Grad trip to UK-Cont’

So lemme continue my lil post on my humble little trip..yes, i mean HUMBLE…(hehe)

23-25 June

Setting out for our one week outing to other Europe countries. First stop we took the EasyJet flight to Paris. We stayed at the Marciano Hotel situated at Gare Du Nord and just minutes from the metro station. I wouldn’t say it’s a great fab hotel, it was just satisfactory without air-conditioning rooms and no electrical jug plus the baths are extremely small. However the location is great and restaurants and snack bars are just steps away. We went to quite a number of tourist attractions spot although not entering all of them, for example we did not climb the Notre Dame or stepped into the Louvre Museum as we (ricky n me) did during our trip last year but it was really fun yet tiring.

Fun at Paris

Views from the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triumph

Then the next day we set out to DISNEYLAND…it’s where almost everyone’s dream place…where the prince and princess live happily ever after…ahhhh…well…it’s a really great place to visit as it suits all ages! Can see how thrilled my parents and my sis n bro-in-law looked when the parade showing off almost all the characters in the Disney’s animation! I’m happy too..looking at the happy fairy tales couple made me felt so much like crying on the spot…ops…

The entrance

Some silly pictures

25-27 June

We got up very early in the morning to catch our Ryanair flight to Rome. Seems like Rome is a never-to-miss-destination when travelling to Europe. We stayed at the hotel we once stayed last year, Auditorium Di Mecenate. A highly recommended lodging. We had two rooms which accommodated all 6 of us comfortably for two nights with a payment of 400+ Euro. Location is great, just 5 minutes away from the metro.

The first day we visited the Vatican City. As it closes at about 5pm, we then walked around with the reasonably accurate map which u can get them almost everywhere. We managed to find the Trevi Fountain and since it will only get dark at about 10pm during summer, we couldn’t get a glimpse of the night view, wasted. Then we had our dinner at an Italian Restaurant just below our hotel. Nice food but service was quite slow and quite expensive.

The next day we took a tour bus to minimise our walking, haha…and made our stops at the Colloseum, Piazza Navona (to visit the Pantheon) and other tourist spots. And yes the Colloseum has audio guides in mandarin…which my dad really enjoy listening to the commentary (save our effort to explain in an extreme blurry manner..hehe).

Clockwise from top left: Free very-cold-water almost everywhere, outside the Colloseum, Trevi Fountain, and another shot in the Colloseum.

Food Food Food

27-29 June

Our last stop was to Venice. A peace and quiet place. once we reached the airport, the first thing we did was to get ourselves some vaporetto tickets (water buses-ACTV). This would take you straight to the main island, Venezia and to other small islands like Burano and Murano. We rented two apartments, Residenza Al Cuore Di Venezia, for two nights at 500 Euro. This apartments located very near to the Rialto Bridge, the most frequent stop you would alight. The apartment owner, Hugo could not be any friendlier. Just adorable! Just 10 steps away from this apartment is a bar selling delicious Gelato. And within 10 minutes of walking you’ll reach the wet market where you could get the freshest fruits and other produce.

Venice is such a romantic place…although not much monuments or places to visit..but it’s definitely a goegeous place to stop for ice-cream or a drink and enjoy the beautiful sceneries.

Clockwise from top left: View from the Rialto Bridge, Gondola ride, super big meringues, and the beautiful river.

Ate at Ristorante Canal Grande situated at Riva Del Vin. I bet they have the nicest food there. Must taste their steam mussels, grilled fish and Tiramisu. yummy yummy!

The sceneries looked so much like oil painting! Heart melting!

30 June – 2 July

Bro-in-law drove us all to Scotland. Stayed at the Scottish apartment and the Queen Street…gorgeous…and extremely cheap! Although we drove there but we figured out it’s still best to pay and hop onto a tour bus…hassle free! We hopped off at some tourist attraction spots and enjoy ourselves a lot. Air is cool, views are beautiful and seems all of us love scotland too! haha…especially my dad…was adoring the architecture there!

Edinburgh Castle

Top: Around Scotland, Below: Alnwick Castle on our way back to UK…that’s where Harry Potter was filmed!

3 July

We went around the Norfolk town and just drove blindly, making turnings whenever we see any interesting roadsigns. Lucky enough we reached some herb gardens and etc.

Clockwise from top left: Apple trees, fresh herbs (spinach, dill and coriander), artichoke and i dunno what’s the name of this plant (I thought it was rhubarb at first but then it wasn’t).

Peonies and cherries

Didn’t know there are so many types of mints! These are just few of the bunch!! Lucky me!

