barcelona part one::

Hello Folks,

i know there have been many complains and hate mails coming in to the office in recent weeks asking why the blog has not been updated, the editors have been really busy travelling and also coming back just in time to rush tons of reports that needed to be submitted to the Maastricht University. There also has been some contract disputes as the editors demanded more pay for their work which explains the hiatus but its all been settled, they have been well fed with an all-expenses paid trip to Barcelona, which included a La Liga Spanish football match and some crazy food hunting day which would be covered in our second edition of barcelona bloggings.

Also this blog is written in tribute to one of the best local guides one can have in Barcelona, he's a full time exchange student at esade though he hardly goes to school, also future big banker, and a really awesome friend to have; jh. Thanks man for the really wonderful time hosting all of us, i am sure greg and carolyn would testify to that. He even sacrificed getting his butt evicted by his landlady while trying his best to keep 5 asians in his room for a night in his 5m by 4.5m room with his even peskier german housemate sending him threatening sms from her room 3 metres away. OK enough of the talk, lets see some action.

We left little countryside town of maastricht for girona which is an hour away from big bad barcelona via Ryan Air, and then take a shuttle bus to Barca. The flight was pretty crappy considering we paid like 180 euros each?! yes we got lazy and booked late. When i first saw the logo of Ryan Air i was thinking shit, it looks like that Guiness Stout Beer Logo? See it for your self! Well, what to do, when you live like a million miles away from the bigger cities like Amsterdam and Eindhoven, you gotta make do with whatever crappy airline which serves your city and most of the time, the same crappy airlines of your departure city flies to other fellow crappy destination airports like girona esp for ryan air.

Well, once we got to Barca via bus from Girona, we were finally reunited with jianhong who was already there waiting for us, he looked funny. He had just went skiing and so he had these panda eyes made from their ski goggles but he was still the same jianhong we knew, irritating, noisy, nahh joking, he was cool, great fella.

Well, we met up with greg and carolyn and finally carolyn and lee were reunited as well! they started screaming and shouting in the train station and i was getting lots of weird stares as they hugged, took cameras out to take 20 plus shots of the same position etc. heres one of themJust look at the people behind them, totally getting blinded by the million flashes. Here's one of the main man, jianhong, totally decked out in his amazing 100 and 1 columbia ski jacket which he was explaining to us about, which really indeed was the ideal ski jacket, had like all sorts of random pouches for ipod or pen,googles holder, plasters/bandages esp for jh. haha according to jh, greg's ski jacket was like the prada was them all, costing a cool thousand or something but i can imagine the crazy stuff that thing has.

Here;s a shot of what happened when greg and i left rols and lee out to the streets of barcelona;
a few hundred euros down to shopping! weims ah, better keep this boons on the watch, she might run into financial difficulties pretty fast. I was glad i bought myself a casual sport jacket/suit from this store called Lefties, how apt. And interestingly, the jacket was ZARA. They had tons of random ZARA apparels there maybe leftovers; thats why Lefties/ Basically Barca is the shopping paradise of Europe in my opinion, haha though i only been to Brugges and here. They are so many stores, its like here the THIS FASHION kind of stores rule.
Well, we were in Barca during Easter and so for the rest of the days there; Sunday and Monday, the shops were all closed, which explained why Lee was rather moody but one thing good came out of it, we now had the euros to spend on awesome spanish tapas and paella! On the very first night, i recommended us to go to La Fonda which i heard from so many sources that this place was the lonelyplanet rated place to be. We had some difficulty finding the place but once we got there, there was a queue already forming, the place opened at 8.30pm and by 8pm there were like 50 people in line. The place was said to have offered the best local food and the most unbeatable prices. I had the honour was waiting at the line whilst greg and jh brought the girls over. Man, by like 8.30pm, there were like 100 people behind me, no joke.

But once in, the restaurant was like your expensive dinner at Holland Village but the food was like a thousand times better, trust me.

This is what you call a Paella; its like rice cooked in and over fire in this special pot which is abit like wet baked rice with some awesome sauce and we ordered it with mixed seafood and meat. I shared this with Lee and the price for such a lovely place is insane, it cost like 7 euros per person? ridiculous man.

Here's one with greg and rols.
Dig in. Its the best thing i have tasted over a month in Europe.
Here's one satisfied camper.

After dinner, we headed out to meet other Singaporeans in Barcelona in a near by bar called Glacier. It was already cold and raining then kenna one Glacier hurhur.

Jh is the main man once again. Nah, he did a really good job in taking care of us and really making sure that there were no creepy people following us on the streets. I could testify to that, he constantly kept covering my back and he would guide us forward while he walked behind always, thanks man.

Anyway that night, foreseeing a clash in the morning if the houselady sees too many asians running out of jh's room, i stayed at the other singaporean's place for one night before Lee and i moved to our hostel which will be covered in the next episode.

Thanks.

