Summary of the whole Trip

Sorry for such a long delay in updating the blog.... have been busy these 2 weeks, in fact i haven got to mailing my new found frens during my trip... quite bad.. need to start getting in contact.

Well... the rest of the journey from Naples was to the north then West. First it was North to Venice..... The beautiful Venice... wait.... the venice i saw isnt the image i have always in my brain.... well wat spoiled it... i guess its the tonnes of pple... there are too much pple... they are everywhere.... u cant get away from them.

there are nice views... but in every photo that i take,.. there is always a wandering tourist who manage to get into my line of shot and... got shot.... yea.. big spoiler... deleted a lot of photos coz of this. Soon i just gave up on taking photo and started doing wat not many pple will do in venice, wandering ard aimlessly... well it took me to many a quiet alley and some of their housing areas. There i found a wine shop, no no not those that sell the bottled one... they sell wine by the "coke bottle" is like 0,95 euros for a 1.5l bottle, now tat's wat u call cheap, on the contrary of wat some pple have bought from these shops, the one i bought was fairly good, can be compared to those 30 bucks bottles we can buy in Singapore. another interesting sight that i saw was a artist or musician who was playing some classical pieces using..... ta-dah... wine glasses filled with water... yea.. i can heard groans adn grumblings abt something so ordinary, well personaly i think it takes a lot of practise to get it pitch perfect which is wat the musician managed to do. *i rewarded him with 1 euro, my largest contribution to the european arts scene*. As u have already seen the night shots, venice is a nice place to take pics sans the crowd, thus at night is the best time to take, but my luck isnt too good... it rained the night and i was like walking ard with an umbrella and a camera to take photos.... attracting a lot of stares from passers-by. So wat's wrong with an asian taking photos at nite?

Yea... it was a fairly fun time at venice.... but time is not on my side to allow me to explore more of Venice. i headed for cinque terre the next morning. Cinque Terre means five villages in Italian.. or at least i think so... its quite disconnected from the main cities and is a nature reserve, so that's something different from the whole of my trip, should be a refreshing change from the ruins and mounments and museums. haha as a matter of fact it is DIFFERENT.... its a AMerica away from America.. haha the whole place was awashed with americans... that its like i reached america. its so "colonized" that the pple's attitude is so brass, i cant stand it.. its quite terrible to be there... but guess wat.. the americans i met there.. cannot stand it that its "America-town" in italy. i mean, Singaporeans are a whiny lot when we travel, but u should heard the things the American teens have to say about their countrymen... "They act so stupid... it makes me feel that we are the "undeveloped" country" haha this kind of comments never feels to crack me up....

Another point to make to ALL Singaporeans: IF u think our local-bred Ah beng, ah seng, ah lian and ah huey are disgraces to Singapore, i think u should come to italy and see their version of Ah beng, ah seng, ah huey and ah lian.... i can say they are 10 times as beng and as crappy as our local kind. So much so that when my hostel-mates and i met them, all three of us have the same thots... which guy should we take out if a fight were to occur.... u cannot imagine how much those bengs make u wanna pounce on them, haha... yes that thot really did cross my mind to start a fight there.... but no worries, my american frens and i restrain ourselves and conserved our energy for a very long and hard hike at Cinque Terre.

Ok back to Cinque Terre, as the name suggest, it is actually an area of five villages starting from Riomaggiore to Manterosso, it starts of as a fairly easy hike from the first to second and as u progress it gets tougher... i guess for me its tough because it rained the day before so the trail as quite slippery adn with the wrong kind of shoes.. very prone to slips... in addition the trails are narrow, but there are pple walking in opposite directions...hmm its a wonder y no one has fallen off the trails yet... well one thing abt this place is the hikes, another thing abt cinque terre is the pristine beaches that it has. then there is something unusual... instead of sand the beach is covered with pebbles.. not those small ones htat we keep in our fishtanks but those big big ones... is it not a pain to lie on them? i never tried so i will not be able to tell u... haha

That's all for today...

Anyway.. updates for present life haha... actaully i got an offer from my Attachment company to work whilst i was in France, pretty good news actually, BUT it came before the release of my results, so it was like a sort of a pressure there. Oh well but i passed anyway, graduated... *claps, wolf whistles* with only a "pass with merit" well to say i am satisfied... i am not... but i am truly happy to get out of NTU after 4 long years (with a lot of "happenings", issues and problems)

Now i am working at my IA company, supposedly a 8 to 5 job... haha but as IT personnel.. its more like 8 to 8...

more on that later...

okok the nite is still young but.. i neeed ZZZzzzzzzz work is tiring... n sucky

View of Naples from the train 

Castle in Naples 

Naples Day 1

The train ride to Napoli aka Naples is not too bad, its around 3 hours, with nice views of the sea at some parts of the ride. After arriving at NApoli, it was another "find the hostel" game. Although we got information about how to get there, but after getting there, we cant seem to find the road where the building is located. After walking one BIG round, *yupz we should have walked up the road instead of down, walking up 400m is that road....*, we finally found the hostel, a cozy place i will say, but the occupants... hmmm.. icy... cold.... unfriendly.. can clearly feel it in the air...

