Romantic Venice

Our cruise vacation began in Venice………..

We started by taking 11:25am Ryanair from London Stansted and arrived Venice Treviso at 2:20pm. We hopped on ATVD bus, which brought us to Venice directly. We stayed at Hotel Pantalon. It was a simple family room with a queensize bed and two single beds. We was told that Venice has 160,000 population, but mostly elder people living there because cost of living in Venice is just too expensive. It’s property price could cost as much as GBP12,000/sf. Hence, the younger generation prefer to live outside Venice and travel to work every day.

We took a gondola ride along Venice canal, which cost EUR60 for half and hour. It usually costs more than a hundred Euro for the ride. We were lucky as we were the early birds. In total, we walked more than 20 miles in 2 days. The only transport travel within Venice is boats, water taxi or gondola. Anyway, we took a bus to Metrez one day, which made me felt like going to JB from Singapore. These two places is separated by a straits and link by a bridge. We spent about 2 hours in Metrez town. It has huge shopping centres and lots of bargain (Saldi=Sales) here.

It was Hot, Hot, Hot and we had at least two ice-cream every day. Yi Hong likes the food most since he could live with just spaghetti and pizza.

I asked the kids to write something on our travel journal, and here they wrote:

Yi Xuen wrote:
It’s pretty and boat is taxi here. Venice is really hot. We saw the San Marco and it’s good. There got lots and lots of pigeon and lots of masks.

Yi Hong wrote:
quite small, lots of water, lots of sights, masks and very warm. Venice is a city! Venice has lots of people even it was small.

St. Mark’s Basilica

Amazing night view of Venice

Gondola ride in the canal

Munich, Germany

Germany. We had heard lots about it, especially from our dear friends, Corrina and Kevin. Land of innovation with the most famous automobile in the world, given us aspirin and MP3 technology and it’s birth places of Martin Luther, Albert Einstein and Karl Marx, of Goethe, Beethoven and the Brothers Grimm even the pope is German!

We started our journey by taking an early flight to Munich. My first impression of Munich was that it’s clean, organise, hi-tech and safe. We took a train to city centre and alight at Marienplatz, the big central square in Munich. First, we spent sometime tracking around Munich and checking out Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), Viktualienmarkt (city market), Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall), Neues Rathaus, (New Town Hall), Neuhauserstrasse (main pedestrian street that leads to Marianplatz). Next, we had lunch at the the most famous beerhall, HofBräuhaus . I used to think that Danny’s 1 liter giant beer glass at home was a joke, but it is really how the German drink beer with. It was crowded, the waitress were rushed (but they are strong women as they can hold 3 huge glasses of beer in one hand), the oompa band was so fun and the food was delicious. On our way to our hotel, we passed by the high street of Munich, whereby all the top brand name can be found here. We just enjoyed looking at the posh cars along the street, watching rich and famous doing their shopping.

Danny and his favourite beer.

Mei Mei with her Giant Pretzel

The next day, we took the U-Bahn train up to Olympic Park where the Olympic games were held in 1972. We got to checked out the stadium, Aquatic centre and the Olympic Hall. It was quite a hot day and YH & YX got tired after a while. After that, we visited the BMW factory, which is just right next to the park. It was so cool to see variety models of BMW, the technology, the mechanism, the technology and the history of it. Then, we went to English Garden where in part of the river the are huge waves created by an underground tunnel so people can actual surf in the river. There were lots of people there enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, and some men even naked sunbath in the garden.

Day 3, we set off to to Fussen, which is 2 hours train ride from Munich, to visit the Schloss Newschwanstein castle aka the Cinderella castle because Walt Disney modeled the castle at Disney World. King Ludwig II spent the family billions to built many of these stately homes. We took a horse ride to the fiercely steep hill upto the castle. It make us feel like living in a fairy tale.

We took our own sweet time wondering around Munich City on the last day. Danny was eager to find Oktoberfest, where a 16-day beer festival held here each year and it attracted some six million people attending, and is an important part of Bavarian culture. We stepped out of the train station and saw a huge ground, approx 0.5 km² area, where people setting up tents. It’s a dreamland for Danny.

Pints on Bikes

Pints on Bikes.

RiDe a bIKe……. tO A pUb……. GEt A pInT……. (repeat until they got dRuNk)

Guess what happened to Kevin’s bike.

Kevin is 30!!!!!

Our ‘little’ Kevin is finally 30!!!! We used to tease him for not qualified to drive a mini van in Ireland because he was too young.

