Well.. not that kind of Black Forrest.

It was Baden-Württemberg!

I must say this place is mysterious and adventurous!!

Thanks to Justin again (my favorite friend) , He made an effort to visit me from London!! can you imagine that?

We traveled mostly by train. Trains in Germany are so affordable and efficient!

We took bus too.. to Feldberg! Feldberg is the highest tip in Black Forest. We were lucky, because it snows! I must say it was a weird and exciting experience because it snows during autumn.

Spotted this lady sleeping in the bus

We can see lot’s of white outside the window, and it just got us excited!!

Scary!

We didn’t prepare ourselves properly.

We are going to take this cable car and ascend to the highest peak of black forest!!

Chill air + Freezing + Justin + excitement = CRAZZYYYY!!!

The wind was terrible!

Snow Ball!!!

I couldn’t feel my face.

Black Forest Museum!!

Serene white + black forest!

Justin wishes to have this long long beard

Next stop!!! Lake Titisee..

Was trying to feel the chill

Guess what happen to Justin?

Nice Titisee Lake

Miss the beer

Justin also,

Voila~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The famous Black Forest Cake in Black Forest! Taste like Black Forest! ( with lotsa alcohol)

Nice walk to Triberg!!

Macho~~~

Entering into the Mysterious Triberg!!

Black Forest is not exactly black!

Justin was stunned

I wish I can peeeeee like that

hehehhe

More…. woooo hooooo

Exciting

Coo-Coo-bird, that’s how they come out with coo-coo clock

TOP

Orange + Yellow + Green = Colorful black forest!

Justin in Dustbin!!!

another lake

House of 1000 coo-Coo clock

a big coo-coo

Buy one coo-coo clock… you will get one ……… for free

Another Black Forest Cake for the road

And it makes me dizzy!!!

This Post is the sequel to Budget trip to Barcelona. Madrid is another city which is expensive for my type of blood. I hope this post will stir more young people to visit Madrid.

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Moving from Barcelona to Madrid

Here’s a thing, Easyjet (the poor man’s planes) doesn’t fly from Barcelona to Madrid. There’s this super fast Rail service that travels from Barcelona to Madrid in a very short amount of time but it is bloody expensive, around Euro 150 – Euro 200 which relatively a few times more expensive than the France-Barcelona flight.

So, instead of travel super fast + costly, we decided to take the midnight train, the trip took more than 9 hours and it cost around Euro 50 per person. By doing this, we can save one night hotel money in Spain. haha…

The economy class was quite ok… if there’s no one else in your unit.

The next day, we arrived Madrid at 7:30, Madrid was really quiet in the morning. As compared to French, I think Spanish are not morning people.

Our first place to visit in Madrid is..

Plaza Mayor

The best known plaza in Madrid, this impressive square is now one of the main stops on any tourist visit. Originally built outside the city walls, this square has played host to bullfights, markets, symphonies, tournaments and executions. The statue of Felipe III sits in the middle across from the beautifully painted Casa de la Panadería, the former headquarters of the bakers guild. One of the access to the square is Arco de Cuchilleros, beautiful stairs down. Near Plaza Mayor, is Mercado San Miguel (Saint Michael Market), built in 1913 and full of a wide range of high quality food.

There’s one interesting new-old market adjacent to Plaza Mayor

MERCADO DE SAN MICUEL

Mercado de San Miguel is a recently refurbished old concept market, it covers a wide variety of groceries and nice delicacies. It was still early when we arrived Mercado de San Miguel. People were setting up their stores.

Lot’s of fresh fruits..

Salty bacon..

and wine..

I set my self a Rebujito, It was my first sip of liquid after the long night in the train. taste like heaven…

Mercado de San Miguel is actually a very interesting place to visit, I will highlight more about this at the latter part of this post.

We came to the Royal Palace of Madrid, but didn’t enter.

Spanish start their meals rather late. I think their daily lifestyle is 2 hours delayed than the rest of the people on earth. You can look for the cheaper food in most of the restaurants if you have early meals.

