Cologne, Germany

Cologne, Dusseldorf and Aachen; two major cities and a town on the west side of Germany close to its border with Belgium. This was where we spent our recent 5 day trip and boy was it cold!


The main interest of the trip were the Christmas markets in Cologne, which is one of the most famous places for Christmas markets in Europe. Irene was so keen for this trip that she booked it almost 6 months in advance and have been looking forward to it ever since.


We initially wanted to have a seven day trip but my boss wasn't too keen for me to be away around this time of the year and so we cut it down to five days. This turned out to be for the better as Cologne and the Christmas markets turned out to be smaller than we anticipated and we ended up having enough time to make some side trips Aachen and Dusseldorf.


Given the time of the year, everywhere we went had a Christmas theme and multiple Christmas markets. As a result, we ended up visiting over 10 Christmas markets on this trip. Although you can find some unique stores at each market, most of the stores are more or less the same so the main appeal, at least for me, were the food.

It was not that the food was different at each market, though there were some unique food stores at some markets, but that the food were so good that you can never get enough of it, no matter which market you were at. As a result, we ended up eating numerous potato scallop type things, sausages, nuts, and other unhealthy stuff. We also drank a lot of mulled wine and punch.


Apart from the street food at the Christmas markets, we also wanted to try the genuine German beer haus food – the type like Lowenbrau in Sydney but without the stuff that allows Lowenbrau to inflate their prices. This proved to be a harder feat than first thought.

At first, we tried to make a booking at the beer haus recommended on the free tourist map that we got but unfortunately they were all booked out. Then back at the hotel, we found on the internet that those recommended beer haus are actually tourist traps and so were glad that we didn't end up booking. Instead, we found a few other recommended beer haus, some of which weren't too far from where we were staying. So on one of the mornings, we rocked up to try and make a booking. However, the language barrier made it slightly difficult and in the end, we were told to come back that night and "maybe" there will be a table.

Expecting the worst, we rocked up and waited at the door to be served. The waiter said to wait a moment and shortly afterwards, took us to a table that had a reserved sign. The fact that he didn't ask us for the number of guests and that they provided us with English menus (nothing to do with the beer haus – website, waiters, etc – had any English and so I was surprised to have been given an English menu) suggested that the waiter actually remembered us from the morning and reserved a table for us.

Having an English menu made life a lot easier and Irene ended up ordering a Pork Knuckle while I ordered a Pork Schnitzel. We ended up sharing the meal as usual, which was a good thing because the knuckle was HUGE! As we ordered our food relatively early (other guests tend to drink a while before ordering) the other guests were surprised to see the huge knuckle when it was placed in front of Irene. Whether it was the huge knuckle or the fact that it was for Irene, we don't know.


That dining experience was well worth the effort. I always enjoy immersing myself in different cultural experiences and definitely got a good dose of that at the beer haus. During the night, we saw groups of local German drink, eat, sing and socialise; and the price of the food and beer , and the lack of English with the waiters, made the experience all the more authentic.

This was the longest Europe trip since we've come to the UK and is the one that we've come back with the most "battle scars" (the type that you exchange with money). For me, the two main treasures that I brought back was a really nice looking wooden fountain pen, and a nice watch winder, which I've been in search of for a long wihle!


It was definitely a great trip – full of memories, experiences and goodies!

Disneyland, Paris

Some might say I'm a little too old for Disneyland but hey, if you ask me, I'd rather live a little younger than a little older! This is the mindset that I'm finding more and more appealing. I mean, why waste your life working and doing other grown up things? Life is too short to be stuck in an office, or spent drinking hazardous chemicals. Instead, we should embrace life and live to our heart's content.

Disneyland was a great getaway. Unlike other trips, where the main activities involved staring at famous sites, Disneyland allowed us to live our childhood again and do all the things we loved doing, such as shooting targets with laser guns on the Buzz Lightyear ride, or sitting in a roller coaster in the form of a train going through man made mountains that were supposed to be mine shafts.


And how could this be complete without staying in a themed resort hotel, in our case, the theme was a cowboy them.

After the two days of re-visiting my childhood, I must say, I enjoyed every bit of it! Actually, maybe except for the 1hr+ queues for some of the rides and the 1 hour delay with the Eurostar trip back, but hey, these are only minor gripes considering how much fun we had over the two days!

