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| Saturday, 12-Apr-2008 12:00 |
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Reception Weekend and 100 Cultures in 1 City
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| Saturday, 29-Mar-2008 09:13 |
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Easter Weekend
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| Saturday, 23-Feb-2008 12:00 |
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Weekend in Krakow
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| Saturday, 23-Feb-2008 12:00 |
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Krakow Weekend
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Since Basti was leaving, we decided to go to Krakow for the weekend. I've been to Krakow but I hadn't been to Auschwitz so I was very curious to see the biggest Jewish concentration camp in Poland as people said it's unimaginably huge! So after work on Friday, off we catch the train to Krakow which only took us 2 and half hours (with an express train of course). We stayed at Ivan's colleague's flat and off to the party as soon as we arrived, crazy eh? Anyways, on Saturday we were just doing sightseeing around Krakow, thankfully the weather was perfect! Now I realised why people prefer more Krakow than Warsaw. The first time I came here I couldn't see what's so special about Krakow, but then I realised Krakow has a lot to offer in terms of entertainment. Most clubs are just around the square which you can just easily hopping from one club to another without worrying about the distance. You could also obviously see there are a lot of young people and is more student and culture centred. I came to understand why whenever people talk about Krakow their eyes are wide open and full of enthusiasm than when they talk about Warsaw. Yeah, now you could say that I prefer Krakow more than Warsaw.
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| Wednesday, 16-Jan-2008 13:16 |
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Budapest Weekend
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| Monday, 31-Dec-2007 12:00 |
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New Year's eve
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It was the day where this whole trip to Vilnius was about, to celebrate new year! Yeah, time flies so fast these days. The memory in London is still strongly visible and now 2008 has approached us! Like last year, I had massive great time!! Only this time it was Lithuanian way. With the thick snow covering the city, I truly felt the atmosphere of new year! All supermarkets were full of people trying to do last minute groceries as all shops would be closed on 1st Jan.
I had my new year's party at Giedre's with her other Lithuanian friends. One thing I'll never forget about this new year and my trip to Vilnius as a whole was rolling myself on the icy cold snow with my bathing suit! sounds crazy huh? Well, that's how the Lithuanians do when they go into a sauna in winter. Apparently there's a sauna at Giedre so we all decided to go for a sauna after midnight. And so Virgis set a game rule; nobody is allowed to leave the sauna until everyone in the room agrees, no matter how fucking hot it gets. I patiently waited although god knows how freaking hot I was! It lasted almost half an hour until everyone just couldn't stand the heat and off we ran outside to the garden and rolled ourself on the snow quickly and back to the sauna. It was the craziest thing I've ever done but it felt REALLY good! I was down with cold the very next day...hahahah...poor me. But it was a really good experience! perhaps in a lifetime.
Wonder where will I be next year? 
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| Sunday, 30-Dec-2007 12:00 |
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Second Day - KGB Museum
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Started the day by having Lithuanian pancakes for breakfast
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then headed off to former KGB prison now museum
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Second day in Vilnius we started our day having pancakes for breakfast in one of the most famous pancakes place in Old Town. I tried pancakes with banana and chocolate and it was delicious! Well, the banana wasn't that sweet though but it had some taste. Then we headed off to KGB museum in which I was very excited about, it used to be the prison for the KGB prisoners but after the fall of communism they turned it into a museum. Gosh, you wouldn't believe some of the things you see inside.Ok, to be honest before I went to the museum I didn't know that much about KGB, all I knew was that KGB is always associated with Russian and the Soviet Unions. My knowledge of KGB was just based on what I saw on movies and some articles I read which still I wasn't really 100% sure and quite blur about the whole concept of the organisation. Since I got the chance to be in one of the former Soviet countries, I was really curious to find out what KGB is all about. We spent almost an hour and a half in the museum. After reading through the descriptions, stories of what really happened during the occupation, I was really distraught by the photos I saw,can't imagine the life at that period, must be extremely hard! Just imagine, you are being watched all the time, every single minute of your life. You are not free to travel anywhere and even if you had, you're still monitored by these agents and if they are suspicious about your activity, off you go to the prison in that little tiny cell. You'll be interrogated, brainwashed and hell you never know when they're gonna free you out.
After the museum, we went for a coffee to warm ourselves up before headed off to Giedre's parents' for dinner.
