1. Photobook addiction:
In the past few months, Groupon has been having those photobook/photobook mart deals, which I've gotten myself hooked on. Made me dig out all digital photos I've ever since, not knowing what to do with them, but anything between $0-$30 a fully colored 40 pages photobook for each trip seemed really cool.
http://www.photobooksingapore.com/
http://www.photobookmart.com.sg/
So I went through all photos and got into the craze, in fact euphoria of all the traveling again. Got my hands on our student exchange photos too - but got reminded of this blog, which is probably a much better idea! Like to thank Mandy for her effort with the blog 6 years ago :) I can help to complete our journey here, 6 years on! :)
2. Idea for traveling writing:
Got this for myself from Hong Kong! Had always have thoughts for traveling and writing, even full time. Never knew if I can write at all, thus trying out here as well :)
Another book that I've lend to Mandy just last week:
Will see how far these traveling stuff bring us :)
Bringing us back to 2007:
After the great city tour in Munich, we were headed for the train to Prague, Czech Republic. Most of us probably have heard how romantic and beautiful this city has been, though perhaps many have not been! It for sure lived up to its expectation of being as amazing as it's known to be, but not without it's shortcomings. There goes the start of our nightmare:
Although we did not reserve a seat (I think), the train wasn't too full, therefore it was ok to find a seat or two. The train was like that in Harry Potter, with the second class carriage having 6 seats that face each other. There were no empty carriages, therefore we went into one with a strange big guy hugging his luggages, with eyes closed. (Sleeping maybe, can't be sure).
We went in, tried to be as quiet as we could, but the train was so old and creepy compared to the ICE trains that we saw going between the EU countries i.e. the Netherlands and Germany. Bad start.
To add on, we planned to leave Munich in the early morning and reach Prague in the afternoon. The Munich city tour was unplanned, therefore pushed everything else backwards. We really managed to leave Munich only at 3pm, which means reaching Prague at 11pm. VERY BAD CHOICE. I'll explain why.
It got dark, and the whole time we were just hoping that the sign PRAHA will appear magically ahead of time. But it didn't. At 9pm, it started POURING and my heart totally dropped. Bad weather says it all about my mood, almost all the time.
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Then it reached some station which was not yet our station. Another 2 hours...
When it finally reached, it was 11pm, DARK, many homeless people (I assume) sleeping in the quiet Prague train station and money changer closed (obviously). We dragged out luggages out of the station onto the cobblestone walk way, half praying that the wheels do not fly out else we are gonna to have quite a bad life for the rest of the journey (we were poor students remember, can't afford another luggage in the middle of the trip, I guess)
Holding the map and address of the hostel we booked, we tried to navigate. However in such light there is almost no hope that you can tell anything much. A couple came our way, and we asked for directions. The middle aged couple apologize politely in English, explained that they do not know, as they are tourists too, from Mexico. However they were leaving the city and do not need their map anymore, therefore we could have it. It was definitely better than the print out google map we had at that point of time (mind you, no iphone back then, no google maps, no roaming, no money)
We walked a little more and decided to give up. Saw a taxi and explained where we wanted to go (the hostel should be near the train station actually we just could not navigate), and told the driver that we had no local currency (Czech crown). We only had Euro, and the driver quoted 10 Euros. We were sure it's daylight (actually nightlight or nolight) robbery, but had little choice. We got onto the cab and reached without 5 minutes (for 20 SGD?! --> exchange rate back then was 1 to 2)
We called the hostel in the afternoon while we were still in Munich, informing our new arrival time. The hostel guy stood at the address and waited for us, and said that the room reserved for us is taken as we were late @#$)&*$%)&
Did we not have an agreement? Anyway, he brought us to a hostel 2 streets away, stating it's of the same value. Again, we had NO CHOICE. We followed him and was "greeted" by a retired prostitute looking woman who was fat, (with makeup?), red fingernails, spoke almost no English. She demanded for one of our passport as we had no Czech crowns to pay the rent that night. Mandy gave it to her and took it back secretly afterwards, which she came banging on our door demanding for it. We gave in in exchange for a shelther over our heads that night. Mandy might have preferred to sleep on the streets actually, but I was too timid to do that. Like seriously?! In Czech Republic?! No way.
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We booked an ensuite (Since things in Czech Republic is much cheaper even poor students like us could afford), but the room had obviously no bathroom attached to it. So much as being the same value. The shower was outside, with no lock and no where to place your stuff. We were so scared, and had a silly quote to say before the other one of us can get back into our room after showering (Mandy what were we thinking?!)When we were finally bathed and ready to sleep, we placed an empty plastic bag on the doorknob of our room, such that any attempt of opening our room door would alert me the light sleeper.
OMG.
Well amazingly, after such a bloody scary experience with the whole I'm so going to die saga, we slept really soundly, but got up at 6am? When it was bright and we were all ready to go to the train station to exchange for some local currency and escape this shitty hostel (literally how we named photos related to this hostel)
Have I mentioned that the room was full of graffiti saying GET OUT OF THIS F place while you can?!
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