My Italy trip

Overall, the Italy trip was still a sucessful one. However, I think the trip can be shortened to 7 days haha. We overestmated the time we can spend in each places. But there were a lot of things worth mentioning in Italy.

Venice - A beautiful city for couples, not for young travelers ha!

It is really beautiful there, but only limted to a number of tourist spots, esp the St. Marco Plaza. Of course you can not compare the casino in Macau to Venice. The scenery here was much nicer. There were canals running through the whole city. If you have money, it is good to travel on a boat or ferry. But that really cost a lot. Taking a ferry for one time costs 6.5 euros!

Venice used to be a very important city for trade both with the west and the east. It traded with Britian as well as China. Becasue of this reason, Venice is famous for the glass making industry as it combines the technique of the East and West

St. Macro Plaza

Florence - Beautiful acient city, the origin of Renaissance

It has great art museum in Florence - the Uffizi and the Academia. I did go into the museums but personally I think the one in London is better coz there are more explantion on each painting/statue. In Academia , there are the most famous statue placed inside - David.

You can observe the artist was paying great attention to the muscle/ structure of the body, forming a very realistic body shape of a human. This is very different from the arts before Renaissance.

Nice scenery from Michaelangelo plaza

Rome - City with great history and food!! I like it the most.

I like the Coloseum the most in Rome. It is the most amazing buidling ever. A building standing here for over 2000 thosand years still remains very good in condition. Coloseum was built by the Flavian family, first started by Vespasian and completed by Titus. After rule of rude emperor Nero, Vespasian wanted to showed the difference from Nero. He built an the existing Coloseum on the man-made lake of Nero's palace, making it a place to entertain the public. The public also has a chance to see the emperpor in person, enjoying the match together.There were different kinds of match happening in the arena, man vs man, man vs wild animal, wild animal vs wild animal. The gladiators include free men, prisoners, slaves etc.

Trevi Fountain
I like this statue the most

Very very nice Gelato - Only 2 Euros! (near Vatican city)

This is an extremely good gelato shop that I want to recommand to everyone!You can choose three tastes and they will add some cream on the top for you. The ice cream is freshly made and you can really see the seeds of strawberry in the ice cream!! See the map below!

Pizza

Seafood Spagetti 10 Euros

Snowing in Netherlands

When I arrived at Einhoven Airport, snow was everywhere.

There was snow everywhere when I came back from Italy! I never imagined Netherlands having so much snow in winter! The snow statred to melt today, making it really difficult to walk. Sometimes you just stepped in the soft snow and fell into the hole!

Prison Break in Prague

It was fine when we were having our wonderful holidays in the first two days. We bought a day pass for transport, obeying the transport regulations. The day we are going to leave Prague, we planned to not to have a day pass ticket cos we were just staying here for a few hours more before going to the airport.

Everything seemed fine until we went for the last metro trip. When we went downstair and wanted to take the metro, two officers came and asked us for the tickets. We did have tickets. One without stamping and another one expired. Of course, the next thing they asked was fine. It was 700 Kronc, which was about 30 euros. That's a lot to us. We started to run away. Since we did not have so much money, the officer asked us to go to ATM machine to take it ( the Bankamat). The machines were just located besides the meto entrance. Jacky clever was the first one to run. The two officers therefore paid much attention to him. Right after his running, I ran too. And I turned out the only sucessful person to escape fine among my frineds! :)

Berlin trip

It must be my most exciting trip so far. We left for Berlin on 26 morning. And we were so happy to have Chris to be our driver and guide. Everything was fine in Berlin, where was a very special place.

After WW1,Germany was required to pay a heavy fee to the victorios power. The fee, in my view, was not fair as the amount was so huge that it could never be repaid. This, as a means to weakened Germany forever, finally led to the rise of Nazism in German. In 1920s, German experianced a republic period, which we called the Weima Republic. The republic, however, is so weak when facing the economic crisis during the period. Hyperinflation resulted. Later, the Great Depression made US stop paying financail assistances to Germany. It was under such circumstances extreme ideas, such as Nazism, was developed.

In 1933, Hitler was elected the chancellor of Germany.Hitler then later eliminated its components by blaming the communists for burning down the parliament.

In 1938, Hilter acquired the German-speaking area in Czech becasue of the appeasement policy of Britian.

1939, WW2 started when Hitler invaded Poland.

When WW2 finished, the Soviet Union and the allies reached an agreement to divide Germany in two parts. The western part controlled by the allies while the eastern by Soviet Union. Together witht the eastern European countries, East Germany and Berlin became communist countries. Iron Curtain emerged.


