Italia, Schweiz, & Deutschland (3rd - 14th December)
Rome,Pisa,Florence,Siena,Venice,Milan,Interlaken,Titisee,Lucerne

Only Mummy and I went overseas though, because Emily had school and so my father stayed behind to keep an eye on her :( But at least there were Aunt Lillian, Uncle Peng Seng, Christel and Popo to keep us company. Though I know that if the whole family had gone, we would have had even more fun. We took the 1 A.M. flight if I didn't remember wrongly, Emily, my father, Joel, Weihui and her parents came to send us off, ai si ni men le :) Then it was 13 hours on the plane, where I caught High School Musical 2, Ratatouille and Underdog (stupid show -.-) and slept the rest of the time. Christel slept 13 hours straight, she's the best she got an eyemask from SIA lol. The days got dark at like six/ seven in the evening, and that's not the bad part, what's bad was that the shops closed at around that time too and that sucks and means sleeping and waiting for the next day!! Plus we spent lots of time (minimum 20 minutes, maximum three/four hours) in the coach travelling from place to place so yeah, this post is gonna be relatively short. But I have postcard photos (3259) to make up for that!! :D

Day 1: Arrived at Leonardo Da Vinci airport in Rome, capital of Italy and waited a while for the tour manager and we boarded a coach to St. Peter's Basilica/ St. Peter's Square (Vatican City). Oh holy, holllllllly but I could only appreciate how detailed the church is, and how huge it is mmm I think the largest in Italy? Hahaha no idea man there were so many churches with different names it's hard to remember which one is actually the biggest. I think tours should be categorized into Christians and Non-Christians -.- I mean one is okay but er we spent the whole time in Italy looking at churches and squares yeah I know that's what they're known for but stillll, I'm sure there are other stuff worth looking at too. Didn't really take photos in the church therefore :) Italy has cool mamashops, I think they're real buses or something, but anyway they sell stuff expensive. Christel got ice-cream from it and it was super out of shape, wow then I got to realise during the next few days that all the ice-cream sold there were not in balls, shock shock! Visited the Roman Colossuem, it is one of the new Seven World Wonders! Yay, this is my first world wonder :) I want to see the rest! But one is in India so I'm not sure about that... Anyway, the colossuem was very big but we didn't get to go in because we had to pay extra charges and we were only there for a photo stop. It would have been prettier inside.

Then we went to the Fontaina di Trevi (okay got that from the itenerary, Trevi Fountain), apparently if you throw coins inside you'll get good luck. But I didn't throw any, was busy looking at all the buskers around that area. They don't really perform or sing but they just stone and only move when you give them money hehehe, I saw them everywhere and I thought it's quite cool. Some really looked like statues :O Got ice-cream hehe, I think I had ice-cream almost everyday during the trip. Spanish Steps later, this area where all the branded boutiques were. I don't remember if we had free time to walk there that day but anyway we left to some ang moh pasar malam thing and we had two/ three hours there but there wasn't shit to buy and we wasted so much time sitting on the benches rotting, looking at people. BY THE WAY, everyone in Italy was pretty/ handsome and even the road sweepers were young and beautiful hehehe I feel like some cheekohpeh. Yeah, someone's gotta do the job right? And we saw a whole group of bangala people demonstrating outside this white building, haha I think it's a white house/ parliament or something, apparently they are very sad in Italy o.o Night at A something Hotel, haha hotels for memory's sake in case I go back or something, very unlikely but still it's good to remember :) Oh, dinner at Chinese restaurant for almost everyday, planned by the agency.

