I did some photo sessions in Parliament building and Synagogue. Tried to go to Memento park but failed, could not find the public bus to the park ( I even asked two policemen but they had no idea :-(). I know I can take a private bus that serves the route from Budapest to the park but .. I like more public bus (it's cheaper :-P and you can get more 'local' experience), besides.. I had to go to another side of Budapest to take that private bus. Didn't want to waste time in my last day in Budapest, so I decided to go to Buda again for souvenirs and then ... Gellert bath.
I was bit sceptical with the thermal bath idea at first (I am not into water when it's cold outside :-P). But some people recommended the thermal bath experience, it is in fact better when outside is cold. And well....indeed I like it (too bad I did not have much time :-(). I realized now that I am more into thermal bath than swimming pool :-P. It's a relaxing way to spend some time after a lot of walking (in the cold) plus Gellert bath has an awesome interior...it's just like having relaxing time in a palace's pool.
To sum up...Budapest is lovely even in such a crappy weather (don't forget a visit to thermal bath :-P).
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Budapest: Day 2
Woke up quite early but only managed to leave at 08:30am. I went directly to the Great Covered Market not far away from the hostel. It's quite a huge market, kind of the combination between the (covered) market in Riga an Helsinki. Clean and huge market. It consists of two floors, the first floor basically for the food materials, from spices to meat, oh and strudels (yummy). The second floor is for the souvenirs, traditional clothes, bags or something like that. In the other side there are some food sellers too, kind of warung or Imbiss. I could not resist to buy the strudels and yeah it's delicious :-)
After the market, I walked along Vaci Utca in the direction to the Vorosmaty Ter (all are in Pest side). I joined a free walking tour for 2.5 hours (yup it's quite a long walk). It was kind of cloudy and cold morning when we started around 10:30pm. I was one of the earliest person to show up at the meeting point. I was surprised that finally quite a lot of people joined the tour, I think there were around 50 people (in such a crappy weather, I could not imagine what happens in sunny summer :-P). Gabor who guided us, gave us a lot of interesting stories about Hungarian history and architecture (and thermal bath wohooo, it's a must he said :-P) and he did a good job to make it interesting and fun for us. We walked along the Pest area, then crossed the Danube river to Buda. We climbed the Castle hill, visited a strange small Russian monument (it was inspired by the famous Basilica but it's a small one so it's kind of weird :-P), the colorful Matthias church (too bad it's still being renovated), and the Fisherman Bastion. We finished the tour several minutes after 01:00pm.
I explored the Buda area myself after the tour, visiting some souvenir shops and booking a folk dance show for the evening in Touris Info Center. I then took bus to return to Pest and visited the Weihnachtsmarkt again before going to Danube Palace to see the folk dance. The performance was interesting, but I run out my camera's battery, so no pics from that show :-(.
After the market, I walked along Vaci Utca in the direction to the Vorosmaty Ter (all are in Pest side). I joined a free walking tour for 2.5 hours (yup it's quite a long walk). It was kind of cloudy and cold morning when we started around 10:30pm. I was one of the earliest person to show up at the meeting point. I was surprised that finally quite a lot of people joined the tour, I think there were around 50 people (in such a crappy weather, I could not imagine what happens in sunny summer :-P). Gabor who guided us, gave us a lot of interesting stories about Hungarian history and architecture (and thermal bath wohooo, it's a must he said :-P) and he did a good job to make it interesting and fun for us. We walked along the Pest area, then crossed the Danube river to Buda. We climbed the Castle hill, visited a strange small Russian monument (it was inspired by the famous Basilica but it's a small one so it's kind of weird :-P), the colorful Matthias church (too bad it's still being renovated), and the Fisherman Bastion. We finished the tour several minutes after 01:00pm.
I explored the Buda area myself after the tour, visiting some souvenir shops and booking a folk dance show for the evening in Touris Info Center. I then took bus to return to Pest and visited the Weihnachtsmarkt again before going to Danube Palace to see the folk dance. The performance was interesting, but I run out my camera's battery, so no pics from that show :-(.
Budapest: Day 1 (20.10.2009)
Budapest welcomed me with a foggy afternoon when I arrived today. It was almost dark with the fog though it was only around 3:30pm. I was disappointed but it was late autumn almost winter so I was kind of prepared. I took train to Nyugati train station (around 20mins trip), it's not the main station and was bit strange one (supported by strange language that I had no clue at all :-P)..at least it took me several minutes to figure out how I could get to the Metro. I went directly to the hostel that I have booked before, it's located in Ferenciek Tere, after I bought a three-day ticket for public transportation in Budapest (which was a really good idea).
After putting my luggage in the hostel I tried to do my orientation of Budapest. I went to the city center in Pest area tried to find the Tourist Info Center and visited the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) then hurried up to find the Hungarian State Opera House to see a ballet performance called Karamazov testverek (Karamazov brothers). Good that I managed to get the ticket that evening :-)
The Opera house is so beautiful inside, even when you're still at the hall area. It's not that big actually but beautiful (I know I said that before :-P). To be honest I never heard about Karamazov Brothers before, I just wanted to see a performance in the Opera house :-P. Luckily I sat next to a nice lady who told me the story and also about how famous the story and Dostoyevsky (the Russian author who wrote Karamazov Brothers). I do not have any clue on Russian literature and neither most of Indonesians I think...:-P It was a modern ballet performance from Boris Eifman (a Russian choreographer). The performance was great, better after I knew the story for sure :-P
After the ballet performance, I strolled along the Andrassy boulevard to the Vorosmaty Ter (the Weihnachtsmarkt again :-P) then to Danube promenade. Had some photo sessions of the Chain bridge and Elizabeth bridge in misty Budapest..
After putting my luggage in the hostel I tried to do my orientation of Budapest. I went to the city center in Pest area tried to find the Tourist Info Center and visited the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) then hurried up to find the Hungarian State Opera House to see a ballet performance called Karamazov testverek (Karamazov brothers). Good that I managed to get the ticket that evening :-)
The Opera house is so beautiful inside, even when you're still at the hall area. It's not that big actually but beautiful (I know I said that before :-P). To be honest I never heard about Karamazov Brothers before, I just wanted to see a performance in the Opera house :-P. Luckily I sat next to a nice lady who told me the story and also about how famous the story and Dostoyevsky (the Russian author who wrote Karamazov Brothers). I do not have any clue on Russian literature and neither most of Indonesians I think...:-P It was a modern ballet performance from Boris Eifman (a Russian choreographer). The performance was great, better after I knew the story for sure :-P
After the ballet performance, I strolled along the Andrassy boulevard to the Vorosmaty Ter (the Weihnachtsmarkt again :-P) then to Danube promenade. Had some photo sessions of the Chain bridge and Elizabeth bridge in misty Budapest..
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Switzerland trip: Day 4
I woke up bit late today, decided to have a relaxing time in Lucerne. After breakfast I started to walk along the city wall which is basically at the back of the hostel. I climbed the Mannlichturm (the city wall has several towers) to get a nice view of Lucerne. Then I continued to the old town area, the shopping street and the famous Lion monument(a sad lion indeed). I returned back to the old town following the city guides walking tour that I got from the Tourist Info Center yesterday.
I was late to catch the boat trip, but it's okay since I think I had enough sun (and lakes) already). I visited Rosengart Collection instead (tried to avoid sun a bit :-P) for its Picasso collections (also Paul Klee's and some others that I forgot the name). It was great collection since it was personally collected from Picasso (or other painter) so we got more stories behind the paintings.
After around two hours there I decided to buy lunch and some souvenirs. Then taking my luggage from the hostel. It was around 5pm already. My train departed at 05:54pm to Basel and then from Basel to Duess (oh this time I got a first class ticket with a cheap price...nice..). I got another nice sunset view on my train trip back to Duess, what a great way to finish my short trip to Switzerland :-)
I was late to catch the boat trip, but it's okay since I think I had enough sun (and lakes) already). I visited Rosengart Collection instead (tried to avoid sun a bit :-P) for its Picasso collections (also Paul Klee's and some others that I forgot the name). It was great collection since it was personally collected from Picasso (or other painter) so we got more stories behind the paintings.
After around two hours there I decided to buy lunch and some souvenirs. Then taking my luggage from the hostel. It was around 5pm already. My train departed at 05:54pm to Basel and then from Basel to Duess (oh this time I got a first class ticket with a cheap price...nice..). I got another nice sunset view on my train trip back to Duess, what a great way to finish my short trip to Switzerland :-)
Switzerland trip: Day 3
Started the day quite early to have a walk to Chateau de Chillon, the YH has really good location, it is exactly in the middle between Montreux city center and the castle along the lake Geneva promenade. It took me around 15 minutes to reach the castle and got a beautiful view of the castle and lake Geneva (a lot of nice pictures for sure :-P). I walked back to the YH and took my luggage to go to the city center. Spent some time to visit some souvenir shops (:-P) and to exchange some Swiss Franc there.
