Intermission - Belly Dancer, Night Safari, Chek Jawa & Shopping

Intermission… just got back from Singapore.




The coolest sight I’ve seen - belly dancer during dinner at Shiraz Mazzeh at Clarke Quay. Hehehehee….. Look at the guy’s eye level and angle… HAHHAHAAA…. MAN!

It was a business trip and I extended 2 days for a short R&R. Objectives not met…. Well… kinda.

I plan to go to Night Safari Singapore & Pulau Ubin’s Chek Jawa. Basically my sista wanted to go Night Safari (I’ve been there 2-3 times) as she have heard of it sooooo much but never been. And as for me, I wanted to go to Pulau Ubin’s Chek Jawa.

1. Night Safari - successful. My sista enjoyed it… I hate the hyena though….scary! Bought magnets for myself and sis’s friends.

2. Pulau Ubin - mission abandoned. Rain from dawn till noon. Nothing much can be done but continue sleeping… sigh

I guess aside from doing a little bit of shopping, I happily “officiate” my new bought shoes during this trip. YEAY!

Bought a new shirt to match my new shoe and my old bag (asking my sis to buy me the same brand of cap for me bird day! Hehehhee….) :D

The goods purchased there…. Mostly are the weirdest stuff that my colleague and friends always wonder why I like to buy - because..... Malaysia don’t sell or have these goods/model/size/flavour/option etc etc etc mah…
Yeah! Yeah! Weird! I know!
:P

Even my notebook bag are weird! And CUTE! Just like moi! Heheeheheee….

I might be business traveling again in 2 weeks time; either to Bali, Taiwan & Hong Kong. Any advice for Taiwan?

Hyperlink credits : Wikipedia, Night Safari Singapore & Wild Singapore

Parisian Walk

Day 1 (10 November 2006) Walking walking walking….

Been silent for weeks, very crazy schedule for me as I had a HUGE customer event last week (the planning & execution was HELL!) and next week I will be going off to Singapore for work (event - again!). Then rest for a week and followed by Bali in 2nd week of July for work (yet! again!).... then REEEEEESSSSTTTTTT !!!! YEAY!

So... off I go to Paris (WOW! 2006 seems soooo long ago!) along with Anna and her colleagues - nice people they are by the way (need to put this in else they kutuk me! Hahhahahaa....). The plan was hectic... well... kinda - for them I mean. Anna supposed to attend a conference the day after we arrive for 2 days hence she only have 1 day ie the day that we touched down for sightseeing.

This part is "interesting"... you see.... Paris airport is HUMONGOUS reason being it have 3 SUPER HUGE terminal (kid you not!). As Anna took KLM and I took MAS flight - means the earlier aircraft lands in Terminal 2F (and mind you - Terminal 2 ALONE consists of multiple terminals joined together, in total 7 Terminals ie 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F and the separate 2G. Terminal 2G is located 2.5 km (1.6 mi) away from the rest and a bus ride is needed for transfer). And my flight lands in Terminal 1 (the oldest Terminal) 30mins before Anna and I ALSO did not realise that KLM lands in Terminal 2F. Sooooo..... when Anna touched down and unable to locate me (obviously) and that's when our problem started (I was sitting quietly alone in T1). She sms-ed to me to wait at certain Gate (in T2F) and when I couldn't find her, that's when I realised that we might be in different Terminal. I sms-ed her asking which terminal is she in, she kept saying "here" lar - where else.... Argh...!!! Oh no!!! She didn't get me, we start frantically calling each other, I kept asking which terminal, it took few calls & sms-es for us to establish the understanding of terminals (sigh!). Once she told me T2F, I have to look for feeder bus station to get me ALLLL the way to T2F (very very very far ok! and the bus wait was 15mins or so, journey was additional 15mins). When I reached there, she was pretty upset with me for not able to get her direction clearly (...hemmm !?!?). Sooo.... for those going to Paris and happen to board different airline please get the exact details else you definitely get into heated argument like we did - so not worth it.

Once all the havoc settled (phew!), we took the TGV to the Paris - City of Love (cliché!). First stop Notre Dame Cathedral. Didn't take much pic as I have been here 10 years ago hence this time around wasn't as facinated as earlier. I DID try to look for Mr. Hunchback but couldn't find him swinging anywhere, oh well.... One thing I remembered told by a tour guide during my first visit to Paris 10 years back is the POINT ZERO PLATE right infront of Notre Dame Cathedral; "apparently" if you step inside this cirle; you bound to return to Paris one day. Hemm.... apa lagi, I step in and out and in and out and in and out during my first trip. By a stroke of miracle, I am here in Paris AGAIN in 2006 - Do you think this is actually "TRUE" !?!??! Hemm...... Try and tell me whether it works for you or not yah.

