yet another weekend

the weekend that has just gone wasn't quite as eventful as last week (to have worn sari for the first time) but still relaxing nevertheless. went for a burger meal for lunch on saturday. had always wanted to try out this burger place called Gourmet Burger Kitchen (more commonly known as GBK) cos they apparently serve the 'real' burger. but for the price of 7 to 8 pounds each, i'd just forgo and go into another BK (burger king) la lol. luckily, eateries in london are getting more and more competitive that they have to offer buy 1 get 1 free to lure customers - of course, the customers are more than happy to take advantage of these offers hehe.

we ordered one each - 1 cajun spiced and 1 satay sauce + some random sauce. both burgers are made using 100% aberdeen angus beef and were huge!

surprisingly they tasted really good even without cheese - who says burger must go with cheese lol. only managed to eat 1/2 of satay sauce and 1/4 of cajun spiced cos i was stuffed soon after... for the first time, eating burger actually felt healthy hahaha :)

went to heathrow to pick housemate up this evening. hehe her 2 weeks home passed really fast, no more home alone for me! took us about 2 hours to get there and another 2 to get home... why la make ppl drive through the city to get to airport! (although i wasn't the one driving lol) on the way back we passed by many places that i haven't actually been before, and realised how big london really is. while waiting for the traffic light, we came really close to Parliament Square and the Big Ben. only then it struck me that i haven't seen it that upclose before lol. i guess when something is so easily accessible we are less likely to appreciate its magnificence? or is it just me... Big Ben actually looks really nice in sunny breezy weather like this!

wanted to take pics of London Eye too but the car moved too fast... maybe i should spend a weekend 'absorbing' the beauty of london... erm after i finish all my papers la, which may well mean .. never? *touchwood*

fast fwd to dec!

hehe as usual, jiun booked tickets well in advance on an impulse...

been checking air fares since (well, even before) i came back from my May trip home. the fares have gone insanely high this year, the usual 'cheaper' alternatives - middle eastern airlines, are no longer cheap. they've taken over MAS position previously (in terms of price), charging at least 850pounds for a round trip. of course, MAS try to 'outperform' their rivals by charging even more :S a round trip costs GBP1,064.50 the last time i checked.. no way i'm going to pay that amount of money to go home!!

hsemate told me about the recent offer on MAS that charges very very low fare to certain destinations. so i checked, and found out that it is really really cheap to fly to HK... the cheapest it can get is about rm500+, good deal huh?! then i discovered cheap-er flights from london to hk using virgin atlantic, about GBP695. not bad considering it's peak season and that it's a direct flight :) after a night of intensive research, i came up with my (hopefully flawless) plan hahaha

i'll fly to hk, meet my parents there and spend about 3-4 days, and come back to kl with them. HAHAHA evil smile :P

rang my mum first thing this morning and told her my plan... at first, as all business ppl are, she was a bit hesitant cos she couldn't possibly leave the office 'uncontrolled' for a few days. but at the same time, i knew she was interested hehehe. furthermore, must keep her daughter safe and company right lol. she asked for more details and said she'll give some thoughts to it... about an hour later, she rang back saying she can shift around public hols in dec to those few days, so effectively the office will be closed while she and my dad are away hahahaha. gum dou dak...

so yeah, i've bought my tickets home in dec!! :D:D:D but very 'heart pain' la, such a big sum gone just like that. nvm, as long as i can earn back right hehe.

speaking about that, dad and mum are very pleased and excited that i'm taking them on hol. it's been a while since they went abroad (actually, out of KL haha). the last time was when they came here for my graduation, and that was already 2 years back. quite glad that mum is starting to realise she should travel and experience places while she's able to :) so in a way, i'm very willing to pay for their hol this time la... dad was so excited that he checked the air-tix confirmation emails right after i fwd-ed them :S

my itinerary:

13dec LHR - HKG

14dec reach HK

17dec HKG - KUL

03jan KUL - HKG

03jan HKG - LHR

yay, something to look forward to! :D

ouch II

i survived blood donation :P but it turned out to be much worse than i had expected...

