City of Sin!

Since the July 2009 incident, where I was career assasinated and lost my 30k plus scholarship, i have lost my enthusiasm to continue my blogging life. I blogged lesser and lesser.Although it was the past, but i can't completely letting go the scar.

Forget about the past, let me continue with my blog.This time I am gonna share with you my Tour de Europe. Let me start with the City of Sin - Amsterdam. You can experience all sort of illegal stuff here legally!

Basically i love this city, not because of the prostitution or weed, but the people here. People here was basically friendly and nice. Generally people here speak Dutch, but everyone able to speak English fluently. A small city, where you can cover most of the places by foot. For the windmill, you need to go a little bit further away from the city centre.Some website said that bicycle is the best way to travel in this city.

Basically there will be few places you must go!


1) The wind mill - is the symbol of Dutch. Get an air from hectic city life with greenery. Remember to try the homemade ice cream.

2) I amsterdam - for me this is a nice spot to prove that you are in amsterdam.

3) Red light district - along the river you can see a lot of swams and ducks. Night time is the best, when all the prostitutes wearing glow-in-the-dark undies. and unique lighting everywhere.

4) Flower market- will be best time during Spring

5) Madame Tussauds - A worth going wax museum. Meet your Idol there.

6) Flower Park(Keukenhof) - This place only avaliable during Spring. Located far away from city. Very colourful and fantastic park!

7) Museums- There are few popular museum. Van Gough,Rijksmuseum, and Anne Frank House. I personally found that nothing special in those museums plus the entrance fees are quite high. Maybe because i don't know how to enjoy all the displayed drawing and not camera allowed in those museum. If you want something special, then you can go for sex museum or ertic museum.


There are few thing you should do in Amsterdam.

1) Try Holland french fries. Is famous here.

2) Take a cruise along the canal. You can see all the interesting places a long the canal.

3)If you are daring enough, you can try the weed from the weed shop.

4) If you are curious enough, then you should watch the live porn show.
5) Hop into a Chinese Restaurant at the Chinatown, a street next to red light. You will love the food there.

4 months later(how to travel around the city)!

I wanted to update my blog from time to time but sometime it can't be helped. Sorry that i have abandoned my blog for 4 months and someone can and drop a comment "when are u gonna update mervin chew ???" and i realized that i still have reader who is waiting for my update.

First of all i would like to briefly explain "how to travel around the city" in Europe. There are a lot of website available for you to get information.

I would like to recommend you 2 websites.
1. about.com
2.wikitravel.org

Just type your desired destination and you will get all the information you need. about.com website will tell you the top attraction spot that you can't afford to miss out. Wikitravel will tell you the overview of the city, transportation rate/history/background....

If you need more detail information, you can buy the lonely planet book. This will be a nice book for travelling.

Another thing will be the public transport. Do check the type of public transportation available in the city you intended to go. Most cities, have tram, metro(underground), bus and even bicycle. Most of the cities come with package or promotion. For example in Germany, you can get a single daily ticket about 25 euro but you just need to pay 35 euro if you buy group ticket for 5 people. In Rome, the have Rome pass where you can travel for 3 days and few museums. Some even offer great discount during weekend. If you are student below 26 and you travel during weekend you can get offer price as much as 50%. Do check out for the transportation map.

You can also check the size of the city. Some city is relatively small. Example Brussels and Amsterdam are the small cities. Most of the interesting spots are located at the heart of the city and you can reach it by walking distance.

ok! i will be enough for this section! will update again later.

Backpack Travelling Around Europe! (Getting Into-)

One of the most convenience thing living in Europe is travelling. European countries have the most reliable transportation system. So, it's such a waste if you don't know how to utilize such facilities. Since travelling is such convenience here, i can't afford to get myself missed out visiting cities around the Europe. To think of that, i have visited quite a number of cities.

For a cheap and affordable trip, you need to plan. "The early bird catches the worm" proverb is always true for early planning and booking.Because early preparation will enable you to get cheapest travelling ticket or desirable accommodation and save your money. But sometime, there will be last minute promotion. When i say sometime, meaning it will depend on your luck. So, early planning will still the best.