Here we decided to take a cuppa al-fresco like by the side-walk cafe.... so DRAMA!!! And I hop next door for souvenir shopping....basically FRIDGE MAGNETS!!!!

I then took a stroll to Palais du Louvre... NO! I didn't go in to see the Monalisa... somehow am not hype on Paris in total.... not the first time nor the on this second time trip. Why neh I wonder? BUT BUT BUT, I would like to tell a story when I was out side the glass pyramid trying to take pic of the area. Well... the period I was there was when Dan Brown's Da Vincci Code hit the stores BIG TIME, soooo you can just imagine the facination & curiosity & excitement of Louvre by public in general. Now that we have established the scenario, let me tell you what I heard... As I was try to "focus" and "angle" my shot (perasan moment)... I noticed lots of the crowd nearby were from Asian country mainly Japan, find and well... GO ASIAN! What happened next was I heard them chattering excitedly NON-STOP...which sounded "cing cong cing cong...aso aso aso.... and hait hait hait...." I told myself - WHATEVER lar yet curios what got them excited as they kept pointing the ground and to certain direction. Hemmm..... then between the conversation I heard the key word that give it all out "Da Vincci Code" aso nei... or something lar.... ahahhahahah...... they were trying to do the Dan Brown trail. As I walked, I kept hearing other group doing or "saying" the same - "cing cong cing cong... aso aso aso.... Da Vincci Code ... hait hait hait....." hahhahahah.... I burst into laughter...

We walked further down to Jardin des Tuileries Garden passing Jardin du Carrousel. It was quite a walk before we reach Place de la Concorde(Obelisque), reminded me of my Egypt trip (will blog about this later).

And ofcos I just have stop by Peugeot Showroom to see their concept car.... KEWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A MUST go!

Finally we are on the MOST FAMOUS street - Champs Elysees.... YUP!!! We saw Louis Vuitton from far thinking (HARD) of going in but looking at the queue.... NAH!!!! Hhehehehe..... I guess the whole gang not much of a shoperholic.

Errr... saw this, very artistic... very err... hemm.... ok! NEXT!

I saw and Arc de Triomphe and was hopping we go up and check out the biggest Parisian roundabout but neh! They weren’t interested… sigh… take pic only lor I guess…. Sigh….

Last stop - EIFFEL TOWER at SUNSET!!! HEAVEN! Hemm..... am scared of height AND YET one feel one must go up THE EIFFEL TOWER. So how???? CONQUER YOUR FEAR and just DO IT! The lift was "noisy" and "shrieky" as it IS OLD and make of iron. And the lift doesn't go straight vertically up, it actually follows the contour of the structure, SCARY - for me ONLY lar.. I make sure I stand in the middle not able to see the view outside. OH! BY THE WAY! It's a GLASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! What were the French thinking.... ARGH!!!! FINE! Conquer your fear! Conquer your fear! Conquer your fear! Conquer your fear! We went to the highest deck.... (breath in! breath out! breath in! breath out!).... the windchill is not that bad BUT I think my nervous or fear shake was even more and WORST....ahahhaha..... Once you see the surrounding view.... Awww...... All fear VANISHED! WHOOOOSH......!!!! Ahh.... All paid off...

Let's let the pic do the talking here..... :)

Paris Prelude

The Plan.



How should I even begin this story… not in the mood to blog (since I found out that I might have thyroid…sigh) but feel the need to and this is my passion. Going to clinic tomorrow for a blood test to confirm (or otherwise), I hope mine is not chronic and “curable” as it attacked my nervous system (and then there’s my hand tremor) which made my short tempered and agitated easily. And ofcos my paranoia is really bad on everything ie EVERYTHING, breathing problem is one of the major one. I blamed it on work stress…. OK! Enough of me rambling on this which ofcos gonna stress me out even more. Hahahaa…..

