Florence/Pisa

Hmmm, distracted off honeymoon blogging for sometime liao..

Anyway, here's Florence, the home of the Italian artists.
We went and we left, without entering a museum....

1st reason was the queues: can you imagine a queue at the science centre stretching to the center of its carpark? And the queue is waiting for people to exit so that you can enter, not just for buying tickets..

2nd reason was the price: guess we were too frugal. Minimum of 7E per person per entrance, we're not so arty farty, so we would rather spend the money on something else... (like paying 100 Swiss Franc 3 times in a bid to have an Alps hike on a clear day.. well, more on the unfortunate trips later)

So we just spent time walking the streets, looking at free art pieces on display.
I'll just splash on the pictures ba, nothing much fascinated me in Florence except for the humble looking Fiorentina stadium, SGD$4 fried rice, wonderful tuna sandwich (you don't see anything i fancy is artistic eh?)

Over a hill view of the whole of Florence. The prominent dome's called the Duomo, a large church

The famous David (the character in David vs Goliath) by Michalangelo. This was a reproduction on a Piazza. (Free to look) The original is in the Accademia museum.

Pisa is about 1hr's train ride from Florence. So what's there to see in Pisa?

Fiorentina! One of my favourite Championship Manager 2000 club! Haiz... but the stadium... Just need to imagine Jurong stadium with the Fiorentina logo pasted on the gate..

SGD$4 Fried rice! Cheapest staple food we found! Shop assistant from China but didn't dare speak to him in Mandarin at first (so was struggling using English with him) until he started Mandarin (when he overheard us use Mandarin)

Nice tuna sandwich, made by this '帥哥' (according to Dear).. Ok la, looks a wee bit like Brad Pitt. At least his tuna sandwich is nice.

Uffizi gallery: THE gallery to go if you're in Florence. But look at the queue man. (people lining up in the corridor) Can't even see the entrance from this shot.

Land Breeze, Sea Breeze

Surprisingly saw my Sec 1 form-cum-geography teacher as a patient today.
Even more surprised he was a far cry from the person he was about 15 years ago

He used to call me 'botak' (cos of my previous hairstyle)
More importantly, he taught me a lesson i'll remember for life: Land breeze vs sea breeze:

1 fine day during a geography lesson: he taught - the land due to its heat conductivity heats up and cools faster than the sea. So when the land is warm in the day, air rises and sea air rushes to the land, creating sea breeze. The vice versa happens at night and there is land breeze, then he poped the question to me:

'Hey botak: so if one day you go sailing with your girlfriend, will you go in the day or in the night?'

At that point, I thought to myself: go sailing will need the wind in the sea ma, so need sea breeze lor..

'Sir, i'll choose the day because got sea breeze'

To this he said:'OK, so you'll scold your girlfriend - see la, because of you la, bad luck. The boat cannot go out to sea one'

Well the whole class laughed. The right answer was night cos there will be land breeze where the air rushes to the sea, so will push the boat out to sea..
So because of this lesson, i remembered land breeze and sea breeze for life (good teaching eh?) and i never needed to scold my girlfriend (now my wife).... cos we never went out to sea on a sailboat together.

When i saw him today, he was instead full of smiles, soft spoken, even close to meek. Can't imagine him calling me botak now.. given his current disposition. (anyway i also no more botak liao)
He didn't remember me and i didn't remind him. Cos i don't know if he will remember me or not and also i dunno if i will be able to sustain a conversation with him...

Sometimes i get this feeling... seeing someone i know but not that well and will rather avoid saying hi cos i'm afraid i cannot continue a conversation and it will end up an embarrassing silent 'conversation'. Maybe i'm 'dao' ba.. Wonder if anyone else has this same problem..

Close to ending of Heavenly Life

Days in polyclinic ending soon...
Going back to hospital days...
Calls, wards, blood taking...
Arrgghh.. Too de conditioned liao
Siao liao la.. so used to office hours, how to do calls now?
now 11pm already feel like sleeping already, how to 'tong' whole night??

