Vienna: Voted most beautiful city.

Writing is my form of therapy when i'm thinking about stuff. It helps to get the thoughts in my head out in front of me and gives me a certain sense of satisfaction that i dont have to keep it all inside. My mom sent me another huge box filled with sauces, pre mixes, soap and shampoo(huh?) and contact lens solution for my time in Graz! I never appreciated Lee Kum Kee so much in my life before this trip. I think this exchange has opened my eyes to all the things involved with living on my own. Things you never have to think about at home like laundry and cooking are a part of everyday life here but sometimes it feels strangely fulfilling to be able to do everything yourself. I can say i'm able to survive on my own but i'll admit the worst activity of all is ironing clothes. I hardly iron my clothes because you almost always have 2 layers on so the jacket doesnt need to be ironed. I'm trying to keep the costs down here but i'm beginning to run out of money D: Anyway my next trip is to Croatia where there is a fantastic beach. Yay! This is a very random post.

Now for some pictures of Vienna!

I was in Vienna 2 weeks ago and to me its the most beautiful city i've been to and has a whole lot of stuff to do but i only had 2 days there so i didn't do all that much. Except go to the zoo, and go shopping and sightseeing. :l Me and Jack stayed at Wendie's hostel for 2 nights in a sleeping bag and on the first night when we reached, as usual we got absolutely holanded(lost) because we missed the last metro and had to try and walk to take some night bus. At 2 am we gave up and ended up taking a cab there. haha. Well this is the next morning, city tour given courtesy of Wendie which was really good because we covered half the sights from the outside in about 2-3 hours!

1st stop, St Stephens Platz - Cathedral













Me, Jack and the monstrous building.


















Interior of Cathedral


















On the way to the rest of the sights around the old town area! Random statue which i didnt bother to find out the name. (After a while they all look the same)



































Hofburg winter palace. I didn't go to the summer palace due to a lack of time but im going for sure the next time i Vienna.









































Natural History Museum. Got to go back next time to check out some dinosaur bones. How cool is that. The art museum is directly opposite this building and is the exact mirror image of this museum!



















































City Hall.













In the metro! Its been so long since i've been travelling in a metro to get round places since Graz has no metro, only trams and buses. The public transport system is quite efficient here but the number of people is no match for the singapore rush hour. Not that i like rush hour in singapore.










After the city tour we went for lunch at the market which was near the asian supermarket. First time seeing so much asian food in a store. Amazing. I almost wanted to buy back a 2kg bottle of Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce. Hahah.


This is a picture of some of the food they have at the market, its like some appetizers with various vegetables with good stuffings. Nice stuff but i didn't buy to eat due to a tight budget constraint.





Lunch: 3 euro kebab + 1.20 euro JIA JIA LIANG TEH. shiok.













After lunch was straight to shopping in which the sneaker whore in me just had to go to the best sneaker store in Vienna!

This is the store, Stil Laden.

Nice layout and shoes but too much damage to spend on.



























So...


I bought a nike shoe key chain. 7 euro. haha.


Good stuff especially for those people who know what sneaker this is.








That more or less concluded the 1st day at Vienna! and we had tang yuen from the asian supermarket at night. Woohoo!

Tribute to Graz

Once again, im getting lazy to blog. Blame it partly on the busy schedule last week when i have classes everyday and german and ah kuan coming over for a short but eventful stay. I havent even blogged completely about budapest yet! Anyway its sunday night and i have a german test tmr but i think that should go ok so im here blogging :D Well, the trip to vienna and krakow was excellent as me and jack got free accom at Wendie's place in Vienna and then sleeping on the train and bus to and fro from Krakow, Poland. So its was a good trip despite the chronic cough that i had too little hours of sleep. Weather was kind to us and i was walking around with just a t-shirt and jeans in Krakow!


The weekend was nice with chew here and we had some pretty good weather for the first part of the day. We visited the armoury in Graz, Landeszeughaus. Really cool stuff with the weapons and all! No pictures allowed inside but the wonders of the handphone camera always does the trick:D So here are some of the pictures from the armoury and the day! Btw all pictures taken by my handphone camera. Awesome.




View from the interior of the armory to the courtyard of the main town hall. Never knew it was this nice.



















Armor that weighs up to 42 kg for a full suit. How do they even move man.







































Huge Guns. They weigh 30 kg and can only be fired from a support. They look like the 25 mm cannons from an Armored personnel carrier. :l













Flowerbed at Jakominiplatz.

























































The famous masoleum.








