Food tube map

After the awesome London tube map in Maori art work, here is another fine example of what people do with the London tube map - rename the stations with food names!!

If you are not sure what the actual station names are, here you go:

• Paddington (Puddington)
• Edgeware Road (Eggware Road)
• Notting Hill Gate (Notting Hill Cake)
• Mornington Crescent (Mornington Peasant)
• Charing Cross (Charing Croissant)
• Tottenham Court Road (Tortellini Count Road)
• Highbury & Islington (Highbrie and Biscuit Tin)

Wouldn't it be nice if all the station names changed into food names? Like change Gospel Oak to Gospel Oat... still around 252 stations name to change, ok maybe not now.

Breath taking experience - Jungfrau

After a long and complex selection process, a group of us finally decided to go to Interlaken, Switzerland for a long weekend.

For me, the must do there is to visit the top of Europe, Jungfrau. Due to train ticket discount, we took the earliest train, 6:40am, to get there. Even though the journey took about two hours, but the scenic view is so relaxing which makes me forget about the fact that we were all up at 5:30am that morning!!

This trip is a truly breath taking experience, not only the pure white mountains against the clear blue sky took my breath away, also, because Jungfrau is elevated over 3000m, I found it hard to breathe. As shown in the photo here, it was me struggling to walk to the little hut about 1km away from the main building, but it is all worth it because of this view...

Happy Chinese New Year!

The first Sunday after Chinese New Year is when the London China town puts on events to celebrate this most important Chinese festival of the year! This year there is no exception. 

As expected, a big crowd gathered for the fireworks which marks the end of today's celebrations. What surprises me is how the fireworks were lit - by hand?!?! 

To me, seeing the staff running around Leicester Square lighting the fireworks for our amusement was the main entertainment. (No staff was injured during the lighting of fireworks!)

Milan: Part III - Michelanglo

Europe is like a big art and history museum.

Hundred years old castles, buildings with magnificent crafting, roads built for horse carriages and beautiful flesh like marble statues are on display in all major European cities and Milan is no exception.

Sforza Castle, about 15mins walk from the Duomo is worth a visit for all art lovers (or tourist who are sick of shopping!). For only €3, it gives you access to all the exhibitions including paintings, statues, furniture, armors, weapons and even modern artwork.

There are loads of paintings and the one shown below is one of the most important piece in the castle. (I am no art expert, but logic tells me if a painting is on display in a huge room all by itself, it must be pretty special!)

"Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus" - This painting was thought to be painted by Leonardo da Vicci.

(On close inspection, you can see the left window is actually the Sforza Castle itself, how awesome is that?!)

Milan has a strong Catholic influence, therefore, most of the artwork in the castle is about "Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus". This particular painting was painted by Picault in 1758, who copied the painting which was originally painted by Leonardo da Vicci in 1515.

Even though it is not painted by Lenoardo da Vicci, it is still fascinating to look at.


A truly fascinating master piece we saw during this trip is this unfinished statue of "Mary and Jesus ". It is the last statue made by Michelanglo. Look at how rough it is at the top half of the statue and compare it with the flesh like leg at the bottom half of the statue. It really makes you appreciate the effort and the talent of the artist.

If you really don't want to pay the €3, there are live shows avaliable for viewing as well and the photo below is the "most viewed art" of the day! They are performing in the middle of the castle, you really can't miss it even if you want to.

The only issue with this kind of show is that the performers don't have a schedule, so you just have to try your luck!

Sweet?!

Milan: Part II - Latte

The best way to rejuvenate after walking around Milan all morning, is to sit at a relaxing cafe and have a nice cup of coffee. Knowing how much Italians love their food and drinks, I had great expectation of how good my Latte would be -- and what I got was ...............hot milk. In Italian, "latte" means "hot milk".

If only I had read about Latte on Wikipedia before the trip, I would not have made such a mistake. Check it out on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latte.

"Latte" in Italian means "Hot Milk"

There is no shortage of coffee places in Milan, even Gucci have their own cafe right outside their store. To my surprise, their coffee is actually reasonably priced, unlike their bags!

