Windsor Castle and a bit of everything!

This is Auntie Lali and that is Shaun. I don't have a picture of Uncle Shan, but I shall take one when I go visit them again in December!

Anyway, here are some pictures of my time in Windsor on a day out with Shauna. She's so fun, and since she drives it's much easier for us!

Anyway, parking is really not cheap in England. Or London. I can't remember, but we are in Windsor and parking isn't child's play!

This is the Windsor Castle. The Queen is always watching! :) I didn't go in though. It was 8 pounds to do so.

Apparently I have a cafe in Windsor that I don't know about! And a dragon!

Someone is enjoying herself!

Apparently, she's not the only one!

So much that they're competing for her attention! HAH.

Queen of the Swans... Heh. Shauna didn't enjoy the swans so she was happy about being just the camera person.

One thing Shauna enjoys greatly (and pretty much every English person)... FRIES! No, I mean CHIPS! Don't call them French fries. Especially not in McDonald's. They're chips.

Okay, Snowies are AMAZING. I got them in a candy store. Pretty awesome. I got Snowies for Shauna!

Then after, we went to Slough and I seriously was amazed in Poundland, Poundworld, and 99P store. It's peanuts to the English!

And these are the Halloween stuff on sale!

Check these! They're in the clothing corner at Tesco Extra in Slough. I love Tesco. It's SO HUGE and the clothing are ALL SO NICE. The best store should be Primark though. I got jeggings there for 5 pounds!

Cute little buddy costumes. My twins have to wear these. What?!

And Shauna and I went to watch a play. It was pretty amazing for a country English play! It was 10 pounds a ticket. We got moved to the rows closer to the front because there were empty seats.

And here's a picture of Shauna, Shaun, and myself! Taken by Lali. She loves me to take pictures. She finds it amazing a Singaporean girl is traveling on her own!

I don't know which one is better. You decide! :)

Emirates

I'm actually really excited about flying with Emirates. From all those people who've flown that, they always gave me good feedback. I hear the food is just amazing. Kebabs? Yes, please! And not to mention, Emirates is one of the best airlines in the world. I almost chose Etihad. My mother picked Emirates, anyway, which is also fine with me. I need a little layover in Dubai or I would be so bored flying 13 hours straight!

Flickr

I will be taking this Airbus A380 from Dubai to London! Isn't it amazing? :D

Flickr

And this is Emirates Economy. It's still pretty awesome. I haven't taken a commercial flight in a long ass time so this is going to be interesting.

I hope to post pictures of my two flights to London (SIN-DXB and DXB-LHR) when I reach London. Right now, I'm contacting some couchsurfers to see if I can meet up with them and stay there. I am looking to spend about five days maximum in London. I only have £150 pounds. Wish me luck!

Mr. Wolf

Everyone fears a Mr. Wolf, no? He's big, he's bad, he's hairy . . . and scary. And he looks kind of like this.

Picture Credit

Scary, indeed. :)


If you're a female traveler, like me, there are definitely more things to be wary of. If you have done your research like I did, you would know that the most-emphasized topic would be men. If you're a male, most likely you would not encounter any problems. You might even enjoy the attention you get while strolling down the Reeperbahn!


Well, every city has its bad areas, of course, just like any city anywhere in the world. Don’t hang around outside train stations or in parks after dark, and take all the crime-prevention steps you would take at home if you go out at night. When I arrive in a town I always ask at the tourist office in the train station if there’s any place to avoid. As far as whole regions . . . I suppose there’s more crime in Eastern Europe than Western Europe, and a lot of Italy is notorious for theft, but then again there are any place that is notoriously famous for tourists will have someone or two there ready to rob. You just have to take care of your things and yourself.

For women, you should know that each year, hundreds and thousands of females take the European trains and most are under the age of 22. Almost all of them have no problem at all. (Source)

First and foremost, never trust anyone. Even if they are your friend's brother's friend, you can never be too sure. Never trust anyone on first sight, that is, but when you learn more about the person, feel free to trust your instincts.


Don't accept free candy. Nothing is free in this world. If you are offered a walk to where you want to go, if you think it is safe because it is a populous place, very well. Always be alert. You have to be a master of body language and social behavior at this point. Mentally note the stranger's ways. Is he always looking at you other than your face? Maybe you caught him glancing at your backpack a few times like he's studying the zippers. You may just spot a creep!


