Limau Sunkist, Marmalade dan Merah

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"Bloody" orange from Palermo, Sicily


I am a fruit person. I must eat fruit everyday. I probably eat more oranges than other fruits and can eat at least 2 oranges a day. Closer to my trip I was eating 4 oranges a day (..trying to make up for the possibility of no fruits and oranges for days onward!). Finally, heeding everyone advice, I forced myself to peek at the local pharmacy for some vitamin supplements ..just in case (I hate supplements! it's more fun to bite real fruits than popping pills!). So I end up with vitamins C and E.

I hate taking those tablets during my travel days. I must have given up a week into the journey, so whenever I have a chance I will buy fruits. In Spain there were many many many heavily-laden orange trees (such a beautiful sights for an orange-crazy person like me) and while our Spanish guides were explaining us the sights (Toledo, Sevilla, Cordoba) I was busy wondering why the heck no one is picking those ripened fruits! :)

When I finally got a chance to ask, we were already in Al-Hambra, Granada (well it's kind of difficult to slip in a question on why no one is picking the oranges - when the guides were explaining to everyone on the history and architecture of the ruins). I was told by our guide Mr. Paco, those are bitter oranges - the kind we made marmalade and that they are more precious than your regular oranges. There goes my eating orange-straight-from-the-tree dream in Spain (he gave me a bitter orange leaf for my scrap book though). I did bought one huge lovely orange in Madrid, but only to accidently leave it behind in the hotel fridge ): Shucks!

Guess how much it cost me for your run-of-the-mill oranges in Rome.. 1 euro for 1 lousy fruit! (However, in Palermo, Sicily-at its busy morning market it cost only euro 30 cents for 2 lovely blood-red orange..a special variety of Sicily - fragrant and juicy too.. (Yes, I took the overnite train all the way to Palermo to visit the morning market to buy just 2 oranges, and as a bonus was given 3 lovely sweet and juicy red lovely tomatoes for FREE :) Well, "free" is a rare term indeed in Europe! But for their generous hearts, albeit "humbler" living conditions, on top of the "godfather" stigma (yes, everybody warned me NOT to go to Sicily - AND I was excited to go there exactly to see that :), I have great respect and good memories of the Sicilians :).

Yesterday, a week upon returning to Malaysia, I forced my lazyself to drive to Bangsar Pasar Malam to get my regular dosage of 20 fresh oranges for the week. Welcome back to consumer-heaven! coz in consumer-frenly Malaysia, it cost me less than 2 euros for 20 fresh oranges!!

I ate 2 oranges for Jinny, the crazy Korean girl I first met in Munchen who told me that when she visited Malaysia, all she did was ate a lot of oranges to make up for the bloody expensive oranges she was deprived off in Korea. Well she even smuggled home some for her mom - as souvenirs :). We shared a nice orange in Paris while having our tuna-salad lunch in front of the Lourve(yes, she stalked me all the way back to Paris! :) - cost us 2 euros for that 1 fruit!

So here's to you Jinny! (I know, I know.. Ireland is so BLOODY expensive :)

I love Malaysia!

(PS: Someone in Bonn is crazy over the color ORANGE, so I'll saved him all the rinds :)

A blog-challenged retro individual

I know it's already end of May and I haven't updated my blog!

What do you know.. I am an extremely blog-challenged individual!
I only learnt to create the blog a few days before I left for Europe and never had a chance or the time to figure it all out, so I religiously (whenever I could) wrote manually (my forte - doodling with a pen and paper :)..in my travel journal :)

Cost is also a major factor as throughout Europe, internet access is SO bloody expensive - imagine in Spain (Occidental Hotel, Sevilla to be exact) the receptionist quoted me 1 euro for every 6 minutes! Are they crazy or what? To send 2 very short e-mails can cost a minimum of 10 euros.. that was Rome to be specific! (Telekom Italia - the downloading is extremely, extremely slow and all of us poor foreign travelers felt it was done on purpose! - YES, this was a favorite topic of discussion among us, foreign travelers- so that we poor foreigners have to keep buying those bloody expensive phone cards sold only by Telekom Italia!). And the first 10 minutes will have to be wasted on figuring out the system in whatever language (NO, we can't change them to English! we all tried) - Spanish or Italian. At least in France and DE/Germany I could still change to English version, most of the times.

