Weekend Away in Melbourne

My friends are undergoing a midlife crisis and I have to guide them to seek acceptance.

As for me, I will indulge and delve into shopping spree and bliss that melbourne can offer.

T'was my first Virgin Australia flight and it's not too bad. Seats are comfy and they gave us complimentary tasteless tea (after tasting england's finest HRH approved tea) starving though but saving my appetite for Friday's.

"The Little Prince" was terribly late thats why we cant check in our luggage. but all is well cos we had a very special honourable mention from VA as last call before gate closes.

Reality is i do like the adrenalin rush. Or maybe its just me.

My European Highlights

technically i just left europe now. 39,000 feet altitude. right above Ashgabat. not entirely sure where it is but its part if the middle east.

i reckon the whole of euro tour 2013 was a success. there are couple of unfortunate events but contingency fund is more than enough to cover risks. missed contiki meetup. mixedup fund envelope. vatican not being on contiki itinerary. and of course a lot of times i got lost and cabs became my saving grace. scary scammers in paris. cabless rome.

i have a lot of good ones like the friends and relatives who helped me during my stay in london. friends visited me halfway in belgium. celebrating vigil with the pope. seeing stonehenge upclose and john fetching me.

heaps of breath-taking sights like tour eiffel at night, vatican city and the sistine chapel, the roman fora, munich extravagant city centre, versailles garden and its opulence, firenze duoumo and the picturesque top-view of where rennaisance began. venezia at night including music playing in st mark's square. the beautiful canas of amsterdam. belgium's luscious grand place surrounded by chocolatiers. of course london's westminister and buckingham palace.

food was exquisite. ranging from the best french dinner to my birthday bash dinner in firenze and final dinner in sea food palace in amsterdam. french onion soup, escargot, baguette, burgundy wine and edam cheese. panini, pizza, pasta. gelato (amareti and baci special mention). scones and creme. belgian frites and waffles. german pork knuckles. beer stein. wurst. mousels and kwak. fish and chips and english cider.

and if course for me one of the highlights would have to be the shopping experience. i finally can say i bought LV (limited edition belt and new collection scarves from runway) in Champs Elysees and maxed out my shopping fund (plus plus) in Burberry when i was in London (scarves, trench coat). suited up in monaco wearing zegna shirt and tie. suit and shoes by Prada.

finally i want to thank my official sponsors for the trip. without you it wouldnt be amazingly spectacular!


Emirates, British Airways, Singapore Airlines for my flights. and of course qantas for the FF miles redemption. thanks for safe and covenient travels.

Thalys, Trenitalia and of course Eurostar which has the most amazing standard premier.

Louis Vuitton and Burberry for the official apparel for EU trip.

Zegna and Prada for the Monaco dressup night.

Corona and Peroni - official drink

Jetski Safari - official EU theme song

L'occitane, Kheils and Molton Brown for my Skin care. Chanel for fragrance.

Evian official still water to keep hydrated during the trip.

Berroca boosting energy and keeping me active all throughout the trip

samsung for photos. apple for web technology and music. finally casio for time (helped esp when moving and converting timezones).

travelex and uaex for fx changes.

most importantly i am thanking vodafone italia my official carrier. it wouldnt be possible to get connected on net on the go without data servies from VF. grazie!

London: One more night please

I pretty much got lucky moving my notsopractical flight to a better one. I've been so keen in having one more night in London. I just wanted to fall in love with London but it wasn't really as charming as Paris, Venice or Munich.

Eventually when I arrived in London. It has shown its true colours. Cloudy, rainy, chaotic. For unknown reasons I find that its character and eccentricity to be appealing. It is a fusion of New York and Sydney imho. In short I likey.

Didn't matter whether British people arw arrogant but its a nice place to live in. And I think I made a good decision making it my official European HUB.

So many restaurants,  posh bar, pubs, and of course the shopping is just topnotch.

Thanks to the Mercado's and of course Julie for the warmth hospitality. Letting me be a part of your weekend life is just too fabulous. It makes me want to move in to London. I haven't even beeb to the CLUBS for crying out loud.

But yeah definitely I will consider coming back to London for another visit or who knows...

Indulge in everything Belgian

Bruxelles is well-known for few great indulgences.  Waffles, Frites and of course Belgian Chocolates.

I met with two of my friends qho now lives in Luxembourg. I have to give them credits for coming to Belgium to meet up with me. Only for two hours but still it was great to catchup with them. I must say nothing has changed and I feel like its still 2003 when we first met in SGV. Except that now they have a little boy.

Rain was pouring.  I think it started in Germany and has also chosen to take the same route. It was raining everywhere I go since then. Managed to find Leonidas and buy some chocies.

Amazing lunch I got a free one too. Mussels and Kwaks are also famous here. I enjoyed it too esp with good company from friends I havent seen for 6 years..

my contiki story

Lets start off by thanking Katie for amazing job she did for this tour. if it wasnt for her, i wouldnt have enjoyed EU highlights. Kudos to her and Jase. Awesome team we were in safe hands.

i shall call them Reese and Charles. other contiki gang are as follows: Sherminator, Garfield, John Arbacle, Orson, Vin Diesel, Rohan (BB), Snoopy, Dorothy Cos (college batchmate lookalike), Abraham Lincoln, Mr Big (SATC), Pugsley and Wednesday and Commander Bobot (prev boss). i can go on and name names on their faces.

South African gals and Japanese contikers are welcoming. the rest are just arrogant bitches. but still i somehow manage to gel a bit but as i said i feel unwelcomed most of the time!

drinking theory is right. thats what the gang does all the time. this trip is a short one so have to squeeze all sights and must dos in that limited time. i just hate going with people who just wanted to drink all the time.

or perhaps i just like travelling alone. oh well im introvert and its such a challenge to socialise in groups for me. i did adjust and overall its not that bad!

crazy amsterdam

i probably should equate this trip to my vegas trip. but instead if getting drunk i got bit stoned. i say that space brownie should be consumed with a company. never do it alone. not catastrophic but u get paranoid when u started feeling weird. started with my hands then in my head. but the trick is mind over matter. i was able to go to sleep but it was a loooong sleep that i eventually missed the pedal biking and heiniken factory. i did go to museums though. finally we had our final dinner in a floating resto. not too bad! i loved it! i still am ranting with the crap gang. most of em are really not welcoming! in my honest opinion, i should have sticked to my group instead of going alone most of the time. but something in me says that i love adventure and doing everything by myself.

st goar is oh so quiet

i have to say that this is pretty quiet compared to the other cities we have been to. we ended up playing card game pretty much like pusoy dos. diff is that there are no ranking of suits and fives are prohibited. game starts with S something like stupid but more of a slang word..

i bought myself a deutscheland shirt and that made me happy.

at night we tried the blackforest cake but i still go for red ribbons!