Anyway after unpacking and getting the beds ready we went for a walk around the city. Well Naples is a small city, the attractions are few but it is a major city of Southern italy i guess. So we went to its famous castle, which happens to be a museum which happens to be closed when we reached there. Pictures on top of the post....

After which we walked along the coast line to the "castle on the sea". But there are a lot of things to see on the way there.
1. we passed a square, supposedly the shopping centre, which is very very very spacious and empty i reckon there is only ard 40 shops there.
2. Passed the main square/piazza, they have a equterian, forgive my spelling, didnt really pay attention in school. in case u cant decode wats the word, its those horse riding obstacle course sport, yup quite interesting.... haha.. wats more interesting is... hehe.... keep it for later...
3. Tried the local BBQ corn, for 2 euros its an awfully expensive corn. Tried the roasted nuts in caramel, 1 euro, nice like the sugar coated peanut which the kacang putih man sell only differnt colour and slightly different taste. Got a free espresso coz of the contest at the main square.
4. Saw some local specialties.... its like raw pig organs (stomach, liver, meat... blah blah something like our zhu za tang... except its eaten raw or boiled with lemon, no chance to try it.. coz no one wanna share with me)

So we arrived at the castle by the sea, closed again, but we wouldnt sure if we can enter anyway. but it looks good from a distance, but i think its quite funny y will anyone wanna defend from such a point... that i have to refer to history, which is something i try not to do.. hahah...

Well more interesting things are noticed on the way back.... before i continue.,.. advice: keep away from trouble, if u get dragged into it.. no one can save it... so watch from afar, ok.. its not as exciting... but it beats sitting or lying in a police station or hospital.
1. on the way back.... at the square.. there was this cat fight between 2 women (ok it might be a few, its complicated and i dont understand italian) and one man who was trying to restrain one of the women (serious stuff), well its okie actually. until there was this group of youngsters (maybe they are trying to help... but can see they are troublemakers) trying to join in the fun.... then the police came and everything is back to normal... the guy got hurt... he was pushed onto the floor.. oh well...
2. Demostration near the first castle we went.... not sure wat they are protesting but they have caused a massive traffic jam at the area where they are demostrating...

Oh well.. that more or less ends the day in Naples, its dinner at nite with some homecooked pasta for thegirls and more bread for me... hahaha

Rome Day 3... Journey to Naples (Napoli)

After a good nite rest, the exploration of Rome continues, today the list of places to visit is the Trevi fountain.... Its another long search (ok, i dunno but it seems the italians like signpost that points everywhere.) Managed to find it and spent some time taking photos of this Fountain. LEgend has it that if u throw a coin into the fountain u will come back to Rome again. hmmm... its either no one wants to come back.. or they are also broke like me... well i will come back again... without the tossing of coin into the fountain. heehee

After that we took a bus back to hostel, and on the way we pass this big piazza next to the colosseum, which the girls decided to hop off and snap photos, hey i really dun mind going... as *psstt keep this a secret, ya... we cheat on bus fares, we didnt verify the tickets, which means they can be reused* After the photo session, we head back to hostel and grab the bags to take the train to napoli.....

To be continued... >.<

cAnt remember wat's this place called.... 

Trevi Fountain 

Michelangelo's ceiling painting 

St Peter square or Piazza san Pietro 

The main square of Vatican City 

Rome Day 2 - Vatican City

Day 2 in Rome started with a fairly (and i will only say fair coz i think the breakfast i had in Paris was far superior than that in Rome, then again the French made better breads) good breakfast, though it is a bit on the sugar high side, and i drank one whole jug of coffee *have to satisfy my caffeine craving*

To get to Vatican City, a metro ride ensues <- did i use the right word here?, oh well who cares.
IT was a fairly short ride, but the temperature inside the metro station and the tempersture outside is a bit of a wide... i was like sweating while i was in the train. It was fairly easy to find Vatican City, though there were like signposts tat were like pointing at different directions on how to walk to Vatican City, we were lucky to get on the "right" track, as we have chosen the one where the queue was. oh boy, and its a looooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggggg Q. its had like covered half of vatican walls perimeter. Its a long wait.. 45 mins.. standing under the hot sun, *sweat drips* Yea, and its another 10 euros gone as we went into the Vatican Museum. Well the star attraction of the museum is of course the paintings that Michelangelo painted, which incidentally was not supposed to be captured on flim, video or watever. yea, but i dun care... i got some anyway.. its lousy coz i cant directly aim and focus... but its does the job i guess, and its a blur <- just to add before pple complains abt it.

