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Spain: Barcelonaaaaaaaa (24.04.07 - 28.04.07)

2007-08-26T09:01:00.000+01:00

i love barcelonaaaaa! hahaha i love it so much i have to start proclaiming my love for it even before i start posting anything else. i love you, barcelona! i love your small streets and big street called la rambla and your lovely ho(s)tel malda and different-from-spanish dialect and how we took damn long to figure out our way from the train station to the city and everything about our 5 days there! and most importantly, i love the zara prices there!!

haha okay im quite done.

alrights so we took an 8-hour train ride from paris to barcelona, changing trains at this small french town of montpellier. our first train was the TGV train.. which is amazingly new and fast and steady (like stable-steady, not the singlish-steady). then we got on the renfe train operated by the spanish and weeelllll, it was a tad different but well, it got us to our destination all the same..

so we arrived in barcelona at about 8pm.. and tried to make our way to the city centre on foot.. winding through the many small streets, relying on our let's go map, which was, to say the least, not the most detailed. soooo we got lost trying to look for that road named del pi, where hostel malda, our first choice (coz it was cheeeap) hostel was.

so after much meandering through the streets and some shady-looking plazas and encountering many differing opinions among our group on where to walk.. we FINALLY found del pi after consulting a shopowner. but ladidum, the owners (an elderly couple) said their rooms were full..

alrights, so it's down to second or third choice hostels.. and somehow we settled on this hostel sun & moon. quite a shady place.. i rem bargaining for the room rates and he promised, i forgot, 18euros if we stayed for 3 nights.. then later raised the price to 20 when we looked quite eager. idiots. anyways the place was quite horrid. i rem the toilet smelled of urine constantly and the bedsheet was really rough and bad. and we had to rent blankets or something.. so we resorted to peeling bedsheets off the empty beds to use as blankets haha. after settling in there and deciding we couldn't possible make this place our home for the next 4 days, we sent our 2 messenger boys (aka the mr chan and retard chen you see in a previous post) to hostel malda to poke around. and some happy retard-free minutes later, they returned with glorious news that even though the elderly couple were too busy enjoying their soccer match (it IS barcelona, after all) to care about our lodgings for tonight, we would be able to check back tomorrow morning for vacancies which they think they would have.

so after some fitful sleep on the scratchy bed, the 2 messenger boys set off next morning to hostel malda again and TADAH! there was a room for 5 available! farewell erxin sun&moon and hello wonderful homely malda! it's a quite a cool hostel.. just one floor of a huge apartment with many rooms for backpackers. very quaint-looking double doors, a living room with tv for soccer, only 3 toilets and a homely feel thanks to the elderly couple. and it's only 15 euros! take that, bloody sun&moon!

after settling into our new hostel.. we began our exploration of barcelona, beginning our walk along the tree-lined la ramblas, the famous stretch of street buskers, florists, pet shops and souvenir stalls in between 2 bustling roads. the pets were amazing. i've never been to chatuchak even though i've heard alot about the pets sold street-side there.. but i don think la ramblas would pale in comparison. there are rabbits, chinchillas, budgerigars, furry otter-looking things, iguanas, reptiles, the list goes on. and the buskers there are really quite creative. there's this guy who's some soccer shen dressed as ronaldinho, who impressed mr enough for him to part with some of his money, some dressed as bronzed statues, cats in rubbish bins, trees, ghouls, violently-pink flower decoration pieces, puppeteers, magicians, you can get whiplash trying to look at everything. haha. can you tell that i love la ramblas? i can just walk up and down and up and down and stop at dunkin donuts for some bites and continue my walk up and down.

anw i was trying my best to look for zara for most part of the day after seeing many many zara bags being paraded around.. and after asking some owners of said zara bags for directions (vague ones, at that) i finally found it just before dinner. wheeeee!! if only sweechee was there. ivina and i looked around while the rest rotted at macs next door and i was in heaven! hahaha. i love zara!

okays so after my shopping trip we traipsed back to the hostel, planning a trip to the brave coast the next day!

the next day, after a really late morning call of 11am, we made our way on foot to the Estacion del Nord, a bus interchange where we got on a 1-hour bus ride to Lloret de Mar, the nearest point on the Costa Brava to Barcelona. honestly, this counts as one of my coldest beach trips.. not a lot of sun, plus we had to wear sweaters around. haha. but wells it was truckloads of fun coz it'd been such a long time since we'd seen the sea and sand! wheee! and the sun did come out for a while so we could peel off our outer layers.. haha. we are quite a zi4 de2 qi2 le4 bunch. haha not much of a tan for us though.

at night, we got a taste of Barcelona nightlife (albeit in a British bar) having some drinks.. and i still maintain that i was not drunk that night.

so after 2 days of shopping and of sun and fun, it was time to immerse ourselves in the heart of Barcelona's artsy-fartsy culture, the works of Gaudi. got our Metro Day Pass and zipped in air-conditioned carriages to Park Guell, where dwell the beautiful mosaic creations of Antoni Gaudi. mosaic ceilings, rooftops, pillars, iguanas, water features.. well-worth the climb-cum-escalator ride up. haha. next up, La Pedrera, where we only got a quick glimpse at the undulating walls and of people walking on its balcony.. didnt really catch our eye la.

continued our maximised usage of the day pass and went to La Sagrada Familia, a huge churchstill under construction coz Gaudi passed away before he could complete it. i just wiki-ed Gaudi and his death is rather sad. apparently he was run down by a tram and none of the cab drivers gave him a ride coz his appearance was too poor. he died three days later at a beggars' hospital. at least his legacy does live on in his artworks.

having almost exhausted Gaudi destinations in the outskirts of the city, we decided to take a trip to even further-in-the-outskirst Nou Camp, FC Barcelona's home ground. first thing that struck me was, it's a really ugly stadium for a team which paid UNICEF to put their name on their kit last season.. really should do something about the structure man.. was quite tired by the time we arrived there, so us girls mainly rotted on the mini-stands in their shop while the guys shopped around contemplating whether pirated or original Barcelona jerseys were more worth it.

Saturday was our last full day in Barcelona and we wasted our day away languorously.. having lunch at this much-raved about high-class-looking restaurant, Les Quinze Nits. there was a queue forming even before their opening hours of 1.45pm and it did look quite posh from the outside. hurriedly checked out let's go recommendation for prices again just in case we were queueing up for something waaayyy outta our league. haha.

and so we had our not-very-satisfying lunch there. my codfish was too salty and the reason why they could have such low prices in such a posh setting, i guess, is coz 95% of their staff are Asian. ya, cheap labour. i wonder if they have a wage floor in Spain.

riggghttsss... so we passed our last day in Barcelona with more walking aimlessly around (and one last peek for me in Zara) and it's off to madrid the next day!

