Saturday, December 23, 2006

# Merry Christmas!

Ah... It's the time of the year again! It has been kind of a "tradition" thing for me to do a pre-christmas post about the christmas decor around London. As my old posts have some problems of loading the photos, I will just give the source of my pictures here: 2005, 2004

Let's start off with a dream-like picture with people standing right beside some penguins, dancing lights and another person holding an orb... Any idea where they are?

No, it's not some dreamland far far away, but these people are taking pictures in a GIANT glass ball! The snow effect is created by small paper pieces being swirled around by a strong blower. Tempted as I was, I didn't go into the giant glass ball anyway because the queue is long and they charged 5 pounds per person! And people just took picture in the glass ball, and left. No chance of having some fun inside. Commercialized christmas...

Let's go somewhere else and have a look at the decor around London, shall we?

We passed by some Santa Grotto... I wonder whether I have been nice or naughty? Hmm... I can't help recommending this site for us to have some laughs on the photos of little children being scared of Santa, the one who write our behaviour report each year and decided our rewards...

And of course, I made a wish at the wishing well. The wish? Secret... ;-)

One of the place I like to go during christmas season is the Covent Garden, no, not the crowdy part, but the less crowdy part with little shops selling all sorts of christmas items. Here is a view of the Apple Market.

And actually, one of the main reason I like going to Covent Garden is because there are always some music school students playing instruments at one of the corners there. (the corner is the left hand bottom corner in the picture below) I like the string quartet particularly... I like to listen to them and wait hopefully for them to play my favourite song - Pachelbel Canon in D.

(smile sheepishly... Yea I know it's kind of lame but I just can't help LOVING Pachelbel Canon in D! Don't care if the cello part is lousy or if the song haunts Rob Paravonian!)

There will be also lots of fun fair being set up around London, the most prominent places are of course in Leicester Square and Covent Garden. I think (I don't quite remember) I have put up some post about the funfair last year, so I will save the space for this year. Here is one of the pictures - the merry-go-round!

Shopping for christmas presents are never easy, but the effort is worthwhile when you see the person smile!

Ooops, I think Santa left his sleigh unattended. Mountains of presents!!! Hope he didn't get a parking ticket for that.

Ok, let's stop by to have some mulled wine. After all, christmas is not complete without any wine, rite?

And christmas is definitely not complete without a TREE!

But for many children, christmas would not be complete without DISNEY!

Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR folks!

(I will be gone for a few days for christmas till new year in friend's house. So I will be temporarily away from the blogsphere... So here's wishing my dear friends here a very happy christmas!)

7 comments:

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Lovely photos and it is a great time for children to see all the decorations. Of course it is really the 'wrapping' of what the holiday is really about!
Don't read if you don't read sad stories at this time of the year, but I thought this was very strange. A group of children in Scotland were at a Christmas party with an ageing Santa who was actually 82 years old. He keeled over in front of them and the poor little kiddies watched his demise! A true story. Oh dear!
W.

NA said...

ho ho ho

The Moody Minstrel said...

Hmm...
Someone likes aromatherapy!

Aaaah....the nice, warm, sentimental feeling of Christmas. Isn't it nice?

Happy holidays, YD!

@ロウ 。LOW@ said...

Come back, YD. It's 2007!

Happy New Year :)

YD said...

Yay! It's 2007! Flip the calendar!

Big warm hugs to everyone!

HappySurfer said...

Love the pictures, YD. Thanks for sharing them. Hope you had a great holiday. Happy New Year!

Anonymous said...

Great photos... You should upgrade to DSLR soon...