Yea after a long exploration of the museum, we went to St Peter's Square where its said to be able to contain/hold 10k pple when the pope speaks. well, i will say my pictures doesnt do it justice, but its really a bif square with water fountains AKA "water coolers" all around, which i wun even dream of drinking from (which most italians did, not sure if its holy water, but they sipped and put some over their head and hair). Sistine Chapel was next on the list, but my batts are flat again... so no pictures of it, will post it once i receive them from June.

We sorta completed the tour of VAtican in half a day, so we went on to visit the Colosseum, but it was in the day, so i never take any *my camera batt is still flat* and i will say its not worth it to go into the Colosseum, its like construction all over, and i thought it was a gladiator ground, but there is something like a ladyridth at the centre (one of the girls solved the mystery, saying its actuallly a graveyard of sorts, hmmm i cant verify it till i read up on it), and since the ticket to the Colosseum incluides a visit to the Palatine, we went on in to see the Roman Ruins, quite interesting i think, haha guess what... out of the 5 of us, 4 camera batts went flat, so a consensus (rather after 4 abstains) we decided to go back and charge up the batts, while the girls did some laundry, cook dinner(pasta with some roasted chicken and salad) before visiting the colosseum at nite. So the picture tat was taken is some post below this one. Check it out..... :)

After that its back to the hostel for a rest........

Siena Part 2/Rome Part 1

haha... decided to type a bit more before i forgot wat happen....

Anyway, the food in Italy is like standard... u know.. pasta, pizza, pasta, pizza... and llukcy for me... *due to budget* i am on a bread diet.. so although it got on the gals' nerves, it never got to me.. hahahah

so after spending a nite at Siena, its time to move on to Rome. *ta-DAH* TRAIN STRIKE.... omg...

Lesson learnt: must at least read up on news... even on vacation

it seems that the train strike was fixed like 1 week before it happened, and we didnt know... so we waited for like 3 hours at the train station just to wait for a bus that goes to rome. Well... and my eurrailpass is like.... wasted? !@@!#!@%@!#

its a long long long long bus ride to Rome... and given the "cool" weather.. the bus driver didnt even turn on the air-con... stuffy ride. but i heard i had it good, coz i was like sit-ed away from June and company *i am in front, they at the back) i heard them say like they felt like puking and its stuffy... its a bus ride to and fro HELL.. ok.. i think i had it good hahaha

Lesson learnt: Try to at least get a map, or get clear instructions on how to get to the hostels.

After getting to Rome, we wander a bit just to find the hostel. well the wandering doesnt really bother me... but it does bother the gals *i may be wrong, but i think they mind* i think the bus ride really got to them.

ok i must really be getting to bed...

See ya guys and gals

Pompeii @ Naples (Napoli) 

Night View of Colloseum <- did i spell it correctly?

Confectionary at Nanini's - Siena Notice the one thats being cleaned up... its an almond filling confectionary... sweet stuff *toothache* 

Local (Tourist) fare... In Venice being a tourist will mean u are a local... does that make sense? 

Night Scene of Venice - ok i know u cant see a thing... 

Waterway of Venice 

Fizzy Champagne tasting @ Reims 

Eiffel tower in the evening taken from near the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur 

The Lourve @ Paris - Home of Miss Mona Lisa 

Ciao!

Yea... Finally got a computer that i can upload some photos. and best of all its FREE (notice my excitement? well in Venice its 7 euros for an hour of internet.... and i am doing it for FREE... *cheers*)

While i am typing my blog i am also transferring some photos into my thumb drive and into the blog, as u can see the photo of the Lourve and the Eiffel Tower... I cant really publish Mona Lisa coz i have taken it in the Portrait form and i cant rotate the picture that u guys can see it properly... if i have the chance i will rotate and post it later....

Ok. I think i forgot to mention that i am with some friends now in Italy. Introducing June and Friends. June's a school mate of mine... her band of sisters and her are touring Italy, Greece, Austria, Czech then Germany. well... the good thing about joining them is that i dun have to plan a single thing about italy... wooz... haha... Cons: i happen to experience ARMY life again... a map, a bag, with a camera (ok lighter than M16, but... ) its off to ash the city streets.

