Christmas At The Venetian
The Venetian is my favorite resort and hotel in Las Vegas. I absolutely love it, and have only stayed there once. Every time I go to Vegas, I want to stay there, but sadly price wise…I have to stay away. I wonder how packages from the UK are so affordable to other countries, including to the USA, yet we can’t seem to get any bargains like this from here? For instance, my sister just booked a trip to the USA where she stayed 4 days in New York, and 4 days in Las Vegas (during this summer). Her hotel in New York was the Marriott Marquis right in Times Square, and her accommodation in Las Vegas was the Venetian. Her price for the trip was £1,000 UK pounds per person (for a family of four), and this includes airfare and hotel cost. When I flew to the UK in 2014 (in the summer) it cost me $1,500 per person (for a family of four), and this did not include the cost of hotels. I am so jealous, ‘cos I want to stay at the Venetian for four days! However, since it’s my sister….I’m happy she is staying at one of the best places in Las Vegas.
Last time I wrote in May about Las Vegas, I told you I would include pictures of inside the Venetian, so here we go. Sorry, it has taken me such a long time to get around to it. I even fit one more trip to Las Vegas since Christmas – this summer – not the same time as my sister unfortunately, and I did not stay at the Venetian 😦 . Here are the pictures that include Christmas inside the Venetian, and some that were taken this summer. Oh, and the gelato – it’s absolutely delicious! Incase you are wondering, Christmas is a great time to be in Las Vegas, and especially at the Venetian.
Christmas In Las Vegas
Christmas in Las Vegas was a new experience for us, and a rather nice one. We spent Christmas, 2015 in Vegas, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are some more pictures, these were nearly all taken on Christmas day, 2015. The last one was taken on Christmas Eve at The Carnival World Buffet which we went to prior to going to Christmas Eve mass at Our Lady of Wisdom Church.

Bellagio, Las Vegas
We didn’t stay at Bellagio though as much as I would have liked to. Actually, if you ask me which place I would like to stay at my number one choice is Venetian, and number two is Bellagio. We actually stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations Club Resort of which I am a member (through my timeshare ownership). I won’t even go into my tea-bag dilemna that I had there – can you believe they didn’t have regular black tea? I certainly had tea withdrawal! Enough said of that for the time being, other than to say you hotels should never just cater to coffee lovers, there’s tea lovers too! My view wasn’t too bad though.

View from Hilton Grand Vacations Resort, Las Vegas Blvd

View from Hilton Grand Vacations Resort, Las Vegas Blvd
We had brunch at the Paris Hotel’s Le Village Buffet, I will show you pictures of that separately in another post. Here are pictures of the Bellagio, where we spent the majority of our Christmas day, just strolling around – what a beautiful Christmas display!

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas

Bellagio, Las Vegas
We had Christmas Eve lunch at The Carnival World Buffet at Rio

Carnival World Buffet at Rio, Las Vegas
We ate a lot in Vegas. My kids talked me into getting them the Buffet Pass which cost $55 per person for 48 hours. So we started the pass at around 5pm on Christmas Eve and it lasted until Boxing Day at 5 pm. Therefore, we were able to use it for meals over 3 days, but had to time the last meal on Boxing Day to be in the line for the meal before 5 pm. If you can time it properly, it works out well. All the meals and drinks that you want are included in this price (except alcohol of course) – but you will be sure to put on a few pounds! I will post more pictures of Las Vegas soon. I can’t believe it’s already April, and I’m just getting around to doing this post now. Where does time go to?
Christmas Eve In Las Vegas

I’ve spent New Year in Las Vegas, and summer in Las Vegas, but not Christmas in Las Vegas, so last Christmas we tried it, and we liked it!
There are less crowds in Vegas in Christmas, than there are at New Year. Also, when it’s New Year, it’s just not the best place for kids in all that noisy, raucous Vegas celebration – what with the drinks and the drunks, and well…..let’s say I think Christmas was a little more mellow in Vegas.
Have you ever associated Las Vegas with Christmas? Or have you ever even considered it to be a good place to celebrate such a joyous occasion? Well, I think our Christmas in Vegas in 2015 was spectacular, partly, because we found a beautiful church to celebrate Christmas Eve in. I am Sikh, but I like all kinds of churches, temples (including Hindu temples, as well as Sikh temples) and have even enjoyed visiting Mosques or at least taking pictures of them, see this link. The church we visited is an Italo-Greek Byzantine Catholic Church called Our Lady of Wisdom, located on 2120 Lindell Road, Las Vegas, NV 89146, only about 5 minutes drive from the Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard. It is such a truly beautiful, spectacular church, and is very European looking – I could not believe I was in the USA while I was in this church, it was such a wonderful feeling that the church gave me. Here are some pictures:

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas
I managed to get my two daughters in the picture

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas

Our Lady of Wisdom Church, Las Vegas
I don’t really think I was supposed to be taking pictures at the church, but I think it was too beautiful to not take pictures. I would love to be at this church every Christmas Eve, too bad it’s not in San Diego!
Happy Diwali!