I headed to the train station to take the Golden pass trip to Lucerne via Zweisimmen (passing through Interlaken). As you know, I always love train trips so this is one of the highlight from my Switzerland trip (still have to try Glacier and Bernina express though..:-P). The Golden pass trip wad great, we passed through some beautiful lakes around Bernese Oberland area and pretty wooden houses on the green valley along the way. Though we only used the panoramic train between Montreux-Zweisimmen only.
I had two hours transit time in Zweisimmen, so I decided to explore the village a bit, bought some postcards and some food at the Coop supermarket. Then we continued the trip with a normal train, next stop was Interlaken Ost (too bad I could not spent some time there - for Jungfraujoch for sure). We had to change another train there, it was so warm outside and in the train but thankfully we had a great view outside the window :-P
I arrived around 7pm in Lucerne, still managed to visit the Tourist Information Center at the train station (and got a lot of info :-P). After having a dinner in a fast food restaurant (whose name I never heard before)I went directly to the hostel. I was tempted to join a tour to Mount Pilatus (because of the man at the hostel resception who promoted the tour and gave a good discounted price for it :-P). But not so long after I had shower, it was raining heavily (the first rain since I was in Switzerland) so I decided to leave out the Mount Pilatus trip.
I headed to the train station to take the Golden pass trip to Lucerne via Zweisimmen (passing through Interlaken). As you know, I always love train trips so this is one of the highlight from my Switzerland trip (still have to try Glacier and Bernina express though..:-P). The Golden pass trip wad great, we passed through some beautiful lakes around Bernese Oberland area and pretty wooden houses on the green valley along the way. Though we only used the panoramic train between Montreux-Zweisimmen only.
I had two hours transit time in Zweisimmen, so I decided to explore the village a bit, bought some postcards and some food at the Coop supermarket. Then we continued the trip with a normal train, next stop was Interlaken Ost (too bad I could not spent some time there - for Jungfraujoch for sure). We had to change another train there, it was so warm outside and in the train but thankfully we had a great view outside the window :-P
I arrived around 7pm in Lucerne, still managed to visit the Tourist Information Center at the train station (and got a lot of info :-P). After having a dinner in a fast food restaurant (whose name I never heard before)I went directly to the hostel. I was tempted to join a tour to Mount Pilatus (because of the man at the hostel resception who promoted the tour and gave a good discounted price for it :-P). But not so long after I had shower, it was raining heavily (the first rain since I was in Switzerland) so I decided to leave out the Mount Pilatus trip.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Switzerland trip: Day 2
I woke up early to catch the train to Lausanne at 08:10am. Arrived in Lausanne around 08:45, still quite early.. I went directly to the old town. The map that I had was a bit confusing and I could not find the Tourist Info Center at the old town. Lausanne has hilly landscape..had a bit exercise to walk around it. My ultimate plan for Lausanne is to visit Musee de l'Art Brut, which shares the same idea with Prinzhorn Sammlung (Prinzhorn collection) in Germany. L'art Brut itself can be translated to 'raw art'. It has an art collection from people who did not get or experience art education or stayed outside the art institution, mostly some psychiatric patients, or just some eccentric people.. It was impressive, looking through the collection sometimes you're wondering how people consider something as art or not :-)..but I like it a lot, it's unusual and has some interesting stories behind it. There is a painting collection that looks like kind of Japanese manga collection (a bit erotic one though) which always pictured someone with military uniform. In fact it was painted in the beginning of 20th centuries..by Aloise who worked as a teacher and governess in the court of Kaiser Willem II in Potsdam. She had a crush with the Kaiser. It's kind of platonic love that made her obsessed and she ended up in a psychiatric institution. Duh..it's sad indeed..
I took the train at 02:20pm to Montreux, decided to go directly to the Youth Hostel but turned out it only opens after 5pm. Good thing that Chateau de Chillon is located not far away from the YH (and they have luggage storage :-P). It's nice castle with the beautiful view of lake Geneva..I stayed there until around 6pm and returned back to the YH. I spent the rest of the day walking a long the lovely promenade to the city center of Montreux, watching people, visiting Freddy Mercury's statue at the market area. I was lucky with the nice weather and bit regret that I did nor bring my swimsuit since the YH is located really close to the lake. I got a beautiful sunset by lake Geneva that day...lovely..
I took the train at 02:20pm to Montreux, decided to go directly to the Youth Hostel but turned out it only opens after 5pm. Good thing that Chateau de Chillon is located not far away from the YH (and they have luggage storage :-P). It's nice castle with the beautiful view of lake Geneva..I stayed there until around 6pm and returned back to the YH. I spent the rest of the day walking a long the lovely promenade to the city center of Montreux, watching people, visiting Freddy Mercury's statue at the market area. I was lucky with the nice weather and bit regret that I did nor bring my swimsuit since the YH is located really close to the lake. I got a beautiful sunset by lake Geneva that day...lovely..
Switzerland trip: Day 1 (15.08.2009)
I arrived in Geneva around 2 pm by train (yup it's quite a long way from Duess), decided to go to the Youth Hostel (YH) with tram. I stayed in YH this time.. after some time..Switzerland is quite pricey and I don't want to spend 100EUR for staying at a normal hotel :-P.
I met and Italian man with his son at the tram stop close to the hostel. We are both looking for the YH and after some efforts to communicate to each other since he could only speak French (and Italian), we managed to find it.
My first destination is to go to the Red Cross museum which is located in United Nations area. Oh I got free two-day transportation tickets plus 50% disc of the Red Cross museum from the YH...nice... it's really wise to stay there :-P The museum was okay, a bit small but it has interesting collection. After that I headed to the city center for Jet d'Eau, the famous fountain of Geneva, and then walked around the old town. Initially I wanted to go to Cine de Lac (Orange cinema) which is a open cinema by the Geneva lake. I was there already actually but changed my mind since the movie played that day was in French :-P. I had dinner in Globus, eating a delicious Pad Thai (quite expensive though :-(), then returned to the YH around 11pm.
I met and Italian man with his son at the tram stop close to the hostel. We are both looking for the YH and after some efforts to communicate to each other since he could only speak French (and Italian), we managed to find it.
My first destination is to go to the Red Cross museum which is located in United Nations area. Oh I got free two-day transportation tickets plus 50% disc of the Red Cross museum from the YH...nice... it's really wise to stay there :-P The museum was okay, a bit small but it has interesting collection. After that I headed to the city center for Jet d'Eau, the famous fountain of Geneva, and then walked around the old town. Initially I wanted to go to Cine de Lac (Orange cinema) which is a open cinema by the Geneva lake. I was there already actually but changed my mind since the movie played that day was in French :-P. I had dinner in Globus, eating a delicious Pad Thai (quite expensive though :-(), then returned to the YH around 11pm.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Exploring Germany
I did several trips in Germany this year...tried more to explore the area where i live now :-). I have my wish list destinations in Germany and i did not realize i did quite good this year, thanks to some bank holidays on Thursdays which enabled me having some short trips :-P :-)
My first trip was a one-day trio to Bremen, I haven't explored the north side of Germany that much (only Hamburg), so one day I decided I want to go there. Got some tips from Tobias, my colleague who is originally from Bremen. Ole decided to join me for this trip (so I had a photographer :-P). We took quite early train (forgot exactly how early it was) and joined a guided tour in Rathaus (town hall) which is one of the Unesco World Heritage sites. Then we just enjoyed Bremen by foot..admiring the Roland statue in the Marktplatz and for sure the famous Bremer Stadtmusikanten. Walking along the pedestrian passage of Boettcherstrasse, the promenade, and the Schnoorviertel, the oldest quarter in the city. We managed to visit the art museum in Paula-Modersohn-Becker-Haus. We're lucky to have a nice sunny spring day and we left Bremen after an early dinner in one restaurant at the main square (forgot the name already :-P).
My second trip was to Nuernberg, my initial 'obsession' with this city is because its famous Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market), but Ole convinced me that it would be hard to enjoy Nuernberg during that period since there would be lots of people around. So during one of the Bruecketag (we took friday off because thursday was bank holiday) we went there. Nuernberg is a nice city with its pretty medieval old town. We stayed there one night, in the first day we basically walked around the old town, visited the Schoener Brunnen, the beautiful Kaiserburg, Albrecht-Duerer-Haus, Ehekarussell,and dropped by at the Japanese art exhibition in Stadtmuseum. The next day we went to Dokuzentrum in the Reichparteitagsgelaende (seriously I had to try several times before being able to pronounce it correctly :-P). It was an impressive experience to spend some time there, it's a must if you want to learn more about German history. We returned back to the old town around noon, had our lunch and then had another museum visit in Germanisches Nationalmuseum which is quite important museum in Germany (too much museum visit that day but Nuernberg has quite a lot of interesting museums indeed).