4 July

Drove to London again to visit Madam Tussauds wax museum. Frankly speaking it wasn;t as nice as i thought. There weren’t many wax figures inside, not sure if it’s under some maintenance or what.

See see…me and Audrey Hepburn…the My Fair Lady star!!! Love her! and the rest is the salty fella…haha

5 July

We travelled to Chemsford to visit a friend. A very close friend of us I would say…We’ve known for years and here we were at a restaurant he worked for now. The eating place is nice n comfy but seems like they wanted to renovate it or something.

A picture with the main chef, Victor.

We then head home and join in the crowd for a barbeque time! Warm and comfy for a cool night!

See those happy faces…

6 July

It’s the day my parents left UK and headed back to Malaysia.

7 July

My bro-in-law dropped us off at the Stansted Airport to fly to Germany. Main purpose is to visit Nadine and the friendly neighbours, where ricky once stayed during his internship. They are really some great people! And had a real fun time partying with them. What else…a barbeque on the first night and cocktail moment on the second! Not forgetting a memorable day at the Zoo with Martin.

Soraya is so cute!

Cocktail training lesson…me and my master, Jorg.

10-13 July

The rest of the days we just hang out a lot around the nearby town, Peterborough doing quite a lot of shopping. One of the days we managed to take a train ride to London to meet up with Andrew, Ricky’s dear cousin. I was really really fun hanging out with my sister..Love her so much!

A nice lunch at Prezzo, King’s Lynn. Italian cuisine with delicious taste!

Meeting up with Andrew. Plum Valley, the place we had dinner, China Town. The roast duck is fantastic but other than that were just so-so, environment was good though.

14 July

The saddest day of the whole trip…the day wehad to make our way back to Malaysia…I really hopes we could stay a little longer..really…missed my sis n bro-in-law so very much. Love them! Love UK! miss those red juicy cherries too..but too bad..no money jor…aih~~

Thanx for reading till the end..I’l definitely long winded but that’s just half the stuff I wanted to include! For more details on the trip you may ask me personally!

Btw, here are some useful links for the trip:

http://www.skyscanner.net/

http://www.hostelbookers.com/

http://www.bbplanet.com/

http://www.parishotelmarciano.com/

http://www.scottishapartment.com/

Grad trip to UK

Finally I’m we’re back from UK. Liyen is still happy happy and didn’t really want to come back. This trip is indeed a great one and a special one, that my dad finally agreed to go on a trip oversea, (except S’pore though). Me and Ricky are both still having mild jet lags…that we couldn’t sleep at night and felt extremely sleepy in the day time. And here I am updating my blogpost at this time of the day! I’ll just follow back the usual way that I would write any vacations that I had, the dated diary basis. =)

18 June 2009

Departing from KLIA to London, Heathrow via transit in Changi, Singapore. Taking the Singapore Airlines, cheap, good service, nice food. However, flight to London wasn’t a real pleasant one as the weather wasn’t that good and had some major turbulence making nausea pills a must to take in for a weakling like me…ish~.

Mum and dad having some light ‘entertainment’ while waiting for the boarding time at Changi Airport

Arrived safely in London in late evening and got picked up by my dear sister and bro-in-law. Miss them so very much!!! The very firstplace we went was the dinner place which name I do not quite remember, but it’s certainly called “东海” in mandarin.

Scallops and Lobsters for diner…yummy yum~

Took 2 hours journey back to my sis place at King’s Lynn, Norfolk and REST!

19 June

First place of interest to visit, the Cambridge, an hour away from King’s Lynn. Great views and had fun hanging out with my family together. The weather was good and cooling. We had a boat ride strolling around the universities in Cambridge.

Breakfast at Benny and Frankie…Delicious mushroom alfredo and bolognese penne

Around Cambridge town…superb view of the streets

A boat ride and some sceneries

20 June

Sis drove us to London again and we stopped at Chinatown for breakfast (点心). Walking around the beautiful yet crowded city and had another boat ride along the Thames (river). Visited the Buckingham Palace and an evening walk at the nearby gigantic park. Since London is not that near after all, we decided to stay a night to continue our journey the next day.

Breakfast time!-Clockwise from top right: ‘Char leung’, Dumpling in chilli oil soup, ‘Lap mei’ rice, ‘char siu and yam puff with ‘char siew sou’.

Some familiar shop names and the last picture shows where we had our dinner…sis says they are one of the best shop for delicious roast meat

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Notty squirrels, London Tower Bridge, Oyster stand and Big Bend

Ginkgo tree on the left and Walnut on the right

Telephone booth? Nope…these are toilets!

