Where Next?

The land of cheese, tulips, clogs, windmills, dikes, red-light districts, brownies, and supertall people! I will be there at the end of November!!! Woohooo~~ I'm gonna be there for a 5 days meeting with my fellow team mates from 11 countries and of course, some traveling around the country, see some interesting places, try interesting stuffs, and many more to do in this "free" country!

Amsterdam canal....

windmills and tulips...

the Dutch people...

Million thanks to Unilever for hosting us and AIESEC International for making it possible for the Global Communications Crew (GCC) to have our meeting in Rotterdam!!

Where East Meets West

Istanbul is one of the most culturally diverse city I've ever been to. It is a fusion of Europe and Asia in one city as this place is where the European and Asian continents meet. Today, Istanbul alone has a population of more than 10 million people, imagine, 5 Kuala Lumpurs combined!

We signed up to join the 2 days Pre-IC Istanbul Tour for EU$30 (which ended up to be EU$50.. damn it!) together with more than 100 other IC delegates from more than 100 countries. It was an amazing trip as Istanbul is really unique! And having so many friends from all over the world hanging out in the same tour group was simply fantastic!

the Basilica... an underground place with lots of pillars and water...

it's Medusa, no kidding...

my favorite place... the Grand Bazaar...

the typical Istanbul city landscape... pretty messy...

me and the Blue Mosque!!

me and other AIESEC members from Germany, NZ, Taiwan, China etc...

Levent, the modern side of Istanbul...

the Blue Mosque...

at the Bosphorus....

i don't remember this one.... :P

Seriously, I don't mind going back to Turkey again as there are so many other places that I have yet to discover! Well, I just have to wait till I have the $ to do so...

Ελλάδα

Well, that's Greece in Greek writings... Ohh I just love this country, fascinated by it's beautiful and friendly people, Acropolis is just spectacular, the girls, Parthenon, Temple of Zeus, the girls, Ouzo, and so much more.......................arghhhh I wanna go back to Greece!!!!

And English language is widely used thanks to tourism industry, compared to Turkey, which people can only say "hi, bye, yes and no"...or maybe a lil' bit more.

Greece left me a deep impression also because the AIESEC Greece National Team's awesome awesome hospitality... thanks to the team for bringing us around and trying some really cool local coffee, gelato and Ouzo!!!

But getting to Athens was a painful experience. Try going to a totally foreign country without proper plans, the AIESEC Malaysia delegations were really daring. We went to the train station only with some simple information provided by AIESEC Greece members, we purchased the Balkan Express train tickets (which were quite cool, just pay EU$50 for a 5 days pass and you can use the train service to any countries in the Balkans, which includes Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia etc). But instead of EU$50, we spent an additional EU$50 for night-sleeper (with Bed) for both ways. It was painful because it was 12 hours from Istanbul to Thessaloniki (2nd largest city in Greece where we transited), and 6 more hours from Thessaloniki to Athens!!!

When we arrived in Athens, we did not have any place to sleep, which means we have to find ourselves beds to rest our backs after 18 hours of tedious journey! We found a pretty decent place, for EU$17 per night, and its located right in the heart of Monasteraki (the place where everything a tourist would like to visit, in an average of 5-10 mins walk!).

We went to the must-visit-places such as Acropolis (doink!), Plaka, Syntagma Square, Olympic 2004 Stadium (but we didn't visit the stadium where the first Olympic Games were held.... cannot find it lah!), and some other places. Shopping in Athens is pretty nice as well, Zara is everywhere, and it's relatively cheaper than Malaysia! My teammate extended her trip in Athens just to shop!

I've taken so many beautiful pictures in this country.... you don't need a good camera or photography skills, this country is just so picturesque you won't need any of those...

following are just some pictures that I took during the trip...

the temple of Zeus...

love arts.... ;P

Plaka near Acropolis...

getting drunk on Ouzo, the Greek alcohol. They drink it with honey...

Pui (ex-MCP AIESEC Thailand), me, and 2 AIESEC Greece National Team members..

worshiping the Greek flag!

he looked like he's in heaven...

only 2 out of the 6 are real, the rest are in museums in London & Greece...

Acropolis from far...

some street in Athens...

trying hard to read, but it's in Greek...

lovely place...

one of the theatre lah... don't remember the name lol...

advice from me, go to Acropolis as early as you could so there'll be no crowd!

everyone's favorite, the Parthenon!! (but too bad it's under renovation)...

For some more pictures, do check it out on my Facebook...

Dubai, United Arab Emirates!!!

Imagine a more advanced, nicer and better designed skyscrapers and super clean Singapore-look'alike in the heart of a desert...

Scorching temperature of 45 deg Celcius...

Probability of seeing expats than local Arabs is 70%...

Lexuses, Benz's, Bentleys, and slick Jap-hybrid cars everywhere...

Let's take a look at the beautiful and sizzling HOT city!!

the rise of a megacity.... massive constructions everywhere...

city centre...

the soon-to-be tallest building in the world, The Burj Dubai (the distant building)...

McD in Arab... LOL...

some buildings.... :P

a piece of art...on a roundabout...

in between the towers...

the Dubai twin towers... The Emirates Jumeirah

i like this pic...hehe...

Gosh.... I just have this thing for skylines.... thank god I live in KL...

Running Outta Time

After an amazing trip to Turkey, Greece and U.A.E., I am finally back in KL! But I have so much to catch up........homework, tests, exams, AIESEC work, meetings, and more work (hmmphh... why am I not surprised? Skipped almost 1 month of classes) !!! I have 2 more weeks to a 3 weeks break ( Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Study break), before my FINAL semester exams in November! So for now, priorities are study, revision, catching up with lessons and many more.

I can't even update everyone on how my trip were to Europe, as well as the much-talked-about International Congress 2007... But I promise I will make a post on that once I finish my exams! I would probably do all my posts one shot AFTER my next trip to the Netherlands (will be having a week long meeting in Rotterdam, kinda cool, but like I said, I hate flying it makes me sick!).

Ciao! Stay tuned!