Must say i quite like the scope of the polyclinic, seeing many kinds of cases and more importantly, most of them very stable. If anything too hot to handle, then can send via ambulance to your friendly A and E colleague (who most probably curse you but you're not there to hear it..)
Old folks that come here are also generally nice, grateful. They are the ones who will really make your day when they keep thanking you/smiling at you/respecting your advise etc..

But of course, every job has its devil's tail...

1) MCs: 14 y/o girl, comes at 415pm to the polyclinic, well made up, well dressed up, complains of cough, runny nose in the morning, cannot wake up so come now. 'Can i have MC?'
'Wa lau, of course going somewhere to chiong la.. plan to cannot wake up one right?' But cannot say that, usually will give the benefit of doubt. Ok lor, so you so fit, recover in few hours, give lor. (else will argue for 5-10mins why i don't want to give MC, then next patient will walk in black faced...)

2) Referrals: working in ortho before really help me reflect ortho referrals better. At least can very confidently say to patients: if you don't want surgery now, refer to them now also will do same thing as here. Then can repeat a few times (cos confident liao) until they accept. Other disciplines a bit harder as really not sure if valid or not.
I usually try to satisfy patients, but some are really a bit ridiculous. What to do.. Either argue for 10mins to get them to understand that they dun need one, or just silently write the form..
Some patients opening statements really send chills down my spine: oh i come here for a referral (i.e. i actually dun want to see you one, you small lokun, but what to do? Dun see you the specialist price so expensive)

Some common remarks: wa!! see specialist must wait so long one ah??!!
(Ya lor.. cos before you already got like 10 persons ask for same referral although keep telling you all don't need to go one.. dun need to wait become need to wait liao)

(Don't get me wrong, if referral is justifiable, you don't even need to ask me to write, i'll offer..)

I didn't do any studies or statistical analysis, but i would dare say the crowd at the clinics can be much more manageable if it is an ideal world: i.e. only truly sick patients come to clinics. But like most of my colleagues say: you can't fight it man. So well... just have to enjoy the goods as much as possible and manage the bads as and when..
Anyway, will still prefer work in polyclinic anytime compared to hospitals....
Arrghhh calls!!

没话讲

Lokun: 哇! Auntie ah! 你的血压 200/100 leh! 很危险啊! 你得吃血压药好吗?

Auntie: Hah?! 血压高啊? 这样我不是有高血压 lor?

Lokun: 对啊, 你有高血压. 你得吃药好吗?

Auntie: Hah? 不要啦! 不能吃太多药的啦!

Lokun: 可是你不吃药很危险啊! 很容易中风, 心胀病的 leh.

Auntie: 不要, 不要. 我不能吃太多药的啦. 我都不觉得有问题嘛.

Lokun: (Haiz... How to persuade her?? ........)

Auntie: Oh. 对 hor 医生. 我的脚每次痛的 leh. 为什么啊?

Lokun: Oh Auntie, 你有关节炎 leh.

Auntie: Hah?! Then 有没有药吃啊?

Lokun: 有啊. 你要吗?

Auntie: 要! 当然要啦! Oh 还有 hor.. 我觉得我骨头也每次痛 leh.. 可以给我盖资的药吃吗?

Lokun: Ok. 可以呀!

Auntie: 哇! 谢谢 leh.

Lokun: 怎么样 Auntie? 你要吃高血压药吗? 不吃危险喔...

Auntie: Hah?! 不要啦! 吃太多药不好啦 !!

Lokun: .............