Let me continue with my trip. After a night at Firenze(Florence), we are off to visit the "twin"/sister/rival city, Siena and spend a night at something like a monasty again. Well, after so much "cultural shocks", i thought Siena will be a nice place to start seeing natural stuffs, boy was i wrong.

Firstly, its a twin/rival/sister city CULTURALLY. so its still mounments, museums and statues there again. But before i commence on the walks and stuff... oh man.. never believe wat italians say on their maps... i learnty 2 things in siena. One, Italians maps dun declare elevations, oh well i know most maps dun, but all its written there was "1 km to city centre" but its a long and hard 1km climb to the city centre, and considering that its warmer in siena (i am heading south), my t-shirt was wet... sigh... Two They need a better road labelling method. I was looking for the dorm and there is a three-way fork with the road name displayed prominently at the middle of the fork, and theh numbers listed was like left fork 100, middle fork 54, right fork 1, and after walking a bit i can see that the 54 is the largest number (which means 37, which i am going to should be on that street) ok i was wrong... oh man... it really wasted me some time to walk to that 37... and backtrack ack to the fork and started from 1 again. Sigh.... lucky for me i could take a rest while waiting for June and her sisters to come

But this time, instead of museums, we just walked inside the city walls. The famous thing about Siena was the Shell-shelled city centre. so we followed the map and walked towards it. On the way, we stopped by Nannini's to uy some confectionary as it comes highly recommended by hte Lonely Planet guide book, as u can see from the pic, the confectionary looks good, it taste ok, a teeny-weeny too sweet for me though. but i have to admit that its good. After grabing that almond-centred pastry, we carried on to the city centre. Being a Sunday, the Piazza was filled with pple chilling out, they are just there, talking, laughing, wating drinking while some of their kids are running amok, chasing pigeons... Yea there are a LOT of PIGEONS... the whoel Piazza was like covered with pigeon shit (ok... a tad exaggerated, there are pigeon shit ard... but its not that horrible) but i still wonder how the italians can just sit there... its pigeon shit.... anyway there is nothing much there, especially coz we didnt want to go to another museum... so while the gals are busy perfectinh their "targets" shooting and reshooting the pictures, i decided to sneak ard and take pictures of pple (albeit without getting myself killed). Well i have to say i suck at taking photos with pple in them, i am luckless, by the time i spot something, and i whip out my camera, its too late. but i got a couple of shots, whihc i will post the next time... heezzz

ok let me stop here... its almost time for bed.. will update more on Siena soon (well its only a little more, but...) haha lets just save it...

Up and coming updates include:
1. siena part 2
2. Rome
3. naples
4. Venice

But i will just post some shots i took....

Good nite pple...

Experience the Italian way of life.....

Right after my last post, i went to the train station at Paris-Bercy to catch my train to Firenze aka Florence. Ok... although i know that there is a risk that there is a delay in train service... but for the past 2 days in Paris, the trains are running efficiently, so i never expect to see a "Delayed: 1.5 hours" on my third train trip. well to be exact it is not really 1.5 hours... the train only reached like 2 hours later.... then after some time to get the service staff on board.. then passengers.... i was only on my way in like close to 3 hours. haha oh well.. someone did mention abt italian inefficiency to me before... but i guess i am too used to life in Singapore...

Let's talk abt the night train, ok there are 3 kinds of cabins in a night train, the sleepers, the couchettes and the sleeperettes. for my train there are only 2 kinds, the sleepers adn the couchettes, ok sleepers are bedlike thus it is more expensive, so being a budget traveller, i reserved a couchette, but man... it cost like 20 euros, its as good as a night in the hostel, oh well, its an experience anyway.

So i was sharing this cabin, with 5 French, a elderly couple, a African French and a mother-daughter, they are quite nice, well, in the night nothing much can be felt or seen. ahha its only in the morning that we shared food and drinks and talked about our respective trips to Florence. The elderly French couple gave a lot of advice to me about my trips to Venice and Rome, telling me about how to save some money buying all those day transport coupons. Nice pple... =)

Anyway, given the long long long long delay, its like eons before i reach florence and transfer to another train to Pisa. Pisa, basically, is an university town, so... there is actually nothing much there except lotsa cafes, eateries and well the leaning tower of Pisa... I spent half a day there wondering around. ok took a lot of photos... and deleted more... ahhaha...

