Barcelona! finally!

Yay! after my Europe trip last year, I realized I just need to complete the trip with just a drop-off at Spain! Thereafter, I think I would have finished my Europe trip dream...

and as per cheesy line goes... My dream come true again! I'm planning for Spain trip and have difficulty roping friends to join in... And just then, my boss came to me and told me that she would like to recommend me to attend an upcoming Summit to Berlin and if I would be keen.

hmmm... Well, I've just been to Berlin last Oct leh... but then... In a flash, I realized I could actually extend the trip to Spain!!! Hey, not a bad idea hor!

Zurich

Yesh! Zurich! Switzerland!!! OMG! All my dream came true!!

We reached Zurich airport safe and sound and on-time (thank god!!). It was a rainy evening and we decided to stay in the hotel (Crowne Plaza Zurich City) instead of venturing out. It was already 8plus and I guess everywhere should be closed by then. Strangely, we couldn't find any money changers here. Pretty weird! Anyway, we decided to use Euros instead. I have euros, not a big prob! :)

By the way, we had booked a day trip out of Zurich to Mt Rigi and Lucerne and since the tour package included pickups from this hotel, thus we chose this hotel over the rest of the other choices. But stupid us... We didn't bother to check with the hotel about our tour pickup timing (cos it was not stated in the website nor on my e-voucher), thinking that they probably would not know about it anyway. Silly!!!

We had a nice cosy (and expensive!) dinner at the hotel, with some good wines... We really enjoyed ourselves that night as this would be one of our last night together.

Next morning, we woke up early for our tour and unfortunately, we missed the tour bus cos we didn't know what time to wait for the bus! But luckily the hotel conceige was nice and he called the tour group to wait for us while we catch a taxi to rush over! OMG... This is soooo frustrating! We purposely booked this hotel so that we can enjoy the pick-ups and now we had to pay extra to take a cab over. Costed me 30 euros! :(

Anyway we made it to the bus and off we go. I thought this would be a guided tour and how wrong can I be!!! This is actually an un-guided tour! Huh??? Then what's the point???? I really don't understand what we are paying for!

Anyway, the bus took us to the bottom of Mt Rigi and we had to take the cable car ourselves up the mountain. And then the clog-wheeled tram down to the river. Then we had to catch the river cruise ourselves to Lucerne. Mmmm... Then at 6pm, the bus will be waiting for us at the Lucerne station and we will be transported back to Zurich. Sigh....

So basically we are just paying for the bus ride, tickets for cable car, clog-wheel trams and river cruise to Lucerne. That's all. This was not really a tour package then... How wrong can we get!!! :(

Anyway, as the saying goes, whatever will go wrong will go wrong. I think K was disappointed that I did not want to go to the spa at the mountain. I really hated the rented swimsuit and I really didn't want to put that on. :(

And after that, at Lucerne, he really like the cafe near the river but I couldn''t find anything i could eat off that menu. I was pretty OK to stay and chill but he insisted on leaving to find another place where I could eat. And then everything went wrong. We couldn't decide on the cafes to go to and he became frustrated. Only then I realized that he really love that first cafe! How would I know! Cos he was so ready to leave! So I thought it was OK... Anyway, I was feeling upset about this whole food issues and I guess that was when I caught my cold.

I really wanted to spend the last night with my travel companion and close this trip with a good note. But oh well, guess things always didn't work out the way I wanted. Anyway, I was pretty sick and didn't really talk much. And he too. In the end, we went to an Italian restaurant (actually I really wasn't keen on italian food but I didn't want to argue or make things worse). And I had a terrible pasta! So salty that I got a sore throat after that.

Slowly, air cleared up between us (I am still not talking to him much) and we made our way back to the bus location. We had a quiet ride back to Zurich town. And we decided to take a last walk along the shops to see if we could buy anything interesting. I didn't have any mood now though. Anyway, I insisted having a drink before heading back hotel cos I knew this was going to the last time I will be meeting him anyway. It was a nice bar and we had a quiet drink (not talking still! Hahah!).

We went back to our hotel via tram and I started to pack my stuff. I am flying off early tomorrow morning while K had about half a day to spare. We catch a cup of coffee together at the cafe and that was where we parted.

My Europe trip has ended on an emotional note. Not really a terrific ending that I was expecting.

Oh well.... Let's just say that the more we get to know each other, the more frictions we will encounter. But that's life and that's what make couples interesting! :)

Anyway, if I were to rank the 9 European cities that I'd been to... It would look like this:

1. Amsterdam
2. Paris
3. Berlin
4. London
5. Copenhagen
6. Milan
7. Prague
8. Venice (probably the weather was too hot for me to enjoy anything)
9. Zurich (probably we didn't have much time to explore more for this city, so it's kind of unfair)


I am looking forward to my next trip out of SG!

Keep you posted!! *muuuack*

Prague (or Praggie!)

Yayyeee!! We were on the train to Prague, or Praggie, which we affectionately call this city.

I wasn't a big fan for trains but oh well, since K's "best" travel agent recommended this mode of transport, guess we just had to trust her. We had a coffee at the station and K bought us sandwiches to be eaten on board the train.

We got onto the train and as expected, we were put into a small cabin with 4 other people! It was so crammed that we can't even stretch our legs! OMG! How would we be able to sit inside this under-ventilated space with 4 other strangers (who blabber on in Spanish or Portugese)?? My kneecaps were going to be sore if I can't stretch them!

In the train, I finished the movie (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) on K's ipad... It was really a stunning movie, well-played by Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. Splendid movie! Click here for the storyline. And what else to do?? We have about 3 more hours to go... I decided to nap a bit.

When I woke up, everyone in my cabin was gone... I vaguely knew that K told me he was going out to take photos... But I looked around, there was no one! Then, K rushed back and asked if I would be keen to go for a beer at the dining carriage. Oh that was great!! I didn't know we could go to the dining place. They have nice tables and good seats. Why can't we stay there throughout the journey instead of cramming inside the 6-seater cabin??? I felt a bit uneasy to leave our luggage there in the cabin cos there was no lock. But K thought it was fine. Oh well, I guess I can do without my luggage anyway, nothing important in there!

The view from the dining carriage was awesome. We had beer and he ordered a cheese platter. From the look of it, I guess I would not have dinner again cos K would be too full to eat. Oh well, I deserved it anyway, since I was the abnormal one who didn't like such food. :(

Anyway, time passed quickly when we were relaxing in the dining cabin. And in a flash, we will be reaching our Praggie station in about 30min! Wow!!! Hello Praggie!!!

When we reached, we tried to find a taxi but we have no luck. The first few taxis told us that we have to pay them a fixed 300 korunas (about 12 euros) to take us to our B&B. And some taxis told us that they were not interested to take us cos the journey is too short. Damn it!!! :(

So we decided to try taxi stands outside the station. And after waiting for a while, finally we got a taxi who was willing to take us to our place with meter. And sure enough, we reached around 15 min time. And the cost was 200 korunas. LOL... Not much difference but oh well, we felt better with a metered-taxi! :)

And I loved the apartment!!! Click here for the photos cos I was too lazy to take photos! :p Seemed like I love all my accomodations! K has very good taste!

After settling down in Prague, we have the night to spend by ourselves. We had booked 2 tours for tomorrow - Morning Segway tour and night tour with a river cruise. We went to catch the tram to Old town to hang around. It was quite sunny when we reached Prague that afternoon and thus, K was fooled by this. He thought the weather would remain like that at night. But no! The weather was getting colder as night fall. And he only have a jumper!!! LOL!

We walked around and we chanced upon a massage parlor and it looked really nice. Too bad that they didn't have available slots for both of us at the moment. So we booked for tomorrow 3pm. We really needed a massage badly cos both of us had gone through a long way from London!!!

As we reached Charles bridge, I got a nasty experience! There was many people and while I was trying to cross the red-light, a guy walking from opposite direction suddenly stick out his hand and touch my pussy! OMG! I got a shock. It was so fast and he walked away while I turned around to see. K walked up to me and he noticed the man walking to close to brushing me. I told him that he molested me! OMG! This was horrible! I wished the man would meet with a terrible accident where his hands were cut-off by some trailers! LOL.. Anyway, such things happened and I was glad I wasn't being mobbed anyway.

