Random stuff: Gingerbread, Expensive lunch, Finnish book

Quite long ago... haha at the start of Dec, Melissa and I attempted to make honey gingerbread cookies/men/trees/whatever-it-looks like! Hahaha... it tasted a bit stange but ok lah. Haha... I named some of them "aliens". Anyway, the whole process of making the shapes was super funny... cos it was too gooey, so we had to work really fast so as not to lose any of "their" heads or hands or legs. So we made believe like we were surgens and they were our patients... faking the emergency and going like "Yes! I saved his leg!" or "Oh no! I lost his head!". Haha. But its cos it was like 1am and we were both tired and crazy.



















A super expensive lunch buffet at Swissotel The Stamford (The hotel at City Hall)... it was $40 for each person... but we had a $60 voucher... so saved a bit.



















This is a very exciting book to me! HAha... actually I found it in the youth section of the library... haha, it's about an American girl who goes for an exchange program to Finland! It's very fun cos there was Finnish icons, foods, language in the book and I recognised almost all of it! :) The title is "The Finnish Line"... haha of cos the pun is "Finnish" vs "Finish". HAha.

Penang trip with my family

Here’s some pictures of the trip with my family to Penang (Malaysia)… :)


The view from my hotel room


















The famous Penang Char Kway Teow and Penang Laksa... yummy!


















Look at this interesting sight... a rotten 'building' in between two rebuilt/touched-up buildings!


















My super cute niece


















Brother, Father, Mother by the Penang beach... haha, it's a twist in the Goldilocks story huh? Haha... where Pa Pa bear is the biggest and Baby bear is the smallest. Hehe.


















Bro and me

Blogging about my ridiculously long ago Europe trip

Sheesh!!! I can’t believe I’m going to start posting about my trip around Europe… which occurred 6 months going starting on the 20th May 2007… griefs! It’s not even 6 months… it’s MORE than 6 months already! Haha.

So what inspired me to get my butt, or should I say fingers, moving? Marie. Who is my Italian friend aka ex-flatmate. Haha… she said I didn’t give her a chance to see the pictures that we took together in Rome. *oops, sheepish face*

What I’m going to do is to put up a summary of the trip… before school starts. Because if I don’t do it now when I suddenly feel the motivation, then I’ll end up not blogging for another 6 months. Haha!

Anyway it doesn’t matter lah… I seriously doubt anyone will read it, haha. It’s for me to just have some written form of memory of the trip :P

Here goes!!!

P.S. If you keep seeing me wear the same old clothes, it’s because I really don’t have much to wear! Haha… I think I only had 5 tops… until I reached Barcelona and bought a whole bunch of new tops. But by then it’s too late already… only 5 more days in Europe.

P.P.S Here’s the “content page” of my trip… hahahaha! (I must be doing too many reports… final year and design project! Haha)

1st ENTRY: To London…which, sadly to say, was “Friday 13th times a million” bad luck city for us
2nd ENTRY: To Paris…which was simply terrific
3rd ENTRY: To Lucerne…which was quaint and serene
4th ENTRY: To Interlaken’s Jungfrau… which was simply breathtaking
5th ENTRY: To Venice… which was old and romantic
6th ENTRY: To Florence…which is the birth place of Da Vinci
7th ENTRY: To Pisa… which had a cute leaning tower
8th ENTRY: To Rome… which meant that I could meet Marie again!
9th ENTRY: To Barcelona… which Gaudi rules, and Zara reigns
10th ENTRY: To Madrid… which was our weird food place
11th ENTRY: To Dublin… which is the land of luck, leprechauns and Guinness
12th ENTRY: To London, again… for it is time to go home!
13th ENTRY: To Singapore… home sweet home =)

1st ENTRY: To London…which, sadly to say, was “Friday 13th times a million” bad luck city for us

First, the BA plane that we took was so uncomfortable, worse than some of the budget airlines that we took.

Second, when we landed, we had to wait so long to leave the plane cos of problems with the gate. And worse still, there was a problem with the walkway so we had to climb off the plane using the steps, and then had to climb up the steps to the airport, with our heavy hand luggage!

Third, the immigration people were mean and super unfriendly. (Hope I don’t get in trouble for saying this! Haha.)

Fourth, Daryl’s luggage got left behind in Finland – helloooo?! Talk about super “sway” (i.e. unlucky to the power of thousands.)

Fifth, our hostel beds were shaking and squeaky. And the wash basin had two taps, one for cold water and one for hot water – which meant that you either freeze your hands to death bushing your teeth, or you burn them. *roll eyes*

Sixth, it rained the next day while we were there (although this is probably normal. Haha)

Seventh is the worst and WORST and WORSTEST of all (Pardon the bad English… haha). It was horrors of horrors for us regarding our flight out of London. Of course it started off as an error made by Yvonne and me… we looked at the flight time instead of the check-in time. *sighs* Anyway here’s the story.

