Blog break

Won't have any posts til mid May. Brace for the draught. Lotsa unfinished work to be done.

In the meantime, enjoy the 4 clips below, one of the 2007 winners for the annual Malaysian Freedom Film Festival. Time to rewrite our history textbooks maybe :P?

Italy- Day 2

Checked out of the hotel and went to the station to leave our luggage before going spending another 1/2 a day in Venice.

Stuffed 2 backpacks (65 and 75 litres respectively) to the brim. Save cost :P.

Wonderful Weather in Venice. Morning market

After a day of wandering the venetian streets under gloomy weather, Mr Sun decided to shine upon us. Streets of Venice are simply gorgeous with the sun ablazin'.

I don't have any more photos of Venice as most of the pictures are with JS and Caleb. You're most welcomed to view them on my facebook page, under photos, or at JS's website (when he posts it up).

Well, we walked more and visited the doge's palace which used to house the doge and his family. Oh, the doge was simply the head of Venice during the days of citystate nationhood. It was pretty interesting as in the "Lobby area" of his residence, there stood 2 humongous globes, one's a map of the Earth while the other, Heaven. If you're wondering how the Venetians plotted the map of heaven, well, your guess is as good as mine. :P. Actually, the "Heaven" globe was just a sphere with pictures of angels and god with no specific locations. It was definitely worth the visit if you are even remotely interested in learning the history of places, their origins and how the nation was run back then. The only regret was that we had to rush through the 2nd half of our tour due to time restraints (have to go collect our luggage and catch the train). Restoration works were ongoing in some parts of the Palace, including the areas close to the bridge of sighs (which we crossed to visit the prison).

Made our way to the train station after doing a little souvenir shopping. Slept through most of the journey to 

La Spezia. 

Many-a connection later, we found ourselves on board this train to La Spezia. Knowing that we might have to spend the night at the train station, we made full use of the facilities: Electricity for charging cam. batteries, phones; Space to repack our stuff so that we'll be able to leave them at the "left luggage"; Toilet to brush our teeth and wash up. Caught some curious stares from other passengers as we treated a section of the train car as our house. 

 Just as we expected, the delayed train from Parma costed us our connecting journey to Riomaggiore. That didn't dampen our spirits though, judging by the look on their faces :P. Decided to spend the night at the station's waiting room. Restless night. Drooled, apparently. SHivered alot. Note to self: Pack a sleeping bag next time.

Still, pretty good story to tell grandkids.

Abit more of London and Italy Day 1

Note: Thank you J.S. for the photo that's now my blog header :). I love it.

- More photos can be found on junsheng's blog (the link is on my sidebar)

Anyway, back to the trip..

London Day 2

Met up with Wz and walked about chinatown, leicester square. (More photos on the night before when we ventured to the Soho area can be seen in JS's blog post).

Tube ride

Nothing much to show for London day 2.. A lot of packing and planning before dinner (and a failed dish of steamed eggs). So lets skip to the airport and flight to Italy!

Italy Day 1

View out of the plane window... Woke the photographer up to take this pic too.

Where do we find a male toilet that has a que to it? ITALY! lol.. I noticed that Italians haven't warmed up to the idea of urinals, which explains the line in front of the washroom upon arriving at Treviso Airport.

Venice is special because of its lack of road vehicles. In their stead, gondolas like these, deftly manouvered by steady gondoliers, can be seen along almost every channel there. Houses have porches and garages for boats, not cars.

Lost count on the number of bridges we've crossed in Venezia

Maybe it's just me, but I find these doorbells so cute :P

Before all that though, it's interesting to note that we were already in shit 1 hour into our trip (not deep lar, but it was still shit) as the bus took us straight to the island, not our hostel where we needed to check in. Asking the bus drivers only confooosed us more. One said we should take bus 12, another, 8, another, 5. Make my head PENING only!! We finally managed to take one which dropped us off at a walkable distance from the night's accom.

As most of the Italians speak limited English, we were forced to learn a little basic Italian and use it throughout the trip (or rely on Caleb) to get our messages across the language divide. 

The hotel manager was really helpful as he provided us with a map and also directions on how to take the bus (to the DOT). I can't seem to recall the name[will insert the name when I do].

Miniature furniture for Thumbelina

Piazza San Marco (starring its pigeons)

St Mark's Basilica

Visited San Marco Square (Piazza means open space or "square" in Italian) where over-enthusiastic tourists pamper and/or frighten the guts out of the pigeons (all at the same time).

