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  • Vienna: Quiet Day United Nations Office

    Vienna: Quiet Day United Nations Office

    Eastern Europe Trip // Vienna: Quiet Day United Nations Office – Too bored on a Christmas Day and there’s nothing much for us to do on this holy day in Vienna and we visited the United Nations Office at Vienna. Unfortunately, there’s nothing much to see, not because it’s not open on the public holiday, but then it’s just a very serious place with few skyscrapers. Just in case you are listing down where to go in Vienna, well, the UNO or Vienna International Centre is not a place of attraction. Cheers!

  • Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace

    Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace

    Eastern Europe Trip // Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace – The Schloss Schonbrunn is a royal residence in Vienna. It had served as one of the major tourist attractions and cultural monuments in Vienna. On Christmas Day, we were surprised that the palace was open for visit and packed with tourist too! The name Schonbrunn means “beautiful well”, derives from an artesian well (groundwater flow upward through a well without the need for pumping) which the royal court draws it water from.

    As we were travelling on a budget, we did not buy the tour pass to the palace which starts from

    • 14.90Euro/person which gives you access of:
    • Grand Tour with audiogude
    • Privy Garden
    • Maze & Labyrinth
    • Gloriette with viewing terrace.

    Instead, we just spent time hanging out at the back garden of the palace which is really very cool! Some people might not aware that the garden is accessible for free, just get to the side of the palace and there’s a small entrance that gives you access to it. We did not walked further down into the garden as it’s really a very big garden and I believe some part might need to pay for the entrance.

    Lovely Christmas morning spent here with a really good weather.

  • Vienna: Morning Market & Austrian Meal For Breakfast At Reumannplatz

    Vienna: Morning Market & Austrian Meal For Breakfast At Reumannplatz

    Vienna: Morning Market & Austrian Meal For Breakfast At Reumannplatz – I stayed at Vienna City Hostel during my trip to Vienna. It’s somewhere around Keplerplatz and Reumannplatz metro station. One fine morning, we went to walk around the area to look for food and accidentally found a market selling food, vegetable, meat and more. It’s kinda nice to feel the local life, guess that’s what travel is really about. Stumbled upon a Viennese restaurant, no idea what’s the food is about and we just had our breakfast there with the food recommended by the staff. A great day to start our Christmas Day in Vienna! Surprisingly, there’s still shops open on a Christmas morning.

  • Vienna: Inside The Grand Vienna Opera House And Tips On Getting Cheap Ticket

    Vienna: Inside The Grand Vienna Opera House And Tips On Getting Cheap Ticket

    Eastern Europe Trip // Vienna: Inside The Grand Vienna Opera House And Tips On Getting Cheap Ticket – Being a tourist in this beautiful artistic city, it is a must to experience the opera and classical music concert here in Vienna. We’ve got conned in buying expensive ticket for lousy bad review classical music concert and we managed to refund part of the money. Remember, do not buy from the people wearing traditional costume who are constantly roaming the street in Inner Staadt and selling you concert and opera ticket.

    It’s not about being cheapskate, but it’s more about the way of spending something less for a greater return, after all, we are just budget travellers on a shoestring budget, yet wanting to experience the most of the local culture in Vienna. I do not know about classical music, but the tips on getting a cheap ticket for an opera show in the grand Vienna Opera House (Wiener Staatsoper) is actually possible. Well, it’s not a numbered seat, nor it’s a free seating ticket, it’s the standing ticket which requires you to queue up as early as 2 hours before the show. The long queue worth it as it costs only 4 Euro for the best view of the stage. Although standard seating ticket starts from 12 Euro, you can hardly get a hold on it unless you buy early.

    It was a play of Cinderella in Italian language! Luckily there’s a small subtitle screen on the railing that gave me a good understanding of the story! No photo of the play, but it was great, and tiring max because we were standing for like 1.5 hours long! Overall, it was a good one, got conned into a classical concert, refunded 70% of the money and directly head over to the Opera House for standing ticket, what an Christmas Eve!

    There’s two type of Standing Ticket, 3 Euro and 4 Euro, the cheaper one is for standing at the very top of the theatre and the 4Euro’s is just at a place directly looking straight to the stage.

  • Vienna: The Famous Cafe Central Which Was Once Visited By Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler More!

    Vienna: The Famous Cafe Central Which Was Once Visited By Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler More!

