David's Traveller

Europe Part Final (VII)

2009-05-30T16:15:00.002+08:00

Day 10
After checking out of the Niemeyer Posthotel, we hit the road and headed back for Round 2 of Hannover Fair. My feet sure had a good night's rest, now it's time for another day of abuse.

Guess what I saw at the Hannover Fair?

It's huge! What is it?

That's right... It's a TURBINE from a BOEING 747!!! According to my friend who works on passenger airplanes at Toronto Pearson Airport, a single fin of that thing costs $250,000 CAD!!

I also encountered the largest tie I've seen in my life! Just look at it compared to mine!

We also found a new competitor, but I believe that we are no match for them. Because they make shit for FERRARI.

There were also a lot of windmill manufacturers displaying their stuff... When I meant displaying their stuff, I really mean DISPLAYING their stuff in LIFESIZE.

Hannover Fair was definitely one of its kind. Companies can spend up to millions just displaying their stuff.

There are tons more on my facebook albums, for more pics just go to my facebook!

Then we decided to leave and head back to Frankfurt. We had a flight to go back to China tomorrow.

We got to Frankfurt, checked into a Best Western hotel. Ate at a nearby Sushi restaurant. Then we went to sleep.

Day 11
We decided that today would be a good time to go shopping since we had a few hours before our flight. After driving around and finding some nice shopping spots. Here's what I ended with...

Ecco Dress shoes
Hugo Boss wallet
Porsche Design wallet
Porsche Design shoes

They were CHEAP in Europe compared where anywhere else such as Canada and China. I definitely want to go back and shop some more!

Sorry for lack of pictures, I didn't remember to take any while being so excited for shopping all these stuff. Oh yes, I'm a bit of a shopacholic if some of you didn't know :).

Europe Part 6

2009-05-30T15:49:00.003+08:00

Day 9

Woke up in the morning, had good breakfast again at the Osterhaus hotel in Osnabruck. Then we hit the road to Hannover.

Upon arriving, I was astounded by the amount of TRAFFIC and LIMITED parking spots. Luckily, after driving around for a while, we found an area that had plenty of parking spaces, although quite a long walk.

So we used our E-tickets and headed straight to Hall 25, which is drivetrain section. Our specialty. Our job was to check the competition and future possible collaboration with other companies. It was quite an amazing sight to see upon entering. It was much bigger than the Shanghai PTC show that I attended back in November.

A view from 2nd floor catwalk:

Upon walking a few metres, I found something I just HAD to try:

A go-kart simulator!
Unfortunately, it was quite disappointing. Pedals don't work, it was very unrealistic and very boring. BOO off we go!

But this little monkey was quite entertaining!

It was lifting weights!
Powered by the little electronic motor underneath, it was quite a funny sight.

So we walked around for a few hours, checked out other driveshaft manufacturers' booth. After that we got tired and the exhibition was closing soon. Who knew there'd be so much walking and especially when we were wearing pretty uncomfy dress shoes, damn!

So then... We had a huge problem... All the hotel in the area was fully booked or ridiculously expensive (about 350 EURO!!). After calling around, we found a place called "Niemeyers Posthotel". It was decent 110 EURO for a night. One problem... it was 75km and 1 hour and half away because of no highway. But we had no choice, so off we go!

On the road to the hotel, we encountered some nice sunset scenery.

This little single lane road... had no speed limit... That VW in front of me was going 160km/h, I was just keeping up with traffic :)

Passed by this little nice town, but we still had a long way to go...

Finally, we arrived at the hotel. Checked in. It was pretty nice, I'd say probably 5 star rating due to service and room quality, not bad for 110 Euro.

But it was 10pm already and we had not eaten dinner yet so we were a starving.

We walked to next door a little restaurant. But for the love of god, dammit I can't remember the name. I was served with probably the best food I've ever had in Europe!