Happy Diwali! I’ve had some sad news recently, so it’s hard to get into the mood for celebrations, but celebrate we must. Most of my celebrations shown here, took place before the recent sad event, so I am just sharing with you as a way of trying to get over some of my pain. As you may know, Diwali is known as the Festival Of Lights, and it signifies good over evil, light over darkness, and knowledge over ignorance. May Diwali shine it’s light on my family, and yours. May the Goddess Lakshmi shower us with her love and blessings. If for some reason, the link does not take you to the gif image of Lakshmi, you may see it here on my Pinterest Board.
Here are some pictures I took at the Diwali Mela in San Diego on October 24, 2015:
There were ever so many people there, these two pictures will give you a glimpse at part of the crowds, both during daylight and at night – it was packed!
These girls had a very interesting costume, especially the head gear, but it certainly looked nice and colorful!
Here, they are dancing with the dandia sticks. It’s a South Indian dance I believe.
There were all kinds of dances, even hip hop!
Also, there were American girls dancing to Bollywood music. I think they did a pretty good job.
Here’s a video of their dance:
Here is a video that includes a variety of the performances.
Unfortunately, I could not include all of the performances or show the entirety of each performance. I hope you like the videos, and I hope you like the pictures.
I also hope you will candles, and illuminate your home with just candlelight later this evening. Remember, let light prevail over darkness.
Don’t forget to eat some Indian food – how could you not when it’s Diwali! I have some virtual food and drink just for you! Here’s naan bread with lentils, chicken curry, rice and raita (Indian yoghurt).
I love samosas, you can’t enjoy Diwali without samosas, or at least I think so.
You might even want to have a special dish of mine – my very favorite, and of course it’s a Punjabi dish – Makhi Di Roti (bread made from corn meal/corn flour) and Saag (spinach)! You must give this one a try!
After this, you must have sweets. You must have burfi (can’t even describe how delicious they are – Indian fudge is the closes I can get to it, and oh, how I love fudge!). Then there’s gulab jamun (syruppy goodness) and jalebi (sticky and syruppy goodness).
You might want to try kheer, which is basically a delicious rice pudding dish – it is a little less sweet than the jalebi and gulab jamun. Sorry about the quality of this picture.
Want more sweets? I knew you would!
Then, if you’re like me, you’ll have to wash the sweets down with a delicious cup of chai.
Now, hopefully that was a nice Diwali, some pictures, some entertainment, some food, some sweets and some tea!
Guess what? For the first time ever, we have been given the day off for Diwali in the USA and they didn’t even know they were giving us the day off for our special holiday! They thought they were giving us a day off for Veterans Day, well….I am very glad that we have Veterans Day! Thank you to all those who served, and made this day possible so that we could all be off together, and celebrate away from work! Please can we make Veterans Day next year be on Diwali too? Please? I don’t think it will happen again, as Diwali is on different days, sometimes in October, and sometimes in November. Still, it doesn’t hurt to ask or wish for it…….please, let it be on a holiday again, or better still – give us Diwali off (wishful thinking)!!! Anyway, must go and enjoy Diwali now. Happy Veterans Day, and Happy Diwali!
On The Way To Covent Garden, London

