Rome

I realise my Rome post is very long overdue and now since the exams are over, I have about 2 days to blog about Rome and the other stuff that happened over the last couple of weeks before I leave for Eastern Europe. Despite a really short 3-day visit to Rome, I think I've managed to visit most of the touristic sites and since there is no way one can see all of Rome in 3 days (or 2 weeks for that matter), I think a second trip to Rome is due within this life-time. This time round, I travelled with a completely different group of people and it was wonderful experience with Jeremy and Zhe Yuen from Einhoven plus Cheryl, Wei Yi, Haikal and the other Stolkholm people.



If you ever decide to visit the Colosseum and of course you have to if you're in Rome, take of guided tours which enables you to skip the long line of tourist outside the Colosseum, go straight in and most importantly, learn something on your visit. I mean, why travel if you don't want to learn about the history of the monuments you visit right? Travel tip 1101: Please read about the country you're going to visit before going. I think people who are on the 'been there, snap!, done that' mindsets are really a bunch of money-wasters. Anyway, back to Rome, the Colosseum tour also included a tour to the Roman Forum and the Palatino.


Inside the Colosseum


With Zhe Yuan at the Roman Forum. The ruins of the Palatino (the palace of the emperors) are on the hill in the backgroud.


Trevi Fountain.

This is essentially a wishing well - Make a wish and toss a coin over your right shoulder into the fountain, but don't even think of putting a finger to cool yourself down on a hot Italian summer day! An instaneaous whistle blow from the many security guards surrounding the fountain will follow. While we were there, there was this guy trying to fish out coins from the fountain and who totally ignored the whistles until he was surrounded by 3 policemen. Then what came next was a surprise to the hundreds of tourist surrounding. He took of his shirt and nose-dived straight into the fountain, went up falls and dived straight back in again. It was an awesome display of 'screw the authority'! Strangely, he came and walked away scott-free! Anna Nicole Smith payed a hefty fine doing that a couple of years ago.


Spanish Steps


Castel Sant Angelo with Chery and Wei Yi. This was the hide-out fortress for the Pope in times of invasion.


Glockenspiel-er along the Tevere River.

We spent our nights in the district of Trastevere which was the night spot of Rome. Not many clubs though but tonnes of bars along the small, winding alleys. And hordes of young party goers all night long. The parties and performances were not confined to this district but extended to the sides of the River. On one of the nights, around 20 xylaphone and glockenspiel players lined the River and created a really enchanting atmosphere.

HANG on, you gotta wait!

I finally received an email response from the original (and only) makers of the Hang but the response wasn't very pleasing, unfortunately. Due to a great number of orders this year, they have stopped taking anymore orders for the rest of the year and I have been told to wait patiently for their personal invitation to go see them. Schade!

Ok if you're wondering what is a Hang? It is a flying saucer-shaped steel drum and each indentation on its surface gives a different note. The sound is simply soothing and magical and that is why I really want to have it! I first saw it played on a street in Amsterdam and the second time was at Gaudi Park in Barcelona. After talking to the player in Barcelona, I found out it is a real difficult process to acquire one.

There is only 1 maker of the Hang in the world and they live in Bern, Switzerland. Hang means human hand in the Bernese language and it is hand crafted and tuned individually. To buy one (which costs about 600euros), one has to email the makers (PanArt) and wait for them to arrange a personal meeting with you in Bern. The Hang is personally made according to the players' note specification. I really dun know how many Hang players are there today in the world, maybe about a 100, since they


only started making it recently. I think if I actually get my hands on a Hang, I would be the only Asian player. That'd be pretty cool huh? haha. Unfortunately, I got to wait and I don't think I can afford travelling to Switzerland any soon after this exchange. Check this site out if you're interested to know what it sounds like: http://www.hangdrum.com/index_en.php

Hang player in Gaudi Park, Barcelona

exams.. yikes

The dreadful time has come again and despite being on exchange, I am actually feeling the stress. It's only 3 papers though but its hell of a lot of work when you got study in front of an online dictionary, translating words, understanding the sentence and then grasping the concept. It is draining! To say I've got 3 papers is not entirely correct; I have 3 oral exams. The reason: All the written exams are way past the 10th of Aug (home-coming) and after spending almost a month negotiating with the Profs and waiting for their secretaries to reply, I have finally confirmed my exam appointments. And its all freaking soon!!!

