From Lux to Salzburg, Austria - 4

After spending 2 nites in Lux, we continued our journey to Salzburg, Austria - the birthplace of Mozart and the filming location for the musical movie "The Sound of Music". Salzburg is located between Germany, Italy, Vienna and Switzerland and it took us approximately 6 hours to reach our destination from Lux. Austria is famous for Swarovski crystal and the winter Olympics was once held in Austria - 2000 something??.

St Peter, the monastery where Maria (heroin in the Sound of Music) stayed before she left to become the governess to a Naval officer widower.

The background is the cemetery next to the monastery. Even the cemetery can become tourist attraction in Europe. We should follow this example.

Views of Salzburg's old and new city from a tower, can't remember the name of the tower...

The birthplace of Mozart ...he died in his early 30s... committed suicide cause badly in debt due to his excessive luxurious spending, I pun baru tauk, thought that he died at an old age...buta seni bah...

The "Marbel Garden" - another filming location of "The Sound of Music".

The fountain and the staircase where Maria and the kids sang the "Do Re Me" song - Do a dear a female dear...lebih kurang mcm tu lah lyricnya

Posting akan datang.... Venice, Rome, Vatican City and Pisa Italy.

From German to Luxembourg - 3

On 09.09.08, we crossed the German - Luxembourg border. Lux is well known as a world centre of international finance, but behind the modern face of the city lies a rich history back over 1,000 years. Lux City is located on top of hills and cliffs rising above the Alzette and Petrusse valleys. Among European countries, Lux imposed the least tax on petrol, ciggerates and alcohol, so you can find these items quite cheap in Lux compared to the rest of Europe.

Place De Armes - where many shophouses are located.

In front of Grand Ducal Palace - Official Royal Residence, The Grand Duke of Lux Henry.

Beautiful valleys

View from the Corniche - the balcony of Europe

Entrance to the Bock Casemates caves(World Heritage Site) used by 30,000 people to hide from bombings during the world wars.

The Pont Adolphe Square

From Holland to Germany - 2

After spending 3 days in NL, we continued our journey to German and it was a great experience to have the oppurtunity to drive on their first class highway. No dout Micheal Shumarker can be the top driver of F1 as they have the longest and best highway in the world(with NO TOLLS) which enable him to acquire skills of fast driving.

Germanist drive damn fast on the road - of course one of the reason, they drive good cars -Mercedez BMW, etc.. Driving in this kind of environment was quite stressful for Seb because other drivers keep on "highlighting" our car eventhough we drove at the speed of 130 KM/hour on the slow lane!!! In fact, German was our transit point to Lux, so we only spent one nite in Frankfrut ,nothing much to see actually, only admiring the modern German tall buildings architecture.

Muka semua ngerinsing masa this snap cause it was really sunny, panas tp sejuk. Just look at the blue sky and you know what i mean.

From England to Holland -1

Our Tour de Europe last month (5th-29th September 2008) was really an interesting and challenging journey (among those were our GPS was technically malfunctioned) but - to cut the story short - we managed to find the way out. Gosh...thanks God! The day before we cross the English Channel, we spent a night in Dover and get ourselves ready for the trip which we had technically planned for the past 6 months!- car rental, accommodation, places of interest, culture, languages, etc.

On the 5th @ 0800, we departed from our hotel and drove to Dover Ferry Terminal where we dropped off our rented car. We decided to get another car in France as in Europe , they drive on right hand side and we thought its best to get their car instead of driving a car from UK. From Dover, we catched the ferry to Calais, France. It took us about 1.5 hours to cross the English Channel.

P&O Ferry used to cross the English Channel

Seb and Gab on the ferry (background view-the White Cliff of Dover)

Once we reached Calais, we got our pre-booked rented car from AVIS. After loading our luggage into the car, Seb get himself ready for his first main task...to operate the car in a different setting. After just five minutes driving, suddenly Seb headed on to the road divider....OMG...everyone just keep quite...can he really make it?can he really adapt himself with the right handed driving system, turn right when it comes to the roundabout, etc. Despite all the "obstacles" we managed to make it through to Holland and the first assignment took us 10 hours to reach our destination (plus visits to WC).