Today, i am gonna to share a little of my experience on how to plan. Of course it won't be the best way, but i do hope it will bean aid for those who are planning for a trip.

STEP 1:

First of all you need to:

-Decide the locations that you will be visiting. It can be just a city or more than 1.

-Check the available date you wanted to go for travelling.

-Estimate the duration of you travelling.

-Approximate the amount you are afford money to spend for the whole vacation.

*Tips: Flexibility is important here. Give a range on your date, duration, and your budget. Different dates have different prices for travelling ticket and accommodation.

STEP 2:

After you have set a range for above criteria. Now we proceed to transportation.

There will be 5 type of transportation available:

a) Train is the best way for travelling. The seating is spacious and will stop direction at the main train station(located center of the city). The only problem is the price! normally it will be the most expensive travelling option unless you book at least 3 months in advance or the is an ongoing promotion.

b) Airplane will be the cheapest way of travelling within Europe. The problem is, there will be baggage allowance and a lot of restrictions. Further more, you need to be on the airport at least 1 hour earlier. Most the airports are located far away from the city and you need to pay for about an hour bus ticket to city center.

c) Bus will be another option, but it will be the slowest. You will need to sit long hours of bus to your location. Normally it will come it package, where your accommodation or even your food will be included. Depend on the company that provide you the services and the price you pay.

d) Another option will be renting a car and drive yourself to the desired location. Renting a car is not expensive here provided if you are travelling about 4 person per car. Those who are new in Europe, you are allow to use your licence for the first 6 months in European countries. But, bear in mind, the driver seat will be on the left hand side of the car. So, everything will be exactly opposite compared to Malaysia.

e) The last option will be "car pool". Which mean you will be travelling with some random driver who wanted to go for the same destination. It's available in website where the driver will be posting out their vacancy and available seats. And you will be paying a small amount of money for it. Generally, it's safe but not really reliable. Definitely a big NO for destination which takes more than 4 hours.

Ok. Enough of the transportation option. Now we proceed will transport selection. Normally, we will just choose for the first 2 options (train or airplane). There will be a number of flight companies which offer many destinations with affordable price. Check all flight company for the air ticket and list out the price for comparison. For example Rynair, Air berlin or Easy jet. Do, keep an eye for train tickets too. For example in Germany, they train have ICE(www.deutsheBahn.de) and you will able get cheap tickets if you book few months earlier or you book more than 1 ticket in advance.

List out all the price and location for each travelling options which are in your range of the dates available and find the cheapest from it. Don't just list out 1 option, make more variation and give yourself more choices to choose.If you travelling to more than 1 city, list out all the routes. Do not fix which city will be the 1st destination. Just list out all the options available.

Below are the sample of the draft you can do for your destination and location selection with the price listed on each route.

STEP 3:

After drafting the possible routes, we now proceed to route selection. For example, you can refer to the diagramme above. You can see arrows with different colours indicate the routes. Choose the best option that suit you.

There are few criterion you need to take into consideration for the selection:

-number of days for each city. Normally, we spend 3-4 days for each city. If you are travelling few places, do include the time spend for travelling

-the cheapest way to your desired destination

-the most time saving transportation

-transport that comfort you well

**Tips: in case the train ticket is just a little bit more expensive than air ticket, i would suggest you to go for the train.

STEP 4:

Next, you need to start booking! Book the ticket via online. You just need to fix the date and pay with credit card. Booking through website of the train/flight company is easy and well guided.

When you keying your details when booking, make sure you give all the correct information. Double check all you details. Most important will be the name, passport number and the date chosen. After conformation of payment, there will be no amendment is allowed.

STEP 5:

When you done all you transportation booking, now we'll proceed to accommodation selection. For the hostel booking, i am using hostelworld.com. There are a number of hostel/hotel or guest house available. Select the date and city, you will see a list of accommodation available with full descriptions, comments and rating. Choose the best place for yourself.