Corrina had planned to throw a surprise ‘wings’ birthday party to Kevin. She recruited Danny to get Kevin out of the house for a few hours while she get prepared for the party. Danny came up with some silly excuses. He told Kevin that he wants to look for a coffee table in M & S in town but first he had to drive to Spalding (45mins journey) to get his shoes. Kevin buy the idea anyway.

It was a fantastic American chicken wings party. Corrina bought loads of sauces from States and all taste really good!! We had a good time with our friends and neighbours, as always.

Summer Fete

Summer Fete was the biggest event in school during Summer term. The first time we went to Summer Fete was only a month upon we’ve arrived in England. I thought it was a very meaningful day as parents, family and teachers will helped out, hand in hand to raised money for school. Danny helped setting up and manning the stalls. Children enjoyed the most whereby you can see them running around to different stalls but would always came back to their parent asking for more money. They’ve successfully raised more than two thousand pounds in just 2 hours.
YH was doing a ‘favor’ and tried to win pint glasses for Danny.
Yi xuen with her best friend, Lucy.
What were the boys thinking? Standing close to the loud speakers.

Corrina’s Birthday

Our dear friend, Corrina, has turned 31! Being a friendly and generous lady, she had kindly invited us, the ‘Sirah’ and the Beales over for BBQ and celebrated her big day.
She was the busiest birthday girl ever and entertained us on her birthday. She prepared the most popular Salsa dip, my new favourite’s Olive Garden Spinach and Artichoke Dip, different type of exotic ‘Kebab’, Salad, Peanut Butter Cornflakes Bar… I’ve learnt so much by ‘helping’ her in the preparation, which I always enjoyed doing. We’ve bought her a Delia’s Recipe Book as birthday present. Delia is a very famous English cook and I thought it suit her very well since she is passionate about cooking and is also a very good cook. It will also reminded her where we developed a special friendship in England.

Yi Hong is 8!

I couldn’t believe my little boy is 8 years old now. Time flown by too quickly.
We had invited all Yi Hong’s classmates to his bithday party in Activity World, a big family gym. We had also taken this opportunity holding a farewell party and invited Yi Xuen’s classmates too. There were about seventy children and if included all the parents, we probably had almost a hundred people. YH & YX had so much fun with their friends. The school had made a huge impact in our lives. The experience we’ve gained and friendship we’ve made will stay with us forever and ever.

Farewell Dinner

This was the first Farewell Dinner for us as the Rolinitis would be in States when we left to Singapore. We had dinner at Pizza Express, “American voted Best Restaurant” in England. We’ve known the Rolinitis for less than a year but had developed a precious friendship. Bryce was in the same class as Yi Hong and Tyler was in Yi Xuen’s class. It was quite an emotional evening because it always hard to say goodbye.

While we were ordering our dinner, Laurie spotted a gentlemen sitting in front of us look alike as the man in the poster. After checking with the staff, we were told he is the founder of Pizza Express, was born in Peterborough and currently own four hundred over restaurant worldwide. We eventually took a picture with him and even got his autograph.

Happy Father’s Day and East England Show

What did Daddy get for Father’s Day??

My dad loves Chocolate

Cheque books for Dad
I bought a cute little cheque book from Tesco. Danny issue some cheques on the spot.
“I promise to tidy my room” for YH and YX
“I promise to do the washing up” for mummy as well, huh ??!!??

We’ve made some cookies for Father’s Day breakfast. YX made our family cookies.

In the afternoon, we went to the East of England Show, organised by the East of England Agricultural Society and was the region’s leading farming and countryside show. The Show features some of the best of British livestock as horses from Shetlands to Shires. We particularly enjoyed the displays of steam, vintage tractors and classic cars. The Show also feature a huge range of trade stands, plus crafts and a food hall with plenty of mouth watering temptations. The Grand Parade of Livestock was also a very interesting event and we were amazed to see how huge were the breed.

We went to East England show in the afternoon. It’s a celebration of Birtish farming and the Countryside.

Surprise Farewell Lunch

I was invited to Keri’s for lunch on Wednesday but was stunned as she and 7 other friends thrown a surprise farewell party for me. I was speechless and my eyes filled with tears. I received very meaningful presents, a DVD (Life in England) with pictures of Glinton, school, YH & YX classmates, places that we’ve visited, some special events. I’ve also got a English Low bowl, which I actually been eyeing for a long time. For people who knows me, it’s not difficult to imagine how badly I cried. I felt very moving as it meant a lot to me. I’m so grateful to know so many wonderful friends in England. Thank you all so much.

Based on my dresscode, you can tell it was totally a SURPRISE!!