Interesting Sights of Europe - Part 2

Salzburg - Part 2
Geez, I wonder what is the most popular and famous thing in Salzburg ( besides Sound of Music )...... Mozart of course!! Here's his house in the heart of Salzburg. This is actually a 4 level apartment and he and his family ( mother, father and sister ) lived in a 3rd floor. Sorry - no pictures - there was a big "NO PICTURES ALLOWED" sign inside :( Few things i discovered.....

* Mozart must be very fit - every day had to climb 2 flights of steps to go up to his house.
* He must be really amused if he is alive now to find out he has a chocolate named after him. i was like "eh?" o_O? Btw - i didn't take the picture below- linked it from one side. Lazy lah to take today.
It is surprisingly famous. When i brought it back everyone went "aahhhhhhhhhhh, mozart chocs"... some how or rather i felt i was living under a turtle shell for a moment., how come everyone knows it is famous except me? hmmmmmmm.

Well, how does it taste like? Actually it is very delicious. With a coating of dark chocolate outside and pistachio paste inside - it is the most unique taste. It does come off tasting like liquer initially but i am told it is not. (Ok... jakun me) Btw- the CHEAPEST place to buy this is in the supermarkets NOT the shops they take you to buy it. I got mine for about Euro 2 where else the speciality shops sell it around Euro 2.50...

Actually Salzburg turns out to be my most favorite place ( er.. no pun intended ) because of the colors and sights... I wandered around to the main market and i was a happy little camper there... FREE FOOD TO TRY!!!!

There are ample fruits and vegetables available - so much more than the variety in KL or even in our more branded supermarkets. See the bottom part of the picture - that's fresh walnuts! :) I was amused.

The flowers there were lovely- i manage to catch this picture of a sunflower... 'kirei'

While walking around- i sniffed "meat".... oooh.......... i spotted this stall near the fruit shop.. Long sausages being grilled. These are pork sausages of different mixes- pepper, or with other herbs inside. You can request it with bread or just ask the vendor to cut up in bit sizes and eat it. Yumz..... costs about EURO 2.

Ok, not to be outdone, next to the sausage vendor, there was a cheese and preserved meat vendor.
The tall bottles on the left are actually schnapps - some liqueur that the Austrians seem to like. But what i was interested in was the ham! :) see the packs next to the Schnapps bottles? Yummy. They are all pre-packed and ready to take home.. I did my puppy dog eyes to my dad but he was firm - NO PORK to be brought back. Eat what you want here :( Sigh..... Anyway, there were free samples so i pinched some from there. And all types of cheese were sold here. With little samples available next to the different cheeses, all you do is just try them and they will cut the ones you like. *burp* after walking around this market i was pretty full.

Anyway, next post- the final salzburg food wrap up. Btw, I only spent 1 day and 1 night there... I just made sure i used my time fully there :) Want to end this post with a pretty picture of some flower that i took in Graz... fuzzy and pretty...

Interesting Food & Sights in Europe-Part 1

I thought i will pick up some interesting food photos i took while in Europe. Though i cannot taste all the food there, that was to offer, but taking photos are second best. My next trip there, i think i will just go for the food not the sight seeing.

Graz
In Vienna, i didn't pick out any interesting food stalls around there but when i was in Graz(3rd biggest city in Austria) onwards, things started to pick up..... Btw, i heard mr terminator's hometown is in Graz.

I saw a lot of these side stalls along the roads of Graz. It's autumn in europe and chestnuts are a plenty here. I can literally say this dude is roasting chestnuts on an open fire.
He's trying hard not to grin here. I am not sure how they roast it here but it's not the same way that is done in KL, in a wok of heated... er stuff. Here it is surprisingly clean. (See pic 2)

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

You can buy this for 2Euro's for 1/4 a kg. After counting that, it comes up to about 15-20 chestnuts. I initially bugged dad to get some for me but after counting, it was a bit pricey to spend. Nevertheless, with the smell of chestnuts roasting in all the shops ... it definitely feels like autumn.

The fresh produce here is sold in supermarkets as well as side shops all over graz and they make wonderful opportunity to take photos because they add a lot of color and just looks so beautiful.The people in graz do not mind you taking photos of their shop, but don't try it in Prague. Someone tried to charge me for taking pictures of her strawberries. >:( ... how rude.....

While in Europe, we also discovered a vegetable or herb ( not sure which one ) which has a mustardy taste when you bite into it. It is heavily used in most of the salads we ate in Europe. Tried to find it here but got confuse with the variety's here. Darn- should have taken a photo :(.

Salzburg.
Ahhhhhh........... food gets better in Salzburg and prettier :) Though Austria is pretty land locked, they seem to have a large variety of seafood. Nordsee is a seafood shop that sells seafood fresh and prepared as easy to go meals.

