Day 4 - V&A, Suzi's House, and "As You Like It"

The station for the V&A Museum

The Tube coming in with the rest of our group.

The station sign for the V&A stop.

Monday, September 14th - This morning we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. At the museum we met up with Suzi Clark. At first we had some trouble finding Suzi, as we came in through a different entrance from the Tube, while Suzi came through the street entrance. Once we found her we went to the fashion gallery, with a side stop to the Asian Textiles exhibit, which had some lovely gowns on display. Here are some of my favorites from the V&A.

A 1780s gown from the Asian Textiles Exhibit. The fabric is made out of block-printed Indian cotton.

Regency Gown

Another 1780s dress. I love the jacket.

Close-up to the jacket details

Shoe from 1900

 1940s Men Suits

Men's Riding outfit

London Ensemble

Designer: Betty Jackson

From: Autumn/Winter 2005

Suit

Designer: John Cavanagh (1914-2004)

Year: 1963

Beautiful blue floral gown.

 Day Dress

Horrockses

1957

Close-up

Day Dress

About 1912-1914

About the 1840s-1850s.

1965 Suit

1860s Wedding Gown

The V&A Courtyard

A lovely painting I saw at the V&A.

Isn't this dress just darling? The girl looks so sweet and charming!

After lunch at the museum some of us went to Suzi's house to see some of her collection. On the way I was able to see several sites.

 

Aspley House - The First Duke of Wellington's House

The theater were The Phantom of the Opera plays.

Piccadilly Area

Another picture of the Piccadilly area

Still another one

And another one

And still another one.

While we were at Suzi's house we had some real English scones, clotted cream, jam, and tea. Which was scrumptious! During the trip I have come to love real English scones with clotted cream. Yummy! Sadly, I have no pictures from Suzi's house. :(At her house I did see two Charles Frederick Worth bodices. Ah!!! One of my favorite designers. And I also saw a bunch of lace, stays/corsets, textiles, etc....

At around 5:00PM or so we all headed over the Globe for a performance of As You Like It. Just so you know, this was first exposure to Shakespeare and I LOVED it!!!! The play was great! I wanted to watch it again once it was over. That is how much I like it. Plus, most of us had "Groundlings" tickets, which means standing around the stage - THE best seat in the theater, as the actors would be right by you. In fact, my mom and I and group of friends stood by the side stage stairs and the actors and actresses would walk or run by us. Their skirts brushed us, the men swords would be close to hitting us. You could reach out and touch them! In the wrestling scenes they would be right there in front of us. Ah!!!!  

As we weren't able to take pictures of the play, I did find some online so you could see some of the lovely costumes.

 

Here are also some of  pictures from that evening.

St. Pauls from the Shakespeare Globe

The Globe stage at night.


~Ashley

"As You Like It" pictures from:  http://static.guim.co.uk/ and http://www.independent.co.uk/

Souvenirs from Guam

Yes I've made gonig to the malls almost a focal point of my wedding trip to Guam if you've noticed in my previous posts. But I actually ended up bringing home only what I thought were the necessities - some souvenirs for families and a few snacks.



From left to right:

-"I Love Guam" mug from ABC Store

-Tootsie Roll inspired purse from JP Superstore

-Junk Food T-shirt from JP Superstore

-Guam ABC Store Men's T-shirt in charcoal from ABC Store

-Guam ABC Store Men's T-shirt in sky blue from ABC Store







And here're what I got from K Mart (left to right):

-2 packages of Pepperridge Farms Chocolate Chip Cookies ... because I couldn't yet find these in Taipei.

-2 large packages of chips ahoy... because the US version is much better with more chocolate.

-Mac & Cheese... also hard to find and more expensive in Taipei

-Neutrogena Visibly Firm Night Cream ... because it's not sold in Taipei

-Aveeno Positively Radiant Cleansing Pads ... nope not sold in Taipei







I also stocked up on a few bottles of vitamins and supplements from Vitamin World and K Mart for my dad. Vitamin supplements are more expensive in Taipei.

If you're heading to Guam...

Before our wedding/honeymoon trip to Guam, I had had to do an extensive research on the web. I thought I'd share a few websites that I found to be the most inform and helpful for visiting Guam.



