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.

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

Weekend!

Was out of the city this weekend. Saturday to Rüdesheim and Sunday to Bonn. For the past few days, i was bored of staying in the room. Especially when night reaches. I felt energetic but filled with emptiness. These days i was getting to bed late and woke up late. Thanks to the sun that set about 9.30pm.

For the Satuday trip was awesome. Travelled 3 hours to Rüdesheim, a place that well known for producing wine, Took short tour around the city. Had a german typical lunch in Restaurant. And get some soviniors.The city was rather happened, with a lot of people. The city is covered by hills, where the grapes are planted. The city was also located along the Rhein river, the most popular river of Germany.

By 2pm, we took a tour along the river side from Rüdesheim to Koblenz, 4 hours ship. At the beginning, we were rather excited, taking pictures here and there. Looking at each cities, abandoned castles and forties we passes through. After a few stations, we started to "cool down", no more photographing session. We just sat down, enjoying the sun ray, the greenery, the wind blew through us as well listening to music and chit chatting.

Stopped over at Koblenz for Germany king monument.

The next day(Sunday) went to Bonn, was once the capital of Germany. A small city. Took a some pictures. went to Beethoven birthhouse, paid 4 euro for entry fee, but rather disappointing. And no photo allowed.

On the way home, saw a group for weird people(i guess a family of 6) quarreling to each others. Shouting and scream out loud, until i, the one who fell asleep with earphone on could hear their screams. It was rather funny, when on of them, a fat lady changed her shirt in the train.LOL! People sitting near to me was aslo laughing seeing the "funny " people.LOL!

Now I Know Why!

Flourance, Italy, March 2010

Today was rather cold and rainy. No more sun bathing. And now i understand why these Caucasians always craved for sun light. Because you hardly get sunny weather here. It's always cloudy and cold. So, when the sun is out, everyone go out for sun bathing, enjoying the "precious" sun ray. LOL!

I was in Düssseldorf last Monday for sunbathing.LOL! For this first timen(i will never do that in Malaysia).LOL! Experiencing the hot sun ray, will cold breeze of air, enjoying the green scenery and of course people in summer wear.LOL! Lying on the grass, "peeping here and there, looking for some hot .....hehe(you know what i mean).

Sunbathing in Düsseldorf, May 24th 2010!

Unknowingly, it was the end of my 8th month here in Germany. I have gone through Autumn, Winter, Spring and soon will be SUMMER! I gonna to love it. Hot weather, and of course HOT.... Caucasians with summer wear surely an eye catching.LOL!

Venice, March 2010

Yesterday i finally passed up me project report. Finally, after 5 months long! I was kind of lost since out of sudden, i lost my direction. Project done, exam done, internship report done. Going to have a nice break this week before i get myself busy again(my break definition is sleep, eat, rest). Will be start preparing for another 3 examinations and starting looking for my thesis title next week.

Sigh, thinking back, there are still many places yet to visit. Paris, Belgium, Austria,UK, Scottland, Swiss, Berlin...... I wonder i able to making it.LOL! Well, i was thinking of going to Paris this June, but the problem is i can't find a suitable partner to the City of Romance. What a pity!

Flower garden in Netherlands, May 2010

Opss, i just realized that my post was too far from the main post. Coz i was so lazy to update my blog and compiled up everything in this post. Anyway, nothing special for today. I just printed out some new pictures for my wall. LOL! some candid pictures that memorable to me.

Holland for shopping, but ended up empty handed, March 2010!

ps: i was so lazy to update the posts i missed, so i guess some photos will do.LOL!

Day after examination!

Yesterday i was worried like hell for my examination. For the first time i need to take an examination verbally. Sort of interview session with the professor. It was rather i bad day for me. After a sleepless night, i went out to catch a street train to the main train station because the exam was in Essen(another city). I was suppose to meet up WS, and taking 12.32 train(intercity train) to Essen. Thanks to the street train for 15 minutes delayed, i missed the train and ended up going there alone. You know,I am always sucks when come to direction part. Beacuse it was my first time going that place and i got LOST! I took more than 30 minutes to get into the examination place. It was a bad omen for me before i start my exam! GOSH!!!

During the exam, i was quite confidence in answering the question, initially, everything was fine. But when it goes further, the questions were too hard to be answer. Anyway, i passed the examination. Happy for that. xD! After the examination, i went back to my room for less than an hour, because i have my German tutorial class. Sigh, i wish i can skip that class.

Back from the class. I realized that my room was really in mess. A mess that i never had before. And i took picture on my ugly side of me. hehe.. and fell asleep about 9pm. I was too exhausted.