13th July: Werkstoffkunde und Pruefungen (Materials Engineering) - With Prof Christina Berger who happens to be the head of the whole Materials dept. Sometimes I regret not doing this module back at NUS last sem under Prof Christina Lim. (wats up with Christinas and material sciences??)

16th July: Volkwirtschaftslehre (Economics) under Prof. Bert Ruerup who so happens to be the Chairman of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Council of Economic Advisors. He as held the same post for the past 2 Chancellors as well. Now, I have to converse Economics (in German by the way) with him. Whenever I tell my German friends about this, its the same reaction "Oh shit! no way!"

20th July: Konstruktion im Motorenbau (Engine Construction) under Prof Lenzen. This is a masters-level module but honestly it is not that difficult except for the thousand technical terms in German which I have to memorize.

Plus I have 2 other modules which I am more or less done with. So will update you my dear readers if I have survived this ordeal on the 20th of July. Till then.. pray for me..

2 weekends back home...

Despite having a another long weekend and initially planning to go to Paris to meet Gabriel, travelling and rock concerts took its toll on me. The past 2 weekends were spent in doing stuff in this area.

Greg (my flat-mate)'s birthday was pretty fun. Hanging out with a room-full of French people and with me and another german guy being the only non-frogs. Nonetheless, Greg's friends made him pretty high and made him do weird stuff. It was funny but cool. I think the French drinking songs are damn catchy, better than the German ones. Gotta learn some of them...


Greg's birthday


Drinking games..

Mannheim

Saturday was spent with Olga in Mannheim. She was kind enough to show me all the interesting sites and I must say that I have a pretty good impression of Mannheim despite what everyone says about it.


Luisengarten


tired huh?


Water fountain near the Wasserturm


@ Aunt Mathilda's

On Sunday, it was spent at Aunt Mathilda's place in Bad Homburg, north of Frankfurt. It was lovely afternoon with a really good, home-cooked indian lunch! My goodness, I missed home-cooked food only after eating there. Thankfully, she packed more for me to bring home. Bad Homburg is a really lovely town with many nice houses and a beautifull park. We went on a "Wasser- wanderung" (mineral water hike) through a park famous for its natural spring water and tried 6 different types of natural spring water. It was nice meeting Serena and Michelle, cousins I have not met before, who spoke German as their first language.


Aunt Mathilda, Uncle Fritz, Serena and Michelle in their backyard..

Rock Am Ring!!

Despite the gloomy skies on Friday morning, the 3 rocker chicks (mel, char & h'annette) and me traveled down to Koblenz, a city beside the beautiful Rhein river to catch the shuttle bus to Nurburgring. Lugging a full bag of snacks, a tent and half a crate of beer, we were all set for 3 days of head banging and grooving to disco beats. We arrived at Nurburgring about midday and could already hear the drums from the Centrestage. After meeting the other Singaporeans, Gab, Ed, Cheryl, Ian & Davina, we took a long walk to our campsite where we set up our tent beside where Gab’s tent was. Despite the small area, it was an excellent location. We had a good view of the nearby hills, not too far from the stages and best of all, we were camping next to a bunch of mad Germans with a truck-load of cold beer. Thank God we made friends with them-free beer and music all day long.


Casa Viva Singaporea: Our humble campsite.


We had a pretty nice view though.


Happy campers at 3am - we were so dead!


Posing with our neighbours. They did nothing but sit along side the road, drinking, disturbing passerbys while blasting their music.


Poor girl.. caught in German cling wrap..


The rocker-wannabes... getting high at 12pm.


5-litres of Vetters from Heidelberg


Me and Ed.. all set in our Zero tshirts for the pumpkins.


Day 1

As we made our way to the stages, we caught the last few songs from The Used from afar. We managed to push our way nearer to the Centrestage to watch The Hives. Intending to keep pushing our way to the front the watch Muse, we were greatly turned off by the mad rough crowd during the next act, Billy Talent, and their punk, crappy 4-chord music. The Germans loved it, pushing and jumping around and not caring about the ladies who were being crushed in the mosh-pit. We had no choice but to push our way out of the dangerous arena. It was a good breather being out of the mosh-pit and after dinner, we made our way back for Muse. Unfortunately we could not get as close to the stage as we wanted to but nonetheless, it was an awesome performance by Muse. I always thought of them as Radiohead rip-offs but now, I think I’m beginning to like them. Maybe it was because we had a mad Muse fan among us, Annette! She owes me for sitting on my shoulders!


