布拉格遊記（2）

The next day we do our main sightseeing. Destinations include the powder tower, the old town, and the castle. Coco had the wrong shoes on so her feet were hurting really bad. We head back in the afternoon back to our hotel area and shop for a pair of shoes for her and my parents decided to do what they love most, shopping, for the rest of the evening while we go back to rest and then go out to take some nice night pictures.



Had we not had the new camera, we wouldn't be able to take these pictures, they are amazing. However, as the sky gets darker, we start having problem to keep the camera stable even with a tripod. I have to say the scenary is better than what we have on the pictures.



By the end of the day, both me and Coco are exhausted, and I am sure my parents are too. However, we did manage to go out for some sightseeing after dark and the pictures are amazing.

布拉格遊記（1）

I just noticed that this is the 100th post in this blog.



Prague,

I haven't heard too much about this place until I heard the song by Jay Chow. The whole idea for this trip was a way to "celebrate" my dad's retirement. I had picked out 7 cities which we can go within a reasonable money and time budget. Towards the end, Moscow, Prague and Madrid came up and Moscow dropped out because it requires visa. Eventually my dad picked Prague and Prague it is. Because I had been super busy the few weeks before the trip so we havn't done much research, but with 5 days and 4 nights there, we can afford to get the info at the hotel and plan our trip with the first day.

We have an afternoon flight so I try to restrain myself from eating too much for lunch because I expect to enjoy a big dinner. Comparing to Norway, food in every country is always better and cheaper.



My usual practice is to get some local currency before the flight in case I can't find any minibank that works with my card at the destination. However, the currency exchange at the airport has just sold out the Czech Crowns and I remember Hana said that it is better to use Euros there, so instead I got myself 200 euros, in 50 euro bills, plus I have some euros from before so I believe it should be enough.



The flight is only half full so the 4 of us occupied 6 seats and it gave us a lot of room to move around. Since my previous two trips were domestic flights to Bergen that were 100% filled, I really appreciate the empty seats. Two hours later we arrived at Prague and the first objective is to secure the transportation to the hotel. I remembered from wiki travel that taxis are known for ripping people off, so I am trying to look for some alternatives. It turns out that there are several vans parked behind the taxis that are used to transport people to hotels from the airport, they are privately own and is actually not much cheaper (as I later found out, since I took taxi to the airport on my way home). The most annoying part is that they have 8 seats in the van and they wouldn't just drive with the 4 of us, insisting to fill the van as much as possible. After 10 min of waiting I told the driver that I will only wait 10 more minutes, and if he still don't drive, then we will take taxi instead. Somehow he managed to find 2 more tourists before the deadline and off we go.

It cost 480 kc for the trip between 1 to 4 people, since I only got 440 kc from 20 euros in the airport, I naturally pulled out the 50 Euro bill, and the driver looked so surprised and cannot offer me change, asking me if I have anything smaller. So at the end, I gave him all my kc in my waller plus a 2 euro coin. He drove off happily.



After settling down in the hotel, it is time for dinner and it happens to be a restaurant close by which serve some Czech cusines, and we decided to check it out. My eyes were glowing when I saw the meny, there are many meat dishes and the price is so cheap. The amount that was writting on the menu are either smaller or equal to the menu I see in Norway, except Czech crowns are worth only about 1/3 as much. So we stuffed ourselves for the price that could only buy me a dinner for 2 at most in Norway.



After dinner we decided to get some rest and get ready for tomorrow.

Erik's traveller magazine, part 5

Amsterdam

It was a totally random trip. I was sent to do some work for my company in Dusseldorf, Germany and since it is Monday to Wednesday, I asked my boss if they could book the ticket for me a little earlier (on Friday) so that I can have the weekend in mainland Europe. After some discussion with my colleague, we decided to spend a couple of days in Amsterdam, which is only 2 hours by train from Dusseldorf with the ICE.

Amsterdam is a very nice and flat city with a lot of canals (at least that's the impression I get from looking at the google map). Since the business trip was planned with very short notice, this Amsterdam trip was not really planned that well. The whole idea was to just walk around and visit a few places while enjoying the food.



Of course, the first thing that came to our mind about Amsterdam is its red light district. We found it on the map but we were not really looking for it since we were both married. However, we did manage to stumble upon it at night. I didn't want to get beat up by people so I just took a picture of the general area: (notice the swans at the canal, they were suppose to represent purity and yet they are swimming in the middle of the world famous sex district).



The morning after we went to visit the Heineken brewelry and it was well worth my 15 Euro. Heineken is my favorite beer which makes this visit extra meaningful:







Other than that we have also enjoyed some nice Indonesian food.

We stayed there for about 30 hours, it's definitely a place I would visit again when I have more time on hand.

Other pictures:

Erik's traveller magazine, part 4

I should have posted this long time ago, but better late than never :)


Locarno, Luzern, Interlaken, Geneve, Switzerland



So we said goodbye to Venice and continue our trip. It was another 6 hour train before we get to Locarno, a local vacation hotspot and is sitting by a nice lake. Since we had been moving from city to city in the past few days. We are determined to rest up since we got 2 days in this place. The hotel is nice, it is in the middle of the main plaza and it has a nice balcony to it.



After we had lunch we decided to go for shopping since everything seems to be on sale and also the fact that things in Norway is simply too expensive. We managed to buy some clothes and a big backpack (those camping kind), making it much easier to carry the souvenirs we have bought.