Oh well, we chilled at a nice coffee place before walking to Old Town square. At the place, we went to a Thai massage salon and Oh man... It wasn't that great. It was cheap though but I really didn't enjoy it cos the bed was too uncomfortable and the massage lady was not very experienced. Oh well, I guess in such country, we cannot have too high an expection! Anyway, a lousy massage is definitely better than no massage!

After massage we continued on and we walked along the streets full of food peddlers. Since K was not hungry (as usual) and he was feeling super cold (See, I had told him that he would be cold if he didn't bring his jacket but he didn't listen!), I decided to go find my food. We walked into a restaurant and was upset that they were closed (it's only 8pm!). Luckily we went to another restaurant and they were opened! Yayeee!! I had my pasta while K had his salad.

After proper food, as usual, K loved to snack and we bought the traditional cinnamon rolls. We were very intrigued by the baking method and the roll was so nice, warm and fresh from the baking! Simply loved it. We decided to catch the same tram number 9 back to our apartment but hey! We realized we got onto the wrong tram (I had to sprint at least 50m to catch this tram and this is the wrong one?!?! Damn!!) We were in the wrong direction so I thought we could just drop off and cross over to the other direction to catch the right tram. But K was very certain that there would not be any other trams from the opposite direction. I was puzzled... Why? I always took the wrong bus or train and I just need to alight and get over to the opposite station, no?

Anyway, we dropped off at somewhere (not sure where we were!) and after some attempts to look at the maps, we decided to just catch the taxi! I think K was getting too cold and he didn't want to wander around in the cold. So we did just that and got back home safe and sound! :)

The next morning, we took the same tram to meet our Segway tour guide and we were surprised that there were only 2 of us! Woooo... Strange! :) Anyway, this Segway tour guide, called Dominic was a young chap, basically not so good at showing us the places. But he was really good on the Segway. He took us through difficult areas (up and down the hills, into the parks, and into crowded places!) I was soooo scared of falling cos the roads were much more stoney than Berlin. And we are not allowed to segway on the roads here (different from Berlin). So we had to segway on narrow pathways with people all over. I came so closed to running over a man's feet! Scary!!! But it was great fun. We saw quite a lot of sights, including Petrin tower (that looked like Effiel tower), TV tower (voted world's most ugly tower), Astronomic clock, cathedrals, Jewish area, etc.

After the Segway tour, we went to a vegetarian restaurant with a very strange concept. It is somehow like a Marche-buffet style. We queue up and pickup our food over the buffet counter and pay the cashier. Just when we were queueing up to pay, K was eating his pizza while queuing and the lady behind him actually told him off! Then we realized that the cashier will WEIGH our plates to determine how much to charge us! LOL!!! OMG! This is soooo unconventional! So if K continue to eat his pizza, his plate will be lighter and he would be "cheating"! It was sooooooo funny!!!!

The lady behind him must be regulars and passionate about this restaurant. If not, come on, who cares who cheats??? LOL... Anyway vegetarian food is not my fav and I was feeling miserable. And look around! Most of the patrons here looked lonely and miserable too! Don't they!!! :p

Anyway, after food, we decided to take a walk and catch a metro to see the legendary "Dancing Building"... This building was amazing! How can such a structure still be standing tall and sturdy!!! It looked like it would collapse any moment!!! :)

After that, we catch a cab to go back to Old Town square. But along the way, we saw a brand that K was looking for "Leeda". So we quickly stopped the cab and got off to visit this boutique. But quite disappointing actually. The boutique was small and mainly selling women clothings. And the shop Batas (owned by the same group I think) was closed in Prague. K was soooo disappointed. :(

Anyway we catch another cab and reached Charles Bridge where we decided to rest and catch a beer. It was a sunny afternoon and great for some walking! So we decided to go for a bar crawl before our night tour at 7pm. Anyway, we didn't really "crawl" a lot, just one mojito at a nice comic bar. This comic bar was cool and it featured a legendary Prague comic artist (who was in coma since 2006 due to an accident). We went up to the gallery and the comics drawings were amazing!

Anyway, we walked around after our mojitos and actually I was in the mood for more drinks but we had not much time left. We only had barely an hour before our tour and we decided to get Chinese food with wine... The waitress was damn blur and not very good with her English. Well, we were not that hungry, so we ordered a plate of noodles and a tofu to share. I met a Taiwanese mom with her home-schooled daughter at the restaurant. They were already here for 2 weeks! OMG! :)

After dinner, we rushed over to the same tour agency (as our segway tour) and was once again surprised that it was just 2 of us. Oh well, all the better, we can have the tour guide to ourselves! The tour guide arrived and he was a young good-looking chap. Cannot remember his name though! LOL... As he was blabbering on about some history about Praggie buildings, I was already day-dreaming... LOL! Anyway it was nice to hear some history regarding this old place. Nice! And oh well, the river cruise was BORING! Basically we can't see much cos it was too cold to go onto the top. Waste of time!!! :(

Anyway, we walked with our tour guide to the metro station and reached home. I was quite disappointed cos I expected more mojitos and I wanted to try Absinth too. :( Oh well, K was afraid that we might get lost again so it was best that we take the metro together with our tour guide so that we can be guaranteed to reach home. I guess he was right... But I missed having drinks at night. :(

Oh well, for the next day, we only have half-day till 4pm. We decided to visit the Prague castle and the ugly TV tower. I nearly died climbing up the stairs to the top of the clock tower!!! If only I knew it was such a narrow and rounded steps, I would never want to go in! I was panting so hard and I really thought I could not do it anymore and thoughts of turning back down actually came to me many times! But K was already zooming right up to the top and I guess I had to follow him!

The view from the tower was amazing! I felt so happy to be right on top! And all the hardship of climbing more than 250 steps was worth it! LOL... But of course I would not want to do it again. Duh!!! Hahah!

We took a short walk into St Vitus Cathedral and took some photos. We did not want to pay to go for the full tour, just not worth it.

After the visit to Prague castle, we decided to take the metro to the TV tower for lunch, which was near our apartment. But after we got off the train station, we saw a small happening Vietnamese cafe, which looked pretty attractive to us. So we decided to go for Vietnamese street food instead of spending big money on restaurant at the TV tower.

After food, we proceed to the TV tower and I loved the climbing babies! The babies' faces are "barcoded" and this symbolised commercialism and materialism in this model world. Everything is barcoded in this world and this is what the artist wanted us to reflect on.

The view from the TV tower were great but it didn't really wow me. I loved the cosy "pod" room instead. There were many hanging chairs for people to chill. And I was so comfortable that I didn't want to leave!

Oh well, all good things must come to an end, so we decided to make our way back to the apartment and prepare to go to the airport. Before reaching our apartment, we decided to try the bubble-tea. I didn't know Prague has bubble tea!! So unconventional! But the teas were okok... Nothing special...
This marked the end of our Prague trip....

Bye Prague... Although it was such a small stay, I will remember you always.


And Hello Zurich next!!! :)

Berlin

While I'm still fresh about my Europe trip, I better quickly continue to post everything! (Although I am still nursing jetlag and cold from Zurich!).

On Thu afternoon, we took a cab and reached Copenhagen airport early. Since our flight was 3pm, the journey would take around 55mins, we thought we should reach Berlin around 4pm. So we emailed our apartment receptionist to wait for us to check in around 4plus.

But how did we know that we will be so unlucky???

Well, everything started out quite ok at first (although K and I had a small squabble about money - sigh... It's a long story! Will talk about that later. And I hate to discuss money issues!). Our gate was D-something (cannot remember!). And it was a long walk! So we rushed and rushed and finally we got to our gate. Strangely, we looked at the screen and didn't see our flight listed in gate D. STRANGE! I felt something wasn't right? So I asked K to double check our flight number and timing. And weird enough, our gate had changed!!! But we didn't even notice!

OMG! Our gate now has changed to gate B, which was at the other far end!!! OMG! We were right on time for boarding and now we had to rush to gate B and that might take around another 5-8 mins walk! We rushed over to the gate and sure enough, everyone was there already. Phew! We made it! We were extremely tired by then (and K was still upset that he couldn't claim tax at the airport). The gate was super tiny and everyone was cramming inside, waiting to board.

