The Shrimp (shim*) Boat

Monday, May 28, 2007

journey to the westies..

HELLOs! finally decided to start wrting sth abt the trip.. hehe i feel so lazy aft i happily finish my handwritten travel journal (which was ironically wrtten after the trip.. heh) and i'll have to sorta re-write it on my blog.. boooo... anw there are some stuff i wanna share with u ple :)

hmm.. i've always wondered how it's like in europe. always had an impression of it being cold ( somehow i'll neglect how hot summer is), far away, filled with ang-mohs, far far away, pretty place, really really far away and super ex.

12 may 07
took a 12 hr long flight to frankfurt. honestly i've always tot frankfurt is somewhere in england.. hehe oops...okays so i've got no general knowledge la.. but well frankfurt, whereever it is.. is a nice place...haha except the smoky airports tho.. the air within the airport is bad..

And the amazing thing is we chanced upon.. yes we actually chanced upon this huge festival which took place in frankfurt. their skyscrapper festival(weird h)uh? singapore should have alot of it then..) actually attracted a million visitors .. woots... tt's alot. and on the first nite we reached, we actually saw fireworks!! right outside out hotel window... woohoo... cool!
i'll post the video here soon.. hehe

13th may 2007
still in frankfurt. took a confusing train ride on the s bahn and u bahn to the old town , rothenburg. it's confusing beyond comprehension(see? it's so confusing tt i dun make sense anymore.) but well worth the trip... some nice photos.. and ate frankfurters.. bratswursts and pommes(fries)

my mummy and i on a random road outside our hotel...

frankfurt haupbahnhof! which translates to frankfurt main train station. haha nice building huh?

within the s bahn train.. s is for schnell... which means fast.

outside a church ( there's so many tt i dun remember the name alr.. hehe) but i love that wooden door!!!so cute!!!
i tink i'm obsessed with old wooden doors.. took afew pics with doors. haha

doesnt tt remind you of a toilet bowl? but anw it's supposed to be some water source thingy i tink.. coz i dun understand the german words on it.

mummy and i on the bridge over main(pronounced as ma-in) river.

a fun bus ride that i did NOT have a chance to take.. so sad... sob... so fun... so cute! i wanna take.. can i can i? pleeeaaaseeee?

An old town in frankfurt. the half timber houses in rothenburg. cool huh?

a haribo tent in the fair. remember the tube of gummy we have in here tt is called haribo roulette? they have a tent of it there. and they have heaps of diff types of gummy. but beware... there's this black gummy which i suppose they love alot. BUT! it taste horrible.
i hate liqorice...it's disgusting... but the rest are GOOD. :)
jus avoid the black ones.

jus in case you tink tt frankfurt is some old town. it's a modern city. jus tt we love the older parts of it. haha

didnt really takemuch pictures at the fair.. but they had bands, a band on a bus, bungee jump.. food frm all over the word and haribo! and pillow sized packets of popcorns. it's madness.

14th may 2007
we took a train to basel! which is in switzerland. and a v nice ( and quite cute) train conductor was v thoughtful and reminded us to change train andactually came back and reminded us again when it's the stop to egt down. haha.
and in switzerland, they use swiss francs as the currency... and the cost of an entry to the public toilet ( McClean) is 2 CHF!!! oh my tian.. it's $2.40 la.. be thankful of our dirty but comparatively dirt cheap ten cents toilets.

and again.. we, being so facinated by old towns... went to their old towns again.. and the fischmarkt, which is their fishmarket, which sells more than jus fish la..actually they dun sell fish. hmm...

marktplatz

and this is what we see in the old town:

mummy and i on another random street...

but this time in basel.somewhere on marktplatz.

SMILEY MERINGUES!!!
who say's i am the only one tt's obssessed with smileys.
dun they jus cheer u up?haha

can you believe it? this is actually a PHARMACY!!!
i saw the sign and couldnt help wanting to peer thru the window...
yup... it's got shelves of medicines.
it's a pharmacy alright.

once again, point proven. i like old wooden doors. this one's tiny. haha
makes me feel tall... wheee...i'm a giant. mwhahha

i like long flights of stairs too. ahha

it's kinda cute tt they all like to plant flowers outside their window... nice...:)

and we painstakingly found the munster church which has a really nice interior... the exterior is nice too but part of it is under construction. urgh.

and this is the nice interior of the munster church...

with a cool corridor...

and an otherwise nice exterior without the construction bits..