PARIS! PARIS! PARIS! The City Of Love! So she was called… been here twice, first time was 12 years ago when I first started work (or even more then that… Yeah! I AM that old. Yikes!). How I landed in Paris the second time in my life? Well…. I was really lucky ofcos! (As usual! PERASAN!). My darling friend Anna invited me as her company organized a 4-5 days conference there (my memory fails me here), she said that since she is having a room to herself, why I know I just join her, ie I only need to buy the flight tix to Paris. Hemm…. I thought… not a bad idea… but then… I have a slight problem… YUP! $$$ It’s about RM4k or so… And I got to know 2 months before her travel date, no way am going get that amount of money that fast, further more, the RM4k is excluding shopping money and entrance money (DISNEYLAND!!!!). Despite not being able to go (at early stage thought that is), we did say it would be nice to go and then we extend the trip to few countries in Europe; after all, we are already there maah…. Betul or not neh?! With our drama plan (bare in mind I wasn’t so sure that am not joining her!), we came out with 2 plan, Anna’s plan & Lily’s plan. Hehhehee……

Anna’s plan was we are to cover Paris, Germany & Switzerland and back to Paris. Hemm… abit far I thought as we “planned” addition 1 week stay after Paris. The nearest, biggest & well known city to ask (back then) was Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin. Checked that via normal train (what we feel we can afford) was still a bomb after conversation. And to proceed further to Switzerland was even further. Its 6-12 hours train ride alone, we probably be wasting 1 full day in train plus the tiredness. Hemm…. Need careful thought here.

Lily’s plan was that we go Belgium & the Netherland as it was geographically nearer and cheaper. And I figure the architecture will be a vast different as Amsterdam is a country build on canal. And that Brussels is only 2 hours in distance from Paris and 1 hour to Amsterdam. After much consideration we took my option (plus the fact I have been to Switzerland before :P hehheeee….).

Now, biggest problem - $$$$$$$$. Sigh….. Strangely, thank to my LUCKY STAR, I got Durian Runtuh (money drop down from the sky - nothing to do with Durian the fruit!); sooooo…. Apa lagi, book a flight tix and off we go to Paris!

Hold on! If you noticed, there was Sweden mentioned in earlier entry. Ah-ha!…. You see…. While we were planning this trip, we were to take additional leave etc etc etc…. and out of the blue, Anna got a news that she need to come back 3 days earlier from the date we planned. As her tix is booked and paid by company, she still has option to purchase it later. However (you guessed it by now right!), I have booked and paid for my tix on the earlier discussed date.

Problem! Problem! Problem! Am now stuck in Europe alone for 3 days. What am I suppose to do…. it’s pretty expensive for me to stay on my own as single $$ contributor and furthermore, am ALONE in foreign land. Abit worrying. Just about then, I found out that my old school mate (Elaine) whom I just rekindled friendship just transferred to Sweden (I went M.I.A for few years - am bad at keeping in touch before the CREATION of FACEBOOK! Thanks FB!). Hemmm… 2 things that crossed my mind, meet up with her (by the way, we called gang ANGEL during Girl Guide days…ahhahahaa….) and travel to Sweden. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone. SMART LILY!

Manage to hook up with her and yes! She is willing to host me! LOVE YOU ELAINE….. She is sooooo sweet, reason being; she was 2-3 weeks pregnant at that time and her morning sickness (or whatever they call it was bad) yet she happily host me anyway. Awww…… of cos, me being there (the joker me!) made her laugh and laugh and laugh remembering all the silly things we did during our “younger years”. Thinking about it making me smile…. Hehehee….

All settled and set to go - Paris, Belgium, The Netherland, Sweden and back to Paris.

Packed my bag and off I fly….. to the beginning of my Europe adventure.


First stop - Paris!

Hyperlink Credits : Wikipedia, Paris Disneyland

Ola la..... Paris!

2006 trip story telling time



Was browsing on which country to select in my next entry, despite that I think I should blog of my recent trip to Beijing; I think am abit tired of blogging on Asian countries (eksen nyeeee). I guess I got an Asia information overload syndrome (heheheee...).

After much thought (perasan!!!), hemm.... I figure...... let's do one of my Europe trip back in 2006. I think it will be more colourful & interesting story HOWEVER, pic won't be so nice lar..... lack of pic taking skill back then (as if my skill is darn good now, PERASAN MAX!). Hahhahaha.....

Do be warn!
This is gonna be a LOOOOOOOOOOONG storytelling as we covered Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam & Stockholm within 2 weeks or so. I hope my memory serves me well, especially those hilarious, silly, stupid & spontaneous stuff we did. Sigh..... I foresee this is gonna be one embarrassing blog all the way (Sorry Anna!).



Story you soon!

So Long Siem Reap!‏

Day 4 (4 May 2010) Early morning check out - YAWN.........




Nothing much since as usual, Air Asia flight always depart early in the morning ie 8:30am. Basically a breakfast in the hotel and off we go.



Bye bye Siem Reap! Till we meet again!