Muse!!


Annette's gonna kill me for this..... but she owe's me something too...

Deciding to skip Linkin Park, we made our way to the Alternastage to watch Arctic Monkeys. I was not impressed and left for the indoor arena to watch Funeral for a Friend. I guess the Germans are not big fans of them as the arena was not packed and I managed to get a place near the stage. It was really good, high-energy performance as they played all their hits. They ended with my favourite FFAF song, Escape Artist Never Dies.


Funeral for a Friend

I made my way out to join the rest to catch White Stripes. The duo’s performance was not really my cup of tea after watching FFAF but nonetheless, the drummer looked really cool. Chick drummers rock! They ended with their famous 7-Nation Army of which the riff was stuck in our heads for the whole night. By then, it was almost 2am and we were dead-beat tired and so decided to skip Evanescence and head back to camp.

Day 2

By the time we awoke from our slumber to the heavy German rock from our neighbours, it was already midday. We made our way to the arena where I and couple of others went to watch the heavy metal Lamb of God while the others caught 30 Seconds to Mars. After meeting up, we pushed our way back to the Centrestage to catch Kaiser Chiefs! That was a performance to remember. The lead singer went crazy running up and down the stage and climbing the scaffoldings while playing all their favourites such as Everday I love you less and less, I predict a Riot, Na Na Na and ended with Oh My God which had the 50 000 people jumping up and down. After such a performance, we had to sit out and rest while watching Mando Diao and Beatsteaks from afar.


Lamb of God


Kaiser Chiefs

Just before Beatsteaks ended, Ed, Gab, Annette and me (mad Pumpkin Fans) started pushing our way to the front. I never felt that kinda excitement watching a band before but the atmosphere, the crowd and the thought of watching The Smashing Pumpkins live was driving us insane. 45 minutes later, there we were, 10 meters in front of the Pumpkins stage, in the Pumpkins mosh-pit! Then the lits dimmed and the crowd went mad as Jimmy took his seat on the drumset, Ginger (new bassists who’s freaking hot) and the new guitarist came on. Billy Corgan came on a while later wearing a kimono-like gown and without saying a word, strummed the opening intro to Today. The crowd was insane as they jumped to Today. “The World is a Vampire” – Bullet with Butterfly wings came on next and this time, the crowd became really wild; pushing and body surfing. It was then I realized that this was gonna be an awesome performance. True enough, the next 2 hours were the most nostalgic concert experience I ever had. They played all the songs I wanted to hear plus some new songs from their new album Zeit Geist. It was also great to see hear some softer Pumpkins hits such as To Sheila, 33 and Disarm played on an acoustic guitar. The performance ended with the famous Zero, 1979 and Untitled. During the encore, a guest guitarist who looked like Santana came on and they played one of their new songs which more than 20mins of guitar solos exchanged between the 3 guitarists. Ich war zufrieden!


The Smashing Pumpkins - Their 2nd live performance since 2000.


Zero : god is empty just like you!

The Pumpkins Set list:
01. (01:44) Today
02. (05:13) Bullet With Butterfly Wings
03. (09:49) United States
04. (20:39) Bleeding The Orchid
05. (25:39) Stand Inside Your Love
06. (29:27) Cherub Rock
07. (34:13) Shame
08. (40:14) Silverfuck
09. (50:50) Thirty-Three
10. (54:47) To Sheila
11. (60:05) Tonight, Tonight
12. (64:43) Tarantula
13. (68:49) Starz
14. (72:53) Zero
15. (75:25) Disarm
16. (78:17) 1979
17. (82:30) Untitled
18. (90:12) Gossamer


Cherub Rock!!


in the pumpkins moshpit!

Day 3

After waking up at midday and getting really high from the free beer from our German neighbours, we made our way to watch Korn. Jonathan Davies came on with a bag-pipe just before playing Shoots and Ladders and it was really cool that this song ended with the bridge from Metallica’s One. Korn ended with their 2 famous songs – Freak on a Leash and Blind. Next, me, Annette and Cheryl pushed our way through to watch Velvet Revolver. This was another exciting performance and I never would have dreamed to see the members of GnR live. Slash was in his usual black hat, playing his sunburnt Ovasion. It was a pleasant surprise to hear Mr. Brownstone.


