Finally got paid...

After working close to 5 month now, I finally got paid! (Partially anyways) Then I got screwed by taxes cause the UK tax year ends on April 3rd. I didn't know this before but the earnings are taxed based on when you get paid, not when you actually did the work. So the work that I did from December to April of last years tax year will be taxed this year, along with my this years income. Blah. Then I got screwed again by the accounting firm cause they processed my pay incorrectly, they thought that I made that much in a month, resulting in a huge tax rate. I felt like I was back at the U taking a finance class, reading up on UK tax, but if I really wanted to do that, why would I hire these 'professional' accountants.

Then they forgot to process my expenses, even after calling them up about it. Before this, they lost the timesheet that I faxed in and took over a week to get back to me after I've mailed a 'have you received my timesheet' email. And no, that is not all that they messed up on. With just a click on the 'forward' button, the Jr accountant that manages my account sent a string of private conversations between me and the accounting company to the employer (I was furious, imagine that, me being furious. That doesn't happen much. Does it?) Then there's more... And these guys are suppose to be professionals, but so far, they are doing a piss poor job!

Another Europe Trip!

We've already planned our next trip. We're going to Zurich on Thursday May 25 2006 for 5 days. We're going to be leaving late and since May 29 is 'Spring holiday', we're only taking 2 days off from work. (We're working almost every Saturday, so it's not like we're missing alot of days from work)

Luckily, Bo has family there and will provide us with crash space, so we're all set! My guide book tells me that majority of the people in Switzerland understand English, bonus! I don't think we'll have any problems
getting around...

Vienna Trip

We went to Vienna on April 13 2006 for 6 days. There was a 2 day(Friday, Monday) Easter holiday and we took 2 days off work so that we can spend more time in Vienna. Bo has family there and we were fortunate that they let us stay with them. When we got there, the weather was crappy so we didn't do much for the first two days. Once the weather cleared, we were off...


This is somewhere in the city centre area. I think this is the Graben, one of the main streets in the central district. We did many hours of walking around the beautiful district 1 area.


This is inside a McDonalds. The inside is full of movie memorabilias. Quite different from any other McDonalds i've been to. I ordered a pack of Broccoli Cheese Nuggets. Yummy!


There are these huge cigarettes in the entrance of every subway station. Do you think this gets the point across?


There were many of these little shops set up in the outer area of the Schonbrunn Palace (in District 12) Egg anyone?


My guide book advised us to take tram 1 or 2 that goes around the Ringstrasse, a street that circles the city centre. But we accidentally took tram J (cause the 'J' looked like '1' to us) We didn't even notice that we're on the wrong tram. A few minutes later, we saw this church and decided to get off and check it out. After getting back to the station, we finally realized that we were not on tram 1.

some more pics...

The famous golden Mozart statue in Stadpark. (I don't really know if it's famous but I see it on alot of brochures)


View from the Schonbrunn Palace to Gloriette. The Schloss Schonbrunn was the summer palace of the Austrian emperor.


The Parliament and here's something I found on the net:
Vienna's Parliament was constructed in the Greek Classical style to reflect the democratic ideals of the new parliamentary government adopted by the city of Vienna. The building was designed to give an illusion of height, with the tall pillars and the second-story level entrance. A statue of Athena was placed in front of the building, facing the street, not the Parliament, however, further shifting the focus on the Ringstrasse.

Lower part of the statue, taken from the second level of the parliament.


Moose, posing at the base of a pillar...


We rented city bikes for 2 days, and it was an excellent way to travel around. Vienna's roads are quite friendly to cyclists. There are many cyclist lanes... I don't know if drivers are as friendly to cyclists though.

There are many areas preserved for nature. I think my guide book mentioned that there are more wooded areas then developed areas. I think we cycled for over 20km the first day, my thighs were a bit sore the next day. Indeed, I need more exercise!

We rode along the Danube River and it was beautiful. We were lucky to have a full day of sunshine until only our last 30 minutes. It was pouring cats and dogs. But afterwards, the rainbow came out, the sky cleared and we made it home for dinner.


I think I can point my phone in any direction and take something interesting. This is one of many old buildings in Vienna.


Street scene in the central district. I think this is on the RingStrasse across from the Parliament.

Some Pics...

We have two attic windows, this is one of them. If we ever get unlazy and clean it, we will be able to clearly view the stars at night, lying in bed.

Looking out from our attic window, we have this beautiful view...

We stayed at the GreyHound Inn in Jan/Feb for about 5/6 weeks. We have a room with a country view. Makes sence since we are many miles away from a large city. We see horses horsing around all the time. I watched school kids play in this field when I was recovering from my flu.

Chinese New Years in London. I was lucky enough to have two lion dances performed right in front of me.

Trafalgar Square during Chinese New Years and a couple of people showed up for the festivities...

Slowing getting ourselves organized...

We finally found a place to live. We moved in on March 3rd. I'm tired of not being able to make a simple toast, plus the hotel is a bit expensive. We made our dinner tonight for the first time since December.