Then we took a train to italy, arriving at milan at abt ten plus.
by this time, it's getting dark alr so we dun really have the chance to look at the buildings. haha
and we went to this hotel with an interesting lift.. it's the old kind which has a door for u to open and a box or cage thing that u go into.. then u close the door and the inside door closes. um dun sound quite comprehensible but nvm.. it's old and nice. haha a lil small tho... i find it hard to move ard with my humongous bag..

15th may 2007
milano!! it's a place filled with gelaterias where they sell gelatos and it's super duper good... lots of choices and they come in nice cones and in satisfying portions. cant really find pizzerias tho there are lots of paninis :).so our itinerary for today is to eat as much gelatos as possible and to go to duomo and piazza castella!:) and maybe shopping.haha sadly, we dont really have much time to spend there.. boo..

heavy is THE word.

haha my dearest backpack and i on the streets of milan, italy.

and we realised a trend.. the Duomo is under construction too. boo. so the exterior's got an ugly patch of covered up grey mesh again. rarh.. but well it's still nice and the "space" in front of it has lots of pigeons which ant eb caught on camera.. boo...

the side view of duomo.. where the ugly patches of contruction sites are hidden. haha

interior of duomo...

in front of another building near duomo...um weird angle tho... looks like it's slanted. haha leaning building of milano..hahaha

ouside piazza castella, a castle (duh)
it's actually a picture of oneof the wings.

one of the gates of piazza castella

one of their less well preserved walls

behind me is their garden. it's so huge that u acnt really see the nex building..

their courtyard i tink...

left milano at about 4 and took a train to zurich, in switzerland. but we didnt get to go sightsee... so jus bought some chocs and went to catch our night train to hamburg..
haha the night train was an interesting experience... a 6 sleeper carriage with 4 other stranger guys.. weird.. but well the train's still nice...we booked it too late to get a 2 sleeper..

16th may 2007
A day in hamburg with no camera coz silly shim left it in the baggage in the lockers at the haupbahnhof.. but nvm... i've got my ahndy camera phone.. haha
we took a hop on hop off day tour with a humourous live guide.. aha and took a cruise on the river later on.. hamburg is known for their port btw.. and it's the 2nd largest town in germany...
well, as for the rest of the time... it's devoted to shopping.. and most impt;y finding birkis... but sadly i didnt get any... rarh...nirks are surprisingly unpopular there and i only see betula.. but betula woogies are selling at 25 euros.. with limited colours and sizes tho..

a random shot on the streets in hamburg. a view frm the bus..

a cool ship tt runs on waterwheel..

a cool building seen on the cruise ride...

and then we made our way to hannover, then to hildeshiem to meet dad! yay! only of the lil happy thing is tt i get to cut my nails.. haha which are terribly long then... and i'm starting to scratch myself alr..ouch.and we lived in a nice hotel.. which is hidden behind layers of trees and bushes. hidden but nice

hildeshiem is a small town and hbf is haupbahnhof, which means train station.

the only type of train tt goes hildeshiem. the older and lousier type... btu it looks cute!

and they've got nice skies there.. haha

a random nice building..

17th may 2007
today we decided to go take a look at hannover!! but sadly it's a public holiday here today so all the shops are closed!!! and we're practically drooling over the shops there...but we could still go to the old town!!and guess what? we came across our first protestant church!! YAY!!
and there was a statue of martin luther outside. with his 95 thesis, stepping on the 'indulgences'..honestly, i never knew he was german. haha..

our dear martin luther...

and coz it's Fathers' in germany.. and germans being beer lovers.. all the people on the streets were drinking beer and getting a lil tipsy..
and we're apprached by this 2 guys who wanted to take a photo.. haahha
and after awhile their friend came along... so he took a picture of the 4 of us ( mummy me and the 2 guys) and we took a pic of the 3 of the, in front of the church.

the 3 drunk dudes in front of the nice church building:)

some random dude that ran over to take a photo..and before we could leave...

another came over...
i guess they really love taking photos.. ahah

a random nice building under a nice sky...

spot me!

and this is a picture of a lil bird.. fluffingup its feather coz it's super cold in the morning!

my dream car... haha so cute...
but it's BMW!! whoa...