21 June

Early in the morning, after a ‘guai low’ breakfast we head straight to the Bath. Such a nice and historical place to visit.  The Roman Bath is a public monument, with natural hot spring, built for the purposes of exercises, baths, socializing as well as discussing politics hundreds of years back. And it’s really amazing that they have commentary in cantonese and mandarin in their tour buses! Simply perfect for my dad n mum.

Western breakfast near Novotel Hotel

Nice scenery in Bath

Some street performance

Then we travelled in a maze for quite sometime in searh of the notable Stonehenge, which I had always thought it would be somewhere in Greece or something…silly me. Unfortunately, the car tyre was punctured we had to pull over to fix it. However, by the time we finally reached the place, it had already closed for public visitation. Sheesh…

Fixing the tyre.

A quick lunch half way at the Little Chef

Stonehenge

22 June

All of us had a real good rest from the tiring long journey last night. And today we travelled just a bit to Hunstanton for the seaside view. A pretty place to sit and enjoy the breeze!

Hunstanton Seaside

Dinner at my sis restaurant, Oriental Palace, King’s Lynn

Goosh…I’m still at 22 June? couldn’t believe it…and I’m so tired already…bet I can have a real sleep tonight and will continue tomorrow, hopefully. Cheers~

Mid-Sem trip to Cameron Highlands!

Here we go, time for some updates…just last Saturday and Sunday we had a lil’ trip to Cameron Highlands…this time the “we” it’s not just me and Likkei…there were thirteen of us up there spending some real quality time together. I bet everyone had some great time there!

Saturday

Cwei’s house was our set out point. This time our beloved friends were highly efficient reaching just 15 minutes late from the preplanned schedule! Haha…and we headed straight for breakfast somewhere nearby. Although we were not too behind the schedule but…BUT…as always they “chui sui” for soooo looong even at the breakfast place!!!

Clockwise from top: Group picture w/o the photographer!; loading Fa Fa’s car; some pretty flowers even before we reach Cameron.

Our first stop is at the Green View Garden, located at Kampung Raja, just on the way up to Cameron Highlands from Simpang Pulai. The vegetation looked really pretty and they have the BEST strawberry lollies in Cameron! All sorts of fruit jam and desserts are available here!

Clockwise from top: first stop at Green View Garden; mouthwatering desserts; Cwei & Fa Fa sucking enjoying their lollies!

Loads of Strawberries…my photograghy skills not bad eh? =P

clockwise from left: a root of a hydrophonic plant; fresh lettuces, red gerberras, strawberries again…

the guys enjoying their lollies!

Equitorial Hotel is a place we never missed…for the free washrooms and great views!

We then checked in to our apartments at Desa Anthurium. We booked two apartments with three rooms each. The apartments are in good condition and extremely cheap! A big thanx for WoanChin for making a great deal for us! Lunch at Restorant Yeong Wah, Brinchang, and opposite a cactus farm. The price is reasonable and not bad at all!

Makan makan makan!

We had tea at the T-Café at Tanah Rata. It was my favourite place to hang out and have scones and apple pie. I have to say the apple pie is nice as always but this time the scones were a bit off…and they have a new variation of scones…the strawberry scones.

Left: Strawberry scone; right: Apple pie with vanilla ice-cream

We tried to burn some calories before heading for dinner at the park nearby. Just look at those happy faces of our youths today! They are really enjoying it! And make my life easier trying to take some good pictures! Haha…

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J.U.M.P !

Cheers: for Laughing Gor…nah~ for our successful trip!

Ice-cream moments at the night market

It rained a little and we had to rushed back to get our car and headed back to our apartments.

Sunday

Breakfast at Sri Brinchang Mamak stall…Good food, Fair price…(Tanah Rata)

We then stopped at the Multicrops and Kea Farm for some fresh produce…should-buys are: strawberries, sweet corn, sweet potatoes and extremely-small-cherry tomatoes. The long awaited destination..the Boh Tea Farm, brinchang! Free entrance which offers a wide array of tea products and a open view of their factory. Not forgetting the gorgeous breathtaking views of the tea plantation!

a multimillion ads!

What more can i say?

A group picture at last!

Reena, Woanchin, Tling, Cwei, Siewfoong, Waikit, CheeKang, Kum, Kharyau, OonLam, Likkei, Me, Fa Fa

 

A piece of advice: it’s always good to bring along an air freshener as most of the apartments/rooms for rent have funny smell!

I am glad to say, with a fairly good planning we only spent RM87 each on the 2 apartments, breakfast, lunches, dinner, tea and petrol.