Gucci cafe menu

The quality of food in Milan is pretty high and that applies to the price, too. The general rule of thumb we follow when comes to choosing a restaurant is, the more people there are the better. With this rule, waiting time is unavoidable, but since dining out is quite expensive over there, it is better to wait for a table in a good quality restaurant then taking the risk.

Out of all the pizzas, risotto, pasta, salad, gelato and coffee that I had during the trip, the clam spaghetti was the best. The clams were fresh, the spaghetti was perfectly cooked and the sauce had a mild taste and light texture which complimented the clams really really well.

Clam spaghetti

A trip to Milan would not be complete without art, so the third part of this trip is Milan: Part III - Michelangelo.

Sweet?!

Milan: Part I - Duomo

The whole point of leaving beautiful New Zealand to come to the UK is to travel around Europe as much as possible. Therefore we went to Milan the weekend before I started my new job.

Milan is an obvious choice of destination for all fashion/brand conscious people. However, for the fashion conscious who do not want to spend €500 for a Nutella Cube bag*, like myself, there is much to see as well. (*Scroll down for a photo of the bag.)

Our first stop was the Duomo. One of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world, the details on the outside are unbelievable! We spent the day and night walking around it to see its beauty from all angles we could get access to.

In the morning, tourist rush hour.

Afternoon tea at the cafe on the top floor of a department store right next to the Duomo.

From the top of the Duomo. We took the stairs, but an elevator is available, so there is no excuse not to get up there. It is so worth it.

The Duomo looks equally breathtaking at night.

The Duomo is a "functional" Catholic church, meaning there is Sunday mass while the tourists are walking around the church, which is a bit strange.

Almost 400 photos were taken in the two days, mostly of the Duomo. The rest are the beautiful food and drinks that we had, and some funny ones as usual. Stay tuned for "Milan: Part II - Latte"

Sweet?!

Nutella bag. Look at it, who wouldn't want one, eh?!?! =P

Hmmm Scones...

Unless we plan an action packed weekend, otherwise, London can be quite dull sometimes. (I will get to the scones, read on...)

We planned to drive to Windsor last Sunday about a week and a half ago, thinking that we will get there early, have a swim, wander around and maybe say hello to the Queen if she is "hanging out" in the Windsor Castle.

It was a great plan until it started snowing heavily on Sunday morning?! Now that we are stuck at home, what can we do? Perhaps, build a snowman? No, too cold! Go to a museum? No, takes too long on the tube!! Go shopping? No, too heavy to carry the shopping around! Arrr... what else can we do? Watch DVDs at home maybe?

When we are feeling sorry for ourselves not being able to go, the snowing started to ease a little. So, we decided to carry on with the original plan... (except it is 1.5 hrs late, but who cares!!)

It took less than an hour to drive to Windsor, no traffic whatsoever! ( I guess everyone else stayed at home to watched DVDs!! Ha Ha!). We ended up having late morning tea in a very traditional looking cafe near Windsor Castle, window shopping at Windsor Royal Shopping Centre, had a two hours lunch at Latino Restaurant, went to Eton College and was amazed by the beautiful Eton College Chapel.

Eton College Chapel. It reminds me of the magic school main hall in Harry Porter.

Out of all these activities, I like the morning tea the most simply because of the scones. My experience with scones are mostly from bakeries all around NZ, they are alright, nothing special. I had scones in the US where they call them biscuits, but I am not a big fan of them. However, my Aunt Lucia in Sydney makes very very yummy cheese scones, very moist and tasty.

The scone I had in the little Windsor cafe is completely different though! It is warm, very soft, it tastes wonderful when you put cream and jam on it and it melts in your mouth! The texture of the scone was perfect!! It was so good that I have eaten half of Mas's scone as well!!

With a cup of tea, there were nothing more I can ask for! Hmmm...scones

The perfect scones served in a little cafe near Windsor Castle.

It might sound crazy, but I would consider going back to Windsor soon just to have the scones. This time, I will have at least two scones all by myself!! Sweet?

The most expensive glass of Coke in the world!

Well, it might not be the most expensive in the whole world, but in my little world, €8,80 for less than 500ml of coke is the MOST expensive I have ever paid for, heard of or seen!


When I realised how much this glass of coke costs, my head immediately did the following calculations:

• That is about HK$105, I can get an off-peak movie ticket (HK$40) and a movie snack combo which includes a large popcorn, a hot dog and a 500ml bottle coke (HK$65).
  