And finally, we boarded the plane and we thought all was GOOD, right? We got a good seat right near the emergency exit and I was pretty happy with the large leg space (not that i needed it!). Hahaha!!! And so, like everything was ok, the plane took off and I dozed off.

Everything was OK, right? Well, it seemed that way....

At least for about 40 min or so.

We heard an announcement from the captain and we thought we would be reaching Berlin soon.

But..................

How wrong can things go, especially when we really do not need any more drama!


"We notice there was an issue with the windscreen and we would not be allowed to land in Berlin. So we have to turn back to Copenhagen now to get it fixed.... Sorry for the inconveniences... blah blah blah..."

I was in shock and didn't really understand what was going on. Is this a JOKE? Maybe I was still dreaming. I looked at K in big-eye mode and he too was surprised by the announcement. When we finally "get it", my first reaction was : How can that happen to us????

Well, guess we have no other choice but to sit through another 30-40 mins for the plane to U-turn back to Copenhagen, from where we boarded the plane! Talking about back to square-one!

And the funny thing was, there were some passengers on board the plane who were still in deep sleeping mode and K found it extremely funny that these guys will be in shock when they woke up to Copenghagen! They might think that the plane had not even took off! LOL! Cheeky guy!

And sure enough, when we touched down at Copenhagen, there was a lady who seemed really surprised and asked the stewardess on what's happening. The stewardess explained the situation to her and that we should all remain inside the plane to wait for the technicians to fix the plane.

Oh well, I guess it wasn't that bad. They seemed to be quite confident that the plane would be fixed in no time since we were asked to stay on-board. So... La lalalala... We waited and waited. Lucky I have chips in my bag and both of us started snacking, feeling really positive about this whole thing.

I guess God was trying to put more drama in my trip (so that I would have more things to write in my blog, I guess!), an announcement came to ask all of us to leave the plane, cos they did not think the plane can be fixed today.

WTF!?!??!?

Ok ok ok... I told myself. The airline sure would help us find a way to Berlin, right? Of course they would, right????

So we went back to the airport and were directed to the airline counter. But it was a full load of chaos! No number system at all. We saw people queuing to take numbers while there were lots of others just crammed up to the counter. I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do. Lucky K was there and he told me to go up the counter with the rest of the people to hear what the counter staff had to say while he queue for the number.

Sound like a good plan. The counter staff told us that there was only ONE plane going Berlin at 7.50pm but that plane was quite full. Thus, not possible to fit all of us in. And as such, there would be NO more planes going Berlin today. The next plane would be tomorrow morning. There was also the other option of us taking the 6.50pm to Hamburg and then a bus to Berlin airport from there, but it would take about 3 hours bus ride to Berlin, which mean could reach Berlin only around 10pm or 11pm.

There was a guy with a guitar and he was very upset. He had a concert to catch at 8pm in Berlin! The counter staff told him that they were sorry but there was no other options for him. Poor guy!

So we were asked to wait for an hour (we were given 2 meal vouchers of 100DK each) while the staffs were trying to fix us some options to get to Berlin.

After a few moments, we went over to the counter to see if we could have any luck getting on board the 750pm flight to Berlin. But unluckily, we couldn't and we took the option to fly to Hamburg instead. We were worried about our luggages. Cos all our luggages were on board the plane and the staffs told us that they might not have time to re-tag our luggages to Hamburg. So our luggages might end up in Berlin! And might get lost! OMG!

My mind was in total numbness. I couldn't believe this! I had been travelling every year for the past 16 years and nothing of this sort ever happened to me. And now, there was a high chance that we might not get to Berlin and our luggages might be lost.... FOREVER! OMG!

But.... we had to go Berlin by today cos we had already booked a morning Segway tour there! And thus, since we would be travelling to Berlin from Hamburg airport, we might get our luggages at Berlin airport eventually, right? So we decided to just take the Hamburg flight anyway.

So, that means we had only barely 15min left to board the plane to Hamburg! We rushed quickly to the gate and K had to log into the internet to inform our Apartment people, while I had to quickly grab some food with our 200DK vouchers. I definitely gonna spent all of these moneys cos I was pretty pissed off by this situation. And silly me, in my rush, I didn't realise I had bought the same cheese sandwich for K and nothing for myself! I intended to grab a chicken sandwich and a cheese sandwich for K, but I was stupid enough not to check. I was in total rush-mode at that time cos I don't have enough time to think.

I really cannot function under such stress and rush! I think I need to work on this weakness! :(

Anyway, we managed to board the plane on time and off we flew to Hamburg. Strangely, the plane was packed with mostly guys! Only a couple of ladies on board. I guess Hamburg might be a place for work and not tourism! Oh well, I was tired and hungry by then but I didn't have any sandwich to eat. DAMN!!! But I didn't think I miss alot cos K told me the sandwich was horrible. LOL... Oh well, at least I grabbed 4 bottles of water! Clever me!

So, we reached Hamburg! Yayyeee!!! How funny that I manage to tick off another city in Germany. LOL! :p

And you think my ordeal is over??? NOOOOOOO.....

Another drama happened in Hamburg airport......

We were told to go out to wait for the bus pick-up to Berlin airport. But strangely, there was this group of people (same situation as us) who insisted that our luggages were on board this plane. But the last we knew, the staff told us that our luggages would be waiting at Berlin Airport. So there was this struggle: to wait for our luggages at the Hamburg belt, or get out of the airport to take the transport immediately.

I was very certain that our luggages were not on board cos I trusted the staffs. But K was not so sure. He told me to wait for the luggages while he went out to check on the transport. I was feeling rather pissed and tired. I thought we would be wasting time. We should just get out and go for the bus.

But...........

Well, I can be wrong sometimes, right? And this time, I was so wrong! And I was glad that K was around.

After around 30min wait and I was about to give up, our luggages appeared at the belt!!! How did that happen???? I thought our luggages were at Berlin?!?!?! The stupid airline staff was hopeless! She gave us the wrong info! And luckily, some of the passengers got the right one and lucky that I stayed to wait (although I was all ready to get out).

How lucky I was, despite the unlucky situation! I had to admit that K was right on. He was right not to trust the airline staffs. Unfortunately for some of the people, they left the airport already, thinking their luggages were at Berlin Airport. I had no idea how they would react or feel when they knew their luggages were now on the conveyor belt in Hamburg airport!!! I really hope the airline will help them on this. Poor them! This could be happening to me if I had insisted on going out.

Anyway, we got our luggages and feeling pretty happy. Thanks to those people who insisted on staying behind. If not for K, I would have left, leaving my luggage behind at Hamburg! That would be sooooo disastrous!

We got onto the taxi (not bus!) with 2 other travellers (A lady with her dad on holiday in Berlin, both Norwegians) and off we go! It was raining rather heavily and we were told that we would take around 3hours to get to Berlin Airport. But wait! Now we did not need to go Berlin airport anymore since we got all our luggages. And this was a taxi! Thus we negotiated with the taxi driver to bring us back to both of our hotels. The driver was OK with the idea but he would charge us for the extra miles needed, which was OK with all of us.

It was a terrible and boring ride! The taxi was zooming at lightning speed and it was raining very heavily! I was bored so K lent me his ipad to watch a cool movie (Vicky Christina in Barcelona). It was a very nice and funny movie! But as I was tired and hungry (I didn't eat anything for the whole day, remember?), and my eyes were not very comfortable (too tired), so I watched the movie half-way, and decided to catch a nap.

It was nearly 11pm when we reached our apartment and OMG! How cold can it be! I wasn't prepared for the cold rainy Berlin night cos I thought we would reach at 4pm. So I was only wearing a thin top with just my hoodie. I was surely shivering under the cold rain! We had trouble locating the IMA apartment entrance and after a few min, luckily we got the door and check-into our room.

I immediately fell in love with this place!!!! I found a nice description of this place on the internet: This loft-style apartment is located in an impressive former factory building that brings a creative network together: ÏMA Design Village. This place also has a dance school, artist studios, design companies and some interesting manufacturers, making for an artistic, creative, yet relaxing environment in the heart of Berlin. (Click here)

Wow! Amazing and cheap too! :) Although we have to pay additional 30euros for late check-in, oh well, at least we got there!