My last big exploring Germany trip was to Wuerzburg, Bamberg, and Rothenburg ob der Tauber, all of them (as well as Nuernberg ) are in Bayern (Bavaria) area in southern part of Germany, I did a solo trip this time. Wuerzburg was my first destination. First I visited the beautiful Fuerstbischoefliche Rezidenz which was considered as Balthasar Neumann's masterpiece. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most important Baroque palaces in Germany. Then I walked to the Rathaus area in the city center, had lunch there, and walked trough the promenade of Main river. I ended my walking tour by visiting the Festung Marienberg. I stayed overnight in Wuerzburg that day.
The next day, I took train to Bamberg. Bamberg is already in my wish list destination for some time. Some people recommended me to visit it and I instantly like this small city. It has a scenic old town with nice landscape, no wonder that the old town of Bamberg itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I love the view overlooking the Altes Rathaus (old town hall) across the river Regnitz or the frescoes in some buildings (do not remember the names anymore :-P). I continued my walk to the Dom area and decided to head up to the Kloster St. Michael. After that I just walked around the old town, enjoying the atmosphere (was nice weather and only some tourists around). I visited the Naturkundenmuseum (natural history museum) actually to visit its famous Vogelsaal (Birds' hall)which is claimed as one of the most beautiful early classical museum halls in Europe. But unfortunately it was being renovated when I was there :-(. Around late afternoon I left Bamberg for my last destination, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
I arrived in Rothenburg odT around 8pm, directly to go to the B&B I have booked. It was located inside the old town area so I could not resist the temptation to explore the town directly (it was summer btw, so it's not dark yet). And..yeah Rothernburg made me speechless, it's kind of an open air museum to me :-P (reminds me of Tallinn with its town wall). You'll get the feeling of coming to a medieval time, but you also get the feeling that everyone around you are tourists :-P. The beautiful Rathaus, the pretty houses and the cobbled lanes ...I could not stop taking pictures there. I walked around until the Alte Burg which is actually a garden surrounded by the town wall where we can look over the Tauber river (as its name, the town is located by the Tauber river). The next day I explored the small town more, visited its Reichsstadtmuseum, and basically just enjoying the medieval town including trying its specialty: Schneeball (snow ball), which is quite okay (though Lonely Planet wrote it as one of the worst local specialties in Europe :-P).
I left Rothenburg in the evening...totally satisfied with my three-beautiful-city
trip...
My first trip was a one-day trio to Bremen, I haven't explored the north side of Germany that much (only Hamburg), so one day I decided I want to go there. Got some tips from Tobias, my colleague who is originally from Bremen. Ole decided to join me for this trip (so I had a photographer :-P). We took quite early train (forgot exactly how early it was) and joined a guided tour in Rathaus (town hall) which is one of the Unesco World Heritage sites. Then we just enjoyed Bremen by foot..admiring the Roland statue in the Marktplatz and for sure the famous Bremer Stadtmusikanten. Walking along the pedestrian passage of Boettcherstrasse, the promenade, and the Schnoorviertel, the oldest quarter in the city. We managed to visit the art museum in Paula-Modersohn-Becker-Haus. We're lucky to have a nice sunny spring day and we left Bremen after an early dinner in one restaurant at the main square (forgot the name already :-P).
My second trip was to Nuernberg, my initial 'obsession' with this city is because its famous Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market), but Ole convinced me that it would be hard to enjoy Nuernberg during that period since there would be lots of people around. So during one of the Bruecketag (we took friday off because thursday was bank holiday) we went there. Nuernberg is a nice city with its pretty medieval old town. We stayed there one night, in the first day we basically walked around the old town, visited the Schoener Brunnen, the beautiful Kaiserburg, Albrecht-Duerer-Haus, Ehekarussell,and dropped by at the Japanese art exhibition in Stadtmuseum. The next day we went to Dokuzentrum in the Reichparteitagsgelaende (seriously I had to try several times before being able to pronounce it correctly :-P). It was an impressive experience to spend some time there, it's a must if you want to learn more about German history. We returned back to the old town around noon, had our lunch and then had another museum visit in Germanisches Nationalmuseum which is quite important museum in Germany (too much museum visit that day but Nuernberg has quite a lot of interesting museums indeed).
My last big exploring Germany trip was to Wuerzburg, Bamberg, and Rothenburg ob der Tauber, all of them (as well as Nuernberg ) are in Bayern (Bavaria) area in southern part of Germany, I did a solo trip this time. Wuerzburg was my first destination. First I visited the beautiful Fuerstbischoefliche Rezidenz which was considered as Balthasar Neumann's masterpiece. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most important Baroque palaces in Germany. Then I walked to the Rathaus area in the city center, had lunch there, and walked trough the promenade of Main river. I ended my walking tour by visiting the Festung Marienberg. I stayed overnight in Wuerzburg that day.
The next day, I took train to Bamberg. Bamberg is already in my wish list destination for some time. Some people recommended me to visit it and I instantly like this small city. It has a scenic old town with nice landscape, no wonder that the old town of Bamberg itself is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I love the view overlooking the Altes Rathaus (old town hall) across the river Regnitz or the frescoes in some buildings (do not remember the names anymore :-P). I continued my walk to the Dom area and decided to head up to the Kloster St. Michael. After that I just walked around the old town, enjoying the atmosphere (was nice weather and only some tourists around). I visited the Naturkundenmuseum (natural history museum) actually to visit its famous Vogelsaal (Birds' hall)which is claimed as one of the most beautiful early classical museum halls in Europe. But unfortunately it was being renovated when I was there :-(. Around late afternoon I left Bamberg for my last destination, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
I arrived in Rothenburg odT around 8pm, directly to go to the B&B I have booked. It was located inside the old town area so I could not resist the temptation to explore the town directly (it was summer btw, so it's not dark yet). And..yeah Rothernburg made me speechless, it's kind of an open air museum to me :-P (reminds me of Tallinn with its town wall). You'll get the feeling of coming to a medieval time, but you also get the feeling that everyone around you are tourists :-P. The beautiful Rathaus, the pretty houses and the cobbled lanes ...I could not stop taking pictures there. I walked around until the Alte Burg which is actually a garden surrounded by the town wall where we can look over the Tauber river (as its name, the town is located by the Tauber river). The next day I explored the small town more, visited its Reichsstadtmuseum, and basically just enjoying the medieval town including trying its specialty: Schneeball (snow ball), which is quite okay (though Lonely Planet wrote it as one of the worst local specialties in Europe :-P).
I left Rothenburg in the evening...totally satisfied with my three-beautiful-city
trip...
Euro trip with mom and dad
My mom and dad visited me last Spring..yes I know it's been a while already :-P Got no motivation to update my blog lately. Life was bit busy especially with my short-time travels that I did quite often this year :-P
My parents arrived in Germany end of April. It was my dad's first time to visit Europe but my mom's second time. I hadn't booked any trip yet when they came since everything depends on their physical ability (e.g. jet lag recovery etc), but I had some itineraries for sure. My dad wanted to visit Italy so I prepared an itinerary to visit Rome and Venice (plus Milan since I found cheaper flight tickets to Milan compared to Rome or Venice).
I was surprised when the next day after they arrived, both my mom and dad were so excited to start their European trip already, so we decided to visit the Netherlands for the long weekend. We had a day trip to Roermond (yup..a shopping trip indeed...) but I like Roermond city center too, it's quite a lovely small city. The next day we took the Duess-Venlo train route again, this time to Amsterdam (only a glance of Amsterdam actually) and Volendam then stayed over night in Den Haag. We managed to walked around Den Haag in the next day after visiting the lovely Keukenhof and had lunch in Java House (my fave Indonesian resto in DH :-P). Then we headed to Roosendaal to visit my aunt before returned back to Duesseldorf. My dad was so excited with the whole train trip (thanks also to my 40% disc card :-P), he always wrote down the name of every station that we passed through in his notes :-)
The next week was some relaxing days in Duess for my parents since I had to work :-P (but also to give them some recovery time after quite a long journey). We departed to Milan in the weekend, quite early in the morning (I took one week holiday). We still had some time to experience Milan with its Duomo. Which was actually my hidden agenda since the last time I visited Milan the Duomo was still under construction. Milan's Duomo is one of the most beautiful cathedrals that I have visited imo. Then we took train (that I have booked before) to Rome. We arrived in Rome late in the afternoon after finally managed to find the office of the apartment that we rented (it's quite an adventure with our luggage and considering that my parents did not get used to walk that much, oh and plus it was quite warm in Rome). Had a relaxing evening in the apartment, the location was great, only less than 50m to the famous Colosseum also it has small supermarket and some restaurants nearby). We stayed in Rome for three nights (but only) two days since we left Rome in the morning to Venice. Rome was definitely nice and has a lot of things to offer but my parents were not that happy with such crowded, noisy and warm Rome (they said they like Duess more :-P) ...