France: Paris, Paris and just Paris (22.04.07 - 24.04.07)

2007-07-22T13:13:00.000+01:00

hello, hello, to the few people still bothering to come to this page.. sorry for the lack of updates, but with PA ending and camps coming, it's hard la ok~

so anyways.. we arrived in paris on our first overnight train, having barely slept a wink, no thanks to the cramped compartment and, i dunno what else. i just know ivina slept the most! haha. i think we each had at most 2-3 hours?

met a hotel tout at the station and i was extremely skeptical at first.. really didnt wanna believe him. but i have forgotten what made me change my mind at that point of time. he seemed quite sincere i think. so anyways we got rooms at a 2-star hotel quite removed from the city centre for hostel rates, hotel belfort. the lift could only fit 3 girls ( 2 with luggage i think) and it's those kinda old-fashioned ones with 2 doors. the whole place was really nice though, and we koped the free toiletries for future use! hahaha

surviving on pure adrenaline, the 5 of us took the train (forgot its name, but it travels further from town than the metro) to the palace of versailles. the queue was quite mad when we arrived, and according to let's go, it was under renovation... so we took pics in front of the palace and chose to forego the famed Hall of Mirrors in there (where the treaty of versailles was signed i think).

so after a rather fruitless trip to the palace, we returned to the city (all dozing off on the train) to, where else, the Eiffel! our pics of the tower looks wonderful against the blue blue sky! honestly it was a really really hot day and i just wanted to get some shelter la. hahah. but we managed to survive the heat and snap many many pics. we crossed the seine river and passed the underwater aquarium and a Palais de Chaillot (mr, if u are amazed by my memory again, i assure u i only know the names after consulting my very dusty map of paris, haha) and walked and walked in the reaaaaally hot weather (i cannot emphasize this enough) to the Arc de Triomphe.

i think the reason why i rem the heat so much is coz my heat rash worsened when i was in Paris. oh wells.

anw we saw some old soldiers arriving at the Arc to pay respects to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was there since WWI. i rem there was a very old man who was the caretaker of the place, and he kept mopping and sweeping and picking up flowers which dropped from the wreaths placed at the tomb and just cleaning like crazy. moreover, it was a sunday! i think he's underpaid and overworked. but he looked v happy to see the old soldiers, maybe he works there looking forward to these visits.

so anyways i wanted very much to walk down avenue des champ elysees, with its cute boxy trees, coz that's the one street i rem from my last trip to europe like 10 years ago, but we were all too tired to be on foot further. on the metro we got, making our way to the jardin de tuileries in front of the louvre. alot of parisian merry-making there on a hot hot sunday afternoon.. europeans just CHIONG outside once there's just a teensy hint of sunshine.

after letting our jaws drop at the sight of the huuuggge facade of the louvre (which we were supposed to conquer the next day), we went on to walk to the 2 small islets in the middle of the seine river, ile de la cite and ile-something else.. i dunno the name coz the map doesnt indicate it. haha. the ile de la cite houses the notre dame.. didnt really get a good look at it coz the adrenaline was really running out. me, ivina and gerald just sat on sm bench n stoned while jt and mr happily pranced around taking pics, buoyed by couple-on-honeymoon-in-europe-mood. ;P

walked around for QUITE SOME TIME finding food (i particularly rem the extent of my hunger as well) coz all of let's go's recommendations were VERY EX! hai paris is too expensive to live in.. finally found a mid-range jap restaurant. my sashimi, FINALLY! hahaha.

our next day in the city of lights we headed for the louvre museum.. we didnt plan to stay long there, coz our knowledge of art is, to be honest, really limited (although hokkien-speaking mR would probably like to disagree, haha). so somehow, somewhere, we started our tour of the museum in some bright courtyard dotted with marble statues under one of the pyramids, through which natural light poured in, and just kept walking.

the really bare-essentials pamphlet guide brought us to all the 'most-famous-squeeze-it-into-your-few-hours-in-the-louvre' artworks: the hamurrabi code (yes remember jay chou's song, 爱在西元前? this is the 汉姆拉比法典. it actually exists!), the venus de milo, napolean's apartments, egyptian statues of the many gods, a real mummy and the containers of its organs, the wedding at cana and of course.. the mona lisa, where there was a constant crowd milling.

leaving the louvre for lunch, we made a trip to the moulin rouge and i forgot how else we spent our afternoon but all i rem after moulin rouge was tt it was time for dinner HAHA. had dinner at this indian restaurant where gerald n ivina had their fill of spicy food haha. great briyani!

at night we returned to e eiffel for sm amazing night views.. and a dazzling display of shimmering christmassy lights every hour. totally for couples la.. any marriage proposal would succeed there i think. haha.

went back for some forty winks b4 tmr's 8hour-long trip to BARCELONAAAAA, wheeeee!

*oh i rem what happened b4 moulin rouge liao! we went to the train station and realized our trip to beautiful beautiful normandy had to be cancelled coz the travel timings didnt fit into our plans.. sigh. byebye mont st.michel, hello barcelona!

Switzerland: Luzern and Zurich (20.04.07 - 21.04.07)

2007-07-07T17:59:00.001+01:00

slight digression here: happy twenty-first birthday, jinteng!! haha can't believe we're still writing about our trip which happened like 3 months ago. hehe.

okaysss yuan gui zhen zhuan. so we were stranded at milan. managed to squeeze a booking on the cisalpino (hope i didnt get e name wrong) train which was really quite squeezy! but the scenery from the windows were grreeeeat. went past lugano and regretted not making a stop there... the lakes there were soooo beautiful! lake como is there.. and the bellagio is rather famous for its scenery. oh wells.

arrived at zurich about 9pm, and hurried to find a hostel for the night. were snubbed by the haughty receptionist at our first choice, but were v warmly welcomed by this aussie dude at our 2nd. we were reaaaally lucky coz he was gonna close in half an hour's time.

i think our hostel was situated rather near the red-light district of zurich. either that or zurich pple have a v strong appetite for strip shows coz at every corner, there were shows! haha. i rem i caught a glimpse of what was inside when the door was pushed open by a patron. hmmm but it was too dark. haha, anw the limmat river, which runs through the city, is really romantic by night! haha too bad there was 3 really bright people ard that day la hor, mr and jt. :P

our next day, we split up coz of hmm.. differing agendas. haha. so jinteng and mingrui stayed near home base and explored zurich, while ivina, gerald and i took a 44SFr train ride to luzern, abt an hour away.

luzern's pretty pretty pretty! a lake greeted us once we stepped outta the station.. and everything looked out of a postcard! got a route from the tourist info centre and set off on a slow languorous walk for the day.

the swiss do not need to work, it seems.. everyone is just out, sitting in al fresco sections of cafes, enjoying their breakfast, brunch or lunch under the sun. no one working on a friday afternoon (other than waitresses in cafes and salespeople)! we walked and walked, climbed up some towers to get really great views of the city. did as the swiss did and slacked for quite sm time in a cafe with some tea n coffee and cakes n continued our walk in the evening to the Dying Lion carved into a stone wall above a pond.

just a slow friday afternoon in luzern :)

more of switzerland awaited us in zurich, which 3 of us had yet to explore. but honestly it got a bit sian after some time coz zurich is really a place mostly to sit and relax and drink coffee and read a book by the river. and well, we didnt have books haha. so we didnt manage to gain much, just walked around, window-shopped, admired the many watches on sale and the zurichsee, played some charades on the rooftop of our hostel.. and tried unsuccessfully to try some of the cheese fondue. oh the smell of e fondue! haha. impossible to ignore. wafting up to our hostel from the restaurant nearby, downstairs. it's strong to the extent of being pungent at times.. but we still wanted to try! were snubbed again by irritating waiters, pui!

so we waited it out at our rooftop, playing charades, hurling verbal abuse at irritating snobbish waiters, until the time came for us to take our FIRST overnight train to paris. exciting, non?