Today, i woke up about 7am. Well, i wish i can sleep longer, but the sun light was too bright and woke me up( summer soon, these days, the sun rises about 5 something). And i called home. Talked to mum, dad, and grandma. I was actually wanted to call them last night, but till was too late. so.... about 7.40am, wei sung asked me to accompany him to Flohmarkt ( sort of pasar pagi). Yeap, met him and arian at the train station about 8.32 train. After the walk at "pasar pagi" we went to shopping( i actually don't have the mood to do so). Bought nothing. xD! Instead we went to buy ingredients for to night dinner. Yeap, i am going to cook NASI LEMAK! You know, how we Malaysian always craved for Malaysian food when we were out of Malaysia. hehe...

This is my product! (Al, K,TC,XC,QW helped me a lot in preparing this)

Hmm... it took use about 1 and half hours to prepare the foods for 16 people. Tonight main menu will be Nasi Lemak followed by Pizza! LOL! WS and Ad doing the western food while i was incharging of typical malaysian food. xD! well, thanks to Sinye and Kayin who taught how to cook it. Overall, i am satisfied with my cook. Well, i improved a bit. xD! though some was complaining that my rice a bit salty.hehe... but thumb up for my sambal and curry chicken! yeah!

poser! Malaysian!

Thanks to Ad for such a nice hair cut!

When i am busy....!

I remembered that my friend said "your frequency of blog reflected how busy you are". Well, i admit it. I was busy since February for the examination which ended in the middle of March, then within a week, i flew to Italy for 1 week sight seeing.

By the 1st week of april i started my german class in dusseldorf. Daily classes from 2pm-6pm, but i took me 2 hours for the daily traveling duration. Classes were from Monday to Friday. Woke up early in the morning, work on my on going project in uni, and homework from german class. By 12.30pm leaved the room and headed to Düsseldorf for class and will be reaching home about 7.15pm. cook, dinner and rest. By the time i settled down everything, it was about 10 something at night. Start to feel sleepy and tired, so.... sleep! that was my life for the last month.

This month, i am filled with my project stuff and my incoming examination. which both fall on 21st of May. Rushing to the project reports and translating the examination script from german to english. Which took me a lot of time.


Out of these busy days, i realized that i missed out something. I didn't manage to enjoy the spring season. The missed the scene where the flowers bloomed. The colorful flowers, the greenery scene after winter. I was so cool! Though i realized that since last month, i keep telling myself "i will take some days off and enjoy it". But i was too late. Since last 2 weeks, the weather turned to be rainy, cloudy and cold. I can't imagine that i am experiencing 5-7 degree Celcius during winter. Sigh!


Nevertheless, i manage to squeeze sometime for short break, where i took 1 day trip to Netherlands for the spring season, the flowers and the wind mill.^^ short and memorable.


Well, i guess i will be continue busy until end of this year. Lately i missed a lot of stuff back then i Malaysia. Missed my mum, my dad. feel like hugging them and give them kisses.LOL! miss the family stuff. Though since small, i hardly stay in my home, but somehow i feel like going home.LOL! i missed my life in KL especially few months before i came to germany. It was on the peak! No deny many thing happened.



Well, i am so blur now. And not sure what i am writing now. as if my content deviated from the title.LOL! maybe....i guess today blog was just a summary on what i have been doing for past 2 months!

i will try to update it from time to time! ^^
ps: i was too busy to edit the pictures. So.... it should be look bad!xD

When The Semester Near to The End, and Examination Approaches!

Since starting of this month, everyone start to isolate themselves and start studying. That was the time i hate most.

In this period, you will hardly see anyone:

1)online in MSN
2)playing Facebook
3)updating blog
4)chit chatting
5)outing
6)partying

They will say "NO" to everyone you asked! Refusing everything!

And of course me myself is all stress. Stress of exam, stress for being ignored, stress for everything! LOL!

Time running particularly fast. In 9 days, i will be having my 2nd Paper and 3rd paper a day after.

Well, no time for me to blog until these 2 papers is done.

I am now pushing myself to run as fast as i can! Cheer for me!

Path of Life!

Recently i read Chua's blog " vor dem Raffelberg". Well, most of the post were in Chinese and of course i ain't know what he is writing about. But, i do know that he is penning down his bits of memories in Germany, where Raffelberg is the place he is staying right now.

We came from the same Uni, taking the same flight with the same goal to Germany. Time flew and thing changed. Everyone move to their own path with different mind set and lifestyle. Thus, i guess what Chua's blog about reflecting just a small portion on the living style. Living in the world of my own, i guess i lead my world very different from other Malaysian. Not special or unique or whatever pleasant word to be utter. It is just different!

In the beginning, we tend to group together. Hanging out together, had dinner together, traveled together, shopped together. Everything together!