The room we found is more interesting than the 'room on top of the bar'! We're on the roof! At least it has hot water, a fridge, stove and oven in our 'roof room'. I hope it's temporary though. Otherwise, we'll either get a bad back or bumps all over our head. We're sharing the house with 7 others. It's more like a family run hostel. We need to get ourselves sorted with the car situation (currently renting a car) and the work stuff before looking for something permanent to live in.

Bo and I just came back from a 3-day trip to Cork/Dublin (Mar 27-29). We met Bo's dad at the end of his Europe tour so we got a few days off and took him to Ireland. We went to the Blarney Castle and I finally kissed the Blarney Stone! But I don't think i've been blessed with the gift of gab yet. Maybe it takes some time for it to kick in. We also went to Kinsale, a little fishing village about 40 minutes bus ride from Cork city centre. We took a scenic hike (with quite a few ups and downs) to Charlie's Fort, one of Ireland's heritage sites. My history is a bit rusty to non existent, but this is what I got from the guide... the fort is a star shaped fort that is mostly fortified on the side facing the sea. The side facing the land was the weak side since they do not expect to be attacked from that side. The walls are not as fortified and the fort is built on the bottom of the hill.

There was a bloody and only battle in 1690, where the enemy came from the side of the land, took 3 days to cannon through the shortest wall, and won. The English kept it mostly for training ground until they returned it to Ireland a long time later. Then the hippies moved in and got to party there for a few years until the Irish government decided to fix it up and make it into a heritage site.

On Wed at 7am, we caught the 7am bus from Cork to Dublin. It was a long 4 hr ride and we arrived in our room in Dublin at around noon. I started packing non-stop till 6:30pm. Bo had to run around city centre to finish off things and get a haircut, and show his dad around. I managed to pack the things that we want and have room to take. We had 3 huge luggage, 2 carry on size luggage, and a duffle bag. We checked in 4 bags and still had 3kg to spare from our 60 kg limit! We still have alot of stuff in Dublin, but i'm not sure if we will be able to get it. I'm going to miss my air filters and the 19-inch monitor...

On a sad note, Bo fried our rice cooker so now we don't have one. I really liked our one cause it does congee as well. They sell rice cookers in UK but it's mostly the basic ones that does rice only. The fancy ones like ours are a bit pricey here! =(

On a happy note, Vienna, here we come. We're going to Vienna from April 13-18, 2006. We're starting our holiday early this year and hopefully we will be able to travel more.

I am an Independent Analyst

Independent Analyst

I saw this on Chir and Ev's blog. Kind of neat, but I think what it says about me isn't right. My report: http://www.personaldna.com/report.php?k=XJMEfnKPOJTnRdV-MD-AAACA-b96e&u=6eca39c70547

Well, maybe just a little correct... what do you think?

I've not tried the psych stuff, but if anyone is interested: http://personaldna.com/psychyou-psychme.php?for=3b8bcb78a063

Here's a link to the test if anyone is interested: http://www.personaldna.com/tests.php

I've fixed the link, so it should work...

Toronto...

We will spend a week in Toronto at Leanne's place. Technically, we'll be spending the week in Richmond Town and not Toronto since it's not part of Toronto. Poor Leanne had to put up with us for one whole week. Hopefully by the end of the week, we still have a friend left. =) She was up early everyday and prepared breakfast for us! She even made carrot muffins from scratch. We are so spoiled by her. She also works all the time. Even at midnight, she'll be working. Better be careful Leanne, or you'll be burned out!

We checked out Pacific Mall, North America's largest Asian mall. It was so unbelievably huge. It reminded us of large malls in China. Rows and Rows of little kitchen size shops, one after another. There's also a huge population of Chinese people in Toronto to support this types of places.

She has a housemate, but we've only seen him twice the entire time we were here (for 5 seconds). On the first day, we saw him leaving for work and coming back from work. Though I always hear him taking a shower in the morning. But we never saw him again, I almost forgot that Leanne even has a housemate!

Thursday we went to check out the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). It started at 8pm and ended at 10pm with a 10 minute intermission. The music was very pleasant and peaceful... so peaceful that Bo and I took a few 1 minute power naps. It was not at all boring but a whole week of non stop running around, doing errans and being a tourist, was very tiring! The concert was awesome and we would do it again. If anyone visits Toronto and likes this kind of stuff, then check out the TSO website and look up tsoundcheck. There's discount tickets for people under 30.

We took the Toronto street cars around downtown. They are very handy and there are lots of them. We wait an average of 0 to 2 minutes for a car. They are not traffic friendly though, cause they stop in the middle of the street and the cars can't pass if they are letting people off and on.

We ate at this Dumpling House for brunch twice cause it was a nice change from other kinds of food. They make the dumplings to order so they are extremely fresh. My aunt use to make them, and she can make them just as fast. Watching them is interesting. They can roll one out in seconds!

CN Tower from way below. We decided not to go on it. The Skytower was closed and it was still $35 pp to go up. Perhaps we will return next time when they reopen the Skytower.