Trip to China

Our trip to China this time is indeed an incredible one. A ‘mission impossible’ that we never thought we could achieve with just a single trip is now accomplished in only a mere three days!!! Guess I gotta spill what our mission was. Well well, our mission to China was to find or rather to locate our REAL Hometown, ie to locate the origin of my grandpa, great grandpa and so on. It all started when…

One fine day, my third sister and I were suddenly so gungho in seeking lil’ information about our past generations. We were both oh so keen in asking dad about grandpa and grandma. He looked so enthusiast and kept telling us every bit that he knew. He even took out a letter written by my grandma’s lil’ brother (grand uncle) back in 1988. We somehow sensed that dad wanted to seek if there’s any of our relatives still residing in OUR hometown. And so we came up with an idea to plan out a trip in search of the origin of our ancestors, we called it a sistrip as this is the first time we four sisters went out for a true mission! My eldest sis (Kein) and third sis (Kuan) went scouting for information on the location and the contacts that may help throughout our journey. Well, I must say they did a great job in planning a smooth trip after all! And of course forging out a large sum of financial aid to support this trip..hahaha…and here we go…

20 Feb 09 (Friday)

We first reached Shenzen international airport late evening and were escorted by Kuan’s fellow friend (Alfa) to our Hotel (Four Point Sheraton). We had a good rest and made some plans for our stay in Shenzen before setting out for our mission.

In e Plane

Dinner time…straight after checking in

21 Feb 09 (Saturday)

Our first stop to the Shenzen famous tourist spot, Windows of the World 世界之窗, which made a journey “around the World in 6 hours” made possible. I must say this spot is a must to hang around!

That guy in red is Alfa…Xiao Mao Mi…hehehe

Breakfast

Around the “Big Window”

One, Two, Three, POSE!

Yah~ Keep Posing!

Second down left: Japanese Tea Ceremony Demo

Aih~ tak habis habis nak pose!

Yups, these are real!

For a shopaholic like my eldest sis, “Tung Men” 东门 was then our next stop! The locals called it ‘The Women’s World’! haha…which was indeed very true! You can find everything from head to toe with multi million types of accessories and all! Cool huh?

Dinner at 真功夫…Chinese fast food at 东门

22 Feb 09 (Sunday)

Since we made a trip to see the world, then it’s time for us to see the great heritage of China and its magnificent architecture. The best places are the Splendid China and China Folk Culture Villages located next to each other. We were able to witness the miniature of all the historical buildings in China as well as the culture of every minority (tribes) in rural China.

Breakfast again…

Nice arrangement eh?

Lunch

These two days was really tiring as we did walked almost 12 hours a day! Thanx to Alfa for being a good tour guide! A good rest is necessary to continue our journey!

23 Feb 09 (Monday)

We set out rather early, boarded a bus to HuiZhou. Based on the information gathered this should be the nearest pit stop for our mission. Here in HuiZhou 惠州 we were welcome by Aunty Ho, Kein’s colleague’s sister. She is the best tour guide in HuiZhou. She booked us a room at the Sea Dragon Hotel and even cook us food throughout our stay in HuiZhou! We could not thank her enough for her kind hospitality!

 

Breakfast before setting out to HuiZhou

Top: This lil girl is simply adorable!

Bottom: Around HuiZhou

“Wooden Wool Flowers” : direct translation…=P

In the late noon we make our first stop at the state’s government office to scout for more information. The personnel in the related department were oh so helpful and even got us some contacts which were of great help! We immediately get in contact with the YuanZhou’s government personnel, Mr Leong. We gave him all our information regarding our past generations. It was really amazing that Mr Leong gave us feed back on his findings and even able to get in contact with the people from the villages, which were believed to be the origins of my grandpa and grandma, on the very same day! However, we had to wait till the next day to travel to those villages. Of course we never missed a chance to discover more on China. During that evening we m,anaged to find time to hang around the state and get a good view of HuiZhou West Lake, “游四湖”. Haha…the scenes were just simple breathtaking! Judge it yourself!

Look at those reflections in the lake…Beautiful!

Cool eh?
桃花 (not sure if these are the correct chinese characters..huhu)

24 Feb 09 (Tuesday)

We met up with Mr Leong and he brought us to “tit lou hang” to meet Mr Lau, well, it’s just so silly to called him that way as 90% of the villagers carry the surname “Lau”! Mr. PH Lau should be more appropriate. He then introduced us the the authorities in charged on the village. There we get to look into the Lau’s family records. With the very few information, we somehow able to locate our great grandpa’s name in that record. However, my grandpa’s name was not recorded clearly. Then here come Uncle Pong, a really helpful uncle who went to investigate the past generations by ‘interviewing’ the older people in the village. There was this oldman in his 90s who had some blur memory on my great grandpa and grandpa himself. And so we made a conclusion that the record was 80% true! We were really touched that the mission went on so smoothly. Mr PH Lau kept asking us to stay in that town for a few days so that we could get to know the older ones. But his kindness were really too much for us to accept. So we went back to HuiZhou and continue our mission in search of my grandma’s brother.