After settling down, I really needed to get food. I knew both of us were tired but my gastric would act-up if I don't get food to warm myself. So we took a walk under the cold rain (this time I was well dressed up so not that cold) and took a bite at a Turkish burger shop. As usual, I snacked on very unhealthy stuffs like a fried chicken burger and fries. K was trying to look for a bar for whiskey but was told that there might not have such bars.

Oh well, it was near midnight and after my snacks, we walked back to the apartment to wash up and rest. We need to get up early tomorrow for our segway tour.

The next morning, we took a cab to the TV tower as that was where the segway tour will commence. I was worried that we might not find the place but we did! Yayyeee! And as we were early and as we needed wifi (K needed to contact his friend Ty who just recently shifted to Berlin), we decided to go for Starbucks (definitely not both of our fav!) for a latte and free wifi.

And after that, it was 10am and our Segway adventure began! I was very terrified at the Segway cos I didn't know how to ride one! K did it in Sentosa some months back and he loved it. I was very lucky as I had a good tour guide! He was Toby and he patiently taught us the technique of riding a Segway. And OMG! I simply fell in love with it immediately! Guess I was a genius cos I immediately got it! I balanced well on the segway and although I was scared of bumps and a lttle afraid to brake, I got off quite well.

I was feeling very carefree when cruising on the segway and simply enjoyed the stares from passer-bys. LOL! Simply too vain for attention! :p

There was an old couple from London (not that kind of super old old, but maybe perhaps late 50s kind) and they drove all the way from London to Berlin for holidays. They got onto the segway quite well in the beginning but after around 1 hour on the segway, the man started to get into troubles with his segway. They were behind us and we were all following Toby...

And suddenly I heard a lady shouting "Toby", so naturally I shouted "Toby" as well. Then I realized that perhaps I heard wrongly! Maybe that lady was calling someone else and I might have made an embarrassing mistake! Toby turned back and asked what happen and I just say "I don't know" and in a second, a lady with a bike zoomed to us and told Toby that one of his tour mates was down. Oh... So I didn't make a mistake! That lady was truly calling out to Toby. So Toby segway back and we followed him. And true enough, the Londoners were off their segways and the man seemed to be looking for something. Strange!

I segwayed over to the lady and asked what happened. She told me that her husband lost that remote control and his segway just stopped dead. Hmmmm .... How did that even happen??? How could the remote drop out of the bag? In any case, we asked Toby and he said that it was possible for the remote to get lost, but the segway should still be able to function. He couldn't understand why too.

So Toby and the guys helped look for the remote and can't find any... Then after a few mins, Toby realised that the remote was in the lady's bag! I could not understand why though. And then, we realised that perhaps it wasn't the remote's fault. The man just suddenly couldn't control the segway anymore. After a few falls, he himself admitted that he was the "problem", not the segway!

Well, anyway, we visited a few sites on segway and although it was brief, we mainly just enjoy segwaying onto the road and in-out pathways. It was real fun!!! I wasn't really concentrating on the tour, I was really just playing with the Segway! LOL! And K had lots of fun too! And the funny thing was... He was quite a show-off and he was playing zigzag with his Segway and he didn't notice a pile of sand beside him and his segway wheels caught the sand pile and he overturned! I was just right behind him and witness the whole fall! OMG!!! I was so scared at first, but when he climbed up the segway, I was finding it funny! He must be sooooo embarrassed cos Toby came over to help him up. I knew he would be embarrassed so I didn't rub on it (mmmm... I should tease him actually! Damn!!! Hahahaha!)

Anyway, Toby told K that this was the most stressful tour he had ever taken cos the old couple kept falling. This time, the lady went down real hard and I saw she knocked her head and perhaps sprained her ankle (cos she was limping a bit)! So lucky she got the helmet on. And Toby was really worried about both of them.

Well, our 4 hours Segway tour came to an end and we were sad to leave... We chilled out at a restaurant to steal some wifi cos K needed to confirm with Ty on our meet-up tonight. We ordered beer, nachos and clam chowder soup to share. It was delicious and huge portion! Lucky we didn't order too much!

After a quick lunch, we went to the shops near the TV tower to do some shopping and K wanted to buy a sim card so that he could communicate with Ty. Finally he got one and communicated with Ty. Ty wanted to meet for dinner and drinks tonight. We had to go to his home at 8pm. It was late afternoon by then, so we decided to get a beer at the Octoberfest event before heading home to wash-up. But as we knew the weather would be cold in Berlin, K suggested that I buy a beanie. And sure enough, we went inside a shopping mall and I bought a black beanie (I chose black to be safe and not some odd colors which I would not dare to wear at all!!) 100% cashmere! Would be really warm to wear this at cold harsh Berlin night!

We washed up a bit and took a cab to Ty's home. Amazing place he's got! It was on the top floor with a sun-roof. They just shifted in during August. Previously they were flying around, and now since they just got a son (6-months old), they decided to settle down and Ty chose Berlin for its colorful music and clubbing scenes. I didn't even know Berlin was famous for that. LOL! Germans were typically more boring than creative and aloft French or other European countries, I thought.

Anyway, we had a good dinner besides his house and after that, we took a walk down the streets to find a place for a drink. It was a good night, not too cold! Nice to enjoy the night scene in Berlin most happening street. Ty told us that the night scene only would come alive after midnight, even up to 5am. Wow... Amazing! It was a good night out in Berlin! Ty asked us if we would be keen to join him tomorrow (Sunday wee-hour) at about 2-3am for a DJ show. He's got a DJ fren from London and he would be bringing him out. We could join him if we wanted. We were fine with the idea, since we would be in the train to Prague on Sunday morning for 4-5 hours. We could sleep on the train anyway.

The next day, we really slept in till around 10plus! And K woke up to pack his box to be delivered back home. OMG! We didn't know it would be sooo expensive! It costed him over 100 euros just to air-flown a small box back to Australia! Actually I was worried that he might not get his tax refund back if he had shipped his items back home. Oh well, he mentioned that he read on the brochure that he was not required to show his bought-items. Hmmm... Strange...

After that, we decided to take a walk to find some good coffee and food. We walked around and found nothing. K decided to ask a local couple and they pointed us to go to this cafe called "Five Elephant" - right at the heart of the hipster district - Neukölln. But it would be quite a distance walk. Oh well, since we didn't have much to do, we decided to walk. Lucky K had gotten his sim card and we used google maps to find the place. It was at a deserted local neighbourhood with lots of not-so-nice graffito on the walls and everywhere. Look rather like a gangster/hipster neighbourhood! We had to walk past a park to get there. Along the park, there were a few black guys, looking dodgy and one of them even tried to follow me closely. I immediately walked faster and grabbed hold of my bag tightly. It seemed like they were not pickpocketers or robbers. They might be just there to peddle drugs. We saw many of them inside the park as well, like trying to do some lookouts for the police, if any.

Anyway, we finally found Five Elephant! Was disappointed that they did not serve any food, only cakes. Oh well, since I was a bit hungry, we ordered the carrot cake to share. The coffee was not bad though.

After coffee, K had gotten a direction to a all-day breakfast cafe: California Slam (Click here). K was going crazy and he was loving it! He needed his egg-fix every day! Honestly I had never seen any guys so into eggs and breakfast! LOL... Well, everything has its first! So we arrived at California Slam and it was a nice cosy place with a stage for live music. Awwwwesome! I ordered my french toasts and OMG! It was sooooooooooooo HUGE! Huge enough to kill anyone with such a meal! It was pretty nice and although I wasn't a big fan of breakfast, I kind of enjoyed it.