It consisted of two pieces of pork, one piece of beef with vegetables in a pan. Then we also had a separate pan of Potato Skillets. Each piece of meat had their own sauce, as you ate along, the sauces slowly started to get mixed together adding on to the taste. Goddamn, it was SO good. Blogging about this is making me hungry... damn.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to the hotel and called it a day.

Europe Part V!

2009-05-30T14:34:00.004+08:00

Sorry for the lack of update, I was really busy in Toronto. I'll blog on that later. Then when I returned to China, I found out that blogging websites got blocked by the government! NO WTFFFF

Luckily, I did a little researching and found a loophole and here I am! For security and privacy reason, I will not disclose this little loophole. But if you browse enough Chinese forums, you will find the answers.

Day 7
We had ONE more final company to visit. CSN Wichmann, a pretty famous German driveshafts company.

But they were located in Osnabruck, which was about 2 hours drive (or less with the no speed limit =P)

First thing we did was check into a hotel, we had an appointment to meet up with them 9 am in the next morning.

This hotel was a nice place, it was private hotel business run by a very very kind German old guy. It was historical style and yet flushed with modern standards. But dammit, I have no pictures to show for it. I must keep in mind to take more pictures. I really need a dedicated camera. Cell phone camera sucks and kills the battery too much!

So after checking in, we decided to walk around and Chuntan was pretty much amazed by the beauty of the area. We were located in the residential area, very nice one too. Every house was well designed and constructed and they all had very lovely gardens. Chuntan even witness something he had never seen before... A WATER SPRINKLER!

Plain old one that goes back and forth. He was so amazed by it. I was laughing SO hard, how ancient can China be???? But then again, China's not very good at having gardens.

So we walked further, and found a nice little park with bike trails. It was definitely not a small park, bike trails goes as far as 20 km according to the map! Unfortunately... no pictures here either...

Then we went back decided to go eat dinner. Chuntan decided to take me to where CSN took him last time he was there. A Chinese buffet. After fumbling with the internet and looking for the address of the place, we headed there. Dammit, it was DEFINITELY worth the trouble to find this place. Buffet food had wide variety that I had never seen, they had teppanyaki too! On top of that, they were GOOD. We were SO stuffed after eating that. Costed about 15 Euro per person. It was quite hard to walk afterwards, that's how full we got.

Trip back to hotel was very hard, especially driving stick with such a full stomach. The pushing of the clutch just pushes on my stomach and makes me uncomfy haha.

Finally got to the hotel, waited a while for the food to settle then went to bed.

Day 8: CSN WICHMANN!
So got up early in the morning, damn... this hotel's breakfast is amazing. I love German breakfast, they taste good and are very healthy!

Drove to CSN. This is what KILLED me. We had a meeting. Not just any meeting. It was EIGHT FREAKING HOURS LONG!!!

After the meeting... this is all I had to show for it:

Picture with Mr. Osterhaus, General Manager of CSN.

I've decided to call this a Nazi Company because:
1. They made me have a meeting for 8 hours
2. They wanted everything done THEIR way
3. They're German, LOL

But I still can't complain, they gave the company tons of revenue in the past couple of years.

After the meeting, we decided to head back to the hotel and take a break. Damn... that was a good break. Then for dinner... we went to the same buffet as yesterday. Wow, still tastes as good as yesterday, but this time, we were more precautious. We took it easy and did not stuff our stomach until it felt like exploding =P.

Tomorrow, we were to head to Hannover for the Hannover Fair. Which is the largest exhibition in the world with over 6000 exhibitors! I was definitely looking forward to it.

New Layout

2009-05-22T14:36:00.001+08:00

I always wondered why my old template only showed part of the picture and in portrait style when I posted pics. Then I realized it was the template always cutting it out. Now this new template reveals the entire pictures, whoohoo! Enjoy the blogging guys!

Europe Part Quatre

2009-05-22T04:16:00.002+08:00

Day 5:

We headed out of Erfurt early in the morning and drove half an hour north to Stadilm to visit Gewes, a well known driveshaft manufacturer for smaller sizes. Upon arriving, I was really amazed at the SIZE of this place.