Poh.

i feel it all

When I saw this lil vegetarian store in amsterdam, i excitedly dashed across the road and requested that poh take a picture of me in front of the store (little did i know there were tons of branches across europe!)

That one word is a succinct description of how i feel right now. missing everyone back home terribly...m**...

Its now 5.23am, goodnight!

we've got mail

Today, a special present from a very special someone made Poh and I two very happy satisfied people.

When we checked our mailbox today, we had a pleasant surprise! There was a little slip of paper telling us to head to the reception to collect a parcel. And so we did.

With a shipping cost amounting to $58 SGD, we were excitedly guessing what the parcel contained.........

To everyone back home: Now that you know our address, you know what to do! Thanks!

OH MYYYY Check out our yummy stash: Prepare yourselves for the treasure trove of spices!

Below is picture of Poh and I getting all protective of our favourite sauces!

Poh promptly chope'd the EASY - Crispy Chicken Coating and the Spices of the Orient - Meat Curry Sauce is mine all mine (joking!)

Thank you darling Auntie Siew Kiang (Poh's mummy), we are indebted to your kindness FOREVER!! Thank you for mailing us a piece of Singapore all the way to Maastricht. We appreciate it lots!! We'll definitely let you know about the outcome with pictures and everything! :D

I guess the next step forward is just learning how to use the sauces to whip up a delicious meal! hurhur

To all our friends in the P block: You better not be offending Poh or I the next couple of weeks if you are expecting an invite to a sumptuous home cooked meal hahahaa. I'm just joking...NOT *devious face*

Much love,
a very satisfied poh and a very hungry lee

The Crazy Gang.

One thing amongst others that has been keeping my time here in Maastricht an awesome one is the rugby team that i joined here. I am pretty glad me joining a rugby club here materialized else i think i would have gave lacrosse a try. Let me just give you a short description of what happens at the Maraboes Rugby club.

In terms of rugby standings, we have been unfortunate in the league winning only 6 matches out of 20 plus games before i arrived, but ever since i touched down, i have been fortunate to be part of 3 victories which i managed to get some play time and the team's really getting stronger.
lee editing: poh not trying to say that he's solid gold ;D

In terms of club craziness, i must say that this club is really insane. The rituals they do; to get first initiated as a "Maraboe" you first have to play 5 matches for the club ( i am at 3), this is only the easy part. To signify that you have become initiated, you will be given the Maraboes tie to wear for pre-games gatherings, basically what happens is that before the match, be it home or away, the guys gather all wearing suits and wearing the Maraboes ties, they look really smart let me tell you that, if you are not initiated you wear an "eggy-tie" its basically a white pathetic cloth with you name on it haha. I realised like at all pre-games function, i am the only one not in a suit or a tie, partly because i cant seem to afford a suit here so i just walk into the club house in an old sports shirt and my track pants with holes due to cycling and the wind blows my pants into the bicycle chains and gets ripped (just imagaine that, disgrace) and yes its a disgrace man when everyone is so smartly dressed having a nice coffee before the match ala gala dinner,

Bart and Regisssss

and i waltz in some random clothing haha its cool my excuse "he's asian". Oh let me get to the hard part, so after your 5th match, to be initiated, you have to stand ontop of this platform on the field stark naked, yes this is naked with kids, grannies and grandpas hanging ard and you got to drink a huge mug of beer, before you gulp down the beer to chants, the beer will be splashed in your face and your balls, then you drink it while all your teammates just spit or pour beer onto you. haha then after that you gotta sing the Maraboes song! wala, a Maraboe born!

They also have this thing called the boot drink if you screwed up in some way or another or just that someone has nothing to do and cook up some random excuse for you to drink, what happens is that they take an old boot from the clubhouse and fill it up with beer and you have to drink it from that.

There's also a power up version of the boot drink game called the anal-boot drink which is even more grusomely hilarious which instead of pouring beer direct into the boot, you get the nastiest rugger to wear the boot, and they pour the beer down his back, down his crack, down his thighs and legs into the boot with it soaked with the grossest set of toes in down south Netherlands, then you drink it.

The traditions are INSANE.

The players, are equally insane, just randomly stripping each other in public, and they enjoy inflicting pain on each other which is rather amusing cause its like watching faces of death waiting to happen live. Nevertheless, its been an awesome time for me.

Poh

Pre-game: Dennis, Remy (1 half of the bash brothers), Mark

Slack.

Wrapped up.

Half time.

"Ed-chey" the other half of the bash brothers

Brian, also happens to be lead singer of OneRepublic famous for hits like
"Apologize" and "Stop and Stare" and also brilliant full-back.

In Bruges!