If you are in the middle of the Vatican City and you're surrounded by people, always make sure your bag is in front of you.


Don't let anyone bump it you. The next thing you know, your wallet might be gone. If you are a girl, your best bet is to keep your money and cards close to your chest with a moneybelt or a hanging-from-the-neck money pack. Keep it under all your layers of clothing, even if the summer heat is making you sweat. You can't be sure to avoid anyone. You'd be swerving like a race car, looking like a maniac or an antisocial who's afraid of touch. Just be alert. Commonly, pickpockets would apologize and you'd overlook their cruel intentions because they seem so polite. During those seconds, they can easily reach into your bag!


Carry a sling bag instead of a backpack. Or put the backpack in front of you (and half the time you'll look pregnant. With the over-the-shoulder sling bag, you can easily put your bag in front. It's easier to look after it, being right under your nose.


Don't keep money or cards in your pockets or exposed pockets in your bags. Always, always keep them in money belts close to your skin. However, do put some money in your front pocket if you know you're going to have to go in and out of your money belt during the day. Be smart and know how much you would need. Estimate well. You don't want to be digging under your clothing awkwardly in front of the gelato stall in front of a queue of Italians. If you need to, leave your cards and most of your money back at the hostel which you are sure has safe safekeeping. Ask for a receipt or some note claiming you kept your things with them.


Crime is rife on the train, at tourist spots, festivals, hostels, and even the bathroom. You can never be too sure of the people around you. Just always be alert.

If you're female, you should know by know that men are mostly evil (hah!). Just kidding. No offense to men. But if you're female, avoid looking at men at all costs unless they're doing something really attractive like taking photographs of the scenery or busking. Or they're really cute! No, kidding. Staring at men who look at you straight in the eye is inviting them to come and talk to you. I don't want that, and I know neither do you.

Don't agree to let anyone look after your things when you need to go to the bathroom on the train. Don't trust your hostel mates too easily. When you couchsurf, you should also not let your iPod lie around without your eyes on them. You are, after all, in someone else's country. You are at a disadvantage. Don't let your guard down.


Don't agree to go to anyone's house, and really do NOT get drunk when you're alone. Your "friends" may not be so friendly after all. Also, don't accept gifts, especially drinks, from strangers. It's never normal to get free things, like I said!


Let me go through again, these are what you should do:
Day's worth of money — cheap wallet in your (hopefully) front pocket
Week's worth of money — money wallet or deep down in your backpack or bag
Credit and ATM cards — money wallet or deep down in your backpack or bag, or back at the hostel
Passport — back at the hostel when sightseeing


Some common tactics:
London — slitting bottom of bags open (at busy markets)
Rome — old women throwing plastic babies when you catch, little children will steal from you
Bangkok — being offered some smokes, you're escorted to a gang and they threaten you for money


Do go here and read the comments below for many different scenarios of being robbed and mugged all over the world. It was very insightful for me!

Soaking It In

Just this evening, I watched Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown: Berlin. How I wish I could be like, just like her. Not be her, but be able to do what she does. I've been watching her since I was probably a decade old (if she was around then) and I was so fascinated by her being able to travel and explore, and to tell people about the wonderful places she'd see. I've watched the Munich episode a few weeks before, maybe just last year, and I was amazed by the splendor of the Bavarian culture. I'm very much excited to visit Bavaria. Very much. The medieval style, the castle(s), the Black Forest. I want to see them all. In a way, I'm glad I'm going alone. There's no one else I have to consider when I see things, and there's no one to say that they've had too much of Germany, or France, or Romania, and they want to go on. I am going to sit around and just soak in the European-ess of it all.

There are definitely a number of places I want my stays extended, to "soak" in. I shall have to have at least 10 days in it. Two weeks, probably, and more if I want to explore many more cities. Pictures are officially from WikiTravel! These places include:

1. Germany: Nuremberg, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Cologne

 

The Gothic Cathedral "Dom" in Cologne

2. France: Paris, Bordeaux, Nice, Lourdes, Lyon

The Roman theater in Fourvière, Lyon

3. Czech Republic: Prague, Český Krumlov, Kutná Hora, Telč

 

 Český Krumlov

4. Romania: Bucharest, Braşov, Sibiu, Sighisoara, Cluj-Napoca

Sighişoara Citadel

5. Ireland: Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny

Kilkenny Castle

These are places I want to extend my stays in. Hopefully I can! I know for one that Ireland is rather expensive. :( I will try and couchsurf to the best of my ability, and at the same time, be hosted and shown around by a local! The idea of making friends just excite me so.