• Or for NZ$17, I can get a big chicken rice (NZ$10) and almost four glasses of coke (NZ$2 each) from my favourite food court, Food Alley in Auckland.
  
• Even for expensive London, ₤6.7 can get a chicken pad thai (₤5) and a bottle of 500 ml coke (₤1).

Sure you get the picture now. But these calculations were not doing me any good at the time, so I quickly stopped doing it and turned my head and looked at the reason for the extreme high price...

Arrr~ isn't this nice... yes, you have guessed it, the coke was served in the restaurant 2000m above sea level, on top of Le Brevent, one of the Chamonix ski fields. It was a perfect day for any snowboarder/skier, clear blue sky, fluffy snow and most importantly - hardly anyone on the mountain!!

Given the high price and the fact that I was dieing for a coke after snowboarding the whole morning, I actually think that glass of coke in the end, is the best tasting coke in the world!! Sweet?! =)

Green Auckland, Blue Chamonix and Grey London

"Kiwis are so spoiled!!" This is my conclusion after having been to nine cities in the past six months.

Starting from Auckland > Hong Kong > Taipei > Melbourne > Shanghai > Sydney > Gold Coast > Chamonix > London.

Auckland - The photo is taken during a trip to Akaroa, a small but relaxing and beautiful town in the South Island of NZ. The weather was mild and the tap water tasted so sweet! (Read on, you will know why I say that.)

Hong Kong - A town with lots of beautiful modern buildings. Shopping is the greatest (Mas said that he will not shop anywhere else but HK)! With most of my family being there, HK will always be on my travel list, even though the air pollution really puts me off!

Taipei - The food was great and cheap, a city with a strong Japanese influence. The Taipei 101 is a beautiful building, but unfortunately, seeing all the buildings in Hong Kong, it doesn't really impress me much.

Melbourne - Other than the hot hot hot summer, Melbourne is a very fun and beautiful city! It is almost as green as Auckland. Food was "O" for awesome! Especially, the Lebanese and Malaysian food that I had this time... was just too good!

Shanghai - The first impression of this city where my ancestors came from is - a mix of modernism and traditional! It has everything, from expensive fancy diners to food stands by the train stations; from tall modern buildings to old Chinese style houses only an hours drive away. It is a city I want to visit again, being there only once is just not enough.

Sydney - I have lost track of how many times I have been to Sydney. It is a city where my favorite cousins live, that's why this city is always on my travel list as well! The one thing I really love Sydney for is the seafood market, especially the oysters (not the very big Tasmanian ones though, I think the one I love are the rock oysters)!!! You only need one and it refuses to leave your taste buds alone!!!!

Gold Coast - After five days on the beach and three theme parks, I am good with theme parks for a long while. It was a great holiday destination with my young cousins, the activities are no brainer, the transportation to all the major theme parks are great, food was good and not too pricey. Except the buffet offered by the Four Winds Revolving Restaurant, it is not very good value for money. There is no surprises with the food, but for AU$55 per head, I can have a much better dinner somewhere else. Oh, the revolving bit, it is a nice idea, until I realised that the restaurant is right by the pacific ocean, so imagine what can you see most of the time at night ... complete darkness.

Chamonix Mont Blanc - The ski fields are amazing!! The clear blue sky is outstanding, the trails were wide and the snow was so fluffy, it makes it so easy to snowboard on! If you find yourself continously falling on your bum on slushy snow, remember, it is not your fault! Oh, almost forgot, I found a bakery in the Chamonix town centre, the pizza was the BEST!! It is the basic cheese, tomato and herbs pizza, it was so moist, the thickness of the base was perfect! Just writing about it now makes me hungry!!!

London - Have been here for almost three weeks now, all the things that people told me about, the grey weather, the confusing traffic, the shocking bank system are all true. No surprises there. What is surprising is the tap water, it tastes funny, not sweet at all, needs to be filtered before consumption, what's up with that?! However, it is a city with beautiful old buildings, they have such strong character, I love looking at them. Also, the convenience to travel around Europe is a paramount advantage.

That is it for my first blog post, come back for more later! Sweet?!