Dim Sum early in the morning

Meeting the elders in the village

More food! the soup is darn nice!!! Slurp

Around the village..again…look at those gorgeous reflections!

The sisters at work…

 

25 Feb 09 (Wednesday)

Since we did not get much feed back on grandma’s side so we had to stay at HuiZhou praying that Mr Leong will update us on any findings he could get.Later that day Mr Leong called and with full excitement blurted “found them already!”…haha, we were so touched and ta the same time seems so impossible. The information he gave was rather blurry and we immediately plan our trip to the village the next day!

Market place somewhere near Aunty Ho’s home

26 Feb 09 (Thurday)

Very early in the morning, once again we meet up Mr Leong and set out to another village, ‘ji tou chuen’. There we went straight to the village’s main office to look out for their secretary, Mr Tham, again there were more than 90% of the population carrying the surname Tham (so is my grandma). Sect. Tham explained to us that our GrandUncle is on his way with his children to meet us. WOW…isn’t that simply amazing. We waited for some time then he came in with some of his children. Of course we did not immediately be certain that he is the one we are searching for. After some chatting we could not be surer that he is the one! He could even remember our dad’s name and our home address!!! Wow…all we did was stood there speechless with tears in our eyes! It was such a touching scene!

Look! my Grandma’s brother…a mission accomplished! The rest are all my uncle and aunties!!!

Later that evening we went back to our great grandpa’s village for a dinner held annually specially for the older ones. There we were able to meet even more of the villagers still residing there. It was such an unforgettable experience!

Left: Mr PH Lau standing right in the middle

27 Feb 09 (Friday)

A good day rest is just appropriate after a long journey. All we did was just to walk around near our hotel at ShaJing and had a comfy foot massage. We then make time to meet up with Kuan’s friends for a seafood dinner! =P

Sun You (Kuan’s friend), Alfa and Kuan

28 Feb 09 (Saturday)

And we’re once again back to our very own home! And we had a grand birthday party celebration for my second Sis MunYee, Brother, Bebe, Aunty FookHan, and Cousin Shosann, the March babies! Phew…yet another tiring day!

Hola…Last but not least, a great big hugs of appreciation to all who had taken part in our lil’ mission…special thanx to Mr Leong form the YuenZhou’s Gov., Aunty Ho, Uncle PH Lau, Uncle Pong, Sect. Tham, and Mr Chauffeur. Not forgetting our dear tour guide Alfa and all my dear sisters! Thanx for an incredible journey! *HUGS*

- This makes the longest post ever!!! =P -

The CNY Photo Album

On the 2nd day of CNY:

A grand lion dance performance by the Ma Ching Lion Dance Troupe, this is the best performance comparing the the previous ones that we had. They did some really “wow” stunts and all…great job!

Clockwise: Friends, Sis n Hubby, the “SI FUs”, my Bro n Bro-in law (they just looked like real brothers! look at their faces!)

On the 3rd day of CNY

Open house with loads of friends and relatives.

On the 4th day of CNY

All the way to KLIA, sending off my bro-in-law back to UK an the rest of the day, had our lil’ family trip to Dong Zan Temple. It’s only during the CNY that they made the whole temple glowed with lights! If you missed it this year, be sure to catch that next year ya~

On the 5th day of CNY

top: “Kai Wo Pau”…or rather, translated in english, “the chicken’s nest steam bun” hahaha…

bottom: Look at the meter, especially the rev meter! That’s how fast Ricky drove! Pls give him some warning, he’s going to kill my car!!!

On the 6th day of CNY

The Church youth had a CNY celebration, the youngster having so much fun with the games and food later on. look at the scoreboard…bravo to the girls!!!

On the 7th day of CNY

It’s birthday for everyone!!! In the chinese tradition, everyone is officially a year older~

Porridge for breakfast and “lou sang” during dinner time!

This is the best CNY!!!

More on wedding Photos

Pictures courtesy of YongHow – www.1950photography.blogspot.com

Pictures courtesy of kianshin

Kedah

26 Sept 08

Kedah trip at the very first day of Raya break. First of all…thanx to Ah Teng for his great hospitality and being so nice bringing us to so many places and yet again…FOOD!!!