We arrived in Venice late afternoon after quite a long train trip. Again a bit adventure to get the apartment keys. But this time I learned from our previous experience, I asked my parents to wait at the train station with our luggage so that I could find the office of the apt rental faster. The apt in Venice was better than the one in Rome. It's more modern and also cheaper. We still had some time to walked around Venice that day (and my mom likes it a lot..yup a lot of nice shops :-P), visited San Marco, did some window shopping, and bought some stuff in the supermarket close to the apartment. We only stayed one night in Venice (the one that my mom regretted :-P..). After doing some walk around again and some photo sessions, we left Venice for Milan in the afternoon. Our flight back to Duess was late evening from Milan.
We returned back from Italy on Wednesday night after spending five days there. Initially I planned to take my parents to Paris for the weekend but could not find the cheap tickets to go there anymore. Accidentally I found a good train ticket deal to Bruges (38EUR return/person with ICE). Bruges is one of my fave cities, so we went there on Friday morning and spent two days there. Bruges was still lovely but it was quite cold and rainy when we were there.
The next week, the third week, was another relaxing days for my parents (and I worked again), but that Thursday was a bank holiday and I took another day off on Friday so we had a long weekend to explore some places around Duess before my parents left for Indonesian on Sunday. We went to Bonn-Bruehl-Koeln and also explored Duess too :-P I invited some friends for lunch to meet my parents. And yeah it was great having my parents here, happy that they are still healthy for the long trip and we also had fun baking some cookies and cooking together in my apartment. I took them to Frankfurt on Sunday and was really glad that they enjoyed their three-week holiday in Europe.
Thanks a lot mom and dad for the visit, love you always :-)
See our pics here.
My parents arrived in Germany end of April. It was my dad's first time to visit Europe but my mom's second time. I hadn't booked any trip yet when they came since everything depends on their physical ability (e.g. jet lag recovery etc), but I had some itineraries for sure. My dad wanted to visit Italy so I prepared an itinerary to visit Rome and Venice (plus Milan since I found cheaper flight tickets to Milan compared to Rome or Venice).
I was surprised when the next day after they arrived, both my mom and dad were so excited to start their European trip already, so we decided to visit the Netherlands for the long weekend. We had a day trip to Roermond (yup..a shopping trip indeed...) but I like Roermond city center too, it's quite a lovely small city. The next day we took the Duess-Venlo train route again, this time to Amsterdam (only a glance of Amsterdam actually) and Volendam then stayed over night in Den Haag. We managed to walked around Den Haag in the next day after visiting the lovely Keukenhof and had lunch in Java House (my fave Indonesian resto in DH :-P). Then we headed to Roosendaal to visit my aunt before returned back to Duesseldorf. My dad was so excited with the whole train trip (thanks also to my 40% disc card :-P), he always wrote down the name of every station that we passed through in his notes :-)
The next week was some relaxing days in Duess for my parents since I had to work :-P (but also to give them some recovery time after quite a long journey). We departed to Milan in the weekend, quite early in the morning (I took one week holiday). We still had some time to experience Milan with its Duomo. Which was actually my hidden agenda since the last time I visited Milan the Duomo was still under construction. Milan's Duomo is one of the most beautiful cathedrals that I have visited imo. Then we took train (that I have booked before) to Rome. We arrived in Rome late in the afternoon after finally managed to find the office of the apartment that we rented (it's quite an adventure with our luggage and considering that my parents did not get used to walk that much, oh and plus it was quite warm in Rome). Had a relaxing evening in the apartment, the location was great, only less than 50m to the famous Colosseum also it has small supermarket and some restaurants nearby). We stayed in Rome for three nights (but only) two days since we left Rome in the morning to Venice. Rome was definitely nice and has a lot of things to offer but my parents were not that happy with such crowded, noisy and warm Rome (they said they like Duess more :-P) ...
We arrived in Venice late afternoon after quite a long train trip. Again a bit adventure to get the apartment keys. But this time I learned from our previous experience, I asked my parents to wait at the train station with our luggage so that I could find the office of the apt rental faster. The apt in Venice was better than the one in Rome. It's more modern and also cheaper. We still had some time to walked around Venice that day (and my mom likes it a lot..yup a lot of nice shops :-P), visited San Marco, did some window shopping, and bought some stuff in the supermarket close to the apartment. We only stayed one night in Venice (the one that my mom regretted :-P..). After doing some walk around again and some photo sessions, we left Venice for Milan in the afternoon. Our flight back to Duess was late evening from Milan.
We returned back from Italy on Wednesday night after spending five days there. Initially I planned to take my parents to Paris for the weekend but could not find the cheap tickets to go there anymore. Accidentally I found a good train ticket deal to Bruges (38EUR return/person with ICE). Bruges is one of my fave cities, so we went there on Friday morning and spent two days there. Bruges was still lovely but it was quite cold and rainy when we were there.
The next week, the third week, was another relaxing days for my parents (and I worked again), but that Thursday was a bank holiday and I took another day off on Friday so we had a long weekend to explore some places around Duess before my parents left for Indonesian on Sunday. We went to Bonn-Bruehl-Koeln and also explored Duess too :-P I invited some friends for lunch to meet my parents. And yeah it was great having my parents here, happy that they are still healthy for the long trip and we also had fun baking some cookies and cooking together in my apartment. I took them to Frankfurt on Sunday and was really glad that they enjoyed their three-week holiday in Europe.
Thanks a lot mom and dad for the visit, love you always :-)
See our pics here.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Cantabria - Basque country: Day 4
My ultimate destination in Bilbao was to visit Guggenheim museum though for sure I still wanted to see around Bilbao, one of the city in Basque Country. I started my day before 10am and walked around Bilbao a bit before went to the museum. Bilbao was once an ugly industrial city, some friends told me that there are not so many things to see there. But I found out it was quite a nice city, the old town area is quite nice though it was not that 'bling-bling'. I read somewhere that the city really put a lot of efforts to make itself pretty recently. The Guggenheim museum was one real example of the effort to attract visitors to Bilbao. The museum was designed by Frank Gehry around 1997 (that's one of my motivation to go there since we also have one of Gehry's building in Duesseldorf). I have to admit it is an impressive building inspired by anatomy of a fish and the hull of a boat.
I joined the free English guided tour at 11am and was a nice way to walk through the museum. Lucky me...there was an interesting exhibition from Takashi Murakami (nothing to do with Haruki Murakami....at least as far as I know). I like it so much, the permanent exhibition is quite cool and also the Guggenheim video collections. I have watched one of them which really impressed me, forgot the name though..
It was late afternoon when I finally decided that I had enough time in Guggenheim museum. I went back to the old town area, picked up my luggage and returned back to Santander to catch up my flight. It was a short refreshing holiday, a bit adventurous one but was nice...really nice to get a glimpse of warm before returning to the cold :-P
I joined the free English guided tour at 11am and was a nice way to walk through the museum. Lucky me...there was an interesting exhibition from Takashi Murakami (nothing to do with Haruki Murakami....at least as far as I know). I like it so much, the permanent exhibition is quite cool and also the Guggenheim video collections. I have watched one of them which really impressed me, forgot the name though..
It was late afternoon when I finally decided that I had enough time in Guggenheim museum. I went back to the old town area, picked up my luggage and returned back to Santander to catch up my flight. It was a short refreshing holiday, a bit adventurous one but was nice...really nice to get a glimpse of warm before returning to the cold :-P
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Cantabria - Basque country: Day 3
After collected all bus and train schedules that I need for my Cantabria trip, I successfully managed to find the optimal itinerary (after implemented all the methods I knew :-P, but seriously it took quite some time to get the solution given that I only had one day). The plan was to take train to San Vincente de la Barquera (in the direction to Oviedo, which was recommended by LP as the scenic train along the Cantabria-Asturia region), spent some time there and take bus to Comillas before return to Santander to take another bus to Bilbao (since I have booked a hostel in Bilbao that night).
I started the day around 9am to catch the train to San Vincente de la Barquerra, it was indeed a scenic train trip, made me feel like I was in Scotland, was not a long trip though, only around 1.5 hrs. I should try the whole route to Oviedo someday :-P What surprised me was the San Vincente's train station is very small and it is located somehow in the middle of nowhere. I could not imagine if I arrived there when it's dark already :-P.. It was good thing that there were 2 more people stop at the station so I could follow them to the town center. I imagined that San Vincente is a bigger town with a lot of tourists..that's why I really made sure several time that the name of the train stop was really the town that I intended to go, and it was indeed the right one :-P The train station is a bit far away from the town center, it took me around 15 mins walk to reach the center. I went to the town hall and the castle but found that it was closed at that day :-( I found the Tourist Information Center to get more info on what else I could see (and to make sure where is the location of the bus to Comillas). Then I walked to the direction of the port with its colorful boats. It was really warm around 21C, but it did not stop me to enjoy San Vincente.