Tips: for better selection, please refer to the comments dropped by the previous visitors. The comments will be a great help for you. Do take note the distance for city centre and the facilities provided.

Great! with all 5 steps, you will able to get into your desired city with reasonable price. Hope this post able to give you guys rough idea how travelling within Europe countries. Below will be some useful website for travelling.

http://www.hostelword.com

http://www.ryanair.com/

http://www.statravel.com/

http://www.easyjet.com

http://www.airberlin.com

That all for this post. Next, i will be sharing wit you guys how to travel around the city.

365 Days

Today is exactly 1 year i have stayed in Germany.365 days ago, i was in the airport for the first time. Going oversea for the first time, departed from my home country. Leaving behind a lot of sweet memories. Everything was in mess, and wasn't ready to leave. At one point i feel like give up to Germany, but i can't afford to give up my dream. Proceed to what i have planned, keeping the promise to myself.

October 1,2009 is the date where i flew away from Malaysia. Experiencing my 1st Autumn. For the first half of the year, i can't able to settle down. I remembered that i was in high enthusiasm during Autumn, having plenty of plans, goals and aims. I planned everything, but when winter came, all my plan failed. I was demotivated, my studies gone haywire. From attending the classes, i started to skip classes. From studying, i turned to laze around, doing nothing. Thing doesn't turn well during my winter semester. Reason? A lot! But all was just an excuse for me to be lazy!

When winter reached to the end, exams were coming. I somehow gone through 8 exams( including language and non-technical) and 1 project. I was lucky to pass all exams except Werkzeugmaschine. The failing of 1 subject really got me! From that onward, I was having phobia on failing. xD

Exam ended, Spring came. I missed the most beautiful scene of the year, the 1st month of Spring, where all the flowers blooms. Greenery scene accompanied by colourful flowers. It was amazing, but that time i was taking my language class. A private course in Dusseldorf which costed me 400 euro per month. I needed to travel all the way to Dusseldorf everyday. I was tiring because it took me about 1 hour to reach and spending another 1 hour to reach home.

When my summer semester started, i stopped the language class. Went for classes. I only have 3 classes a week. But because 2 of the classes were in the same time, so i basically only attend 2 classes weekly. This semester, i spent most of the time in library. Don't be mistaken take i actually studied in the library. Yeah, no doubt that i studied a bit, but i spent half of the time facebooking, playing online games, playing msn and watching movies. Though my productivity was low in the library, but at least better than "fermenting" and do nothing in the room.

Summer ended, exam over! All the examination results were out. I had my vacation. And now Autumn and going to start my thesis in no time. Though i don't know what i have done for the past 1 years or what i have learnt from German's life, but when i looked back on my stick note filled with my aims, goals and dreams. I realized that i actually achieved most of it! I don't know how to express the feeling. Imagine when you set your goals 1 years ago. In between, many thing happened and forgotten your goals. You go wayward! Deviated from the original plan. In the very last minute, you recalled you goal, and you got back.

Time passes really fast, i can't chase back what i missed. Right now i am appreciating what i have now.

*ps: i am back to blogging life. xD

Disappointment?

Last night i got my examination result for Verfahrentechnik, it was just 2.7 (Germany system, something like cgpa, best will be 1.0) I was rather disappointed with it. After working hard for this subject and i thought i have done well during the exam, but i never thought it will be just 2.7 ( i was hoping for about 1.7 or better). It was really a shock news for me. Just like the whole world fall apart. As if your hard work didn't pay off. To be frank, i never have such feeling before.

