Austria - Vienna

Vienna could easily have been my favourite city for east europe. but, we were only spending a day there. how sad. one of the major drawbacks of package tours. you simply cant plan your own time. :(

austria was cool for euro 2008 is very much alive and going on when i was there!
everywhere i turn, there bound to be some crazy ass fan wearing their nations' jerseys and singing their national songs. the mood was great.

in the mood for soccer!

one cant miss the Schönbrunn Palace when in vienna. this palace is the summer palace for marie theresa and her royal family. a little piece of history: austria was a strong country, esp under the reign of marie theresa. in fact, hungary & czech republic was once under austria! i studied history but this fact seems to escape me.

anyway, discovered an object of fascination when i was over there. Empress Sisi (married to the 1st son of marie theresa). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Bavaria
she's like the princess D of her times. beautiful and concerned with subjects of hungary. and not very in love with the emperor after some times. you got the drift.

Schönbrunn Palace. the main palace is nowhere as grand as this summer one.
spot the husband?

@the parliament. noted that all the parliament house of other countries are so much nicer. hmm.

i remembered austria best for its cleanliness, efficiency and orderly. definitely one of the easy to navigate countries of east europe. the people speaks english quite well, euros the national currency and a very established public transport network. really cool.

too bad i've limited time there. :(

Hungary - Budapest

budapest can be considered one of the most beautiful cities in east europe. as most will know the danube river flows through a good couple of countries in eastern part of europe, but its over here where the broad ribbon of the river is adorned by wonderful marvalous buildings by its sides. in fact, the danube river splits budapest into 2 parts - buda & pest.
hence, buda+pest = budapest. no its not a joke.

tourist attractions are mostly located on the pest side.

we went up to the buda castle which looks really great when you are cruising along the danube river. but the actual site is not as fantastic as it looks from afar. maybe i was think along versailles when i approached it but of cos, it cant be compared to that.

next there is the fisherman bastation near St matthew church. over here, it's like a small platform for you to oversee the danube river and take in the nice scenery.

that's St matthew church behind me


@ heros' square

one of the highlights of budapest is a trip to their grand central market which i think some travel shows on channel U has introduced before. basically, the locals/tourists come here to get fruits, vegetables, meat etc and have their meals here too.

having one of their local food + ice cold beer during lunch is shiok!
one of their specialty - like ham chim pan. i ordered the one with cheese+sour cream

parliament building

St Stevens church


budapest is hubby's fav as he's really mesmerised by the scenery next to danube river. i enjoyed budapest too but not much shopping there ha. okie, time ends here at budapest. onwards to austria next!

Poland-Krakow

Krakow has a very sad history too. mainly because the Auschwitz camp is located there. it is the camp where jews were sent to so that they can be senselessly killed. :(
we spent a morning there and at various points of time, my tears threatened to fall as i learnt more about the conditions then.

basically, jews were sent by the thousands every single day to this camp, lied with the notion they were leaving for a better place. so each of them will bring their own personal baggage with their most treasured stuff. upon reaching, the baggage was taken from them, looted by the germans, never to be seen again. and on they marched to the selection hall. only the young and fit stays, the old, sick, weak were all marched directly to the gas chambers. no resources were allocated for maintaining them. how sad. so the old people, women and children never had a chance. and normally, those young man who got to live work long hard hours day in and out with the worst living conditions. and before long, most of them died from starvation, exhaustion or sickness. it is a depressing place to visit. but one needs to do that to know.
as a quote i read there says,"the one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again".


arbeit macht frei roughly means work sets you free. but sadly, its death which will set these jews free. and everyday as early as 5am they will marched to work and there will be musicians playing instruments to "cheer" and lift their spirits. in reality, the aim is to let them walk faster by marching to the music.

and they do headcount when they left the camp and when they came back in the evening. so even those who died during the day out of exhaustion/sickness (which was pretty common) need to be lifted back by the others. if not, all will be punished as well.

tins of cyclone B from then.

at one point i chocked back my tears. for there was a part of exhibition dedicated to those children who died. as i look at the luggages and their contents (with the dolls and baby clothes), i really cant bear it. all those little feet being marched to the gas chambers. sigh. i took very very little photos here. too much to bear.

okie, onwards to happier stuff. we visited krakow town square which is really lovely and reminds me of St mark square.

cloth hall

St mary church

having their popular beetroot soup. tasted like ribena. ha.

went up to wavel hill which has the palace and the cathedral for the royal family. very tiring upslope walk.


one of the highlights of krakow is their salt mines. the salt mines are a good 100+m underground and supposedly it is cool and air is fresh down there.

climbing down the stairs to the salt mine. my legs ache after that..!
one of the attractions in the salt mine. an underground church. everything is craved out from salt+ minerals underground. an interesting sight.

we were a good 135m underground which we walked all the way down! the way up? by lift of cos. *lol*

and so ended our time at poland. onwards to budapest (hungary)!