Somewhere the National Archeology Musuems

and visited Madrid Hard Rock Cafe

Visited the Golden (art) Museum Triangle

I’m not really a art lover, this kind of places will bore you dead… sigh…

Visited the Largest Park of Madrid in El Retiro with nice weather

and nice pic with pipi

People in Madrid don’t need to Sleep at night!

We participated in one of the mega-midnight-ball-fight!

This was the scene before the Ball-Fight started, The balls were prepared and everyone was waiting around the plaza.

Nice Plaza decorated with lot’s of Balls

Then everyone started,

Including Pipi =)

Playgrounds were built in the middle of the most happening street Grand Via in Madrid at Midnight!

With constructions materials…

WIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hello! hello!

Then….

Morning Market at La Latina!

Can shop for various types of antics

Breakfast at the market!

Interesting performance

A visit to Real Madrid FC =)

The tour was a bit too expensive for us, haha

Pipi was trying to look for Christiano Ronaldo in the shower room

Going back to Mercado de San Miguel in the afternoon definitely open up your appetite!

Lot’s of Spanish seafood,

and Tapas =)

1 Euro per piece yum yum =)

and some nice Sangria in the hot afternoon will cheer you up for sure =)

Some stunning people doing some MTV outside the Catheral

A magnificent view at Templo de Debod in the evening

dinner seafood +  Spanish beer

Enjoyed the so called ” beer-tarik” beer fountains, it utilized the gravity to create the splash and enhance its flavour

Nice Seafood

and nice bread to chew with

Situated in Plaça d’ Espanya

If you are in Europe continent, I would suggest you to take the poor-man‘s flight Easyjet to Barcelona,  like AirAsia, the one back home.

Barcelona is a city located adjacent to a beautiful beach, a panoramic view outside the plane was amazing.

Barcelona is relatively hotter than the rest of other Europe countries. The clear blue sky tells it all..

For a Malaysian to travel from a Cold place to a relative hot one, makes me look like a nut, always appear in places with the wrong attire

Some of hotels here are cheap, we are lucky to find one with air con.

Public transports in Barcelona are very efficient and cheap, basically you are connected to every direction in Barcelona, be it by sea, metro and buses.  With less than 4 euro per day , you can access  to everywhere you want =) But please don’t buy the Barcelona card, although it allows you to visit some of the Museums and interesting places, we regretted to get Barcelona card because as it was not really cheap and the Museums here are not really that impressive. We were frustrated over the location of these Museums.. finding the museums in Barcelona really killed all our patient.

Pipi always check the map

I believe if you travel to any city in Europe, you must visit its Catheral..

I have no idea what was this bullet-like building, can someone please tell me?

Must try their Spanish Paella around 7-8 euro, and a Spanish beer to chill the hot afternoon.

Catalunya and Rambla Street

How should I describe Catalunya and Rambla Street? I think this is something similar to Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur, hence I don’t need to say more.

Pipi killed someone

Catalunya

Some Tapas in Ramble streets

and Sangria

Sunrise at the beach

A emo guy waiting for something

Mirador de Colom

You can climb up to Mirador de Colom

and have a nice Birdview of the entire Barcelona

Olympic Stadium

Ducatiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... can feel the power between my legs

Michael Jordon schoes

Aquarium, didn’t manage to go inside because it is not budget at all

and the famous Sagrada Família

That took more than 120 years to build and still progressing.

depicted natural element

and something modern too

Rhine Falls, the largest plain waterfalls in Europe.

I present you the  waterfalls!

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飞流直下三千尺 疑是银河落九天。。。。。 oh yeah~~

Pardon me, I just humiliated myself.. anyway

I got the opportunity to travel with Pipi =)

Finding Rhine falls is so easy, you just need to drop yourself at Schaffhausen station Switzerland, it is also very near to Germany.

When you reach Schaffhausen, use your ears to guide you to the waterfalls by listening to the marvelous sound of the Waterfalls  ,,,,

until you see this in front of you..

then you will stop and just stare………

water like boiling..

There’s a water mill there, Electricity?

Pipi with mills

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Finally the so called real 飞流直下三千尺 疑是银河落九天。。。。。

Rhine Falls

Rhine Falls

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You can take a boat and reach the tiny peak ..

This Sampan will do the wonders

FireMice to Rhine Falls

you will get wet, including your camera..

