Winter 2005 holidays and welcome 2006...

Spent a couple of days in Boston shopping, and watching plays. It is so much better to have a companion. I brought Pat to Newbury, where she bought a couple of G-star pants, Lechmere, Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston Opera House to watch the Nutcracker Suite, Symphony Hall to watch Christmas Boston Pops with the Von Trapp family... and of course, to eat the famous Maine Lobsters and clam-chowder.

Missed this year's Christmas celebration in BP. Dad's birthday. And it's special this year cos Thomas, Chris and the kids are going back! Sigh... Managed to extract a family photo from the photoalbum, though... without me! Can you believe it, how dare they take family photo without me?? Then we followed a tour to NYC - Philadelphia - Washington DC - Niagara, USA - Boston - NYC. In NYC, we visited the site of Twin Towers, the Intrepid, the UN Secretariat, Empire State Building, Wall Street, the Metropolitan Meseum (we saw the original Van Gogh's Straw Hat self portrait and the Sunflowers!!) and not forgetting... Times Square. In Philadelphia, we went to see the Liberty Bell Centre and the Independance Hall. In Washington DC, we went to the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial (where Forrest Gump received his star, and where a white marble Abraham Lincoln sits proudly in the middle of the hall), the White House, the US Senate and Capitol Building (the famous white dome near the white house) and the Natural Art Museum.

Niagara in the US side has nothing to offer. Nada. Too bad we spent our New Year's eve in the 'hotel' switching channels between Times Square's countdown and Alexandra. We spent the New Year in the bus, a 7-hour journey to Boston. Back in Boston, we went to Cambridge's Harvard U, and MIT, Fanueil Hall and the Harbour Cruise.

On the last day of tour, we went back to NYC, where we spent an additional 4 days on our own. We went shopping at Times Square, went up the Empire State building, visited the American Natural Art Museum, the Guggenheim Museum (where I fell in love with Van Gogh's mountain at Saint Remy) , took the Circle Line Cruise to see the Statue of Liberty and ended the whole holiday at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Boy, did we 'over-visited' the East coast in 2 weeks. Nevertheless, I'm glad we went to MoMA last. It was very colourful and inspiring. (Apple's Apple IIe, iMac and iPod were among its exhibits). Saw more van Gogh and Picasso's work. I was especially fascinated by Picasso's concept of Metamorphosis, changing the same drawing from a natural state to an abstract state. Simply love it!