The must-read Guam related websites:


1 Guam Visitors Bureau (This serves as a great intro to Guam.)


2 Clickguam.com (This offers a wealth of info on where to stay, where to eat, where to shop, transportation, and an excellent hotel map)





And if you're planning a wedding in Guam:


1 Naoco Wedding (We singed on with this Guam local wedding service company through our travel agency in Taipei. But you will most likely save on money by directly contacting a local wedding service company, this is just one of many companies to choose from. Don't worry if you can't read their all Japanese website. Go ahead and contact them directly, the people in their Guam office speak perfect English.)


Ginza Couture Naoco, Guam

P.O.Box 7959

Tamuning, Guam 96931

Tel: (671)646-1242

Fax: (671) 647-0479





2 Dream Weddings Guam (A local wedding service that turned up during my search on the web, specializes in smaller, or last-minute ceremonies for couples.)

Guam: Day Three & Day Four

DAY THREE -


We woke up in our beautiful hotel suite to the early sunshine of Guam for the first time. And this day happens to be the Labor Day holiday, as well as our chapel wedding day.


After breakfast at the hotel, the local wedding service company that we signed on for drove us to their salon. While I was being pampered by the stylist for almost two hours, hubby waited and tried to familiarize himself with the chapel ceremony process. At noon, we arrived at the beach side chapel in a limo. With help from the pastor, the wedding coordinator, the photographer, the vocalist, the pianist, we said our vows. We also had a photo session by our photographer at the nearby beach following the ceremony. I've not seen these photos as they've yet to arrive from Guam by mail.


This was taken by the coordinator using my dc.






At 2pm, we arrived back at the hotel to change into more casual wear, then headed out to enjoy the remaining 1 + 1/2 days on Guam by ourselves without a local tour guide.


*It's super easy to get around most of Guam's tourist attractions as the island has shuttle buses that services popular routes.


Me, sitting on the windowless shuttle bus.





We got on the first available bus at our hotel and was taken to GPO "Guam Premium Outlets" within minutes, so we decided to grab lunch at the food court inside the outlet and maybe do a little shopping.



Guam Premium Outlets





Grilled sub, one of my favorite mall food.





Lasagna from Sabarros Pizza.





GPO houses a Ross, a Nine West outlet, a Guess outlet among other lesser known stores. In my opinion, you're more likely to find bargains from GPO than from Micronesia. But the shelves at Ross were more than half-empty on the day we went, I was kinda disappointed. Perhaps they couldn't restock fast enough than the speed at which the goods are flying off the shelves?



After GPO, we got on a shuttle bus again and took a ride down Guam's famous hotel road. We strolled down hotel road, checking out the many high-end shops, such as JP Superstore, DFS, etc. The biggest names, including Gucci, Fendi, Cartier, Tiffany, and many others all have set up locations here. Along with Guam's tax-free status, this area is truely a shopping paradise for the HAVE. Unfortunately for me, these high-end names are out of league. Although I still had a little fun getting souvenirs for my sisters from the JP Superstore.



A snap shot of the hotel road.





We had dinner at a small ramen house on hotel road. Miso Ramen and California Roll for dinner.






DAY FOUR (LAST DAY ON GUAM)-


In the morning, we stayed within the hotel compound and just explored its garden, taking in the ocean view from its backyard, and visiting the hotel's two on-site chapels.



Aqua Stella Chapel





Nestled at the top of the property is Hilton Guam's other chapel named St. Probus Holy Chapel, the larger of the two. This glass-walled chapel sits on the edge of the cliff line allowing undisturbed ocean view.





At noon we took a shuttle bus to K Mart, where I got myself some items that normally couldn't be found in Taipei. I'll devote another entry entirely to my guilty pleasures from Guam later on.



Guam K Mart is the largest K Mart in the whole USA.






We wrapped up our stay on Guam by taking an evening stroll down a stretch of the sandy beach of Tumon Bay, starting at Nikko Hotel and ending at the Hyatt hotel. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant on hotel road across from the PIC hotel.



Complimentary Korean appetizers including Kimchi





Bulgogi, Korean marinated barbecued beef.






Bibimbob





But I still had to get some last minute souvenirs for my brothers and sister-in-law before we had to head back to your hotel to pack. We had to settle for ABC Store - the local convenience store - since our flight would be leaving in a few hours.






Read about Guam: Day One & Day Two