I remember when i was in primary school where we must take UPSR. I was merely know what is the UPSR when i took it. I have never been the top students in my batch or even the class. I was basically ranked about 20-30+ among the students. Well, you can consider me as the top among the averege. Back then i was naughty, never do my homework, always get caned by the teachers, and of course never fail to have fight with my fellow friends.LOL! When the UPSR results was out, the list was pasted on the notice board right in front of the school entrance. Everyone ran to it once the announcement was made about the results. And i was in the top list, i scored straight 5 As for it(i was from SK school, so only 5 subjects taken). Of course i was happy and excited because no one will expect me to get such a results(no even me). Out of joy, there was someone in tears. J who was one of the top students broke down and cried. He scored 4 As and a B. That time i was wondering why must you be so sad because of this. It was just another examination out of numerous examinations. I don't understand what is the feeling of disappointed when your hard work didn't pay off. But i realized that Luck always be on my side.

Because of the good results, my dad enrolled me in to RMC (Royal Military College) where the requirement was at least 4 As and above for UPSR. Before i was enrolled into the college i were required to do some minor test for stamina, perseverance, IQ test where i stayed in the military camp for 1 whole week. Later i got the admission into it, and whole new world awaited for me. To think back, it was a total disaster for the 1st year in there. You got punished whatever fault you did, and you also punished for the fault of your friends. i remembered i woke up daily about 5am and sleep about 12am daily. This resulted me sleeping habit during the class ( i am not going to elaborate in detail about my life there). My results was so poor where ranked 30 out of 100 students in my batch. I begin to pick up my studies during the early of form 3, where i need to take my PMR. Luckily i have a group of good teachers never give up on us. They keep pushing us, train us and guide us till to the day of examination. And with their helps and of course again with Luck, i scored 7 As in the examination (again, RMC is consider a SK type school, so just 7 subject were taken).

Right after the PMR, i tell myself, i will make sure my name will be in the 1st sheet of the paper on the notice board ( every time, the overall examination was pasted on the notice board, and normally top 15-20 will be on the 1st sheet, and i was always in the second sheet). So i make an effort to strike since the beginning of form 4. My hard work paid off. I was ranked number 5 in the 1st half of the year and 8th in the final year. Somehow, i didn't manage to keep my perseverance with me and my studies when down during form 5. But i manage to score 9 As in my SPM (not all A1, with few A2). Well, with this results, i was one of the 6 students who scored all As. Well, it seem like our standard was so low where none of use get straight A1 like other ordinary school,but the reality is the life as a military student ain't a easy thing, more over to score a string of As. Of all 6, everyone get a scholarship some went to oversea, and some went to some prestige colleges and left me back to form 6 life. This time i would not say Luck was on my side. Perhaps you can consider me the worst of the top.LOL!

Ok! Form 6, back to my hometown, my old school. Everything seems like have to restart again, i have to get use of the "normal" school lifestyle after 4 years in "extraordinary" life. LOL! Well, form 6 life was ain't easy especially when your class filled with the cream of the cream. Those who scored 11 A1s, 12 A1s..... and you just straight A but not A1. So that was the life. Instead of biology, i have chosen physics class. One thing you should know about me is i am sucks in Physics since form 4. Instead, i hate that subject. BUT, because i don't want to compete with the top of the top for limited places in Uni for the critical course( eg: doctor,dentistry or pharmacy), so i choosen physics class. In the mind that i have wider scope for engineering scope and lesser stress for my studies in form 6. LOL! Well, form 6 life passes with a lot of memorable stuff, where i had my first gf, where i was addicted to DOTA and play at the cyber cafe up till 3am in the morning during my trial exams with CH. CH was my best friend. I was sitting in the 1st row right in the middle of the class and he was next to me and JY just behind me. The funniest thing was, JY and i always fell asleep in the class and got scolded by our teacher CTH.LOL! Though we played a lot, but i never fail to do our revision, everyday and night (except during dota session). Until the last 2 days before my physics examination, i broke down, i was worry i can't make it for the exam. Of course i took a lot of effort to master the subject, but it just don't get into my brain. I remember that night i went to HS house doing revision with HS and CS and in the middle of revision, the fear surrounded me, i went to the back and cried out, never in my life i was so worry about my studies. But somehow that time i was worry to death. That time H came and he accidently found out that i was being a crybabe. And he comforted me. Well, when the result was out, i got 3 As and a B for my physics. Though i have already expected the result, but............