We celebrated Bo's birthday in Toronto with DQ. This was my banana split that I couldn't finish. Bo had a peanut buster parfet, that I couldn't photo cause he finished it all... Happy Birthday Bo!

Niagra Falls

We went to Niagra Falls on Tuesday, Feb 21 2006. The temperature has warmed up a tiny bit but we still found it to be quite cold. It was only about an hour drive from Toronto. Leanne gave us her casino membership swip card so that we can park at the casino parking lot for free, yeah. We walked along the Falls street and first saw the American falls. It was not what I had expected. But I think it's due to the fact that it's winter time and the sky was dark and ready to rain. Looking at the Canadian Horseshoe falls from a distance was not spectacular. There was alot of mist blowing towards us and we could barely see the thing. It was like a rain storm. But as we got close, the view got better. After about an hour, the sky started to clear up and we were able to see more of the falls. I managed to get this panoramic shot of the Canadian falls with my 2.0 mega pixel camera phone after the sky cleared and the wind changed.

Ottawa..

We were in Ottawa from Wednesday Feb 15, 2006 to Feb 18, 2006. We drove from Toronto and it took about 4 hrs to get to our Hotel in downtown. We didn't think that we would be renting a car, but a week of car rental was about the same as 2 return train tickets. Rental insurance is quite expensive, it was about 40% of the rental cost!

Our appointment with the British Embassy was at 10am on Thursday. This was the main reason of our visit. We were able to apply and get the Working Holiday Visa for UK within an hour. If we applied anywhere else in Canada, it would of taken 2 weeks because they would need to mail the application and required documents to this Ottawa British Embassy.

From Ottawa, we were a bridge away from Quebec, however, since the rental company gave us unlimited kilometers, we were only allowed to drive within Ontario. So we didn't drive into Quebec intentionally. Though, we did accidentally drive through the bridge. So we were there for 2 minutes. If we didn't op for unlimited KM, then we would have needed to pay for each KM over 1200 KM driven. When we returned to car we put on a bit over 1350KM...

The winter festival was also on when we were there. We decided to take a bus over to Gatineau, Quebec. There was a snow scupture competition, it was part of the winter festival. It was a nice 10 minute bus ride. It was so cold and we were so unprepared for the weather, we didn't stay very long. But still long enough to slide down some the slides made from ice. Good thing they built a tent for people to warm up. We were in there half of the time. I ordered a cup of hot chocolate in English and they replied in French.

Being in Ottawa, I finally feel the bilingualism at work. When I walked into the Body Shop, a sales girl first asked "Do you need any help?" then she switched to French and ask me the same question. I'm starting to wonder if the people from the east would think that we (people from the west) are less Canadian because so many of us do not speak French. Do we need to know both English and French to be a true Canadian?

All the pictures posted were taken by my phone camera.


The next day after arriving in Ottawa, we woke up to a frozen city. Our car is covered with a 1 inch layer of ice. The antenna was completely encased in ice. When we left UK, we anticipated a temperature of -4 degrees. It was close to -30 that day and the next few days did not warm up either.

I don't think we've had anything this bad in Calgary before. The windshield wipers were buried in the ice. It took about 10 minutes to chip the ice off them windshield and windows. The ice on the hood didn't come off until we went into a roofed parking lot a day later. The trunk was all iced up and we were only able to use it after arriving a few days back in Toronto. Luckily, we filled up right after arriving in Ottawa, before the rain/snow storm...

This is a model of downtown Ottawa in the Tourist Info Centre.


It was extremely cold outside. The is Parliament Hill, taken from the inside of the Ottawa Tourist Info Centre. We went for a guided tour of the Parliament building. It was quite good. We were thinking about skating on the Rideau canal, known in the Guinness book of records as the longest piece of ice to skate on. However, the temperature was just way too cold. We couldn't even stand walking outside for a few minutes. Skating a round trip on the Rideau Canal takes an average of 1.5 hrs.

My Little Canadian Moose

This is my Canadian moose that I brought along for this trip, and called it Moose (Pronounced as Moo-Cee) Also got myself a new phone (Sony w800i) that I will be using to take pictures to post on the blog. There aren't any new pictures posted on our site cause I forgot the password to upload to it and we haven't contacted them for it yet.

Moose, getting the royal treatment in the GreyHound Inn.

Bo is studying Microsoft .NET stuff, he wants to be Microsoft Certified. Moose is there to encourage him.

Moose, watches Legally Blonde 2 with us.

Moose is learning how to drive in our Clio. The company provided us with a rental car for a few weeks. When it was delivered to us, it had about 13 miles on it. So I were lucky enough to get a brand new car. By the time we returned it (about 3 weeks later), there was over 2000 miles on it!

Subways (not the sandwich!)

The Toronto Subway system can be inefficient. We bought day passes, but we couldn't get into the subway station cause we had to wait in a (sometimes a huge) single lineup with people that need to purchase tickets. The booth with the person selling the subway tickets is the same booth as the one we need to show our day passes too. Can you say, bottleneck! Arg, I can't believe this is happening in a city like Toronto. But at least the trains are frequent enough. The streetcars are nice and they come very frequent as well. I must say that Calgary has a better system set up for leaving and entering the LRT/subway platform. The frequencies are a different story.