Get yourself nearer to the most dangerous spot…

Then find your way up to the peak..

and yay!!!

FireMice on top of the world again!

Pipi too…

Must take all the nice photos before going back~

what an unforgettable experience… now I will think of Rhine Fall every time when I..

Strasbourg is another must-go-destination in Alsace region (North-Eastern France). Whoever comes to visit me, I will bring them to Colmar then follow by Strasbourg. They might think I’m a expert or a native of Alsace, because I don’t need a map to navigate around these 2 area, I can  story-telling about the history and events in Alsace so good so well that they didn’t even know I was actually bull shiting them…. pls let me continue bull shitting you in this post =)

Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace Region, it is hosting a few European institutions such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union…

See, all the important European thinggy is situated in Strasbourg, if one bomb dropped into Strasbourg, the entire European institutions will be vanished! Great fun..

Now, I brought some of my friends to Strasbourg by train. Most of them, when they came out from the station, they will have a WoW expression.

Low Kei and Kalen at Strasbourg train station

The train station itself is very old, they built a sky dome for the train station to protect the premises. The architect reminds you about China Beijing Olympic bird nest Stadium

Low Kei took a picture of me, I like the clear blue sky and the sky dome of the train station 一望无际，海阔天空。。。

Justin visited me during winter, the experience was totally different

The train station look like the Beijing Bird’s nest stadium is deposited with full of Bird Droppings =)

Strasbourg is not really a big town, it is very convenient to walk around, just  like Colmar. The very first thing we arrived Strasbourg is to find the famous Strasbourg’s cathedral.

Well, it is very difficult to describe what I felt about the cathedral.

This cathedral is huge, bigger than Notre dame of Paris.

Look at the beautiful design, it is so majestic and beautiful…

I stood in front of the building, closed my eyes, in my mind I think

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Thank god, I was not born during 1176 and 1439, imagine what will happen to this Cathedral if I was born in Strasbourg during  1176 – 1439 and was assigned to design and build the cathedral? (few example of my art at Art #1 and Art #2 .) I would have destroyed the whole masterpiece and no one will come and visit Strasbourg after 1000 years

Catheral of Our Lady in Strasbourg. used to be the tallest building in Europe between 1647 to 1874. It was so gigantic, I can just buy one ice cream near by and admire it from morning till afternoon, then buy one kebab sit down and look at it from noon till evening, from evening take a beer till midnight

Nice sunsent in Strabourg

Justin admires Strasbourg cathedral also

The color of the facade seems different, I loved it so much until I even..

licked at it and feel what it taste like, the conclusion is: Cathedral Our Lady of Strasbourg taste like 900 years old.

Old buildings in Alsace region are special

Strasbourg used to be an important town to produce wine

For those who wants to take a tour ride to visit the entire Strasbourg, I would suggest you to take a boat ride at River ILL

It will bring you around, around and around until you feel dizzy…

The ride story telling (not bull shitting ok!) everything nearby the river and Strasbourg. See the above picture, Low Kei was listing so intensely

The boat will pass by the European institutes..

The ride was long, we decided to cam whore

one is not enough, so we did another one…

We passed by Barrage Vauben..

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stumbled upon a gigantic dog

you have to be careful, the dog bite everything that moves

Nearby there’s a Mega Virgin Store, I used to write a lot about Virgin

We walk around River ILL,

the river bed, 100 years ago, Many prostitutes tried to attract their client here. The house wives liked to wash clothes here.

I was exhibiting “the French” way to my friends

after all the wonderful experience, we went back to

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Some years ago, some business man from Malaysia went to France. He visited a small town called Colmar in Alsace. He duplicated Colmar and created Bukit Tinggi in Pahang.

I never been to Bukit Tinggi but I heard it is a very nice place to be visited. However, I’d visited  Colmar city 4 times (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring) since last year. Colmar remains as one of my favorite and the most sought after place to visit in France.

Colmar’s attraction are concentrated in its old town, stunningly beautiful and well preserved. What I like this place most is the relax ambient in Colmar, it is small a very small town hence you don’t need to rush from one place to another. Although Colmar is small, it has loads of interesting stuff.

Low Kei + Karen visited Colmar in the beginning of Spring.

