I found Madrid to be more interesting than Porto – it had that mix of history and modernity. Because I understand a lot of people get bored by churches, palaces, galleries and museums, I’m listing the places I went to here:

Royal Palace & gardens
Puerta de Alcalá
Parque de Retiro
Museo Naciona del Prado
Caixa Forum (by Herzog & de Meuron)

In summary – I liked it, I had fun

Took the night bus from Madrid to San Sebastian – woke up on my birthday on the beach! Was so happy. San Sebastian is a gorgeous seaside town but also with city walls that date back to 800BC. Just cruisy, walked to the top of the hill with fort and the giant Jesus, sat on the beach..

Took the bus to the Guggenheim, Bilbao. Amazing building, really good exhibits – loved the one by Richard Serra & Jeff Koons. I’ve been a huge fan of Richard Serra for years, his works are these huge pieces of treated metal that compress and expand space as you walk through them.

Went back to London, really tired but happy
Shi.

ps: will send the rest of the collages..some other time :p

]]> http://misstraveler.com/postcards/giant-flower-puppy/feed/ 0 http://misstraveler.com/postcards/cruises-dragonboats-an-invisible-green-bunny/ http://misstraveler.com/postcards/cruises-dragonboats-an-invisible-green-bunny/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:39:00 +0000 http://misstraveler.com/?p=35 Hullo..

After last month I’ve been quite happy to stay in london & not move. Coincidentally the last 2 weekends I spent it mostly around the Thames River, except for last weekend when I went down to Corwall, Newquay, St Ives etc.

Thames Boat Festival was good fun – about 200 boats (dragonboats, rowboats etc) went down the thames. Personally I get quite thrilled by dragonboats (proper dragonboats go really fast, and they have drums!) but I stayed for the funny costumes.

Best costume(s) was the orange dutch rowboat with blond pig-tailed milkmaids, matching orange dresses and tulips; going down the thames. And of course, I didn’t take a pic of them

Oyster & seafood festival too, and that was good..yum. Went cable wakeboarding & flopped about not being able to get a good take off then shivered like a puppy (how embarassing).

Cold water & cold weather kills me, I’m always the person looking very cold on the side of the field/beach/office/bar/anywhere in london.

Last weekend was a toss-up between the Lord Mayor’s festival or Cornwall – picked cornwall. Saw St.Ives and the 5 hr ride was sooooo worth it.

St Ives is a beautiful little english coastal town but we didn’t stay long. 1 invisible green bunny rabbit later (long long long story) & we had to take the train home to london.

I’m feeling kind of wrecked at the moment. Mostly work-related but sleeping in a car on sat night didn’t help.

Need sleep now, hossegor next weekend – hope that goes alright.

Later,
Shi.

Hi!

It’s been a really strange month since I started work at my old company…obviously things have changed – like people going home before midnight (wimps! hehe) and a healthier regime of after-work yoga lessons, weekend paintball sessions, wall-climbing, waterfall excursion…

Could this really be the same place? Is it possible that KL is having a fresh turnaround of conventional (sweat factory) work-play schedules? Of course not, I started clocking up 10pm, midnight & 4am working nights in the last 2 weeks

However, it was good while it lasted.

So here’s the pics of the highlights.

Waterfalling was good, drove 2 hours from KL, get off highway for another 45 mins, then offroad (and I mean offroad!) for another 30mins. Walk on path for 5 mins, then scramble through rainforest for 30mins to get to pristine tropical paradise! We got the first pool and it was great to get wet after working up a sweat. Splashed around then continued climbing. We only got through 7 of the 35 falls but the last falls was really beautiful. Jin got washed down 2 of the falls & almost went down the 3 rd and that would have been when we would have to trek all the way down to retrieve his body…but Hugh & Dave got to him in time

Company dinner was fun too – the theme was superheros and it was at the Shangri-la restaurant. There was She-ra, Lara Croft Buffet Raider, Poison Ivy, Spider-woman, Catwoman, Chun Li (streetfighter), the Recycling Revolutionaries (aka Poison Ivy’s Ribenaberries), Mr. Bean…obviously a majority of the people didn’t dress up, but they made up for it with poledancing, man-whoring (just Dean ) The food was good – sushi, oysters, entrees (in little shot glasses), choc fountain etc And our 3d guys are genius impersonators – I must watch myself around those fellas : )

I’ve been having a lot of fun this past month… oh yeah and uhmm there was this small incident where I sort of broke my finger before xmas & I didn’t know (yes, my doctors asked me how could you not know?) After my finger was swollen for a month I went to do xrays & now my finger is in this aluminium-sponge-brace thingy… So I’ve found out that wall-climbing with 3 fingers is not easy, my pen keeps getting stuck in my brace and I now do everything left-handed.