After shopping we went to walk by the lake and take some nice pictures, and it was time to rest for the night.

The next day we didn't wake up until afternoon and then we found out that it is time to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics. We glued ourselves to the TV for the rest of the afternoon.

After TV we have decided to take a walk and we saw the tram that would take us to the top of the mountain. Originally we were tired of mountain climbing, but since this time we do it in a tram we decided to go for it. The ride was just a few minutes, and the view up there is great but there is more. You can ride the "on ping 360" further up to see even better view. Since we are already up there, we might as well do it. However, with someone like me who is scared of hight, the ride was a torture even though it was only 2 minutes long.



The views up there is amazing, just see the pictures. The best part is that nobody is there to fight for picture spot with us. It was just me and Coco and the view. Amazing.









After Locarno we stop by Luzern on our way to Interlaken. Luzern is a famous destination for many tours from Asia and we saw many Chinese people on tours. We had 2 hours and that was enough for us to do some watch shopping. Here we bought 4 watches. 2 B Swiss and a pair of matching Tissot watch for me and Coco.

The train from Luzern to Interlaken is called the Golden Pass because of its beautiful view. However, I slept through it. All I got is the pictures Coco took while I was asleep...







It was late afternoon when we got to Interlaken, it is a place where two lakes join and honestly by now I am tired of natural views. So we just walked around the town and had a fondue dinner. Here we spend our last night of our trip.





When we wake up it is time to get to Geneve to head home. We had only 2 hours in Geneve and we had only time to go shopping and here we bought 2 more Certina watches for Coco's parents.

And now it is time to go back. Overall it has been a wonderful vacation and without Coco I wouldn't be able to see so many places in such a short amount of time.

Erik's traveller magazine, part 3

Venice, Italy
(click on the images to view it in full size)





The train ride to Venice is about 6 hours. We stopped by a small town called Villach in between. Just in time for me to grab a small lunch. I couldn't eat too much because I was too excited to see Venice. Since we only got half a day in Venice, it makes planning very important and I had been doing that all morning.



We arrived at Venice Mestre (not the Venice central station) at 1:30pm and as we walked from the train station to the hotel, we noticed most of the shops are closed and it all seems so strange since it is Friday. When I saw the opening hours of the stores everything becomes clear to me. They all take a 2 hour break in the middle of the day. I have heard about that before, but it is just so weird when you see it. The area seems dead but yet it is in the middle of the day.



So we settled down in our hotel and are now feeling the hunger, we got a pizza from a small place next to the hotel (one of the few places that is actually open, an not to my surprise, it is owned by a Chinese family). So we stuffed ourselves and got some valuable information from the waitress and head out to the city of Venice. There are 3 ways to get there, by bus, by train or by boat (walking is out of the question). We decided to hop on the bus and tour the area while we are in it.







Our plan is to get a basic tour of Venice by hopping on the boat (which is basically a bus) through the Grand Canal in the middle and end up in the San Marco Plaza at the end of it. Unfortunately we got on the wrong direction and toured the outside of Venice instead. We still arrived at San Marco Plaza at the end, so it was good. Once we got there, it was everything I had imagined. Nice buildings, Gondola everywhere and music playing with people enjoying a nice coffee. After some picture taking we sat down on one of the cafe and enjoy the music and the environment. If anybody wants to get a feel of Europe, this is it. We sat there for half an hour hearing one song after another (sadly, I don't know any of the songs) and we were knock back to reality when the bill comes. 10 euro for the 0.2 liter coke and 15 euro for an ice coffee. Well, it was worth it.





After that we decided to walk around the city and tour the city at our own pace. We walked by many small canals and souvenier shops. Venice is very different from many cities due to its structure (built on water, boat as the main transportation). Although I have to say the smell by the canals isn't exactly the greatest. Due to the time limit we didn't get to visit some buildings on the outer islands nor the museums. By the time we noticed it was already 6pm and we decided to try out the Gondola tours. Multiple travel websites suggest us to bargain for the price, but then I realize that they have a price set already. They all open the mouth by saying 100 euro, but if I bargain, they would go down to 80 euros and not a dime less. I think that is good since that would limit the unhealthy price competitions. So at the end we hopped on a Gondola by the Rialto bridge.

pictures.....













Since the sun begins to go down we decide to visit San Marco plaza once more to check out the view at sunset and we took some more pictures. When it is almost dark, we go for dinner. We remembered a lot of restaurants by the Grand Canal at the Rialto bridge so we hopped on one of those "busses" to go there.





We wanted a seat by the canal, but as it turns out the tables by there are all for four people or more so it was a bit disappointing, but it was okay. The food was good and damn expensive (150 euro tip incl.). We met a couple who seems to be 40 to 50 years old. The husband was from Germany while the wife was from Los Angeles and because we went to the same univesity we enjoyed a nice, long conversation after the meal and since the husband is a photographer he offered to take a picture of us. We had a great time and we left when it is getting late.







So we took the "bus" back to the bus station and took the bus back to Venice Mestre. Since the bus offered no information about the stations and we had no map of the bus line, we had to ask someone when we were suppose to get off and we ended up getting off a station too early, but my experience with city navigation got us back to the hotel safely :) Tomorrow is another day and another place of our journey...