4 April 2015- Goodbye Sydney and Hello brief stopover in Singapore to see nainai and uncle jeffrey, and of course, pick up mum and papa. Also had my long awaited fishball noodles... and then it was time to board the very long 13 hour flight to Rome :(
5 April 2015- Hello raining Rome! the immigration officers did not even bother to look at us before stamping our passports haha... it was pouring with rain when we walked out of the terminal and boarded an express bus to the city where our booked accomodation was located... good thing was the accomodation was only across the road from the bus stop, bad thing was we had no umbrellas and heaps of luggages... and we could not check in until later, so we had to deposit our luggages and roam the train terminal to pass time... the accomodation which we had was let's say, not the best and not somewhere I would stay again... despite the pouring rain, we decided to catch a train to visit the Colosseum, and when we got there, despite the rain, it was also quite crowded and there were queues... unbelievable... so we decided to just take some pictures and explored the surroundings before going back to the accomodation place and having our first italian dinner... which of course included pasta and pizza... we pretty much had margherita pizzas most of the time we ate... cos none of the other selections appealed...
6 April 2015- decided to go check out the Colosseum again, and of course, the queues were even longer cos the weather changed for the better... pongie and I decided to skip the queues and pay more to get into the Colossuem, it was probably one of my favourites tourist attraction out of all the places we went to... I thought the money was well spent... it was just mind-blowing how these Romans in the past thought of ways to build the structure and use it for so many purposes in the past... and after that, the tour also included the Roman Forum, but pongie and I were quite tired already and hungry after the actual tour that we skipped the free and easy walk through the actual forum... which was pretty disappointing cos it was again another piece of history which was hard to fathom how those people did it...
7 April 2015- today's itinerary is the Vatican City and also this fantasy themed neighbourhood which I found when I was doing some research... Again, there were queues everywhere at the Vatican City, and we decided not to pay more to skip the queues, so we pretty much just hung out and snapped pics outside, which is very pretty I have to say... we had alot of difficulties finding our way to this neighbourhood though, and people in Italy in general I find are not very friendly... we were lucky to have found a lady who spoke English and she directed us to the bus stop which we needed to get off... I was disappointed when we got there though, cos there were not many things to see as opposed to what I saw on the article...
8 April 2015- caught the train from Rome to Florence today, and I was really glad that our accomodation is much better than the one in Rome... and Florence is really pretty, it has got both history and great views... we checked out the town centre, and located this marketplace where they cook the woodfired pizzas on the spot... it was really yummy! but of course, there were queues again to get into the churches, so we did not go into any...
9 April 2015- decided to catch a local bus to this hilltop area where the views across the city were amazing... and then we had quite a hard time locating this place called Palazzo Pitti, and when we actually found it, it turned out to be nothing that fantastic anyway... but I bought a leather handbag, and papa bought a leather belt in Florence, cos apparently, Florence is the origin of leather goods... so they were meant to be authentic leather...
10 April 2015- caught a train from Florence to Mestre/Venice... Mestre is a really small and quiet town and becos we wanted to save money of course, papa decided that we should stay in this asian run motel... and again it is not somewhere I would stay again, but the good things were that it was cheap, they were very accomodating to our needs, and friendly... and so we caught the local bus to and from Venice... when we arrived in Venice, I was not exactly impressed, there was a smell, and again, the crowds... but the buildings in the city were quite amazing especially in San Marco Piazza... the shitty thing was I was sooo looking forward to sitting a gondola, but found out that it cost 80 euros each, we decided not to... and papa said that it was no longer authentic anymore... we got lost on our way out, and it was getting dark, and papa kept walking and refusing to ask people...
11 April 2015- day trip to verona via train... and of course, got off at the wrong station, cos we found out later that there were two different stations which began with the name Verona... so we ended up randomly taking a bus and not having enough coins to pay the driver, hence having to alight, and walking the entire way to the city centre, which thankfully, was not that far, maybe a 20mins walk... but once we got there, the place we had lunch was quite nice, the food was pretty good, and we had margherita pizza again of course, what else... visited Juliet's castle and balcony, and just hung around the town...
