All posts by wena

One fine day in 2003, I decided to start a food blog to tease my sister and my mother who were both living in the USA. Somehow, along the way, I ended up feeding a lot of people just via the food pictures that I put up everyday. In 2005, I decided to take a break from blogging and just take it easy. So there were sporadic posts from my travels in the US as well as Germany and England. Now in 2009, I'm trying to pick it up again and start chronicaling my journey towards a better lifestyle that is more healthy than what it currently is right now.
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: : Arriving in Erfurt, Germany : :

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Having slept most of Saturday and Sunday away, here are some of the details of the journey to Erfurt, Germany.

From Frankfurt Airport, we caught the high-speed InterCity Express (ICE) train from Frankfurt Airport to Frankfurt Mains where we changed trains to Erfurt. The journey took a little over 2 hours to reach there although the speed of the train was very fast. Speeds were either over 200 km/hr or 168 km/hr, depending on which part of the land we were. Not sure why the train speed was different although probably the railroad tracks had something to do with it.

We stayed relatively close to the train station at the Mercure Hotel Erfurt Altstadt. It’s tuck away in a little corner right in center of where the trams meet. Erfurt is a very beautiful and picturesque city where many of the old buildings are still standing up to today. It’s also the state capital city of the Thuringia state. Here are some pictures of the city :

This is a picture of a building built on top of a few bridges. There’s a little brook running underneath the building which is split into 3 small channels whilst flowing underneath the bridge.

Another side view of a nearby building near this bridge.

This is how the bridge looks like from the top. It’s full of quaint little shops selling handicrafts and also very very old books.

A lot of the older part of the city looks like this although some of the facades are different from the others. The city council subsidies some of the maintenance cost of maintaining the facade of the building.

For lunch, we had something to eat at a quaint little Italian restaurant nearby. The square that you see is known as the Firschmarkt a.k.a. the Fish Market. They no longer sell fish there anymore but the name stayed.

Me, being me, was feeling very cold so decided to have some of the traditional German mulled wine known as Glünwein. The one at this restaurant wasn’t that great but it was hot enough to keep me very warm.

A bowl of minestrone soup for me. Yes, I was feeling very cold throughout the trip.

Seafood spaghetti is what my boss ordered. It came with some mussels (which I had later on for 3 days in a row in Rotterdam but that’s another tale).

My colleague had a risotto instead as he wanted something with rice.

I went for the Gnocchi without knowing what it was. But suffice to say that it was very nice and everything ended up in my stomach. One of the major problems about food blogging from another country is knowing the names of the food that you’re eating.

As I post new pictures up, I’ll also be updating my Google Maps link on all the places I’ve been during this trip. Here is the link to Google Maps.

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: : Canon Powershot TX1 : :

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Elo elo! It’s been awhile since I last posted here so thought I’d give a few updates to friends and family. I just got back from a trip to Germany and Netherlands (Holland) for both business and pleasure.

Well, along the way there, it was a quick trip down to Kuala Lumpur to LowYat Plaza to get a new digital camera. Yes, I’ve had many different models over the years and my last one was a huge EOS 30D. But I felt it was time to really go back to having a slim camera and my itty bitty Sony Ericsson W800i doesn’t count.

And so, I walk away from Fotokem about RM1,699 (USD485) poorer but it came bundled with a great package of a free Canon Selphy Printer CP750, a whopping 4GB SDHC Card and a free case. Of course, including a protective screen layer for the LCD monitor.

This is definitely a good buy and I was so shock at the video quality. Ok, granted that the picture got noisy when I moved the camera alot but other than that, can’t complain. The original videos came out very crisp and very clear. The noise probably came from the sensor having to refocus all the time and processing a lot of image data as well from all the moving about. My 2 big gripes are on the Red-Eye Reduction feature which doesn’t work during picture taking and also the fact that the On-Off button doesn’t work that well i.e. having to press it a bit longer than usual just to get it to work.

On a side note, I enjoy going to the Fotokem Outlet at LowYat because there always have very good bundles for the camera and the staff are very knowledgeable about the cameras and stuff. Ok, so the Selphy 750 was dusty which actually brought to my mind on how on earth can a brand new printer, still in it’s original plastic packaging, come out very dusty. Thought that Canon’s quality control would be better than expected but strangely no. So, ho hum.

Anyway, pictures of the trip to Germany and Holland coming soon with text.

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: : Having Fun with Google Maps + Google Earth : :

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Well, today is my last day in Michigan and probably one of the last few chances I’ll get to use free WiFi. A lot of the international airports don’t offer free WiFi so oh well.

Anyway, I made a Google Map of all the places I’ve been to during this trip. It’s been a whirlwind journey so far but seriously fun. Check it out here :

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105120891051527761188.00000112dd6b29365302d&om=1&ll=27.994401,-154.335937&spn=119.257223,326.953125&z=2

restaurant, USA

: : Alarming Crustacean @ Red Lobster : :

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Oh yeah, when I mean that it was eating at Alarming Crustacean, I wasn’t kidding. Eating lobster was an experience at the Red Lobster Restaurant at Lubbock. My boss’ wife wanted to have some of their lobsters and their huge snowshoe crab. And seriously, we polish them off as well as 2 bottles of wine between 4 people.

So, here’s the video for you all to enjoy. Again, the auto-focus is being a pain but just reinforces the fact that I need to get myself a flashlight or videolight for the handycam.

You know, it’s easier than I expected it to be and making videos has been a fun process so far. It’s not as boring as I thought it would be although it also still needs time to prepare it. But I need to find a source for music tracks that are royalty free or CC free.

Link to Red Lobster site. Funny thing about this website is that there Store Locator is not working at all or I’m not putting in the right searches. Then again, if you put in the search for Texas, nothing shows up anyway. Going to drop them a mail after this.

restaurant, USA

: : Biiiiigggg steaks @ Cagle Steaks : :

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Yep, big steaks alright. I’m getting used to using Windows Movie Maker now but have to look for some better music pieces to attach on to give better video viewing experience.

Here’s the link over at Youtube.com. I sure am going to miss this fast internet connection.

And it’s still a pain that YouTube videos can’t be embedded into Blogger posts yet. Oh well.

Postnote : Google Map directions to get there.