I find everything worth taking a picture of, especially in London. So, you won’t be surprised that I took several pictures on the way to Covent Garden when I was there last year. Here are the pictures:
They have the most interesting names of pubs in England, don’t you think?
Do you think that I wouldn’t take a picture of this place – The Chandos? Why would I not, when it’s kind of named after my little Chandi. Didn’t get a chance to go there though, but will pop in next time.
After we visited Covent Garden, pictures of which I showed you last week, we went to a street not too far away, and found some really lovely places to gaze and gawk at too.
More, next time.
I hope you liked the pictures close by to Covent Garden, sometimes, it’s not just the destination, but even the trip that’s worth it. Always remember to take as many pictures as possible, or you might just forget what you saw on your way.
The Delphin Imperial, Lara Beach – Antalya. It will Astound You.
I think you will be astounded if you go visit the Delphin Imperial Resort. When I think back to our vacation in Lara Beach which is in the Antalya region of Turkey – I have good memories. My kids loved it there. They loved it because we went with our family from England – so there was a large group of us. Holidays are always better in large groups. I think back to the luxurious inside, and the exquisite outside of the hotel, and just have to share some more pictures with you.
Also, this hotel is walking distance to the shopping mall
First time for my kids on a camel! They loved it.
The restaurants are rather elegant at the Delphin Imperial
Did I tell you that they have really well-kept grounds? They also do not have a mosquito problem, which is really refreshing.
This resort is overlooking the ocean and has its own beach!
There are at least 7 or 8 swimming pools and a massive water slide at the Delphin Imperial.
I think the grounds are ever so scenic.
Chandra loved the Kids Club, she had so much fun there, and attended a birthday party on the same day that it was Luca’s birthday. But this party was for someone else, and Luca did not attend the Kids Club as now he is a teenager, and it’s not the kind of thing teenagers want to do!
My son Luca, got to celebrate his birthday in Turkey. Here we are on his special day, about to have dinner at Lalezar Restaurant which is a specialty restaurant there – but it is included, and it’s nice to try a different venue, especially for a special occasion like this.
I love baclavas, and fortunately tonight we got this for dessert too – as well as birthday cake. Lalezar is more of a traditional Turkish restaurant, and tonight we had Turkish food which I found to be really yummy!
There is a stunningly beautiful Spa at the resort, which is massive, and so relaxing!
I included some pictures here of the food, but if you want to see more – take a look at my video. You will surely get hungry!
Well, that was a lot of pictures. I always intend to share just about four or five, but never manage to. Next time, I might do my post on old Antalya, which I was so fortunate to have visited – when I ventured away from the resort on August 4th. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope you can see that the Delphin Imperial is an astoundingly good resort.
Diwali at Balboa Park, 2014
I love Diwali, the Indian Festival Of Lights that is celebrated by Indians all over the world. Diwali has its roots in the story of Rama and Sita, and while I won’t go into the historical aspect – let’s just say that Diwali shows us how good triumphs over evil. We celebrate this wonderful time with family, friends, good food, music and often entertainment. While Diwali is on October 23rd this year, we celebrated it in Balboa Park on October 18th. Here are some pictures taken at the Organ Pavilion – the site of the 7th Annual Diwali Celebration in Balboa Park.
Now pictures of the performances: this was the group from Tamil Nadu
This was the group from Rajasthan and I am proud to say that my daughter is a member of this dance group, and this group dances fabulously!
This is the group from the Punjab – I have to say that I love Punjabi music and dance, and this group is fabulous too!
This is my daughter right before the show.
This is a picture of her group performing in a different show
Well, the Organ Pavilion surely looks colorful!
Oh, by the way, I uploaded a video to YouTube of the Rajasthani Dance, you can see the link below (first video). I have now uploaded another video of the Punjabi Dance (second video). Want to know something? My camcorder’s battery died and I had been so busy earlier in the day rushing around that I forgot to charge it. I had to use my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to make the video – I hope you like it!
Happy Diwali to all those who celebrate this de-light-ful holiday. May the lights shine brightly on you and may you be blessed with a fabulous year full of happiness, peace and prosperity.
The South Bank, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, London Eye and More
Continuing with Day Three of my trip to London in July. Wow, has it already been nearly two months since I came back? How time flies?
Okay, fast rewind back to that day. We went for a walk all the way from our hotel – The Trafalgar – to the South Bank. It was a lovely walk, it drizzled just a tiny bit at one time, and other than that it was nice and warm – perfect weather for a walk. Do you know that London is a fabulous place to take a walk? Oh, the parks, the sightseeing, and the architecture! This is some of what we saw as we got closer.
The London Eye – isn’t it lovely?
Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament – aren’t they just magnificent?
London, isn’t it wonderful?
Okay, I won’t ask you any more questions, I’ll just let you take a look at the pictures.
I don’t know what the name of the castle or palace type building is so I’ll just call it “Beautiful Palace”
Fancy a ride, you could go on this carousel or the London Eye which you might see if you look closely at the picture.
Fancy a walk? London is a terrific place for taking walks. Oh, how I would love to be taking a walk there right now!
That’s my 17 year old daughter’s beautiful hair – it looks even more spectacular with the sun shining down on it!
Time for bubbles!
Have you ever seen such a big bubble or seen one as beautiful?
Wow! Now, it’s really massive! This man is good, and I think he’s magical!
I will always remember the Bubble Blower of the South Bank
So, we left the bubbles to get closer to our ultimate destination – the London Eye.
Now, we are getting closer to the London Eye
Here we are really close, in fact – we are at the entrance of the London Eye!
So, you’ve seen pictures of the entire wheel, you may have seen what it looks like up close – if not, this is what it’s like
and just for you, another picture…..at a slightly different angle.
Well, until next time…..and here’s a sneak peak at my latest video of the South Bank, the Bubble Blower and the London Eye. Let’s just say I love London, and I hope you like the pictures, and the video.
Trafalgar Square to Houses Of Parliament