my colleagues and i were meant to report at the room at 2.10pm, but we didn't have our lunch served to us until 1.40pm :S it was results day (another set of exams) so the dept went for pub lunch to celebrate, and as usual... the food took ages to come. so i had to gobble down my fish n chips in a record time of 15mins :S must have looked very uncivilised then hehe.

we were asked to fill out a form that checked if our blood was suitable for donation - medical history, sex life, places travelled and lived etc. one of the guys just got back from US and was not allowed to give blood in case he contracted the West Nile virus ?!?! the nurse said she would have to do further test on my blood too since i was born in KL and just went back for hol... they'd better use it!!

i was then asked to lie on a bed. a guy wrapped something around my left arm (that thing to constrict blood flow, dunno what it's called lol) and looked for the main vein to draw blood from. he had this very worried expression on his face, of course that made me very worried too lol. then he asked for my right arm instead. same expression still... i asked if anything was wrong and he said,'i can't find the vein on your right hand. there's a tiny one on your left hand but i'm afraid you can't finish the whole bag if i took blood from there. i'll call over an assistant to check.' :S as if i wasn't scared enough la! anyway a woman came and she found the suitable vein without much trouble, phew! after cleaning my hand she inserted a needle into my hand, while i looked away lol.

the first 5mins went ok... then the ordeal started. my colleague, SP, filled up his bag before me and sat right next to my bed, where drinks and biscuits were served. i could still smile and chat with him, then i started to feel a layer in my ears such that my hearing became very weak. i could still hear music playing in the room, but people's voices were very faint. then my vision went slightly blurred... shit :P my first instinct was to close my eyes, and wished everything was normal again when i open them again. but no that didn't happen lol. in my mind all i hoped was to fill up the bloody bag (literally lol) asap before i pass out... i kept turning my head and peeked if any nurses bothered to check on me, but they were more interested if i had filled up the bag bleh. i could feel very hot air gushing at the back of my head, very sure it wasn't blood since i wouldn't have felt dizzy. SP tapped on my leg to check if i was still conscious and ok lol. there also came a point that i didn't have energy to squeeze my hand anymore (we had to do that to trigger blood flow). so as much as i wanted to fill up the bag, i couldn't :P finally heard the beep sound that indicated the bag was full, which by that time i was really on the verge of fainting haha.

after i was allowed to get down the bed, i insisted on sitting there for a good few minutes in case i faint right after getting down. felt pins and needles all over the body :S i think i looked really pale then hehe. after gulping down some sugar drink and eating the most sugary biscuits, i felt gradually better :) we sat there for another half an hour (haha skiving from work) chatting about our experience. we were very proud of ourselves :D SP's went perfectly fine and he didn't even feel light-headed cheh. then i thought it was a BAD idea to close my eyes just now cos i would have passed out without anyone knowing lol.

spent the next 2 hours in the office wearing a sticker on my arm: Be nice to me, I gave blood today. hahaha... the dept then went for drinks to celebrate exam results (again...) so i had to give face la. SP just had to tell ppl how scary my experience was, then they showed me size of a pint (about 470ml) - that was roughly the amount of blood taken from me :S no wonder SP felt ok, he's about 6ft so that volume is nothing to him. whereas for me, it's erm maybe the size of my heart + brain haha. i felt light-headed again in the pub, prob cos it was hot and stuffy inside :S so i left early before fainting ...

conclusion: giving blood was surprisingly painless, in terms of the instant needle was poked, and the blood flow process. but i would advise against people my size to try la. then again there's a great sense of achievement having done this, and to potentially safe a life hahaha. that is if they don't throw my blood away! will i do this again? erm not in the short term to come lol... but some people say this is something the body will get used to after a while. hmm...

ooo long entry. so much about my ordeal lol. emailed my bro in office and he replied saying they had to donate blood in NS, and he fainted the day after when they had to march in the hot sun :S