Unfortunately, this was the only picture I could get as they didn't allow pictures. Lots of secret information being hidden eh... Had a nice meeting with Mr. Tschop and Mr. Roder and got a tour of the plant, man... we were tired of walking this 100,000 sq m area afterwards...

Then we hit the road and headed to...

HAMBURG!

We were heading to visit SASS, another small driveshaft company just as a courtesy visit. However, it was already late by the time we got to Hamburg. But the CEO of SASS was kind enough to book us a hotel at a lovely little place called Fausthaus Seebergen.

This was a very nice little place with a pond and located in the middle of the forest. But... not my type, I'm more of a city guy. This place was too quite and has weird noises at night! Sure enough... we checked out the next morning.

Day 6
We headed to SASS and what ya know? It's not that small after all...

Not as big as ours but still big enough for such a small company. Keep in mind, this was a Saturday and to our surprise, the CEO Mr. Reimers had a meeting with us today at his company. Gave us a nice tour and I was really amazed by how advanced their system for running the company was for such a small company. It makes me embarassed about our company compared to this.

So after the meeting, Mr. Reimers took us to a little cafe nearby where he claims has the best clubs in the area. Well.... see for yourself...

Mine was a club full of cheese, ham, tomato and lettuce. When I meant full of... I mean FULL OF! This thing was HUGE I should have put a hand next to the sandwich for comparison.

Chuntan and Mr. Reimers got a BLT...

It's also quite a large size... But of course, we couldn't finish the fries after the club. My stomach felt like it was going to explode afterwards.

Then we said farewells and headed to Hamburg. I mean Hamburg downtown. SASS was located just outside of Hamburg. Mr. Reimer had originally planned to take us to the Baltic Sea on his boat, but his boat wasn't completed yet so we went to Hamburg downtown instead. Stayed at a little hotel called Eden. It looked pretty ghetto, but it was actually quite nice... and... it had FREE WI-FI!!! OMG!! FREE WI-FI!!!

Normally in Europe... they charged $8 EUR/HR for wi-fi... curse you T-mobile!!

Had dinner at a Paulanzer restaurant. I had 3 fish with potato skillet. That was pretty good, 3 different kind of fishes, each with their own sauce and taste... *drools* Too bad I had no picture of that.

Then we walked around Hamburg...

This little boat is actually a restaurant! Who'd thunk of that!?

River leading to the Baltic Sea.

Hamburg Train Station. I'd call it more of a shopping mall than a train station due to the vast amount of stores.

Our feet were really tired afterwards, so we walked back to the hotel and called it a day.

Wowzer, no updates?

2009-05-14T04:25:00.001+08:00

Been pretty busy lately. I just got to Toronto a few days ago from the states. Wow... it's all been partying and tons of welcome back dinners and such. I haven't even had time to finish my report regarding the states to give to the company. DAMN! No time for blogging either! aiii

Let's see the blogging agenda.
Finish Europe trip blog
Write USA trip blog
Write Toronto trip blog

Hmm... lots of writing I see. Will try to keep on top of things. I'm hoping not to lose my memory of these trips to provide more details! Good thing I started the US notes offline when I had free time, so that helps.

Alright... keep checking back!

Europe Part Three!

2009-05-03T18:44:00.003+08:00

Day4: Continued...

So we're on our way to Erfurt, Germany. Now Germany is quite a beautiful country as well!

Fields of Green

On the look out?

80 Zone, on streets with plenty of curves. German sure knows how to drive, no idiot drivers wandering left and right on turning, unlike *ahem*Tan*ahem* HAHA

So then we finally arrive Erfurt. Very nice little town, found a Best Western, as I mentioned before, it was tourist season, so we got our room for $105 EUR, at least it includes breakfast! And a cool staircase..

Spiral anyone?

Then we went to grab a bite to eat... surprisingly I can't recall where or what I had. Maybe we didn't eat? I'll remember later...