Italia II: Vatican City, Venezia and a bit of Milan (17.04.07 - 19.04.07)

2007-06-29T18:52:00.000+01:00

ivina woke up this morning feeling under the weather.. but once she stepped into the roman catholic capital and tiniest country in the world, vatican city, all her unwell-ness was forgotten! it really is hard not to be impressed by the grandeur of the architecture in vatican city.

we listened to our friendly hostel staff and woke up bright and early to avoid the crowds at the vatican.. so despite missing our bus stop, we still made it to the vatican with a relatively short queue in front of us.

once you step into vatican city, the basillica greets you in its wide expanse, with a tall obelisk marking its centre and columns topped with statues encircling it. st peter's square is HUGE man! many many chairs there for mass held on sunday. vatican is so small (for a COUNTRY) that once u exit the square, you're in rome again! it just consists of the sistine chapel, the museums and st peter's square.

and we checked out the swiss guards there as well. haha, the one in my pic is quite shuai! anw their uniforms are atrocious la. can u imagine some guy sneaking into the museums to steal artwork and the swiss guards try to creep up on him to catch him in that conspicuous attire? the thief can spot them from a MILE away!!!

so anw, cute swiss guards aside, we got thru the security check and entered the church. it's sooo beautiful. u really have to take your time and walk along the aisles and check out all the intricacies of each chapel, michelangelo's pieta sculpture of Mary and Jesus, all the popes and their sculptures. There was a small mass going on when we went in and listening to them singing the hymns on such sacred ground just gave me goosebumps.

after letting ivina taking videos of the church and basilica until her memory card ran outta space, we split up to go to the sistine chapel, while the lovebir.. *cough* i mean, jinteng n mingrui went to castle sant angelo.

so we walked past the queue that had gathered to get into the church and laughed coz they werent early like us, nehnehnehnehnehneh (ok la it was probably just me who did that)! got out of st peter's square and back to rome where the queue for the sistine chaptel began. so we started queuing abt about 9am..

and queued.. rounded one corner, no entrance in sight..

queued some more.. rounded another corner.. still no entrance..

passed by this elderly lady who was begging for money. one side of her head was red and raw as though the skin n hair had come off.. hope someone got her to a doctor or sth. her money bowl was quite full, coz many of us were rather shocked by the sight of her scalp.

so anyways, we rounded at least 3 corners, queued for about 1.5 hours and saw countless signs pointing us to the direction of the sistine chapel, until we reached the entrance. got our student priced tickets to the vatician museums and followed MORE signs guiding us to the sistine chapel. i really felt like the sistine chapel was some sort of myth that people came up with and that it didnt actually exist coz we had to travel so far!!! like journey to the west.

we crossed rooms after rooms dedicated to various artists - raphael's room, etc etc - galleries after galleries of modern art and sculptures, occassionally eavesdropping on some tour guides talking about the history of a certain work. it's REALLY alot of rooms ok. sistine chapel became 传说中的 sistine chapel haha.

FINALLY arrived at the chapel. we werent allowed to take pics in there, although pple around us were trying their best to snatch a snap despite getting reprimanded by the security personnel there. haha. every 3 seconds, when the volume in the chapel began to rise, the security would shout 'quiet please!' and silence would befall the place. so in e end still quite noisy.

the last judgement was really amazing.. esp when u considered the fact that michelangelo painted the ceiling and all the murals on standing upright. imagine the stress on his neck when he painted the ceiling!

so rushing off from the vatican after spending an insufficient halfday there, we got on board a eurostar train (the first use of our eurail pass!) to venice. arrived about 7 plus and began our search for a hostel. the hostels in venice are usually more expensive coz it's such a touristy place.. but eventually we managed to get a one-star hotel, cheaper than our hostel-of-choice.

check out how the one-star hotel looked like (there's even the helpful ONE star on the signboard). haha.. we didnt actually stay here.. we stayed opp it, at its one-star sister hotel or something, but e hotel recep was here.

so we set off next morning after quite a nice stay in e first hotel room of our trip - e guys' room even had a tv! - to explore the calles and fondamentas of venice. it's really a city to get lost in.. and then take ur map and figure your way out. haha. managed to meander our way to piazza san marco, where it was a nice and wide expanse of space, a breather from the small alleys we made our way there from. there were more pigeons than people there i think.. and some young punks tried running towards the pigeons, making them all take flight and putting us in fear of pigeon droppings for a while, until they all settled down again.

it was very leisurely walking ard venice in the nice cool weather.. saw the gondoliers in their stripey tops and by their gondolas (too ex for us paupers), the ponte rialto, the grand canal, all the traghetti (small sampan-like boats) and jam-packed ferries bringing people around venice on its waterways.

venice also has ALOT ALOT of masks which were sold practically in every other shop.. the big ones are really intricate in detail and pretty! and they cost a bomb too. haha. too bad gerald didnt manage to find his teardrop one.

so after 2 free breakfasts at the cafe near the hostel, we left venice on the morning of the 19th on another regionale train to milan. after having quite a bit of luck in finding last-minute-vacant hostels, milan proved to be insurmountable. we checked with the very very helpful tourist information uncle and found out that due to this furniture trade fair thing in milan which has attracted like every businessman in europe, hotels AND hostels were full for the week. SIAN. byebye milanese duomo and ermm.. shopping haha.

so this is all we have to show for milan, the train station. haha. hurriedly made plans to leave italy for zurich, switzerland next. up north we go!

Italia: Pisa, Florence and Rome (13.04.07 - 16.04.07)

2007-06-25T17:03:00.000+01:00

bagpack with neccessties for three weeks: check, ryanair cheapo-looking air ticket: check, empty water bottle: check, some.. erm.. body butter and nailclippers (haha): check, fully-charged and memory-filled cameras: check..

AAAAND WE WERE OFF TO PISA!!

we arrived in pisa friday evening and took in the immensely different italian atmosphere. the airport seemed more congested, abit less orderly and the people, alot more good-looking! hahaha. forza italia!!

took bus #1 to our hostel-in-mind, madonna della acqua and realized we were QUITE outta the city centre when we arrived. nevertheless, the hospitable host, who insisted on learning how to pronounce every one of our names was really nice and he sorta put our minds at ease (and honestly it seemed there werent many more choices for us in the next 5 miles, anyways). realized however, the acqua in the name referred to a swampy, water thing beside the hostel which bred the ONLY and rather ferocious mosquitoes i had seen in europe so far.

so walking along the only road in front of our hostel, we took the only bus line there back to the city, in search of the heavenly risotto recommended in let's go. honestly, this was probably the best food let's go recommended, so don't trust the food recommendations in there, people! unless you're desp, like us haha.

next morning we set off early to the field of miracles, where the baptistero and catherdral share the leaning tower's glory. and YES me, ivina and jinteng fell into the touristy trap of posing as though we're pushing/supporting the tower. it's hard to resist when everyone around u is doing it!!

got on a bumpy, noisy but blissfully empty regional train to firenze.. thankfully, the train wasnt late!

i remember a sec 3/4 chi textbook with a chapter on florence.. and telling my friends i wanna go italy for my honeymoon after that.. and all i did in florence was to shop like crazy at the san lorenzo flea market HAHAHA. the leather goods there are not bad!

we walked around the city centre, watched VERY interesting buskers along the uffizi, ogled at michaelangelo's david ( i don't really know if it's the original one), crossed the ponte vecchio - the bridge w many shops on it, took many pics w the duomo.. and plodded our way around in search for this famed gelato as claimed by let's go. AGAIN, bad to rely on their recommendations. good gelato isnt hard to find in italy.. haha. metal tins and grey bananas :)

so sunday morning we set off for rome.. the magnificent capital of italia..