At the start, at Victoria station, we found out that bus took 1.5 hr to reach. And anyway we missed the bus. So we hailed a cab to get to King’s Cross station for 13+ pounds, when actually we have the rail pass. Then we ran like crazy to find the train which was not directly at King’s Cross but a bit further. Next we jumped onto a train which saved us a precious 8 mins. But we weren’t sure so I was like a crazy woman asking people “does this train go to Luten Airport?!?!” in a frantic voice. Reached station and had to go down so many escalators just to exit the place. And then, horror, must take 10min shuttle bus ride to the airport. Reached airport and, horror, the queue was super long (not exaggerating). I went to last min check in queue and we managed to get ticket (felt like crying by then). But before that, there was this ridiculous (age around 30plus) guy who cut my queue saying that “My plane has left”. Like as if that was a valid reason, rah. In my mind, I was like “hello??! My plane is going to leave lor!”. Ran to departure, horror, the queue for scanning was so long! One by one, asked for people’s permission to overtake them. Then one guy asked us to just cut the queue if we are desperate. And so we did… by crawling under the table (which was the barrier). We were so stressed cos we were scared that the authorities stop us, or that people would scold us. Finally, when inside waiting area, I cried in the toilet from all the pent up stress. And then, guess what? Our flight delayed for half an hour. Diao. In the end, I was so tired that I slept like a pig on the plane which I never ever thought I could do. I fell asleep after we took off and didn’t wake up until when it was going to land. Even then, Daryl had to nudge me wake… I didn’t hear a single announcement. Haha.


Some of the only perks we had in London:
We saw the London eye from the plane before landing and it was really pretty with all the lights switched on. While in the plane, we saw a fox outside in the field. My first time ever seeing a fox! Haha. We received good news about Daryl’s luggage (thankfully it was not lost) the next day. The highlight of the day was a buffet meal at Pizza Hut! Ting Jun is so nice, thanks (not that he’ll ever read this. Haha)! =)

*sigh* how sad that this is the version of London for us. Much later on when we were leaving for Singapore from London on the 17th June, we had trouble in London again. That will be for a later post.


Hyde Park




















Buckingham Palace


















Big Ben
























London Eye



















London's "red telephone box"

























The Pizza Hut buffet that made me so happy :) and full. Haha.

2nd ENTRY: To Paris…which was simply terrific

Of course it was terrific. By itself, Paris was good already, but after what happened in London, Paris was practically lala-land of happiness for us.

One amazing thing that we did on the first day: we didn’t take the metro in Paris (which is a big city). We walked!!! Almost non-stop from 930am to 8pm!!! My feet were crying. But the weather was great, in terms of coolness, because it was around 20 degrees – just nice. :)

Second day was Disneyland day… nice and fairytale-ish. Felt like a kid again! But super expensive though. :P

Third day was photo taking day… haha, we basically went to the important places to take pictures, and again, my feet was dying from all the walking. And this time, so was my face and arms – the sun was super hot and I kena burnt.

On the last day we went up the Eiffel tower… it’s really pretty up there! Because most of the buildings around the Eiffel tower are short, so there was a great view of the whole city.

























The view from the "second floor" of the Effiel Tower


















The view from the other side



















The view from the top... you can't see the background properly in the picture... but it was quite fun being up there. Haha.




















Arc de Triomphe




Notre Dame de Paris




















Look at the beautiful stain glass window from inside the Notre Dame!
























The Louvre




















The trees in this huge garden (I think it's the Tuileries Garden) are very cute! They are trimmed into a rectangular box shape.




















Les Invalides



















Moulin Rouge





Basilique du Sacré-Cœur























École Militaire



















This is how burnt I got from the super power French sun.

























Disneyland Paris! (From the outside) It was so funny when we reached there... cos everyone was running towards the entrance from the train station... no one wanted to waste any precious time there! (Cos it closed at 7... so it every minute was important)



















It was Disney Paris's 15th year anniversary when we were there.

























Sleeping Beauty's castle!

























Obviously... (if you have a Disney childhood), this is Minnie Mouse. Haha.



















Pinnochio... haha, it's as if we are kids...
























It's a Small World ride... it's very pretty inside... all the different famous stuff around the world.



















This is the Space Mountain. A roller coaster that is so super fast and crazy... it's the craziest ride I've ever taken before! At the start, normal roller coasters will move slowly up the slope and then start going down and doing all the crazy loops and all that. But the Space Mountain is not like that at all!!! It woooshes up immediately at a super high speed!


















This is a picture of the picture that the roller coaster camera took (haha, save $$ ma). It's a bit blur cos Yvonne had to secretly and quickly take the picture. But it actually shows both of us screaming. Haha.



























I think I look quite cute in this hat with all the luscious curls.




















Then comes the Disney Parade! (Here are some of the many floats and characters then were in the parade.)

Toy Story
















Timon and Pumbaa
















Jasmine and Aladdin





















Beauty and the Beast





















Snow White and her Prince





















Cinderella and her Prince Charming

















Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip (Sleeping Beauty)
















Princess Ariel and Prince Eric

3rd ENTRY: To Lucerne…which was quaint and serene

The train journey to Lucerne wasn’t great, but the beauty of the town cancelled out the tough night’s sleep on the old train. Lucerne is like a town from a magical storybook. It just gives you a feeling of peace and calmness which I’ll never get from being in Singapore (haha, no offence to Singapore). The weather was good, so it amplified the town’s beauty – blue skies, clear lake, old-fashioned bridges, short pretty houses and people moving around unhurriedly. *dreamy sigh of contentment*

I’m sure Melissa would love this place. Haha.


Storybook sweetness


















The Lion Monument


















Chapel Bridge

Took a boat ride around the area... it was quite a long ride cos it's actually meant for travelling to other parts and not for tourists. Enjoyed the ride at the beginning, but later on I was so tired from the overnight train journey that I fell asleep. Haha.

The fabulous view from the hostel room window! :)