Poland - Warsaw & Czestochowa

finally got time to update about the trip after 2 weeks. lol.
and so the husband and i went for an east europe trip in June'08. 2 weeks away from baby YZ and burning a hole in our pockets. but all is worth it.
history and sights are the best things to assult one's mind and eyes. and we got that alot during the trip. *wide grin*

okie 1st stop 1st: Poland!
after the dreadful long haul flight from SIN-transit at istanbul, we were finally at Warsaw, capital of Poland. and the tour started (that's why i dun like packaged tours, more tiring than F&E!).

basically, Poland has not much of sightseeing for a country. but what it has is its history. its sad, long history of under another country. *sigh* the 1st few days of the trip when we were at Poland weren't easy and most of the info i gathered from the tour guides brought tears to me. :(

basically, as most of us know, Poland was under Germany during WW2 and for those who watched "the pianist", you will know how cruel the germans were to the Jews in Poland. in fact, the movie was based on Warsaw this city. straight after WW2, Poland falls under the Soviet Union till only early 90's then did it gain its independence.

what the germans did to the jews then was unthinkable. the movie basically get as close as possible to the real situation then. and 85% of warsaw was destroyed during the WW2 so whatever we saw were all re-constructed to represent the buildings then. not much photos taken in poland. it just doesnt seem right to me. hmm...

@ Łazienki Park where the monument of Chopin is located

ahh, now then i know Chopin is from Poland. it may come easy to some, but its really nice for me to learn new nuggets of facts from travelling. :)

and then we visited the old ghetto which was rebuilt mostly. nothing much to see but the tour guide just kept on piling us all the sad conditions of then during WW2. apparantly all the jewish ghetto in Poland is open-boundary one, only the one in Warsaw is enclosed (exactly as portrayed in "the pianist"). and as the germans were killing the jews, and alot of them dying because of the bad living conditions so the ghetto got smaller and smaller. so sad right.

monument to the ghetto heros.
noted that the people's eyes are hollow. an explantion is that these jews staged an uprising against the germans with the notion that they will not see their future (ie, they will die during the process) yet they went ahead.

and we visited old town square too which is completed rebuilt cos its totally bombed to ruins during WW2.

me having huge-ass ice-cream. i have not bathed for nearly 20 hrs i think! lol.

warsaw's old town square

Czestochowa
enroute to Krakow from warsaw, we passed by this place Czestochowa where jasna gora a monestary is located. it houses the famous black madonna painting which is a national religious relic of poland. it's rumored to be painted by St luke and it's called black madonna as the painting (wood) has turned black from the soot from all the praying all these years.

me at our hotel lobby @ warsaw - hotel novatel!

@ jasna gora

the famous black madonna


okie, that's all for now. very tired liao. will talk about krakow next.
its sadder there. :(

Great weekend!

i've a great but extremely packed weekend. but im lapping it all up cos it was filled with all those that i love : baby YZ, hubbi, family, friends, good food + shopping! :))

friday evening
reached home early from work. fed baby YZ his dinner while hubbi went to tabao our dinner from hawker. after which, we took a slow walk (with baby in stroller, of cos) from our house to tiong bahru plaza (a MRt stop away). bought $150+ worth of baby stuff from NTUC! but mainly milk powder, his food for the coming week etc. milk powder is really not cheap nowadays, hence we stock up when there is a sale. FYI, enfapro is having sale at NTUC! :)

finally, his play yard arrived! now we can put him in an enclosed safe place when we go about doing our stuff. :) but no time to set up. too tired. and we all had an early night. :)

saturday
morning was busy busy busy for hubbi and me. which is a good thing too since we cant use our car till 3pm.. so i get myself set to prepare veg stock for baby porridge for the coming 1 week and porridge for baby since we won't be home during dinner time, hence baby YZ got to take porridge for lunch instead. and hubbi helped to prepare 1 week of fruit purees & setting up the play yard for the baby too.

