Went Verona to visit the hometown of Romeo & Juilet. These are fictional characters. But that doesn't stop Juilet from having her own house complete with a balcony. What a tourist crap trap! If it wasn't for the interesting streets, I would have kicked Lawrence (tour-guide) for making us pay extra for this side trip to Verona.

Don't know about you, but I find this star structure near the Arena rather intriguing.

A lovely charming town with plenty of photo opps. Got most of my souvenir here... mainly Swiss Army knifes and watches. Tried the Swiss Fondue.. but found too rich for my liking. Bryan & Rachel, both cheese-lovers, were crazy over it.




It was very windy & cold up at the top of Jungfraujoch. We were 11,333ft above sea level. And I was surprised to see birds and wondering what were they doing so high up. I suppose the birds were wondering the same about us humans.

The view up there was awesome. Too bad the clouds came in soon after we arrived.


It was snowing as we drove through the mountain pass from Luzern towards Verona. Very nice indeed! The coach-driver stopped for us to stretch a bit and Rachel was ecstatic. She was stomping around, trying to catch the falling snow and making snowballs. I had no idea she loved snow so much. Thought she would be complaining about the cold and dampness. You should have seen her cheeks.. very rosy.

Took these at Venice. I didn't bring tripod (too heavy) and forgot to pack my flash (too forgetful) for the trip. So most handheld low-light photos were done at higher ISO settings and as wide aperture as possible. 

For these, i rest the camera on top of a trash-can.  Have used the timer to trigger instead of depressing the shutter.  Lesser accidental camera shake this way.  Composition was restricted cos I couldn't move the huge trash can.  It's times like these when I wished I had brought along my tripod & remote trigger.

Canon EOS 5D,EF 50mm f/1.4 lens with settings at f/9, 30", ISO100.

Mention Venice and romantic gondolas come to mind.   Don't know about you but I was rather disappointed when I saw the waterways.   Canals were dirty and stinky, not quite what I had in mind.   Buildings looked like they've settled a bit cos the doorways were very close to the water surface (sorry.. engineers tend to notice stuff like these).  Or perhaps the water level has risen? 

Anyway at night, the canals looked alright.  For this shot I balanced the camera on the railing, strap around my neck.  Couldn't risk the camera falling into the water.

Yo! Been a while since my last entry. Busy with family, busy with work. Shifted office. Selected the secondary school for my son. Went for a tour in Europe. Came back. Finalised school for my son. Christmas gathering at our place. New Year gathering at our place again.

BUSY! Didn't even have time to think of any New Year resolutions. Not that I'll keep to those anyway.
Our last family holiday trip was in 2005. So we were really looking forward to this trip. Other than Hubby, the rest of us have never been to Europe before. Rachel was especially excited about playing in the snow. We spent a few weeks getting ready for the trip.. borrowing and buying winter wear. We actually booked a tour package with a tour agency rather than going on our own. Our last guided tour was terrible. It was back in 1995 and we vowed not to go for those anymore. But this time round we have the kids and it was winter. So we were worried that the kids might not be able to take it. Oh well. More on the tour package later.

Our journey began on 27 Nov 2007 at Singapore Changi Airport. We met our tour guide L and some fellow tour members. The journey was 13 hours and was almost unbearable. The in-flight entertaiment was pretty good and kept the kids busy. Thank God! They slept a but but spent most of the time watching cartoons and playing games.

We arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport at evening time. The 1st thing I noticed was the price of coke at the vending machine.. £2.50! That's S$5 for a can of coke!
We checked into Paris Marriott Rive Ganche Hotel and it was the best hotel in the entire trip. We had a good night rest and started early the next day for our tour of Europe!

Day 1, 28 Nov 07, Paris

Left the hotel at about 8am. Had a bit of city tour. Stopped for some picture taking. Passed by many familiar landmarks.. kept seeing them in movies.. Place de la Concorde, Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris, Hotel des Invalides just to name a few.

A must stop... the Eiffel Tower.

to be continued..

Here are some of the photos taken during our trip to USA.

First stop - Orlando, FL
Stayed at I-Drive Inn for 4 nights.
Day 1 (30 May) - Magic Kingdom
Day 2 (31 May) - Epcot Centre
Day 3 (01 Jun) - Universal Studio
Day 4 (02 Jun) - Swimming & relax at hotel + stroll around International Drive area
Day 5 (03 Jun) - Flew to Buffalo



Second Stop - Niagara Falls & Toronto
Day 5 (03 June)
We flew to Buffalo on Day 5 where we met a Canadian friend, Mark. Mark has offered to drive us to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He used to work as a tour guide and has given us some real interesting backgrd info of Niagara Falls. He even made arrangements for us to stay on the 26th fl of Sheraton Hotel. The view of the falls from our room was awesome!



I took 4 pan shots and stitched into a panaromic shot. This was the view from our room!

Didn't bring a tripod so had to make use of the self-timer to capture the night scene of Niagara Falls. We were there on a Friday night and there was a fireworks display. But the mist spray and smoke sort of covered the sky above the falls. Could hear the fireworks but couldn't see much of anything else.






