Euro Trip with my dear (Day 7)

DAY 7

We only had a few hours to sleep before catching our train at 4.00am to Rome. We had to leave this lovely city and the comfortable hostel :( they even asked if we needed anything as breakfast before we left.

There were few ppl waiting for the train... Tired... Good thing that the train arrived in time. But hell, the train's corridor was filled with baggage and even ppl sleeping! As that was a sleeper train, the train was divided into numerous cabins... We entered into one of the cabins, n there were a few ppl in it already.. There were 8 seats (or 6 seats? could not remember) 4 facing 4 (or 3 facing 3) seats. The seats can be lowered so that 2 opposing seats can b made into a bed... There was a lady who i thought was pretending to not notice tht ppl r coming in n she continued to sleep, refusing to give up the seat for other ppl... After quite a while, as ppl tried to get her up, then only she reluctantly get up to make space for others...

It was an uncomfortble trip, can't really sleep, especially for a light sleeper like Sin May.....
We finally arrived in the city of Rome after 5 hours of train....

We decided to have breakfast first before continuing with our journey.. We wandered around the train station n found this Italian-Middle Eastern snack shop... The food looked tasty, but the taste is not as good as it seems.. Not cheap as well...

After breakfast, i bought a map n bought 2 daily travel tickets for both of us.... I heard from my friends that Rome's subway is quite convenient... But hell, subways were closed bcoz of a strike. Nvm, we'll take bus. Then we waited at a bus stop under the bloody hot sun for a while, with us some backpackers n an Italian lady... Way too long for a bus to come, n we did not c buses going around... The Italian lady called the bus company n told us that the bus drivers are on strike. Public transport down... No good! Damn it, y strike now? Y even buses? Frustrating...

Then i remembered seeing hop-on-hop-off bus tour companies pulling business along the street. Well, tht is our only solution for transportation, n it was quite convenient as they will bring us to most of the tourists hot spots... So we bought the tickets, n waited for our turn to board... Another half an hour wait under the sun... Bought ice cream n cold water to cool the temperature...

Sin May wanted to sit on the open roof top for better view... But soon we regretted... My cacat 1 pound umbrella was mercilessly crushed by strong wind in Scotland n it couldn't stop the heat of the sun to hit us hard.... sighs, look how dark i got back then...

Rome is a very old city, blending ancient buildings with modern architecture harmoniously, at least it does not look as fake as Malacca.... Shame on Malacca..

OK, so the hop-on-hop-off bus travels around the city and stops by the main attractions in the city. There were around 10 stations. We could not afford to stop at each station, so we selectively go down at places we would like to visit.

The 1st stop, the Colosseum. It is amazing to see the famous Colesseum right in front of my own eyes, a magnificent building survived after centuries of war & disasters...

2 Gladiators eyeing to woo some naive/innocent tourists

Arco di Constantino - built to commemorate the triumph of Constantine I

Some very old looking ruins...

The territory of the once Great Roman Empire...

Our 2nd stop was a random 1... we did not know what to expect also, we juz reached a church, saw many ppl queueing to enter, so we stopped by. I remember seeing this stone face somewhere, i think it's some fortune telling machine.. I did not know what is the history of this until i googled today... The Mouth of Truth or La Bocca della Verità in Italian, legend says it was used as a lie detector, ppl who told a lie while placing his/her in the mouth of the sculpture will hv his/her hand bitten off.... No wonder ppl r queuing up to put their hand into the mouth of the sculpture...

Inside the church...

The outside view of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin

A fountain and a shrine like building...

3rd stop. In a random alley, lost while finding the Pantheon.... Finally found our way after asking 2 handsome mat salleh brothers...

Sighs, everything was under renovation in Europe during the summer... We only got to c half of the Pantheon. I am still amazed at how Romans managed to blend the ancient buildings in the modern city so well... It does not feel weird to suddenly bump into a millenium-old building in the modern streets of the city...

After we found the Pantheon, we tried to find our way bck to the bus stop to wait for the bus to the next stop.. But we could not find our way bck to the last stop, instead, I led Sin May to the previous stop - The Piazza de Venezia (Venice Square)... zzz.. At the round-about near Piazza de Venezia , the obvious symbol of the winged lion of Venice..

Took some pics, n we waited for the bus under the steaming hot sun... Felt terrible....
Next stop, Piazza San Pietro (St Peter's Square)... Hoped that we would have chance to go into Vatican someday, not on tht day though....

After a brief stop there, we moved on but we did not get down from the bus anymore... Kinda exhausted coz of the hot weather... We shall go to Rome again someday in the future when it's not too hot.....

We returned to the starting point, near the train station... We walked in n out of the train station, trying to decide what to eat... Finally we had McD as lunch, n I went to get a refund for our unused day-travel-pass (due to the strike by public transportation workers) n tried to find the bus stop for our bus to the airport...

We arrived early in the airport, (luckily, coz i had a stomach ache n desperately need to get to a toilet)... Finally, back to the city tht Sin May like most (for now) - London....


(to be continued...)

Malaysia's bus driver

This is a true story of how a Malaysian bus driver drives.
It happened a few days ago, at the cross junction in front of 1U.