Day 2: Optional tour to Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, which is around the St. Peter's Square also. The ceilings were all painted and they all look super 3D but they are not, it's just so amazing you wouldn't believe they are painted! Italians are all artists I must say. The whole stretch of the ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel done by Michelangelo was just wow because he took four (or was if five) years to finish it. We weren't allowed to take any pictures of it so yeah, it's okay this way that you appreciate it more when you look at the painting there. I saw this guy who bought a puzzle of the whole Michelangelo painting!! I wonder how's he gonna finish it, but anyway I wanted to get it too but didn't know where to. Spanish Steps again during lunch time, we had our free time so we went to this restaurant. The food was mediocre only but it costed so much zzzzz. And during the trip I drank a lot of hot chocolate and latte because it was so cold there! Oh and then we strayed far from Spanish Steps to do shopping, I got this mini Colosseum for memory's sake, and also to prove that I've been to there. I want to collect the other six :) By the time we went back to meet the tour group, it was almost sunset and the Spanish Steps was beautiful! :D The skies and clouds are always very amazing. I know how short this part for Day 2 is, Italy is quite boring la.

Day 3: Supposed to go to Pisa but it was a long journey so the tour manager suggested that we took a break in a town called Siena. It was optional but yeah, why not? It's a pretty little town where houses are only allowed to have green, white, or brown windows to maintain the uniformity! So cool :) I love the allies and shops, the layout and how they position the furniture just makes the place feel so cosy. Visited a Duomo and again everything was intricate, it was built in the don't know how many century and it's still in good shape with all the reconstruction. But unfortunately the cranes and scaffoldings ruin the photos. We went to the Piazza el Campo, a scallop-shaped square where Palio/ horse races are held annually, other than that period of time, I guess it's just a place for pigeons. Then it was free time, had lunch at a little pastry shop. We managed to get seats but those who didn't had their meals at the counter, where people paid for their food! Okay la quite interesting! After that we went shopping and I think Siena is not bad a place for shopping! We didn't have much time though :( There was still Pisa. Yeah we got on the coach but before we even arrived, the sky got dark! There wouldn't be sunlight for good photos so the tour manager suggested that we go to Pisa the next day, and so, we wasted time travelling to Pisa. The driver had to turn to Florence, where the hotel (West Florence) was and blah blah blah time was wasted here and there, everywhere and we spent four/ five hours in the coach rotting. Day 3 was actually damn wasted.

Day 4: Tour at Florence, visited the Duomo, Door of Paradise, Piazza Signoria and Ponte Vecchio. Tired of saying how beautiful the scenery was and all because it makes me feel like my vocabulary is very limited. Not like it isn't, but still. So I'll just put up photos for memory's sake. We went to this Little Pig Market which sold all kinds of leather goods. I think Florence produces a lot of leather goods to be distributed to the whole of Italy. Yeah so anyway the little pig turned out to be a fat ass wild hog la!! So ugly and old, there is a statue in the market which apparently gives you good luck if you touch it so I have to touch it! :) We only had one hour or so of free time, shopping, ice-cream, shopping, ice-cream waffles. You don't only mai dong xi chi dong xi mai dong xi chi dong xi in Hong Kong. Met with the rest of the tour group and then the tour manager led us to some place where the driver was supposed to pick us from. And because of some problems she couldn't contact the driver, and when she did she couldn't communicate with him. And then she disappeared and left us to piece the information we get from different families in the tour group. We spent one hour waiting like idiots until it rained and we went to seek shelter. We couldn't walk far because no one knew when the coach was gonna come. Yeah wasted so much time when we could have been shopping and eating lunch in peace instead of packing lunch just to have more time for exploration. Then somehow someone led the tour group to where the coach was, and it was a close to one hour walk!! I swear I lost weight despite the ice-cream I've eaten. When we got on the coach Aunt Lillian was so pissed she gave the tour manager and driver hell!! It was very scary because she looked really infuriated. Hahaha but come to think of it, Aunt Lillian is power!! Because after that incident, we got free bottles of San Benedetto water from the driver whenever we wanted, before that we had to pay him 1 Euro for each.

Yeah, close to two whole hours were wasted doing nothing but waiting, and we couldn't give Pisa a miss again because it'd cause a snowball effect and affect the rest of our itenerary. So we had to go to Pisa at night. It was so disappointing because everything was dark and the photos taken of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa were all not pretty at all! There was the Baptistery and Duomo as well but it was so dark couldn't see anything la! And the shops were closing, it made Pisa even darker and colder. Still, I managed to get a few souvenirs... Haha I got Jia Li to send me some photos of it when there was daylight, so pretty laaaaaaa.