Their shop window display got everyone in my tour group starring at their window for a good 10 minutes.. just to drool.
These are prepared sandwiches made out of seafood, which you can purchase and eat. It comes in wraps, bagels and loaves with lots of salad and filling.

Friends coming over for dinner? Not sure what to cook? Make some quick salads from seafood. Or you can turn it to whatever dish you want back home. All are charged by the grams you buy.
I love this shot of the lobsters already pre-cooked. Some how the window's light film of water added to this misty look of the crustaceans. At this point, i wanted to buy some back >_<>


Ok, that's all for now.... will continue tomorrow with part two. In the mean time, please stare lovingly at those large crustaceans.

Let this be a lesson as to be not so trigger happy...

*phew* i finally finished loading up most of my photos of my trip. Although i took about 900+ but i scale down the pictures as some are the same stuff but in different angles.

When NY ask me why i took so many pictures... dunno... couldn't shop a lot so i had to make it up somewhere else.. *grinz* Anyway, those who are interested, check out my shashin o' totte bar on my blog... click your country away...

Tea time in Eastern Europe

I have to admit to all, since coming back from Europe, i have been a bit chubbier. :) Besides the sleeping, i caught up on the eating. In KL, aside from the basic meals, i seldom snack and i lose weight extremely fast in KL, due to exercise and stress from work ( this is not a sanctioned method of weight loss *cackles*).

However when on tour in Europe, i got a chance to relax more and enjoy the finer things in life. The tour provides you the standard meals daily but because we walk extremely a lot, hunger pangs are always around the corner. The other fact is, is they serve you chinese food, i get hungrier faster. I can't fight for food faster than other people.

My dad and i thought the trip to europe will be a good time to sample their little cafes littered around all the towns. We were right. If you want to sample the best coffees and tasty little cakes, Europe has some of the best places to offer.

Trieste, Italy
It was good that one of the small stops we had was to Trieste, Italy. Home of authentic coffee. Now, Trieste is not a big place in italy and it faces the Adriatic Sea, and since it is very close to Slovenia, the people speak Slovenian as well as Italian.

Wet, rainy days in Italy

But.. it still has the italian field in that place, ok... i am happy to just step foot to part of Italy.

I was truly soaked in Trieste, the heavens poured that day. Deciding that i had not much place to walk around and i hate shopping in wet weather, i asked Dad to stop in this cosy ( i.e very warm ) cafe to rest everyone's tired feet and.. use the toilet. Don't ask me why, but everyone in the trip ( except yours truly ) always seems obsessed in finding a place to wee. Not 1 hour after the last stop, everyone is rushing for another round... sigh.

We pick one cosy little place to stop by, and i am impressed by the soft lighting and definitely the warm heater inside..
Europeans are not used to large crowds trooping into their place. The shop seems to be built for 2 person per table, there were 6 enough. Fortunately they had 1 table for six of us and we squeezed in there.

Since it was raining, most of us ordered Espresso. One small little cup of the brew is enough to wake you up. Not sure about the warming up though, not enough if you are relying on the drink. And its 2 euros for this. (1 EURO - RM5 ... go figure ). I like the strong flavor though... Mom wanted double shot... we stared at her....

I was hungry, so dad ordered this large bikkie and a cake for the rest of us. Not sure what it was though, tasted ok. My aunty was a big fan of this though...

I wanted this large biscuit :), which has marmalade inside. I manage to cut this into 6 pieces for everyone to share.

All in all, the bill came to 17 Euro for the number of espressos we had, plus 1 of each of the above desserts..

I went to other coffee shops in prague, budapest etc but had only coffee, only places where i specially ordered food, i took pictures. Which brings me to my next place, Cracow, Poland.


Cracow, Poland ( pronounced Kra-kow )
This is the second city in Poland and the original capital before it moved to Warsaw. It's old town is littered with little cafes. I love the table settings they have at their outdoor cafes... so sweet and simple! The only annoying thing is, though part of EU, poland still uses it's own currency of kroner. So each time i buy something, i had to quickly change some money.

The Cafe i went to, see the lady and her dog carrier.

Now, i had no sense of adventure, so i stuck to my Cafe Latte- not very pretty, but check out the Black Forest cake we ordered as a snack. This dessert was quite popular in the 70's and 80's but i seldom see this now as other dessert flavors seem to be more in favor now. So, we quickly ordered this for old time's sake. This is a good cake. Once the cake was served, i could smell it :) The chocolate cake was soft and not filling and goes well with cherry liquer syrup and cream. My mom, the anti-fat crusader, was surprisingly not on her crusade today and gleefully dug in to this. She ordered a very refreshing drink which i forgot to take a picture of, which was mint and apple. Woke me up immediately when i took a sip.