However, the London and Hong Kong subways are the best in my books. I especially liked the Hong Kong subways since they have pretty LED lights that display the exact location and direction that the subway is traveling to. The London Oyster cards and Hong Kong Octopus cards also makes entering and leaving the subways easier and faster. In Hong Kong, the octopus card can also be used in some 7 elevens!

Leaving (again) on a jet plane...

We left UK on Tues, Feb 14 in the afternoon and arrived in Toronto in the evening (how romantic!) Why are we here you ask... Well, it turned out that the company did not get us a visa and we couldn't get a UK Visa ourselves while we were in the UK. We could have gotten an Irish Visa, but the process would take 3 months (way too long) So we're now back in Canada. It takes about 2 weeks to get it processed by the British Embassy in Canada unless we make an appointment and go to the Ottawa embassy in person. So hence, we are now in Ottawa. Leanne picked us up in the airport and we stayed at her place for a night. Then we rented a car for a week and drove to Ottawa on Wed. We booked the Comfort Inn Downtown for 3 nights. Oh my, the room and bed was so big! We've been in Europe for too long. Everything there is so small! We went to the Ottawa embassy on Thursday morning and by noon, we're holding our UK working visa (valid for one year working and two year stay in the UK) Just a quick update for now, more on this later...

St Albans and Brighton

On Sat Feb 4, we went to St Albans (a town about 20 miles drive away) in the afternoon and visited the oldest cathedral in UK. It was a grand cathedral. I saw memorials there dated back to the 13th century. The market was also open today. There were many little stalls selling various goods, from scarves to fruit. We stayed in St Albans for three hours then drove to Edgeware (in the Greater London area, which was another 15 miles away) and visited the Oriental City Mall. There were a couple of Chinese restaurants, a big Oriental grocery store like T&T and loads of oriental food stalls. We ordered alot of great tasting food.

On Sun Feb 5, we set off to Brighton in the afternoon. It was about 40 miles from Tring. It took about 1.5hrs to get there. The traffic in Brighton town was quite busy and it was almost impossible to find parking on the streets. Even when we pulled into a paid mall parking lot, there were many cars in front and behind us looking for parking. In Brighton, we walked over to the Sea front and enjoyed some English Fish and Chips, and a fresh red mullet sandwich. This beach didn't have any sand though, just loads of small rocks. I think this water is the English Channel? I need an atlas.

Happy Chinese New Year...

We did manage to utilize the rental car. We drove to Windsor on Sat Jan 28. It took about an hour to get there. We went into Eton and checked out the place where both Prince William and Harry went to school. We also visited the Windsor Castle. I think it's the official residence of the Queen. She wasn't home though. The castle was huge, but we were only allowed to visit a section of it. Pictures to come.

Happy Chinese New Years to everyone. On Sun Jan 29, we took the train into London to celebrate New Years. It was about a 45 minutes ride into central London. The streets in Chinatown, Leister Square and in Trafalgar Square were flooded with people. There were just as many westerners there as Asians. There were dragon dances, lion dances, Chinese opera, martial arts performances, firecracker and fire works display... When we were lining up for food at one of the restaurants (there were line ups in all the restaurants) we caught the lion dance right in front of us. It was going around to the restaurants to 'Capture the Green'. The 'Green' is usually a lettuce with a red pocket, tied to the front entrance of the restaurant. The lion is suppose to dance around and 'Capture' the lettuce in it's mouth, chew up the lettuce and spit some of the pieces out. (The lion dancer gets to keep the red pocket) I took some video clips of the lion dance on my new Sony Erickson w800i mobile. I'll try to post them.

I also bumped into Adrian in Trafalgar Square. He was part of my team in my Marketing class at UC. Apparently, he’s been here since September 2005 and is working in UK for year. What a small world…

In UK for how long?

We flew to London Heathrow on the evening of Jan 16. I was suppose to start work on Monday but I was still not feeling well. The company booked us into a little Inn called the GreyHound (1hr from Heathrow). It really sucks to be at an inn without a kitchen when I'm sick. I couldn't make anything to eat! Bo had to do food runs for me. Luckily, the company provided us with a car (for the time being) so Bo didn't really have to 'run' anywhere. It took a while for me to finally recover from my second flu. Initially we were only going to be in the UK for a week or two. After some personnel re-shuffling, and changes to the project specs, we may be staying for a few months. Arg, all our stuff are in Dublin and we've accumulated quite a collection. Now we're starting over and living out of our suitcases again.