our arrival was rather marred by the very-packed-no-vacancy hostels and hot sun, which we sweated under, trying to find a roof to cover our heads with. in e end we did find a place to stay the night, at alessandro downtown. got a map from the hostel staff and a route to follow and off we went!

walking becomes a second nature to you when a) you wanna save money b) the hostel staff scares u about the metro and umm.. c) u wanna save more money. so we walked and walked and walked.. to roma termini, to piazza della republica, down along via nazionale, past the monument of vittorio emmanuel, along via fiori imperiali (where the ancient city comes to life), around the colosseum and via sacra, the oldest road in rome. the colosseum was closed by e time we arrived, so we walked back up via del corso, the street of tonnnnnnes of shops (but we were so tired we werent in the mood for that), to piazza del popolo for more gelato and onwards to fontana di trevi.

the fountain was wonderful! so crowded even at night.. all the statues (of i think zeus and other gods and goddesses) surrounding it carved in white marble.. and the rushing sound of water drowning the hustle and bustle of the city..

the next day we woke up bright and early to explore more of the eternal city.. followed the map religiously until we got to piazza navona, which housed the fountain of the four rivers, with a damn tall obelisk set in the centre.. unfortunately, the fountain was closed for maintenance coz its marble was getting damaged by the running water and whatnot.. so all we could see were small snatches of bernini's work through wired fences. but the buildings surrounding the piazza were breath-taking enough to erase some of the disappointment, standing pristine white against the blue sky.

the pantheon was our next stop.. the very ancient-looking building with a hole in its roof, called the oculus. the guard there informed us that the interior would never get wet even if it rained.. but we didnt really understand his explanation of HOW that happened. haha. the pantheon was actually converted into from a pagan church to a christian one as some roman emperor (constantine, i think) was trying to spread christianity around rome.. and it houses the tomb of the first king of rome, vittorio emmanuel, and the artist, raphael. it's actually quite quiet in there despite the crowds.

so we continued our stroll, perambulation, saunter, trudge, march, traipse, shlep (what a word!) around rome, got lost in vittorio emmanuel's monument, and ended up where we wanted to be on the first day.. inside of the colosseum!!

the queue was sooo super long and there was a mad rush for the 3pm guided tour coz it meant that u could cut the long queue. but us, being poor penny-pinching students on a budget trip, totally averted our eyes from the guide and even tried to use our german residence permit to get cheaper tickets (it was unsuccessful). i didnt think the trip into the colosseum was v well-worth the money spent.. but wells, it is THE colosseum. haha. maybe just too much ruins for the days.

the roman forum was full of ruins as well, and without a guide, it's REALLY hard to make out which ruin was what a few centuries ago. so usually we just guessed or relied on passing english-speaking guides and tiny signs. but we DID find our temple of saturn after a long long time.. haha yay!

our tired legs didnt manage to make it up palantine hill where a she-wolf, according to legend, suckled the founder of rome, romulus.. so we made our way back to our hostel for free, but worst-ever-tasted pasta which ivina thoroughly enjoyed.. haha.

more on italy! this photo-arranging, and entry-writing business is a TAD tiring for my taxpayer-exhausted mind. BUT! i will persevere!! haha. hope no one fell aslp reading..

Soon, people.. soon.

2007-06-24T13:51:00.000+01:00

SURPRISE!!

haha im amazed we're still able to blog here! okays people (or maybe, person, haha), updates on our three-and-a-half-week-long western europe trip soon! :))) patience.

Digging away for Easter Eggs (08.04.07)

2007-04-12T22:41:00.000+01:00

The fun-loving, generous and creative pple (actually only 2 of them) at IU organized an easter egg digging activity on easter sunday for those who were still in school and had no plans.. so of course, us, being the busybody and kpo and curious type, went along to see what all the fuss was all about.

and we were tasked with searching for about 35 chocolate candies around our school lawn.. in bushes, under benches, on window ledges and all that.

and so the search began... across the lawn we began peering, scouring and comparing our finds..

and find we did!

easter eggs and bunnies..

the organizers of the digging event, sebastian (with his trusty SLR) and hanna (who found the biggest bunny). many thanks to them!

A Looooong Walk in Ludwigsburg (07.04.07)

2007-04-11T20:56:00.000+01:00

Ludwigsburg is one of the lesser-known (at least to us) towns in baden-wurttemburg, but the bored (and cheapo) us were so desperate for a place to go on a baden-wurttemburg ticket that after a few minutes of research on the internet, we just decided on this small town about 2 hours away. The necessities were present: a residenz, a castle by the lake and a huge garden. aaaaaannndd off we go!!

the town itself was quite happening on holy saturday.. maybe it was coz the easter festivities were in the air! weirdly enough, there was tall sculpture of a snake and some wood in the middle of the road.. so outta the blue! quite unexpected haha.

the residenz was appropriately huge with a museum and gallery and we even saw a couple taking wedding pics there!

walking further into the castle, we paid for this all-entry pass and waltzed into their sprawling expanse of gardens!! the garden concept is rather cool.. there were these easter decorations made of bread (yes, bread) and fake easter eggs, an aviary where there were flamingoes and peacocks, a greenhouse of pretty flowers, a small pond with yuan1 yang1 and a boat, a 4-seat ferris wheel for the young at heart, a carousel, a japanese garden, and get this, a fairy-tale themed garden!

we walked to this tower and heard these 2 kids shouting like mad at the tower in german.. and we realized we were at e rapunzel tower! so cool! there was this long pigtail hanging from it, and when the kids shouted the german phrase which meant, 'rapunzel, let down ur hair!' the pigtail would lower.. haha so fun for the kids! we tried to shout but seeing that all four of us were non-native german speakers.. we decided pictures would do.

and after the residenz, we set off for the favourite castle, which was built by the duke living in the residenz for his mistress!!! haha so convenient la! called it favourite somemore.. it was only a short walk away and the castle was even smaller than the bruchsal one! but it did look quite pretty against the blue sky.

from there, we decided against ivina's less tiring judgement and made our way to the last castle, schloss monrepos on foot. it was about 1.5km away from the edge of favourite's grounds.. and god knows how far we walked from the castle to the edge. haha. anw inese was irrepressible! full of energy, that girl.. haha. and she survived on nuts! my gdness! okay, and a chicken burger, but still! she is amazing! walk and walk and not tired at all!

and so we arrived at schloss monrepos, by the lake, which ivina claimed was built for her, i forgot why. nice picture by the lake.. quite dark, peaceful and abit morose coz of the statue, for some reason. the lake doesnt actually look like this, it has too many rowers and peddlers on it, which makes this picture even more precious.