Sigh. Xrays this week and my finger’s better than before but still not back to normal (at all). Chinese New Year next week & I’m already eating myself silly with mandarin oranges.. so…

GONG XI FA CAI WAN SI RU YI !!

from sunny warm msia
Shi

ps: Waves are flat in msia! I’m hoping for one last swell this season…
pps: Does anyone want to go to the KL Muse concert?

hi

merry xmas! Got back from the turkey/greece trip & drove to east coast for surf the day after… It was good because scored some great swell, but I paid for it the next day because I did not get enough sleep/jetlag/not eating anything…

Turkey & greece were interesting. I’ve also discovered the meaning of “It’s all greek to me” – I’ve been driving on the opposite side of the road, with road signs that have gamma, sigma, rho…

Our conversations were like this:

Me: ok, so what street do I turn?
Brother: uhmmm…ok at the..Y..gamma…pie…O with a dash…ermmm..oh, I think we just missed it.

Greece had a lot of stones…and temples…mostly stones lying on the ground. The description would read ” There used to be a 30m high gold temple in 1000bc” and I would stare at the boulders on the ground & try to visualize it….

Sigh.

anyway in greece I liked these 2 places:

Delphi – cool temple in the mountain, gorgeous views (not that I got to see any, I was designated driver, the roads were mountainous and the greek drivers all had little mazda roadsters & tendencies to overtake at the sharpest steepest bends) Epidavros Ampitheater: 200m diameter & 5 storeys high – but we could still hear each other speaking normally from the other side (200m away)…great acoustics…

Istanbul was good. The rest of turkey..uhmmm…well if you’re in turkey you should just stay in Istanbul. Blue Mosque & Hagia Sophia was good…the palace was a bit of a letdown, except for the holy relics including a foot print of prophet mohammed & his teeth & the severed hand of a 500AD christian saint.

Most of turkey seemed to be enveloped in clouds of smoke from the wood/coal fires….everyone in turkey seems to drive around in little hyundais, travel by car ferry, and have NEVER SEEN AN ASIAN PERSON. We got stared at every place we went to, and entire classrooms of kids on school trips would bombard us with “Hello!” “Konnichiwa!” and ask to take pics with us.

Also a lot of stuff about turkey trying to join the EU & greece stopping them, ha ha. Oh yeah, Brad Pitt’s troy horse is actually sitting in Troy – and it looks more authentic than the 3 storey rocking horse they charge ppl 8Euros to see.

So after arriving 3pm saturday in KL , & with no sleep for the previous 36 hrs, I was driving to the surf at 3am to make it there by 7am. Mozzie bites, crushed finger, washed over the rocks (I provided
that afternoon’s drama entertainment), bruises, blinding rain that physically hurts you & the best trashing I’ve had in a while… I was elated

Came back into KL yesterday to meet my sis who’s come in from syd, mate who’s come in from qatar, buy final xmas gifts & bake xmas cookies! I’m forwarding a pic of some friends surfing last sunday…obviously there are prettier pics of msian surf here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryannys

http://www.scaryreef.fotopages.com

Tomorrow I’m heading bk to the east coast for the xmas weekend…not starting work til jan so if it’s still good I’ll be there surfing into the new year’s…hmmmm

GREAT STUFF….

merry xmas & happy new year to all!

xoxox
shi.

I went to bali for a week. Yes, again. In less than 24 hours after saying “I’m in”, went to the airport, bought a ticket and flew to bali. Week-long public holiday in malaysia because of hari raya adil fitri and deepavali (indian), I love muliticulturalism.

bali is a lot nicer during off-peak season, balinese people are friendlier, you see little kids playing in the shops and there are sessions where we surfed centres in kuta reef 2 days in a row with just the three of us, solid overhead (and bigger) and water so clear I correctly identified lettuce coral (it’s coral shaped like a lettuce, big duh).

Didn’t do much actually. Did all the cultural stuff during my long trip the last time. Just did a morning surf sesh, ate, napped, surfed, ate, went out, slept (X7).

A good holiday that I really can’t remember what happened

But here are some highlights (and lowlights):
I boarded the plane but my luggage and board didn’t – so had to borrow guy friend’s shirt and went walking around kuta for a day looking like a 12-year old japanese boy. Interestingly, I didn’t get offered drugs or women (if I had really looked like a man), and didn’t get chatted up (if I had looked like a woman)
Being introduced to everyone as “his little brother” for 1 week afterwards.
Hung out with a friend working at Hard Rock Hotel to do paddle board races in the Hard Rock Hotel pool.
Was fun, jumped on the slides after that.
Accidentally met long-lost american surfer chik whom I first met in bali 1 1/2 yrs back – in the lineup in kuta beach. (hooray!)