After breakfast, we decided to go for a walk at the East Side Gallery (Click here). I didn't expect anything like this. I thought it is a gallery inside a building to display pictures. But never had I expect to see the remaining wall and nice graffitos on them (although some of the graffito were badly vandalized!). I was a long wall of graffitos, around 1.3km. And the opposite side of the wall was a photo exhibition. The exhibition exhibited photos of all the "walls that separate people" from over more than 30 countries, I think. I felt emotional looking at these walls that were built by different countries to separate people. It was kind of sad.... Human beings using such methods to separate people was mean! :(

After an hour's walk along this gallery, we decided to go Central west of Berlin to take a look. Cos since Hard Rock cafe was situated there, we assumed that the area must be worth going. We went to the train station to catch a train. Before that, K needed to find a telco shop to check on his newly-bought sim card. Cos apparently he cannot make calls on this card, only able to SMS and surf internet. While we were waiting at O2's shop, something funny happpened. I was bored so I intended to do some selfies. K decided to come into my screen and as I clicked, his gum fell out of this mouth and ONTO MY HAIR! And this was captured nicely on my phone (See below!).

We were both laughing so hard that the counter guy and the lady customer were both looking at us. It was hilarious!!! You should take a look at the photo again and this is a perfect photo for Awards!!!! LOL!!!

After catching the train to the West, Kurfürstendamm, known locally as the Ku'damm (Click here), we realized this is a place for shopping. They have lots of luxury stores there. We walked around and we saw the Ampelmannchen store (Click here). They have souvenirs for the Ampelmannch characters. At first I thought these were just cute figurines but there was a good histroy behind them. Not gonna go into history now! You can read the history on wikipedia!

Anyway, I got hold of my Hard Rock tee for Betsy and we decided to go back. We reached our station and decided to buy the local cola - Fritz-Kola. K was very engaged with the "gay-men" logo and he bought all three bottles back as souvenirs. LOL! Honestly the logo featuring 2 guys cheek-to-cheek was hilarious!!! I tried the melon flavor (cos highly recommended by the shop owner) and actually it tasted OK-OK only, nothing fantastic! Anyway, after resting in the apartment, we decided to go for a walk to get some food. It was already raining but we thought, it was our last night here in Berlin, might as well make full use of it. And since for the first time that K had wanted to find dinner, I was very delighted! Hahahah!!!

We walked (luckily I got umbrella!) and found a good Thai restaurant. The food was fantastic and reasonably priced! Both of us finally have a diet in common, we both love Thai food!!!! :)

We finished our dinner and get back to our hotel to pack up. Oh, we still have to meet Ty at around 2am! Oh well, K was really tired and he decided not to go. We should just sleep and wake up to post his box and catch the train to Prague. Sound like a good plan! It was a rainy night and good to sleep in! :)

We really slept in late and got up ready to check-out. Awww... I loved this place already and 3 nights were just too short!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time in Berlin and I guess I might visit this place sometime again. (Only after I had done my check-list of to-go countries!)

Bye Berlin... And HELLO Prague! :)

Copenhagen

The next day, we catch a train to the airport cos it is faster and cheaper! Only will take us 15 mins to reach the airport! Cool! We had a quick breakkie at the airport while waiting for our flight. The flight will only take about an hour or so. Quick one on SAS!

The flight was smooth and we reached Copenhagen in a flash! It was barely 12noon when we reached our hotel - Alexandra Hotel at Anderson Boulevard. I didn't know anything about this hotel at all. K booked it, so it must mean something to him.

And yes! This hotel has an interesting concept (Click here). They had some cool retro-fitted rooms, displaying furnitures from renowned Danish designers like Verner Panton, Arne Jacobson, etc. These designers all had their furnitures pieces displayed at the Danish Museum (which we were going to visit the next day).

There were so many places to visit here and we have only 3 days 2 nights. After settling down at the hotel, we went to get a map from the tourist info counter and decided to do the hop-on-hop-off bus tour again tomorrow (like what we did in London). And now since we only have half-day left, we decided to go check out the walking street (Click here) which was just near our hotel to do some shopping and grab some food, if any.

The street was amazing! There were so many shops around here. We stopped by The Royal cafe as K heard about the famous Smushi (Click here). And OMG, the food here looked really good! Very feminine place though. Of course we had to order the smushi. So we ordered 3. They looked really good!

And the bills... They looked really GOOD too! It was sooooo expensive! 2 cups of latte with 3 small bite-sized snacks, costed us 450DK, which was about 60 euros! WTF! LOL! We had a shock! Hahaha!! Oh well, this is an expensive experience! :)

Thereafter, we dropped by Nyhavn (Click here), a bustling area filled with cool restaurants and cafes along the river, just like our Boat quay and Clarke Quay. This place was highly recommended by the taxi driver by the way. He mentioned this place more than 5 times I think. I nearly thought that he might have a restaurant there or something. LOL!

We catch a quick Carlsberg beer at a cool cafe along the river and enjoyed a busker performance.

It was getting dark by then and the weather was so cold and harsh, very different from the nice cool Amsterdam! So we decided to go back to the hotel and eat at the vietnamese restaurant downstairs. OMG, the restaurant was so fully packed! Must be good, yah? So we decided to try. The food was alright but the bill was once again, very high! For just 2 bowls of main (simple noodle soup and curry soup) and 1 plate of 3 springrolls, it costed us nearly 350DK, which was about 46 euros! WOW!!! Copenhagen is surely very expensive!!!

Well, we had a good time and we only have about 1 full day left anyway. And this hotel was freaking cool! We asked the receptionist about those designer-furniture-fitted rooms and she actually told us that we could go in to take a look! WTH! We were so excited! It was like hitting the lottery! And you should see the look on K's face. He was like a kid all over! It was his dream came true!

The receptionist gave us 2 keys to 2 different rooms and we happily hopped onto the floors. These rooms were all fitted with the designer's famous furniture and OMG! How I loved them! LOVE LOVE LOVE the rooms!

We had a good tour of the rooms, taking endless amount of photos (pano, still, posing, etc). It was definitely a good place!

The next morning, we took the hop-on-hop-off bus with the main objective of getting to Christania. We stopped by the Little Mermaid stop so that K could spin some story to write to his 2 cute daughters. I really wondered what's so special about the Little Mermaid and apparently this was a donation by the famous Carlsberg founder, JC Jacobsen who love the ballet about Little Mermaid so much that he paid money to get the famous sculpture Edward Eriksen to create a sculpture of the mermaid at this location.

In case anyone who didn't even know about the tale of Little Mermaid, please check it out here.

After that, we continued the bus ride to the next stop, near the Danish Design Museum. We got off the bus and proceed to this museum. Apparently not many people knew about this museum. I guess not all Copenhagen people love designs! LOL... Anyway we waited till 11am for the museum to open and we were very delighted by the displays. It was not exactly a huge museum like the Van Gogh, but it was just nice. Short and sweet. The items were displayed tastefully. We even had a beer inside the cafe while waiting for our next bus.

We got up the bus and proceed to the next stop: Christiania (Click here). K had always wanted to visit this place as he had seen a documentary about this place, and how cool this place was. We finally found it and it was indeed a cool place. Not as scary as I thought it to be. Actually it was kind of too commercial. Many tourists visited the place and there are many booths selling souvenirs and stuffs. Thus, this place is not as deserted or abandoned as I thought it to be. K bought a nice beanie for 200DK (about 27 euros) and it was expensive!

We finished a beer there and since we have done most of our "to-do" list, we decided to catch the bus again to the walking street to do some shopping. We walked around and decided to have some late lunch. And it started to pour! After lunch, K managed to buy a pair of nice boots before walking back to the hotel to take a rest before heading out to Vesterbro - the red-light-cum-hipster district in the evening (click here). We heard there might have some cool shops selling unique artistic stuffs. Unfortunately it was drizzling that evening and the streets were quiet and shops were mostly closed before 7pm.

We stopped by a local bar and ordered some drinks. I had enough beers for the day and thus, I ordered Coke. We asked the bartender about this area as well as another area called the Meat-packing district (Click here). He told us that the meat packing district used to be an area that sell meat, but since then, it had transformed into a cool area that had many restaurants and bars, I think similar to Nyhavn. We took a walk near the area and saw a bit of happenings, but as it was drizzling and cold, we decided not to walk further as we might not find anything unique. It would probably be like Nyhavn anyway. So we went back to the hotel to pack and rest for the night, getting ready for Berlin tomorrow.