So after looking at the tourist guide, we decided to visit Schloss Molsdorf (German for Molsdorf Palace). Quite old, but very beautiful place. Some royalty used to live there, I have no idea how of the history, but google yielded me this

"Count Gustav Adolf von Gotter (1692-1762) had this lovely Baroque palace built between 1734 and 1740. Schloss Molsdorf, located near Erfurt, is not just a significant architectural site, but its history is equally engaging: Count Gotter, who was famous for his amorous excesses, celebrated many elaborate parties here between 1733 and 1748."

How interesting! Now I'll let pictures do the talking. Only some pics are posted, the rest are all on my facebook!

Mind you, that this place is very old and has a LOT of trees. Very very tall ones... Look below to see what I mean...

This is Tan standing next to the tree! He's only two cm shorter than me!

So after walking around and enjoying how peaceful this place was. We decided to head to Erfurt (Schloss Molsdorf is about 20 min drive away, just outside Erfurt).

After looking at our trusty tourist guide again, we decided to look for the famed bridge. It was a 120m long bridge (I know eh, not that special). But what's special about it is that it has houses constructed on the bridge and is occupied for a few centuries! How cool!

Walking a little more and we get this...

We decided that it was dinner time, stopped by at a Italian place. Of course... First serving was definitely best serve!

Some local German beer!! Had some Weizbierer (Wheat Beer).

While we were waiting for our dishes to arrive, took some pics the surroundings

Our dishes finally arrives!

My tortellini!! YUM!

Tan's dish! Spaghetti with Olive oil and pepper!

Digging in!

During our time in Erfurt that day. We noticed it was quite odd that there quite an unusual amount of police all around the city...

Over time we we ate our meal, more and more police started gathering as if there was a war going on. Later on, we found out why...

There was a PROTEST going on caused by some hundreds local university students. We had no idea what they were rioting about until the next day our customer that we visited informed us. They were complaining about a construction company planning to take down some historical architectures of Erfurt, a lot of students here are very emotionally attached to these historical pieces. So it was understandable. It was certainly quite a view as we watched them March by.

Upon walking further, we found something interesting...

Cops around here drive BMW and Benz's! Man.. talk about luxury!

We then called it a night and walked back to our hotel and peaced out.

I will write about Day 5 in the next post. Keep checking back!

Europe Trip Part Deux

2009-05-03T13:12:00.003+08:00

Day 3: Continued.

So we left and got on our way to Germany. Some nice sceneries on the highways:

France has a lot of hills and curves on highways. So then nightfall came and we decided to stop over and sleep the night in Luxembourg.

Upon entering Luxembourg, I was quite amazed by the amount of mountain roads with so many curves and tight turns and all paved smoothly. I couldn't help but take the poor rental car into redline and squeal a few tires around. I haven't had done this in a long time, it was awesome and felt good. My colleague on the other hand had a different opinion =P.

So we finally arrived Luxembourg, Luxembourg (Yes the capital is named after the country). Stopped by downtown and found a place with a lot of restaurant, the square was packed with people enjoying fine dining outside. We went to Pizza hut as many restaurants were closing down since it was already 11pm. Ate our food, then walked around then decided to look for a hotel.

Found a few in downtown Luxembourg, but NO ROOMS LEFT. Looked at another, no rooms, no rooms, no rooms, dammit it's tourist season in Luxembourg! Looked a little further and finally found Hilton Luxembourg. Called ahead, they had room available, reserved it then went on our way. Of course, more mountain passes was in the way :D.

Checked into a Hilton, and damn, this is probably the best hotel in the entire trip. Very luxurious, possibly a 5 star, and wasn't TOO expensive. About 110 EUR. So we checked in and called it a night.

A thing to mention about Luxembourg is that they have probably some of the most beautiful women I've seen in Europe so far. France disappointed me as it was suppose to be a "romantic" country, didn't see so much good looking girls. Luxembourg has my vote for place with most beautiful women! *thumbs up*

Some pics of Luxembourg, I know I don't have much... I should have taken more...

