The Basilica Our Lady of Lourdes

The main attraction in Lourdes is the mighty Basilica Our Lady of Lourdes.



The Basilica is sitting on top of the rocky grotto where The Virgin Mary appeared to Sr. Bernadette Soubirou in 1858. It has a lower Church and an upper Church looking out the sanctuary large place. The walkway lead from the lower to the upper church has statues of the twelve Apostles along the way and in the middle of two walkway - look like two huge arms embrace the whole complex - is the Golden Crown





And in the middle of the Sanctuary is the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes

At night, the statue light up and thousands of worshippers pay their homage in the torch procession from the lower Church , go around the sanctuary and then come back to the lower Church. The view from the upper Church made me feel the procession looks like a giant fire snake or a lava stream and it looks spectacular!

Paris: The Iron Lady still as charming as ever!

Yay! We're here, stand in front of the "Old" famous Iron Lady of France , Lady Eiffel! Seeing her the first time under day light was a bit disappointed! But as we turned around, she was lit up as a Lady with fresh make up and oh she so beautiful






Paris WAS our city in dream, being studied French since I was a teenage girl (oh my beautiful youth days now so farrr away...) we also learnt about its history, a bit of its art, a bit of its literature and of course, our dream by that time was one in the lifetime stand on Paris ground admire Eiffel tower, a dream seemed lot of difficult to be true at that time.

Paris now IS my reality, standing at the bases of Eiffel tower, crêpe in hand, blend in the surrounding noise, the people, the view and like exacly in my dream: Paris IS perfect!

In my opinion, the proper way to approach Eiffel is from Trocadero, where I were greeted by Palais de Chaillot, the statues, the fountain and the Iranian protectors:

Before we head to our hotel, we had a goodbye from Paris sky, beautifully under the sunset !

Our first day in Paris was another nearly perfect image: the Montparnasse tower and the metro Edgar Quinet light up just the moment we head off from the metro. Good night!

Merry Christmas and happy new year - the end of 2008

Well, another year!! This year passing so fast to me, and I've done nothing, even keeping my blog active! But in the spirit of "better than nothing", few entries still better than nothing LOL.
I wish you, my family and friends; a Merry Merry Christmas and all the best in coming year! may the spirit of God and peace be with you all - and that is what we need in this crisis time.

The kind man

By co-incidence when searching info in the net for my next trip (France and Korea) I saw this photo, by some reason, I just can't take my eye off the image: a strange man’s image has touching me deeply!!


Look at him: his look is straight and sad! I am not sure that he smiling or not, but thru the expression of his face, I think he is!
To me, when I look at his image, I think of a man been through so many hard times in his life but still alive and survived, standing firm and high from the horrible pass and start to lives his life again, yet not loosing the kindness of his soul.
Just something I want to share with you!!!

Vy

Vy is my adopted grand daughter. She came to Australia on 2002, just 8 years old by then.
She has talent of painting, so I enrolled her into an art class for learning the skill of painting, and here are some of her works. Isn't it great for a 13 years old girl?

I hope that one day she will be continue her passion of painting, as now she has to stop painting for a while because of her high school home works, and it 's harder for her as she just came here for 5 years, English is always a problem but she has tried her best. Good on you and keep up your passion Vy!!

Merry Christmas and happy new year - the end of 2007

This is greeting season

This is the end of the year 2007

End of year start of year.

May all of you have a wonderful holiday season

And peace will be with you and your love ones all.

An orphanage

Before I show you our Vietnam' trip for leisure and eating, I'd like to share with you some heart broken moment.
On our last trip to Vietnam, we visited a private orphanage. I said private, because my sister in-law is the person who in charge of this house, and they didn't allowed to received any donation from stranger.Because this reason, I am sorry that I couldnt provide you the house's location .
On the night before our visit, at 11 p.m my sis just found a new born baby dump in front of her door. Sounds familiar?? Looking at the angel face sleep in peace and smile, my tear almost gone out.
Some of the orphans are disability. Some of them found a new house and has a new life, but not all of them. What will happen for those one who left behind??I got no answer and I dont really want an answer.
My son in law's friend's eye was wet so the same as ours. We all left a small donation ( since I am not a stranger) but I know, we couldn't do much for those poor babies. May God bless them all

Our first step into the journey

( Click on the picture to view with full scale )

Wow we 're now officially retire . How sweet - you may think. To me, the sweetest thing about retire is now we can travel our own pace,whenever we like to go . But the fine print of this line is our financial :o) No worries, we saved - we go - we enjoy!! then the circle will start over again.
Now, we start our first step....

Wow chúng tôi đã chính thức được về hưu. Thật tuyệt vời - có lẽ bạn nghĩ thế. Đối với chúng tôi, điều ngọt ngào nhất khi đựơc nghỉ hưu là chúng tôi có thể đi du lịch theo khả năng của chúng tôi, bất cứ lúc nào chúng tôi thích . Rối rắm là vấn đề tài chánh !!Nhưng không lo, chúng tôi tiết kiệm, chúng tôi du hành và chúng tôi tận hưởng, và vòng luẩn quẩn lại bắt dầu!! Bây giờ chúng tôi bắt đầu cuộc hành trình....