12 April 2015- another day in Venice, but only to have lunch and dessert at Magnum! that was probably one the main highlights of Venice actually... we also got to eat chinese food at Mestre... reasonable, one restaurant was better than the other though... the fried noodles was really nice, so much so that we ordered 2!
13 April 2015- left Venice and caught an Easyjet flight to London Luton airport... it was very small plane, and we had to queue for such a long time at the counter to be checked in... urgghh... not impressed... and then had to queue again at London Luton immigration counter... and then my first real annoyance on the trip when the stupid and inefficient and non customer friendly airport transfer service stuffed up and I got soo annoyed with the driver... and he dared to ask for more money... yeah keep right on dreaming buddy :( anyway, by the time we actually got to Kings Cross station and found an accomodation place, which btw, it again not somewhere I would choose to stay again... it was night time, so we had burger king for dinner and toured the Kings Cross and St Pancras stations...
14 April 2015- London city tour, visited Buckingham Palace of course, it was a long walk down to the actual palace, Trafalgar square, and decided to go check out our Airbnb accomodation place... and did I also mention that this was my second annoyance of the trip... it was so frustrating to register for Airbnb, urgghh... and we got lost again finding the place... we walked sooo much... and parts of Paddington were full of Middle Eastern people, yeah not a very nice place... when we finally located the place, it was actually on a quiet street and quite pretty townhouses...
15 April 2015- caught the Eurostar from London St PAncras International to Brussels Midi... disappointed by the quality of the train... and it was not cheap at all... the third disappointment was when we stepped out of the train station, and all you see are black people hanging around the hotel strip along the station... my first thought was great, this was so not what I thought of when I think of Brussels and Belgium... anyway, found an accomodation place which had the biggest room we had for the 4 of us so far... but run by Middle Eastern people... anyway, did I also mention that I simply can never sleep with both pongie and papa in the same room, becos I pretty much get awoken by their loud snores practically every night, and I highly suspect that was why my wisdom tooth flared up later during the trip, even the dentist mentioned it could be a result of food intake and stress levels... anyway, decided to walk to the main city centre, which was again very uncomfortable cos the whole stretch of road was filled with black people and them running shops... and it was a long walk, like 30mins... once we actually got the main city centre though, it was like in a completely different world, like I am back in a European country again, that's how crazy it was...
16 April 2015- decided to do a hop on and off bus trip... which I thought was money well spent again, cos we did get to see other parts of Brussels, like the Atomium, the parliamentarium, the palaces, churches...
17 April 2015- we actually wanted to see if we could return to London a day earlier but once we found out how much more we had to pay to change the dates, papa suggested going to visit another city rather than staying in Brussels, so we were asking around to find out where else we could go visit as a day trip... and I was lucky to have met this young lady whom suggested we visit Brugge... this was probably one of the best decisions we made, cos Brugge was so pretty, less crowded, and it actually had the European feel to it still... and we got to try a horse ride around the town centre... and we had a really nice lunch in a very nice place too... but my first waffle experience was a disappointment... I was actually seriously considering staying there for one night... but was outvoted... anyway, I would definitely visit there again if the opportunity arises... and I learnt that they speak Flemish in Brugge, which I have never heard of before...
18 April 2015- another day spent in Brussels... today was basically spending lots of money on chocolates as gifts and for our own consumption... we spent quite ALOT of money on chocolates actually... and visiting the really ridiculous highly hyped up Manneken Pis... which I really did not see what the fuss was about...and we caught the Eurostar back to London in the afternoon... and this day was when my whole wisdom tooth drama is about to unfold... it was gradually building up already a few days before, but that night was horrendous, could not sleep becos of the pain and the snorings... it was a nightmare, and I woke up in the middle night, looked up google to find an emergency dentist... unfortunately it was not 24/7 as advertised on their website... but they got back to me the next day and I booked a dental appt on MOnday...
19 April 2015- OMG, we almost died moving our luggages from Kings Cross, catching a train to Paddington and then hauling our luggages up and down the steps in the train station at Paddington... met up papa's nephew at Chinatown for lunch, OMG, the food was so good, especially the sweet and sour fish... expensive but good... so much better than the asian food here in Sydney... we also visited the M&Ms store there... after lunch, we caught a train to visit the Arcelormittal Orbit, which was a really different structure, but did not pay to go in though... and after that, we thought we would visit the famous London Bridge finally, and found out then that London Bridge is actually a suburb and the famous bridge that we all call 'London Bridge' is actually 'Tower Bridge'. So misleading... so in the end, we did not get to see it that day cos we were all quite tired from all the walking...