養

read these very meaningful words somewhere. they encapsulate just about what life is about :)

父母要奉養

身體要保養

飲食要營養

講話要修養

子女要教養

生病要調養

感情要培養

做人要修養

ouch

today i finally took a first step to do something that i have always wanted to but never dared... that is, to donate blood!! saw an announcement on the firm's intranet this morning: in support of the World Blood Donor day on 14 June, the firm got the National Blood Service of UK to run an in-house blood donation drive on 20 June. my first thought was, since it's 3 floors above my office, there'll be less risk of me fainting on the way back hahaha. managed to drag 2 guy colleagues to do it with me - one took 3 hours to consider while the other agreed without any hesitation lol.

hmm so... no backing out now :) has anyone donated blood before? share some experience if you have! although ppl claim it doesn't hurt at all, the thought of a needle poked in me for 10mins still gives me goosebumps :P

talking about taking blood, there was once when i had to take blood test and the doctor poked the needle at 3 different points to find the right vein ... eek. after the first poke, he realised no blood was flowing into the syringe so he pulled it out, changed another needle and tried again :S i certainly hope this won't be the case on the big day. ahhh scared but i guess it'll be interesting!

vienna + salzburg

We reached Vienna close to dinner time. After checking in and wow-ing at our room, we decided to try some traditional Austrian food. According to lonely planet, the most common Austrian food is schnitzel, which is basically an escalope (mostly veal or pork) coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Asked the hotel receptionist for some eatery tips and managed to locate the restaurant without much difficulty. Figlmüller, situated about 3 mins away from Stephansdom, is apparently one of the most famous restaurants which serves Wiener Schnitzel. Although many rave about the size of the meat, it is more of the extremely thin and tastiness of the dish that blow customers away. Funnily enough, we spent longer queuing (about 45mins) than finishing our meal, but it was all worth it!

The piece of meat was about 30cm in diameter, less than 0.5cm thick. each piece has to be 250g in weight by tradition of the restaurant... one was enough to feed both of us :P

The 3rd day of the trip was spent mostly walking around the city centre of Vienna…first stop, Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral). Started our day very early so managed to snap pics without hordes of tourists around :)

walked around until 9 when cafes opened… time to recharge with pastries and coffee. Did you know apple strudel originated from Austria?

Random street shot - tram vs. horse carriage

some gate which name escaped my memory hehe

Weather was lovely that day, the first time in 2008 that I enjoyed temperature above 20 deg c lol. There’s a ring road which tourists just have to follow to cover most of the attractions in the city centre… so along the street there were the parliament, town hall, churches, museums etc… Horse carriages were everywhere to take people around the town in medieval way - the cheapest was 40euros for a 20min ride :S. The weather, carefree crowd (prob cos it was a Sunday), just-nice traffic on the roads made the day a thoroughly enjoyable one! Only until we realised all the shops (except those selling souvenirs) are closed on Sundays… which meant we had to buy water for 2euros +++ instead of 40cents in supermarkets :(

the Parliament

like this pic a lot - the clouds looked like a broken heart lol

An old man approached ys while he looked at the city map to get our bearings right... he was actually intending to ask us if we needed help and to recommend some must-see sights in vienna, talk about extreme helpfulness lol.

Strolled for another few hours and we had a quick lunch at McD (my reliable friend on all trips lol) then had dessert at Hotel Sacher. The sole reason was to try the world-famous Sachertorte, which was invented by the father of the hotel’s founder. It is a chocolate sponge cake with a layer of apricot jam in the middle layer, coated with chocolate fudge on the top. Sounds simple? But that one piece of cake cost us 4.90euro (about RM25). and since it wouldn’t look nice to just order that, we were ‘obliged’ to get a cup of coffee… another 4.80euro gone :P to be honest, the cake tasted okay, but not that great such that it was to die for. Lol no harm trying I guess…

the original Sachertorte

tan ka fe...

Walking towards the end of the street where the hotel stands, a familiar scene came to sight -this is where the ‘moments of the moments’ was narrated :) kinda déjà vu huh hehe.

