Meeting up with Contikian

Tonight, we will meet up with our tour manager and tour mates. Well, i heard of Contiki few years back from newspaper. The wonders of this tour are - only for age 18-35 (cause we have a lot of party and clubbing time!), you will have your own free time to visit around (cause is half guided tour, half on your own), the price is not that cheap.

However, it still worth to join contiki for this eastern europe trip.From my research, train ticket itself can cost up to RM2k if we backpack. Contiki cost me around RM6k for 12 days tour (including hotel, transportation, add on and most of the meal). Its even cheaper when you sign the package during matta fair.

Everyday, our tour manager - Ali (pronounce as Ally) will stick this notice at hotel lobby, from this notice, we know what is our itinerary and departure time.First night dinner is for us to get to know each others. Most of the tour mates were from US, Australia & Canada. 1 from Taiwan, 5 from Singapore, 1 from south Africa and 3 from Malaysia.
Although is an ice - breaking dinner, but i only get to know 2 friends from Malaysia - Chloe and Calvin. Who i already knew them. Well, perhaps we are not that popular among western people.
The best thing of joining tour, we always have 3 course meals. For my last backpack trip, almost every day we ate sandwich and maggie mee. But this time...hahahah! i even gain weight after back from the trip.
This is super delicious dessert!
First night in Berlin. We are going to Berlin wall tomorrow!

Arriving in Berlin

Finally, we reached Berlin. (ha, took half year to reach...)Our hotel was near to this metro station. We had difficulty to pronounce the street and station name in Germany. But thanks to be anak malaysia, we pronounce it using suku-kata. Ie for the street name above, we call it "bu-lo-strase" For some name which cant even pronounce using suku-kata, Chloe and me will communicate in " find the road name start with K", or " it on road name start with DK..." hahahahhaha! malunya
Finding the hotel. "Yam" by google map, it lead us to the wrong place. Luckly Calvin had GPS on his phone.
The hotel room, not bad la. After settle down everything, we decided to go out for a walk before meeting up with our contiki mate tonight.
Our first stop - Hard Rock Berlin. Maybe we truely got the Malaysian look. The cashier asked us where we from. End up, he was from Penang! I asked him, "do you want to go back malaysia?" As expected, he refused to. The life here was so good.

If dog poo-poo, please took a paper bag to clean its shit. We walked along this shopping street, which is start with "F". Not to forget visit Longchamp shop.
The famous Bratwurst become our lunch. The sausage was damm nice! 弹牙又爽口！Only Euro 2.00
People here drank beer all day long. The sausage was very long too.
A building which been destroyed during war time.
Definitely we had no problem to pronounce this station - Pan Kou!
After wonder for about half a day, its time to go back to hotel for tonight dinner!

Trip to Eastern Europe

Gosh... I never though i will go to Eastern Europe. Yes i knew Prague was beautiful, i knew berlin wall was in Berlin -.-"

I wanted to go Italy, but after so much of frustration in finding the cheap flight ticket, i finally gave up. I told myself, instead of paying RM4k to buy the ticket to Rome (which i can get 1k cheaper if got sales), why not i spend it on some countries that airline do not offer promo price.

So... i knew Prague was beautiful and end up choosing the 12days eastern road by Contiki. Reason being was i wanted a hassle free holiday yet with backpack feels. :)

By purchasing Contiki package during matta fair, i got 10% discount, then we were taking the triple share room, save another 5%! total saving close to RM600 !!

On 28 August 2010, 3 of us (calvin, chloe and me) fly from KLIA to Berlin, transit at Amsterdam. This time, we took KLM. KLM had excellent in-flight entertainment, but the seats were lousy due to 3-3-3 setup.

Second time at Schipol airport. Ohh.... kind of missing it. I try to find the cow that i saw last times but was not successful. This time, nobody hug me. haha. However when i was at the custom for transit, i had been molested by a female cop there! What The...the alarm rang when i go through security door, i don't know why. Then i had been checked from top to toe including to confirm the bra i wear was a real bra...-.-" What a shame in front of everyone. I turn over my head, and saw my friend laughing at me behind. Speechless....
We had our first luxury Europe's breakfast. Coffee and Sandwich. After i back to Malaysia, i saw this cup at some coffee house. And before that i though only Amsterdam had it! haiz... so sua gu.

Another 1 hour flight from Amsterdam to Berlin... so here we started our Eastern Europe semi flash-packer trip.

上海滩

最后一夜，我拖着就快走得断了的脚，走到上海滩去。其实根本没什么心情去欣赏它的夜景。因为太多人了！到处都是人，挤得满满的。什么滩，什么水都没看到。如果许文强返生，我看他看了都晕。。。可是无论如何，这里还是上海最像欧洲的地方。

上海老街

地铁站里各式各样的“福”剪纸。在我们走去新世界的途中，意外地转入了这条小巷。 然后我看到了我最最最期待的一幕！
穿着睡衣上街的上海人。原来真的有哦。还看了了一个大婶穿睡衣踩着脚车到菜市场里买菜。呵呵，被从前的人引以为傲的身份象征，在我们眼里竟变成了一个笑话，多可悲。
我很喜欢这里古老的气息，古老的房子，古老的生活方式。没想到在这个闹市中还会有这么的一个地方。
走到街头，经过一个公园，一转又转进了另一个世界。世界各国的餐厅都可以在这里找到。来这里消费的都是一些西方人，富家子，高薪白领。在这里发现了一间星巴克，可惜没时间坐下来好好的品尝。
不知道住在老街那一带的居民，会不会把这里当成他们朝圣之地？梦想着有一天，可以在这里的任何一家店铺买上一样东西。或许对某些人来说，这只不过是件九牛一毛的事，可是有些人花上一辈子的储蓄，也无法得常所愿。 这也难怪为什么那些暴发户会有着不可一世，挥金如土的心态了。

Shanghai World Expo - 4

Today is the third day i went to Expo. I wish i would never came back again when i saw the queue.Still thinking of turn back and go other place first, but before my leg execute the command, i had already been push by the bunch of people toward the gate.
Expo was pack with people today.Every single famous pavilion took 3-4hour queuing time. I was so tired and cant feel my leg already.
So as what i spoken to my mum before, i just took the photo outside each pavilion.

Its like a live geography class when walked around those pavilions. Some of the countries i didn't even heard about it before. Very soon, i will leave this place and go to see the real shanghai.

Shanghai World Expo - France Pavilion

Actually i had no confident in entering France Pavilion. It was because for the past 2 days when i passby it, the queue was always long. On the third day morning, i decided to give it a try. I told myself, i willing to queue for 2 hours to enter it.Somehow i am very lucky! Although the queue seem extremely long, but i only queue for half and hour! some more i got some free gift - a balloon form Michigan. :)
Once you enter the pavilion, inside was empty with only a garden. Suddenly you feel the natural and you will calm down immediate from the long hot queue outside.
First exhibit was true man show. hahaha, show you how the French cook work in progress. Anyway, French people was famous in fine dining.
Then the statue imported from France.
Painting imported from France. I imagine if they brought in Monalisa....the queue will be few km long.

Last but not least, LV!!!!This is totally out of my expectation.
I think France pavilion was one of the best pavilion in the expo. You got to see so many exhibits. So is worth to queue. At their souvenir store, some people were asking the storekeeper weather they sold perfume. What the!!!! perhaps they also asked weather they sold LV or not. hahahaha!

I bought an eiffel tower t shirt here. Cost me RM50 but the quality was not good. I knew you all will laugh at me, bought the eiffel tower t shirt at Shanghai??? :)