{"id":811,"date":"2015-12-14T12:43:23","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/?p=811"},"modified":"2015-12-14T12:43:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:43:23","slug":"christmas-at-your-doorstep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/christmas-at-your-doorstep\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas is waiting right at your doorstep…"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/strong>oday London was so beautiful\u2026 like Christmas is waiting right at your doorstep.<\/p>\n

The streets were amazingly decorated and all the lights were lighten up already. It felt like I was walking along an imaginary road written in a novel about Christmas, where the main characters would meet and fall in love before Christmas day. Everybody seemed to be walking with a happy feeling that could brighten not just themselves but the people around them, and by saying people around them, I mean me.<\/p>\n

Here, coming closer to Christmas, I could feel the atmosphere that was so different from what I had back home in Vietnam.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walking along the streets, I could feel the Christmas excitement liquidised in the air, sneaking into the houses, climbing through the windows just to see the lights, the people inside. The warmth that Christmas brought along now could be visualized more vividly than ever. So vividly that it could scare away the noisy barks of cars, buses and taxi’s on the streets. So vividly that it could turn into a giant door slamming behind me, not letting the noise follow me. I turned right dramatically to a small lane, so small that only two people could walk along side by side. When I was walking on Oxford street it was full of people and I felt fed up with the chaotic image\u2026<\/p>\n

\"SAM_4137\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, Covent Garden looked busier than ever. All restaurants were packed with people, although it was only 4.00 in the afternoon. They all seemed to be sitting with their families, talking, laughing and taking selfies. They looked like tourists who were busy with the sightseeing and needed to finish their meals quickly.\u00a0 Even if this was the case, it showed me how it would look like on Christmas day.\u00a0 It was standing there, Christmas at your doorstep, waiting nervously for us to open our doors so it could run into our families, hug each member after a whole year of long-time-no-see. It is the time of year when people return home\u2026 Just to see their siblings, their parents, to celebrate love and family\u2026<\/p>\n

I felt like Christmas was so different here.<\/p>\n

It was so warm that it could make one guy who was living so far away from his family, feel less cold. Even though it was 8 degrees Celsius on the streets and the wind was blowing more and more strongly at night time.<\/p>\n

London, December 2015<\/p>\n

Read this post and other stories on Tung’s\u00a0personal blog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today London was so beautiful\u2026 like Christmas is waiting right at your doorstep. The streets were amazingly decorated and all the lights were lighten up already. It felt like I was walking along an imaginary road written in a novel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[144,180,252,417,520],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-favourite-memories","category-london","tag-christmas","tag-covent-garden","tag-family","tag-lights","tag-oxford-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}