Running around Europe (for 9 weeks to be exact) within so many countries, left not much time to update my blog, when even sending "must-send" e-mails are a pain to keep up with.

So I will have to recreate my European trip travel journal on this blog retroactively. My sincere apologies to all who have been inquiring.

I will start the journal by posting the first e-mail sent to friends when I first arrived in Paris..coz it captured the enthusiasm I felt there and then, which can't be reproduced "retroactively" :) (Looking back at this and reading this now..gosh I sound like a little kid let loose in a candy store!).

Forgive the enthusiasm! :P

Normandy - French Country

Normandy, FRANCE WEST COAST

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The Impressionists - Musee d'Orsay, PARIS

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Memories of Bonn

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Bonn Fire

Rheineau in Flammen, Bonn

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May 7, 2005

Sedad e-mailed me on "Rhinen in Flammen" (Rhines in Flames) along with its website when I was in Stockholm coming back from the Viking Cruise to Finlandia. At that time, I was still bent on doing England, Wales and Scotland (and maybe Ireland) after Scandinavia. But after my excursion to Norway, and reality time check with Samantha (who did England first) while we were in Oslo, I realized that it was not possible to do Britain in 4-5 days. So after 3 nites in Amsterdam I decided to head back to DE on the evening of the Bonn Fire on May 7.

I arrived at Bonn Hauptbanhof around 5:15PM, with Sedad again patiently waiting for me. After freshening up, we joined Nina and Amir at Pizza Casa for dinner that nite. Both Nina and I again ordered our favourite dish –"Linguini with shrimp in a mild curried creamy sauce"- with a generous sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan. It is the best eventhough I could never finish the portion served.

Since Nina is allergic to crowd (as do I to a certain extent..I’ve always avoided crowds whenever I can), it was just Sedad and me going to the Rhine Park that nite. It was freezing cold but there was already a growing crowd there for this celebration of Spring. Since we were early, we walked around, buying candied almonds and some interesting local nuts.. I also took pics of stalls selling all sort of wursts and wieners typical of the German staples (well mostly to tease my younger sister who’ll probably demanded that I samak the camera just for taking pics of porcine which off course, this being a "pork and ham" country, is in such abundance throughout DE). There’s folk music in the background, which I innocently commented.. as being crappy.. (as opposed to Scorpion :)another German product) ..which invited an unsuspected scolding from Mr. Bonn himself. Luckily he was quick to offer a peace treaty sealed with a wild pansy :) Later, I realized the German crowds were happily and patriotically singing along with those “crappy” folk songs.. I guess it is like our Rasa Sayang song.. beauty is in the ears of its natives it seemed, so I told Sedad I took back my comments :)

Bonn Fire

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Due to the droping temperature, the organizer considerately fast forwarded the lighting of fireworks by half hour to 11:00PM. I must be almost frozen by then, standing in my thin Chinese dinner jacket, which hardly provided any protection against the extreme cold temperature, with my feet falling asleep on me, but regardless, managed to take some pics with my completely frozen hands. I think they turned out rather nicely:) I especially love how the Ferris Wheels' pics turned out.

Ferris Wheel 1, Rheineau in Flammen, Bonn

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Ferris Wheel 2, Rheineau in Flammen, Bonn

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Irmir

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Irmir and his beloved bike

One has to experience Irmir LIVE! :P

Irmir is a live wire. How can I describe him? My face muscles get extremely exercised whenever Irmir is around - from non-stop laughing!:P Irmir is a dynamite, almost childlike in his enthusiasm for life. I wish there are more individuals like Irmir in this world and there will never be war.

One would never imagine Irmir as a handicapped person. Behind those beautiful big doe-eyes, he is certified as legally blind, but his enthusiasm for life never made him one. He gives us laughter and happiness whenever he is around. Having been a soccer superstar in his native Bosnia prior to the war, bomb shrapnel that evaded his skull had crippled his eye nerves, almost blinding him. Irmir continues his life like nothing has happened, whereas most of us will be crushed and retreated from life. But not Irmir.