Cruising from Heidelberg to Neckarsteinach... (06.04.07)

2007-04-11T18:37:00.000+01:00

Post-exam cruise trip! woohoo!! our international liaison officer, a very nice lady called jutta walz, organized an trip for us exchange students, cruising along the neckar river from enchanting heidelberg to small town neckarsteinach. we woke up early good friday morning to board a train to heidelberg and got on the 11am boat to neckarsteinach.. along the way, jutta, who had studied at heidelberg university (one of the oldest unis in Germany, or the oldest, i think) introduced some of the buildings to us.

the cruise lasted for about 1.5 hours.. and the boat just slowly made its winding way through the neckar, passing thru 7- and 12-feet barges and small quaint towns by the river. slow and relaxing it was..

when we arrived at the small town of neckarsteinach, it was time for lunchhh! haha.. waited rather long for our pizzas and flammkuchens and galettes.. but it was quite good! so after our rather long lunch, we had about an hour or so to our ferry at 3.30pm, so we embarked on a walk to three of the four small fortresses along the river.. breath-taking scenery along the way!! we climbed up the tower of the 2nd rather ruined-looking fortress to even greater views of the neckar valley.. haha weirdly enough, some pics turned out to have bluer skies than others.. dunno why also.

more groups photos at the scenic riverside and entrance of one of the fortresses! and yeah, we climbed up those steps.. looks quite a journey from here. haha.

so we got on board the very crowded last boat of the day back to heidelberg and there were no photos to take since we were stuck in the dining area of the boat. haha. many many kids to see in there, though. angmoh babies are the cutest!! and they have the most amazing prams here.

back in heidelberg, we went on a small climb to philosopher's way, which provided great great views of the neckar valley and heidelberg's ruined castle. we, or i, finally learnt that it was destroyed coz the tower containing explosives caught fire or sth, and that pretty much destroyed the castle. anyways the climb was a biiiiit tedious and we were slightly puffing our sunburnt faces away.. but the view was worth it!

along the way, flowerbeds, dwarves and sounds of 'da bian, da bian, da bian!' dotted our walk into the sunset.. third trip to heidelberg for us but still an enjoyable one at that!

Luanie's Heidelberg and Stuttgart Weekend (24-25.03.07)

2007-03-30T16:57:00.000+01:00

and this is the weekend keith came to visit. we set off on an ominously cloudy saturday morning (50% change of precipitation) to nearby heidelberg and its the enchanting old town. and i helped keith fulfil his wish of eating his favourite bratwurst. haha what is it with singpaoreans living in london and their love for german sausages? i guess we'll appreciate the german sausages only when we're out of germany for good.

so we took pictures with the wonderful ruin of a castle and walked and walked along the main street in search of various stuff like birkenstocks, bratwursts, pubs to watch soccer, ice cream (gdness, the nutella ice cream was heavenly) and dresses to fulfil the shopping-crazy girl in me. i think we must have walked along the street about 3-4 times in total. it is a LONG street, mind you. and i was quite beat at the end of the day.

sunday we made our way on a baden-wurttemberg ticket to stuttgart.. decided to go there since it is the 'capital' of our province ( or state or something.. ) and jinteng was mightily urging me to go there rather than karlsruhe. and it wasn't a wrong choice! haha. partly due to the weather i guess. it was sunny and clear and every stuttgarter was out strolling around the park even though the shops were all closed. had a taste of the crepes jinteng was always raving about and it was GOOOOOD.

quite happy strolling around konigstrasse, the lake and castle area, and enjoying the spring sunshine. wonderful weekend altogether :)

The Most Fun we've had in Bruchsal

2007-03-30T15:23:00.000+01:00

our sleepy little town of bruchsal finally has something exciting to offer!!!! ( haha i don think bruchsalers reading this will be happy.) but yeah, a funfair for us to relive our childhood :))) there was a ferris wheel, some pepsi-revolution-like thingy which blasted funny songs which sounded like cantopop at one point in time, reverse bungee, candy shops, funfair games like shooting and throwing darts at balloons and food stalls.

there was this ride which was just a row of seats going in wide circles and this group of firemen got on it..

quite weird la. they looked like they would have more fun sliding down their firemen emergency poles or going up the yun2 ti1 (very long ladders) on the fire engines haha.

anywayssss the highlight of the night was definitely the FIREWORKS!!! wheeee! haha we timed our ferris wheel ride to perfection and watched the amazing fireworks from our seats!

i only have one shot of it coz i took a video. walked around with the IU pple for a while after that, playing games and taking pictures. all in all a very enjoyable evening :)

One of the Days at the Backyard when its still Snowing~~

2007-03-29T23:02:00.000+01:00

One fine day, when boring mr and boring Gerald aka Retard Chen, have nothin to do, they decided to go on an adventure to their backyard ( we dunno y they call it the backyard cuz its like hmm not so near our apartments and urmmm shldnt backyards be near to our houses??).

And all thanks to their bravey and great sense of curosity, here we are with the wowing pics of the backyard! haha and they caught the sunset too!

Our 1st Shopping Spree @Esprit @Dusseldorf! And The Gothic Catherdral @Koln (17 - 18.03.07)

2007-03-29T22:55:00.000+01:00

as you can see from the silly face underneath that ridiculous yellow-green hat, yes, adrian koh is here to join us for our weekend trip to dusseldorf and koln. hahaha. adrian koh: sorry if the 2 cities were boring la.. we've already toured the more interesting cities liao.. haha..

so we left our bleary town on a wintry-cold saturday morning (cold snap when spring is supposed to come!) for dusseldorf on a 7am train. many train changes and mishaps later, which involved a shouting train driver, crossing forbidden railroads and a 1-hour wait for 3 of us, we FINALLY arrived at dusseldorf for our long-awaited shopping spree!!

you know, germans don't really like to shop. they're not as brand-conscious as parisians or londoners.. and thus, US GIRLS HAVE REALLY BEEN DEPRIVED!!! soooo the esprit factory outlet was like meeting an old friend and breath of fresh air at the same time!! wheeeee! it was crazily crowded with women just changing outta their tops and bottoms for everyone to see in front of the mirrors.. but us conservative and sane singaporean and indonesian girls kept to the changing rooms, thankyouverymuch.

we found tops for 1euro and whatnot, but they were few and far between. the girls mainly bought tops and the guys got some messenger bags. i think ADRIAN KOH has his 2 good JC friends to thank for clearing his shopping bags. if not he would have spent like 100 euros on a cannotmakeit spring jacket and other funny stuff.

tadah! so we were all happy people at the end of the day :)

latest news is that there's an EVEN BIGGER factory outlet 1-2 hours from our place!! wooooots!! metzingen, here we come!!

later in the evening we boarded a 20min train to koln hbf.. where our small and neat hostel awaited us. the cathedral caught our attention once we stepped outta the train station, however, and it took some restraining to get dinner before we snapped away using flash, no flash, night mode, mobile phones and everything.

next morning we took MORE pictures of the dom and also went inside for a peek at its stained glasses and high ceilings. it's really impossible to get a full shot of the cathedral from top spire to bottom, even though i tried my mum's method of practically placing the camera tilted on the floor. wells. anyways, the weather was really really bad that morning and it poured quite a few times. so we just hid at the tourist information centre and waited till lunch.

lunch was at a traditional german place where pork knuckle and koln beer (forgot the spelling) were specialities. walked around the oldtown for abit, but it was sunday and everything was just closed. walked here and there aimlessly, saw a singapore flag and took a pic with it, crossed a bridge over the rhine river to find more interesting places.

before we knew it, we were on a train back to bruchsal.. koln really has little more to offer other than the grand cathedral. maybe it's coz we were there on a sunday. wells. at least there were bratwursts to keep adrian occupied. hahaha.

Bruchsal Market & A Nicey Saturday Breakfast! =)

2007-03-29T22:25:00.000+01:00

We went to our 1st "marketing" session on a Saturday and boy~~look at some of the stuff they've got! Colorful flowers of all sorts and healthy looking fruits! haha i love the strawberries!