That's me and my family.


Day 6 & 7 (04 - 05 Jun ) : Toronto

Visited relatives staying in Toronto.

They treated us to a dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Where else?

That's me. The one wearing white with the long hair.









Third stop - New York City
Day 8 to 10 (06 - 09 Jun)

Mark picked us up in Toronto and drove us back to Buffalo again. He was so thoughtful. He knew we wouldn't have enough time for lunch and he actually packed lunch for us. And it came in real handy because our flight to NY was delayed by almost an hour.

Mark is really a great guy. Can't wait for him to visit Singapore so that we could return his hospitality. A friendly US security officer took this photo of us while in Buffalo airport. That's Mark wearing the tropical blue shirt my brother-in-law got for him. And that's my bro-in-law standing beside him.

It was own-time-own-target. We bought 1-Day Metro passes and went around NYC over the last 3 days of our holidays. Our first stop was the WTC 911 site. The entire area was fenced up and there wasn't really much to see. But I just wanted to be there.

We walked around Times Square, Wall Street, Theatre district, SOHO etc. Visited the American Museum of Natural History, Grand Central Terminal. Went to look at Brooklyn Bridge, took the ferry past Statute of Liberty. We even went for a nice leisurely boat ride at the Central Park. There was a lot of walking and the kids complained so much they almost drove me crazy.

On our last night in NYC, we watched the muscial broadway - Avenue Q. It was really enjoyable. The kids loved it. Though I had a bit of problem trying to explain some of the scenes (had full puppet-nudity!).

Visited Virgin Records which had a fantastic range of DVDs. I bought a few DVD TV box sets and had totally forgotten about the censorship thing we have back in Singapore until after I paid for them. Luckily I went through our customs without any problem.

I enjoyed the trip to US. We might go to the west coast next year. Perhaps San Francisco and stop by Hawaii.

Ha! Just got back from vacation and already I'm planning for the next holiday.

It was a fun trip but still it's good to be home :) I have plenty of photos and video clips to sort out. Will post some of the nicer ones soon.

I haven't travelled for a long time and haven't been to US since Sep 11. I heard about the tight security checks at airports but I wasn't quite prepared for that level of "tightness".

Right at the start in Singapore's airport, there was a security counter for USA desinations whereby the officer would ask you all kinds of questions before you were allowed to approach the check-in counters. Questions such as purpose of trip, duration of trip etc, were pretty normal. But he started asking about our cameras and laptop, how long these items had been in our possessions and whether these had been sent for servicing recently.

We had to transit at Tokyo to Minnieapolis and then take a connecting flight from Miinieapolis to Orlando. And at all the boarding gates, we had to have our carry-on luggage checked by the X-ray machines. Shoes, wallets, belts, coats, jackets all had to be taken off and scanned too. It was a hassle especially when we had kids with us. If we had known, we would have kept our carry-ons to a minimal.

At Minnieapolis, we were asked to wait in an interview hall for our turn to have our travel document checked. The officer was really taking his time going through our passports and travel itinerary and we thought we would miss our connecting flight to Orlando. We only had 5 minutes after he was done and it was a mad dash to collect our luggage and then to the correct boarding gate. Luckily there was a delay in that flight and we made it.

Coming home was the same. Plenty of checks and X-ray scans. But the surprise came back at Singapore's airport. In the past, once we've gone past the immigration counter and collected our baggages, we would be able to leave the arrival hall. Now there was another scanning machine set up at the exit of the arrival halls and we had to have all our stuff scanned again! wtf? Didn't we go through scanning just before boarding the plane? I understand and respect the security requirements at the boardin gates. After all it's for our safety during the flights. But I really don't see the purpose of this additional scan after we landed. I can't magically conjure a bomb or gun during mid-flight, can I?

as I need to clear as much work as possible before I go on a 2-week break. Will be flying to US with my family on 29 May. Will be going to Orlando (Disneyland etc), then to Toronto (visiting my uncle) and to NY for a few days and before coming back to Singapore.

I haven't gone for vacation in 4 years. Hubby called me a workaholic. He's got to be kidding! Given a choice, I rather stayed in bed with a book and my ipod. It's just that I've been handling most of my office's projects and I tend to worry about things that might go wrong when I'm not around. You know how things are... a small problem left unresolved will somehow escalate. Anyway looks like I have to lug my laptop along, just in case. I'm not a workaholic. Call me responsible instead!

I've arranged for Gu to look after our car and have also decided on the pet boarding house for my two cats. So what's left is the packing. The kids are so excited about the trip. I did warn them about the long flight. It's a total of 21 hours with two transits, one at Narita Airport and the other in Minnieapolis. Will bring along some VCDs and games so that they won't get too bored on the planes. So I guess a laptop will be good. Plus I could listen in to darth radio too!

I was at home last Sunday listening to darth radio. I left a message on his blog that I was tuned in and he played Summer of '69 for me. It was quite fun! It's cool how this blog stuff brings people together. I've never met darth and may never will because of the vast (physical) distance between us. But that doesn't stop us from being friends. (right? darth?)

Ok. I better get back to work. Lunch break's over!