Another successful semester break trip…joining this trip were Ricky, Kharyau, Szewei and me myself..oh not forgetting our extremely ‘wei dai’ tour guide…Ah Teng~

Our first dinner at Kedah:

Name of the place we had dinner – Rung Reang, serving a variety of local and Thai gourmet/seafood.

The infamous coconut jelly

Deep fried ‘tong sat’ fish

Seafood otak-otak…this is not the direct translation from Malay word otak = brain…it’s actually a variety of seafood stuffed with fish paste and usually wrapped in banana leaves.

And here comes the highlight of the night…the superlicous “kek soung” fish (that’s not the correct spelling though)…this fish made us keep begging for more during our stay in Kedah but then aih~ our our guide Mr Teng say “Nice to eat ge food cannot always eat wan…” like that wor….sad case nee!

After dinner we stroll around Kedah…

The Kedah tower…this is just the miniature the real thing was too difficult to capture.

Then we head to Bali-Bali Hai yumcha…that place is simply nice and cosy.

27 Sept 08

The next morning we went to Lye Huat Garden…had a great walk of nature (although this is man made one).

Salute!!!

After the tiring walk in the hot sun

Food again – lunch

Steam fish with pickles

Fried sotong with sambal (chilli paste)

Then Teng drove us all to Padang Besar, Thai border. The guys grab a couple of shirts and I got myself a couple of tote bags. Not forgetting we bought some 7 BOXES of instant noodles!!! What to do that’s what we, uni students, survived on days and nights..hey no joke man!!!

A walk after dinner…

Look at this guys..memang tak malu…hahaha. But then looking at them playing with the see-saw really darn funny lar..ish ish…

Supper…Hainan fried noodles

28 Sept 08

Our last day in Kedah. Our first stop of the day is the National Rice Museum/Paddy Museum. Main purpose was to view the great 360 degree painting that looks oh so real. This wall mural was painted by 60 artists from North Korea describing the paddy cultivation in Malaysia. Something you should never miss!

Ops…forgot to take picture of our lunch that day. Nevermind lar, wait for my next trip ya~

Journey to Singapore

Yups…finally able to steal some time to update my bloggie…some happy stuff since last week…be prepared as this post will be a lil’ lengthy! Huhu…

First of all…thanx to CheeKang for the delicious ‘chee cheong fun’ all the way from Teluk Intan. Yummy yummy…

After enjoying the still-warm-rice noodle, we had some pulasan (WoanChin’s brought all the way from KL pulak)…hehe…alright…Pulasan is an exotic fruit which looks very similar to our dear Rambutan but have thicker skin and thicker flesh with edible seeds (we didn’t know that until I read it in the internet).

Okay okay

Here the story goes…

4^th Sept 08

Journey to Singapore…

Yups, this post is about our family journey to Singapore to celebrate the union of my sis and her the other half. We, from Ipoh boarded our bus at 9pm and reached S’pore about 6 the next morning. For the time being…meet Ricky’s “the other half”…

Bebe : Gor Gor (Ricky), I wanna sit with you.

Ricky : Then YiYi (me) sit where…?

Bebe : errrmmm…Neh…YiYi sit there then I sit here lor…

=.= “”… kek sei ~

(seems like I have some kinda rival here…ops)

5^th Sept 2008

First stop is my sis’s rented apartment where we had some good rests and good chats with Hee Voon’s family (Hee Voon is my sis husband to be and referred to as Ah Voon hereafter). Then about 3.30pm we headed to our rented family house in Pasir Ris.

Lihatlah bertapa riuhnye kite:

(looks like “mai chu chai” – man slavery)…huhu

Okay…we reached out rented holiday house…looks so much like a guided tour!

In the evening we had a walk in the garden/recreation park at our rented place.

Some views around Pasir Ris:

Bicycle ride…silly us…

Bergaya…~

Oh well…I’ll skip 6^th Sept…wann personalize it a lil’ bit more…

7^th Sept 2008

Family trip to the S’pore Zoo…

Getting a lil’ lazy to write already…u guys just look at the photos k…?

‘Seal’ with a kiss

White tigers

Okay I really didn’t know this..

After zoo we had seafood dinner at JuzEat Restaurant within walking distance from our rented house.

Sri Lankan Chilli Crab..look at the size!