Cheese's like the fav for almost all europeans. and nice cheese goes w nice wine~

And 1st sumptuous bkft at Pavilion. haha craving for full english bkft again after enjoying one at London so here's chi-de-hen-bao english bkft for me n mr. and quite-delicious-but-abit-too-dry spaghetti for ivina and chi-de-gen-bao-cuz-too-cheezy baguette for luanie

and den off we went to slack away a lazy saturday~~~

ABIT late, but here's our version of London! haha (02-05.03.07)

2007-03-14T23:01:00.000+01:00

haha lazy us ( but i'm more dilligent dan tt mR pig) here's our part of London!

After hrs of travel, we finally reached our 1st venture outta germany. We met Adrian at Liverpool Street and followed him to his house, where we stayed for the wkend. Nice Adrian gave up his bed for us and even changed the bedsheets! (haha oks, for once u're ren hao n shuai la) At bout 11+pm we left for SOHO, this street full of clubs and pubs like Mohd Sultan Rd back in Spore. But in the end, we didnt go to any pubs or clubs and instead, went to eat some Chinese dessert at Chinatown. yummilicious =P

On sat, we went to Borough Market after watching the London Games ( its like an Asian gathering man, mR met his JC frens, Chih Yang and Jia Xuan there). Borough Market's like a food paradise man. Everything looks and smells soooo delicious! Our fav's the Belgium choc brownie--I sooo wannna carry all of them back with me! haha

Then we went to Harrods, where all the astonishingly expensive stuff lives. Quite an exciting experience cuz on our way out of Harrods, we actually witness a crime in action! some lousy snatch-a-pair-of-lady's-boots-thief. haha quite ben4 of him, so many ppl there la, confirm get caught, which he did.

Next stop's the v beautiful Hyde Park with the v enchanting lake and seagulls and many hungry-looking ducks. ahaha they just dash to anyone with food to offer man.

We spent the rest of the day roaming around the streets, exploring the shopping district of London, around Piccadilly Circus, before meeting Luanie, Keith and Adrian for some Chinese buffet at Chinatown.

Sunday started off with some v fruitful shopping at Petticoat Lane Market. Its mega huge with endless rows of pasa-malam style stalls selling stuff of all kinds. Then we moved off to the Tower Bridge of London. The scenary across the bridge's really beautiful, but it would have been better if it didnt rain so much!

Oh, and we went into the National Gallery and saw the famous Picasso's Child With A Dove painting and a few of other Vincent Van Gogh's master pieces like The Sunflowers. haha so cultured rite.

Dinner was at this Korean restaurant which serves pretty delicious korean-style steamboat and hotplate rice. After that, we went with Adrian, Gerald and Jin Xiang (haha Gerald's mian2 tian2 nei4 xiang4 hai4 xiu1 fren) to this pub in a hotel for some drinks (guys la, they love drinking man haha)

Finally, our last day in London, we had a vvv yummilicious Full English Bkft at a v comfy cafe at Covent Garden.Then, we rushed off to Buckingham Palace to catch the Change Of Guards. ahaha and the rest of the story's in Luanie's entry! haha that's it for London! Till we visit England again!

random stuff

2007-03-14T21:34:00.000+01:00

no trips the past weekend, so random pics coming up!

我们精神的来源， ritter sport and purple cow!! biscuit, cornflakes, nuts and milk chocolate!

our stocked-up cabinet! depleting rations of oyster sauce, soya sauce and dao biao you, skippy from singapore, tonnes of bread for the weekend and potatoes (hidden from view)!

our freezer and fridge.. got apple strudel, ice cream cake, minced meat, greens and apples! haha damn healthy right.

wider view of our fridge, got milk, jam, hua diao jiu, miso paste, ham and cheese!

blogger doesn't let me upload my sunset pics, or any photos for that matter.. so that's all!

Blimey, Aren't You Chuffed to be in London? (02-05.03.07)

2007-03-10T17:00:00.000+01:00

This is luanie's account of our london weekend (:

Haha okay so no one actually spoke to me like that when i was london. but i did hear 'cheers, mate!' while i was there. haha. we got on board an evening flight from frankfurt hahn airport to london stansted, and the whole journey from IU to liverpool street actually took about 7 hours, with bus, train and plane connections.

after meeting everyone's friends and receiving some inevitable suan-ing from adrian, we split up and i went off to keith's apartment in old street. haha it isn't really old, quite nicely-furnished actually, but he does live right beside a cemetery.

saturday morning we met jinteng and mingrui to go watch adrian and gerald in action at the london regional games. HAHA i think we were too bored la! saw some familiar faces.. but didn't know where to place them. too many asians la..

after that i made my way to covent garden to meet my pri sch bestie, florrine ng! haha. it was great catching up with her and going around trafalgar square and covent garden market (: the buskers there are really good!! violinists and sopranos. went to the national gallery for a quick peek at van gogh's sunflowers and his chair. but the sun was so good we came out to bask in it again. haha. her bf bought her a white rose when he met up with her la!! so sweet wor.. :P

and this is the late afternoon view from the london streets of covent garden or leicester square (can't remember la). nice eh?

walked around with keith in the afternoon and went to hamley's, a huge toy store. if you enlarge the picture, you can see that the giraffe on the left costs a crazy 3,500 pounds. that's more than 10K SGD! haha this beats the heidelberg giraffe and elephant by miles!! went chinatown at night for dinner with adrian, jinteng and mingrui. haha we were still in time to catch the CNY mood and decorations there! took pics like mad coz there's no such thing as chinatown and much less CNY feeling in germany!

walked around after dinner to the south bank where we saw the huge london eye, which was closed already.. and the big ben and westminster. oh there's the moon in the picture! there was actually a lunar eclipse that night, and me and jinteng kept telling adrian it was just clouds covering the moon.

sunday keith and i ventured to greenwich to see the prime meridian, despite adrian telling me it's damn boring haha. and so we stood on either side of the prime meridian and made a wish like i read somewhere.. it was quite a challenge to take the pic of the line i tell you, coz people were just crowding around that line looking for their own countries. haha. we also stopped by the greenwich market where there were foodstuff and quirky cards and wallets and cow hide carpets and whatnot for sale. it was raining heavily the whole day and quite sian to be outside honestly. london must pay for sunny days like saturday. haha.

monday in london i waved goodbye to keith at liverpool st station and went to meet the rest at buckingham palace for the changing of guards. you would think that the novelty of the changing would have worn off (esp among the londoners) after sooooo many years of changing but no, a huge crowd gathered at the looooong gates and huuuuge roundabout of buckingham palace to watch the guards in action. they didn't look as grand in their red suits as in summer coz they had the grey winter coats on. anw the queen was in the palace while we were there! coz the Union Jack was fully hoisted up. wonder if the princes were around. haha.

and so our trip in london ended biding adrian goodbye at holborn station and having this announced over the PA system in london stansted airport,

"would passengers Tan, Thia, Chan and Chen please proceed to gate 43 for immediate boarding?" haha. never underestimate the size of stansted airport and the time taken to clear the baggage check.