Day 5: We took a motor boat over to Venice, an island without cars and only gondolas! There was this tour group from China on the same boat and they smell like cigarettes!! Okay I am very kind. The China tour guide was like 'ge wei, chuan shang hai you qi ta tuan ti, dan shi mei guan xi yin wei da jia dou shi tong bao!', hahaha -.- When we arrived at Venice, we visited St. Mark's Square, it was built in the medieval ages I think and they preserved it till now! In fact, everything in Venice was built super long ago by humans and the people there they just appreciate their culture so much they don't want to destroy the olden buildings! Cool, the architecture was so intricate and beautiful, but I wouldn't want Singapore to preserve our attap houses and huts. By the way, there were so freaking many pigeons at the square, they are not like Singapore pigeons!! They do not fly away when humans go close to them, neither do they shit from the top of trees! They go close to you hoping that you would give them food, and they shit right no the floor, imagine how many shits I've stepped on with the Converse sneakers!! Anyway we had our own lunch at Eraclea and food was so expensive the meal was 200 bucks, not sure SGD or Euro, but either way I'm positive that it would only cost less than 100 in Singapore!! We had normal pizza, pasta and salad only lor. Anyway, after that we met up with the rest of the tour group and went to look at the Bell Tower, Bridge of Sighs, Grand Canal and Doge's Palace. Okay I don't even remember going to these places I got them off the itinerary and I have pictures of them but I wasn't listening to what the guide was saying. I was busy looking at pigeons hehehe. After the city tour we went to Murano Glass Factory, where this guy demonstrated to us the making of a glass horse, oh my god it was so pretty! And he did it in one minute :O It was just so amazing how he transformed a blob of molten glass into a xu xu ru sheng horse! No pictures because lighting was bad everything was so blur :( Maybe Mummy's camera has, we'll see. Murano glass was nice to look at but too expensive to be bought home because who knows, it might just break on the way home and piang, hundreds of Euros gone, then piang, another hundred.

Then it was free time, all the six of us took an optional 45-min ride on the gondola! Hahaha it was damn funny because it was slanted the whole time and I was so scared it would flip and I can't swim la!! I thought it was 45 minutes of insecurity and fear! Mummy, Aunt Lillian and Uncle Peng Seng got the safest seats while Christel and I were left to rock in the middle of the sampam. The gondolier didn't sing any Italian songs during the journey though, the tour guide said he would. So the atmosphere wasn't at its peak but it was good enough already! :) We passed by Marco Polo's house, it was white and had only a few windows. They still keep it in its original state after how many years! Okay I don't know who Marco Polo is though, I think he has something to do with Silk Road or something...? Haha whatever he is very ancient. Anyway it was in the evening so I kind of got to see the sunset, as in the warm colours and everything, the sun was just missing. And this reminds me that I have yet to see a satisfying sunset which would make me proud to say that I have seen a real sunset :) The sky was beautiful and everything else was black because of the contrast, got lots of postcard photos! After the ride there wasn't much time already and it was getting dark so we just window-shopped because nothing interested us. I saw some Black selling the beanie things I always played with when I was young!! I don't know what they are called but they're like balloons filled with some sort of powder which allows them to be moulded into different shapes and they have eyes. They always burst when I played with them. But I didn't get a chance to buy them 'cause we could miss the boat back to land :( I wanted to get a whole lot of them but yeah :( Night at... Hotel de Milano or something, I made that up.


Day 6: Went to Verona to look at Juliet's Balcony, haha the one where Romeo climbed up to look for her. (I remember because Elyssa's group performed that part for Literature PT last year, hahaha awww memories) Anyway we didn't go into the house to see her tomb and all because there wasn't time. There was a statue of Juliet outside her house and tourists were taking pictures of themselves with their hands on one of her boobs. Wahlao I feel so insulted for Juliet, what's with putting your hands at her boobs man, retarded ones. The houses in Verona were all very cute, they had balconies and most of them decorated their balconies with flowers, so sweet :) Okay there was this wall and there was chewing gums stuck all over it, Singapore is right about banning chewing gums. Had less than an hour of free time so we walked around and salivated over pretty pastries in the bakeries :D

