TRAVEL TALES
Young Chang
Tim Wood and his family spent this past Christmas in a packed Chinese
restaurant in London, England.
They didn’t opt for turkey or even Western fare. Instead, the Woods
ate kung-pau chicken, dim sum and a noodle dish that Tim Wood can’t
readily remember a month later.
“It was the only [restaurant] that was open,” the Newport Beach
resident said. “But we did notice that the Vietnamese restaurants were
open as well, which was actually a surprise.”
Tim and Jan Wood and their daughter, Jill Wood of Austin, Texas,
decided to spend their Christmas in London to be away from home. Tim
Wood’s parents passed away last year and it was the first Christmas
without the entire family.
“We felt it was better to try to get into an area that exuded the
Christmas spirit and get away from the house where we’re used to having
Christmas each year,” Tim Wood said.
Jill Wood, a graduate student in Texas, met the couple in London. Her
parents had chosen London as their place to visit because they wanted
Jill, who had been to the city as a young child, to repeat the experience
as an adult, Jan Wood said.
From Dec. 21 through New Year’s Eve, the family hopped from buses to
cabs to the underground subway system to travel around the very chilly
town. Their sightseeing route included St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Cheshire
Cheese (the oldest pub in London, which Charles Dickens is said to have
frequented) and the Dickens House.
They ate out twice a day -- cuisines included everything from Indian
to French -- and, of course, shopped.
“A time in London wouldn’t be complete without the shopping and the
sales,” said Tim Wood, who’s been to England numerous times before with
the family.
Instead of exchanging wrapped Christmas gifts, the trio decided to be
spontaneous.
“What we did was we went shopping until we found something we liked
and then one person would buy that for the other person,” Wood said. “For
sure, we got what we wanted.”
Jan Wood, a teacher at Mariner’s Elementary School, bought her husband
a chocolate-brown cashmere sweater from a store on Oxford Street, a
well-known shopping area. Tim Wood bought his wife a pair of gold
earrings. The couple got their daughter “quite a bit of clothes.”
“She’s an art major. She really was picking out unusual clothes,
unusual shoes,” the 58-year-old Tim Wood said, laughing.
On Christmas morning, the Woods attended services at Westminster
Abbey.
“It was wonderful,” said Tim Wood, who runs an interior design company
in Newport Beach. “The choir and all the history of the abbey itself. It
was about an hour and a half service. And one of the things I thought was
so nice was that people can walk in off the streets for this service.”
When asked if the plan had worked -- whether vacationing during the
holidays overseas helped lessen the sadness -- Wood answered an
enthusiastic affirmative.
“It really did,” he said. “We had a marvelous time. Everyday, a new
adventure. And because of the decorations all over town, I never forgot
it was Christmas.”
* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation
recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to Travel Tales, 330 W.
Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to
(949) 646-4170.
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