We spent 3 days in Holland and came to learn that most of Holland is below sea level where barriers were built along Holland to hold back sea water - no wonder you can find canals anywhere in Amsterdam. We visited the cheese farm and a "Klompenhius", where wooden clogs are made.

The Clog

Demonstration on the processes of making cheese

Photo taken with "The Dutch Lady- susu Dutch Lady liao..."


Typical Amsterdam identity - The traditional windmill

The following day, we spent the rest of the day in Amsterdam City, places such as Von Gough Musuem, Hard Rock Cafe, etc and of course the famous Red Light District (RED) where legal prostitution activities take place. The interesting part of RED is that one can find prostitutes displaying themselves, wearing arousing bikinis in the "aquarium" ready for business. However, we could not take the snapshot in the RED as we have been warned not do so or else you will find yourself and your camera in the canal, thrown by the bonzer. This experience is a good exposure for Gab...I would think so :) She was giggling all the way through and keep on saying "Mummy...... look at the sexy lady." Being a liberal country, canabis can also be found in the night market and they do sell coffee mixed with marijuana upon request. Dont you think its cool?

Ams Tourism Slogan - I amsterdam


Hard Rock Cafe - Amsterdam




Canabis sold at the night market


This is exactly how the RED looks like...


and this shows how liberal the country is....

Thats all i can share with you about NL. The next destination is Germany.

Im back

Hi ya,

Im back now. We touched down safely yesterday (30th September) after a very long journey via Schipol, Amsterdam - we have to catch 3 flights to get us back to Kuching. All of us are running out of energy, in particular me...exhausted mentally and physically. Thanks God, the dissertation things were done and the trip to Europe was extremely interesting and challenging i may say. I'll update you on the trip later cause I need to regain my energy...tired giler

No updates...

Dear All,

There will be no updates on this blog for the time being as im extremely busy with my diss. Gosh..I need all the energy now.

Celebration!!! I PASS THE EXAM!

While Im still trying to get back my momentum, I received an email from the teaching office requesting me to collect my exam results from the school pigeonholes. When I reached the teaching office, few of my course mates were there…some were happy, some were depressed…I don’t dare to ask…I was so damn scared to see those expression…..

When I opened the envelope…

OMG…I pass…I pass the exam and I pass all the modules!!

List of subjects Ive taken. I passed them all, except for the dissertation which will be submitted in September.

My one year effort, finally bear it fruits….Gosh…Ive been suffering for nearly one year to earn this degree…and this is the moment that Ive been waiting for…Now, only left with my dissertation of which I believe, with God’s will of course, it should not be a problem ....PRAISE THE LORD!!!Finally Im getting closer to the finish line.

About being productive...

I am not being productive today. I have done nothing useful except that Ive only managed to read 2 articles on the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and wasting "quality time?" browsing through some of my friends and associates blogs/facebook...just to keep me posted on whats happening back home, obviously this "activity" does not help me with my dissertation.

My classmates used to tell me that it’s a “curse” when an economist being unproductive…agree? Ya…perhaps he is right, perhaps it is a disease, a Dutch disease (an economic term) - in my context; where you have ample time and thus take things for granted and at the end of day regrets it for being so complacent. So, I will quit….well quit from being unproductive and continue working on my dissertation!!

By the way, just to share on this breaking news: Church will ordain women bishops! “The Church of England's ruling body, the General Synod, has voted to confirm the ordination of women as bishops”- Source: BBC.

For more details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7494517.stm

Hai…apa nak jadi…

P/S: There was a heli landed in front of my resident last Sunday. Cool!!...what a view to enjoy...birds, hot balloons, etc..Love it!




...and a friend of mine just came back from Switzerland today and bring some ole-ole, swiss chocolate...yummy2. Thanks Hem.

Walaupun kecik, tak ape...paham2 ajaklah...traveling based on student's budget. whats important - the thought that matters!