他乡遇故知

Well, way before Cheewei and Penghong landed in Germany, we had planned to meet up with each other. I always thought that I would just say and never do it but who knows! I did it!!

While they were in Singen for their orientation, I have decided to take a 5 hours train all the way from erlangen to visit them :)

Now cw and ph, you know you guys worth 5 hours of train to me. hiak hiak hiak.

I am pretty sick today, got fever and cold and my sore throat is getting worse and worse by day, probably from the trip to Singen till now! Blame it on you guys! But undoubtedly i really had great fun there! GREAT GREAT FUN! Only uploaded a few photos here because I havent uploaded the photos to fb yet :P


Went for a ferry ride from Konstantz to Meersburg. Well with a group of JPA scholars, and cw said it was for me to experience the feeling of JPA scholar, LOL. Anyway they are way friendly than I have expected :P



Such a weird feeling to be there together when we remembered we used to just be in the same class together everyday 4 years back. How fast time flies but the memories never die.



Went to Zurich, Switzerland together with them and Fuee. He is a very unusual guy, you know, he has his own way of thinking, 看破红尘 adii...Zurich was awesome!


Back in the youth hostel with them! we had so much fun chatting and drinking and forcing people to do silly things!I like this picture,because it captures our true moments of happiness, these are the smiles we used to have, when we were together at the carefree school days.

Actually I have so much more photos and memories that should be kept in here. Thanks a lot to cheewei and bob for the best hospitality ever when I was there,for all the room services and being princessly treated, I would say Taiping people are the best!! Agree??

经过这么多年，这么多事，最庆幸的是， 很多友谊没有改变。很多友情早已在那些年少疯狂的岁月慢慢一点一点滴建立起来，然后有一天，你会发现，不管在什么时候，什么地方，它一直都在。

The Amazing Little Town - Füssen

Füssen

I must say, its a must go for tourists in Germany. It is an important little town which has its extraordinary landscape and the most attractive spot -

Schloss Neuschwanstein (The New Swan Stone Castle)

It toook us almost 4 hours train to get there from Erlangen. We departed at 9 in the morning but most of us were really sleepy and tired,and a little bit awkward especially when we were sitting among a group of FC Bayern Munich "old guys" fans with a bottle of beer in each of their hands as breakfast. Well I shall say: football fans like to drink, and they drink since the morning.



Bored in the train while everyone is sleeping.

We arrive at the Füssen Bahnhof and took a bus to Schwangau where the castle is.





The group of us, Heidi, Aida, and Yee-Chun mit ich, and the little castle from far.
As soon as we stepped foot at Füssen, we heard a lot of American English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, it is a very very tourist place. And all the things are being 'touristfied'. Like I ate a "microwaved" frozen burger which has a diameter of about 7cm and that costed me 2.80. And it is NOT YUMMY at all.


Hohenschwangau. The old castle of King Ludwig II. I didn't went into this one, just kinda walk past befor we took another bus uphill.

We bought a student ticket with an English tour but it was like 2.5 hours later so we decided to just stroll around the Marienbrücke bridge to look at the castle for far, or I shall say the best angle.


Two very cute little girls, especially the one in pink, they posed for me to take pictures :)


This is the view from above the bridge, very very refreshing water flowing, making me feel like jumping into it!


The castle, the sunlight, everything is perfect. (I don't understand why all the tourist attractions that I went to is always ALWAYS under renovation)


Me and It, or It and I, or It and Me? (quoted from Aida)


Us on the bridge!!


And we walked into a narrow little trail in the jungle, and realised that it is not allowed when we came out. Because it looked like a cliff.


What's wrong with my peace? It looks very, weird. Or tourist, I supposed.


OK, much better without me in it. Look at the Autumn leaves and the awesome view of the lake and the Alps!


Some side of the castle.


Meine mitbewohnerin, Aida.


The long missing jumping pose, people were laughing at me, some old people. I guessed they were just envy of me because I can jump that high while they can't. Oh even they can they just can't coordinate themselve into such a perfect double peaces and the red scarf flying in such a perfect way. OK Let's say they can, I don't think they will be in time for the camera man to snap at that precise moment. Because their camera man is gonna have shaky hands and slow coordination, and they don't have a red scarf.

Don't worry I am just crapping.


Supposingly a Heart shape.


On the way to the castle.


At the entrance.


A good view from the castle. Still the lakes, the Alps and the warming sunlight in sucha cold weather. It was between -3 and 3 degrees.





I wanna be a royal family and enjoy the privileges of building my castle around this super awesome landscape.


My dinner. Big portion = Lotsa calories = Will be fat when I am back.


We stayed for a night in this Cosy little hostel called the Hostel L.A House. We booked for three but were given a room for four, and I enjoyed chit-chatting so much with the girls that night.

DAY 2

We strolled around the little town of Füssen the next day. It was a Sunday so most of the shops were closed. Hardly anyone was seen on the streets except for church and some restaurants.


It was a rainy and foggy morning, we walked by this river, it just makes me feel so free, bringing serenity to my troubled mind.


I just can't take my eyes off them. All the sceneries, the awesome creation of mother nature, it's a gift for the people that visit Füssen, seriously.





The three of us. My good friends and travel mates.





Finally Sumo has the chance to come out and take pics again. It is nice to have red leaves crawling on the walls.





Autumn leaves and me - take 1.


Autumn leaves and me - take 2. I have to emphasize, I GOT A CHIN HERE! Probably because of the lack of light, hahaha, and some wrong shadow.





