Travel

I recently stayed in Manhattan for a few days during a business trip. My colleague and I were looking for places to buy some special chocolate to bring back home. We asked a few locals New Yorker as well as consulted the web for recommendations. Here are the list of stores we collected.

• La Maison Du Chocola (store website)
• Vosges (store website)
• Jacques Torres (store website)

We only have 3 hours to spend in the city. So we went to La Maison Du Chocola store in the Rockefelle Center, the store closest to our hotel.

Huahai and I have just returned from our first trip together to Italy. The trip itself was wonderful and unforgeable. However, it usually took a lot of planning for such an extensive trip, unless you hire someone else to do it for you or join a tour group.

We usually enjoy traveling at our own pace and explore the area; therefore, we (basically myself) always do our own travel planning. Unfortunately, as a very busy professional, I do not really have much time to do the planning. (Can you believe someone have actually spent half a year to plan a two-week's trip to Italy and produce a travel plan with 90 pages?)

China is a fast-changing country. Not surprisingly, the list of popular gifts for Chinese family, relatives and friends keeps on changing as well.  When I return to China, I always do some extensive research to gather an updated shopping list of gifts to buy. Here is a summary based on various gift-giving guides and online forum postings for my recent trip to China.

1. Parents/Elderly Relatives

* Vitamin Supplements

* Wisconsin Ginseng

Health-related gifts have been always appreciated in China. Even though the same product may be available in China, items bought oversea are considered as of higher quality.

2. Women

* Skin Care/Cosmetics

Most Western brands sold in department store such as Clinique, Estee Lauder and Lancome are very much adored by Chinese women. However, if you happen to get any free gift with purchase, don't gift that alone. Many people know that you get it for free, so it would be very insulting if you just give the free gift as a gift.

* Jewelry

I have accumulated over 60,000 miles on British Airlines Executive Club reward account for a while now, but keep on having problem redeeming them. First of all, it is difficult to find any reward flight available; secondly, the fee is extremely high --- for a flight from SFO to LHR, I would have to pay 50000 miles + over \$600 fee, while the same flight costs less than \$1000 when paying with cash.

Over the weekend, I have investigated the problem and found out that one of the best ways to spend my BA miles is to redeem for British Airways' partner airline flights. However, it is not straightforward to do so, as BA would show its own flights with steep fee first, except when American Airlines and a couple of other partner airlines operate the same route.

春天来到，野花微笑，小鸟欢叫，唐唐娇娇，春游去了！

左一个，右一个，奔跑在希望的田野上。

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Day1:

12/16/2007

Lunch with Junwen

Boarding at San Diego Port

Drill

First Dinner

Debarkation Celebration

Raffle at many places (of course we did not win any of them)

12/17/2007

Men's golf tournament (27 vs. 25)

Table tennis

Hairy Chest Contest

First Formal Night

Photo

Choose Shore Excuirsion

Dance

12/18/2007

Women's golf tournament (28 vs. 20) Continue reading »