D1 | Venice

I'm currently watching 冲上云霄 and most segments of the drama revolves around Italy! So everytime they go to Rome my eyes open twice bigger and thinking 'That's where I was!" "I know exactly where this is!" 

I was just there a month ago. It's really crazy how fast time flies.

Honestly I didn't feel the excitement until the moment the captain announced that we have touchdown in Aeroporto Marco Polo. Work has been incredibly taxing and there's not a day I get to leave work on time. 2 weeks before I'm scheduled to fly, I shopped around trying to find a travel backpack. I figured it'd be easier to bring a backpack rather than bringing my spinner Samsonite luggage. I couldn't find any I liked and lucky me my brother told me he has one.

My brother's 10 year old travel backpack. He used it when he was still a student travelling around Europe.

Flew with Emirates and we're lucky we got on the Airbus A380!

Midnight flight and arrived at Dubai 5:10AM.

I have this habit of taking photo of the flight route. I have one for every flight I got onto!

I mad love Pinkberry! I had them when I was in the US and until now I still think it's the best Froyo I've tried. Dubai airport has 1 small Pinkberry counter. Totals up to almost 10 USD though. 

I like in-flight meals. Bread and butter taste 3257634596 times better on a plane. SQ always serve their bread warm, but Emirates' is cold and hard =( The entire journey, I didn't enjoy any of the meal except this one, the Cajun chicken fillet. 

Almost there!

Proof that mum always carries my bags haha.

First view of the great Venice! We took the bus to Venice island, then walked around 20 mins back to the apartment. The only mode of transportation in Venice island is the Vaporetto (water taxi). You can't drive cars or motorbikes, not even bicycles in the streets of the water town!

My first lunch in Italy! We didn't really survey any must-eat places so just picked a random ristorante since all of them sell almost the same things. Pizzas, Pastas and all kinds of bread.

I think I've had Italian cuisine less than 20 times in my whole life. In fact, I dread coming to Italy just because I thought I'd starve to death since I dont like pastas and pizzas. If I had to choose, then it'd definitely be Pasta Carbonara. So I did, for my first lunch. It tasted surprisingly GOOD! It's around €8 to €10.

Hello, my travel companions!

There're plenty of these street-side restaurants. I felt so fucking surreal just sitting there.

Just a random building opposite the restaurant.

We took the Vaporetto from P.le Roma station to cruise along the Grand Canal. There's also plenty of Gondolas but it cost more than €50 so we opted for the less than €10 Vaporetto. Less romantic but exactly same view!

We sat outside to get the full unblocked view.

No words can describe this.

My first view of the famous Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge along the canal. Can you see the many many many heads on the bridge? The canal is also very busy with all types of water buses, taxis and gondolas.

Sunset!

Beautiful side buildings :)

If I'm not mistaken, this is the magnificent Santa Maria della Salute, an example of the Italy Baroque architecture.

Walked past Bridge of Sigh. It's named Bridge of Sigh because it connects the New Prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace.  The view from the bridge was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment.

Overlooking Il Redentore (I think. Sorry I suck at remembering building names).

Piazza San Marco, the main public square of Venice.

 Masks everywhere, ranging from €3 to  €500. I ended buying one too. It's sitting there now collecting dusts ;)

This is funny. They bought drinking water for €1 but paid €1.50 for the public toilet behind St Mark's Square. Now we're all confused whether we should drink more water hehe.

Love sunset skylines.

I think my sister and mum really like '饼印'. Now my sister know how she'd look like when she's old hahah.

We sat there for a while and witnessed a mini riot. People were shouting through the loudspeaker in Italian and we didn't understand what it's all about. Helicopters and Venice polizia boats were trying to disperse protestors to make way for the MSC cruise liner.

View from the Skyline Rooftop bar from Hilton Molino Stucky. 

Me and my mum was exhausted and a little jet-lagged so we skipped dinner and went straight back to the apartment after Hilton.