Along the way, we passed by Tivoli amusement park (Click here) and were surprised that it was opened! Actually tonight was just a preview Halloween night for VIPs and the official opening date was Friday. Oh well, since we were already there, might as well go in to take a look. It costed us 150DK (about 20 euros) just to get in! Wow, so expensive. Anyway, it was our last night, so let's just do it! It was getting so cold now that I was shivering non-stop. Perhaps I had been to better theme parks like Universal Studios and DisneyLand, so I really did not think this park was any better. But this park seemed to be the icon of Copenhagen and this was the 2nd oldest park ever. Even there was talks that Disneyland was modelled after Tivoli. As usual K was like a kid and decided to try the scariest ride (the ride with the most screams I reckon). I had to wait for him while he queued to take the ride and stupidly, I sat under the cold weather. I was feeling so cold that suddenly I felt silly. Duh! From the look of the queue, he should need to queue quite long. So I should at least take a walk and see the whole park. I did just that and the park was typically boring for me. So I decided to pop into the waffle shop to get a cup of hot latte and perhaps some food to eat (yes, I didn't have dinner again). At the same time I was worried that K might miss me and didn't know where I was, so I was ordering my food and looking out/walking out to look for K at the same time. Very tiring. Finally just as I was taking my waffles, K walked in and I was relieved! So we sat down and while I was having my waffle, he bought an ice-cream to try. And something funny happened! He cut his lips! I think it must be due to dry lips! He just came down from the ride which was so super cold and when he bit the ice-cream cone, the hard biscuit cone might have cut his lips subconsciously! And he thought it was strawberry! LOL!!! Horrible!!!

Anyway, we did have a fun night! The next morning, we have about till 1pm before rushing to the airport. So we decided to go shopping once more. I was really thinking of buying a nicer boots for walking so that I will look presentable in Berlin. Right now the weather was getting colder and harsher and I had to wear socks. As my walking shoes was not meant for socks, it looked kind of ugly! I hate to be a fashion disaster (you know how I like to look pretty!), so I must really get a good pair of walking boots (and good-looking ones too!). Lucky me, K helped me spot a nice walking boots with a small wedge heels. Perfect for petite me! And although it costed alot (about 80 euros), I think it is worth it!

We rushed back to the hotel to grab our bags and called a taxi to the airport. We decided to reach airport earlier cos K wanted to claim his tax refund first. But unfortunately, we had checked in everything and the lady requested to look at his buys. So too bad, he can't do it unless he had his bought items. Oh well, guess he had to do it in Berlin then.

Bye Copenhagen. Although it was a short 2.5 days stay, I had enjoyed Copenhagen much. :)

Next up: Happening Berlin!

Amsterdam!

It was a tight 3 days in London and the weather was cold and wet. Not surprising though! My friends had all warned me actually. Oh well, I have to see it personally to know!

The next morning, we had to catch a train to Amsterdam, transitting at Brussels. The total train ride would be around 5 hours! OMG! I hope to survive this! But luckily there was a break at Brussels before continuing the journey to Amsterdam. We reached Brussels around 2 hours time, and we caught a beer and fries while waiting for our next train. The weather was so much nicer than London! Bright sunny day!

After my snacks and beer, we caught the next train to Amsterdam. We reached smoothly at the Central station of Amsterdam and easily found our B&B along the canal.

We will be in Amsterdam for 5 days and 4 nights.

OMG! This is the most prettiest B&B I had ever seen! Click here for info about this house from Airbnb. Located on the Prinsengracht in the heart of the 'Jordaan', the Westermarkt and noordermarkt around the corner. Besides a unique view on the Prinsengracht, there is also a spacious rooftop terrace. This place is also very near to tourists sights like Anne Frank house, flea markets and walking distance to happening streets with lots of bars and coffeeshops and a little further away, we can reach the red-light districts and the town square.

By the time we settled down at the house, it was near evening time. We went for a walk along the happening streets full of coffeeshops - THAT type of coffeeshops, not the normal type! Don't know what is a "Coffeeshop"? Click here. :)

Coming from SG, I have no idea what is hash or marijuana or whatever crap. K was telling me to smell it. I smelt something but I thought it was just some kind of cigarette smokes. DAMN embarrassing! And this is not the most embarrassing moments for me.

We went into a coffeeshop "Barney's Coffeeshop" (Click here). The shop was very small, only a few tables wide. We were lucky enough to get a table and I saw a "thing" on the table. Innocently, I really really thought it might be a "heater"? Wow, each table has its own heater? We were so cold outside and it felt very nice and warm inside. What a considerate and nice coffeeshop owner!

And how wrong can I get!!!! SO EMBARRASSING!!!

This "heater" is actually a vaporizer. It is used to vaporize the weeds and smoke the smoke. LOL... I really have no idea what I am saying but this is the description explained by K. Oh well, I'm from SG! I definitely would not know such stuff! Hope the guys behind me didn't hear my comments about the "heater". :p

Funnily, K took a weed menu from the counter and brought it to our table to look through. Then suddenly the waitress rushed over and snatched the menu out of us, saying that we can only buy weeds over the counter, not at the table! Duh! Why the rule? Think they are allowed to sell legally, but not openly and only over the bar counter, selling very discreetly.

So I sat at the table and had a clear pano view of all the guys queuing up to buy hash. All these guys really knew their stuffs! The 2 guys behind the counters were happy guys, u can see it from their smiles and their moves - grabbing boxes and boxes of weed/hash from the shelves. And I was very proud of myself! Cos I managed to secretly take lots of pictures! Including a pano pic of the whole counter filled with guys! Hee Hee!!! Then when I was caught, luckily I had already finished my photoing and my phone screen was blank. So I told them I was just holding my phone, not taking photos (I am such a lier! Hahah!!)

When the guys were gone, there was a group of young gals, seem like in their graduating year. They looked at the menu and obviously didn't know what to buy. So the more courageous gal from the group decided to ask the counter guy: "Can you educate us?" Hahahah!!! The guy gave a big loud laugh! I was laughing too! This was a very innocent sentence and I loved it. I would want to ask that too! I wished I could walk over to be "educated" as well!

Anyway I couldn't really hear what the guy was telling them, obviously he was showing them some boxes and boxes of good stuff, might be good for first-timer I guess. Awww.... I wish I knew what is good! Anyway I smoked a bit of K's joint (mixture of hash and tobacco, cos he didn't want anything too strong). I really didn't feel anything different! It was just a normal cigarettes! Hmmm... Maybe I can take stronger stuff! Hahahah!!! Some part of me wanted to, some part of me was not keen. Oh well, I would be going back to SG and not able to touch such stuff anymore. So why even bother to try? But it would be silly not to try once in my lifetime, especially it was legal here! :)

Anyway, after some joints, we continued our walk to the Dam square, and of course we ended up in the red-light districts. (Click here)

It was fantastic! I really thought to see an area dark and dodgy and full of DOMs. But I was wrong (again!). This place is so much similar to our Clark Quay or Boat Quay or Robertson Quay! Nice houses and buildings along the canal. And the "windows of gals" are just a small portion of the whole streets. The streets were also filled with adult shops and shows, some are live shows, some peep shows.

We went to the Sex Museum and also watched a very mediocre live sex show at Casa Rosso. This place was obviously very popular and people were queuing up. So we thought we might as well queue up too! Must be good, right? We had to pay 50euros each for the live sex show and honestly, the show was nothing stimulating. It was mechanical and boring and highly cheorographed. Really a waste of my 50euros! It was also my first time hearing about "peep show". It was actually a small box (like a self-photographed booth) and you will peep inside the hole to see some sex actions, I think. We actually wanted to try but the booth is only for 1 person and I did not like to do it myself. So we decided to skip the peep show.

Well, that was all for the night and as expected, no dinner for me! So while we were walking back, I insisted to buy some snacks back. I cannot always skip dinner, right? :( So we stopped by a burger and fries stall. It was yummy! cos I was simply famished!!!

The next day was Saturday, we decided to slow down a little and visited the flea market at Jordaan. We bought a few items, intending to cook a bit tonight (yay! That means I would definitely have dinner tonight finally!) LOL...