Vatican City

If someone wants me to use 1 word to describe the Vatican City, i would say 'ART'. It's staring at you everywhere you walk.
We went to Vatican Museum before visiting St Peter's basilica. The museum is wonderfully decorated by the glorious artists of the past: Michaelangelo, Raphael (and nope, no signs of Leonardo or Donatello).. It's really worth the 28E entrance fee. But somehow, after the visit to the Vatican museum, we developed a certain phobia to art museums and never entered a paying art gallery for the remaining of our trip :P

I was a little afraid the moment we entered the museum. Afraid of walking the wrong way/direction and ending up missing some sections, so i was debating whether to get the guidebook/map or even the audio guide to help us. Fortunately Dear reassured me and said 'just walk la'. OK, so 'just walk la' we did and it turned out that there was only 1 logical way around the whole museum.

Started off with this courtyard.. Nothing fascinating, but guess it offers some fresh air before you get 'drowned' by the arts.

Courtyard

The first section after the courtyard contains sculptures:


and more sculptures:


and even more sculptures (i gave up uploading the pics.)

Well of course art is not only 3D. They come in 2D pictures as well, just that they do so in different forms:

Woven Art:

Woven art..we picked this piece of Jesus ressurrecting without knowing (Was actually quite dark then)

and paintings:

The museum route was designed in such a way that the finale is at the Sistine Chapel. This is where the famous painting of Man and God by Michaelangelo is affixed on the roof of the Chapel. (You know the one which shows man lazily reaching out to God who is trying to stretch all he can to reach the idler?)

Thought they forbade phototaking but somehow this pic is on the net..

The whole of the Sistine chapel is a painting. Even the curtains on the walls were painted i.e. painting of curtains. From floor to roof and from end to end, it was a painting. Simply amazing. There were signs to forbid phototaking and 'lying on the floor' (most probably many are so awed by the ceiling art they were lying down for the most comfortable view), but it was so crowded inside that it's so difficult to stand still, let alone lie down lor..

After getting groggy from the ARTs, we made our way to the St Peter's basilica (St Peter's church). Apparently this was also the place St Peter's was crucified upside down. Dunno the whole story of him though. Just got a vague idea he was one of Jesus's disciples.
St Peter's square sits just outside the church and around the square lies the border between Rome (Italy) and the Vatican city. Well, you wouldn't feel you've crossed a country anyway. No custom officers, no causeway etc..

St Peter's square with the St Peter's church as the backdrop

Taken by a friendly tourist... Most probably he felt the Vatican border (those concrete stones on the ground) is more important then taking the church..

Walls of the church perimeter lined by numerous unidentical sculptures

The interior of the chapel was huge and it was hard to take a photo to give the impression of its size. Or rather, i still dun have the skill to take a photo to show the size of the chapel. But still, take my word for it, it's huge and impressive.

Throne of St Peter

Just 1 part of the interior of the massive church

After the walking, we finally came to the highlight of the day: climbing the dome of the church. It has supposedly 500+ steps to conquer without lift (have to pay 6E) or if you want to cut it down to about 300 steps: it will cost you another 5E for the life ride. Hmm, hope i got the prices correct.
But the climb was both vertiginous and claustrophobic.
Because it's winding (it's a dome ma..) and the stairway is pretty narrow. (1 man's width)

Narrow, narrow steps. Just like a bomb shelter stairway

Fortunately, the climb was rewarding as we get to see these scenic views from above.

Aerial view of St Peter's square

View of the rest of the Vatican city from the Dome. Is it a rich man's house or a whole country? (Boundary marked by trees)

And of course, what is a visit to the Vatican without seeing the legendary Swiss guards of the city? Apparently the only legion of Swiss guard left in the world (they used to work as mercenaries)


I yearned for a visit to the Vatican years before as i was so interested why the country was so small. But on reaching there, i just felt that it was part of Rome, cos there was nothing, nothing at all to remind me i'm visiting another country.
Nevertheless, i was glad we came here first before visiting Florence, cos we really saved a great deal of $$ by not visiting Florence's museums after seeing the Vatican's :)

Rome

Our next stop was Rome. The overnight train from Zurich provided a comfortable and peaceful sleep with a 'rocking cradle' effect. I almost dozed off the moment i laid on the bunker.
Fortunately we managed to reserve a twin sharing cabin which appeared crampy enough. Can't imagine sharing this space with several others. (It's supposed to be able to sleep 3 per cabin) The carriage came with a sink, towels and breakfast. But of course it came with a price.... 140E to book per person, that's on top of the 100+ Euro we had to pay for the Europass per day. (Almost 400 singapore dollars per person just for the ride...But at least it provided the transport and overnight sleep.)