Hello everyone! Since Poh wrote the last entry about visiting a Dutch home (damn I wanted to do that), I guess its my turn to take the initiative for this post! We sort of have this mutual unspoken agreement where one will update the blog on the trip and the other will post photos on facebook. haha. But no complaints, because I'm loving keeping each and everyone of you back home happy! winkz

On Saturday the 8th march, 6 of us took a day trip down to Bruges (pronounced “broozh” acting atas and chichi only), in Belgium. I'm proud to say that I know a Belgian, even before travelling to Europe. She's none other than my Quantitative Management Professor last semester. She was a pleasant lady but an INTENSEEE teacher who loved muttering to herself in class and secretly revelled in seeing our painful distorted faces by giving out exam papers that were PhD worthy. Darrell, Rolyn, Poh, even Ambrose can attest to that!

When I was in Bruges, I couldn't help but feel like Pascale was around watching my every move. I could hear her voice resounding through the town about simulation, queueing, linear programming etc. Oh myy even when I was buying chocolate, I could hear her telling me about store operations and estimations of demand and supply!

Okay now I'm scaring the daylights out of myself.

*Clears throat and puts on lonely planet voice*

Bruges is approximately a 2.5 hour train ride away from Maastricht and was kind to our wallets with a 2 way trip of only 15euros. Bruges exudes a quaint medieval charm and is one of Belgium's most visited town. This town teeming with tourists, was added to Unesco's World Heritage List in 2000 and, in 2002, Bruges took centre stage as the European City of Culture.

All 6 of us were on an adrenaline rush as we knew that we were only going to be there for one day and we wanted to seize every second of it!! Just for this trip, I willingly broke my 2008 record of not waking up earlier than 7am. We met at the Guesthouse reception at 6 (freaking) am in order to catch the 7am train to Liege and then the 8something train to Bruges. Even at 6am, we were all still chatty and enthusiastic as ever! Everyone was excitedly showing off their research on what possible activites we could do at Bruges. Poh displayed his knowledge from this thick dusty book (courtesy of Joyce) titled "Europe on a shoestring: Big trips on small budgets" while the others boasted their research about Bruges from the net. At the end of the day, it boiled down to a few must-visit places and thats how the trip began! :)

6.30am at the bus stop outside our Guesthouse waiting to take a bus to the Centraal Station

Catching our 7am train to Liege

Finally we arrived in Bruges!!

yayness!

We found out that most of the must see destinations were located around the Markt.

The Markt is the heart of Bruges and the focal point of your sightseeing. Most major points of interest in the city are no more than 5-10 minutes walk away

#1 Must-Do-Thing: Climb the stairs of the Belfry

Belfry of Bruges, or Belfort, is a medieval bell tower in the historic centre of Bruges. You must be blind to miss one of the city's most prominent symbols. For an entry fee, we got to climb the Belfry tower's 366 steps (aside to lex, debs and nise: can;t beat climbing the great wall with you!). Our reward was an unrivalled breathtaking omniscient view of Bruges from the top. Seriously these 366 steps are no joke. The winding stairway is not only steep bu narrrow! But when we got to the top, all the complaining and aching just disappeared into thin air. Everyone was completely flabagasted at the view.

My camera lens was not pro enough to capture the whole Belfry so the photo below is to do it justice

Indulging in some beer and oysters before our challenging task ahead

On our journey up the steep and narrow stairwayCrazy winds at the top: Some gui stranger transformed Chian and I into rabbits

Our highly anticipated reward: The breathtaking view of Bruges

#2: Must-Do-Thing: Take the Canal Cruise

When we were at the ticket booth, we asked the uncle whether there were any student discounts and he gave an answer that made us burst into uncontrollable guffaws. His reply was a simple straight to the point, "Nope, we don't discriminate." Pretty good answer if you ask me. haha

The starting point of the cruise rideThe back-seaters

#3: Must-Do-Thing: Visit a Chocolatier

I think visiting a chocolatier was not an issue at all. Every few steps you take, you'll see chocolatiers galore. We were spoilt for choice. Too much chocolate, too little time and we had to control our chocolate urges. I think we visited Belgium at a perfect time where Easter was just around the corner because seriously the creativity and quality of work when it came to making the chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies was just top-notch! I even mistook a porcelain rabbit for a chocolate one, thats how pro and real life they look!! The chocolates look too good to eat like I just want to keep the bunny in my maastricht cupboard for 4 months and tapow the bunny home with me after. Without saying, we bought packets of yummylicious-melt-in-your-moud truffles back. I just savoured 3 sinful truffles at one shot just now. Terrible! This had better stop before I become unrecognizable again like after I got back from work and travel :(

Slabs and slabs of chocolate!

Spot the 3rd bunnySeriously, there are no limits with the creativity in chocolate heaven!

#4: Must-Do-Thing: Take copious amounts of photos

Presenting the Bruges gals

Presenting the Bruges guys
There's in company in Singapore called: Poh Lee Bus Transport Services, no seriously.

To everyone back home who will not be visiting Bruges anytime soon, don't fret because I heard that there is going to be this movie titled 'In Bruges' starring sizzling Colin Farrell and it is filmed on location! If you can't wait, click here to watch the trailer!