Day 4:
We checked out the Hilton and headed to Germany. Driving of course... at high speed to make the trip shorter. But it was also more tiring, had a few of these to help on the way!

I sure had a lot of those on my Europe trip as it was a lot of driving, most of them at high speeds.

So we finally reached a town called Erfurt. It's a small historical town and had a lot of nice folks there. It was half an hour away from the next customer we were visiting, so we decided to stay here for the night. We arrived around 2 pm in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to sightsee.

I shall post pics and info about Erfurt tomorrow. It's 2 am and I have to wake up at 7 am. Check back sometimes for my next post on Europe! Oh! And since I'm in the US right now, I'll need to blog about that too, so lots of more stuff to post coming up! :)

First Europe Trip

2009-05-01T23:33:00.008+08:00

So... after a 5-6 hours a day sleep for the 6 day workweek, I was planning to sleep a very lazy sleep on Sunday, I was hoping to pull off a 12 or 14 hour sleep. Went to sleep at 2am hoping to wake up at 2-4pm... on my ONLY day off of the week.

My dad wakes me up at 10am. D'OH! My day off and I get waken up by my dad.

Dad: "You're going to Germany"
Me: "WHAT? WTF? AF:LSDKIFHSDOIFH!!!!!"

He had long planned for a trip to Europe to do some business and was suppose to go tomorrow. But in the light of the recent events with my step-grandmother. I was forced to go in his place.

Basically my step-grandmother had contracted a rare virus called the Guillain Barré Syndrome. This is a very rare virus in which will cause the immune system to attack the body... thus causing her to be paralyzed. My dad had to stay to comfort my step-mom and my step-grandmother. So I was going in his place and with the company's Sr. Vice President, Mr. Chuntang Tan.

I was clearly not ready. Last minute packing and notes about what to ask the customer, what goals to accomplish, etc. From this, I've created a new philosophy in order to better prepare myself.. "There's no such thing as being ready, there's only such thing as doing it!" Works quite well for me. Nike made the greated slogan ever of "Just do it!". It was derived from that.

So it was a 10 day trip that starts on 13th and ends on 23rd. The day before the 13th. I was sent off to Shanghai to visit my Uncle, then we checked into the airport hotel.

Day 1: Boarded the plane, this was the easy part as I had been a frequent flyer between Canada and China, the only difference was the destination was in Europe. Not the two countries that I am used to travelling to. Mind you, I had JUST recovered from a serious stomach bacteria infection that had required me to do 6 days of IV drip. My stomach was still weak and not fully healed. The airplane food... certainly did not help at all!

Arrived Frankfurt, Germany:
So I arrived Frankfurt, Germany. Tan and I got our baggage and proceeded to the car rentals. Now, here we bumped into a dilemma. There was 6 car rental companies. 2 refused to lend me a car as I was not of age. Their minimum age was 23. Tan was of age... but no driving licence with the priviledge of driving internationally (he has a Chinese license, which means he can only drive in China, unlike my Canadian license where I can drive anywhere!). Another 3 had NO cars left. We were really unprepared as we did not make reservation for this. So the last car company... called Sixt. Walked to the counter.

Me: Hey, you guys got any cars left for renting?
Girl: Yup, one left!
Me: Oh sweet! Any age restriction?
Girl: How old are you?
Me: 21
Girl: *to her co-worker* Is 21 good enough?
Coworker: Yeah, it should be fine
Me: *whew*
Girl: OK, so we only have an SUV left. It's a Subaru Forester.
Me: WHAT? a BIG car? No other small cars????????
Girl: Nope...
Me:....... ok I'll take it.

So we were lucky that: 1. I met the age requirement for this company, 2. They had a spare car for me to rent.

Oh well, off to the Autobahn! The company provided us with a portable GPS system, which I doubt I could get ANYWHERE without. European roads are very complicated and far too confusing. So we hit the "Autobahn" which is German for highway.