Off to Milan, home of Italian fashion gurus. Visited the Duomo, which is a church, every bit of the architecture was so elaborate I cannot believe that humans built/ carved it and I'm sure technology now won't be able to make it so perfect. I'm not a Christian so half the time when the local guide was talking about all the stained glasses and what nots, I wasn't really listening. In Italy wasn't that great actually, everything was about God, Jesus, Adam & Eve, didn't hook me up. Haha I was posing for a picture and this guy came to offer me pigeon food, he wanted to force me to accept ok but Mummy was like BU YAO NA BU YAO NA YAO HUAN QIAN! (Knowing a language they don't know is totally good) After that we went to the Victor Emmanuel Galleria, which is a shopping galore built after the king who united the whole of Italy or something, haha paiseh if I remembered wrongly. Anyway, it was kind of grand and had all the branded stuff, yeah we walked in and out of Louis Vuitton and Gucci like Hang Ten and Baleno (I think that Giordano is not bad) HAHA. The salesmen and women would still serve you no matter what and they didn't show us any kind of look even though we asked about some stuff but didn't buy anything in the end. I heard the salespeople in those boutiques in Singapore wouldn't want to serve you if you do not look rich or whatever, and I heard the first thing they look for is a Rolex watch on your wrist or something. And in Italy you don't have to queue to get in LV, HAAA stupid. Then we went further to other shopping malls. Saw Miss Sixty but there wasn't the wallet I wanted T.T Okay a penny saved is a penny earned :) There were more stuff but then again, we only had two hours and so we left Milan empty-handed, HELLLLLLO? I was so super sad because we were leaving for Switzerland the next day and I heard that Italy is for shopping and Switzerland is for sightseeing so I thought there wouldn't be shopping time anymore and I wanted to buy so many things! Who knew, now I think Switzerland is better for shopping than Italy if you don't go for high-end branded stuff. The galleria lit up at night and it was cool, night at some Milano hotel.


Day 7: Left Milan for Bern, capital of Switzerland, but before that we went to Fox Town, a factory outlet shopping mall which sold all the branded stuff at as high as 70%! Whee I love secret hideouts!! But kanasai la seriously we reached at 10 and the shops only opened at 11, tour guide wanted to leave at 11!!! Yeah so in the end because shoppers own sightsee-rs so we stayed till 11.30 only, but better than nothing. We window-shopped first and then eyed on stuff, and when it struck 11 we rushed into shops to get them!! Hahaha quite fun though I didn't get much, I got a Valentino wallet for my sister! :) Aunt Lillian finally got her handbag after scouting in shops for the past few days, hahaha. After that we continued to Bern, where we stopped by at the bear pit, there were two super huge and lazy bears, some other tourists were feeding them peanuts or something and they refused to go and retrieve anything that is thrown beyond their reach! Apparently somebody didn't know what to name a city and so decided to hunt and name it after the first animal he hunted and 'bear' sounds like 'bern' so. Then we walked down the street to the Clock Tower, which sort of is the symbol for bern. There were lots of fountains in the whole city, usually with all sorts of historic people, the water was drinkable straight from the fountains but I am very kiasu I do not lke to drink unboiled water! We had more than an hour to shop there, got lots of stuff from Hennes & Mauritz, I officially love that boutique but there aren't any in Singapore :( Hahaha it was damn amusing the sunglasses were selling at CHF 0.90!! (SGD 1.17) Mummy bought two but we lost one already, haha like who cares right so damn cheap! We spent an hour in the shop and by the time we came out it was time to go to Interlaken already :(