Small twin sharing cabin

Carriage comes complete with sink, mirror, towels. But please bring your own wife and toothbrush

We reached the Roma Termini (Rome train station) and along the walls were familiar graffiti, stuff we only see on TV. Wonder how many people will be caned and jailed if this was in Singapore..

Fine art along the railway walls

Our hotel was some distance away from the Termini and we therefore had to transfer to the metro to reach it. The metro is almost like the MRT, but the underground stations were not air conditioned (they don't need air-con anyway, given the climate) and neither were there doors at the platform.

Metro in Rome

The hotel or should i say apartment was on the fifth level and fortunately there was a lift in the building. (Looks like most European bread and breakfast accommodations are flat owners converting their homes into budget hotels.) The lift was more manual and automatic as you have to open 2 doors on your own to get in and open them again on your way out. Lift was tiny as well and we managed to fill up the whole lift with just us and our luggage..

2 X manual doors to open before getting into the tiny lift

Rome can be toured on foot. We visited several churches and museums but i guess there were only a few attractions that left a deeper impression in me. One of them is of course the colosseum. Where gladiators brawl to their deaths in front of excited (or sadistic) crowds.
The exterior of the colosseum appeared just like any stadium, just that it's built with stones and appeared older. Going into the colosseum itself did not really gave us a 'Waaa!!! So nice ah!!' kind of feeling either.
Well, guess it's special because of it's history ba..

Colosseum's exterior: Huge and well... 'stadium looking structure'

Interior: not the wide plain arena i expected like the show 'gladiator'. Maybe the fighters play hide and seek and ambush each other using the walls?

We went on from the Colosseum to the Palatine hill which supposedly is the origin for the word Palace. Cos it was the place the royals of Rome started to live in. The Palatine hill was one of the 'must see' in guidebooks, but after walking around for like 30mins and trying to find our way out, I got a little sick of seeing ruins. Really nothing fascinating but broken stone walls and sand. Maybe i just can't appreciate them. Fortunately the Roman Forum (sort of the city center in old Rome) provided good salvage. Also a 'must see' ruin, the forum brightened up our day somehow as the way it was preserved gave us a sensation that we were really walking along the streets of old Rome. It felt like a town which could have been bustling with activity and people. The columns were legendary and so were the arches and small churches nearby.

Roman Forum: Have to be there walking on the street itself to feel it: the sense that this was a bustling town full of activity and people.

Roman columns

Rome is also famous for its fountains. According to books: they managed to get a lot of water via their aqueducts and therefore can afford to built beautiful fountains for leisure. Just walk around Rome and you'll chance upon a fountain surrounded by sculptures of gods/heroes very easily. The Trevi fountain is still my favourite, given it's size and the beauty of the sculptures. There are even seats around it and people just love to sit around and stare at it for hours. Many will also toss coins into the fountain over their back... supposedly will help them return to their eternal life (whatever that means)

Trevi fountain: trickling water, splendid sculptures.. Really a hit with tourists

Fountains in Rome do not merely serve to beautify the area, they keep you alive as well!! We almost didn't believe the hotel owner when he told us we just need an empty bottle to walk around Rome as there are lots of drinking fountain around. But he's been living there for years, don't believe him also cannot.. Rome is cooler than Singapore but still one of the hottest town we've been to in this trip. The fountains were really energy boosters as they somehow found the right temperature for the drinking water and you'll feel thoroughly refreshed after a mouth full. And best of all? It's free!