18th may 2007

since the shops in hannover were closed yday, we decided to go down to shop again!!! and to my surprise... they actually have a hello kitty shop here..haha
it's a day if shopping so no pics were taken..haha but i saw this nice pair of jeans... gg at 9.95 euros... but the zip is spoiled. argh. and i didnt manage to get anything. coz the thought of having to carry whatever i buy is not very inviting. ahah

19th may 2007

the day dad is free from his work to go tour ard with us!!
we webt to berlin :) itinerary of the day was to see charlottenburg, remains of the war.. would love to go to checkpoint charlie where the wall museum was and the jews museum.. but we had no time.. boo..

a church destroyed in WWII

charlottenburg is a palace of king federick I and III i tink... i tink his son never became king...
it's really noce inside.. but no photos allowed :S

the wall memorial... which has all the history and info and we thought tt it was actually the wall remains but nope.. nah-uh..

now this.. is the actual wall remain.. it's longer than tt but not alot of it is left...

the flea market at portzdammers platz..
they sell everything from Nazi uniform to old dentures, porcelain plates to old leather suitcases..

then.. we left berlin to take a night train to vienna in austria... this time we took a 4 sleeper since there's no way the 3 of us can fit into a 2 sleeper.. but the 4th bed wasnt take so we got a carriage for ourselves.. yay!

20th may 2007

here we are in vienna!! or wien ( veen) went to check inat the hotel andleft our luggauge there b4 we went out to play.. the sun here's scorching... and the weather's getting hotter...
here.. we took a day tour... the ususal hope on hop off tour with audio guide..stopped for awhile at the donauturn (which is a park) where there were beautiful pluwers!! and peonies bigger than your face.. ahha
then we went a concert at the beethoven haus.. bythe imperial orchestra... they're good and they had ballerinas and singers too.. and the venue had nice architecture..haha

inside the concert hall...

beam me up scotty!!
haha nice horse carriages seen everywhere in wein other than mozart chocs

spagghetti eis!
which is gelato pulled into the 'strands of spagghetti'..

a bridge over donau canal

21st may 2007

a second day in vienna!we went to teh hapsburgs palace, where they had an empress known for her beauty.. empress sissy.. and she's 1.72 m tall, 42-45 kg ( BMI of abt 15) and her waist is 51 cm?!?! whoa.. and anw she spends 2 hrs to exercise each day... woots..
not satisfised at the distant view of donau, or danube river, we decided to go there and have a closer look.. and took a cruise on it...the view on the river was good :)

donau

another view..

random nice building..

22nd may 2007

Got up early and took a train to salzburg... but we reached around 2 plus..
most of the museums close at 6 so we have quite a short day...
went to the mirabell palace, which belonged to the hapsburgs as well, and thebirthplace of mozart... coz this is his hometown and everywhere you go... you see mozart chocs..

mummy and i in front of the house mozart was born in!!

the mirabell gardens and the hohenwerfen palace at the background.
it's a cool place with trick fountains which we didnt have time to go..

23rd may 2007

Salzburg, other than the birthplace of mozart, also contains the shooting scenes of the sound of music! and we took the cheesy but fun 'the sound of music tour' where we visited the shooting scenes-- the palace, the lake, the abbey and the glasshouse and the mirabell gardens

backyard lake of the von trapps
btw they used 2 diff locations to shoot the backyard of their hse..cool..the actual back of the house has no lake..haha

jus a random nice lake.. ahha
a rare photo where i look taller than mummy... yay!

rothernbahn! sth like the luge ride... fun!!!

cheesy photo with a cheesy tour bus..

then we made our way back to frankfurt! and reached at night.

24th may 2004

We're going home!!! thoughwe're not exactly homesick or anything... but the thot of going is really nice... thank God that we've been tru the trip with lots of fun and really smoothly!!

random pretty sky... His beautiful creation..

dandelion!!

Thoughts about the trip:

Really feel that the entire trip is God sent.. haha..
firstly... never thought of being able to go europe so soon!! whee... and througout the trip.. we could feel his presence with us.. and i thank Him that everything went so well..
though in hildeshiem there was once where we took the wrong train and ended up in an ulu lil small town ,elser,where hotels can even close coz it was a public holiday.. stranded at the station with no trains coming soon, sky turning dark, and not being able to speak german,we wanted to approach anyone to help us call a cab to get to the hotel.. but He gave us sth unexpected.. sent us someone who was so helpful that he sent us all the way back.. and thru the journey home we had the company of the humorous father who drove us back...and his 2 cute kids. totally unexpected. and of course we met other really helpful people.. all these i give thanks to Him.

and there are little things about singapore that i've learnt to appreciate more... even though we complain that it's small it's crowded.. and it has pretty nth much to see.. but it's stilla unique little small sunny island and i still like it here..haha

tying rode the Shrimp Boat.
1:48 AM