Well it's a pretty busy and broad road, so it's important to follow the signals of the traffic lights to avoid any accidents.

I took this Metro 99 bus from Asia Jaya, going to my gf's place in Damansara. The roads at the junction is roughly shown in the diagram below. Juz ignore the tiny colour boxes in the diagram 1st.

As you can c, the road is broad and there r cars going in all kinds of directions through centre of the yellow line box. Buses normally stop at the road side after crossing the cross road to take passengers, so they usually follow the 2nd left lane (1st left lane is to turn left into 1U's direction), as tht is easier for them to juz give a signal n approach the road shoulder on the left.
But in this case, the bus driver of the Metro 99 seemed to have no intention to go to the left lane when he approaches the traffic light. Instead, he cut into the rightmost lane, where it is intended for ppl to make a U-turn beneath the flyover to the opposite side (TTDI side). OK, tht is illegal already as the lane is not for cars tht r going straight. What next is, while the traffic light is still red for our side, n cars r turning towards 1U from the opposite road (notice the little black boxes turning right in the diagram), the bus beats the traffic light and cars from opposite side n rushes through the cross road (when the driver noticed no cars coming from the other side), n then quickly moves to the left lane n stops by the road side (notice the movement of the blue box in the diagram below). WHAT THE FUCK!! It's a shame that i forgot to note down the bus' plate number.

I think the Metro bus driver took this step so that he can beat the Rapid KL bus which was in the left lane and get all the passengers. He chose to risk the lifes of the entire bus to make, say extra 20 bucks? Tht is freaking dangerous and idiotic! This is how bus drivers in Malaysia cause those freaking accidents! Rapid KL drivers on the other hand i think is more law abiding, yeah i've seen drivers who talk on the phone while driving, drivers who curses ppl who play with the bell, but not reckless driving like this metro bud driver! N let me assure u tht this is not the first time they did such thing!

Although it is not fair to categorise all Malaysian bus drivers as ignorant and hazardous, but u can see problems in their driving attitude everyday everywhere, from minor things to major problems. They need more discipline, damn it! How many freakin accidents do we need n how many more ppl to die 1st b4 they do something more serious to control these 'wild n reckless' road freaks? I think the ministers have not tried one of these on the road rollercoasters yet..

Euro Trip with my dear (Day 6)

DAY 6

We wanted to get up early but still we dragged till around 10 only fully prepared. We had a very filling chinese teo-chew style breakfast (although the son of the owner told me they were from Fujian aka Hokkien), with porridge, pau and dishes of vege and egg.

We then went to buy two 24 hour travel passes from the tobacco shop, and took a bus from Mestre to Venice. Well i did not really know where to go and how to take the Vaporetto (water bus) at first, so we decided to just walk following the road signs to Piazza San Marco. Well turned out to be a good choice. We saw a lot of stuff along our way...

Ok, here's Sin May with some walls again.

I don't remember what buildings did i walked past below, some cathedral-cum-museum i guess..
There was a man playing some weird musical instrument, like an up-side-down wok, but the sound of the instrument sounded a bit 'mystical'...

We walked past a pastry shop, selling pizzas and these 'calzones'. It's like an Italian version of curry puff, with different type of fillings.

Sin May fed some fat pigeons in half way.

Finally, we reached the St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco)... Well we did not bother to go into the Basilica San Marco, as the queue was long under the hot sun, and cathedrals will juz look like cathedrals...

Instead, after taking some photos, we took a Vaporetto to a nearby island called Murano, the place where Murano glasses r made.

We did not take any pictures of the glasswork on the island, as most shops do not welcome photography n we respected them. So we juz walked around the island, n we found a gelato store in a small mall... Cheapest so far :)

A monument made of murano glasses... N Sin May taking photos with wall again... hehe..

We had a big piece of pizza as our lunch... Then our next destination, another island called Burano.. The unique thing about this island is that the buildings on this island are all painted in different colours, i.e. no repeated colours between adjacent buildings... Other than that, we juz walked around, took some beautiful scenes, had another gelato, n then headed back to Venice.

It was evening already n we tried to find a place to eat, somewhere affordable n Italian. No, we did not eat in McD for god's sake.

We walked around San Marco, trying to find a nice place to eat... We ended up in a place called Ristorante La Nuova Grotta...Well they were having some sort of promotion, 3 course meal for 17 euro. Not bad huh...

We had some bread n bread sticks before our meal was served. Sin May ordered a pizza while i ordered a 3 course meal, starting with pasta nero di sepia (squid ink spaghetti), followed by a grilled salmon dish n a bowl of salad. Quite filling, n it was nice to have tasted the squid ink pasta :)

After dinner, it was getting dark already, we had a walk around, saw some restaurants with live orchestra/band performing (fancy!) n we headed to the jetty to take a Vaporetto back to the bus station. Unfortunately, we took the Vaporetto that made the most stops in between (should have taken a direct Vaporetto to the bus station).. So we were forced to stand for like 20 - 30 minutes in the packed, sweaty boat, waiting to arrive at the last stop. That was the only turn off of that day's trip. We had a wonderful day in Venice, n next time when we go, we will try the gondola :)


(to be continued...)