Archive for the ‘Our Trips’ Category
Our First Paris Trip – Day 1
March 25th, 2009 by Leo
Last Thursday we had our first Paris trip. We planned to go there by train and have some good sleep on our way, but we found out 2 days before that the TGV (train in France) is on strike! Hence we booked last minute tickets through EasyJet and flew there. We have booked hotel and it was not refundable.
And the other reason we must go there on Thursday is that we were planning to meet Elaine Ng there. Elaine is traveling (yes she still is) Europe and her first stop was Paris.
When we arrived, we met at the lounge of the hotel and we were so happy to see her!
Our first stop was Louvre. It is a very famous museum, yet big and glamourous. There were a few famous pieces in the museum, including Mona Lisa by Da Vinci, The Weddng Feast at Cana, The Dying Slave, and La Venus de Milo. We had lunch at the museum cafe and continued touring until very late.
Then we walk along the Ave Des Champs-Elysees, where the major designer brand shops are located. We weren’t too interested in LV but we actually found something much more attractive – Lancel. I can say their products are not as expensive as LV, but of much higher quality. It was a nice walk but a bit sunny – hence after taking photo of the Arc de Triomphe, we sat down and had afternoon tea. Doris was trying to communicate with the waiter in French, and the waiter said “Bien Francaise!” to her. That made her very happy!
At the evening Elaine brought us to the Latin area where we had a very nice dinner, with French red wine, of course! We had a nice long chat. When we arrived at the hotel, it has already passed 12! We had a really nice sleep in the Best Western Hotel. Thanks Doris for booking 
UK Trip Over the New Year
January 22nd, 2009 by Leo
We flew to Birmingham on boxing day! No presents from the plane though.
We visited 4 places in UK – Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge and London.
First Stop – Manchester
Wai Ching (Doris’ friend) picked us up from the airport. We had lunch at her place with her husband, Dave, and her daughter, cutie Zoe. Then they drove us to catch the bus to Manchester. We only spent one night in Manchester, but it was a relaxing evening. Nice dinner (well, actually steak was a bit dry but not too bad) with nice French red wine. We also watched a movie in the comfy hotel room. It was so nice to be able to relax.
The next day we walk around Manchester city. And of course we started the day with a nice big breakfast. Coffee was okay – of course never going to be as nice as Italy. We arrived at Chinatown a bit too early and all shops were closed.
Second Stop – Birmingham
We took the bus back to Birmingham. However, there was a traffic accident and hence all buses were late. We ended up waiting for 2 hours for the bus to come 
And it was really cold. But anyway, thank God it finally arrived.
Wai Ching came and pick us up again. It is so great that we can stay at her place. Such comfy and warm feeling.
Again, we walked around in the Birmingham city. The road system is very complicated indeed – giving us the excuse of getting lost about 2 million times. The malls here are huge, but because it is the end-of-year sale, it is always crowded. It was so crowded that people have to queue to get on the elevator!
Wai Ching also took us to the University of Birmingham to have a look. There was a small lake and Zoe was feeding the ducks. Nice place to study – if you are indoor. It was just far too windy and cold.
During our stay we cooked for Wai Ching’s family for 2 evenings. That’s the only things that we can offer. Thanks for taking care of us 
Third Stop – London & Cambridge
I met Chung in Sydney when he came over to travel. Doris introduced him to me and we became friends.
And this time, it is my chance to annoy him hahaha… We stayed at his place for our whole London trip. I must say he is such a professional tour guide. We didn’t even have to take a map with us. He just showed us around with routes well planned. He even took us to the spot that we can take the best photos.
On New Year’s Day Chung drove us to Cambridge. And because it is a public holiday, we can enter the colleges for free :p
Not sure if he is really moving to Beijing. But if he is, then we can surely have an easy Beijing trip as well
I was so glad that I have the chance to have lunch with Scott. It is always good to catch up with good friends.
Doris & I watched 2 musicals – We will Rock You & Les Miserables – and certainly makes our day. As usual I would purchase the program. And hell they know how to earn money – they have another booklet called ‘brochure’ and sold seperately. The story line of We will Rock You is a bit dumb but it is a musical produced by Queen (the famous band) and Ben Elton. Music was so good. At the encore section the whole cast sung “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it was so great! And the guitar solo is just awesome! (FYI “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a song by the English rock band Queen. It was written by frontman Freddie Mercury for the band’s 1975 album A Night at the Opera.)
My second time watching Les Miserables, although it is Doris’ first time. How lucky she is to watch such a magnificient musical in a theatre in London with the London cast!
To view more photos that I uploaded to facebook, visit here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69704&l=1e09c&id=591917272
More photos on Doris’ Facebook profile:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70343&id=647057650
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70683&id=647057650
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70851&id=647057650
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71054&id=647057650
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 6th stop – Tokyo, Japan
May 17th, 2008 by Doris
After a romantic and relaxing trip in Italy, we were back to Japan. We stayed in hotel XXX in Tokyo. The hotel is located in a business area hence there isn’t anything exciting around but it gave us good and quiet night sleep. And it is easy to travel to everywhere with the metro. We haven’t got enough time to do a detailed visit in Tokyo but we managed to go to a few places, did some shopping and ate yummy food. We went into a sushi bar without knowing enough Japanese, but we managed to eat a few Oishi shasimi! On one day, we visited the Sunshine City and a Toyota exhibition (too bad we couldn’t own one); we got lost at one point but turned out we could had yummy Ramen for lunch unexpectedly 
. At night, we went dropping by famous Ginza where is known as the working and expensive district where people are properly dressed up. On another day, we visited Asakusa where is famous with the Nakamise shopping arcade, sensoji temple and the five storied Pagoda. As we were shopping, we bumped into a shop that specifically sell WHALE meat. Although there has been continuous argument regarding ban to kill whale… we anyway tried some. The price was not much more expensive than other meat and it did taste very nice. We thought the raw meat tasted better than the cooked.