We're currently working in Tring, a little town about 1hr drive to Greater London. There's nothing here in terms of entertainment, not even a bowling alley or a cinema. There's no sit down Chinese restaurants, but there are a few Chinese Take-Out places. We've been having alot of those lately. The company gave us till the end of Feb to find our own accommodations and transportation. Things are slowing falling into place, until we found out that the company has not gotten us our visa and they don't know how to get them. So now we are in la la land. Apparently, we need to go back to Canada to apply for one. We're finding out if we can get an Irish one for the time being. We'll see what happens. On top of that, my laptop, which I’m using for development, recently died on me. Luckily, it was still under warranty. We got it sent in and it *should* be fixed in a week. The company did provide me with a machine, but it only had 256MB RAM. It was extremely slow to develop on that machine. Especially when i'm running Windows XP, VS.NET, Server 2000, IE, ... and have lots of pages open. After pointing out the lack of memory, it finally got upgraded to 512MB RAM. I miss my laptop, it was *MUCH* faster! How frustrating!

Home Sweet Home

We went back to Canada on Dec 19. We first flew 3 hrs to Frankfurt and waited there for 4 hrs, then flew another 9 hrs to Calgary. While waiting at Frankfurt, we went to McDonalds in the airport and also there were a parent with his two kids (waiting for their flight to Calgary too) They had to wait 12 hrs to make their connection. He manage to entertain his kids by encouraging them to play the McDonalds Monopoly game by collecting stickers from people who ate at McDonalds. They managed to almost fill up the monopoly board. They were only missing one sticker for each property. They had many small prizes; they gave us a free cappuccino and ice cream cone sticker. With the remaining stickers, they covered up an entire medium pop cup and an entire coffee cup. The flight from Frankfurt to Calgary was 9 hrs, but it didn't feel that long, I slept quite a bit. We arrived in Calgary at around 5pm.

At first, I thought that I was going to stay in Calgary, but three weeks ago, I started a contract(same company as Bo) so now, I'm just coming back for Christmas. Bo will be staying for 2 weeks before heading back to Dublin to finish off his contract. I'll be staying for 3 weeks.

The first evening back, I was so excited to be home. Bo's parents came to pick us up from the airport, and dropped me off home, where Mom was waiting for me to arrive. We chatted for a bit, then she took me to T&T.

The next week was filled with having Dim Sum, lunch and dinner with family and friends. Then Bo caught the flu. I suspect that he got it from Geoff at Sandi's party. I've heard quite a few people from the party fell ill sometime afterwards. So we didn't go on any snowboarding trips. Then a few days later, I caught the flu from Bo. Arg. I was disappointed that I got sick. I didn't go anywhere for almost a week. Bo left Calgary on Jan 3rd, he's almost recovered by then. Luckily, I felt alot better during the last few days before I left, so I managed to meet up with a few friends. By the time I left, I was feeling alot better. But I felt quite sad, cause I didn't want to leave.

I left on Jan 11, on an 8pm flight and arrive the next day at Dublin at 5pm. My connection flight from London Heathrow was delayed for about an hour. I was so tired by then, I almost fell asleep on the chair. Apparently, the BMI plane had an oil leak so they had to get another plane ready.

What happen the next day was unbelievable, I got sick again with another flu. Had a fever for a few days and at one point, had a temperature of up to 39.9, I was HOT! We went to the Emergency and Accident at the hospital cause the clinics were closed at 9pm, but we left after not being seen for a few hours. Bo called the Alberta Health Link for information. Then he got me some Benylin for Flu 4, and I felt alot better after taking that. We were scheduled to fly to London (for work) on Sunday but I still felt horrible, so we changed our tickets to Monday instead...

Kitty in Dublin

Kitty came over to Dublin to visit us (Fri, Nov 18 to Sun, Nov 20) for a few days after our trip in Belgium and Amsterdam. Again, I was the tour guide because Bo was busy working. We went to the Christ Church, Dublin Castle, GPO, and City centre on the first day. Then I made a pasta dinner for everyone. In the evening we enjoyed a movie together (Die Hard 3).

The next day, Bo took a day off to hang out with Kitty. We also had two of our room mates join us to take Kitty around town. Our first stop was to Trinity Collage. We bumped into Reily and his friend right in front of the Book of Kells building. They managed to get us in, so we took some time to view the Book of Kells. Afterwards, we took the bus to the Dundrum shopping mall. Kitty and I both agreed that shopping in Canada is much more affordable. In the evening, we went to a nice Chinese restaurant and Reily joined us for dinner. Afterwards, Reily took us to an Irish Pub, where both Kitty and I had our first half pint of Guiness. It took forever for me to finish it and it tasted awful. But I think Kitty didn't find the taste to be as bad.

On day 3, we didn't do much. We slept in and didn't leave till noon. We went to Kilmainham Gaol and by the time we left the jail, it was too last to go do anything else so we took a trip to city centre to get some 'hotpot' groceries for dinner. We prepared a nice farewell hotpot meal for Kitty. Kitty went to bed quite early cause she had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch her flight. Since I’m such a good friend, I also got up at 4am to help Kitty with her luggage and waved down a taxi for her.