Reached Interlaken and we went to the Chalet Oberland hotel to put our stuff and then to Bebbie's Restaurant for a Swiss Fondue Combo Dinner, which included three kinds of fondue - Cheese, Meat (I know you're thinking what that is) and Chocolate. I was really looking forward to the combo but it sucked real bad! Nevertheless, the shop owner, Bebbie (lol male), is one entertaining man, I think he suffers from from hyperactiveness or something, he kept going around to joke with people and perform funny things like the something horn and lion dance -.- Haha while we're eating halfway there was suddenly chinese music from inside the restaurant! Yeah, the family sat outside because the restaurant was full-house and no one wanted to sit outside despite the warm heaters turned on so. Okay back to the food, cheese fondue was over salty, we only had bread to go with cheese. And later the meat fondue was so retarded okay whoever said it's a meat fondue, IT'S FREAKING STEAMBOAT LA, POSEUR. And the meat was disgusting there was this smell on it. After the meat fondue came the chocolate fondue I was looking forward to, but my god!! The chocolate was diluted and we only had fruits to go with it before we asked for ice-cream. When you dip anything into the chocolate, the chocolate doesn't harden! It's damn watery and thus, I do not like it. I feel like going to Andersen's/ Haagen-Dazs/ Swensen's for chocolate fondue now, NOW!

Day 8: Went for an optional tour up to Jungfraujoch - Top of Europe, which is a train station situated near Mt. Jungfrau. I don't know why it's top of europe when it's just the train station maybe Mt. Jungfrau is not in Europe anymore!? Haha or maybe it's just the most accessible top. Anyway the train ride was one and a half hours and we got to see lots of villages on the way up to the mountain all capped with snow! Was sooo cold even though I had heat packs on my feet and my tummy and I wore five layers (long john's + long sleeved + pullover + sweater + jacket), but it was worth it for the scenic view! It was like -17 degrees celcius up there and the snow was super soft, Christel and I were the only ones who laid down in the snow and attempted to create snow angels, but I guess snow was falling down so rapidly our angel was covered very quickly. Threw snow balls too! :) I was totally covered with snow but it was just too fun to be bothered. Oh, I must say I'm very proud of Canon because my camera could still work at such extreme temperatures! And the batteries lasted for two days despite the cold weather, which was supposed to make the batteries' lives shorter. Aunt Lillian and Popo were suffering from some effects of the high altitude so they rested at some cafe while the rest of us went to explore the Plateau and the Ice Palace. The Plateau was super cold and painful because the snow was like piak piak piak bish bish piak bish on your face and it blew my hood away. I couldn't face the snow because I wouldn't be able to open my eyes! Yeah, and it wasn't fun up there because the snow was close to ice and I couldn't mould them into balls. After that we went to the Ice Palace to see ice sculptures, which were just boring because all the sculptures were in odd shapes and very ugly. But we had fun sliding on the ice on our knees lol hahaha. Actually the tour group wanted to go see the glaciers but the weather was bad, so we missed it. Lunch up at the restaurant, food was okay. The hot soup was so good because the place was so cold even though it's indoors. And any bit of walking could take my breath, like going to the toilet which was one flight of stairs below the restaurant. Mummy had headache :( Luckily everything was okay after we went down the moutain. Uncle Peng Seng said that if you sleep in the cold you would die because blood gets freezed up, wahlao I was so scared for Mummy because she wanted to sleep. Choy, touch wood hallelujah. Journey down was as pretty as the way up, saw people skiing and all :) I thought the trip was damn worth it but the adults think we've wasted CHF 170 each. (They don't play with snow, that's why)

After the mountain we went back to Interlaken to rest, Mummy slept half an hour before we went out to shop! We had to shop quick because the shops were closing at like 6.30 P.M.!! Mummy, Christel and I went shopping on our own because the the others were at Bucherer waiting for the purchase to be done and we didn't want to waste time! So we went in to other boutiques and Christel and I only got a pair of Birkenstock scandals each before the shop closed :( I got another one for my sister as well. They were cheaper than those in Singapore! At like CHF 59.90, which is about SGD 70, while in Singapore they sell like over hundred bucks! Maybe 'cause Switzerland got their stocks from Germany, which is just their neighbour! Wheee I am quite happy because I've been wanting one since forever but they are very ex. That's all we got, and then we went to McDonald's for some snacks, which was easily over CHF 10 for the same damn McNugget meal you get in Singapore!! HEART PAIN, HEART PAIN. Went back to the hotel which was a stone's throw from McDonald's where we reunited with the rest and sat down for cup noodles! We are the best we brought cup noodles to eat over there because cost of living is too high! Moreover, cup noodles tasted so much better than meat there, later get constipation some more.