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| Friday, 28-Dec-2007 01:41 |
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Vilnius, Lithuania - 28/12/07 - 2/01/08
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Going to Lithuania wasn't part of my traveling lists.Lithuania?? what is there to see?? Ok, besides not knowing what their capital city was, I know it's border to Poland and it was part of Soviet Union but I was just not tempted to visit as I don't really know much what the country can offer. Until Whiter, my New Zealand friend asked me if I wanted to join her to Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania), since I don't have any plans for NYE, so I thought, yeah why not, she has friends there anyway. It would be fun to have a plan than nothing at all on new year's eve. We went to Vilnius by train and it was a 9-hour journey. Since Poland has just joined the Schengen zone, meaning there won't be any passport control between the borders.The good side is, travelling is much easier as there isn't anyone to question your purpose for visiting one country which can be a hell of irritation! on the other hand, you don't get your passport stamped as a prove you've been to the country! so for those who love to collect stamps on their passport, forget about travelling by land.
We arrived in Vilnius at 5.30 in the evening. The weather wasn't welcoming at all...it was drizzling, wet and slippery from the frozen snow. Giedre, Whiter's friend waited for us at the train station. First impression of Vilnius besides the weather was it has a neater and cleaner train station compared to the one in Warsaw....Giedre took us to the hotel which is just few mins walk from the station. She was so hospitable that she took care of everything from the moment we arrived till our last day in Vilnius. I better do the same if she comes to Malaysia. After settling down with our room and stuff, she took us out for dinner. It was our first Lithuanian food of the trip. We had dishes which were made of potatoes, EVERYTHING was made of potatoes and it was yummy!
The next day Giedre took us for sightseeing at the most important tourist places like the Old Town which is the biggest in Europe (I just found out frm the guide book), the museum and the Higher Castle. Then, at night we went to see figure skating. Virgis (Giedre's bf) got us free passes, it was the highlight of my day actually. I had never seen live figure skating before, therefore this was an amazing episode of my life when I got to see them performing live!! The Soviets, well the ex Soviets are very good at this. It reminds me of a famous Ukrainian skater Oksana Baiul. I had goosebumps watching their great performance. Watching it live and on tv are definitely of different feelings.
We ended the day having few drinks at Paparazzi, one of famous bars in Vilnius.
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| Tuesday, 25-Dec-2007 12:00 |
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Polish Christmas
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Seeing Polish busy preparing for Christmas, it made me realized this is the 4th Xmas I spend abroad. Time flies like a rocket machine, the next thing you know you're already at the destination. Though I don't celebrate Christmas, it's fun to see people running around downtown with their xmas trees and presents for their loved ones. Towards xmas all shopping malls are crowded with people; people who are doing their last minutes shopping, people who are getting last minutes presents for families and friends and people who are just doing window shopping like me:-)
On Xmas eve I was invited by a friend from AIESEC for a dinner with her family. She was anxious to show me how Polish celebrate xmas. So I went. I didn't know what to give them, so I prepared some desert I just learned from kak Ramlah... I received a warm welcome by her mother who had just finished preparing dishes for the dinner. Later the whole extended family came; Both Kamila's grandparents from her mom's and dad's, her aunts and uncles and cousins. Though some of them don't speak English, we managed somehow to have some conversations! how amazing! Even her mom is not really fluent in English, but at least she tried, unlike some Polish who are stuck up and ignorant her family is just one of a kind! Even her grandmother is nice. I hardly meet old Polish citizens who are open like her grandmother.
The next day was another 'eating day', this time it was with Tomek's family. He lives in the outskirt of Warsaw. The scenery on the way to his house was so beautiful that I couldn't help myself from taking pictures! I was welcomed by his mom and later his dad who was busy preparing the food. In fact his dad was the one who prepared everything from A-Z...Tomek has such a cool parents you wouldn't believe Tomek is their son. Tomek is the good boy type, dressed smartly and physically uncool. His dad is the bad boy kind of type, with ear piercing and long hair...Well he's a biker and a member of Harley Davidson. Every once in a while Derek (the dad) and his mum would travel with other bikers around Poland or Europe. How cool is that! They're another Polish family who are not the Polish typical.....
All in all I had a great evening with Tomek's family......After the bad experience I had with Marta on the night after we went out partying, I realised that there are good Polish out there, and I hope there are more!
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| Friday, 21-Dec-2007 12:00 |
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Dinner at Podwale
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Brian, trying my masak lemak ayam
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Mary is making sure everyone has enough
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after dinner..
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Mary and I decided to invite some people to our place for dinner. Since it's nearly Christmas and most people are leaving town so we thought it would be nice to hang out together before they leave. So we prepared our traditional dishes. For me the simplest dishes I could prepare and not so complicated were fried noodles and ayam masak lemak...It has been a loooong time since I cooked so I was a bit worry if it didn't turn out good. But Mary loved it!! hahahah...Mary prepared something Venezuelan which was also yummy! The night was easy and chill, it was nice:-)
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SUKA KEK & CUPCAKE TAK?? 