I planned to take the bus at 15:15 to Comillas and decided to have a real lunch (seafood Paella...a huge one.. that's it :-P). I was at the bus station around 15:05 and there were nobody there except some people at the bar, no sign that there will be bus departing in 10mins and I know that San Vincente is the starting point of the route. I was waiting...until 15:15 and still there was still no sign and I started to get worry.. I decided to ask people at the bar and found out that nobody could speak English :-( So I tried my best to use any possible communication tool, I pointed my schedule and one guy and the waitress tried to explain me something....but I did not get it. They told me (or actually they wrote me the time)the next bus would be at 17:00. I asked them if I could go by taxi there, since Comillas is actually about 10 mins trip from San Vincente. But they told me it will be expensive and he started to draw something which finally got me. There was a construction on the way from San Vincente to Comillas, so they have to use another way which took another 15 mins or so... and that what happened with the bus schedule, they made the departure time 15 mins earlier so that they could catch up the next schedule at the other towns.... Hwaaa I finally got that (I saw the sign of 15 mins blablabla at the bus...but since I did not have any problem with the schedule previously so I did not really care about it :-P). That was a short version of how I finally understood the problem, the real one was a bit...hmm painful :-P. Well so I gave up the idea to visit Comillas (and visiting one of Gaudi's) which gives me another reason to visit this area again :-).
At the end of the day I made it to Bilbao....was quite late but it was a good time to go directly to bed :-)
I started the day around 9am to catch the train to San Vincente de la Barquerra, it was indeed a scenic train trip, made me feel like I was in Scotland, was not a long trip though, only around 1.5 hrs. I should try the whole route to Oviedo someday :-P What surprised me was the San Vincente's train station is very small and it is located somehow in the middle of nowhere. I could not imagine if I arrived there when it's dark already :-P.. It was good thing that there were 2 more people stop at the station so I could follow them to the town center. I imagined that San Vincente is a bigger town with a lot of tourists..that's why I really made sure several time that the name of the train stop was really the town that I intended to go, and it was indeed the right one :-P The train station is a bit far away from the town center, it took me around 15 mins walk to reach the center. I went to the town hall and the castle but found that it was closed at that day :-( I found the Tourist Information Center to get more info on what else I could see (and to make sure where is the location of the bus to Comillas). Then I walked to the direction of the port with its colorful boats. It was really warm around 21C, but it did not stop me to enjoy San Vincente.
I planned to take the bus at 15:15 to Comillas and decided to have a real lunch (seafood Paella...a huge one.. that's it :-P). I was at the bus station around 15:05 and there were nobody there except some people at the bar, no sign that there will be bus departing in 10mins and I know that San Vincente is the starting point of the route. I was waiting...until 15:15 and still there was still no sign and I started to get worry.. I decided to ask people at the bar and found out that nobody could speak English :-( So I tried my best to use any possible communication tool, I pointed my schedule and one guy and the waitress tried to explain me something....but I did not get it. They told me (or actually they wrote me the time)the next bus would be at 17:00. I asked them if I could go by taxi there, since Comillas is actually about 10 mins trip from San Vincente. But they told me it will be expensive and he started to draw something which finally got me. There was a construction on the way from San Vincente to Comillas, so they have to use another way which took another 15 mins or so... and that what happened with the bus schedule, they made the departure time 15 mins earlier so that they could catch up the next schedule at the other towns.... Hwaaa I finally got that (I saw the sign of 15 mins blablabla at the bus...but since I did not have any problem with the schedule previously so I did not really care about it :-P). That was a short version of how I finally understood the problem, the real one was a bit...hmm painful :-P. Well so I gave up the idea to visit Comillas (and visiting one of Gaudi's) which gives me another reason to visit this area again :-).
At the end of the day I made it to Bilbao....was quite late but it was a good time to go directly to bed :-)
Cantabria - Basque country: Day 1 and 2
I haven't decided to take this holiday until the last minutes but I have read some info about this area before. I like that kind of reading as you might know :-P To those who do not know Santander, it is one of the big cities in Cantabria region, a region in the north of Spain which famous of its spectacular coast line along the bay of Biscay. This area, I learned from several sources, is quite different from the other areas in Spain with its mountainous landscape. It's kind of coasts and mountains in the same area region.
I arrived in Santander quite late around 9pm, I have booked a pension close to the train station in Santander and I was so happy that I followed my intuition to buy a Spanish dictionary at the airport. The lady who welcomed me at the pension could not speak English at all, she knew that I could not speak Spanish (she asked me when I just arrived) but she continued to speak Spanish to me :-P I haven't been in Spain for quite some time (last time was my Segovia-Madrid-Seville-Granada-Algeciras-Barcelona trip in Dec 2005-Jan 2006...gosh 3 years ago...did not realize that) I forgot most of my basic Spanish for survival sentences :-P That lady tried to tell me something but I had no clue at all what she wanted to say and after saw my blank face she decided to grab someone who can speak English (and Spanish) as a translator. It turned out that she wanted to ask me whether I was happy with the room she showed me because otherwise there was a bigger room in different building :-P So much for my first day in Santander...lol..
The next day, I planned to go to Santillana del Mar and the famous Altamira cave. After checking the bus schedule, I found out that the earliest bus that day was at 11:30am (and I really had to be careful with the bus schedule since there are not so many departures...again it's quite an adventure to rely on public transportation). I spent some time to explore Santander that morning, strolling around its promenade and visiting its beautiful cathedral which really reminded me of a building in Oxford when you went inside.
I arrived in Santillana del Mar around noon and I knew from the tourist office in Santander that I had to go by foot or by taxi to reach Altamira cave museum from Santillana. At first I was really thinking about taking taxi (yeah it's holiday, wasn't it :-P) to save some time (quite a valid reason I would say..hehe) but I could not find a taxi there or actually I could not find the taxi driver (there was a taxi parked nearby the bus stop). So I had to walk...first of all I was not sure where to go, I had a map though but took some time to figure out the direction :-P The guy at the tourist office told me Altamira is about 2 kms from Santillana but he did not mention that it was uphill..it was noon, I had no lunch and it was quite warm (which was good but could be exhausting too). Thankfully the view was nice...though it was really only me who walked in the direction of the museum at that time :-P
Altamira museum was impressive...it made me think how's life 18000 years ago. It's a pity that we could not see the real caves but the museum was great (it was free of charge when I visited there). By the time I finished my museum tour I knew that I could not take the bus I planned to take to return to Santander. I arrived back in Santillana around 4pm and almost all the shops were closed for siesta, so I only walked around the scenic village. Santillana is beautiful village with its cobblestone street. I visited the roman Colegiata de Santa Juliana, a beautiful 12th century monastery which is the highlight of the village. I also visited the Museo Diocesano, another monastery at the other end of the village which I found had quite bizarre collection. First of all, I was the only visitor there and it was almost dark already when I was there and their cryptic collection (plus its two level wooden floor) did not really make me enjoying the moments I spent in that museum. But overall Santillana is pretty and I managed to catch the latest bus to Santander around 7pm...:-)
I arrived in Santander quite late around 9pm, I have booked a pension close to the train station in Santander and I was so happy that I followed my intuition to buy a Spanish dictionary at the airport. The lady who welcomed me at the pension could not speak English at all, she knew that I could not speak Spanish (she asked me when I just arrived) but she continued to speak Spanish to me :-P I haven't been in Spain for quite some time (last time was my Segovia-Madrid-Seville-Granada-Algeciras-Barcelona trip in Dec 2005-Jan 2006...gosh 3 years ago...did not realize that) I forgot most of my basic Spanish for survival sentences :-P That lady tried to tell me something but I had no clue at all what she wanted to say and after saw my blank face she decided to grab someone who can speak English (and Spanish) as a translator. It turned out that she wanted to ask me whether I was happy with the room she showed me because otherwise there was a bigger room in different building :-P So much for my first day in Santander...lol..
The next day, I planned to go to Santillana del Mar and the famous Altamira cave. After checking the bus schedule, I found out that the earliest bus that day was at 11:30am (and I really had to be careful with the bus schedule since there are not so many departures...again it's quite an adventure to rely on public transportation). I spent some time to explore Santander that morning, strolling around its promenade and visiting its beautiful cathedral which really reminded me of a building in Oxford when you went inside.