Amsterdam (Part Two)

Tuesday November 15, 2005
The train ride to Amsterdam was enjoyable. Kitty likes to ride on trains in Europe because: ‘the scenery is so nice’, but I was still feeling the effects of my cold medication and I fell asleep quite quickly. I think the pills made me really drowsy. 3 hours later, we arrived in Amsterdam. We went straight to the Tourist Office in the train station. We booked a Bike Tour scheduled for the next day. Then we headed off to find our houseboat, the Passenger Ship Maria Alberta, where we will be staying at for the next 2 nights. However, we arrived a bit early (an hour before we said we were going to arrive) and no one was on board. It was raining, no one was home, we were standing outside the boat thinking, what were we going to do? We went to a near by building, a ship like green building, called ‘Nemo’, a Science Centre for kids. We were so lucky, the guy at the Nemo center was extremely nice. He helped us contact the ship owner. It turns out he was on the other end of the boat. Kitty did almost all of the talking cause I was still feeling a little strange.

We thanked the Nemo guy and headed back to the boat. When we got onboard, the size of our room shocked us a bit. It was so incredibly small. I think the room (including the washroom) was a little bigger than my office cubical space! A slightly bigger room with 3 beds was available for only 9 euros more, so we took that one instead. Good thing we did cause later that night, we experienced difficulty of getting to the top bunk. Kitty wanted to take the top bunk, it was extremely challenging but after numerous tries, she was finally able to get on. Needless to say, she decided to the take bottom one. It was a lot of fun trying different ways to get up. I was laughing so hard watching Kitty struggling away that my eyes started to water!

After settling down, we ventured out to find a nice place to eat. Before we left, I asked for some restaurant recommendations from the boat owner. He was nice enough to point us to the right direction. Little did we know, we were about to walk straight into the Red Light District! At first sight, we were in a bit of a shock. Quoted right out of Kitty’s blog: “the first ‘Display’ we saw was this very fat woman with little clothes on”. Then we eventually made our way to Chinatown and decided to eat at the place with the most Chinese patrons. The food was good, though I couldn’t be certain because I was still ill and couldn’t taste many things. We headed back out and passed the Red Light District again. I didn’t want to be rude so I tried not to stare. We took quick short strides down the ‘window’ alley and to please our curiosity, took small quick glances at the different windows. We found a supermarket, and loaded up on fruit and water before returning to our ship.

Wednesday November 16, 2005
The bed on board the Maria Alberta boat was surprisingly comfortable, and this morning we slept in till around 9:00 when breakfast was called. At the breakfast table, we met a couple, Wendy & Andre from LA. Wendy is involved in a Shakespeare theatre production, A Midsummer Night Dream, in Berlin and Andre is a Special Ed. Teacher visiting his girlfriend. Andre was nice enough to offer us a map and let us read through his Lonely Planet book. We also shared some useful travel tips. It took us a while to get ready and we finally made it out by 11:00. Kitty saw the Stella McCartney line in H&M and immediately bought a few of her pieces. We ate our lunch at a very stylish-looking McDonalds before rushing to the Yellow Bike Company for our Bike Tour. As we waited at the Bike Shop, we were told that the tour was cancelled because these other people didn’t show up and there weren’t enough people for a tour. They were trying to scare us away by saying that the weather was going to be crappy and a bike tour wouldn’t be pleasant. They’ve succeeded but now we have to get back to the tourist office at the train station to get our refund. Luckily, it wasn’t very far away. Then we decided to drop off Kitty’s newly acquired treasures back to the ship before heading off to the Van Gogh Museum.

We could have walked 45 minutes to the Van Gogh Museum, but opted for the tram instead. The museum had almost the complete collection of paintings he did throughout different stages of his life. The museum also did a good job on placing information cards for each painting on the background with detail description for the paintings. The museum also displayed some of Van Gogh’s personal items, like his closet and some of his letters. Kitty thought the museum was very interesting and a must-see for art fans. I was not an art fan but I was not bored there. We spent a long enough while in there that my tummy started to growl. Luckily I had some crackers with me. Before we left, Kitty sent her parents a video message informing them that she was safe and enjoying her vacation. Then I sent Bo a video message while Kitty was in the background, popping her head up all around behind me.

We headed to a Chinese restaurant again for dinner because the food we had the other night was very good! Afterwards, we walked around and ended up on the other side of the Red Light District. We walked by an exotic sex museum, I was curious and wanted to go in but Kitty declined to go with me, so we skipped it. We made our way to Dam Square and took some pictures. Then suddenly it started pouring! We went for cover and waited for the rain to die down a bit before proceeding. Interesting thing about Amsterdam was that it could start to pour from absolutely no warning at all, then after a few minutes, the rain could stop completely.

I read on the net that soft drugs were legal in Amsterdam and can easily be bought in any ‘coffee shops’. These shops don’t even sell coffee and if you want to have coffee, visit a café instead. We walked by this shop that was selling food with drugs as one of the ingredients. Kitty talked me into trying a hemp lollipop with her. I could definitely taste the hemp but there wasn’t enough of it to get us high.