We are still on Day Three of our Five Day Trip to London which was a three week trip in total. Another week was spent in northern England where my family lives, and one week was spent in Antalya, Turkey (I’ll have to write a post on that at some point soon – I hope).
Today is July 25th, we had left the USA on July 22nd at around 8 pm, and arrived at London Heathrow Airport on the 23rd at around 3pm local time, which was 7 am USA Pacific Time – we were lucky to have caught a direct flight which was a total of 11 hours. Of course, when you get to England, you kind of lose a day with traveling and then have to put the clock eight hours forward.
This post carries on from the previous one – Trafalgar Square via Whitehall to Horse Guards Parade. We had just finished looking at the Horse Guard’s Parade grounds, and this is opposite to the Ministry of Defence. Can you imagine that nearly all buildings in London – even if not exactly touristy, are so beautiful! To me, they are a treasure, and are all worthy of being photographed!
Another picture in the same area.
This person, the Eighth Duke of Devonshire, apparently turned down the job of Prime Minister – his statue is shown in the picture below
Now, let’s not forget the women of World War Two, they had a significant part in the war too – they served, fought, and nurtured the wounded – here’s their memorial.
We are coming up to Downing Street, now the home of David Cameron, and when I used to live there, it was home of Margaret Thatcher. There’s been a few other Prime Ministers in between of course.
This memorial is significant, it commemorates the end of World War 1.
Well, look what else I saw….King Charles Street Bridge. The arch connects the Treasury building to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office building.
Now, I’m not sure what this building is exactly….but it is on the way from King Charles Street Bridge to
Here’s a building that just looked nice, so I took a picture of it.
Well, a glimpse of the Houses of Parliament, and now we are getting close to where I was supposed to share more photos of – in this post. I think I dawdle too much along the way, and get way too distracted. Just to let you know, it is not that far from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament – I think you can make it in about twenty minutes if you walk fast.
Next post….I have to share more pictures of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret’s Church.
Trafalgar Square Via Whitehall to Horse Guard’s Parade

Day Three in London on July 25, 2014 started off in the Trafalgar Square area. I already showed you some pictures in my previous post Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret’s Church, however, I didn’t want to bore you with too many pictures along the way to Westminster, so now I can bore you in this post…..excuse my dry humor!
So let’s continue the journey! This is very close to our hotel in Trafalgar Square, and is on the corner of Whitehall and Charing Cross
Just a bit of London for you, with some Londoner’s of course!
Looking back at the Trafalgar Square area
55 Whitehall – Sherlock stood atop here in the “Empty Hearse”, so did James Bond 007 in “Skyfall”. This building now houses the Department for Energy and Climate Change
Talking of Sherlock, here’s a pub named after him and that is close by to Great Scotland Yard.
It is on the junction of Whitehall and Great Scotland Yard, which is pictured below
Some of my pictures are quite self-explanatory, so I won’t write the same info above them as the info is captioned on the picture. This building is right next to 55 Whitehall – it is the Ministry of Defence
And this picture will show you both 55 Whitehall and the Ministry of Defence in the same shot, as well The Clarence (restaurant)
Want to see the Duke of Cambridge (not the present one mind you) up closer?
I bet you didn’t know Whitehall was such an interesting place. It’s the area that houses a lot of the government departments and ministries, and of course the terrific Horse Guards Parade, which is a parade ground used for royal parades and ceremonies.
Please beware – the horses may kick or bite you!
This is the Old Admiralty Building at Horse Guards Parade
Wow, now they are all taking a picture of what I took a picture of before – the Ministry of Defence Building (sorry, I am spelling it the British way, Word Press wants me to put an “s” instead of a “c” in “Defence”, but right now I want to stick to the way I used to spell it while growing up in the UK).
I meant to share more pictures of Big Ben, St. Margaret’s Church, and Westminster Abbey, but I will have to share them with you the post after the next one.