Suffolk, England

We went to Suffolk last weekend; it was a wonderful trip! The car we hired was a brand new Vauxhall Corsa - it was really fun to drive, being very solid and smooth, and having a nice set of features such as seat and steering wheel warmers.



Through our trip, we visited Colchester - oldest recorded town in England, Jimmy's Farm near Ipswich where we saw and ate rare breed pigs, Framlingham Castle, Woodbridge where we had a pub dinner, Southwold, and Ipswich. On the Saturday night, we stayed at a B&B in the middle of nowhere - Old School House B&B. Though the location was a bit remote, the place was very nice and the host very hospitable.


At Colchester, we bought some fireworks and was hoping to find a place to light them that night as part of Guy Fawke's night. Unfortunately, the area was too remote and dark for us to find any place suitable so we ended up lighting the fireworks after we got back to familiar territory in London.




Personally, I find these road trips to be more fun and exciting. This was definitely a great trip, one that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Windsor, England, UK

Had a nice day out at Windsor with my lovely wife today. Last time we went, we only stayed for a few hours as we were on a whirlwind tour of south west England; that didn't do Windsor Castle justice so we had long planned to visit again. Plus, our tickets to Windsor Castle allows re-admission for up to a year so why waste it!


The train tickets to Windsor from London were very cheap but we had to travel on the less popular trains that stopped all stops between London Waterloo and Windsor & Eton Riverside. However, at 20 quid for the both of us return, we didn't mind the extend 1.5hr journey time.


One disappointing thing about the Windsor Castle re-admission was that they didn't consider us as having pre-paid tickets and so we had to queue with all the other ticket purchasers. Luckily, the queue this time wasn't as crazy as on our first visit and so we got through relatively quickly.



After getting through the entrance, we pretty much went on the same route as we did last time. As it turned out, the only bit we missed from our last visit was the State Apartments. The State Apartments actually turned out to be quite good and I'm glad that we came back! All the weaponries turned wall decoration looked quite impressive while seeing the King and Queen's bedrooms, study, etc was also quite interesting(for some reason, I found this more interesting than the equivalent in France at Versailles - maybe Versailles was too packed with people?). Another thing that I found interesting in the State Apartments was seeing the rooms where the Queen hold functions, such as where she Knights people and where they dine afterwards.



Following Windsor Castle, we went in search of lunch. Irene wanted to have Sunday Roast (beef) for lunch and so we went in search of a nice pub that offered Sunday Roast at a reasonable price. In the end, we settled for Duchess of Cambridge, where Irene had a roast pork (yes, she changed her mind again) while I had a gammon steak with fried eggs and a glass of French Pinot Noir. The food was quite nice, the wine average, and service poor.




After lunch, we headed to Eton College. On the way, we went past some nice old English streets and came across a small shop where I bought a BB gun!


A tour of Eton cost money and so we ended up having a self guided tour around the exterior of that well known college. In the end, we found ourselves at a park where we strolled around for a while before heading back to town to do some window shopping. Then shortly afterwards, we headed to the train station for a trip back home.


With that, our nice, sunny and (relatively) warm Sunday at Windsor came to an end.

Portobello Markets, Notting Hill, London

After toying with the idea last night of visiting Suffolk, we decided that there's just too much to do in Suffolk for a day trip and that it should be left for a more deserving two days over a full weekend. Hence, we decided to go to Portobello Markets at Notting Hill.

Portobello Markets is a popular destination for both tourists and locals alike. When we went earlier in the year on a Sunday, the main street was still quite busy, despite it raining. Today, on a Saturday, the streets were crazy! People literally covered the street and throw in all the street stalls that open on Saturdays, there wasn't much room to move.

However, the popularity of Portobello Markets is not without reason. There's a lot of interesting things being sold, both in shops and on the streets, and a variety of yummy food on offer. Irene and I were lucky to have settled on a stall selling German sausages in a roll. It was quite cheap at 3 quid a roll, and it tasted delicious! We liked it so much (both the taste and the value) that we bought another one on the way back to share.


Apart from the German sausages in a roll, we also shared a frozen yoghurt topped with choc brownies. That too was delicious!


One thing I really like about London is all the interesting food that you can find at every new place you visit!