Azri's Birthday

Date: 6th May 2010, day 99 of my exchange to The Netherlands
The plan was to have a surprise belated party for his birthday. So, we planned to have a picnic by the lake. Fong Chi, JH and I had earlier on that morning, met to get him some guitar strings for present. I went down to Kai Hee's place to help her make potato salad. We then brought Azri down to the lake using a route that he suggested. He was told that Kai Hee and I were going to have some picnic over there. Once we were there, we had to find the 'right' spot to meet up with others. Since the others had already been informed, they were all hiding behind a bunch of trees. We eventually found them. I then announced the sad news from Italy, which was that Johnny couldn't join us for Azri's birthday celebration :S

We then went down to the tables by the lake to eat the sandwiches and drinks. Pau joined us after sometime. It started getting too cold for us to stay there and so, we went over to Fong Chi's place. That's where we had a birthday cake and played some cards before going back home :D
Pics on facebook, if you are my fwen :)

Cycling at Harleem

Date: 24th April 2010, Day 87 of my exchange
I was invited to go cycling at amsterdam area by the Rubenstraats. I googled for some tracks we can take in order to keep us entertained for the day, but they didn't seem to be good enough. The rubenstraats seemed to have a route in mind too. We met very early in the morning at the train station with our bicycles and loaded them onto the train. There were obviously too many bikes chucked into the corner but we didn't care. We just made use of whatever space was available to sit around for the 1+hr journey. We finally arrived at Harleem after changing to another train at Amsterdam centraal station. We then went to the VVV and cycled around the saturday market in action.
We managed to get a decent looking map and some travelling advice from this centre. We then aimed to get ourselves to a beach and come back to another station nearby. We also planned the route such that it will take us through lovely tulip farms, rivers, keukenhoff and country side.
The first part of the journey took us through some countryside places with lots of houses along the roads. We began to see some tulip-filled lands before our lunch time :) After nearly getting lost at several hidden corners, we ended up at a side of a river bordering on an uncultivated farmland for our picnic. the place had 2 tables which were perfect to host us for our lunch. After lunch came LOTS more of tulip farms. We got off our bikes now and then to take pictures while the farm-owners were not out ;P We came across Keukenhoff gardens too, but did not go in. There was a flower procession just outside for us to enjoy :D
We then got to the beach where we started munching on emilie's crepes. We also had a surprise birthday celebration for Flo as we revealed a set of cards with rubenstraat people's faces on it. We then went on to cycled through some hilly areas till we came to another beach. After taking a 5 mins break, we pushed on to the train station and tried to get back before it got dark.
As our train approached amsterdam station, Azri realized that he lef this bag at harleem station. The bag had his passport, camera and other valuables. Aysun then went back with him to look for it. The rest of us went on to a turkish place across the river at amsterdam centraal to have our dinner. Azri came back without his bag, after having made a police report on it. We then made our way back to Eindhoven for a good night's rest. Pics on facebook. No more pics here since blogger has restricted space for uploading pics.

France Day 5

This is on 19th April 2010, Day 82 of my exchange

We had a great brunch: Pastaa~ haha, We cooked it :D And YW and FC packed sandwiches for lunch.

After that, We went to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris. It was a great cathedral! It is built on top of a slope and so, there was a carriage on sloping rails to bring people up. If you go to this place, you'll have to be careful: There were guys who just approached people to tie strings on their hands and asked for money. Luckily we ran away as they approached us :)We then went behind the Basilica to find a market where i bought my first crepe in paris at this shop called Galerie Montmartre :)

We then took a train down to the Lourve. We split up to explore the lourve on our own and decided to meet up 3 hrs later. I first went to look at the apple store! It was a fantastic place! But the iPad wasn't out yet :( After spending about 15 minutes there, I went on to enter the museum.

First was a section of History of Lourve, the museum itself. This section's setting was a cave-like surrounding with a wooden raised platform for people to walk around. Next, I happened to go into the egyptian section. There were lots of statues of pharaohs, sphinxes, mummies, tools, nile boats and so on. After going through more sections I got lost.

The map was a little unhelpful since the numbers of the paintings and the sections didn't really match. So, I started to look for the mona lisa before time was up. I had to walk for about 45 mins more till i found it :) Tha place was HUGE! Seriously! You can spend days down there if you wanna take a good look at every thing on display! Well, the cordoned off area was pretty huge for the mona lisa painting when compared to the other paintings. There were about 40 people gathered infront of it, taking pictures of it and with it.

I then went through several large halls before I found the exit to get out of the museum. I met JH and Johnny and brought them to the apple store. They were quite reluctant at first but got hooked on the ipods and headphones once they got in :P We then went down to meet up with Azri, KH, FC and YW to go have dinner. I went out to do a couple of stuff while the slow pokes were taking their time to eat. First stop was the Shakesphere bookstore. I had seen this bookstore on TV/ some youtube video before and HAD to go look at it. A couple of famous artists had stayed ther before. There were books all around me from the time I entered and it was just sooo cozy and warm inside. I would have loved to stay in such a place! It was a bit cramped but i didn't mind at all. There were even place for discussion, and some comfy reading chairs.