Berlin wall in West Berlin: Berlin wall was built as a result of the large amount of people fleeding from East Berlin to West Berlin. It was a wall encircling the West Berlin to prevent people entering West Berlin illegally. The wall was not very high. But at the top of the wall, there were circular pipe to make it slipery for people to catch on.


East-side Gallery: The longest continuous Berlin Wall in East Germany. Artists painted on the wall to show their hope and feelings towards the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989.

Brandenberg Gate: There were many gates like this in the past. Due to warfare, it is the only one exist now. It used to be the entrance of West Berlin. (We were standing in East Berlin in the photo.)
Jewish Memorial site: Hitler considered Jews as a inferior race and carried out a large scale genocide in the territories. Jews were restricted to wear badge on thier clothes to show their identity. They were not allowed in professional jobs. Later on, they were sent to concentration camps called ghetto. Over millons of Jews were killed in posion gas chamber and concentration camps.

Very cheap to eat this traditional meal here. 12 euros

I am so lucky that I moved from Touslagerstraat

Back from really woderful London Trip

London Eye at night

Ha. It is my best trip so far in Europe. London is really a city that I like so much. It does not only makes you feel like Hong Kong, but also provide numerous attractions and mueums for you to visit! Let me talk about the places I have visited in Britian so far.

Day 1 - Going to London and joining free guided tour.

As mentioned in my previous blog, Jacky and me went to London by bus. This was also an unforgettable BUS experiance as we tried crossing the England Channel by both FERRY AND TRAIN! It was a bit tiring though as we needed to move around the transports.

This is a picture I took at the France-British border.

We arrived in London Victoria Couch Station at around 8 a.m. The moment I got offf the bus, I knew England was really different from Europe. (Maybe that's why they also use a different currency too) The first transport I took here was underground to the hostel near Hyde Park.

Busy Victoria station. This is a station for both train and underground.

After settleing down our lugguage, we joined a free tour for London to know more about the history of the city. We walked through a lof of famous attractions in London, including Beckinham Palace, the parliement, St. Margaret Church, Big Ben, Downing Street etc. Let me talk about them one by one ha at a later time.

Day 2 London Tower and Tower Bridge, Musical at night

The next day, we went to London Tower, which used to be a castle, gun powder storehouse, and a PRISON. It was a prison and sadly, cemetry to two princes, and two wifes of Henry VIII. In the whilte castle , there was a special exibition about the life of great king Henry VIII. He was a good player in sports and in warfields. However, at his later life, he became a tyranny.


At night, we watch a musical called Les Miserable. Watching a musical in London was not cheap though. We bought the stand-by ticket one hour before the show and it still cost us 27.5 pounds per person.

It is a musical about a prisoned person and a orphan girl. The imprisoned man escaped from the prison. Police was looking for him everywhere. The man finally came to a priest's house and stayed there. Out of greed, the man stole all the silver from the priest's house. He was caught but the priest told lie to protect him from going to prison again.

Out of conscience, the man knew he needed to be good. He became the mayor of a state. In the state lived a poor woman. She was expelled from the factory becasue she did something unethic at that time. She became a prostitute and sick, finally died. She had a girl who needed to be cared of. Story began....

Day 3 Changing Guides and British Museum

British museum is a great place although it may be a little boring without a guided tour. I will try to tell a story of Egypt which I learnt at the museum.

Day 6 Highly Recommended - Roman Bath and Stonehenge

Before I visited the Roman Bath, I never know Britian was once captured by the acient Roman Empire. We have Great Wall, Hadrians also built a great wall for Britainia in the North to defend barbarians. Roman once extended its territories over Britainia and discovered the only hotspring here - Bath. They viewed the hotspring water there as a miracle from god. The water can make them relax, and even heal their diseases.


Since they think the water as devine, they also built a temple right beside the hot spring.


The stonehenge is one of the UNICEF heritage site. And it used to be an very important temple in the past. The stone was very heavily that required at least hundreds of labor to transport it. Most of the stone was transported from the West Wales. They most probably took the stone onto the boat and moved it through the river.

Packing for London Trip

Haha. This will be my first time to be in Britian! And Britain will be the thrid country for me to visit, after Netherlands and Belgium! I will be going by Eurolines and it takes me 11 hours to reach London Victoria Couch Station.(ha I think it wll be the longest trip for me on the bus, hopefully in my lifetime). The only good points of taking a bus is that you get alight from the city center and it is cheap. $40 euros for round trips.



Today was my class squash class. Good couch and classmate, Koem. :)

Free to send postcard in Netherlands

On Friday, we went to Alexander for the shopping mall. Nothing really special. But the mall is really big comparing to Beurs.


