaven! I eyed their large meringues but managed to restrain myself.

All the Christmas decorations were up along Oxford St and Regent St, and major shopping was taking place all around me - they were shutting the street to make it a pedestrian-only shopping zone on Dec 1.

My big learnings from this trip are that:
1) United won't officially allow you to check Christmas crackers in checked baggage. BUT if you just go ahead and check them, they don't seem to notice.
2) The one carry-on bag rule is strictly enforced at Heathrow - witness the scores of passengers trying to repack their things by the security queue.
3) There is a separate shoe scanner that you go through after the main security line which is thoroughly confusing for many.
4) Things cost WAAAY more in London, especially with the horrible dollar exchange rate.

Cheers!

This Started Out As A Good Trip But Then...

I spent the past few days in Paris, a trip that started out quite well. It wasn't a perfect trip by any means - I had been hoping to stay in the center of Paris, preferably at my favorite hotel next to the Tuileries, which used to be an Intercontinental but now has turned into a Westin. Alas, the quoted rate was 700 euros - a little too rich for my blood and not likely to be approved through the corporate travel dept.

So instead, I stayed at the lovely Hilton La Defense, which was incredibly convenient for the office and conference I was attending, but which had the charm of a gnat. La Defense was built 40 years ago as the "Manhattan" of Paris - a ghetto of high-rise office blocks and a large, sterile convention center. The hallmark of La Defense is La Grande Arche, built on the same grand axis as L'Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées.

However, it is a convenient RER A ride to the center of Paris. So on the day I arrived, I decided to power through my jetlag by shopping in town (of course!). I took the train to Les Halles, and proceeded to have a big wander of many miles back over to the Arc de Triomphe. I stopped at E. Dehillerin along the way - a cookware store whose reputation is legendary, but which is a far cry of the stylings of a Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table. This was more like a hardware store for cooks, with opinionated sales people who have an elaborate routine for paying and wrapping your goods. I bought a lovely copper saute pan from the south of France, made by Mauviel - copper lined with stainless steel, which apparently is amazing to cook with. Those of you who know me may well ask why on earth I would need such a spectacular saute pan - well, it's very pretty too. And I've since checked the prices - even though it seemed rather expensive in Paris, it's probably twice as pricey here in the US.

I strolled for a while, stopping for a quick sandwich at Paul, at Michel Cluizel to pick up some chocolates and of course the obligatory stop at Mariage Frere for more tea that I can't quite drink up in time.

I ended up having a rather big lunch at Dalloyau - I intended on having a little Croque Monsieur, but saw a wonderful Filet de Beouf avec des Pommes Pont Neufs go by to another table, and picked that instead. It was an excellent steak and the potatoes (glorified poufy french fries) were nice. To feel virtuous, I ate the little side salad first. I finished with a nice pot of Earl Grey and a little Tarte Citron.

I had to rush back to the hotel for a conference call but after that, visited the large mall in La Defense known as Les Quatre Temps (Four Seasons). Very efficient mall, but like the rest of La Defense, with the charm of a gnat.

So you may ask, after all that shopping and eating, why would this not be classified as a great trip? Because I'm currently sitting in the lounge at Frankfurt Airport, having missed various direct flights and currently booked on a multi-stop itinerary that, if all goes well, will get me home 12 hours after originally planned. Let's just say that both United and Lufthansa will be receiving some scathing survey feedback shortly.

Update - I arrived home at 3:30 am, approximately 11 hours after my scheduled arrival...such is the glamour of international business travel :-)

A Balanced Life

Last weekend, 7 girlfriends and I made our way to Tucson for a long-awaited weekend at Miraval. I had been fortunate enough to have made the journey with my mother and sister in April, and had taken pains to request particular rooms for this Sept trip.

It did not bode well when all records of my room request vanished into thin air - not exactly the way I had hoped to kick off the weekend. I'll leave the unsavory details from sullying this blog but suffice to say, the GM has received a detailed 3 page letter from me on the subject :)

Overall the trip was wonderful but then again, we were determined to have fun, no matter what. Miraval is a great resort for a group with varying interests. At any hour of the day, there are probably 6-8 activities to choose from - including hikes, exercise classes, yoga, spa treatments and the always popular "lounging by the pool". Our group would split up for active and not-so-active pursuits, always meeting up in sub-groups for meals and as a full group for dinner every night. And the meals were excellent - you will not starve at this particular spa resort!

I had probably the best massage of my life with Heather on this trip - a hot stone massage but since she usually specialized in deep tissue, it turned out to be a combo of the two. Despite my best efforts to book another treatment with her during the rest of my stay, I was unsuccessful :(

No Travels, Just Food - Miette in SF

Alas, I haven't been anywhere of note in the month since our return to the Bay Area, so I'm going to focus on my other big love - food!