As the solo female, taking the boys window shopping with me and then having to wait 2 hours while they finished shopping. Got punched on the leg a few times for singing Elmo’s song out loud on the motorbike. Can’t help it if its the only song I know…. Eating nasi goreng almost everyday. Became malnourished after 5 days. Got cranky unless I sat in an air-conditioned shop/bar/restaurant/internetcafe for at least 30 minutes every night.

The swell that we thought wasn’t going to hit Malaysia did arrive while we were in bali. And in case you’re wondering, yes, there were still tourists in bali but mostly from jakarta, malaysian – mostly asians. Only asians in the Mcdonalds, KFC, Hard Rock and haagen-daaz. The aussies and europeans went underground into the local warongs.

hope you like the pic.

Cheers,
shi.

Hey there

Bit different weekend. Went off work an hour early (woo-hoo, 7pm!) on Friday because there was a neighborhood get-together. The businesses in the area pay an annual sum and that pays for barbecue, beer (mmmm..Asahi), chicken wings, nibblies, watermelon & shaved ice (japanese summer dessert) and fireworks for kids and kids at heart. People had tatami mats on the road, shoes off, eating at low tables, with lanterns strung up and kids and families everywhere, not just salarymen. It was fun and food was good. Had an interesting conversation with my colleague’s friend whom I asked why Japanese eat whale meat? He thinks that since Indonesia has so many whales and Japan so few, it justifies why they should hunt whales there..besides, whales eat lots of fishes at one go (with their huge mouths) Before I get any angry emails about what he said – yes, I do know that whales eat krill and plankton. I’m not sure if whales do eat sardines, but I doubt that the harpoon boats stop to ask the whales before they fire. This issue is touchy but from my personal experience, chinese people are also taking sharks to extinction (shark fin’s soup) and eating exotic clams and fish in protected dive sites and marine parks so I don’t want to point fingers at other cultures when my own is flawed as well. But I wouldn’t make whale stew or eat shark fin soup anytime soon.

The next day, got picked up at the Hilton (3 mins walk from my apartment) at 503am sharp. I sleep in my swimmers, T-shirt and boardies with packed backpack on the side so that the only thing I have to do in the morning is roll out of bed and head out the door. The purpose: surf at a spot 2 hours drive from Tokyo. After having to take the train and walking everywhere, it was great cruising on the elevated highway past Shibuya, Roppongi, Rainbow Bridge, Odaiba, Tokyo Disneyland…boys were checking surf reports on the radio and on their keitai (handphone). Taro-san’s 5’8″ was pretty short, but the wetsuit was a perfect fit – dunno how the heck he ever managed to fit into the wetsuit?? The surf was not as small as I was worried it would be, but pretty cruisy waves were good because I’ve been landlocked for the past 7 months. Nice shoulder to head-high sets (Japanese guy sized) in the morning that got blown out in the afternoon but still surfable. Really such a difference surfing in Japan – after the surf, they got out huge containers of water and a wooden rack (like the bathhouses) and took turns rinsing off. All the cars there had gallons of water in their boot, and all (no exceptions) the surfers stretched before going in. Post-surf we had soba or rice sets in a noodlehouse for lunch (complete with central rock garden, koi and bonsai) Taro-san called my suggestion of Macdonalds “dame-mono” – no-way food – Awww shucks.

Surf wasn’t as crowded as all the stories I’d heard but there were a lot of drop-ins. Japanese manners still pervade, and no one was shouting or hooting. The boys parked for an afternoon nap right in front of this Japanese chick sunbathing, who glared at us for perving. I was innocent, but she glared at me as well anyway. I didn’t understand why she didn’t just go down on the beach instead of lying in the parking lot sunbathing (???) – but then I noticed the nice manicure job with sparkly daisies she had on her feet. In this case its possible to go to the beach without actually going on the beach.

We had shabu-shabu when we got back to Tokyo at 11pm. Cool restaurant called Butaya (Pig shop) with so much kawaii piggy memorabilia – only in Japan. We had pork skewers, pancetta, pork in sauce, salad, shabu-shabu and noodles, felt like a real pig at the end of it. Got home about 130am. 2 different friends described Tokyo-ites as being “robot-like” but I think that they also like to laugh and joke a lot – only when they’re with their friends. It’s been good to see things from the other side. And compared to my past warong/little hut/meat pie/fish&chip post-surf lunches, the noodle house was really impressive. Heck, the noodle house was impressive, period.

Got fireworks and want to go to this cool robot/tech place in Odaiba next weekend and I also have to pack because my flight is next Thurs.

It’s been such an unreal experience in Japan.

See yall.
Shi.