How to send a postcard free? Just write down "STS" in the right hand top corner and then send it without stamps. It works!But it is only valid for postcards only, not letter!

I sent out three postcards to 3 people today. See if you are the lucky ones haha.

Lockerz

Since so many people join this site, so I join it too.

This is a website where you can gain points by loging in, answering questions etc.The points can be used for redeeming gifts.If you want an invitation to open an account there, please send an email to jackie.lk.lee@gmail.com. Click here to visit the site.

haha!!I think it will take me long to attain the marks to have an gift.. =. =

Formal Farewell with Laura

As Laura is going to Britain on Nov 9. So today we were having a farewell dinner with her in Tai Wu Restaurant. It was surprising that so many people come!

On Saturday, Cwing needed to take a video talking about the international life of exchange student in Rotterdam. So luckily I became one of the actor. We ate the famous Dutch raw fish again. I nearly wanted to vomit becasue of this. Finally, we all could not finish the fish. Threw it away.

After that, we went to the famous Cube House for recording. I went up to the Cube House Museum for free. (Original price is 2.5 euros) I really do not recommand anyone to go up and look around. It is small and really nothing in the house. It is just used to squeeze the money out of the tourists' pocket.

There are what inside the Cube House Museum. "Nice"

I have a google voice number now, which means I can send sms to everyone everywhere for free. It is a really great invention! You can also use google voice to call people. Since I have Skype, so I will continue use the HK umlimited access plan. If you also want to use google voice, you can try by following these procedures mentioned in the site.

So hae these days

Nothing really special.
I am just planning for the Italy trip in December.
And doing some BSM readings. haha
Finally Prison Break.
Haha.

Guided tour in Peace Palace

Haha. This was my first time to travel my self, although it was not that far away.
I booked the Peace Palace guided tour. As Peace Palace was not a public area/ museum open to the public. Everyone who wants to visit there must apply in advance for the guided tour.The tour costs you 5 euros. But it was really nice.

If you want to know about the history of Peace Palace, visit here


After that, I continued to visited other museums and places. But really nothing very special.

Binnenhof (會議廳)
Ridderzaal (騎士樓)

Old City Hall

林蔭大道

An interesting thing happened today. When I was eating my self-made sandwich on the seat of a plaza, a middle-aged lady took a lot of photos of me. She later told me she was from the television. And we took a few more shots. Haha. I was so attractive.XD

Rotterdam Zoo

Bravo to go to the Rotterdam Zoo. I think it is the best tourist attractions for Rotterdam! It is properly-managed and there are a lot of animals to see! If you get the Rotterdam Pass, it costs oyu only 3.5 euros for entrance fee.

Rhino

Giraffe

Gorilla Bokito

Bokito (Berlin, March 14, 1996) is a male Western Gorilla who lives in Diergaarde Blijdorp, a zoo in the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He appeared in the news after he escaped from his enclosure and seriously injured a female visitor on May 18, 2007. Born in the Berlin Zoo Zoologischer Garten, Bokito was raised by his human attendants after having been rejected by his mother. To reduce the risk of inbreeding, he was transferred to the Diergaarde Blijdorp in August 2005.

On May 18, 2007, Bokito jumped over the ditch that separated his enclosure from the public and violently attacked a woman, dragging her around for tens of meters and inflicting bone fractures as well as more than a hundred bite wounds. He subsequently entered the nearby restaurant, causing panic among the visitors. During this encounter, three more people were injured as a result of the panic. Bokito was eventually sedated with the help of a tranquilizer gun and placed back in his cage.

The woman who was attacked had been a regular visitor to the great apes' enclosure, visiting an average of 4 times per week. She had a habit of touching the glass that separated her from the gorillas, while making eye contact with Bokito and smiling to him, a practice that is discouraged by primatologists, as apes are likely to interpret human smiling as a form of aggressive display. Zoo employees had previously warned her against doing this, but she continued, claiming a special bond with him: in an interview with De Telegraaf, she said "if I laugh at him, he laughs back".[1]

Bokito had escaped before; in the summer of 2004, he climbed the three-meter-high wall of his enclosure in Berlin. On that occasion, he was escorted back to his cage without problems.

The word "Bokitoproof", meaning "durable enough to resist the actions of an enraged gorilla", and by extension "durable enough to resist the actions of a non-specific extreme situation", was voted the Dutch language "Woord van het jaar" (Word of the Year) for 2007.

Polar Bear

And we tried a delicious apple pie cake at Dudok.