We wandered around the endless winding alleys and crossed countless bridges on foot and I think I can say we almost saw the entire Venice in 1 day and it was extremely relaxing and slow-paced. There're millions of tourists, but still better than going in Summer (Jun-Aug), I think. According to the Paolo our apartment owner, he said there're not many residents in Venice island itself. He used to live in the the island but it's very inconvenient as he can't drive or cycle so most of the locals, including himself, moved back to the mainland.

Great, great first day. Sigh.

"If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is -- Venice is better."

On Being Contented

I think I'm really easily contented. A very simple meal of Roti Telur and teh tarik makes me very happy.  A small cosy eat and talk with a couple of friends on Saturday night makes me very happy. One episode of Modern Family makes me laugh till I teared. A simple quiet moment together listening to a song on repeat makes me very happy. A sincere 'Hallo how are you doing' from friends makes me very happy. A surprising chat with a stranger makes me very happy. A simple handwritten note makes me very happy. A trip away with family makes me very happy.

I don't own anything. I don't own a lot of money.
But I'm happy.

Sex Blog Duo

Hmm. The 'new generation'.



If you're too free nothing to do, the other whole interview with "Singapore Now" is here about their dream of becoming pornstars.

"Had an eventful first day. Met up, chat a lot, dinner, walk in the park, and stayed over" - Alvin on their first date. And the interviewer asked whether there's any recording involved that night hahahah. I like both the interviewers.

When their story first came out in the news, the blog was not taken down yet. I heard somewhere that NUS has revoked the scholarship offered to him after he mocked the school. Not sure how true is that. To me, I think ultimately this whole thing is entirely up to them. If they're comfortable with exposing their sex lives and photos to the public even though they're not exclusive yet (not the 'conventional couple') then it's totally their business. Everyone just chillax, grab a beer and watch lah lol!

Italy Itinerary September 2012

Before I forget, below is the short summary of my Italy itinerary.



[Day 1] 16 September 2012
- Touched down Aeroporto Marco Polo  at 2.05PM.
- Checked in Apartment near Tre Archi bridge.
- Vaporetti along Canal Grande
- Piazza San Marco

[Day 2] 17 September 2012
- Rialto Bridge ★
- Murano, The Glass Island
- Burano
- Piazza San Marco

[Day 3] 18 September 2012
- Train to Milan
- Piazza Del Duomo
- Shopping in Galleria Vittorio Emanualle II
- Train to Cinque Terre
- Checked in Apartment, 5 mins walk from Train Station

[Day 4] 19 September 2012
- Hike from Riomaggiore to Manarola
- Train to Monterosso
- Boat to Riomaggiore
- Night hike to Manarola

[Day 5] 20 September 2012
- Train to Pisa
- Leaning Tower of Pisa
- Pisa Cathedral
- Train to Florence
- Checked in Apartment, 5-10 mins walk from train station

[Day 6] 21 September 2012
- Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore
- Galleria dell' Academia
- Piazza della Signoria and Palazza Vecchio
- Ponte Vecchio
- Medici Chapel
- Piazza della Uffizi

[Day 7] 22 September 2012
- Shopping in Florence!
- Piazza della Republica
- Piazza della Signoria night walk
- Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore night walk

[Day 8] 23 September 2012
- Piazza Michelangelo
- Train to Siena
- Siena Cathedral
- Piazza del Campo

[Day 9] 24 September 2012
- Train to Rome!
- Checked in Apartment near Cornelia
- Piazza del Popolo
- Spanish Steps
- Fontana di Trevi
- Piazza Colonna
- Pantheon
- Piazza Navona

[Day 10] 25 September 2012
- Colosseum
- Roman Forum
- Altare della Patria
- Trastevere

[Day 11] 26 September 2012
- Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
- Ponte Sant' Angelo
- Castel Sant' Angelo
- Vatican City

[Day 12] 27 September 2012
- Vatican City
- Fontana di Trevi! ♥

[Day 13] 28 September 2012
- Train to Naples
- Walk around Naples town

[Day 14] 29 September 2012
- Flight from Rome to Singapore =( =( =(

Best Memories Come From Bad Ideas.