After that, i took the train back to Florence to stay in a church, nice place, quiet peaceful, but i think a bit eerie.... but its very comfortable. I met a Scottish lecturer who is looking to relocate to Florence to stay a year or 2, and a Serbian who is studying art in Florence... woah.. ARtist... great...

ok that,s all for now... Internet usage in Europe is killing me.... ahha...

will update more of my trips to Florence, Rome soon...

Heading to Italy now...

Ok only can do a short post now that i need to rush off to catch a nite train.. will take a pic of it and try to post it some how....

Yay... Today went to another Champagne house for a cellar walk... too bad the vineyards walk is at 1430 till 1800 else i would have gone to join... but never mind there is always dijon for wines...

After tat its a 2 hours train ride back to paris... adn i went to the catherdral of notre dame... yea.. that one with the cartoon.. its suppsoed to be a story... overblown one...
anyway the catherdrals stained glass is very nice.. very complex.... hmmm beautiful...

okok... have to go... update with more stuffs later...

Ciao

Jours Deux

Boujour!!!

Day 2 in france....

Today i decided to take a side trip to Reims to drink some champagne.... haha... why did i make that trip u will ask... i can only blame the extra long daytime of France... !@$@!#!% it really is very bad... u will only see teh sky darken at like 930-10pm... oh man.. how can i ever take a nite shot of the city...

The plan to go Reims was a good one.. till i messed up on the train timings... first i missed the train to get to reims before noon.... yea.. so i have to wait till liek 12 before i take the next train out... next... teh chanpagne cellurs only conduct english tours like in 1 hour... and they close at 5!! i got there at ard 2+, and have to wander around to find the tourism office.. and then marched all teh walk to the other side of Reims to discover that the tour has already started (yea.. i tried 3,,, 2 of them started) this will mean that i have to sit there and do nothing for 1 hour, thus my decision to go find other champagne cellars. Finally i found one... Pettigerm yea.. their tour was damn short... i will think its a waste of money, and wats worse is that when they serve u champagne its left there in the open for too long that i cant smell the bouquet already.... very very bad.... Thus i decided that tomolo i will make a trip down again.. if i can wake up by 7am(FST) sigh... i think highly unlikely...

Anyway... i made my way back to paris at ard 6 and reach paris at 7+... so instead of gg oback to hostel... i wandered ard the streets of Paris, just to waste eunff time to see the night view.... First i went to ARc de triumph and sqz the view there... wow u can really see thow PAris is laid out for there,,,.... hey the great thing was that the batt of the digicam died out before i can take any photos.... darn darn darn..... haiz..... the scenery was really great... Paris is like symettric... but u can see that the roads are messed up... i will have gotten lost if i lived here i think... till that time i cant comment :P

NExt up i went o eiffel tower..... wooo another great spot to see the night view of paris.... but it was the feeling of being there that counts... batts still dead... guess i have to come back another time to take photos.... anyway i saw a guy propose to her gf there.. ahha... guess Paris really is a city for romantics... dun ask me wat or how or which.. i dun understand french.. i onyl saw the guy slip a ring into her finger... if tats not a proposal tehn i dunno wat it is.... hahaha.... oh well....
i think the tower is an archiectural adn enginnering art... i cant figure out how they actually join the metals togethers.. alright there are screws or rivals... but 7000 pounds of iron ler... never mind i will be back to take photos of it.... I WILL BE BACK!!!

Oh... 2am le... haha time to go up adn charge my phone and !$!@#!@ digicam batt....

Time in France now is 2028hrs

Yea.... Got thru my first day here without any problems.

Except for the 1 hour wait for baggage, and getting lost in their Metro station, i guess today is a good day. Tried my hand in speaking french after getting hopelessly lost while searching for a catherdral that's situated near the hostel i am staying.

Yea as i mentioned just now, i visited the Musee de Lourve (hope i got that correct) and after charging my digicam up, i wanted to go to this catherdral that,s near my hostel, Sacor-Cour <- definitely got this wrong, will check the spelling later.

One thing that i forgot about this trip is that i arrived on SUNDAY... so there is a mass at the catherdral, thus there are a lot of restrictions, but i am heading out again to the catherdral so that i can take a photo of the night view that is sooooooooooo highly recommended in the guidebook.

haha.... last two things to mention.... i hate the keyboards here.... their keys arangements differs from ours, i am having a lot of problems just typing.... but i think should get used to it soon.
Second thing::: i hate JET LAG and time difference.... okie its like 0240hrs in Singapore and its still broad daylights here!!! <- its 8pm but its still bright like 5pm....

but it suits me just fine.... my 20 hours day training has paid off.... let see how long i can last...

That's all the update for now.....

Good Nite to all in Singapore...