20 April 2015- YAY Harry Potter studios tour! It was expensive, but money well spent I think despite the crowds... took ALOT of pictures and bought some souvenirs, bought a Time Turner keychain for myself, pongie bought a Marauder's MAp mug and we bought Christine a Hermione Granger keychain... unfortunately I then had to go see the dentist cos the pain was stopping me from opening my mouth to eat, chew and the left side of my throat is inflamed... got to the dental clinic... and the dentist pretty much said I need to have the tooth removed ASAP. She gave me a local anaesthetic, and then cleaned the stuff out, and chipped away some of the tooth cos it was causing an ulcer... and she prescribed me with antibiotics to tide me over until I can see a surgeon... and guess how much I paid for the consultation, freaking 200 pounds... and the antibiotics cost 18 pounds... I am so broke... thankfully NRMA travel insurance assured me that these would be covered...
21 April 2015- we also decided to join this Stonehenge/Windsor Castle/Bath day tour... it was very long day and journey though... Windsor Castle tour was quite rushed though, and it also happened to be the Queen's birthday that day too... it was crowded with both tourists and kids though... Stonehenge was alright, it was quite clever how they thought of making money of this historical monument... they built the visitor's centre approx 5 mins away and blocked off the stones from public, so everyone pretty much have to pay for the shuttle buses to ferry you to and from the stones... Bath was pretty, a small town, we visited the Roman Baths of course, also drank the spring water, which tasted really gross btw...
22 April 2015- decided to go visit Wembley stadium, but did not pay to join the stadium tour, also visited the nearby outlet shopping centre, where we found a lindt shop which was having an easter sale, so of course we bought more chocolates... after that, took a train to Tower Bridge, finally, and hung around the place... I think we went back to Chinatown again for lunch actually, but lunch that day was not as good...
23 April 2015- decided to go visit Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and then hung around the Natural History Museum that day... it was huge... and admissions to all museums were free, so of course, there were huge crowds as well... had lunch again at Chinatown, and actually found a cinnamon roll shop near M&Ms store...
24 April 2015- oh and did I mention that even though our Airbnb accomodation is really expensive and there was a lot of stress registering for it initially, the place was actually really nice and comfortable... anyway, last day of our trip and in London, we kind of ran out of places to visit, so pongie and I decided to go visit the Science Museum... and then meet up with mum and papa for lunch in a local pub... thinking that it may be cheaper... definitely not, and the fish and chips were not great as well... so anway, it was time to catch the Heathrow Express to Heathrow Airport... and it was self check in system... and btw, the Heathrow Express train was probably the best out of all the other trains we sat on other than the one we got coming back from Verona... so anyway, I was definitely not impressed by this particular terminal... the toilets do not flush, there was limited food choices, and shopping options... and the flight was very delayed as well... and there was turbulence for like 30mins continuously... not impressed... I did watch 4 movies in total during all those flying... first one was crap, the white haired witch movie with Fan Bingbing... 2nd was Con artistes korean movie with Kim WooBin, that was good... 3rd was a chinese movie called brotherhood of swords, with Zhang Zheng, and that was good as well, and finally, an action one by Donnie Yen...
25 April 2015- another brief stopover in Singapore, had iced lemon tea, chicken rice, fishball noodles, and chai tau kway shared between pongie and I... met up with nainai, uncle jeffrey and auntie evelyn... pongie and I then boarded the flight back to Sydney... and there was some turbulence as well despite the plane being an A380...
26 April 2015- back in Sydney... glad that the weather was good that day as well, despite the storm that happened in the last few days... we were so lucky to have missed that, and had really great weather during our trip actually... Despite having to skip Paris, we were also quite lucky to have visited other really beautiful places... so I am hoping that this is a sign that we might have another chance to visit Europe again! Home Sweet Home, despite liking being on holidays and not having to work, I still missed my bed and bolster... and of course, back to work on Monday :(