Weather on the 1st day wasn't perfect, but hey, that's how we got our 10Euro per person Gondola ride :D. Half price apparently, due to the lousy weather.

Taking a photo of Caleb taking a photo of me taking a photo of him taking a photo of me taking a photo of him taking a photo.......

Ready for the ride? JS:"Yesss" (I think Naomi's ready too)

So after getting lost (on purpose), we zigzagged through the venetian maze of narrow streets. Although they all look like back alleys, none was actually one. Every strip of street was a sort-of main road for locals to get to their home. To the outsiders like us, I guess we are just too used to the concept of tar roads while venetians are content with where their own two feet can bring them without buses, cars or bikes. 

Ad posters used to cover restoration work that is going on. Go in 2 years time and it'll be as good as new. Dunno if the sinking city would've sunken more by then or not though.

It gets a little crowded sometimes. "Buongiorno Signor!"

One of the 15 food stops we had on the 1st day as we tried to sample as many Italian delicacies as possible.

Gelato!

Ponte di Rialto

The Rialto bridge overlooks the famous "Grand Canal" in Venice.

View of the Canal Grande at night.

We retired back to the Hotel after more zig-zagging, ate the tiramisu we bought and watched southpark (in Italian). Last thing I remembered before I dozed off was a glimpse of JS grooming his Naomi.

It's good to be back + London

Finally got back from Italy yesterday morning.

Took 11 hour nap from 4pm-3am.

Woke up, ate instant noodles+ egg, read about the upcoming tri-elections back home.

No mood to string sentences together.

I'll upload some of the photos I took (not many, as the bulk of the trip's snapshots were taken by our 2 SLR-ers: Jun Sheng and Caleb).

__________________________________________

Pre-departure - London Daytrip (29/3/2009)

After the long bus ride (in which I spent 90% of the time in that bus in dreamland), I arrived at London's Victoria coach station. Guess who greeted me...

Good-ol' sunshine!

Relying on the google map I studied the night before, I explored my way to the Victoria tube station, basking in the tinge of sunshine warmth and letting the morning breeze wrap around me and my bulging backpack. Good combination, those two. After topping up my Oyster card (a benefit gained through the courtesy of my cousin Ghost a.k.a. Cass, who's currently back in the US with the common enemy- procrastination), I took the bus to UCL very much UNDERDRESSED for the UKEC's Malaysian Careers Fair. Blergh. Wasn't up for any careers related business that morning at all. Hence, I only sat through a boring talk (about the perks of joining the civil service), visited a few engineering-related companies, i.e. Sime Darby, Shell, Petronas, and met up with wei hao and Ika (who was manning her booth at the Securities Commission Malaysia - Seccom) and later, jun sheng.  Being underdressed wasn't the main stab though, it was the fact that I didn't even print out my CV. Meh..  So anyways, I left the careers fair accompanied by Jun sheng and some of his friends. Bought my water-proof raincoat at Lillywhites, Piccadilly Circus due to all the online predictions indicating rain throughout our planned trip to Italy.

Jun sheng doing what he does best- fiddle around with Naomi.

Piccadilly Circus

The streets in London aren't THAT different compared to any other city in the UK, just more hectic with those famous crimson double-deckers. One thing I love about London (after only two stays here) would be their parks. 

Below are some photos I took back in early December(8th I think) during a stroll at the Kensington Gardens. It is pretty close to the Malaysian High-com and also the Tube station from what I remember.

The park itself held a peaceful silence when I went there alone while waiting for time to pass. This was after Cass and her family had left London for home. The serene beauty pulled me further into the heart of Kensington Gardens- one of the few green lungs in London's busy city center. One does not have to venture too far before coming upon the man-made lake in the middle of the park. I took my time, ambling along the cement pavement by the shore of the water mass while watching people and birds of London go through their daily lives. Jogging, taking the kids out, reading a book on the park bench and..

...grabbing attention (of our feathered friends)

Pre-bird feeding

Post (Birds: We want MORE!)

This one's a children playground that was opened as the Princess Diana Memorial Playground.

According to them, quote, "...This children's wonderland opened on the 30th June 2000, in memory of the late Princess. Located next to her Kensington Palace home, the playground is a fitting tribute for a Princess who loved the innocence of childhood..... The design has created an area where less able and able-bodied children can play together and seeks to provide for the physical, creative, social and educational development of children" unquote. A memorial befitting for a princes known for her kindness. May she rest in peace.

Asked a couple of backpackers to help me take a photo :P Tak malu.

Of course, this was 4 months ago, the leaves on the trees are probably back in full lush of green now.

More posts on the Italy trip soon.