Thursday November 17, 2005
We were woken up at 9am by a knock on our door, followed by “Breakfast is ready!” That was our breakfast call. Today, like the day before, we didn’t make it out to the breakfast table until 9:30. We joined Andre and Wendy for another morning meal. We were checking out today but we didn’t want to carry our stuff around with us so we stored it at the train lockers. It was close to noon before we left the train station. Our flight was at around 20:30 so we still had sometime left in Amsterdam. We went for a cannel cruise and took lots of pictures. We saw many houseboats and got a short history of how Amsterdam came to be.

After our cannel tour, we took the tram to Anne Franks House even though it was walking distance. From the outside, it was hard to tell which building was Anne Franks because all the buildings look very similar and there wasn’t an obvious sign indicating where it was. They did a good job preserving it. We spent quite a long time in there and my tummy was growling again near the end. Kitty and I read every single piece of information card and watched every video in there. The Anne Frank story was quite sad and tragic. She seemed like such a mature girl from her writings, but she was only around 15 years old. She was a very brave girl.

After leaving the Anne Franks House, we took pictures with her (statue) before going for a bit to eat. We were pressed for time so we ended up at McDonalds. Did you know that McD’s charges everyone (even customers) who uses the toilet? I remember paying to go to the toilet at every place I went to in Amsterdam (except for the museums)

Then we rushed off to H&M to get as much shopping time as possible. Kitty bought a few more bags of clothes and I also joined in on the fun and bought a bag too. The sales and selection in Amsterdam was much better than Ireland. We got in about an hour of shopping before having to leave to catch our flight to Dublin. Kitty will be staying with us in Dublin till Monday November 20. I will be playing host again because Bo will be busy working.

Our trip to Brussels... (Part One)

After countless hours of chatting, emailing, and planning with Kitty, we’ve finally decided on a trip together! We went to Brussels from Saturday November 12, 2005 to Tuesday November 15, 2005 then Bo will return to Dublin but Kitty and I will be going on to Amsterdam, where we will be staying in a houseboat. Then we will be returning to Dublin on Thursday November 17, where Kitty will spend a few more days with us before going back to Calgary on an early Monday morning flight. Wow, 10 days traveling with Kitty, let’s see how long we can put up with each other! =) I caught a cold two days before the start of this trip, so that kind of sucked but the trip turned out alright.

We woke up quite late on Saturday and started packing. By the time we left for the airport, it was close to 10:30 am and our flight was at noon. Luckily, the public transport system worked out alright and we were able to check in before the cut off time. Next time, we must prep better and leave earlier.

Our flight arrived in Brussels, Belgium at around 2:45 local time. Kitty’s flight from Calgary to Frankfurt to Brussels was suppose to arrive an hour before us, but we soon found out that she missed her connection flight in Frankfurt. We waited and hour for her before she popped out of the arrival gates. I didn’t recognize her at first cause she mentioned that she was going to arrive in ‘Apprentice’ style, so I was looking for someone with a cute pully luggage. It turns out that they ‘misplaced’ her luggage. See Kitty’s blog for details of her journey in the trip and why she missed the connection flight.

We took the Airport Express to get to Brussels' central station. It was only 2.8 Euro and only took about 15 minutes. We decided to spend a bit more and booked a budget hotel (Hotel Opera) for our 3 nights stay. For some reason, all the hotels in Brussels have a higher rate on the weekdays. Their weekends start on Friday and their weekdays start on Sunday. So we end up paying 85 euros for our first night and 100 euros per day on Sunday and Monday night. We spent around half an hour finding our hotel and passed by Grand Place. It's a big courtyard surrounded by historic buildings. Since it was Saturday evening there were a lot of people there. Didn’t stay too long cuz the place was close to our hotel and we knew we were gonna come back. Finally, we found Hotel Opera on one of the busy streets. The hotel was not too bad except that the third bed in our room was obviously smaller than the other 2. It was like Goldie Locks walking into the room of the three bears. So we took turns sleeping on the miniature bed and we play rock, paper, and scissors on who gets the 2 extra pillows.

We decided to walk around the area around the hotel after we settled down. Kitty wanted to look for the new Stella McCartney collection at H&M but they were already sold out when we got there. :( We found a huge electronics store and Bo saw that 7xx Euro camera he wanted! It didn’t take long for Bo to decide to get the camera. After he got his new toy, he sort of ignored us through the entire trip. At around this time, Kitty looked like she was too tired to stay awake and it was only 6pm. Not surprising considering her 10+ hour flight time. She’s probably been up for over 24 hours now.