    Vienna: The Famous Cafe Central – I’ve read somewhere that Vienna is famous for the cafe culture. You can find coffee houses nearly everywhere in Vienna and though Starbucks has moved in a bit, there are not on every corner as they often are in other parts of the world. Many of the cafe in Vienna have substantial food menus and bakeries or specialised desserts to showcase their uniqueness. One of the most popular cafe in Vienna is Cafe Central, which is just two blocks from St. Michael’s Square at Hofburg Palace near the Inner Staadt.

    Opened in 1876, it has quite a history back then where it had been visited by intellectuals like Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler and more! Because of this reason, we visited this cafe for an afternoon break in the city after a long tiring walk as well as to see if we could get some inspiration like how the famous did back then.

    After checking out the world most beautiful cafe and an interesting bookstore cafe in Budapest, the interior of Cafe Central did not really captured my attention. Chandeliers, arched ceilings and marble columns were failed to be on par with the one I’ve visited, yet Cafe Central still has its own personality. Somehow, service, coffee and the slice of Sacher Torte still were not up to the expectation. Is it that we had something too good back in Budapest, or is it that it was too crowded at there and the staff could not service every patron well, or is it just because we just got conned by the classical music seller by the street?

    Not saying that you should not visit this place, you should as it’s one of the famous one and perhaps you might experience a different sensation here.

    Poet, Peter Altenburg who was a regular and famous Viennese coffee house write. Still, I’ve no idea who he was.

    Sachertorte, a specific type of chocolate cake inved by Austrian Franz Sacher in 1832 for Prince Wenzel von Metternich. To be simple, it’s a chocolate sponge cake with apricot jam and dark chocolate icing. Taste surprisingly quite nice, but not as good as the chocolate cake with true Belgium chocolate filling that I’ve had at the Book Cafe in Budapest. Nevertheless, this is a good one, but this is not the original Sachertorte. You can try the original Sachertorte at Cafe Sacher in Hotel Sacher.  One funny thing is, December 5th in Austria is named the National Sachertorte Day.

  • London: A Spring Day In Hyde Park

    London: A Spring Day In Hyde Park

    London: A Spring Day In Hyde Park – 18C, flower blossoms and a sunny blue sky day, that’s the kind of day the ang mo (caucasian) wants to spend a day in the park, big park like Hyde Park in London, bathing in the sun and perhaps have a picnic. That’s an interesting culture that we Malaysia normally wouldn’t do as weather in Malaysia is always scotching high! Sweat, hot and sunburn are what always thought of when we were outdoor. There’s not really a day of coolness until night falls.

    But in London, sunny spring day with a cool breeze here in Hyde Park was quite chillaxing as I spent a bit of time resting the feet off after walking for 1.5km from Malaysian Hall before continuing to Oxford Street in the park. Though, it was under the shade rather than the sun like the rest of the ang mo do. 😛

  • Vienna: A Day In Innere Stadt, The Old Town Of Vienna

    Vienna: A Day In Innere Stadt, The Old Town Of Vienna

    Eastern Europe Trip // Vienna: A Day In Innere Stadt, The Old Town Of Vienna – After visiting to so many European cities, I realised that almost all of them have a ‘Old Town’, with the exception of London. The ‘Old Town’ is probably the main attraction as well as the historic core of the city where it is a must-visit place for all.

    This goes to Vienna where the ‘Old Town’ is called the Innere Stadt (The First District or “inner city”). It is one of Vienna’s liveliest areas and also one of the most historic with monumental Baroque structures acting as a testament to this fact. This is where you can get a firsthand look at the glory of the Habsburg Empire. Shopping, food, Parliament building, old cathedral, Opera House and more can be found in this lovely inner city. Vienna is a very beautiful city, which holds the title of ‘World Most Livable City’. It’s something different coming from Budapest, Krakow, Bratislava and Warsaw. The city showcases a blend of art, music, style and friendliness.

    3 days 2 night in Vienna and this first day, which was also the Christmas’ Eve was spent by wandering around the streets and narrow medieval alleys past the high end luxurious labels, restaurants and cafes, as well as some historical attractions nearby. Not to mention, we’ve got scammed by the concert salesman who were selling classical music concert which is very famous in Vienna! Damn, but we still at least refunded part of the money from the guy.

    NOTE: Do not buy any ticket of classical music or opera from ticket seller wearing traditional clothes! Why I say it’s a scam is because I’ve found out on the Internet that all of these performance are not from professional performers, yet they are selling at a very high price which they claim that it’s cheaper to see at the Opera House, or Music Theater.