Here I am cruising at 130km/h towards Belgium, just relaxing that I finally rented a car. In the middle of the 3 lanes... I keep hearing Whooshing and Vrooming sounds of a multitude of cars passing by me! Hmm... I wonder how fast they're going? I sped up to 160km/h. Still Whooshing and Vrooming. OK... this is definitely not normal! I sped up to 205km/h (max speed of the car and in 6th gear). VROOM AND WHOOSHING.

WOW!!! I think I'm in love with this country! I can go 200km/h and not worry about getting a hefty ticket!!

We got hungry. Stopped by for some Burger King. It tasted damn good as I haven't had Burger King since I left Canada. Quite expensive though, 12 EUR for two people, compared with the rest of the world. Then back on the road again! Mind you, it had already turned into nightfall by the time we left the airport so it was pretty much pitch black already. We finally decided to stop by a local hotel that we found through the GPS. Best Western Koln in a little town called Koln. Looks to be a small town, but not too small. Checked in for 85 EUR a night. I thought it was quite expensive, but it'll have to do.

Day 2: We woke up. Had breakfast at the hotel as it was included in the price. Oh man... That was an AMAZING breakfast... My stomach immediately felt better from the sickness and it felt awesome!

So we hit the road again! It was quite funny on the Autobahn, some areas have a speed limit of 130km/h. People normally go 140-150 in those section. But as soon as you see the no speed limit...

Well... MOVE THE F**K OUT OF THE LEFT LANE!! You'll hear everyone downshifting, revving their engines, getting to high speed mode and breaking 200km/h barrier! I witnessed an Audi R8 and a Audi TTS and some other nice cars just rip it on those zones. Sounds pretty sweet! Well... My poor little Subaru Boxer Diesel only had 145hp and 248 ft/lb of tq. It couldn't keep with the traffic and had to stay in the middle lane or move to the right sometimes. But I did manage a top speed of 220km/h on a downhill slope of 6 degrees! =D

We finally arrived at our destination in Belgium, a company called EFECO. It was simply a courtesy visit to see the company's capabilities and power and any potential partnership. Had meeting with the big boss (the person who owns the entire EFECO and ESCO company chain in Europe), Mr. Schmidt as well as two other main guys of the company, Mr. De Goef and Mr. Becker. Had a tour of their company and discussed a lot of things. Turned out to be a great meeting, after the meeting we had lunch with Mr. Schmidt and talked about a lot of things. Turned out great and nothing threatening our company or their company and most likely will have some form of co-operation to assist each other.

I'll have to admit, I was kind of nervous before the first meeting. But Mr. Schmidt had already visited us at Wuxi Driveshafts just a few months ago and had great interest in our products and services. He had a meeting with my father in which I attended, so it was not as awkward as I had met him before.

After our delicious lunch, well... at least mine was delicious, Tan says otherwise because he ordered something he had never tried before and turned out to be the worse food he ever had haha. But the good thing is that it was courtesy of Mr. Schmidt. Thank you for the excellent meal Mr. Schmidt!

So after the meal, we hit the road again. This time to Paris. I had complained a lot about the car not having enough power to keep up with the people on the Autobahn and the size (I personally HATE SUV's as my friend flipped one over but no injuries) so we decided to exchange the car for a better one at a rental location in Paris... Only to find that they had no cars left. So then we just decided to look for a hotel from the GPS. Found one... Well... it costs about 150 EUR. Damn, ok let's find one outside of Paris, that'll be cheaper. Ended up finding one 40km away outside of Paris on the east. Turned out to be a tiny ass town which didn't look very good. Then we checked in for $80 EUR. Funny the guy said it included breakfast. That's not the story the next morning *rolls eyes*

So we got hungry and decided to use the GPS to look for some restaurants. First we found a Pizzeria. Now the problem was... everything was in French, unlike in Belgium where Mr. Schmidt had translated and recommended the items on the menu for us. We had no way of knowing what the items on the menu was and the waiter spoke extremely poor english. So we decided to leave.