We were all getting hungry so it was time to find a place to eat. We walked around the area surrounding Grand Place again to find a decent restaurant to dine in. Then this waiter approached and sweet talked us into going in. We went with him cuz we were simply too hungry and too tired to keep looking. Although, Kitty did read somewhere that the restaurants on a particular street around this area is famous as some sort of a tourist trap…

The food at the restaurant was not too bad. Kitty ordered mussels and it was actually quite good. Bo and I ordered salmon, but it was not the best. At this time, I was so thirsty that all I wanted was water, so we each ordered a bottle of water… and this was one of the biggest rip-offs at the restaurant. They charged us 4 Euro for a bottle of water! I did expect to pay a premium for ordering water but… (no, the price was not listed on the menu) then they went on to charge us 9 euros for a small plate of garlic bread… needless to say, we didn’t go there again. We should of pay more attention to Kitty’s article on the tourist trap. (We dined at other restaurants in Brussels and water was all reasonably priced)

At last we were back to our hotel. Kitty’s luggage has not arrived yet so she will have to suffer without her toiletry kit. Kitty took a shower first then she was instantly out seconds after hitting the sac. I guess the jet leg has something to do with that…

Sunday, November 13th 2005
We slept in today and almost missed our breakfast, which ends at 11:00am today at the hotel. The food was like hostel style, but it was ok. We walked to Grand Place again to snap some pictures and went to the tourist centre to grab some information on the Atomium. Then we headed over to Manneken Pis, a bronze statue of a peeing boy, which was just steps away from the Grand Place. We spotted him surrounded by tourists. He was so small! Kitty read on the net that he has around 600 costumes but today, he was naked! Not very interesting indeed but we just have to go see it cuz we are tourists! There was this stall across from the boy selling Escargots (Sea Snails)! We bought a portion to share and it was delicious…

As we walked towards central station, a girl approached us and offered Hop On Hop Off bus tickets for less. As gullible and lazy tourist, we accepted her offer and brought our first Hop On Hop Off ticket ever. The scenery to the Atomium was quite good, but it was pretty cold around this time of the year so I was freezing my little nose off on the top of the open top tour bus. Personally, I prefer the metro since it was the faster and warmer way to get there. Then again, Bo had a blast with his new camera.

The Hop On Hope Off bus took us around the city, which is truly beautiful, and we hopped off at the Atomium. It's a pity that it's closed for renovation until early 2006 but we still wanted to go there to take a look at the structure and take pictures. Kitty likes to look at different architecture and this one is truly brilliant! The Atomium was designed for the International Exhibition of Brussels that was held in 1958. It was supposed to be demolished afterwards, but we’re so glad they didn’t. The design is based on the magnified molecule of an atom, and there are 9 spheres joined by tubes, made from steel and covered in shiny aluminum. We also took a bunch of silly pictures outside of the Atomium to test out the speed of Bo's new toy. Kitty and I took turns jumping, so Bo can take pictures of us in mid-air position. Then we went for lunch at the cafes near by Atomium.

In the evening, we went back to the city centre and hung around in the hotel room cause Kitty’s luggage was suppose to arrive soon. She was so happy when it did and she went for her toiletry kit with no time to lose. She took over 10 minutes to pamper her face! Afterwards, we went to dined in a Japanese restaurant. Kitty and I ordered a Miso Ramen but we suspected that it was just a normal instant noodle with tonkatsu! After dinner, Kitty finally gave in to all the waffle stands and had to try one. I wasn’t too interested cause I can still remember the waffle that Bo and I couldn’t finish at the Eiffel tower in Paris. Kitty really liked it, especially when it was cold at night and the waffle was quite hot. Both of them thought that the waffle was nothing compared to "Chicken Eggs" from HK!

Monday, November 14th 2005
We had another late breakfast (almost missed it again) and we decided to walk around the City Centre in the morning. Bo and Kitty had Belgium Fries, a not so healthy lunch. We found this booth in the middle of a square in front of a church. They thought that the taste of the fries was just: “AWESOME, so crisp and fresh!” I had a kabab, and they put fries in it too. I think it was the first time I had fries put into my kabab. In the afternoon we decided to make use of our Hop On Hop Off bus ticket and went for another ride around the city. Too bad we couldn't hop off the bus cause there are only a few buses running in weekdays and we were on the last one, at around 2:30pm.

We made it back to Central Station by 18:00. We made plans, by text message, to meet up with Bo's cousin for dinner. But somehow, the word ‘tomorrow’ was skipped when Bo was reading the message, so we were actually on our own for tonight. By this time, we were hungry and tired again. We decide to picnic in our hotel room and got food from the supermarket. We ended up having wine, bread, cheese, smoked salmon, fresh fruit and caviar. The food was quite tasty!

Tuesday, November 15th 2005.
Again, we were almost late for our hotel breakfast. But the girl looking after the food was quite nice. She made sure that there was enough bread and ham for us. This afternoon, we hung around the Grand Place area because Kitty and I was going to catch the train from the Central Station to Amsterdam. We left Bo in Brussels with strict instructions on the number of boxes of Belgium chocolates he was to purchase for us. Our train ride took around 3 hrs and it was around 6pm by the time we arrived in Amsterdam. Bo was most likely on his way to meet his cousin, Jie. Bo and I stayed at her place when we were visiting Berlin, Germany. She lives in Berlin on the weekends and flies to Brussels to work on the weekdays.

Kitty has her version of the trip on her blog (there's a link to her blog on my 'Links & Fella Bloggers' drop down, near the top left corner) and I did incorporate some parts of her blog in mine. Part Two of our trip, in Amsterdam... coming soon!