We then had a look at Mozart’s house, just a look cos it costs 9euros to go in, saw some pics of the interior and thought it wasn’t worth it. A short walk later and we reached Beethoven’s house, and surprisingly it’s free! Hmm does this imply Mozart was more famous than Beethoven… The house (or rather flat) was nothing but ordinary, with squeaking wooden flooring and display of his music scripts, piano, portraits etc.

he lived in a small flat on the fourth floor of this building

With that we ended our Vienna day trip, and headed for Salzburg, the city where the Sound of Music was filmed. Frankly, Salzburg was a bit boring - it lacks of the vibrancy and colours found in Vienna, the city seemed almost dead by 5pm. One thing for sure, the city makes a lot of money out of Mozart… ‘Mozart’ can be seen everywhere, there are Mozart street, Mozart chocolates (they even made a life size poster of him holding a choc with his head on the wrapper :S not very nice la I think), Mozart café, Mozart square, and the most relevant of all…Mozart’s birthplace …

We soon got bored of Salzburg and decided to spend most of our 4th and last day in the car haha. Drove all the way to the national park and up to the snow mountains. Loved the experience of being almost same height as some peaks… we were about 1600ft above sea level at one point :) unfortunately weather wasn’t great on that day, otherwise it would be nice to just marvel at nature’s beauty!

view from some 1000+ ft above sea level

Oh, another thing I realised… since Mercedes, BMW, Audi are German brands, those cars took up at least 70% of the car population in Germany and Austria. They are as common as proton and perodua in Msia hehe.

lots of wind turbines along the motorway

That marked an end to the trip, and I came back to London recharged :) then got my spirits dampened after having to walk to work in the rain today eesh.

Saw a tee in a souvenir shop that cracked me up... the caption was: NO KANGAROOS IN AUSTRIA hahahaha

munich

my trip wasn't cancelled after all :) everything went incredibly well during the trip. as opposed to rainy/cloudy weather forecasted on weather channel, it was sunny and warm for 3.5 out of the 4 days we were there! according to statistics, austria is gloomy for 75% of the year, so i guess we should count our lucky stars :)

our trip started at 4am on 18/04... had to take the cab to Stansted Airport for a 6.30am flight to Salzburg. madness, i know. reached Salzburg on time and was awed by the fact that the airport is located at near distance from snow mountains! collected our rented car then set off for Munich. as there is no speed limit along most of german motorways, ys enjoyed himself a great deal stepping on the accelerator to the max : then i wondered, what would happen if motorways in m'sia have no speed limits? we would probably see flying kancils/kelisa everywhere haha. one thing i learnt about german is they are really law-abiding people... they automatically slow down once a limit is in place!

we then turned into a 'scenic route' that brought us closer to the mountains... and i realised how much i love just staring at snow mountains lol... the imposing size of the mountain topped with snow, contrasting against the blue sky with fluffy white clouds, made such an awesome sight to behold.

love the reflection of the mountain on the lake in this pic...

our first stop was at Neuschwanstein Castle (lol still don't know how it's pronounced). this fairy-tale like castle was the inspiration of sleeping beauty and cinderella castles, and also the logo of disneyland...apparently.

as usual we spent some time locating the hotel... and was pleasantly surprised that the hotel was really really nice. there were even a mini bar and couch for 5 in the room! :D so that set a very high benchmark for the hotels to come lol.

opted for traditional german cuisine on our first night - pork knuckles! hmm heard a lot about this dish from friends studying in germany, but sadly it didn't quite reach the mark. it was a bit too salty to our liking, but the texture of the meat was hugely different from the normal pork we eat... it was almost like chicken meat!

on the following morning, we walked around munich city centre... hmm in my opinion, it's about the same as other european cities but safer. since it drizzled a bit when we were there, the photos didn't turn out nice :( so i'll save the description la hehe...

left munich for vienna after lunch... it was a looooong drive (almost 6 hours in all phew!)