But now, i had my own meal, own friends, own life.... Everything on my own! Just a certain occasion, we will hang out together.

I remembered, i use to be a pathetic jerk who ain't want to go out alone. Scare of getting lost!
Always feel depressed........ and those are the past!

Deep inside me, i had something where people don't like, where the world displeased of it and i so called it as my "weakness". I guess everyone wanted to be different, but when you are too different, you will think another way round!

Knowing the "weakness" and accepting it are 2 different thing. And from accepting to benefiting it. I know, it was ain't easy to gone through these phases. But, i did it! And it really make a difference to me. I guess CO's words did enlighten me! And that made today Mervin!

I am having a new life with new goal!
What goes around, and come around!
I am enjoying me life!^^( though still struggling for incoming examination)

ps:I not going to say about "weakness" LOL!

Xcite (part 2)

i personally love this picture where take while we were waiting for train at Dortmund!

Day 3 (Dec 20)

we were suppose heading to Cologne, but due to heavy snow, and delayed of S and K friend, we postponed out plan and have fun in Duisburg and Dusseldorf!

Workshop of the day, making snowman and explore both cities!

Firstly in Duisburg!



producing medium size snow in Duisburg! LOL!

isn't that cute!

Then Dusseldorf!

Still snowing!

MISSION 4 AND 5 COMPLETED!

Day 4 & 5 (Dec 21 and 22)

2 days trip to Winterberg for skiing!
Wow! Skiing was fun! xcite and xperience!

MISSION 6 ACCOMPLISHED!

Day 6 (Dec 23)

Supposedly going to Bonn and Cologne but due to appointment with lecturer, i missed out the trip to Bonn and had short trip to Cologne!

MISSION 7 FAILED!

well, nothing perfect! In the end, we had a lot of excitement and fun together. Though it was exhausting we had experienced something you can't have in Malaysia!

See ya! till the next Xcite!

Impermanence!

Time changes everything! Impermanence!

From the 1st day i stepped my leg on Germany until today many thing changed.
From autumn with 17 degree Celsius to winter with -4 degree Celsius. And now with a little snow.

Back then i was a pathetic jerk who keep looking back. Living the the world of past. Thinking how wonderful the 'world' back in the home country. Keep complaining! Refuse to move on.

But as time passed. I grew up. I know that I must move on. Keep looking forward. Take those sweet as memories and bitter as lessons to learn.

It has been 2 and half months. But my progression is rather slow. Everything is behind the schedule. I need to start running now. Else, i will miss out even more.

As the same time, i start to open myself to this new life, new world. Opening myself to people i not even meet before. Let myself know more about the life here. Get to know people here. I was once told that, "It's hard to have German friends." Well, until now the fact is still true to me. But, it does not imply to each and every German here.

Last night i had an outing with A and B. Someone i just know. Somehow thing turn to be smooth and we had a great chat and conversation. Though those 2 are a bit far away from my place, but at least i make my first move by meeting them. Really looking forward for another outing. I don't really mind going to karaoke here in Germany though i can't sing. LOL! Coz A is just like me, can't sing either. We just sang out loud without caring that we were out of tune. Surprisingly B sang so well.

The Persistence of Memory by Dali

Guess this was the drawing A and B talking about. When they are trying to interpret the message behind this drawing! I got no idea about this picture when they were talking about that. They told me that i was a picture with melting clock and the cemetery. And i even made a joke that the picture is telling us that "when the time come, everyone have to die" LOL!

Hmm.... guess this picture has some relation about my title!

My First Winter!

I was suppose to blog out a lot of stuff, but somehow i failed to do so.

It's winter now. I remembered that, when i was in my childhood time, i craved for snow, for winter. I guess you all have that thought also. In my mind, winter should be a nice thing, when the whole place full of snows.

But, i guess i was wrong, term and condition applied.

I was my first time in oversea, and it will the first winter for me. Back in Malaysia, you either experiencing hot sunny day or raining day. No such thing as winter,spring,summer and autumn. These thing only exist in my geography book or in the movie.

Well, no snow yet. But the temperature here is about 4-7 degree Celsius. I remembered someone told me you will feel depressed during winter. I guess, they were right, it's really depressing. Especially when you hardly see the sun, it's either cloudy or raining. Moreover, you see no sun before 10am and get dark by 4pm. With the cold temperature, you won't feel like going out. That's why people have mood swing during winter. No me, myself alone, but also people around me.

Worst thing is when you sick. Gone case! you will eventually feel homesick. Crave for care and love!

Depression! Make me moody, lazy and less productive. No mood to study or either do anything. Just feel like sleeping and sleeping. Just like animal hibernating! LOL!

Opss! Break time over, i need to get back study after many unproductive day due to sickness.