And some funny expressions…huhu…

Sis all..don’t kill me k? hehehee

8^th Sept 2008

After the dinner…We waited till 12am plus and pack our stuff to a barbecue area to have a joint birthday celebration for my mum and sis (LaiKuan). Had loas of fun chatting and laughing and making silly actions…

The birthday cake

Ops…didn’t on the red-eye reduction thingy

Make a wish…look at those smiley faces..wondering what they were wishing for…

And here it goes…1…2…3…blow… *fuu – *

And here is our lil’ uninvited guest…Mr centipede:

Then it’s time for us to pack n head home…look at all our luggage…

Some Polaroid pictures during our lil’ trip to S’pore

Be sure to wait for my wedding post ya~ till then

Europe2

12 July

Arrived at Rome, Italy. First we checked in to out hotel, auditorium di mecenate. The rooms are really nice and well I have to say, the toilets are clean!!! The owner of the hotel:

After settling down our stuff we head to the Vatican City. Just like what Edwin told us, there are some weird arrangement of stones or rock where ‘very-cold-water’ flowing generously. Yups…there’s where we get our drinking water supply from. I’m still wondering is the water are being recycled as there were people who wash their face and stuff at the same place!!! But who cares…everyone’s drinking from it and buying mineral water there is so expensive!!!

Vatican City..the place where the celebrity Pope, St Benedict XVI is staying. You can see his pictures on calendars and posters and other souvenirs being sold almost every corner in the Vatican City! The architecture and structure of the buildings are just simply amazing.

Around Vatican city

We had ice cream somewhere in St Peter Basilica…errr…we actually had Gelato…the difference between the normal ice cream and gelato is that gelato have much lesser air content in it which made the gelato denser and have a much powerful flavor. Flavoring used in gelato are often made from fresh fruits and that make an extremely natural flavor gelato.

13 July

Breakfast included for our stay at the hotel…

Then we visited Colloseum. Yups…remember gladiator?! Wow…I can’t believe I was there! We bought our passes which allowed us to visit Fort Romano, Palatino and also the colloseum. Great pics!

Fort Romano

cute eh?

Ricky say the big rock looks like some big chunky chocolate with lotsa nuts…just wanna have a bite! huhu

Colloseum (outside)

Colloseum (inside)

Mengader pose

yerrr…gelinye !

Basilica S. Anastacia

Some sceneries

Piaza De Spagna – the famous stairs

Oh ya…if you are travelling in Rome be sure to avoid the Roman soldiers walking to and fro. They will ask you, in a very good manner, if you want to have a picture with them which after you take some posy pictures and guess what, they’ll start counting the euros you need to pay for the pics! They will not tell you in advance that you need to pay!

This is the Pantheon. When we reach that place the door was closing…we ran to the front but then just too bad…too late for it. however, we manage to take a tiny picture in through the lil’ slit between the doors! kakakakaka

some street arts

and more mengader pose

After a tiring walk and guess what next??? FOOD!!!

Lasagna

Spaghetti

Then we walk n walk n walk…public transportation required was at minimum as most of the time we just had to walk. One interesting place led to another. Looking at the pics I don’t quite remember which is which also…hahaha…paiseh~

After all those nice places, we had our supper in our lil’ cosy room!

We had a nice rest and be prepared to fly back to Germany!

14 July

Supposedly we’re able to reach home at noon but thanx to Ricky who brought us to the wrong train terminal. He then kept complaining that the ticketing machine gave the wrong info…well said and half day gone! However, we mnage to spend some time at Essen, bought some stuff and had a fulfilling dessert moment!

Ricky made some Mojitos

15 July

Visit to Koln. The majestic dome.

Bought some typical Germany souvenirs…the nutcrackers:

Afternoon snacks…the ever famous currywurst! Wow…surprisingly nice!

Picnic near the Rhine

Schokoladen Museum @ Koln

Pretty girl dipping wafers in the pool of superlicious chocs

Hot chocolate at chocolate museum

Ice blended choc

Hot Choc – my fav!

Ya…a bit too lazy to describe dee…I hope picture really paint a thousand words!

16 July

Supposedly we made plan to go to zoo with Martin, the zoo keeper + ricky’s friendly neighbour. But then….ishhh too bad it rained!!! Aih~~~ T_T. We just went shopping at Duisburg main station (hbf) and at Forum in Mulheim. Then we head home for the long awaited traditional German dinner, specially prepared by Nadine, Ricky’s Landlady! It’s so yummy!

This is the very first time I had so much beef!!!

Meatball soup

Potato wedges

Potato balls

Bacon + beans

Beef stew

Dessert : Fruit pie + caramel donuts (hope I’m correct)

Oh ya, after the dinner Joerg gave Ricky a free ride on his superbike…240 kph okay…crazy!