It is now February. 6 months till I leave for London. ;)

How cold is cold?

So just yesterday my mother convinced me that my father was going to buy my air ticket for me. I'm pretty reluctant for him to do that but that would greatly ease my financial burden. I was also itching to buy a ticket with my own money right there and then and safely say, "See? I can fly to London now no problem. Nothing's stopping me." Yeah, right. That's not true. I don't have a ticket. Originally, my plan was to purchase a flight from Singapore to KL and then to London Stansted after. My mom frowned upon "Stansted" when I said it. It still is an airport, isn't it? It's for most budget airlines. When I take my Ryanair flight to Sweden, that's how it will be.

Oh, did I say I was skipping Oslo? Yes, indeed. It's too expensive a night and I just had to schedule the trip to be over the weekend. Weekend accommodation is much more expensive undoubtedly. Great job. So I canceled it. This means I am going to spend a week in London with Ashlee and CJ and hopefully we can take a trip up north to York and catch a game of football or two! I would love to watch Liverpool or Chelsea play a game. All I can hope now is that neither Ashlee or CJ would object to it, or to the idea of paying a hundred bucks to take a train to and fro York. York is amazing. It's got a lot to offer and a friend from York, Emily, is willing to take us around. I'm sure she's not going to take us in. Three strangers? Okay, maybe two strangers since she knew me. I don't like imposing on people but sometimes, it's an advantage. Anyway, like I said, I hope we can visit York and the haunted locations and have tea with Emily.''

Back to the idea of tickets. Most likely, dad will get me the ticket directly to London Heathrow via Qantas. Right now it costs almost SGD$1000, no more, but mom convinced me there will be sales by summer. I'm not too sure. All along, my parents were the ones buying my tickets whenever we traveled. Hopefully, they're right. The ticket could go up to SGD$1600 by the time summer comes. I don't want to know I could have saved €300 by booking earlier. With €300, I can drink a dozen mugs of beer at the Oktoberfest in Munich where I could stay for at least four days. Isn't that amazing? As long as my dad will buy me a ticket, I will try to worry less.

Saving is going on quite well. Soon, I will make a list of things I want for Christmas and my 19th birthday (which are just a week apart). Hopefully, I get what I want and good ones at that. I'm planning to ask for a good backpack but is buying a backpack seven months before too early? I hope not. I'm also asking for a money belt, a day pack, walking shoes, winter wear and thermals. Ashlee told me I would need a hell lot of clothing since we're going to tour in fall/winter and I'm already saying 25 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) is cold. Having lived in the tropics since forever, I obvioiusly call that cold. It's still slightly stuffy and warm but it's cold enough. This year end, I will be traveling to Macau and Hong Kong, near China, and will experience 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) on average. It will be the temperature of what Paris is right now in mid-November. And that's the period I will be visiting Paris and the rest of France. A good time to get used to the weather, right?

I hope I get a direct flight to London. I don't feel like laying over for two and a half hours in Doha or any part in the United Arab Emirates. I want to be on a plane knowing when I get off, I am in Europe. In the Europe. In the London Heathrow and that Ashlee and CJ are waiting for me on the other side of the gate, awaiting to start a journey of a lifetime. That's what I want. What do you want?

London Heathrow or Stansted?

So there's this really amazing deal on Air Asia that I could get my ticket to London for $300 tops. How? Does Air Asia really fly to London from Singapore? Sadly, no. There's only a KUL-STN route. That's Kuala Lumpur to London Stansted for you. Yes, that's the only catch. Where in the world is London Stansted? It still is an airport but just not the London Heathrow. That costs only 499MYR and altogether, around plus baggage and food, it costs $250 for the ticket to London. Might I add, that is absolutely insane. The ticket from SIN-KUL just before that flight would cost SGD$0 but with taxes and baggage, it would be almost $50 so altogether, the ticket would cost almost $300. This fares last only till the end of the month because I checked in July, the fares went up by 200MYR so I decided if I waited any longer till December or January, the price would surely rise further.