The sense of adventure went to my dad and i was surprised he ordered a Vienna coffee. Guess he didn't know the large splot of cream that comes with it. But putting that aside, he truly enjoyed his coffee.
One thing good about Europe, it's so nice to sit in the cafes, sip coffee and eat yummy cakes like this. I guess it's all about the weather, if i were to do this here, i would probably be a mess of sweat.

Well, any of you manage to get to Cracow in Poland, do stop in this shop. They have a lot of desserts that make you go :P'''' and for those who like alcohol with their dessert, they have it hear.

Around eastern europe in 13 days ... or something like that

I am back! Can't believe 13 days passed so fast!... i dread work tomorrow and checking the emails .. hehehe. I also think i put on a few pounds ... all the food in europe has turn me to a true piggy. Though Mashi has got a real crystal piggy as a result of the trip... pictures later.

Just a round up of the countries i have been to, it's like what chinese say "chow lan"... once i hit vienna, it was bus rides and bus rides all the way. Most of europe is pretty easy to travel by bus. The rest stops are surprisingly clean ( unlike the China ones).

We started with 63 persons in the group, so it was split to group A and group B. Most of the time we also had to spend time in different hotels as no hotels could accomodate so many of us.

Here is a rough idea where i went:
Day 1 KL -Dubai ( i hate transiting here. There is no place to sit and the airport is overcrowded)
Day 2 Dubai -Vienna
Day 3 Vienna -Graz (Still in Austria- chocolates very cheap here )
Day 4 Slovenia - Italy(Trieste- facing the Andriatic Sea) - Slovenia( Bled)
Day 5 Slovenia-Salzburg
Day 6 Salzburg - Prague
Day 7 Prague
Day 8 Prague - Cracow (Poland)
Day 9 Cracow
Day 10 Cracow- Budapest ( Hungary )
Day 11 Budapest - Vienna
Day 12 Vienna -Dubai
Day 13 Dubai -KL

I think the first 2 days are called cheat days, we spent more time in the plane than anything else. :P

There are many things i discovered on the trip.

1) Toilets in europe are not as bad as those in China.
2) I still don't like bus rides.
3) Chocolates are better from Europe (^_^)V
4) Eastern Europeans such as those from Slovenia should learn to be less culturally sensitive or at least learn better english. No one likes to be called "un-human". They had hard-boiled eggs for breakkie and the western way to eat this is to put it in little cups and crack the shell on the cups. The malaysian way is to crack the eggs using whatever hard surface and peel of the skin. The lady manning the buffet in that hotel in Bled ( beautiful place though ) told the people in my tour group, that is an un-human way of eating. That hotel is getting Duck Eggs from me in terms of service.
5) GTT ( this is not a ad for them ) certainly takes us to better food places compared to the Chinese tour agent i follow for my Chinese troupe. Good thing is, most people speak English on my tour... *Yeah!*
6) People don't smile alot in europe... Aussies are more smiley :P
7) Dogs are even cuter there. So many small breeds there!
8) I don't suffer Jet lag surprisingly. Everyone else was pooped from the long haul and their tummy's were adjusting to the time difference... but i was ok... ... this is weird.
9) My relatives are weird. Every year i travel with them, and i come back saying they are weird. However, each year i still travel with them. i must be the weird one then.

Anyway, i will be posting pictures later. I should show you the desserts i managed to eat there. Awesome! :) That will explain the piggy-ness of me.

Do-Re-Mi-Fah-So & letting go...

The past few days are like a mad rush in getting last minute preps for my trip and helping ff scan pics for her wedding. Contrary to what my daisy path says- ( that's when i found out my dad booked our trip for 24th instead of 27th), i am actually flying off to Vienna tomorrow night. Somehow i should be excited but i am actually a bit.. stressed right now. The trip was supposed to help me destress and not increase the stress.

Stressed because..... i feel guilty leaving work ...........argh............. workaholic again
Stressed because..........is my 3 fellas at work going to manage well? Can they cope?
Stressed because...... urgh........ my mailbox is sure to bomb when i come back
Stressed because... do i have enough clothes packed? Did i leave anything out?? I feel as if i am like going with an entourage! 7 pairs of pains, 3 bags! ( 1 hand carry, 1 luggage, 1 camera bag )... am i trying to beat paris??

Funnily enough all my stress is related to work.. what the? i need to let go. the office won't die without me. they just take longer to finish that's all. Frankly, i am looking forward to being away from the office. No foul ups, no laziness, don't need to put up with people who like to "taichi" their jobs away.. i don't need to think of solutions for others.

For once, there will be no 24 hour on call thingy, no need to look at lap top screen, no need to read thick documents and most of all... no big bosses bugging me. Especially when they pop up at your cubicle with the sentence "So, neko, how's things with.... ?" For 2 weeks, at least :)

I still need a life anyway.... Ok people out there, you take care :) see you in two weeks. Hope neko relaxes on her hols. And lots and lots of food shots i hope. i hear there are 56 people on the trip. Malaysia invades Austria i tell ya...