Fountain fountain on the wall

Probably the only thing in Rome we should have done was to walk around at night as the city is
decorated with spotlights on their attractions and supposedly places like the Trevi fountain will be beautified like 2 folds by the lights. But somehow, we sleep at about 8-9pm while in Italy (maybe because it's already 2-3am in Singapore) cos we'll be super tired by then. Also the many advise from guidebooks to beware of pickpockets in Rome kept us away from the streets at night.

The Trevi at night (taken from someone's Flickr)

Castle Linderhof

Day 2 of our honeymoon, we woke up to our first european breakfast from the hotel and we were simply amazed by how well kept the hotel's dining area was.

Wall attached seats and wonderful lighting

Breakfast was wonderful with sponge cake, bread, yogurt, ham and even scrambled eggs! We enjoyed the food thoroughly and fortunately we enjoyed it cos it was the best breakfast we were going to get for the rest of the trip :)

In memory of the best honeymoon breakfast

We went on to castle Linderhof after our departure from Schwangau. Well, it was another of King Ludwig's 2 castle and once again Richard Wagner influenced part of the design. The exterior of the castle was a huge garden, so it took like 10mins of walking the garden before we reached the entrance. And there to greet us was this pond with a golden sculpture in the middle (not sure if it is pure gold though)

Front view of castle

We were walking around the castle perimeter and snapping pictures, we came across this interesting looking statue that turned out quite sinister after we looked at the picture again.
The whole statue was corroded leaving the shiny, glittering dagger.. And god knew why we decided to have Dear posing under her.

Sinister statue... Hmmm why were we attracted to it.

We were happily snapping pictures when the sound of water splashes brought our attention back to the pond...

Strong fountain jet (technology in 1800s?)

The fountain will supposedly go off every hour. It could have reached the 4th-5th storey of a HDB flat. Pretty amazing given the innocent looking sculpture. Like the other castles, tour of the castle was guided and 'no photos allowed inside please'. And once again the whole place was build with grandeur, art and $$$. Oh didn't i say there should be an opera writer's association to the castle? Yup, this time, it was outside the castle and it is in the form of a man made cave:

The King will sit in the swan boat and move around the small river to look at the performance in the cave-themed stage.

The cave was constructed as this Richard guy wrote a play that had a scene in a cave, so the King just took the idea and built this. The cave was behind the castle (up this hill you see below) and to get to the stage, one has to walk about 2-3mins along the passageway of the cave, so it's pretty much hidden... Guess it adds to the King's pleasure

Hill behind the castle

Castles were one of our 'must go' in this Europe trip and i really have to thank Dear for suggesting to include Germany in this trip. The castles by Ludwig were really extraordinary and i enjoyed driving on the autobahn and the country roads.

We initially planned for a Munich tour on Day 2 after Linderhof but we arrived pretty late and met with Wansing for dinner in instead. Once again, i need to thank Dear for her foresight and persuasion as we decided to push off the Rhinefall visit in Switzerland and go for a city tour of Munich on Day 3 instead.

City tour of Munich was great as most attractions i.e. churches and town hall were free. Wurst (sausage) in Munich was splendid and cheap (1.90E - cannot find this price anywhere else liao). The city is bustling with modern shopping centers interspersed with buildings of historical values. I must say it was the city tour i most enjoyed.

Old town hall in Munich

Neuschwanstein

We visited the Neuschwanstein castle next (New Swan Stone Castle). As said before, this was the brainstorm of the 'Fairy Tale King': Ludwig 2, who took great interest in opera and also loved the works of someone called Richard Wagner. So he actually built this castle in honour of the writer. i.e. many rooms/pictures of art were based on the writer's works.