After the flea market, we took a walk along 9-streets, the famous shopping street in Amsterdam (Click here). Good shopping area and many people! We walked a bit and sat at a bar for beer. We were kind of tired by today actually. After some walking, we decided to take the bicycle taxi to Paradiso, the area famous for live entertainment and bars and shops. Too bad, we were there a bit too early (it was only 5.30pm) and the place was not very crowded. Oh well, but at least I managed to buy a Hard Rock tee for my fren, Betsy! Yayee!

Since there was nothing happening at Paradiso, we thought of going for a river cruise but the timing was not right. Thus, we decided to just go back to our canal house to enjoy the house. We paid good money for this private house, so we might as well spent a bit of time there. We went back and K did a bit of cooking. Yummy pasta for me and red wine (from the owner). We heard Van Gogh museum would be packed with people if we didn't have any pre-booked tickets. So I went online to book 2 tickets for us at 3pm (cos we need to go searching for cafes during the daytime).

Everything was perfect at this moment, until K was deeply affected by a shocking message from his best fren. He was then rather upset and started to distance himself. Oh well, what can I do? As his travel companion, I can only try not to irritate him and stay in my course. This is also my holiday too! So I am prepared to make it a good one, no matter what. In any case, I didn't think it is fair for K to let his mood affect our holiday. And oh come on, it was just about his fren, not him at all. He shouldn't get so upset about his friend's decision. :(

The next day, as it was a Sunday, we had to get going to find his list of cafes in Amsterdam. We started the day with a BIG serving of pancakes at the famous Pancake Bakery (just opposite our house). We saw people queueing up even late at night, like 9pm! Anyway, the pancakes were nice (typical), nothing super fantastic actually. And it was really expensive! Totally for Tourists! Well, we were curious why people are queueing up, so this is the price to pay to satisfy our curiousity! LOL!

After breakfast, we went to search for a place to print his list of cafes and addresses. We were lucky to find an internet cafe-type of place. And after that, we had to find a bicycle taxi (cos I didn't want to cycle on the street. I had bad phobia about cycling on the streets so I didn't have confidence at all!). Finally we found a guy who was willing to take us for 2-hours at 90euros (usual price 100euros)

Well, I really enjoyed the ride. People were looking at us when we zoomed by! So nice! At first we actually booked a taxi. And then we realised that bicycle taxi might do a better job in weaving through difficult traffic and riding on narrow pathways. How right we were! The places where we were going were all very small areas and quite hard to find. One cafe actually was inside a park, where the bicycle taxi could ride right into the park but definitely not accessible for normal taxi.

We were really lucky! We found all the cafes listed and were feeling very happy! K had lightened up his mood a bit but still rather cold. Anyway, we completed the search way before 3pm. And thus we asked the bicycle taxi driver to drop us at 9-street again cos K wanted to look for unique tees. We walked around but unluckily we didn't find anything interesting. So we took another bicycle taxi to the museum just right on time at 3pm and OMG! There was already a queue. I thought with the tickets, we can just zoom past the queue. But no! All people with tickets will have to queue up to get it as well. Only those without the tickets will have to wait for everyone to get in before getting in.

Anyway, actually the queue speed was quite fast, we got in within 15 mins, not too bad!! It's amazing! The museum was great and each of us had a multi-media guide, which was very enriching. I simply loved this trip to the museum!

We took about 1.5hours before the museum announced the closure. We decided go back to have our dinner at the vegetarian restaurant below our house. The restaurant was nice and cosy. Seemed popular too, many people! I ordered the vegetarian noodles, but it was too salty, full of soy sauce. Anyway, K loved vegetarian and since he was not in a good mood, I decided to just go with this. This beats having no dinner, right? Hahaha!!!

Well, since K had to be with his "hero" for either half or full day tomorrow out of Amsterdam (about a few hours trip on the train), I had to make plans myself. So I looked online and on impulse, I booked a half-day tour to North Holland, out of Amsterdam, mainly to view windmills, cheese factory and clog-making house. It would be fun! K told me that he might join me if his visit to the coffee workshop was short, cos he wasn't sure how long it would take actually. Anyway, I shall go ahead to book this tour and he could book directly at the agency if he could make it back to Amsterdam before 2.30pm.

The next morning, I had a good sleep-in, till 9am. And I hang around the house a bit and decided to go out earlier than planned. The half-day tour only starts around 2.30pm, so I had plenty of time. So I decided to go for river cruise (since we didn't manage to have one 2 days ago). Along the way, I finally saw how people move their furniture into the house. Just FYI, the houses were all very old and vintage, with no lifts and narrow stairs. We saw the "hook" at the top of each house and were wondering how it worked. I was very lucky to witness it!!!

Overall, it was really a very tough job! I think should be very expensive as well! :)

Anyway, I reached the river cruise counter at around 11.15am and booked myself the next river cruise at 11.30am. The cruise was very nice and relaxed (of course!). I learnt alot from the commentary and had a very good time. It was around 12.30pm when the cruise ended and I had to find a cafe to spend my 2-hours before my tour started. I saw a mexican cafe and there was a small table for one person, so I sat down and ordered a latte and played with the wifi. I was thinking when the owner will start to chase me away cos I didn't feel like having mexican food for lunch. Actually I was hoping K could make it in time and we could have some snacks before the tour.

Anyway, I need to clear some emails so in a flash, I have sat there for nearly 1.5 hours! And I only ordered a cup of latte! LOL... The owner was nice! He didn't rush me nor ask me to order other stuffs. So although I have another 30min to go, I decided to pay the bill and leave, so that they could have more business with my table.

I decided to take a walk since it was only 2pm. I asked the waiter if he knew where was the pick-up point for the tour and he told me to turn right. Well, since I had time, I decided to turn left to take a walk along the streets, maybe I could do some shopping as well. And oh god! Lucky I did it, cos the tour pick-up point was exactly there, on my left side! I will definitely miss the tour if I had taken the waiter's direction to turn right. I was soooo lucky. So I went over and was asked to go take a ticket (since mine was e-ticket). So I went in, approached the counter and asked for the ticket. He looked at me and asked "You only? WHY alone?" This was funny! Mmmmm.... I didn't know going on a tour alone was not common! Anyway he was nice and smiling and I told him that my friend couldn't make it last min.

Anyway, I got my tickets and OMG! There were so many people! At least nearly 100pax I think! The tour people told me that cos the weather was good, so many people turn up for the tour. Anyway the big double-decker bus can fit 100pax so we were good to go! I was assigned to sit with a lady, who looked latina but she speak French. She was with 2 guys, so she had an empty seat with her. Well, the bus trip was good, as we have live tour guide as well as the audio guide from the bus. The trip was good! Took less than 30min to get out of Amsterdam (the tour guide told us that Amsterdam is different from other countries where the city will slowly disappear and the countryside will appear. Here, the city and countryside was very closeby and not much differences in terms of transition.)

The tour group reached our first destination, Zaanse Schans, the picturesque windmill village. The village was so nice and quiet and cosy! I fell in love with this village immediately!

After that, we moved on to the fishing village of Volendam, where I visited the cute Cheese factory and museum. The cheese demostration was by this lively cute HUGE lady! She was extremely funny and engaging. I simply loved to see her show! And OMG, I had never seen so many cheese in my life! I am definitely not a cheese lover but I knew K would go crazy here! He simply loved cheese as his life!!! LOL! Too bad!

After lots of "cheesy" tour around the cheese museum, the tour group moved on to the next destination, which we need to take a cruise boat to the island of Marken, where I visited the traditional clog-maker, Bart. He too was extremely funny! I really had such a good time that I totally didn't regret booking this tour on my own. After the clogs demostration, we shopped a bit at the clog shop and went back to the bus.

And I saw the most beautiful sunset in my life. I am not being drama here! The sunset was soooo awesome that my iphone cannot capture even 10% of the beauty. But I will always remember the sunset in my mind. :)

It was 7pm when the bus reached back to the Damrak area, near Victoria Hotel. K called earlier that the train station had some accident (a crane fell onto the track, thus all the trains were cancelled!) and thus he was stuck at the station outside Amsterdam. So I decided to go back to the house to wait for him. He said that if he was early, he would wait at the vegetarian restaurant.