A beautiful lesson in human strength and celebration of life.

Recently, Irmir tried to auction off his PC monitor on e-bay. He was very excited when he called Sedad.. when we asked how much it is going for.. he excitedly said 12 euro! :P Obviously that was his first e-bay auction!

Last time I asked, they have decided to combine Irmir’s monitor with Sedad’s old CPU and donate the PC to their local mosque in Bonn.

Now I’d like to auction off Irmir to the best of ladies out there. (But Sedad said you'll probably have to compete with some other ladies vying for his attention as well..)

He is a great looking guy :) with shiny raven-black hair and big beautiful brown eyes, but you’ll have to be at least 5’7” if you don’t want to be dwarfed by him heh.. he is a very tall guy! And we can promise you that your life will be filled with laughter and shall never ever be boring! :P



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See how tall Irmir is beside petite moi..(I am not too vertically-challenged..I am 5'2"!)

Nan

Nan - sweet and kind.

These are the images I have of Nan, my new found friend from Amsterdam.

When Feisal first gave me her contact e-mail and we wrote to each other, I have an image of how nice and sweet this lady is, yet, she managed to exceed my expectations! and more :)

My first image of Amsterdam was Nan waiting patiently for me at her tram station (I was 40 minutes late from waiting at the wrong tram station!) and my last image of Amsterdam was also of Nan patiently sending me off at the train station on a cold and wet afternoon after she and Ronald took me to see the windmills at Zhaans Schaan. Yes, both of them woke up SO VERY EARLY on a Saturday morning! to arrange for transportation to take me to see the windmills.. I am very touched.

And how can I forget.. she, without failed will served me hot tea every morning in bed :P (my wake up call :)

Glorious Seafood the nice chef has "customized" especially for moi :)

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She made sure she showed me Amsterdam as the local would have it. I enjoyed the Canal tour, as well as the wonderful food at the Seafood restaurant (with sea gulls cries and sound of the waves..and I loved those miniature snails :)

Little snails from the sea

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and piping hot square walnut buns served with three types of herb butter), Halal Kebab place (wonderful lamb ribs :), meeting up with some colorful characters along the way (Henke - the drunk rastafarian philosopher,

Henke the Rastafarian philosopher

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a bulldog or is it a pitbull? who won't leave the "Cafe"..which has a copy of Faust!, lady with orange hair),

Happy camper! :P


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and on my last nite, managed to scout an extra ticket so that I could see the Daughter of Soul concert at Club Paradiso.
(See link to view the concert on 6.5.05 at http://www.fabchannel.com/ )

This is for you Nan and Ronald :)

And yes.. you AND Ronald better pick up your gifts (and Katrinka's) in KL:)

THANK YOU!

Nan and Ronald at their Secret Garden


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Enno at Keukenhof

Tulpens of Keukenhof

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When Enno (naively:P) agreed to Nan’s suggestion that he took me to Keukenhof, he had no idea what he has gotten himself into :)

Early Friday morning, Enno showed up at the breakfast deli Nan and I was at, having your typical Amsterdam breakfast of cheese and fresh baguette with coffee (sorry Nan, it was too huge, I can’t finished it :) I am sure on his mind, well this girl looked “pretty normal” enuff :) Poor Enno, he didn’t realized what he’s got himself into.

We drove to Keukenhof about half an hour away from Amsterdam. We were early and parked the car in the huge grassy parking spot. Soon enough, Enno had a big headache from nature-crazy moi! Just snapping away from all sorts of angles unthinkable by any other photographers :) I also made him go thru the bushes with me to quietly photo-ambushed a couple of wild ducks building a nest..and taking dozen of snaps of the windmills rotating blades (and not to forget hundreds of colorful tulips :P~). Enno also taught me how to make a movie of the rotating windmills on my new camera.. to think that I missed making a movie of those colorful flamenco dancers in Sevilla! just coz I was too lazy to read the little manual that come with it! :)

