Other than the 9374398 mishaps, the trip was a fun and memorable one. Ha, memorable. I don't know if it's in a good or bad way. But well at least when people asked about our trip, they are mostly entertained because our suayness knows no bounds.

Pictures!

Touched down!

Han River.

Kimchi making class.

Us in traditional costumes.

At Dongdaemun.

Ginseng chicken for lunch. With abalone heeeeeeee.

Waiting for flight to Jeju.

First meal in Jeju. Sashimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. And live abalone wtf. we threw them into the hotpot briefly before eating. As much as we love sashimi, live abalone is a lil too much. Of course we have to have soju to go along :)

At a Tangerine Farm.

Seongsan Sunrise Peak.

At the peak!! Nothing but a barren land FOL.

At Lotte World!

Visited some ancient palace. We chanced upon a guards changing (i think) ceremony.

I... forgot where was this taken hahaha.

Saint Michel.

The crowd that turned up for the tour despite the rain and chilly wind.

Notre Dame de Paris

The Louvre

Boulevard du Palais. Bullet holes on the wall of the building, left behind during the World War.

Palais de Justice

Pont des Arts

Jardin des Tuileries

Then we spotted the Napoleon statue along Boulevard des Capucines which also at this point the tour guide was talking about Napoleon and Pris and I just stared at each other. Because the only Napoleon we knew was a flavour to describe ice cream *bimbo*.

And miscellaneous pictures taken where I don't know where am I lol.

We then had lunch at an authentic french cafe, recommended by our guide after the tour ended (btw our guide was originally from Amsterdam by the name of Onno. What coincidence! Just the day before we were having drinks with Onno in Amsterdam, just that the Onno who was drinking with us was our Financial Controller -.-).

Brought them to the Christmas Carnival near Place de la Concorde. Since it was still early, it was mother crowded!

Walked to Champs Elysees.

And ended the night at Arc de Triomphe.

Us at Arc De Triomphe.






Then we got lost cos we couldn't find any metro stations, we approached a security who was on duty to ask for directions to the nearest metro in order to get to our hotel at Gare du Nord (Gare du Nord is a major train / metro interchange). The security then roped in his buddy who was patrolling nearby. Because none of them knew English and we really couldn't understand them after they pointed North South East West, they decided to just bring us to our destination. At least we knew the hand sign which told us to "Follow them". So friendly one!!!

So we were escorted by policemen and got a free metro ride because they just opened the gantry to let us in. Aiyo we were so grateful!!

Pris and I then parted ways with Carlo, Kirk and Arlene cos we had to catch the train back to Amsterdam. Bought some croissants for dinner onboard the train. Croissants there super cheap and yummy! Any random bakery also sells super yummy croissants. SG, you rip-off!!!

When we reached Ams it was late at night. We were supposed to alight at Schipol Airport station but we illegally stayed on the train and alighted at Central station, which was nearer to our hotel lol. The whole time we were keeping our fingers crossed we don't get caught. FOL asians~~

Checked in our hotel for the night and konked out. T'was the bestest hotel for the whole trip. Why only one night!!??!? :(

Rise and shine the next morning.

Had brunch at our usual PC Caffe in PC Hoofstraat.

The hazelnut latte that instigated my love for hazelnut. Still the best by far.

Last minute shopping in PC Hoofstraat before I head back to nua the noon away and Pris went to have a quick catch up with Alexa. They later dropped by our hotel and we chatted a lil.

Service standard in Bvlgari. We were served champagne and xmas cookies. Even before we decided to buy anything. We were merely browsing through their belts!

And that concludes my Europe trip in Dec 2012. Looking forward to BAM in 2013 cos this time, Lao Niang gona tour Italy and London. Yea baybeh!

Next up: Korea in Feb 2013!

Usually it is considered a low-peak season in December but thanks to us, Amsterdam was fully packed lol. think of 4000 employees suddenly arriving in the HQ. It was really an eye opener. Everything was planned so professionally we felt like celebrities the moment we touched down and walked out of the Arrival Hall. We had photographers, videographers, interviewers and hostess all clad in Booking colour theme. Woah.

Because we arrived one day before the actual event, we had a day to ourselves! Yay! Reached our hotel (Citizen M. can't get over how cozy and pretty it was) and washed up. Thank god we all had a room to ourselves. Total freedom. But my bed companioin was a little freaky though (t'was provided by the hotel)..

T'was around 1 or 2 degrees when we reacehd I think. No snow, only left over ice on the pavements FOL.

Heading out for lunch!

Off for some shopping after dropping by office to say hi to some colleagues.

Abercrombie guys earning their hard earned moolahs. They were screaming at the top of their lungs (date, time and venue of an event i think. they were screaming in Dutch) and later slowly stripping, IN THE COLD. I salute. Okay I stayed to oggle at their bodies. Teehee!

Dinner later at Burger Bar. Omg i super love. It's a burger place where you build your own burger. The portion was mother huge we shared it among 3 but still cant finish. The locals had one to themselves!