There’s some shopping in old town Colmar, so tempting……………

One of the main attraction is Maison des Tetes (House of Heads)

Why do they name it house of heads? because the house has many heads

Where did the head come from? If you look at the opposite side, it explains everything

Nice houses.

ice cream too…

eat eat eat…

Nice Colmar beer

and famous Colmar pork knuckle.. yum yum

nice to shop… with low kei and Kalen..

and we came to Petite Venice, very very nice place

From here on, it turned into winter… and Justin came by

at night at little Vanice

Justin teleported

me too..

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but failed

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On 14 April 2010, Iceland volcano Eyjafjallajökull (pronounce as “AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh”) erupted. It was mad and deadly, it impacted the entire Europe. The volcanic ash cloud led to the closure of most European airspace.

For me it was entertaining, because it is one of the unusual event that caught my attention haha =) …  not until I received a sms from my friend low kei..

Low kei sms..

I’m now in Amsterdam, the Iceland volcano ash cloud has caused all the plane grounded, Kalen supposed to take off tonight but the flight was canceled. We plan to make a trip to your place. update you later…

This is not cool man, my first instinct prompted me go to Google and search for…

yes Volcano victims… and I found a lot of tragic  photos like

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I cried loudly like a baby at that instant moment . My French boss helplessly asked me what’d  happened?

I told him Eyjafjallajökull volcano will turn Low Kei and Kalen into you-cha-guai 油炸鬼 and Ham-Jim-Bang 咸煎饼..

turn them to…..

Obviously the French don’t know what is You-Cha-Guai 油 炸鬼 and Ham-Jim-Bang 咸煎饼.

My worried now is not how Low Kei and Kalen will turn into You-Cha-Guai 油 炸鬼 and Ham-Jim-Bang 咸煎饼, instead I was struggling to clean my room to welcome the volcanic victims. Because I need to hide…

and

Anyway Low Kei took train and reached Belfort safely…

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The first thing Low Kei did in my room was to look for…

er… I think he was not looking for things in my room… I think he was cleaning it…

hmmm…. maybe we is not looking and cleaning, he is cooling…

Thanks to him, we cook for me for the last 10 days..

We took the opportunity to celebrate Kalen’s birthday with champagne =)

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Low Kei took a picture of my handsome toy

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Picture below summarizes all the activities in my room.

making distorting noises, hanging wet-clothing (only Asians will do that), messy stuffs, TV, walking around the room, everyone sardin together.

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At night, I have to listen to…. low kei

please click below to listen to what I heard at night

zzzzZZZzzZZzzZZz Low kei snores

zzzzZZZzzZZzzZZz

A swan is an enchanted bird, it plays its part exceptionally well in portraying elegant and beautiful in fairy tales and legend.

It comes to you slowly, calm, pleasant and attractive… then it glides away slowly with charm…..

It is like a messenger sent by nature to tell you how beautiful is everything around us serenely.

Seeing them moving around you makes you feel everything around you is still..

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Everyone has different Swan experience, I stumbled upon various interesting swan thingy in internet and I feel that I need to signify my swan experience here!

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Musical Swan:

The old 007 agent Roger Moore as narrator and Mischa Maisky cellist collaborate together in

Carnival of the animal – The Swan Saint-Saens

also,

Yo-yo-Ma likes to close his eyes and squeeze out his Swan juice out from his brain

Jay Chow tried it in vain =P

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Pipi‘s encounter in Interlaken 2009 (Switzerland):

and more……… make her dizzy and crazy

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Pipi visit swan in Belfort during winter 2010:

We walked to the lake  early morning

Cold fresh air and serene sun rise…

she was trying something naughty..

the swans came by..

Pipi wanted to make friends with them

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but the swan cannot break the ice with pipi, as it was too much icy and snow between them..

Swan get angry and do this.. and pipi LOL

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What did Justin and FireMice did in Strassbourg with Swan?

We made SNOWBALL for them!!!

2 snowball for these 2 swans

3 snowballs for 3 swans

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and we gave it to them……… EAT IT!!!

until they were afraid of Justin

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Justin recorded the evidence… nothing is pleasant between swan and us and nothing musical about it.

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