When we couldn’t find any tulip bulbs for sale after 3 circles of the huge area, I told Enno, if we (yes, he too!) were to “accidently pull some bulbs from the garden, it wasn’t my fault coz they don’t sell any in the whole bloody place. Lucky for Enno :) and Keukenhof :) (and to the relief of Nan, later when Enno told her what I was willing to do :) at our last exit, we found a stall selling some tulips and hyacinths but still no bulbs ): Enno, having grown up in the countryside (lucky him!) with gardens and lots of plants, also helped chose the best tulpens and hyacinths to bring back to Bonn and Paris as presents, (and to smuggle back to Malaysia.. :P). So I made him promised me to send some bulbs to Malaysia (for experiment purpose..see if it’ll grow in hilly and chilly UK Perdana :) in the Fall when they are available for sale along with my favorite “Lilies of the Valley”. (Don’t forget OK Enno! :) If they still don’t have the bulbs for sale in the Fall, Enno will just have to pull some “wild ones” from the roadside near the highway off Keukenhof! :)

Enno and Lady Raven

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He also advised on good souvenirs to buy instead of the stuff most poor tourists got trapped into buying. Since I was not going to Britain and Ireland after Amsterdam as originally plan due to time limitation, I could carry some souvenirs to bring back for folks. For my own, the most precious souvenirs are memories of my travels and the wonderful folks I met and the adventures along the way.

At the end of the day, we also managed to misplace Enno’s car:) We have no idea where it was, as there were now hundreds of car at that darn parking lot. After 20 minutes Enno finally located it, what a relief!

It was a crazy day indeed for Enno (but normal for me :) but I think :) he had lots of fun :) I know even though I gave him much headaches, Enno won’t ever regret spending the day with this one-of-a-kind-girl from KL :) Right Enno? :P

Birds' Nest - Keukenhof

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Keukenhof

Tulpens of Keukenhof- Amsterdam, HOLLAND

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Keukenhof is a riot of colors in Spring.

Scenic Flam, NORGE

Scenic Flam

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Norwegian Fjords

Beautiful Fjords

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I have no words to express my wonder of the Norwegian fjords except that God's creation is never comparable to any human-made art. I must be the only one who wrote in the Museum book in Firenze that I don't see what's all the fuss with David by Michelangelo coz personally a sculpture can never beat my wonder of a real and live human. So when it comes to nature, it'll beat any human structure or sculpture. Why?

Coz of this..



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Soaring seagull

and this..



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Scenic Village

and this..



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Majestic Glaciers

and this..



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Pretty-as-a-postcard-Flam

and many many other snapshots of nature that stayed in my mind ... sorry Sweden (and Amir :P .. the Norge wins the beauty pageant, as well as the Viking trophy for me :)

On the Cruise boat from Flam to Gudvangen

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Scenes along the narrowest fjords from Flam to Gudvangen


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The Girls of Gamla Stan

May 1st, 2005

Nobel Prize Girls


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Their names are Natasya and Nadhirah. Tasha and Thira for shorts.

Smart Malay Girls


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This duo are very smart and savvy girls, typical of most Malay girls :) (Everyone know by now Malaysia has more girls qualifying and attending tertiary education than boys, which aptly reflected in the index score of 119.4 female managers for every 100 male managers :) I am so proud of these girls. They reminded me of Aisyah and Iffa, Kak Ha’s daughters about the same age. They are about 12 and 10 and the daughters of Kak Ha’s friend and colleague, Johanif, the Director of Malaysia Tourism in Stockholm, Sweden.

The two girls accompanied me to Gamla Stan where we had such a fun day. They were street savvy and guided our way around town. We peeked from shops to shops for fun souvenirs to buy, I think our favourite was this flying cow at one of the stores. I didn’t buy it coz I was too lazy to carry it with me all the way to Amsterdam then to Bonn then to Paris..but I kinda regret it now :) Tasha and Thira pretty much try to convince me to bring the flying cow back to Malaysia (while I was quite sure it might originated from China..)

Flying cow!


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Tasha the eldest, almost a lady, was looking for some pink nail polish (nail polish reminds me of the girls now) and make up and very much into everything American – well she’s at that stage :), while her mother is trying very hard to instill in her the intrinsic beauty and value of our eastern, Malay culture. Thira on the other hand is not aware yet of the world of make up and feminine wiles. She is still an innocent, yet wise beyond her years at the same time.