Second up was the beret shop. I just had to get one of those things for myself. Kai hee got a pink one and I got a grey one. I then went over to the vegie falafel place that i saw earlier to get myself a delicious filling sandwich. That place gives you a piece of open broodje to fill up with whatever stuff you want. So, I stuffed in as much as I could! The variety was awesome!

We then went back to collect our bags and go wait for the eurolines bus. We had to wait a long time to go check in with our ticket. there were some commotion in the queues. We then took our bus back home :D END OF PARISS TRIPP :D

France Day 4

This is on 18th April 2010, Day 81 of my exchange: Paris walking tour

This day, JH, YW, FC, Johnny, KH and Azri went down to the meeting place of the Sandeman's Free New Paris walking tour, which was infront of the fountain at Place St Michel. We met Xiao Fan there too!

He is a common friend of FC and me, in the french double degree programme for direct masters! It was a wonderful tour by Arnaud, but i can't remember much from it since i'm blogging abt it a year after the tour. oh, one of the things was that you can tell the nature of death of a person by looking at the statue built in their memory. It depends on the no of legs of the horse which are not touching the ground!

We walked along the river saw some cathedrals, the Lourve pyramids, the park nearby, the view of the eiffel tower from the park. I came across this person dressed like a egyptian mummy, sitting on one of the park benches. I thought that was cool and went to take photos with him/her. I didn't know at that time that i had to put money into the cup infront and he/she didn't seem to mind too! lol!

We then explored some buildings nearby. Then went into the place with the tomb of Napolean. It was huge!

We then took a train down to see the arc de triumph. Some climbed up, but I didn't go up. We then had dinner at this expensive place suggested by Xiao Fan that had cheese fountain thingy that only fong chi ordered. I had salad with the complimentary bread :D and a bit of the molten cheese with potato as well!

We then went to the Eiffel tower just in time before the queue counter closed :D We managed to go up. I didn't go up all the way cos i was at the 1/3 mark and figured out that the view must pretty much be the same. And after coming down form the eiffel tower, we noticed that there were a lot of guys selling paris tower models below. Johnny and I decided that we'll be able to strike up a better deal if we approach them together. We also had an upper hand cos they were nearly done for the day! So, we got the 3 eiffel tower models and a few keychains really cheap!

We then took a train back to our Bastille apartments to sleep for the night!

France Day 3

This is on 17th April, Day 80 of my exchange

I woke up early as usual to get dressed up first and to pack up my stuff. After saying goodbye to our hosts we (FC, YW & JH) then started out on a long drive from Rennes to Versailles. We made contact with Johnny, KH and Azri on the way through phone. After a long discussion, it was decided that KH and Azri would go tour some places on their own and meet us at the hotel later while Johnny would come along to tour Versailles with us :)

Upon reaching Versailles, we had trouble finding a parking lot. After driving through some of their narrow streets made narrower by cars parked at their sides, we managed to find one as a car left from the carpark area! After parking, we were lost as to how to pay for our parking since the ticketing stand wasn't working the way we expected it to. ither that or we couldn't figure it out :P Well, someone came along and told us that it was free parking on that day till a certain time or sth.

We then took a slow walk to the palace of Versailles. We passed by pretty flower street shops along the way and saw a bunch of Eurolines and other tour busses stopping there and bunches of foreign tourists popping out from them! lol! hmm, These tours of these tourists on busses are kinda restricted to the places and the routes that the bus takes. Whereas the 3 of us can pretty much roam around freely with little restriction :D Anyway, we met up with johnny inside the palace and got ourselves tickets to push our way in through the crowds, after the security check at the entrance.

The entire place had 2 parts to it: the palace building itself and a park-kinda place outside. We were led into the palace first. This was one of my 1st time in an european palace before and it looked great. There were paintings all over the walls, extending upto the ceilings. But after a few rooms, it pretty much starts to repeat itself. The rooms have variations of tables, chairs, sofas, mirrors, wardrobes, and fancy lights. That's about it! Oh, paintings too! The kind that look expensive! lol! and statues! and fireplaces! and staircases!

Then, we emerged into the park area. It was HUGE! There was a circular fountain abt 50 meters in diameter, followed by some grass patch areas and a long wide canal which had boats on it! We had some free and easy time to roam around and take pictures before we gathered at the other end of the park.

There were ducks at the canal area. We sat down there to have our lunch! Mine was a baguette, quarter of which went to the ducks at the canal :D After that, we needed to spend some time before the musical fountain show. So, we went around the woods nearby before going over to the front of the park to wait for the show.

Honestly, I expected something like Sentosa's musical fountain show but it was afternoon there! The show was quite disappointing since it involved the turning on of all the fountain pipes available, with no 'dancing' of water :( Oh well, it was pretty nonetheless!

After leaving Versailles, we drove to the hostel that we booked to unload our stuff there. YW and I then went on to return the car and head back to the hostel. We then took a train down to some point to walk along a river to the Lourve museum which was closed at that moment.

Nevertheless, the glass pyramids were great :D I've seen them on pictures/videos before but to be there physically felt quite surreal! FC's camera wasn't good at taking night shots and I hadn't gotten my camera's charger and battery yet :( I had to make heavy use of the tripod and have really great stability.

We then returned to our hostel for a good night's sleep. :D