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

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Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to

(949) 646-4170.