King Ludwig 2

Well, construction of the castle began in 1869 and 17 years later, Ludwig was declared mad... somehow, then also somehow drowned in a pond with his doctor somewhere... And somehow, the castle was also never completed... even after 17 years. (although not unexpected given its size and Ludwig's ambition)

We arrived at the castle after taking a bus ride up a hill. We didn't know much about fogs till we came here. Visibility was less than 10m. We followed Rick Steve's guide up the Mary's Bridge which supposedly will give us a 'wunderbar' (wonderful) view of the castle and ended up with this:

See the castle? Does it remind you of some 'ghost in photo' shot? (Left of my head)

'What it should have been view' from Mary Bridge

We went into the castle following a guided tour and I was really awed by the amount of work that was put into the castle. For e.g. his bed's canopy alone took 4 carpenters 2 years to complete (if i didn't hear wrongly). The walls were augmented with golden carvings from floor to ceiling. Art was everywhere and rooms were enormous. This really felt like a castle and with the amount of effort required, it's no wonder it wasn't completed after 17 years.

Managed to find this online photo of the canopy, a little small though

I must say i quite enjoyed the castle visit as it looked Disney-like. Moreover, the grandeur of it all gave me the impact of a true castle. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very clear. I guess the best shot of the castle we had was this entrance shot....
The rest were lost in the fog..

We didn't take the weather into account while planning our itenary and therefore had to make our way away from the castles the next day. (though the next day wasn't so clear anyway). Our next stop was Linderhof castle (an hour's drive from the castles we were seeing, but another one by King Ludwig 2..

Honeymoon!

Finally got down to blog about the wonderful trip :) Had real fun and a wounderful time sightseeing, hiking, discovering and travelling with my Dear Wife :) Really enjoyed it and felt fully refreshed to start work again. Also got cold turkey from games. Hopefully won't start and get hooked on them again... Hopefully...

We touched down at Zurich and we subsequently drove to Fussen and went on to Schwangau to look at the castles there (Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein) Renting a car from Zurich was easy, got a Citreon C4 complete with GPS and steering wheel..... on the left..

香车配美女

Digital Speedometer, GPS on the windscreen, left hand drive and of course... the 美女

Driving around was certainly much easier with the GPS. First time using it and boy it's so intelligent. It gives specific instructions like "At the next roundabout, take the 2nd exit". "After 200 yards, turn left". If you go way off, it will program another route to take you back right on course, although sometimes, it will get lazy and say "turn back when possible".

Left hand drive was a little challenging at first, and it took us a couple of times to get used to going in the correct door. Fortunately, driving around the highway and country roads was easy with less cars and less turns. Car was also smooth and vibration was so well damped i didn't even know i stalled the engine when i did... many times (shows my skill eh). Makes me want to buy a citreon... The autobahn felt like any expressway, though it keeps reminding me of Einstein's theory of relativity. In Singapore, the trucks go 70kmh, normal cars go 90-100, the speedsters go 100-120. In Germany, the trucks go 90-100, normal cars like mine go 130-150, the speedsters go 200kmh at least. So you'll feel stationary at 70, like a snail at 90, like human at 130 and a devil at 200... (though i didn't go that fast). But what websites advised were true: the Porsche you see in a distance in your rearview mirror will appear beside you in seconds..

We arrived at our hotel near the castles (fortunately with car and us still intact without a scratch) and set out for our castle tour. We visited the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. Unfortunately, no phototaking was allowed in the castle (though we found out when we were in italy that it was easy to snap shots unnoticed..) The Hohenschwangau was where King Ludwig (known for his extravagance for building castles) lived when he was young. So since the Hohenschwanau is actually his 'lao beh's', it felt just like a rich residence with castle walls. Nevertheless, it served as good appetizer for the castle tour. We visited the Neuschwanstein (build by King Ludwig) next.. But guess i'll talk about it next time.. Need to koon liao..

Exterior of Hohenschwangau

Backdoor of the castle

Castle from a distance... (Inset:Little white riding hood)