    THE TIP: If you are on budget and want to experience the opera or classical music, there’s always standing ticket available at less than 10EUR, but you have to queue early. I’ll talk about it in another post.

    Holburg Palace.

    Some kids baking activity at Rathaus, the city hall.

    Something interesting here, sky high parking rate of a first world country.

    Read the board, definitely meaning sarcastically on Starbuck’s face. LOL.

    It’s still a busy day in the city on Christmas Eve before sunset.

    St Stephen Cathedral with a beautiful patterned roof.

    The nicest H&M outlet that I’ve ever been to!

    Domincan Church that has a beautiful oval dome! The church is also known as Church of St. Maria Rotunda with a strong Baroque influence.

    He’s really a good salesman that had conned us into buying the ticket. We found out about the con when I was Googling about the show while resting at a cafe and they all returned negative reviews for it.

    Looks just beautiful after lights up.

  • Vienna: Weurstelprater Fun Fair At Prater Park

    Vienna: Weurstelprater Fun Fair At Prater Park

    Eastern Europe Trip // Vienna: Weurstelprater Fun Fair At Prater Park – After spending a few days in Budapest, we’ve got to Vienna by bus which was our next destination after the capital of Hungary. Vienna and Budapest were closely related during the Austria-Hungary empire where Vienna was the first capital and Budapest was the second capital of the Kingdom.

    After checking into the hostel, we came to Prater park by accident as we were just heading out of the subway at an interchange station to check out what’s around. The giant ferris wheel and the sight of roller coaster just captured our attention. It’s an amusement park at a park named Prater. Unlike Genting Highland or other amusement park that I’ve visited, the Prater is more like a fun fair where you pay for each of the rides.

    To my surprise, there’s actually not many people hanging out in the park, perhaps it was a cold and wet afternoon two day before Christmas. We hang around the park to check out the rides and there were quite some interesting one, but we didn’t try it it not that we chicken out but to save money. 😛

     

    Just arrived in Vienna, taking the metro to our hostel.

     

    The 4 of us in the park with a small Christmas Market at the back.

     

    A cute piggy ATM machine.

    A casino with only slot machines.

  • Northumbria University x Wet & Crazy Foam Party

    Northumbria University x Wet & Crazy Foam Party

    Northumbria University x Wet & Crazy Foam Party – Having party in the university with DJ, alcohol and pumping music till 3am is something you can’t normally experience back in Malaysia. It’s quite common and in fact, it’s like part of the university life in the UK, drinking and party in the campus.

    Imagine, exam and submission are just over, a small hall in the Student Union building is turn to a wet dance floor, with DJ on stage, continuos foam dropping from the ceiling and spraying from all side. It’s just, wet and crazy, best of all, it’s free!

  • Budapest: Very Interesting ‘Ruin’ Bar & Club

    Budapest: Very Interesting ‘Ruin’ Bar & Club

    Eastern Europe Trip // Budapest: Very Interesting ‘Ruin’ Bar & Club – I never know about these ‘ruin bars’ to me before I came to Budapest. When I was in the hostel that I stayed (BlackSheep), there was like a board showing the attractions and where to hang out at night, there where I found a huge list of ‘ruin bars’. Sounds interesting in the name, as it like bar in a broken down setup, and turned up it actually is like that.

    ‘Ruin bars’, or ‘Ruin clubs’ are built in Budapest’s old District VII neighbourhood in the ruins of abandoned buildings, that where the name come from. Bars and clubs in run down and abandoned buildings where it’s modified, revamped, restored a little bit with some touch of artsy fartsy decoration and bar facilities and that’s the ‘ruin bars’.

    From outside, they looks like any other building around, without large signs pointing the way and you don’t hear any loud noise nor many people quieing to get in. But once you walk in and enter the inner courtyard, you find yourself in the middle of hip, artsy, funky bar that is bustling with crowds talking, music pumping from the dance room and merrily enjoying the laid-back atmosphere

    Of course, it’s for 18 and above and most of the bars are free, but clubs though charge a little fee for entrance. There’s once that I went was free – Instant, but be prepared for a long queue into it. The coolest part was there’s various room for different genre of music. The hipsy decoration, the open air bar and different type of rooms and setup just gave a variety of sensation to be experienced. You would not know how cool it is from the outside, but once you are inside, you would be like, ‘WOW’.

    Shots of Pálinka, the Hungarian brandy that has a fruity taste. It has a minimum of alcohol content of 37.5%, which sounds high but you will surely like it because of the fruity and sweet taste. It’s good.

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