Looked up the GPS again, and found a nearby Chinese restaurant. Can you believe it? This tiny town has a Chinese restaurant!! Drove over... The restaurant didn't look as good as we thought. Upon walking in, it had a weird scent, not very pleasant. But at least the waiter and waitresses could speak Chinese. Sat down... spoke with the waitress for half an hour on what kind of dishes they have. Then waited for the order... and guess what? Turned out to be some AMAZING chinese food! Tan and I was quite shocked after consuming a few dishes, and proceeded to order more. We were stuffed afterwards, had a nice chat with the waitress and left a nice hefty tip. The food wasn't too expensive either! 30 EUR for two people. Went back to the hotel and rested with good food in our stomach.

Day 3: We checked out the hotel without any breakfast as they had requested an extra 13 EUR! Ridiculous for breakfast! So we proceeded to find a McDonald's on the GPS. Upon arriving, we found that it was not open yet... they open at 11:00AM. It was 9AM currently. So we said screw it and hit the road towards our next destination. On the highway, we found a service area and proceeded to buy a hot dog and 2 chocolate croissants each, costed about 6 EUR per person, wasn't that cheap either. But we had to do something for our stomach. Hit the road again. Unlike Germany, France has a speed limit of 120km/h on any highway as well as speed traps and speed cameras, etc. I didn't like this at all.

We finally arrived at our destination. ESCO France (a company under EFECO of Belgium). Met with Mr. Denis, the Managing Director of that company who at first sight proceeded to give us a tour of the company and then went to his office to discuss our products, their products, possible relationships, etc. Also met Mrs. Dubois, who is responsible for the mechanical sectors of the company in which WE are specialized in. But she obviously did not know much about our products and what requirements are needed etc. But it was still potential opportunity as they want our products. After the meeting, we proceeded to have lunch at a Chinese buffet on Mr. Denis' treat. That was pretty damn good too. Both chinese restaurants I have went so far in Europe are better than a lot of restaurants that I have been to in China! Talk about cultural irony!.

After lunch, we left the company and proceeded back to Paris. Because we did not have a chance to sightsee Paris yesterday and had plenty of free time today. First destination. Arc De Triomphe. Amazing structure, but no parking. Simply took a few driveby photos.

Keep in mind that Paris had really bad traffic, and reminded me of driving China, nobody in their lane and very unorganized... also... with REALLY bad parking, you had to have a smart car to fit in any parking spot! Here's what I mean!

So then we proceeded to the Eiffel Tower. FOUND parking for once... But it was paid parking and the process was that you had to buy a parking card from a tobacco shop. After walking around, we failed to find the tobacco shop... so we decided to take our chance and not pay for parking. Got lucky on that! Here's some pics as reward of not paying for parking! =)

The amount of crowd lining up to go up the Eiffel tower was stunning!

But at least we got some good pics!

Then we drove around and arrived at the famed Notre Dame!!

I had been wanting to visit this place ever since I saw the movie "Hunchback of Notre Dame" as a kid! And I finally did get the chance!

We drove around and finally decided that it was getting late for our trip to Germany. Decided to hit the road.

I'm tired of typing. I think that will be it for today. I will finish the remaining of my 7 days of Europe in another post! Keep checking back!

You could find more pics and more events that I have been through in the 3 days from my facebook albums!

First Post!

2009-05-01T23:09:00.000+08:00

So... I've decided to start a blog as per recommendation of my good friend and partner to my company, Mr. EVO! He calls it a tool not just for sharing with friends, but a tool to also help your self-realization far into the future (ie. 10 years from now). Whilist a cool concept, I was a bit hesitant at first knowing my previous attempts at blogging failed. But now, being older and some knowledge of knowing the right thing to say at the right time has helped with my confidence to start a blog! Whoohoo!

While it's the start, it probably looks like crap. I haven't seen it myself. But I will try to make it prettier :)

Thanks for viewing my blog ^_^