Man’s best friend eh…meet Duke

17 July

Our very last day in Germany…kinda sad actually coz I’m really loving it! We just pack and rest and head to the nearest supermarket to shop for chocs…loads of them…especially Hanuta, wafer covere with loads of choc and hazel nut. Did not take any picture of it….I still have some in my fridge!!! Wuhahaha. Tchuss Germany!

Well well…it’s been almost a month already…boo hoo hoo

Europe Part1

Yups…my Europe trip…Then whole trip is about 12 days and places include Germany, Paris and Rome. First stop was Germany, since ahem is there…obvious ler! So the first day we just had a good chat with Ricky’s landlord (Joerg), landlady (Nadine), their lil’ baby girl (Soraja) and other neighbours. We had some beer and prosecco in the garden with really-cool-breeze blowing on and off…I started to freeze after about an hour sitting at the garden. Then we went back to Ricky’s house and had a good night rest.

7 July

We went to Centro where Ricky had to head back to his office for some farewell party and we just had our shopping spree at Centro. It’s really kinda irresistible looking at those fancy clothes tagged at only 3euros and 5euros!!! Gosh!!!

The lunch we had something simple and simply snapping pics here and there! =P

8 July

We went to Altstadt. It was really nice and cosy…looking at the gorgeous sceneries with freaking cold cool breeze blowing.

Some nice views >>>

On our way…in the train

the wheat field

some flowery bushes

and we bought loads of chocs here

Chocs liquor

Before we can actually visit the whole area we had to head home for our BARBEQUE sessions with the neighbourhood! Yups, the BBQ gathering was organized by Nadine as a farewell get-together, I suppose, for Edwin and Ricky. We had loads of meat paired up with Nadine’s satay sauce and loads of beer and wine and liquor. Yups, i had ‘open-leg’ for the first time…ops…I didn’t manage to take any picture of it though…it’s actually a mixture of strawberry liquor topped with vanilla cream and it taste nice although I only like fresh strawberries. The neighbours are truly friendly and we had a great night!

9 July

We left Germany very early to board our flight to Paris. The flight took about an hour plus and the first thing we did was head to our ‘hotel’ to check in. Well…the room was not too bad but was a lil’ small and the toilet is not very clean…still boleh tahan lar…

Okay okay…then we left for DISNEYLAND!!! Yay…it was really nice to see all those stuff there…we spent the whole day there and took loads of pictures…just a few here ya! Huhu~

Entering to Disneyland!!!

10 July

Morning breakfast, cornflakes and loads of French bread!

First stop of the day: Musee D’Orsay. Yups, a museum with loads of sculptures and great paintings.

Next: Notre Dame…remember the Disney story, The Huncback of Notre Dame about this ugly hunch-back guy, Quasimodo and the leng lui gypsy, La Esmeralda…okay go and get the movie in DC++ later ya…huhu…too bad lar we were too late to climb up the stairs to reach the top. This forced us to leave to our next destination, EIFFEL TOWER!!! A must-go in Paris isn’t it? We took a cable up to the “1^st and 2^nd level of the tower’ and then we proceeded to the top!!! That was really really nice just a lil too cold I can really get frozen into some giant ice cube!!!

Views from the Eiffel Tower

And the ever famous Paris souvenir ‘The Great Eiffel Tower Keychain’!!!

Wuahahahaha…

11 July

Since the day before we didn’t manage to queue up for the tour to the top of Notre Dame so we decided that place to be our very first destination. Guess it was a wrong choice! It took us about 30mins climbing the staircase up to that building to just for a view exactly the same as in what we’ve seen from the top of Eiffel Tower! Urrgghhh…gosh my leggie darn painful after that!!!

Notre Dame

La Esmeralda & Quasimodo

Next stop: Musee Du Louvre. A walk through this museum made me reflect back to the scenes in ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Show you some of the pictures…

And you’ve gotta walk till the very end then only you get to see the utmost renowned painting of MONA LISA. Oiks…the painting was literally flooded with people and I’m sad to say I didn’t really see the ‘Mona Lisa Smile’ pun~ erk~

The last place we visited was the Arc De Triumph. It looked very similar to the Notre Dame which you can actually climb up the stairs and get a good view of Paris…however we did not…hahaha. we chose to have a nice dinner at the Champ Elysee. We ate at Vesuvio…Yummy yummy. We waited till the sun set a lil’ and get some pictures of the Arc de Triumph.

Goat cheese salad

Chicken with mushroom sauce

Tri Pasta

Dessert-nutty icecream

I’ll just stop here for the time being…will continue on with my journey to Rome and back to Germany again for some famous food there!!!

Till then~