I arrived in Santillana del Mar around noon and I knew from the tourist office in Santander that I had to go by foot or by taxi to reach Altamira cave museum from Santillana. At first I was really thinking about taking taxi (yeah it's holiday, wasn't it :-P) to save some time (quite a valid reason I would say..hehe) but I could not find a taxi there or actually I could not find the taxi driver (there was a taxi parked nearby the bus stop). So I had to walk...first of all I was not sure where to go, I had a map though but took some time to figure out the direction :-P The guy at the tourist office told me Altamira is about 2 kms from Santillana but he did not mention that it was uphill..it was noon, I had no lunch and it was quite warm (which was good but could be exhausting too). Thankfully the view was nice...though it was really only me who walked in the direction of the museum at that time :-P
Altamira museum was impressive...it made me think how's life 18000 years ago. It's a pity that we could not see the real caves but the museum was great (it was free of charge when I visited there). By the time I finished my museum tour I knew that I could not take the bus I planned to take to return to Santander. I arrived back in Santillana around 4pm and almost all the shops were closed for siesta, so I only walked around the scenic village. Santillana is beautiful village with its cobblestone street. I visited the roman Colegiata de Santa Juliana, a beautiful 12th century monastery which is the highlight of the village. I also visited the Museo Diocesano, another monastery at the other end of the village which I found had quite bizarre collection. First of all, I was the only visitor there and it was almost dark already when I was there and their cryptic collection (plus its two level wooden floor) did not really make me enjoying the moments I spent in that museum. But overall Santillana is pretty and I managed to catch the latest bus to Santander around 7pm...:-)
Cantabria and Basque country - Introduction
Haven't had time to update this blog with my latest trip in north Spain in March. Life has been busy lately, during the weekdays and weekends :-). Basically I lost my fight with my addiction (yeah traveling addict that's it). I should have been in a traveling fasting period but I could not stand for cheap flight deals, so somehow someday (in Feb I think) I found a cheap flight (2 cents for return trips) to Santander in northern Spain. I haven't been to the north of Spain before and to be honest I haven't heard about Santander before I knew those cheap flight deals, all I knew about north of Spain was Santiago des Campostela and Bilbao. I was interested when I found more information about the city and decided to book the flight...it was only 2 cents anyway that's after tax though I had to pay 10 EUR for my credit card charge....but still...it's a cheap deal (besides I did not know that charge until I saw the confirmation email :-P..and I could not imagine 2 cents charge on my credit card hehe).
Okay I booked those flights but I haven't decided to go at that time, sounds weird indeed but it happened :-P. I still had 2 days from my annual leave last year that I had to finish before the end of March so four day holiday (plus weekend) was a good option. But I was not sure to spend some money for my holiday (outside the 10.02 EUR that I have paid for my flight tickets) as I said I should have been in my traveling fasting period :-P.
My flight was on Saturday evening, March 7 and I finally decided to go when I woke up on that Saturday :-P I felt like I had to go to Spain that day...lol... so I just packed my stuff after that...and I did not really care about my battle with my traveling addiction (besides I have some friends who supported me with my 'go for holiday' decision :-P thanks guys!!).
Okay I booked those flights but I haven't decided to go at that time, sounds weird indeed but it happened :-P. I still had 2 days from my annual leave last year that I had to finish before the end of March so four day holiday (plus weekend) was a good option. But I was not sure to spend some money for my holiday (outside the 10.02 EUR that I have paid for my flight tickets) as I said I should have been in my traveling fasting period :-P.
My flight was on Saturday evening, March 7 and I finally decided to go when I woke up on that Saturday :-P I felt like I had to go to Spain that day...lol... so I just packed my stuff after that...and I did not really care about my battle with my traveling addiction (besides I have some friends who supported me with my 'go for holiday' decision :-P thanks guys!!).
Monday, February 23, 2009
Karneval and movies weekend
It was Karneval time again several days ago. This year I managed (finally) to see the Rosenmontagszug (the carnival parade) in Koeln, which is considered as the center of the Karneval celebration in Rheinland. It was my second Karneval in this area and last year I joined the celebration in Duesseldorf. I remembered watching the Rosenmontagszug in cold and rain for three hours with Yuko, see my previous post.
The big carnival celebration starts from Thursday before Ash Wednesday at 11:11. We had Berliner at the office as what we had last year and after office hours Luam, Andreas, and I went to the Altstadt (Old town) of Duesseldorf. A lot of people have started wearing their carnival costume since that Thursday and it was fun to see their creativity :-) We were in the Altstadt around 18:30 and the area was already full of (drunk) people...We only walked around the Altstadt for a while and decided to leave, was so d*mn cold that evening.
On Friday I decided to start my movie weekend, the Oscar award announcement was on Sunday evening (which was Monday early morning for us in Germany and we were free on Monday, a good chance to see it live on TV), so it's kind of good excuse to watch some good movies that were nominated for Oscar. I watched Frost/Nixon in the previous weekend and Milk on that Friday, then Benjamin Button on Saturday, and The Reader on Sunday (thanks to Fai).
Cyna and Irma - Cyna's friend joined me to see a small parade in Koenigsalle on Sunday afternoon. It was small parade but quite nice, a lot of people also some children with their carnival costumes (so cute). I invited Cyna and Irma to my apartment after walking along the Rhine and around Altstadt. Cyna baked a cake ;-) and I cooked Pecel or actually I pushed them to finish Pecel that I have cooked in the morning. After that, it was watching Oscar time with Cyna who stayed overnight at my apartment. I slept around 6am, Cyna has 'gone' before that :-P
We woke up around 9:30am (less than 4hrs sleep for me :-P) and then got ready for Koeln. We planned to take the train around 10:40 but did not make it because there was no tram to Hauptbahnhof (main station) from my apartment. Not really big deal actually...it was around 20 mins walking but the plan to be in Koeln before 12 was ruined :-P. Finally after a bit waiting time and standing all the way to Koeln (so crowded as it was expected), we reached Koeln around 13. Koeln was already full of people with costumes. It was difficult to find a place that still enabled us to really see the parade, but we found a spot not so far away from Koeln Dom together with two Indonesian friends of Cynara that we met accidentally.
I think the parade in Duesseldorf last year was even better or maybe because the financial crisis also affected the spending to decorate all the cars, have no idea. But sure being in Koeln in Rosenmontag was quite experience. The people were 'wilder' and they knew (at least the people around me) all the Koeln songs by heart and they danced too even we stood so close to each other (which made us join them) :-P The most interesting thing was the generosity of the sweet things that were thrown. It was not only small candies or chocolates, but they also 'thrown' us boxes of pralines. I got one small and one big boxes and also some candies and chocolates (see picture below). It made us a bit hesitate to leave the parade before it was over (hehe), but we decided to leave at 16:00. On the way to Hauptbahnhof, we met another friend of Cyna with her Brazilian group. We talked a bit and took picture with Brazilian flags (and accused to be Brazilian by one of her friend :-P)... Then.. we returned to Duess, still found no tram to our apartments, was quite a struggle indeed but we were happy we made it :-)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Some weekend getaways..
No big traveling plan until now.. quite unusual to me, especially because (so far) I plan to stay in Duesseldorf during Easter holiday. Normally I always have a traveling plan during Easter...we have a long weekend here from Friday to Monday, with another four days off, we can get 10 days holiday. Last year I had my Scotland trip with Yuko, the year before...I think it was South France trip with the Eindhoven guys..
It is quite hard (seriously) to avoid the temptation to book the flight ticket (or train ticket..:-P), but so far I am still strong enough. The reason is that I don't have much traveling budget for now..still have to"fill up" my apartment and I plan to travel to Italy with my parents who will visit me in May, so that's my only traveling plan for the first half of this year.
But talking about not having traveling plan, it does not mean that I did not travel at all actually..... On my first weekend in Germany after returning from Indonesia, Ole asked me to join him for skiing in Winterberg, my first skiing experience.
Mid of Jan, I had Kick off meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands from Thursday-Saturday. I continued the NL trip to Eindhoven having alumni meeting and dinner with some friends there. Stayed in Houten at Anna's. Then visiting Ichsan-Chika in Den Haag...hehehe, touring NL indeed. I fell in love with DH because the shops there open on Sundays (also because they have a lot of Indonesian restaurants) :-P....
Last weekend, Nanda invited me for her housewarming party since she just moved to Sassenheim, 15 mins by bus from Leiden. So another Netherlands trip. Meeting some Eindhoven guys there...having a fun Indonesian gathering (thanks Nanda)...missed that so much :-) I stayed at Nanda and Ari's house and the next day leaving for DH for grocery shopping and visiting Ichsan-Chika again (though we just met the day before hehe).
I met also Dina-Ricky, Fai, Aryo, Dina's friend...and they asked me to join them to Java House. I could not resist the temptation, though initially I planned to take the train at 3pm to return to Duess via Venlo. I left them (still) in Java House around 5pm, but I was not lucky that time. There was an electricity problem somewhere around Rotterdam, so I had to take train to Utrecht, Utrecht-Eindhoven, Eindhoven-Venlo, Venlo-Monchengladbach, Monchengladbach-Duess.....a long way to Duess :-( I arrived home several mins before midnight....completely tired but had a fun weekend :-)
It is quite hard (seriously) to avoid the temptation to book the flight ticket (or train ticket..:-P), but so far I am still strong enough. The reason is that I don't have much traveling budget for now..still have to"fill up" my apartment and I plan to travel to Italy with my parents who will visit me in May, so that's my only traveling plan for the first half of this year.