Picture credited to Jim Linwood on Flickr

So the Grapevine Hotel in the heart of London looks like a winner for now. :) Bed and breakfast? Yes please! That's very English, isn't it? Another place for B&Bs would be Paris. In fact, hopefully all over Europe we would live in B&Bs because it would be great if a meal is provided without worrying over where and what to eat. Simply marvelous.

Eight more months till Europe comes and if there are plans to be made, I'm making them right now. It's really not easy planning so that events coincide, fares are cheap, attractions are open, weather is acceptable... When we've done London where it's going to be cool and non-rainy during August, we will take a cheap flight to Oslo which costs no more than SGD$100. It's as much as a rail ticket from Eurostar from London to Paris so why not start from the top and save time as well? ;) It will be during summer so it would be the warmest up north. That would be the only flight within Europe we would take that would take us to the Northernmost part of Scandinavia. We will skip Finland. It's far too far and cold and we expect little there. I have originally excluded Norway but Norway as I have heard of and read up is extremely beautiful. To add to my enthusiasm, I saw New Scandinavian Cooking on the Asian Food Channel just yesterday and my interest was piqued. ;) And I'd love to spend a night in the world's most expensive country and show how it really isn't that expensive at all for a budget traveler!

From Oslo, Norway, we start our Eurail pass after we finished seeing what Oslo has to offer in hopefully two days, no more. Then at the end of Oslo, we will begin using the pass as we head down a few hours to Stockholm. Two days there and then to Copenhagen. Two days after, a boat ride to Germany and the first place would be Hamburg. We may or may not stop. Then we go to Amsterdam, Brussels, down south to cover France, Paris, Bordeaux, Lourdes, then Spain, Madrid, Ibiza, Barcelona, back to France, Marseille, then Switzerland, Bern, Munich for Oktoberfest, a bit of Austria, Salzburg, Innsbruck, some Italy, Milan, Venice, Rome, 15-hour boat ride to Athens, then Eastern Europe, Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest, Prague, back to Austria, to Vienna just in time for Christmas markets. And then if we have enough stops we can hop around Germany with our remaining time on our pass or buy a Germany pass before flying out of Frankfurt, Berlin or Munich to New York, New Jersey or Maryland (which I will check the fares for in February to March 2010) since my family's going to Maryland next Christmas. All these pit stops definitely exceed my 25 maximum travel days and I'm trimming it to 20 days on my list to keep safe (in case we overshot and need an extra day of travel or slept overnight on the sleeper train) but I'm excluding counting places like Ibiza and everywhere in Germany except for Munich which we have to stop at just in time for Oktoberfest. Hamburg in the beginning may be canceled but how can I resist not stopping in Germany when I'm even just passing through? ;) I have a friend who's going to Germany during the summer so maybe I would stop by Berlin to see her!

So I have decided we (my friends Ashlee and CJ from New Jersey) end Europe in Germany when our Eurail pass ends, around November since I'm planning on two 2-month passes that allow 10 and 15 travel days each. It's cheaper than buying a 3-month pass alone. I've long been complicated by it but I've already decided. It's at the most four months excluding the United Kingdom. Two months is too little and since the 4-month is cheaper than 3-month (just 25 stops as compared to unlimited respectively), I've decided to go for two passes. I don't have to finish all 162 days! Since it's Ashlee, CJ and I bunking together, rooms would be divided by three and Ashlee and I would share a bed so there's going to be no problem there. Plus CJ's got links and most likely we'll get some rooms here and there for cheap. All in all, the trip would last four months from early August to early December. I have planned for and will visit the Christmas markets in Germany and Austria.

And one more thing: if my sister Ellie saves enough, she could go with me to London for the four days I'll be there. A return flight and food and accommodation can squeeze into that if you're frugal enough and traveling in a group. Book early. ;)

Picture credited to ArjyP on Flickr

The details for my flight to London Heathrow is as of yet unconfirmed. My mother insists I should wait for better deals but don't airlines always refund you what more they charged you before the sale? Well, I'm going to let mother decide that. She's funding my tickets, anyway. :) However, most likely we'll take the flight from London Stansted to Oslo Torp and start the Eurail pass at the end of Oslo.


13 August 2010: via Ryanair — London Stansted (STN) to Oslo Torp (TRF)

Skyscanner has been a really helpful site for me. Do visit it. For cheap hotels if you're not taking the risk with hostels, go to Travellers Point. :)