Archive for the ‘Our Trips’ Category
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 4th stop – Florence & Pisa, Italy
February 8th, 2008 by Doris
From Venice, we took the train to Florence. We stayed at Hotel Globus for 3 nights. It was a very small hotel (most hotels in Europe are small anyway), but thank God there is a lift (most hotels in europe has no lift). We only managed to squeeze ourselves and our luggage into the lift but it was very “interesting” that we needed to press the button continously for the lift to move. What if I let go half way, will it drop? haha! The room as expected is small, is the size of a double bed. But it was modern, clean and tidy.
The special thing about Florence was the market. Leather and cashmere wrap/scarf is especially popular there. They are cheap comparing to what we have to pay in NZ. You can get 3 cashmere wrap for 20 Euro but of course it is up to you to decide for the quality. Before we left for our trip, Ivy recommended us a restaurant called ZAZA. We thought we tried our luck by asking the hotel receptionist and he directed us to ZAZA. We enjoyed our dinner very much, yummy pasta and dessert!
We planned to go to Pisa the next day. So, we woke up early the next morning. Normally, the breakfast is provided by the hotel but since we has to go out so early we didn’t expect to have any breakfast. However, the manager of the hotel was so nice that he asked us to grap things from the dining room (although they haven’t finished preparing) to eat on the train. Because of that, we nearly missed the train to pisa. The train was only few minutes from departing and we ran crazily. There were couple others running with us too haha!
There is nothing much going on in Pisa. The only place to go is famous leaning tower. We managed to find the right bus stop and caught a bus there. Since it was quite early, there wasn’t many tourists (which was nice). We had a good walk about. Then, we took the bus back to the train station. When the bus arrived at the train station, there was an old lady who does not speak any English asked for Leo’s arm to help her to get off the bus. Leo who does not understand any Italian offered his arm as a gentleman. It was so sweet 
.
For the rest of the afternoon, we spent time walking around in Florence. I could not remember the name, but there was a huge and very beautiful church at least for its exterior design. It was where most tourists gathered. So, it was not easy to take a photo without having someone as a background 
.
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 3rd stop – Venice, Italy
February 3rd, 2008 by Leo
Venice has always been a place that I admired since I was young. At the very beginning, I admired the place because “it is a city that use boats instead of cars! There is no road, only rivers!” It was called “The City of Water”.
Matthew D. warned me that luggages with wheels doesn’t quite work in Venice as there are so many bridges that carrying luggages up and down is essential. However, Doris booked a hotel that is so closed to the station. We only had to cross one bridge.
As imagined, the city is full of boats. They use boats instead of buses. The public boats actually run around the city and departs the terminals quite frequently, but we always found that it is always packed.
We are lucky that when we arrived at Venice, the rain has completely stopped. We had a nice 4-day trip here with minimal of rain. We managed to get some nice photos here.
We spent one day in Mirano Island. The island was famous with glassware but due to the import of cheap Chinese glass, the industry in the island was shrinking. There were a lot of glassware / decoration that I liked, including a lamp that is completely made of stained glass, imitating the sunset / sunrise. It is not expensive but we just have no idea how to carry it with us for the rest of the trip (including going through Tokyo).
I really like Venice as it is such a beautiful place, especially the scenery. And because there is practically no cars, there is minimum of air pollution as well.
Italy is famous for Gelato, and we had a lot in Venice as well. They are cheap (Euro $1 / cone) but they are so nice.
We had such a relaxing trip in Venice. There is no rush in doing anything. And as we have stopped ourselves in using the computers / internet, there is no email to check and hence, nothing to worry about at all :p
And of course we spent our anniversary in Venice. We had a wonderful meal in a higher-class restaurant and the 3-course meal was so stunning.
This stop was such a romantic stop that we will never forget.
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 2nd stop – Milan, Italy
February 2nd, 2008 by Doris
On 21 Nov 2007, we departed from Osaka Kansai and after a long flight, we finally landed at Milan Malpensa, our first stop in Italy! Unfortunately, it was raining and dark. For safety reason, we decided to take a taxi to our hotel and that was the most expensive taxi we ever taken which costed 90 Euro! In Milan, we visited the duomo, Castello sforzesco, and couple other Museums. Leo specially enjoyed admiring the works by Leonardo da Vinci displayed in many museums. However, it was disappointing that we couldn’t see the painting of The Last Supper as turned out that we needed to book a month in advance!
Milan was ok, would be better if it wasn’t raining. One thing that we sure enjoyed very much was the food! Yummy pasta and pizza!
Honeymoon & Anniversary Trip – 1st Stop – Osaka & Kyoto
February 1st, 2008 by Leo
Our first time in Japan – Osaka gave us a very good impression. Well, we kind of know how Japan is from the Japanese TV dramas, but being in Japan is of course different.
Our first arrival in Osaka was smooth – until we were trying to find our hostel. We came out of the metro and went the wrong way. There was a very kind old man (about 60 years old) trying to lead us to the right direction. But he could only speak simple, single-worded English. However, he was trying so hard to help that we could not refuse. Together with Doris’s little understanding of Japanese, we found the hostel. Arigato Gozaimasu! Sleeping on tatami was okay – not as bad as we thought.
(Sorry Belinda – we tried to find you in the Osaka airport but failed. Just bad timing I guess. Suddenly feel that it is so hard without a cellphone!)
Everything in Japan is small! Small bathroom, small bath tub… The door was so low that I can actually feel my hair wiping it when I walked into the room. But it is clean and tidy!
Meals – always so nice. We had udon, sushi, sashimi etc. We even had sushi buffet. It was not as nice as those sushi bar of course, but already better than a lot of restaurants in Auckland. A must try in Osaka was the octopus balls as they were originated in Osaka. There were many stalls selling them and they were served on containers that looks like paper boats.
One thing that I missed so much are the Getcha’s (capsule toys). I just love them so much that I cannot stop myself buying them. I remember the days when I was in Hong Kong and they were only HK$2 per toy – now most of them in Japan are 200Yen. However, the quality of them are so different – so much better.
The next day, we took a train to Kyoto and visited the Kyoto Imperial Palace. It was a great place to walk about. The next destination was the Kinkakuji Temple (Golden Pavilion Kyoto). It was stunning! What was very exciting for us was taking the local buses. We managed to figure out how to catch a bus and how to pay by watching others, haha! During the peak hours, we got squashed like a sandwich and were so scare that we couldn’t get off the bus. Funny haha! Before we head back to Osaka, we stopped by Nishiki market which is famous for various kinds of fresh and processed foods such as pickles, japanese sweets, dried food, sushi, and fresh seafood and vegetables. For dinner, we had yummy Okonomiyaki!