Today I saw this quote and I cannot agree more!

I'm really bad in remembering things. All I can remember clearly are those stupid stupid things I did mostly in my uni years, even after sooooo many years!

Like we were just out for supper at midnight (we're out for supper almost every midnight), talking rubbish doing nothing then just one of them suddenly say "hey let's go to malacca". "When?" "NOW lah". And off we went. We didn't even go home and change or take anything and we drove straight to Malacca and reached there at 4 in the morning. We didn't know what to do. Found a place, ate Bah Kut Teh and drove back to JB.

I think the one I'll remember the longest is when MeiFoong, Ah Hao, ChekChow and me went driving around at night in the uni when suddenly our mutual awesome (at that time) spontaneous decision is unleashed. We drove back home, looked for a spanner, drove back to the Uni, and took something away (which doesn't belong to us). The best part is, Hao fractured his arm because he literally boxed the wall the previous week and still had his cast on so he had to lug the thing in 1 hand. We then carried the crazy big thing back home and drank alcohol for the whole night celebrating our 'achievement'. The next morning, we drove back to the same place, only to realize there's a CCTV pointing straight to the place where we were last night. All of us almost peed in the pants. We went home, lost appetite, sat around, did nothing. There's an exam the next day but me & MeiFoong didn't study for it because we're almost 98% sure we'll get expelled.

In the end, we sat for the exam and flunk it. And, we didn't get expelled. AND the lecturer announced the exam marks will not be used as part of the course examination marks. So, we sorta got off the hook, unharmed, and decided that's probably the dumbest thing we did and will never do again.

Well, it didn't last long because the following week, all of us partied and jammed at home (my favorite feng tao song at that time), then drove out looking for haunted house to find ghost (!!!??!!), and 6 of them were escorted back to the Balai and had to be bailed out. Police saw them in the haunted house, thought they're druggies and took them away. I think nobody tried explaining that they're just looking for ghost because we all know how dumb that sounds.



Inserting completely unrelated youtube but back then when I used to dance, I love to watch Alex Bullon and he even choreographed for my feng tao song haha.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg of the stupid things we did. The 4 years in the uni makes most of my best life memories.

So it's true. Young people do brainless dumb things. The best memories come from bad ideas.

Too Fast!!!

Hello lovelies!

So...I'm back.

It's been so many days but I'm still not sleeping well. For the first few days, I had a terrible jet lag and it's awful! The first time I had jet lag was almost 7 years ago when I first go to US. The following few times I did not even feel anything with the time difference so I forgot how horrible it is. I'm exhausted but I tried to lie on the bed since 9PM and did not go to sleep till at least 5 in the morning.

It's improving now though. I go to bed at 12 something and fell asleep at around 2 ( I think ) with ~6 hours of sleep. Definitely sleep-deprived, and my already very bad eye bags become a lot worse!

Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyy YES! YES YES YES to all the questions asking me if it's fun in Europe! It's my first Euro trip (the start to many more I hope) and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It's truly eye opening and amazing experience. I hope I don't be too lazy and will get around to blogging about the details.

When I sit down and think about it, I still cannot believe I went to Italy. *sighs in satisfaction* 

I haven't had much vacation this year. In fact, I didn't go anywhere AT ALL, not even to my favorite city Penang! People say you need a long vacation once a year to get refreshed and will resume work with much more positive energy. I beg to differ! Since I got back, I've been feeling like work is too torturing (since when it's not?) and kept thinking of quitting (as always). Dramatic sial. But I kept convincing myself that I need ALLLLLL the money I can earn so I can keep going on nice vacations every year (hopefully).

Ranting about work. As always.

Have a great Wednesday!