after the play yard was set up, we quickly put baby YZ in it and he seems to like it. ha guess its like a new toy to him and he can use it to pull himself to a standing position.


see how happy he was inside!

nearing 3pm, we got busied preparing for our day out, mostly to pack baby stuff lah.
finally got chance to let him wear the overalls that i got for him from berlin. only 9 euros! good buy hehe.. abit big for him so he looks like he was wearing skirt. heh.

mama + baby!

happy to go out!

we went marina square to do some spot of shopping. just wanna complain, seems like marina square is not a very baby-friendy place despite having quite a fair bit of baby shops there. baby rooms are so limited there.. also, woman toilets are also in a terrible state. very little cubicles (hence the queueing) and not very clean and run out of toilet paper easily. yucks.

anyway, i managed to get a pink dress and a new pair of shoes! :) pink dress is for this saturday when im gonna be the sister (1st time) for my friend, Jean's wedding!! *excited* she requested for pink and sadly my wardrobe for very few dress, let alone pink.
oh, and my new shoes is the highest pair of shoes i ever owed! i think im a good 178cm when im in them? haha, hubbi dwarfed besides me. but, whatever. :p it matches my new bag perfectly. *nice*

we had our tea break (which is quite heavy. :P) at kenny rogers and we let baby YZ had a go at the baby chair! previously, he cant really sit well and made alot of noise. but this time round, it was altogether good.

happy in his chair. while we eat in peace. heh.

after that, we made our way to vivo where i met up with the gang for tanny's bday while baby+hubbi left to meet up with the in-laws.

had fun with my peeps for the evening! :) had dinner at akashi & then dessert time @ haagen dazs! :) again, eaten loads of dessert despite a heavy dinner. and we ate very fast too. ha.

and then its home sweet home for me to my sound sleeping wormies. :)

sunday
woke up bright n cheery for we were bringing baby to his 2nd swim today! :)
we set off at 8+am in the morning and came home ard 9+ in time for his breakfast!

all geared up with a sleepy pappy

a confused baby + mammy's right leg

i dont know what to do leh..

oh, splash ard?

okie, here i go..

not very fun leh..

sianz. let me rest awhile.

okie, im having fun now!

yay!

okie, im getting sleepy.

poor baby must be tired out from the swim. fell asleep once we loaded him on car. woke up when we reached home so still managed to feed him his rice cereal for brekkie. after that, had his morning nap for 2+hrs!

and then its time for us to 跑场 again. went to my in-laws house for lunch and then came back home again to pack baby stuff for my mum's place. baby is off for 2D2N stay at my mum's place again. heh.

all dressed up for por por house!

after depositing baby, hubbi and me finally have some time for ourselves....
we left for vivo city for dinner. i treated hubbi to tung lok signature to "celebrate" me changing job last month. not cheap but we've redemned vouchers using credit card reward points so not too bad. if not, we actually ordered $100+ food between us. ha.

and i got a nice knitted jacket from zara! just nice for my freezing office. the sale comes just in time. :)

and then its home for some spot of housechores before both of us spent a quiet night watching "pushing daisies" on tv....

porridge and somemore....

and so i started the little one on porridge since last saturday.
its been alot of hard work and effort, especially for me who cant cook for nuts.
trying my best to trial and error to get a reasonable meal out for him.
and also to ensure my mum will do the same for the other 2 nights he's over at her place.
AND, to get my MIL to help me prepare when im away at work during weekdays.
not easy, i tell u.

just to share what i did.
1), i made yummy vegetable stock! so i just dumped carrot, onions, celery, corn into a big pot of boiling water and let it cook for a good 2 1/2 hrs! then i took away the vegs leaving behind sweet stock meant for the porridge. :)
2), i put just a tiny handful of rice and stock from above and put in a slow cooker for a good 2+hours.. adding in fresh brocolli ard 45mins before dinner time.
3), yummy mushy porridge ready for baby YZ!

so far he seems to like it and can finish 1 small bowl (equivalent to his rice cereal amt). BUT, he has been waking up twice for the past few days at 4+am, crying! :(
not sure if its due to hunger or pain from his lips.
he is suffering from some infection on the lips. according to doc, it seems to come from too much moisture when he sucks his pacifier. sigh. after applying the oral medicine, his lips now is very red and looks painful.
still need to monitor cos i dun want to anyhow increase his milk/solids intake.