On Sedad’s recommendation, we visited the Town Hall, Stadshuset, where the Nobel Prize ceremony is held, along the river with its two naked statues (took pics of the female naked statue especially for Khal :), passing the Malaysia TDC office and stopping by at the expensive shopping complex across the street.

Tourism Development Corporation Malaysia Office, STOCKHOLM

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I had to buy a bag for my guidebooks and paperstuff (city maps, eurail tickets, etc)..coz my small daypack was full. (I had conveniently left my backpack in Bonn – everyone know how lazy and lackadaisical I am with baggage.. I would leave them at train stations or airport unattended. When I go outstation for work, I would check in the notebook if I could!). The simple black canvas bag I ended up buying cost me over 20 euro.. in Malaysia, it would cost only 2-3 euro top! That nite I sew the Swedish flag on it and attached a Moose keychain to dress it up a bit to remember Sweden by. There is also this very quaint store that sells the cutest stuff and toys, I can't helped but brought a stuffed moose home, but the moose is lightweight and most importantly is so soft I can stuffed it in my small daypack :)

That was also the first time I realized how kids could really crammed on candies and chocolates - which Tasha and Thira “hoodwinked” me as being quite alright and normal. I was worried with all those sugar they were consuming while walking the cobbled street of Gamla Stan. Later on, I found out the mother would never allow them to eat that much candies! Between the two of them they must have consumed like 2 kg of candies within a 3 hour period, on top of the soda pops - courtesy of me!
(I thought they might saved some of the candies for later..but what do I know about kids!)

Barbie at the PC


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The third girl “Baby” reminded me of my niece Nina, for her cuteness factor (which Tasha and Thira didn't quite agree :) and passion in Barbies. While I was sending e-mails from their notebook, she was playing with this Barbie program on the PC. Since we were side by side, I got to play Barbie with her as well :) The fourth and youngest is also a girl, a diaper- wearing toddler – the real baby of the brood. She reminded me of Nabila (who recently called herself Bella), Kak Ha’s youngest.

Shy Malay Girls :)


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Sisterly Love


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It was relaxing and homely to spend those two nites with the Johanifs and be surrounded by kids. I also got to eat Nasi Goreng, Rendang Ayam and Ayam Masak Merah and this delicious Orange-Chocolate cake concoction, courtesy of Mrs. Johanif (the one with the baby), as well as did all my laundry, that I overlooked the fact that I didn’t get to try the boat hostel at all.. well there's always the next time :)

Pony tails :)

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Gypsy Queens

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Viking Cruise



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Boarding Passage

There were three of them.

I met them on the Viking Cruise Ship from Stockholm to Helfingors, Finlandia (Helsinki, Finland). They were the RUDEST women I’ve ever met. At first I thought they were part of the Viking Cruise welcoming act..but found out later that they were not. They were wearing some sort of heavy costumes, volumnous skirts with huge skirtings, velvets and sequins.. They have to use the handicap WC coz of the outfit. They were all over the place and talking very loud and missing of manners.

On the ship return journey, we were relieved that they were gone. Some Finlanders on the ship told us that they had probably balik kampong for a few days as it was the Spring Festival on May 1st when our ship docked at Helfingors. I was told by them that these are the rich gypsies of Scandinavia..and that once they reached the age of 16, they are stuck with these fancy outfits that they must wear in rain or shine or snow! Amazing.. I thought these Finlanders were kidding me, but they swore they are telling the truth.

The gypsies I’ve met so far from Spain to Italy to Balkans to Germany were all wearing tattered cotton clothes, but these gypsies were wearing heavy drama-like outfit. Obviously money can’t buy them manners. But according to Amir, Nina and Sedad when we were discussing this at Pizza Casa, these are probably their ways.. that they don’t follow regular social norms. I was so shocked by their rudeness to everyone.. belching, talking extremely loud after midnite (probably very drunk as well) and taking off their clothes right in front of everyone, that I forgot to snap their photos! Dang!

Gaming machines inside Viking Cruise

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Docking at Helfingors

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