Our burger of cheese, egg, shrooms, cheese, egg, shrooms, cheese and egg. The beef can make do without. Yea I'm bias like that.

Our burger costs us 20+ euros.

And I super love how the fries are always the mains, given the portion and attention.

Back to hotel to rest and get ready for the meeting the next morning.


2 days of meetings held at the RAI (aka their "Expo", except it is 4 times bigger than the one in SG). Yea, we booked the whole bloody RAI just for us.

With Sammy! This pic was taken when Hugo was still comfortably swimming in her tummy, now he's grown to a huge puffball lol. How time flies!

At the general session where all the staff attending the meeting gathered and listened to the top management. Like concert wtf.

That's our CEO Darren Houston with his speech. And 5000 staff sitting in a circle. There were even cows in some of the aisles which idk why. Huge cows btw. At the end of the general session there were confetti and huge balls bouncing all around. Really like concert.

After 2.5 days of meeting, it's the party! Unlike other companies, we don't have DnD. we only have a Xmas Party, aka BAM.

My party get up. The theme was Winter Wonderland FOL.

Because my team super united we decided to go as 3 snowman.
Don't siao siao, alot of people say we v cute lololololol.

True story.

We left the party (pissed drunk lol) at 2.30am cos we had a train to catch in the morn. Ended up I didn't get to sleep cos by the time I washed up and packed my luggage, it was 45mins to catch the shuttle to the airport.

On board the Thalys train to Paris! Slept for the 3hours ride.

And then I forgot most of what happened in Paris lol. I just remembered we walked, ALOT, in the rain and strong chilly wind FOL. I actually lost some weight there hahahaha.

Our room for the night.

At Lafayette

Dior Black themed Christmas display at Printemps.

Christmas Ferris Wheel at Place de la Concorde.

Took a stroll down the Christmas Carnival street.

Ice skating rink from the frozen snow. How romantic!

A mother high and long slide for the kids.

Haunted house also so joyous.

While walking (and finding) our place for dinner...

Dined at the famous Kong Restaurant. It's famous because Sex and the City was filmed there. Also because it oversees La Seine.

It would be perfect if not for the sucky service and food that sucks balls. They messed up our orders, placed the food on our table and insisted that we pay for things we didn't order wtf. Our appetizer with funny tasting salmon.

Our main: Teriyaki Cod Fish. I stopped at the 5th mouth.

Bloody dinner cost us 60euros EACH. Bloody suckers. Ended the night early cos both of us got quite affected. Sigh!

So this time round I flew with Irene for business. Nigel tagged along and we extended a few more days for leisure.

My staple flight buddy.

We touched down pretty early. Found our way to our hotel (we got lost for a bit even though our hotel was in Ximending! Didn't help that they were travelling with a direction idiot - me. haha!). My crib for the rest of the week.

It was wayyyyyy before our check-in time but the boss was soooo nice he let us use 1 of the rooms to wash up because we told him we had a meeting to attend in an hour's time. We must have looked quite terrible.

Washed up, made up, and ready to head for breakfast before our meeting.

Believe it or not, we had a hard time looking for breakfast. We could find nothing in Ximending!! End up in a random cafe and had our much needed coffee.

The meeting overrun as expected. Luckily our lawyers brought us to this super fly-me-to-heaven sushi place for lunch. It was soooooo good we decided to go back again the next day, this time bringing Nigel along.

So we spent our first night shopping in Wu Fen Pu, with our lappies, documents all. My shoulders nearly broke. But we were all happy with our loots :)

Everything after the 1st night was a blur, hahaha. Let's see if the picas can rake up some of my memories.

This was during one of the mornings when we, again, had a hard time finding breakfast. By the time we found some food, it was brunch. So we had some hotplate stuff. Apparently quite famous?

Watched the changing of guards which was somewhere near Shihlin.

We also went to some tea mountain. We took the Mau Kong Gondola, in short the cable car, up to the tea mountain. very relaxing (and cold. and wet) day.

Taipei 101. Had afternoon tea at Agnes B cafe.

Dinner at the Toilet Restaurant in Ximending.

Breakfast on the last morning. A retro coffee place near our hotel. Supposedly famous. But tasted so-so to us.

This was right after our failed attempt in bringing Nigel to the super good Jap resto a few days back. It was closed FOL.

But we managed to have our last meal just before we flew off! It just shows how good it was lar. We lugged our luggages right to the resto ahahahha. The boss was so thankful for our support. We even ate till we nearly missed our flights. Die die must eat. Here are some pictures, also the highlight of our trip.

The resto didn't have a menu. You eat whatever the chef prepares for you. Very good for fickle-minded people. Also, no more hassle on deciding what to have!

Yea, orgasmic-good. Any better you'd see a ring of halo on my head.

And some random shots throughout the trip

Summer, Autumn, Winter.

Sudden craves for cranberries. Anything cranberry, i love. The cravings haven't die down since.

Yea our main mode of transport. Ang mohs really love to experience local lives.