Ok, a another new chapter of my life when i was enrolled into UKM of a degree in Mechanical engineering. As usual, i had a good result for my 1st semester. Since the beginning of my admission into the uni, i was not in the mood to study as hard as i was anymore. I lost my spirit to strive like what i used to be. Moreover the degree i got was the 3rd last choices out of 8 choices i have selected. For the last 6 semester i led my life in "happy go lucky" lifestyle where i don't care much of my results. Thing happened the same as i reached Germany. I have forgotten my resolution and my target to work hard. And........ So for the second semester, i start to dig out my long buried spirit within me and try to strive for the final time. Though the Verfahren result was rather disappointing, but i still haven't give up because i still have 2 more exams to go. Getting back the "spirit" where you lost for years is ain't easy, more over you can't just have the feel, you must do something to show the result. I hope the Luck that has been accompanying me for year be with me again. :)

ps: too long to check for error mistake.

Changes!

I was studying and took a short break. Went to the toilet and rinsed my face with cold water to reduce my tiredness. Then i looked myself in front the mirror and i realized that i look so awful. My face was filled with blackhead especially on my nose, a little bit of pimples, large dark circles under the eyes with horrible eye bag. A little of wrinkles near the edges my eyes. A big forehead with lesser hair. I am having hair loss problem since the day i reached Germany. They told me that this was due to the "hard" water we use daily.

Looking at myself i realized that i didn't care much on my appearance since the day i started my new life in here.

I remembered that i used to wash my face twice a day when i was in Malaysia (morning and evening), but nowadays i just wash it once a day or maybe once every 2 days.
I remember i use to have facial treatment ( with mask) once a month or 2 months once, but i never do that since the day i was in Germany. Even WS who was a typical guy do mask more than me.LOL! i wonder if the world have turn upside down!
I remember each time i went back home, my mum will get me a small glass birdnest every morning(she even woke me up in the middle of sleep to drink it before she went to work), but never for now.
I remember that every time when i was in the study weeks, mum will get me a box of "essence chicken", but not in Germany.
I remember during my revision weeks, i will take care of my meal by taking quality food, but these days fast foods will be my meals.
I remember i used to take supplement foods every morning, but these days, chocolate and junk food replaced them.LOL!
I remember I woke up every morning i used to drink a big glass of plain water, but now coffee and tea will be my new drinks.
I remembered that i use to hate smokers, but now i am one of them.
I remember i used to be shopaholic who shopped a lot, but the last time i went for shopping was nearly 6 months ago. Having limited shirts and pants. Even WS have double of my quantity.LOL!

I wonder if i havechanged that much!

Less than 2 weeks before final 2 exams!

I has been struggling for the last 2 exams of my degree course( excluding the thesis) for the final time i do my revision for my last exam(i hope i will pass all of it). When the exam ended i will start doing my thesis and then balik kampung. I have been longing to go back! BUT before i am going back to Malaysia, there are few places that i must go beside Europe and of course i need $$$$$! hmm... let put aside this thing 1st.

Today will just focus on my on going like. Lately i forced myself to wake up 7am daily. Well it was not an easy task to do because i need to shift time sleeping time and i ended up fell sick twice.LOL! because i can't sleep at night and woke up too early which causes me to fall sick.

Hmm... if you notice, i am writing this blog with really really bad sentences( i know most of the time my blog suck, but this time is even worse).Because i was in rush when i was typing the post. I was out of randomness!

Whole day in the library from 9am-5.30pm(excluding 20 mins out for lunch), productive is not really high, but at least i keep my revision in track. These days, i was in high tension due to 2 examinations on 24th and 26th. Both required you to memorised every since words on the notes plus both will be in Germany language examination! :( with my low level of german, i need to double up my effort compared to others. With my super duper lazy mervin against desperate wanna to study mervin. I wonder who will win! LOL!

we will see how it turn after the examinations. :)