Croatia III

Back to yesterday, as we were driving back home we came across the fantastic view of Pag. Heres the panorama picture. The wind was blowing and i guess the picture doesnt do justice to the scenery, but this view really took my breath away.


Random pictures at the beach. On another note, i observed that charlene is amazingly camera trigger happy and shes constantly snapping photos. Well heres one that she got for me and chew thats good!

This was taken along our random walk along the beach when we got tired of baking in the hot sun.














Random flowers outside our villa.

















On to the next day, we travelled to the town of Zadar before heading back to zagreb later in the afternoon. This is the waterfront where we had our lunch and where i ate my dessert and spilt a ton of sweet strawberry syrup on my berms. But besides that, it was really nice to eat lunch with the sea breeze blowing with legs dangling almost into the waves, watching the sailing boats go by. Ahhh..Bliss.






































Zadar Marina!










Very random shot that i just remembered, this is the one shot that we finally managed to get all the SMU people jumping. haha. Big thanks to Jari for getting this right.

Anyway this is the jetty just outside our villa and we jumped about 6 times to get this. haha.






So after zadar it was a long drive back to zagreb where we took a bus back to home sweet home, Graz. Which brings to mind another story about the crazy customs at the slovenian border. We were made to come down from the bus and walk in the bloody cold weather past the border after they checked our passports. (I was freaking wearing shorts la) The whole process took place for about 30 mins and it was 1am in the morning. Damned customs.

Next stop, Munich!

Croatia II

And so we left the national park for our drive to our very own villa by the sea.

Being the driver for the trip, trigger happy charlene helped me to get some shots in on the way to our destination. :)











First thing upon reaching the villa was to check out the amazing sunset and marveling at how we managed to get so lucky to have a villa all to ourselves at 16 euro/night. Amazing.







The next morning. Panorama from the balcony of the villa.




Wish i could retire in a house next to the sea. Awesome stuff.























































After some chilling till late on a sunday, we were off to the beaches of Pag about 30k's away! With no particular destination in mind, we drove till we found a nice spot to relax the day away in the sun. And here we have the crew from singapore, with me and the peeps from Switzerland!







The rest of the crew!



















At the empty beach cafe in the evening. The picture of tranquility.



























Despite what looks like tempting azure blue waters, the water was freaking cold and despite valiant attempts from me and chew to fight off the cold, i gave up trying to stay in the water and warm up after 10 mins. Meanwhile chew was with his snorkel finding marine life like sea slugs, sea cucumbers and sea urchins. Haha.














The sea urchin that jieun wanted to cook for dinner.









After a whole day out, it was time we headed back to our villa just in time to catch a spectacular sunset to round off a great day.

Croatia Part 1

Long overdue but heres the lowdown on Croatia. Our travels with our usual travel companions began on 9th May till the wee hours of 13th May morning. So began our journey from Graz - Zagreb - Zadar- some AMAZING ulu villa only accessible by car. In a nutshell, Croatia is a place of amazing natural beauty, a much refreshing change from the historical concrete jungle that exists in much of Europe. Endless open spaces with rolling hills lined with amazing coasts with azure blue waters, blazing sunsets, moonlight reflecting of the still water, sky dusted with millions of stars, soft sea breeze ruffling through my hair, and the soft lapping of waves breaking on the jetty. These are the memories i will keep for as long as my memory does not fail me.

So begins the journey.

Early Morning in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Nothing very spectacular here, took the photo whilst trying to navigate our way to the car rental place to get our cars to get to our villa about 400 km away :D


















After grabbing the car (red hyundai) we made our way for the long winding journey to Zadar but we made a pit stop about half way at this nice town called Slunj. Its a place where the houses are built next to the river and actually on the river! Absolutely amazing and probably the first word that brings to mind is Rivendale from Lord of the rings, this is probably the closest you can find to the scenes depicted in LOTR. Houses built over waterfalls, thats something you dont see everyday.












































After that, we traveled a short distance to Pltivice Lakes National Parks for a view of stunning waterfalls, which can be compared to what i saw in Darwin last year. Its a protected UNESCO site and its Absolutely amazing stuff.

Panaroma shot, click to view the whole thing.







































































Finally part of the crew on our trip.






















From back row left, Chew, Jieun, Jack, Jamie, Duri

Front row, Kay key, Charlene, me, Han byul and Hiroko




Ok thats it for tonight. Just a random thought, its my last chance for a long extended trip before i enter the working world next year. Thinking of that makes me sad that i wont get a chance to visit my friends in other countries for a long time :l

Oh well. All good things come to an end. As do bad things.

Burned out

The past week has been exhausting to say the least and i'm still tired out from everything that has happened. During the excellent croatia trip that i had a couple of weeks ago, while driving along the magnificent coastline i heard a song on kay key's handphone that really got me addicted to it, at least for this couple of days. Here it is.

蒲 公 英 的 约 定

小学篱芭旁的蒲公英

是记忆里有味道的风景

午睡操场传来蝉的声音

多少年后也还是很好听

将愿望折纸飞机寄成信

因为我们等不到那流星

认真投决定命运的硬币

却不知道到底能去哪里

一起长大的约定

那样清晰打过勾的我相信

说好要一起旅行

是你如今唯一坚持的任性

在走廊上罚站打手心

我们却注意窗边的蜻蜓

我去到哪里你都跟很紧

很多的梦在等待着进行

一 起长 大 的 约 定
那 样 真 心
与 你 聊 不 完 的 曾 经
而 我 已 经 分 不 清
你 是 友 情
还 是 错 过 的 爱 情

Somehow the tune of the song is so sad and brings back lots of memories. I probably should blog about Croatia and Munich but im kinda busy this week so we'll see how that goes. Been watching quite a few movies these couple of days, watched Secret on Friday, P.S i love you on saturday, Die hard 4.0 and Oceans 13 today. Ok im hungry at 1 a.m now gotta get something to eat. Grrr.