After that, we took the light rail to Odaiba – Ferris wheel, Fuji television building, rainbow bridge, Venus Fort shopping mall, etc. We also did a bit of shopping there . We also visited other districts like shinjuku, shibuya, Akihabara (where Leo bought his MODELS), etc and there are still many places we wanted to visit. We promise we will come back!
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 5.5th stop – Munich
February 12th, 2008 by Leo
Why is it 5.5th? Well, that’s because we didn’t plan for this.
Our flight from Rome to Munich was delayed because of strong winds. We were waiting at the Rome airport for more than 6 hours! And of course we missed our connecting flight to Tokyo. We were made to stay overnight in Munich.
Just outside the Munich airport there was a Christmas fair. However, we have used up our Euro and hence we have no money to buy the famous German sausages We could only smell them. We had some bigger notes but we didn’t want to break them.
We got free accommodation and dinner at the Movenpick hotel. It was a very high class hotel. We didn’t have much choice on the dinner though. We could only choose between Thai curry chicken or Spaghetti. And because we have been in Italy for 2 weeks, we had too much pasta and decided to go for the Thai chicken. Hence, we had Thai food in a Swiss hotel in Germany
And early next morning, we got onto the flight to Tokyo.
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 5th stop – Rome
February 12th, 2008 by Leo
Our first impression of Rome – the traffic here was horrible! Cars / bikes just come from nowhere. It is difficult and dangerous to cross the road. Moreover, there was a strike of the public transport drivers.
Doris is clever again by choosing a hotel very close to the railway station. The host & hostess there are so nice. The hostess talked a lot about where we can go and what to do, along with a lot of free information booklet and maps. She even gave us a set of travel guide that costs them, for free. But we learnt that we have to get up early if we need to go somewhere, because every morning, we stood at the counter listening to her for at least 15 minutes.
Although it seems to be a messy place, Rome is actually quite well organized. Going to everywhere is easy as long as you have a map handy. Things here are not as cheap as the other places, but there are more things to look at. Sculptures, fountains… And of course shopping as well. However, our next stop was Tokyo, so we didn’t really buy a lot here. Doris and I both managed to get some shoes, which are really nice!
Talking about fountains, there was a famous one which the HK TVB has a shot here for the famous pilot drama serious. We were told that if we toss a coin in the fountain, we are very likely to go back to Rome again! Oops we went pass it about 5 times but never did. Well, Italy is surely a good place to visit again!
And since we are in Italy, of course we need to enjoy an Opera. Wrong… we never got the chance. We missed the famous Rigoletto by one whole week However, we managed to get some tickets for some Arias. It is actually Doris’ first time listening to operatic music, and she really likes it! The group performed a lot of famous pieces including La Donna Mobile, Habanera and other pieces from Carmen, pieces from marriage of figuro, Rigoletto etc. We both enjoyed the night very much!
Thanks to the hostess again, we were also pointed to 2 famous gelato places. One of them made the best Gelato and the other one has the most variety – hundreds of different Gelatos for you to choose from, can you imagine that? Only for chocolate, there were at least 20 different chocolate flavours. From the best gelato place, I especially like the pear sorbet and honey gelato. Highly recommended! If you are planning to go to Italy please make sure you get the address from me.
In Rome we have tried both cheap and expensive food. We bought pizza priced by weight instead of pieces. They are more like takeaway food in Rome. And don’t forget the Italian Coke – Chinoto. It is so nice and cheap. We got a bottle from the supermarket and finished it in no time. We spent our last evening of our Rome stop in a very nice restaurant. There we had the best spaghetti carbonara that we have ever tried.
Enough of food, of course we visited the famous Colossum and Vatican City. It can easily be identified how glorious Rome once was. The Colossum was a huge place. Surely there were a lot of great (/ violent) shows here before. But half of the Colossum was destroyed by fire. Sad.
We visited the Vatican City. As it was the most famous place, we were advised to go there early and queue as they only open for certain period of time. We started queuing at 7am at such a cold weather! We were told that the museum would be opened at 10am but luckily, we were allowed to get in at 9am. My advise is that if you are going to visit such places, it is better to join local tours because tours can go in before general public. Inside the museum there was the Sistine Chapel, which holds a lot of nice arts and crafts, including the famous “Creation of Adam”. I never did know it was actually painted on the ceiling!
We also wanted to visit the St Peter’s Chapel but we found out we had to queue for 4 hours under the sun. At that time we were already so tired (signs of getting old) and hence we decided only to take pictures outside. It was such a huge plaza anyway.
The Pantheon was also a famous place. It is quite funny that the building has a big hole at the ceiling. It was designed to let rain go into the building and drain away. There they displayed a lot of paintings. We took too many pictures.
There were many other places we visited in Rome…
Although tiring, our time spent in Rome was so enjoyable.