So after the half day city tour for chew we went to stat park just to chill and relax.













Lying in the grass, lawning, looking at the clouds. Ah..Bliss. :) After that the weather got kinda screwed up so didnt get a chance to bring chew up to schlossberg but hes gonna come back in May for Croatia! Woot.









I almost dont want to go home.

In Wien

Greetings from Vienna. 2 hrs away from Graz but heck alot more like a metropolis. We got lost last night till about 2am and we decided to take a cab to get to wendie's place. Navigation is hard when you dont have a map and everything is dark at night :l Well anyhow we survived the ordeal by paying 11.6 euro for a cab ride. My back is aching from gym and sleeping on the floor. Vienna is really beautiful especially in today's sunny weather and i'll get the pictures up asap. We didnt go into any of the buildings thou given how cheap we are. But we will be heading to the natural history museum first thing in the morning to check out some dinosaur bones! haha. With my constant chronic cough i probably should go see a doctor soon, that coupled with an aching body is making me kinda down. Ok wendie and jack are back. Time to sleep :l Not feeling so good today.

Easter Break Part II - Budapest

Budapest sewer cap (with my new white sneakers)










Its a rainy and cold morning in Graz and its really dreary outside. I wanted to go school for gym but i think i'll stay off that till the weather gets better. Anyhow i said that i wanted to finish blogging about budapest so here
goes.




















View from the hill opposite Pest (budapest is made up of buda and pest and connected via 6 or 7 bridges) That building is the parliament house. Good stuff.









Night View of the Castle in the backdrop and the chain bridge. Budapest looks much prettier at night when its all lit up.






















The guys on the bridge with honorary member chew A.K.A laconic in the center. He joined us for the final leg of prague and for budapest. Great fun with him around other than the salty fish boots.










This was taken late at night before we went clubbing so there is no one around! :D



















This is quite unlike my usual posts but this picture deserves some commentary. Its day 1 in Budapest. Meet Budget Chew and Matthijs from Netherlands. Chew is tucking into his budget breakfast all the way from st gallens which consists of famous st gallen bratwurst and baguette. Taking bites out of each of the ingredients, he makes a meal out of it. Meanwhile Matthijs pays about 4 euro for a nice sandwich. We have much to learn from budget chew.



Day 1 - On the chain bridge




















Sepia shot.











The views at the top were good but i regretted not waiting till night. Anyhow, this is an evening shot on the top of the hill.


Day 1 was more or less quiet since we had 4 days in budapest so we decided to take it easy and just walk around.
















The comparatively chwee castle on top of the hill, i think singapore's parliament house looks nicer :x
oh well.
Ok, i'll blog later~ Lunch now.

Prague part 3

Spring Time in Prague!











Blame the intermittent blogging on the lessons i had this week. Basically my lessons are split into weeks and some weeks i have classes from monday to friday and some weeks i have totally no classes. The week that just went by was one with the classes, international business law. Frankly, the standard here has been quite dismal and i figure the amount of material covered in the 12 hrs of class would probably have been covered in 3-5 hrs in SMU. But other than that, im on exchange so what the heck right?;) On to happier things, next week there is no classes for me! So i'm off for a short trip to Vienna then to Krakow, Poland. Will be leaving on tuesday back on saturday probably. So before that i will finish blogging about prague and budapest. So back to prague!

Nothing much to say about this picture except that it was really bad weather and it was going to snow. But nevertheless i like this photo a lot.










National Museum, Prague. We didnt go in given the tight miserly budget that we were on. ;)









Besides from sewer caps, I also have a thing for taking pictures of door handles/door knockers(is that even what you call it). Well this is one of the first pictures i took of door handles!



























Hand Painted Easter eggs in the market. Tourist trap ;)

















Busker on charles bridge.


















Group Photo of us chilling at a cafe on the first day we got to Prague. Introducing the cast for easter break part one from left to right, Wendie, YenMei, Andreas, Jack, Sam, Randy, Han Byul, me, Marie, Jamie and Henrik taking the photo.







Interior of Prague castle basilica. Almost lord of the rings.


















The whole church is lined with stained glass panels each at least 10-15 metres high. Spectacular.

















Cesky Krumlov, not much tourists, nice place!


















Antique shop in Cesky Krumlov. Plenty of these quaint shops here.









Lunch at a traditional Czech Restaurant. "Dumplings" (which is actually just bread) with a beef slice, brown sauce and berries. Decent but not fantastic.







To end of, on a random note. The armored display with Sam's sunglasses. haha.