So when I got back home around 7.15pm, I popped by the restaurant and didn't see him, so I guess he must be still stuck somewhere out there. It was about 8pm that I decided to give him a call, just in case he was waiting for me somewhere else, or if I should go look for my own dinner. It was so coincidence that he had actually just reached the Central station and on his way back home!

Great! We decided to meet at the bar across our house for a beer before going for vegetarian dinner again. He looked very tired and he told me about his train-station saga. He was extremely lucky to be back cos there were still many people trapped there. He told the guys that he needed to get back to Amsterdam cos he had a plane to catch the next day, and thus he was given a seat on a bus to the next station to catch the train. How lucky!!!

It is true that this was our last night at Amsterdam. How time gone! We were there for 4 nights already! Just when I was starting to like this place, we had to go. :( Oh well, I guess we would have fun in other cities too, but no more joints to smoke! Awwww..... Bye bye hash!

Next stop: Copenhagen!! Yay!!!

London!

My dream comes true!

I'm not being drama mama! No one has any idea how much I wanna go Europe, especially London - heard about all the high-fashions, theatres, splendid historical buildings, etc. And most importantly, SG used to be part of England! Donno why, the words of one of my Professors in university had deeply affected me and I can't get them out of my head! She said to the class one day during lecture that British colony has implanted in her mind so deeply that subconsciously she actually felt inferior to the "ang-mohs". There was an incident when she went to England for a seminar the first time, she was shocked at her own subconscious reflexive action when the "ang-moh" waitress came over to pour her water. She actually stood up when the waitress served her! LOL.... She told us that she was shocked and not used to seeing "ang mohs" doing such jobs! Her idea of "Ang-mohs" are all the Managers, presidents, etc. LOL... Awww... come on, there are cleaners, road-sweepers, dish-washers, maids, etc in Ang-moh countries too! At that time, I was only a 20-year-old kid, from a low-income family. Thus I was like her too, very unsure with myself as well.

Anyway, ever since my first travel out of SG (when I was 20 years old, to Bintan full-moon party), I have not been to any western countries at all. Not that I didn't want to, but I didn't have the chance and money. And when I have the chance and money, everytime I tried to plan a trip to Europe or US, some issues will pop out and I had to abort my travel plans. :(

So, it was last year that I decided to bang the wall and went ahead with my US tour, even though I was on the verge of cancelling. And it seemed to work well that way! So, from there onwards, I do not want to plan at all. I will do impromptu trips! And how it worked very well! Since then, I had been to Sydney, Adelaide, Paris, Venice and Milan! And now, I had just completed my 6-cities trip from Europe! All of these were not planned at all! :)

Okok, let's not side-track!

London! Yayyyeee!!! I will be in London for 3 days and 2 nights.

I arrived in the morning at Heathrow airport. I actually thought of taking the train, but as I was pulling my luggage around the airport and trying to locate the train station, I decided to just hack-care and take a cab (typical lazy city gal!). I was praying hard that it would not be too expensive!

Took a cab and was glad that the cost is around 55 pounds. This seemed a bit steep, but oh well, for this amount of money, I can save the walking and searching for the right train, quite worth it lah. And thereafter, I can take train with my fren, Kayne. At least there is someone to guide me! I just didn't like the feeling of "lost".

Reached the hotel "Kensington Close" in about 30min (Click here for more details). Quite a smooth ride. This hotel was in a great neighbourhood!

It was funny. I knew the room number cos K had already arrived yesterday and he had sent me a text message. So I went to the conceige and I made a mistake by asking them to call the room. Actually I could easily just take the elevator to the room, right? So DUH! So I immediately told the guy not to call and that I can just go up. The guy was already half-way on the phone and he nodded. I walked hastily to the lift, well-aware of the stares the guys were giving me. I need to quickly get up fast!!! Finally I found the room and was glad to see my fren Kayne! :)

Finally we made it to this trip together! I pray and hope to be good travel companion for each other. So funny, he told me that the conceige guy told him that "a gal is coming up" and sounded so wrong! LOL! Oh well, you don't get girls knocking on your door every morning, right? :p

Anyway, for the day, we decided to go check-out Harrods and do some shopping at Oxford street. It was quite a walk to Harrods and I made a terrible mistake by wearing my super-uncomfy boots! I read online that Harrods will turn away people who are not well-dressed. So I decided to act-cool and wore my silly boots. How my feet hurt like crazy even before reaching Harrods! Well, I only had myself to blame! :(

Harrods was a big shopping centre, very similar to Takashimaya or ION, of that sort. All kinds of products housed in one big building. But strangely, we were trying hard to find food, but we were directed to different areas but no food! LOL...

So after walking and shopping for a while (I decided not to buy anything), we decided to go out of Harrods to find some small cafe for coffee and food. We found one cafe, Paul. It has bad coffee though, but we were tired and hungry, so who cares!

Thereafter, we took the subway to Oxford street (Click here for more details). OMG! The street was so magnificent! It was filled with shops and shops and shops!!! Super much like a 10x Orchard road, or Tokyo's shibuya, shinjuku or harajuku. Colourful shops and old buildings, much contrast and much taste to the eyes!

So unluckily, my feet was hurting like mad (I was cursing myself for being vain) and I really could not enjoy the shopping as much as K did. And the weather was turning too cold too. So I decided to sit and rest at Costa while K went to buy some more stuff.

On our way back, we decided on Thai food just opposite our Hotel. And it was very yummy! :) It was a nice first day for me (except for sore feet!)

The second day, we decided to go for hop-on-hop-off bus tour, to get to see most of the sights at one-go. We saw so many things today! The usual sights: London Tower, Tower bridge, London Eye, Big Ben, London bridge. And of course, we must try the best Fish and Chips in town! LOL... It was tasty! :)

In the evening, we met K's fren, who was an Adelaidean living in London for a few years. Think he is an architect or something. And he will be moving to Canada soon. Amazing guy! He loved Cider so he brought us to a cider bar, named "The Cider Tap" (Click here for more details) near Euston station and we tried a few cider. Mine was nice, sweet and tasty. K's 2nd cider was not so nice, it was bitter! Ewww... Lol!

And after the short drinks, we rushed to catch our theatre show at Picadilly theatre. I really hated to rush for stuffs. And as usual my boots were hurting so much (vain again!).

Luckily we made it in time! I was sort of disappointed that the people there didn't really dress up. I read online that Londoners would dress up for theatre plays, but seems like it was not right. The people were mostly quite casual. And I even spotted a guy wearing bermudas! DUH! It is weird how these people used to complain the SG people do not know how to dress for a musical, but hey, people here in London are also the same!

I loved Dirty Dancing, although some of the scenes were too dry. Overall was a nice experience! And oh yes, we didn't have dinner! And thereafter, there were many days that I had to insist to eat that I get my food. My fren K didn't really eat alot cos he snacked throughout the day! OMG! I guess this is something that I need to get used to. Anyway, after the play, although we would love to take a walk along SOHO, the weather was too cold and so we decided to just go back.

The next day, we had breakfast at one of the cafes in Kensington station (I accidently deleted the photos of my nice pancakes, damn! Feeling sore now...). Thereafter, we walked to the Kensington Palace (Click here for more details) for a visit. Heard the Duke of cambridge lived there with their newborn baby George.

After that, we decided to take the hop-on-hop-off bus to Buckingham Palace (Click here for more details). I didn't have much info about this palace and I heard that the Queen stays there. Oh well, we just went to the Duke's residence (Kensington Palace) and so, we were not keen to go in for this (anyway this is closed to public, it seemed.)

It started to rain a bit now and thus, we took a few nice photos and rushed off to a street recommended by his fren. This street was fantastic! It was filled with food, drinks and shops!

Thereafter, we chilled out along the river of London Eye and hanged at a bar overlooking big ben. Thereafter, we rushed to catch the same bus to go back to our hotel. As usual, yes, I didn't have any dinner! :( So I thought of buying chips and perhaps go for some light snacks before heading back hotel (since this would be our last night at London). As usual, we couldn't find anything interesting so I went supermarket to buy cup noodles (or pot noodles, as it was called there). So, funnily, my last night in London was finished with a miserable cup noodles that tasted shit! :(

Well, it would be Amsterdam the next day and I was feeling very excited!!! Yayyeee!!