But talking about not having traveling plan, it does not mean that I did not travel at all actually..... On my first weekend in Germany after returning from Indonesia, Ole asked me to join him for skiing in Winterberg, my first skiing experience.
Mid of Jan, I had Kick off meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands from Thursday-Saturday. I continued the NL trip to Eindhoven having alumni meeting and dinner with some friends there. Stayed in Houten at Anna's. Then visiting Ichsan-Chika in Den Haag...hehehe, touring NL indeed. I fell in love with DH because the shops there open on Sundays (also because they have a lot of Indonesian restaurants) :-P....
Last weekend, Nanda invited me for her housewarming party since she just moved to Sassenheim, 15 mins by bus from Leiden. So another Netherlands trip. Meeting some Eindhoven guys there...having a fun Indonesian gathering (thanks Nanda)...missed that so much :-) I stayed at Nanda and Ari's house and the next day leaving for DH for grocery shopping and visiting Ichsan-Chika again (though we just met the day before hehe).
I met also Dina-Ricky, Fai, Aryo, Dina's friend...and they asked me to join them to Java House. I could not resist the temptation, though initially I planned to take the train at 3pm to return to Duess via Venlo. I left them (still) in Java House around 5pm, but I was not lucky that time. There was an electricity problem somewhere around Rotterdam, so I had to take train to Utrecht, Utrecht-Eindhoven, Eindhoven-Venlo, Venlo-Monchengladbach, Monchengladbach-Duess.....a long way to Duess :-( I arrived home several mins before midnight....completely tired but had a fun weekend :-)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Flores trip: Day 7
We left the hotel around 6am, our flight was at 7am and there was already quite a long queue when we arrived at the airport. We queued up for check in and somehow it was a bit chaotic. After a while we just realized that everything's done manually (including the manual weight meter for our luggage). They wanted to issue a new ticket for us (did not really get it at that time why we had to get a new one). There were three persons behind the desks busy writing the new tickets and the boarding passes. Basically we showed the officer our tickets and his colleague weighed our luggage and gave them tags. Then we had to wait until he called our names and gave us our new tickets and the boarding passes. At that time we realized that we got a bonus transit to Kupang, in west Timor which is actually in the opposite direction to Denpasar. They said that was because the flight to Kupang the previous day was canceled. I was still thinking positive about it, giving me another island to step on..that's quite a bonus :-P... though a bit worried for Runi since she had her connecting flight at noon to Balikpapan.
Everything's okay, we landed at El Tari airport in Kupang and I thought that we only dropped the people that originally wanted to fly to Kupang. But they asked us to leave the plane. I was still excited, yee another island for this trip. When we reached the arrival area, I saw there were several officers surrounded by some passengers. There I heard that our flight to Denpasar would be at 3pm, which was like more than six hours transit time in Kupang. After making sure what I heard (yeah 3pm) I also knew that actually the plane that brought us from Maumere still continued the flight to Surabaya (or Jakarta) via Denpasar. I did not really get that actually, what I knew was they still flew to Denpasar but not with us (the people who just flew from Maumere). Runi was a bit panicked and she decided if she could get a ticket to Jakarta, she would fly there to get another connecting flight to Balikpapan since there are more options to fly from Jakarta than Denpasar. Ole and I just waited for Runi to get the solution for her problem (the one that I regret later on since I should have fought for the flight ticket to Denpasar that morning), we still confused what to do for the next six hours stranded in Kupang. When finally we met Runi, she got the ticket to Denpasar that would depart immediately without having to pay anything. That was the time when I felt that we did a mistake to just given up flying to Denpasar with the morning flight, we should have made up a connecting flight that we had to catch...but anyway, the idea was too late, all the seat were taken already.
So to make the story shorter, we decided to enjoy Kupang a bit. Getting the info from Lonely Planet, we decided to visit the museum. The airport is a quite far away from the city center and the taxi costs us 60K rupiahs...we decided to use angkot, a typical public transportation in Indonesia in the form of a small minibus. It has been quite a while for me to use angkot... when was the last time... I could not remember it anymore :-P
The museum visit was quite great , glad that we decided to do it. We had a guide who explained almost all the things that were displayed in the museum. It displays some traditional clothes from different areas in East Nusa Tenggara (Kupang is the capital of East Nusa Tenggara), which is very interesting. I learnt several types of traditional sarongs and recognized the differences among them (songket, ikat, sutis, the three types of the traditional sarongs in East Nusa Tenggara). We also saw the skull of the famous Flores hobbit there. Somehow the museum visit made our Flores trip complete..
We returned back to the airport using angkot and ojek (a motorbike taxi), then finally we left Kupang for Denpasar, ending our Flores trip from the capital city of its province. It was really a nice experience, Flores is beautiful with its people, culture and nature (miss the long winding road with White lion's and Bon Jovi's songs as soundtrack :-P) . We have not visited all the interesting places there...so there's always a reason to visit it again :-)
Note: thanks to Ole for the pics on this post.
Everything's okay, we landed at El Tari airport in Kupang and I thought that we only dropped the people that originally wanted to fly to Kupang. But they asked us to leave the plane. I was still excited, yee another island for this trip. When we reached the arrival area, I saw there were several officers surrounded by some passengers. There I heard that our flight to Denpasar would be at 3pm, which was like more than six hours transit time in Kupang. After making sure what I heard (yeah 3pm) I also knew that actually the plane that brought us from Maumere still continued the flight to Surabaya (or Jakarta) via Denpasar. I did not really get that actually, what I knew was they still flew to Denpasar but not with us (the people who just flew from Maumere). Runi was a bit panicked and she decided if she could get a ticket to Jakarta, she would fly there to get another connecting flight to Balikpapan since there are more options to fly from Jakarta than Denpasar. Ole and I just waited for Runi to get the solution for her problem (the one that I regret later on since I should have fought for the flight ticket to Denpasar that morning), we still confused what to do for the next six hours stranded in Kupang. When finally we met Runi, she got the ticket to Denpasar that would depart immediately without having to pay anything. That was the time when I felt that we did a mistake to just given up flying to Denpasar with the morning flight, we should have made up a connecting flight that we had to catch...but anyway, the idea was too late, all the seat were taken already.
So to make the story shorter, we decided to enjoy Kupang a bit. Getting the info from Lonely Planet, we decided to visit the museum. The airport is a quite far away from the city center and the taxi costs us 60K rupiahs...we decided to use angkot, a typical public transportation in Indonesia in the form of a small minibus. It has been quite a while for me to use angkot... when was the last time... I could not remember it anymore :-P
The museum visit was quite great , glad that we decided to do it. We had a guide who explained almost all the things that were displayed in the museum. It displays some traditional clothes from different areas in East Nusa Tenggara (Kupang is the capital of East Nusa Tenggara), which is very interesting. I learnt several types of traditional sarongs and recognized the differences among them (songket, ikat, sutis, the three types of the traditional sarongs in East Nusa Tenggara). We also saw the skull of the famous Flores hobbit there. Somehow the museum visit made our Flores trip complete..
We returned back to the airport using angkot and ojek (a motorbike taxi), then finally we left Kupang for Denpasar, ending our Flores trip from the capital city of its province. It was really a nice experience, Flores is beautiful with its people, culture and nature (miss the long winding road with White lion's and Bon Jovi's songs as soundtrack :-P) . We have not visited all the interesting places there...so there's always a reason to visit it again :-)
Note: thanks to Ole for the pics on this post.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Flores trip: Day 6
Our itineraries for Flores all have been fulfilled and we stayed in Maumere only for our flight to Denpasar. Initially we planned to leave Flores that morning but we could not get the ticket for all of us, only one ticket (that we gave to Desy since she had to go back to work the next day), the other three tickets were for the next day (even it was not that easy to get them). That means we had one more day in Maumere. I said good bye to Desy when she left us around 6am, then did some expenses calculation with Runi (thanks Run, you're the best..:-)) and had a walk a bit at the beach.
The beach at our hotel was not that interesting, so we planned to go a bit farther from the city to Ahuwair (around 24 kms), hoping to get another beach day. But when we arrived it was low tide, so the beach was full of rocks. The sea area around Maumere used to be regarded as one of the finest dive site in Asia before the earthquake and tsunami in 1992 destroyed its beautiful reefs (but now they said they are in recovery mode). We planned to take a boat to Babi island or Pangabaton island to have another snorkeling session. But because of the low tide, we could not take the boat from Ahuwair, we had to go to Nangahale, which is about 8 kms from Ahuwair. The boat rent that was offered was also quite pricey so we decided to forget the snorkeling idea.