Since my sister moved to SF, I've had the excuse of going up there every weekend and indulging in dive-y ethnic joints for dinner. However, we also went to the new (since Jan 2007) Miette Confiserie in Hayes Valley last weekend.

Miette is a bakery located at the Ferry Plaza but they opened this candy store on the Green in Hayes Valley, across from a very cool play structure that the girls just loved.

They made cotton candy to order and the flavor of the day was "Rose Geranium" - the girls were a little dubious, but the very nice lady assured them that the flavor was very mild. It was a pale yellow color and not quite as sweet as commercial cotton candy. We also bought some fleur de sel chocolate caramels, a really good chocolate truffle tart, some fresh taffy (peach and chocolate), Turkish Delight plus some excellent chocolate chip cookies.

With all the lovely decorations and overall pinkness of the place, the girls and I enjoyed ourselves immensely :)

Teeny Tiny Pastries and Donuts

One day last week, on one of our many wanders, we discovered an area in CentralWorld (yet another large shopping complex in central Bangkok) with lots of miniature dioramas, with a special focus on teeny tiny food items. Cute miniature food?? We were sold!

We returned over the weekend for the girls to take a course on making mini bakery items with the talented teachers from MiniThai. Although you can buy all sorts of premade foods and other miniature items (including some very yummy looking cakes), the girls wanted to learn how to make their own out of clay.

It was quite a delicate and time-consuming process that entailed making various components from different colored clay (imported from Japan, I was told!), dying the clay to the right color, assembling the finished pieces using glue and painting the bread so it was nicely browned.


The girls made sausage rolls, hamburgers, donuts, cupcakes, lollipops, fruit and little animals. They filled up a whole bakery display case with all their baked goods - artfully displayed in various mini jars, plates and trays. We were there for over 7 hours, with a short break for lunch (at Triple O, which I've since learned is a Canadian burger chain - will wonders never cease?!)


Besides the mini food items, they also had a number of large and small dioramas on display - typically of Thai village life, but to an amazing level of detail. One of the teachers told me that the larger dioramas sell for thousands of dollars and were special orders that were often shipped to other countries.

We came home with the bakery case full of items, plus a array of tropical fruit, a complete set of mini dim-sum and various small serving utensils and silverware. Our Polly Pockets and American Girls are going to have a big feast when we get home!

Our Tourist-y Day

Even though we come to Bangkok almost every year, we typically don't do very touristy things. Amara had been touring around 7 years ago but Mei had never been to see any of the major sights. So we decided to go visit the Grand Palace complex and Wat Po one day - the top destination for any tourist visiting Thailand.

We took the Skytrain down to Saphan Taksin, by the Chao Phraya river. Then we hired a long-tail boat to take us on a tour of the klongs (canals), finally dropping us off at Ta Chang, the main pier by the Grand Palace complex. It was a fun tour and an opportunity to see how people live on the river - we saw kids swimming in the water, ladies doing laundry and a lot of people fishing (some of them had caught very big fish as well).

We wandered around in the Grand Palace complex for a little while - spending most of our time around the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most important, highest temple in Thailand, where the King worships. It was very hot, so the girls started wilting a little - but beautiful nonetheless. Gold gleamed everywhere, with glittering mosaics reflecting the sunshine.

We took a little Tuk Tuk to lunch at a lovely restaurant on the river, with a beautiful view of Wat Arun across the river. It was called The Deck and was located in a little boutique hotel called the Arun Residence. The restaurant served an eclectic menu of Thai and Western dishes, but it's most redeeming feature was very good air conditioning!


After lunch, we walked across the street to Wat Po, also known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. The main temple was covered by scaffolding but the statue was as beautiful as ever. The girls made merit by dropping small coins in a row of baht, or Thai monk bowls. One coin in every bowl.

We finally took the Chao Phraya Express boat - a boat-bus service - back to the Sathorn stop, and took the Skytrain back home.

Mechanics Alive!

We decided to watch another movie the other day, looked up the movie times in the newspaper that morning, and took the lift downstairs at the appropriate time. It turns out the movie time in the newspaper was wrong and the movie had already started. The helpful ticket seller told me that the movie times in the paper were never right anyway - I should check the web or call for the exact times. This seemed somewhat absurd - however, we took the extra time before the next showing to wander next door to the Thailand Creative & Design Centre.

Thailand has become quite the center for innovative design and this center was opened a few years ago - it consists of gallery space for exhibitions, an auditorium and a large design library. One of their current exhibits turned out to be wonderful for the kids - Mechanics Alive! It was an exhibition of automata - or mechanical sculptures and scenes, on loan from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in the U.K.

We spent a happy 90+ minutes playing around with the sculptures - the last part of the exhibition was an area where we could build our own automata, which the girls enjoyed immensely.

And then we walked 10 steps back to the movie theatre to watch "Hairspray" (in the regular theatre, not a super VIP version).