春

2007-03-08T12:52:00.000+01:00

spring is coming!

the days are getting longer,

the weather is less extreme,

the flies are starting to buzz around,

the flowers are blooming

the down jackets are in the cupboard

and it's gonna be spring!

picture taken at around 7pm.

sunset at 7pm!! spring is definitely on her way (:

Trekking through the Snow @ Black Forest (24-25.02.07)

2007-02-28T23:41:00.000+01:00

and so off we went to the famed blackforest mountains of germany, also known as schwarzwald. it was a school trip, so we were a group of mainly exchange students (singaporeans, an indonesian, a taiwanese, a hungarian and a latvian), one german student and our school councillor. set off on saturday morning for a 3 hour trip to altglashutten, where our hotel would be.

the weather wasn't very pleasant up in the mountains. mostly wet and and cold and with dark clouds looming overhead. when we set off for lunch after checking into the hotel, there was heavy snow just before we hustled into a restaurant. long-awaited snow for the blackforest skiers who had been relying heavily on artificial snow. haha. and when we got out, the surroundings were a beautiful pristine white! unavoidably, snowfights ensued and the girls were a prime target. poor us la!

and so we began our climb up the herzogenhorn, which is one of the peaks of the blackforest. our councillor, though 53 years of age, was freaking fit!!! he was leading the pack and had to stop quite a few times to wait for us youthful but stamina-less students. haha. inese, our latvian friend, climbed even faster than him, coz she's used to the cold. latvian winters go as cold as negative 29degC!! i think i would need 10 heat packs a day if i ever go there in winter. haha.

the second day was spent at the museum of nature and climbing up the feldberg, which is the highest peak of the blackforest. this was tiring!! for me at least. haha. i was dying after one slope. and with the wind howling around us, snow swirling and fog thickening, it certainly didn't follow the chinese saying, ‘爬得越高，看得越远' haha. soon all we could do was to follow the bright orange fence that lined the way up. i think for the 2 days, the skiers who zoomed past us in their technicolour skisuits and cool ski sets must have been am-chio-ing away. haha. wished we could just hang on to the ski lifts as well! looks so effortless. haha

and it was only when we reached the foot of the mountain on our train when we saw the blue sky again. haha how the weather plays tricks on us.

Munich--Favourite City in Germany (16-18.02.07)

2007-02-27T13:09:00.000+01:00

and so we were off to munich, the city of beers and more beers. haha. took the speedy ICE train and arrived in munich at around lunchtime. started our tour of the old town soon after checking into the laidback wombat hostel, where you could get a 'blow job' at the coffee machine haha. walked around the pretty marienplatz where the architecture just wows you away, esp the new rathaus. continued walking around, seeing churches, the residenz (palace) and the odeonplatz till it was a bit dark. took the underground train to the olympic village. by this time it was completely dark and the huge stadium was closed already. we did managed to see the swimming pool however. haha. i wanna swim!!

second day in munich marked our venture into the outer part of dachau, where there was a concentration camp memorial site. it's a really huge place with low-rise, cold-looking buildings. it's quite a sad place, reading all the recounts of prisoners and seeing their living conditions would make one feel rather depressed. the exhibition was a bit too lengthy for our liking. we found out about sick medical experiments that they performed on the prisoners. for e.g. they let prisoners only drink sea water as an experiment to see how long they could survive on it. sick. all hitler's doing.

on that rather low note, we left dachau to walk around the old town once more to catch some sights we missed out the previous day. since it was CNY eve we pampered ourselves with a GOOD dinner at the famous hofbrauhaus! the place was HUGE!! at least a hundred people were there i think. we had their famous PORK KNUCKLE and jt's favourite SAUSAGES!! and some funny potatoes which tasted like kee zhang. haha. tried their beer too, though jt wouldnt go near one. we sat with an american exchange student and chatted with him for the whole dinner. quite fun!

last day in munich we checked out early and took a 2hour train ride to fussen where the highlight of our trip awaited us, the inspiration for the castle in the walt disney logo - schloss neuschwanstein!! we could not stop snapping away at the castle la! it was totally out of a fairytale. the weather was good, the sky was blue, the castle was pretty. it just made my exchange! hahahaha. the place was filled with koreans for some reason. and the castle was quite modern for its time.. got central flushing and internal heating.. or was it internal flushing and central heating? hahaha.

and the king died even before he got to complete the castle! haha. due to some people not paying attention to the tour guide, i won a free cup of hot chocolate!!! hahaha.

Far away from Berlin to Dresden (09.02.07-12.02.07)

2007-02-26T00:48:00.000+01:00

and so we embarked on our trip to the german capital of BERLIN (pronounced bare-leen in german). took the CityNightLine at 11+pm and slept on the train from heidelberg hbf until we reached berlin-spandau station at 7plus the next morning. had about 5 hours sleep on the train seats but they were much more comfortable as compared to the airplane seats we had on the way here.

settled in our hostel in charlottenberg, which was in west berlin. small and clean place. cheap too! 9.50 euros per nite. haha. thanks to jt's 'let's go europe on a budget' book. and so we left the hostel to see berlin. at berlin hauptbahnhof we found my good friend, dunkin donuts!! happiness! hahaha..

walking on around east berlin, we saw the reichstag with its magnificent new dome, the brandenburg gate, the holocaust memorial, the iMax centre, checkpoint charlie and what was left of the berlin wall (6 narrow graffiti-ed slabs at potsdamer platz).

the next day we continued our tour in west berlin, which consisted mainly of SHOPPING for the benefit of the girls HAHA. tonnes of shopping centres! i think the guys would have to admit that the shopping centres were a welcome stop from the snow and rain outside, haha.

on sunday we had to wake up early early early to catch the 7plus train to dresden. along the way we met some dresden FC fans who were drunk and noisy and interrupted our sleep. they had to travel like 3 hours to their match from berlin hbf!! imagine doing that every wkend. haha the power of football.

and so we arrived at our hostel in dresden-neustadt. it's such a pretty cosy place!! check out the double bed on the double bunk bed (which isnt very clear in the middle pic)! haha and the cool star-shaped lights in the corridor. jt and i slept on the upper bunk and we both had our fair share of knocking our heads on the low ceiling.

left the hostel to check out the dresden sights. the weather was SO GOOD, a comfortable 10degC. visited the zwinger museum (which we almost mistook for the royal palace due to its grandeur), the opera house, the church of our lady, the river elbe and the schloss (which was the least impressive, ironically).

our last day in dresden already! we took the local tram to radebeul, which was famous for its vineyards. took a bus until we reached their very small schloss. it had a very manicured lawn as you can see in the 1st picture of the 2nd row. we climbed and climbed up the slope to the observatory where we got a great view of dresden (or maybe radebeul only haha)! after that we took the tram back to dresden neustadt station when we realized we had missed the timings for the traditional steam train. and it was back to bruchsal after that on expensive ICE trains!!