We did not have any more ideas what to do in Maumere :-P Donatus suggested visiting Watublapi, a village close to Maumere to see dance performance but we suppose to reserve it first so they could prepare the dance performance when we arrived there. Unfortunately none has the contact number of the people in Watublapi. But we decided to give it a try to go there directly. And as what we're afraid, they could not do that without reservation at least half day before but they offered us to see Ikat weaving process demonstration. At first a bit pessimistic actually (too comercial for me because we had to pay for that, they're quite professional with the tourists) but it was still around noon and we did not have any idea what to do the next half day.
It turned out it was a nice demonstration on how to make Ikat, they showed us how they did the dyeing process using natural materials, like from mengkudu fruit (is that for red color, forgot already hehe). Then the spinning process from cotton and the ikat weaving itself...interesting... and now I could imagine why the price of one cloth of Ikat is expensive :-P We bought some Ikat at the end of the demo, but only some small pieces, the price is expensive as they use natural dye for their Ikat.
We dropped by at Ohe, a point close to Watublapi where we can see both coasts (north and south coasts) of Flores. Then we returned to Wailiti around 4pm, was a bit raining (or wasn't it :-P), I only remember we decided to chat until dinner hehe.. Oh before that, we said good bye to Donatus since it was the last day we rented the car. He is a nice guy, got a lot of info about Flores from him.
Note: thanks to Ole for the pics on this post.
The beach at our hotel was not that interesting, so we planned to go a bit farther from the city to Ahuwair (around 24 kms), hoping to get another beach day. But when we arrived it was low tide, so the beach was full of rocks. The sea area around Maumere used to be regarded as one of the finest dive site in Asia before the earthquake and tsunami in 1992 destroyed its beautiful reefs (but now they said they are in recovery mode). We planned to take a boat to Babi island or Pangabaton island to have another snorkeling session. But because of the low tide, we could not take the boat from Ahuwair, we had to go to Nangahale, which is about 8 kms from Ahuwair. The boat rent that was offered was also quite pricey so we decided to forget the snorkeling idea.
We did not have any more ideas what to do in Maumere :-P Donatus suggested visiting Watublapi, a village close to Maumere to see dance performance but we suppose to reserve it first so they could prepare the dance performance when we arrived there. Unfortunately none has the contact number of the people in Watublapi. But we decided to give it a try to go there directly. And as what we're afraid, they could not do that without reservation at least half day before but they offered us to see Ikat weaving process demonstration. At first a bit pessimistic actually (too comercial for me because we had to pay for that, they're quite professional with the tourists) but it was still around noon and we did not have any idea what to do the next half day.
We dropped by at Ohe, a point close to Watublapi where we can see both coasts (north and south coasts) of Flores. Then we returned to Wailiti around 4pm, was a bit raining (or wasn't it :-P), I only remember we decided to chat until dinner hehe.. Oh before that, we said good bye to Donatus since it was the last day we rented the car. He is a nice guy, got a lot of info about Flores from him.
Note: thanks to Ole for the pics on this post.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Flores trip: Day 5
We woke up at 4am to get ready to leave 30 mins later to catch the sunrise at Kelimutu. I was a bit worried actually... after unsuccessful trip to a foggy and rainy Bromo (and foggy Tangkuban Perahu for Ole) somehow it was concluded that Ole did not have a good history visiting mountain's craters :-P And after hundreds kilometers of winding road ...it would be too disappointing to see a foggy Kelimutu...
It was still dark and nobody was around when we reached the parking area, we only met three other people when we were almost at the crater of the two first lakes. Kelimutu is a volcano with its famous three colored crater lakes. The lakes are changing their color throughout the time which can be scientifically explained (will not try to explain it here :-P). But somehow the local people believe that the color changes of the lakes means something special will happen (in Indonesia generally). These lakes are also a sacred place for them, they believe that the soul of the dead people will go to one of these lakes. The first two lakes that we approached are Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo Fai (Lake of Young Men and Maidens - the turquoise lake) and Tiwu Ata Polo (Bewitched or Enchanted Lake - the dark red lake). They are separated by a wall which in the past could be passed by people, but not anymore now, the crater wall is quite thin. I could not stop watching the turquoise lake with its 'unreal' color. Going a bit farther, there is a staircase to the Inspiration point to see all the three lakes, the third lake is Tiwu Ata Mbupu (Lake of Old People - dark blue/black lake), located a bit separated from the two lakes. We spent some time at the Inspiration point, taking lots of pics, watching (and enjoying) the sunrise and the beautiful view, chatting with a Norway couple that we met there. Yes, finally I had a nice sunrise experience at the crater (that's even very true for Ole)!!
Leaving Kelimutu, we returned to Moni and dropped by at the small waterfall close to the village. After having breakfast, taking shower, and packing our stuff, we visited Moni's traditional market. There were some nice ikat woven clothes, but it's still a bit overwhelming for me to buy one of them. We met some school girls who adored Desy so much :-) and had an interesting time with them.
We also visited a Lio traditional house across the traditional market before left Moni around 1pm. We stopped by to Jopu village in Nggela region which is famous with its Ikat clothes. Initially we wanted to see the weaving process but that day we only found one girl doing it. I finally bought my first Ikat shawl here.
We then continued our journey to Maumere and managed to visit Sikka village, a coastal village with a pretty Portuguese style church and the home of Sikkanese weaving. It was a bit quiet when we arrived at the village and we decided to visit the church directly. But when we went out, there were quite a lot of women offering their Ikat in a house close to the church (since we wanted to see their Ikat clothes). I bought myself an Ikat sarong, I did not intentionally want to buy a sarong, only found a nice Ikat sarong and then gave the woman the price I would like. I did not think she would give me, but she followed me and after some bargaining process, I was still 'tough' to not display my interest, but when she said that she wanted the money to buy rice for Christmas... I was not that strong anymore and decided to pay the price she wanted...that's how I bought my first Ikat sarong.
We confirmed our Merpati flight tickets right away after arriving in Maumere. After that, our usual activity to find accommodation made us touring Maumere. We finally decided to stay in Wailiti hotel, kind of resort hotel by the beach (indeed we increased our accommodation budget every day :-P).
It was still dark and nobody was around when we reached the parking area, we only met three other people when we were almost at the crater of the two first lakes. Kelimutu is a volcano with its famous three colored crater lakes. The lakes are changing their color throughout the time which can be scientifically explained (will not try to explain it here :-P). But somehow the local people believe that the color changes of the lakes means something special will happen (in Indonesia generally). These lakes are also a sacred place for them, they believe that the soul of the dead people will go to one of these lakes. The first two lakes that we approached are Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo Fai (Lake of Young Men and Maidens - the turquoise lake) and Tiwu Ata Polo (Bewitched or Enchanted Lake - the dark red lake). They are separated by a wall which in the past could be passed by people, but not anymore now, the crater wall is quite thin. I could not stop watching the turquoise lake with its 'unreal' color. Going a bit farther, there is a staircase to the Inspiration point to see all the three lakes, the third lake is Tiwu Ata Mbupu (Lake of Old People - dark blue/black lake), located a bit separated from the two lakes. We spent some time at the Inspiration point, taking lots of pics, watching (and enjoying) the sunrise and the beautiful view, chatting with a Norway couple that we met there. Yes, finally I had a nice sunrise experience at the crater (that's even very true for Ole)!!
Leaving Kelimutu, we returned to Moni and dropped by at the small waterfall close to the village. After having breakfast, taking shower, and packing our stuff, we visited Moni's traditional market. There were some nice ikat woven clothes, but it's still a bit overwhelming for me to buy one of them. We met some school girls who adored Desy so much :-) and had an interesting time with them.
We also visited a Lio traditional house across the traditional market before left Moni around 1pm. We stopped by to Jopu village in Nggela region which is famous with its Ikat clothes. Initially we wanted to see the weaving process but that day we only found one girl doing it. I finally bought my first Ikat shawl here.
We then continued our journey to Maumere and managed to visit Sikka village, a coastal village with a pretty Portuguese style church and the home of Sikkanese weaving. It was a bit quiet when we arrived at the village and we decided to visit the church directly. But when we went out, there were quite a lot of women offering their Ikat in a house close to the church (since we wanted to see their Ikat clothes). I bought myself an Ikat sarong, I did not intentionally want to buy a sarong, only found a nice Ikat sarong and then gave the woman the price I would like. I did not think she would give me, but she followed me and after some bargaining process, I was still 'tough' to not display my interest, but when she said that she wanted the money to buy rice for Christmas... I was not that strong anymore and decided to pay the price she wanted...that's how I bought my first Ikat sarong.
We confirmed our Merpati flight tickets right away after arriving in Maumere. After that, our usual activity to find accommodation made us touring Maumere. We finally decided to stay in Wailiti hotel, kind of resort hotel by the beach (indeed we increased our accommodation budget every day :-P).
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