Day 9: We left Interlaken and went to Scaffhausen to visit the Rhinefalls, which is the largest waterfall in Europe if not wrong, but it is quite small and I think the only reason why we went there was because it is the largest in Europe. Anyway, it was nothing spectacular. But later on was super spectacular, we crossed the border over to Titisee, Germany and saw part of the Black Forest region. It's so beautiful it makes me wanna cry. There was snow everywhere and the cold was so much more bearable, it really felt like Christmas! First we walked past the Titisee Lake, seriously the view was so breath-taking, you know the waters reflected the moutains and sky, awwww :) There were so many cute duckies in the lake too! Christel and I competed to get the biggest snowball hehehe but we had to go for lunch so we left our snowballs under a pine tree. We had German pork knuckles and black forest cake (haha) for lunch at this restaurant starting with B. Soup of the day was great and the pork knuckles were impressively huge, but the cake had wine which was super bitter! Then we visited a Cuckoo Clock assembling workshop, cuckoo clocks are amazing and adorable! But my house is not really cottage-y so the clocks probably wouldn't suit. It takes a lot of time for a clock to be created so the prices were damn steep anyway. Mm after that we had some free time to play with the snow and all, had so much fun but we had to leave so soon!!! Wahlao I really wanted to abandon the tour group and stay in Titisee -.- Anyway, Christel and I built a mini snowman! Hahaha so funny we were rolling the snow balls on the ground covered with lots of snow, and the snow 'balls' which were plain out of shape they should have been named something else, I don't know. Two leaves for the eyes, and sticks for it's hands and nose :) And then we destroyed it by stepping on it before we left, hahaha. We were lagging behind the rest of the tour group because we kept playing, haha quite paiseh we always make our tour mates wait. We went under trees capped with snow and shook them to make is snow, muahahaha.

Went back to Lucerne, Switzerland to look at the Lion Monument. Okay actually we didn't see it because the trip back was delayed by traffic jam so by the time we arrived it was dark and we saw nothing. But I roughly know it's to glory the Swiss soldiers who died trying to protect some French king haha. After that we were supposed to go to see the Chapel Bridge but we gave it a miss except Uncle Peng Seng because the rest of us wanted to get chocolates at a store instead, hehehe. Dinner at Astoria Hotel, which was the best dinner during the whole trip. It was supposed to be a four-star hotel but we experienced blackout that night, haaaa. Everything was pitch black and Popo was in the toilet.

Day 10/11: We then came back to Singapore, after breakfast at the hotel and then a two-hour journey to Zurich airport, where we did a great deal of last-minute shopping and got lots of chocolate and other goodies all made in Switzerland :) Swatch watch for my father and Swarovski necklace for Emily. Got macaroons as well and they're damn creamy and sweet. I bought a box of Godiva chocolates and I haven't eaten them because they are very pretty! And I can't believe my father bought durian so he stank up the whole refrigerator including the chocolates which I have to put in the fridge or they'd melt. The funny thing is in Switzerland Godiva chocolates are like those which you get off the shelves just like any other chocolates and right here in Singapore you gotta go into the specialised shops to get them. Mm then we boarded the plane for a journey eleven and a half hours long, and I watched Hairspray, The Invasion, The Simpsons Movie, No Reservations and Toys Story 2. Arrived at Singapore at seven in the morning and went home, didn't suffer from any seven-hour jet lag. Unpacked the moment I got home for all the gifts and left the two luggages sitting in the living room opened, hahaha for a day before we tidied them up this morning.

Okay had a hard time blogging about Italy. And there are so little photos with ME inside!! I NEED CHRISTEL & CO TO SEND ME ALLLLL OF THEIRS. Anyway, the rest of the year's gonna be boring because Weihui will be going to Thailand (please, please get for me Dunkin' Donuts!) and Christel is already in Japan (yeah I know, lucky girl flew again two days after we came back!!).

Ciao, with seriously lots of love.