Heidelberg (05.02.07)

2007-02-26T00:46:00.000+01:00

and so after the fateful weekend trip to konstanz, we (including ivina this time) braved the trains again to nearby heidelberg on monday, only 30 min away by s-bahn (which is the local train connection). upon arrival we made our usual pilgrimage to the iPunkt which supplied us with the city map and bus information, and we were on our way to the romantic old town of Heidelberg!

i really have to say that heidelberg is the one of the most beautiful places in germany. the old architecture and ruined castle, the cobbled streets and old town split by the neckar river. just so enchanting.

we made out way up the castle first, taking the steeper route as we couldn't find the gentler one.
we wandered around the ruins of the garden and climbed around, taking pictures of the town and river below us. walking deeper in we found a HUGE brewery and some korean tourists. there was a museum of, i forgot, some chemistry/pharmaceutical stuff inside where we found burettes and pipettes and condensers. haha.

walking on we found the schlossgarten (schloss being the german word for castle and garten, garden). there were empty ponds with these very tiny wooden slopes leading to the edges, which jt helpfully pointed out that "you see! these are to help the turtles to climb into the pond!!" after which there was a stunned silence.

so we went to explore the old town in search of lunch after the castle, and settled on a rather good meal of salmon spaghetti for me, boiled pork knuckle for the guys and fish fingers for ivina (whom i guess was rather thankful we didn't subject her to another meal of DONER, the turkish bread meal so commonly found here). jt was full from bread. haha. walking around the hauptstrasse (main street), we admired the old buildings and assortment of shops like bakeries and toy shops which sold giraffe stuffed toys (about a metre tall) for 1200+ euros and stuffed elephants for1500 euros!!! THREE THOUSAND SGD. you say mad or not?

we crossed the neckar river on the old bridge and had quite a nice view of the ruined castle from the bridge. the best thing about walking around in that cold rainy weather was the piping hot cup of hot chocolate in our hands. too bad it turns cold soon after. walked back to the town after that and shopped for a bit, since us bruchsal bumpkins hardly see any shopping centres, and after dinner, it was back to hall sweet hall!

Lake Konstanz, and accidentally to Switzerland and Stuttgart (02.02.07)

2007-02-26T00:41:00.000+01:00

made our way to the beautiful Lake Konstanz in the very south of Germany. If i'm not wrong Lake Konstanz is just on the border of both Germany and Switzerland. there were clear skies and sparkling blue waters to greet us there, including a statue of a lady who made gerald DDG (du dio gui). haha. the town was far more bustling than our small one of bruchsal, with many famous brands like Chanel and more dotting the streets.

took a ferry to the opposite shore of meersburg, which, according to the lady at the iPunkt (tourist information), was more scenic than konstanz. by the time we reached meersburg however, it was already dark and we could hardly see any sights. after a short walk up a slope we just made our way to the uberlingen train station to return to bruchsal.

and here's where the story begins. the connection timetable showed that we should change trains at basel bad bahnhof and karlsruhe before we would reach bruchsal at the normal timing of about 12mn. wells we did reach basel bad bahnhof safe and sound. but we did not leave the station with the same safe sound feeling.

despite standing in front of the train we were supposed to board, having the words KARLSRUHE in bold print on the piece of paper stuck on the train RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR NOSES, we happily let the train chug away as a lady (whom jt would love to kick) told us that it was NOT OUR TRAIN. and tadah! there were to be no trains for us till an hour later. the next connection which we found would take us back to bruchsal the next morning at 6am!!!!!

so we waited it out for an hour at basel bad, hoping to fill our poor tummies at a nearby macdonalds. after staring at the list of prices for a while, we were rather bewildered by the prices which were about twice the usual. not only that, there were weird 'fr.'s' behind the prices. it was only after mr spoke to the cashier that we found out...

we were in SWITZERLAND!! madness after madness la. totally couldnt buy anythin to eat coz we didn't have swiss francs on us. we also realized that the prices quoted by the cab driver we approached was so exorbitant because 1) he quoted francs and 2) he had to drive from switzerland to germany!

many complaints and grumblings later, we boarded the train on our way to offenberg to wait for THREE ETERNITY-LIKE HOURS from 1am to 4am for our next train. hai. horrible horrible night. metal chairs and small heaters in a small plastic box-like room were all we had to sleep in. never been to happy to board a train after that.

and SO. we board our last train thinking we'll finally be able to reach beloved bruchsal at 6am. but it was too dark and guess what! we missed the stop bruchsal despite seeing a lovely s-bahn beckoning us to get off with the words 'bruchsal' on its side. so the train went on and on and on, nonstop, and we arrived at STUTTGART.

i have to admit at this point i was beyond tired and shock at our missing trains and stops. so i was rather happy taking pictures at stuttgart since i had never been there unlike the rest. haha. that would explain my enthusiasm in posing for pictures like the one in the middle.

we finally made our way back to bruchsal at about 9am, 9 hours behind schedule but in one piece. all 4 of us just napped our way through lunch and only woke up for dinner. HAHA.

worst trip in the history of our train-taking experiences here but a very memorable one to say the least. hehe. right, addicts?

Our First Adventure - Karlsruhe & Stuttgart (20-22.01.07)

2007-02-26T00:03:00.000+01:00

We started off journey to Karlsruhe at 9+ and reach our destination within half an hour, since the city’s quite near from Bruchsal. After seeking some help from the friendly lady at the Tourist Centre (this place’s a “must-go” for all tourists—it solves almost all ur questions & intro u to all the places of interests, & they provide u with a very handy map of the city! Haha)

From the Tourist Centre, we walked passed the zoo. There was where we saw some elephants, weird-and-pregnant-looking goats & some pink flamagoes. Ahaha since we didn’t pay to go into the zoo, that’s the most view we can get. The walk from the train station to the city area’s quite long, but its rather interesting as we could enjoy the beautiful scenery and unique architecture of the city.

Before we could reach the city area, the four of us were starving and we decide to stop by a big shopping mall to have lunch. Though there were many shops there, we didn’t do much shopping cuz we all poor-exchange-students and shopping’s out of our budget. Haha the highlight there’s the 60cents per scope ice-cream! Haha its like those expensive and yummilicious ice-cream we have in Spore but its only 60cents! Haha ice-cream rocks!

Finally, after half an hour of walking, we finally reached the heart of the city. There were several big shopping malls and streets and streets of shops selling all kinds of stuff. We wont really into buying stuff so we were plainly window-shopping and sight-seeing along the streets. Ohhh the best part’s the castle! We saw a couple having their wedding outside the castle! haha the bride’s dad even greeted us on our way out with “ni2 hao2 ma1?”(Chinese) He’s quite into Chinese culture and he told us that it was his daughter’s wedding. Haha he’s really friendly and funny. When we asked him ours the wedding and everything he just told us “wo2 hen2 lei4” haha

At about 4pm, we moved off to Stuttgart by train. The hard part comes when we were trying to locate our hostel, where we will be sleeping for two nights. It was situated up on the hill and we almost died walking up the slope. Actually the structure of Stuttgart is such that the heart of the city with all the shopping areas and happening districts are located in the centre like a valley, with the residential area (including our hostel) up on higher grounds surrounding them.

After checking in and dropping our stuff, we walk back to the train station (yes downhill) to meet Shin Ann, an exchange student from NTU to Stuttgart University. She’s really nice as she brought as around the city and intro us some places that we could visit.

The day ended as we diligently trekked back uphill to our hostel and rest in our little cozy dorm.

Wheee! Sunday started off quite well with our free buffet bkft in our hostel! (its included in the package) haha quite a hearty meal before we set off on our whole day tour around Stuttgart. Since it’s a Sunday, no shops are open, so our main aims are museums, castles, churches, theatres and the beautiful lake. We followed the map given to us by the Stuttgart Tourist Centre, like some Amazing Race game. There was a loop of places marked on the map numbered 1 to hmm.. 30+? Ahaha and we visited the places one by one according to the map, skipping some places here and there which were too out of the way. After much walking, we had our lunch at a “kebab” place. We ordered Mozzerella pizza and cheese and spinach “Pide”( this prata-alike delicious piece of dough).

So the day ended after we’re through with our “Amazing Race”

On Monday morning, we set off to the TV tower some distance away from town. It’s the earliest TV station in the world! The view 150m above ground rocks!

Tts all we can rem by now haha. So, just enjoy the pictures!