Went to the Stadtmusuem and saw this library. Heidi said she wanted library like this, just like in the Beauty and the Beast. I am gonna built myself a library like this in my palace next time too! and I have to buy a lot of 'nice-looking' books. Yeah, my books are gonna be as vain as me.


Last but not least - the Totentanz, the Dance of Death. It was painted in 1602 by Jakob Hiebeler.Under the motto" Say yes or say no, you must dance", 20 scenes depict various social ranks, led by the pope and the king, dancing with death from whom not even the little child nor the artist himself are spared. A very nice painting and meaningful indeed.

This summarizes my trip to the last stop of the Romantic Road in Germany - Füssen.

I am looking forward to the trip to Prague the day after tommorow!
It's another princess adventure to a new country in Europe.

Vienna's Awesomeness! Day 3 & 4

Relaxed for a bit and went out really late the last day because the weather wasn't good. Rainy and cloudy early morning :( Well we had only a few places to go, thus we took our own sweet time.

First stop, Schloss Belvedere.

Schloss means castle in German. And this guy named Belvedere (I suppose) is a French guy and I forget why he suddenly got a huge amount of money so he built his castle. In the castle there are a lot of arts and paintings including the famous painting by Gustav Klimt - Der Kuss (The Kiss)

We went in and looked around, there were heaps of paintings. There were several paintings by Klimt and this is the most famous one. The Kiss (original Der Kuss) was painted by Gustav Klimt, during his ‘golden period’, and is probably his most famous work. It depicts a couple, in various shades of gold and symbols, sharing a kiss against a bronze background. (by Wikipedia)

Every castle has their own garden. The Garden in this one is simple yet grand.


Arts of the stones and little plants.




And fountains are a must.




This point of view makes the castle looks the best :)


Was a little bit bored and took this pic.






It was pretty windy at that moment and I was telling Heidi that Sumo will fall into the water. And straight after she snapped the pic, the wind blew strongly and both of us screamed when Sumo fell. All the people around were staring at us! Luckily there is a slope before the water and Sumo lay safely there. Both of us were quite stunned.




Camwhore in the ladies.

Left the Schloss after a round seeing endless paintings and were lucky to leave that place :P

We hopped on to the Strassebahn(the tram) and got off at random stops that we liked. That was a real experience of freedom and the excitment of the unknown.






Hopped off at a stop and walked to this fountain, probably some war memorial fountain.


And walked randomly into the Burgsgarten and saw Mozart's statue.




We went to the Donau Canal expecting awesome night scene and nice riverside restaurants, and who knows it turned out to be ....


Something very industrial, or I would say NOTHING. Maybe we got to the wrong side but Heidi told me this is the spot where the tour took her last time. Well maybe I expect too much of it.


It was really creepy as there is not much people and it was getting dark, only the two of us strolling between the buildings and bridges. Well, it's adventure then :)

Well feeling dissapointed we went to Prata, where there lies the oldest Ferris Wheels of Austria, The Wiener Riesenrad.


The Wiener Riesenrad with 15 carriages.


It is another big fun fare.We didn't do much, stroll around and got home.

The last day in Wien.
(Wien is Vienna in German)


Went to look for a post office early in the morning to post a post card back to mum and dad. Well the postcard and postage were really expensive in Vienna. I spent 2 Euros to post it, so sorry la friends, can't post to you guys :P

That day was probably the worst day of all as it was really cold and the rain hadn't stop.


Went to the Hundertwasserhaus, probably the most famous building in Vienna. I watched it in a documentary before.

The Hundertwasser House Vienna (German: Hundertwasserhaus Wien) is an apartment house in Vienna, Austria, designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

The house was built between 1983 and 1986 by architects Univ.-Prof. Joseph Krawina and Peter Pelikan. It features undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a divine melody to the feet"^[1]), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. Hundertwasser took no payment for the design of the house, declaring that it was worth it, to prevent something ugly from going up in its place.

(from Wikipedia)



I like the assymetrical feel.




Set the camera into the wrong mode, snapping bad quality photos :(


The croocked stairs. Probably because of my weight :P


This is where they imitate the inside of the Hundertwasserhaus as the real one has residences in it so we couldn't visit.


We were pretty much affected by the weather and felt really moodless so we went home early as we promised Marcus to cook him Asian dinner. Yeah, he is the chef, and since we cook for the chef we are Superchefs!

This basically ends my Vienna trip. I was there for 6 days but the first and last day we didn't do much. And we left at 6 in the morning on the last day and we nearly missed the flight. Thanks to the very not frequent S-bahn. So a piece of advice for Vienna potential travellers, check the timetable to the airport, they don't have it very frequently. And in the end we had to take the City Airport Train which costs 10 Euros per way. AND the tickets machine only accept 5 euros or 10 euros notes! and I only had a 20 euros note and I end up rushing to the cafe opposite the change the notes!!!

AND IT WAS SUNNY WHEN WE LEFT VIENNA.

Anyway Vienna is a very very beautiful city, lotsa historical spots to explore and they were basically very near to each other in the centre of the city. I am really happy to meet a lot of new friends through the journey :) And as we stayed with Marcus, and we spent very little on food, some paid by Marcus, or we just eat some cheapskate food, we spent around 250 euros, including the flight tickets for the whole trip, which I think is pretty little :)

Good, where's next?

probably a place with friends that can provide free accomodation :P