Velvet Revolver

Travis came on next and we were lucky to be right in front of the stage again. It was a strangely, lively performance which I thoroughly enjoyed. I especially liked it when the guitarist body-surfed the crowd while playing the solo for All I want to do is Rock! Scissor Sisters came on next for a really gay performance but it got the whole crowd grooving to their lively, disco beats.


Travis


Travis guitarist bodysurfing...


Scissors Sisters - What the hell are they doing on stage??

By then, we were burned out and cold and decided to skip Megadeth and head back to camp. Rock Am Ring was truly an experience to remember; feeling 16 and nostalgic was really super! My 125euros was really worth it! Thank you all my rocker friends for sharing this with me!

Rock Am Ring Rocks!!!

Prague

Prague is beautiful! Need I say more? Enjoy the photos...


Charles Bridge at night


The view of the Prague Castle at night from across the Moldau River

The Old City Centre


An old-timers jazz band playing the old city centre square


The 12-Apostles clock on the old state building. At the hour, a skeleton rings the bell on the clock and the 12 Apostles parade across.

The Prague Castle


The whole bunch of us on the square in front of the Prague Castle


With Annette with the bridge leading to the Prague castle in the background


The Prague Opera House - Rudolfinum


With Gab in front of the John Lennon wall

City of Puppets...


Prague with its amazing collection of hand-made puppets. We were lucky to catch Don Giovanni, a long-running Prague puppet show with music composed by Mozart.


Peddling along the Moldau River

Kutna Hura - The Bones Church

A day trip from Prague took us to Kutna Hura where we visited the famous church which is decorated with real human bones.. more than 20,000 skeletons.


Nothing beats a home-cooked meal at our hostel!

Barcelona

A Day with Antoni Gaudi - Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia


With the best travel buddies - Mel & Char: Back facing the entrance of Park Guell with interesting gingerbread-like buildings designed by Gaudi.


Picnic at Park Guell with Chris and Anika, friends from the hostel. It was a lovely day and wonderful location overlooking Barcelona and a 3 piece band to entertain us.


The unfinished masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi - La Sagrada Familia. This cathedral is still undergoing construction and since 1886, it remains only 50% completed. However it was announced in 2000 that it should be completed by 2022. Now, that would defininitely we a sight to behold and maybe a good time to return to Barcelona.


One of the 4 facades of the cathedral. This being the oldest- The Nativity Facade. 4 bell towers rise highly above this. Altogether, the entire cathedral would boast 12 bell towers symbolising the 12 apostles, the Mary tower and the grand Jesus tower.


In front of the Hospital De La Santa Crue - A UNESCO monument consisting of yet again ginger-bread like buildings.

International Museum Day in Barcelona

We were extremely lucky to visit Barcelona during the international Museum day. This meant that all the museums throughout Barcelona were free for the day. Thus, we spent a day visiting around 6-7 museums all around Barcelona - from history to modern contemporary art.


Here with Nam in front of the Picasso Museum - This is definitely worth visiting even if its not free! See Picasso's works from his early days right through to cubism.


Having a picnic break during Museum day with Nam, Anna and Chris.


View of the musical fountains taken from the MNAC museum. The sunset over Barcelona that evening was awesome.

Las Ramblas


The most famous street in Barcelona - Las Ramblas. Here, we watched a Tango performance which was really not very good.


Even at night, Las Ramblas is bustling with activities with street artist and performances. Same paintings were really nice. If I had the money, I would definitely support these local artists.

Waterfront


After a typical Spanish dinner, we headed for nice walk along the waterfront.... followed by drinking.. as usual.. and latin dancing with some french friends we made at the hostel.

Barceloneta Beach

Our last day was spent lazying at Barceloneta Beach. This is definitely why I would like to return to the Med coast!





I would definitely recommend the Mambo Tango hostel to anyone visiting Barcelona. The owners are friendly, its cheap, clean and has a lovely lounge to meet people over dinner. Here with our self-cooked dinner with Nam and Mohammed.