Posts Tagged ‘Frankfurt’
Intergalatic travelling space cowboy
Hafen_1_DRI, originally uploaded by cohens27angels.
This blog is going to take an intermission again – the cowboy is going on an intercontinental journey commencing Sunday.
Updates soon! Buon lavoro e weekend 
Road trip! Europe in February…
So it’s that time of the year again, the first of my (foreseeable) many trips to Europe in 2009.
I’m quite excited, it’s been quite some time since I flew long haul – unfortunately it will still be winter in these cities. New cities I will be visiting this time around will be Athens, Istanbul and Zagreb.
I’ll be flying the TK (Turkish Airlines) and OU (Croatia Airlines) for the first time. Wish me luck! And I’m not flying Singapore Airlines this time round due to their prohibitively expensive airfares.
Lifting off on 6 February and back about 17 days after, here’s what’s in store…
TG418 KUL (Kuala Lumpur)/BKK (Bangkok) 2100/2205
TG920 BKK (Bangkok)/FRA (Frankfurt) 2340/0530+1
LH3380 FRA (Frankfurt)/ATH (Athens) 0920/1305
TK1846 ATH (Athens)/IST (Istanbul) 1055/1210
TK1449 IST (Istanbul)/ZAG (Zagreb) 1400/1505
OU410 ZAG (Zagreb)/FRA (Frankfurt) 0655/0830
LH3244 FRA (Frankfurt)/RIX (Riga) 1100/1410
LH3245 RIX (Riga)/FRA (Frankfurt) 1440/1555
TG923 FRA (Frankfurt)/BKK (Bangkok) 2055/1305+1
TG417 BKK (Bangkok)/KUL (Kuala Lumpur) 1640/1950
European Flavour…
Greetings all from the Northern Hemisphere of Europe…
I am currently at Gate B62 in Frankfurt International Airport waiting to board my flight LH 3446 to Budapest, Hungary.
My 10 days in Germany has been filled with ups and downs, but this time around more ups than downs.
I will arrive at Budapest at approximately 1800hrs and probably reach the hotel around 2000hrs.
Hopefully the hotel (Le Meridien Budapest) is a sanctuary from the torture I had to endure for the past four days in a miserable small hotel in the middle of nowhere in Frankfurt. I sense that it’s gonna be all nice and dandy till I reach Kiev (that’s another week and the half to go) and my next two destinations will be interesting.
It is my first time to Budapest and I am certainly looking forward to the sights, sounds and scenes of the city. It is too bad that my camera is out of order but no worries, I still have my PDA with me. Do bear with the “not-so-good” picture quality.
Germany was nice, it was snowing on the first two days of my arrival in Berlin. Nevertheless, I spent much time indoors due to the ITB tradeshow and had very fruitful business meetings there. I then headed to Munich and had more fruitful meetings.
For the first time, I visited a client’s office in the region of Konigstein in Frankfurt and it was indeed the most beautiful office that I’ve ever laid eyes on. Imagine a scenic countryside with fields and forest. Now imagine a 2-storey building with glass wall all around at the side of the hill overlooking the entire Frankfurt City.
The journey there was an adventure by itself. It was a 35-minute ride on the suburban S4 train (S-Bahn) to the last stop (Kronberg). From the station, I took a 15-minute cab ride to the office.
Needless to say, the scenery was breathtaking and I learnt that the area (Konigstein) is where all the rich bankers from Frankfurt spend their weekends in their huge villas / chateau’s.
I was rather overwhelmed by the hospitality accorded to me by my prospective client and it turned out to be all good as we sealed the contract for 2009.
This trip is truly fulfilling and I hope it continues to be the same.
I hope that all is going well with you at home and trust that the new opposition coalition governments are slowly making the much-needed changes in the state and federal administration. This is indeed a wake-up call for the ruling coalition who have been resting on their big asses and thinking that they are taking us for a ride.
Bravo once again to the people who have made their voices heard – change is indeed in the pipeline.
More updates from Budapest. Cheerios and love to all.
Europe for a month.. (updated)
3 March 2008
Singapore Airlines SQ119 Kuala Lumpur-Singapore (184 miles)
Singapore Airlines SQ026 Singapore-Frankfurt (7984 miles)
4 March 2008
Lufthansa LH176 Frankfurt-Berlin (338 miles)
Apartments am Brandenburger Tor
8 March 2008
Lufthansa LH221 Berlin-Munich (386 miles)
Sheraton Munich Arabellapark Hotel
12 March 2008
Lufthansa LH977 Munich-Frankfurt (194 miles)
GHOTEL hotel & living Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen
15 March 2008
Lufthansa LH3446 Frankfurt-Budapest (648 miles)
Le Méridien Budapest
19 March 2008
LOT Polish Airlines LO534 Budapest-Warsaw (420 miles)
The Westin Warsaw
25 March 2008
LOT Polish Airlines LO751 Warsaw-Kiev (560 miles)
President Hotel Kiev
28 March 2008
Lufthansa LH3237 Kiev-Frankfurt
Singapore Airlines SQ325 Frankfurt-Singapore (7984 miles)
29 March 2008
Singapore Airlines SQ118 Singapore-Kuala Lumpur (184 miles)
Anyone flying the same flight / staying at the same places as I am in these periods? Let me know!
38 hours of flying, 18,882 miles on 11 flights in 27 days across 6 cities… *makes mental note to stock up on Valium*
The Sixth Sense
Reflections
I have a flight to catch back to Kuala Lumpur in a couple of hours…
I must say that this has truly been an enjoyable trip. I had good company in Frankfurt which I will relish for some time.
Riga was an experience, both bad and good. Weather wasn’t too bad as well.
Krakow is a truly beautiful city. I will come back here for holiday as it is quite affordable (1 polish zloty is 1.3 malaysian ringgit).
I took a quick trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mine here this morning. Krakow’s Wieliczka salt mine is situated some ten kilometers from the center of Krakow. One of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Poland, it has become increasingly a tourist attraction in the first place. Today visitors walk underground for about 2,000 metres in the oldest part of the salt mine and see its subterranean museum, which takes three hours or so.
Beautiful salt sculptures
My PDA camera decided to go wonky on me so here are some pictures I took off the internet, obviously credits go out to the individual photographers.
Salt has been mined near Krakow for centuries. The mines were closed in the early 1990s because of flooding (that made everything ham sap – okay, I know, lame attempt at a joke here), but large sections are open for visitors. Miners carved out statues and entire rooms from the rock salt.
The salty last supper
There’s even an entire cathedral carved out of salt within the mines. The floors are carved and polished, the chandeliers are made of rock salt crystals, and the stations of the cross are carved out of salt too!
My little souvenir from the salt mine
On a separate note, I was having a late night / early morning conversation with Simmy. She’s truly something I must say. To get married so early in life.
She brought up one good question on blogs. I told her I do practise some amount of self-censorship when it comes to my blog.
I don’t really blog about my personal life (besides the occasional emotional episodes). I am one, who believes that a clear line should be drawn when divulging potentially confidential aspects of my life. In Chinese, we say 1 is 1 and 2 is 2.
Heck, if I wanted to do the whole “how-I-truly-feel and who-did-what” thing, I would start an anonymous blog.
But for now, I’m happy with what I’ve done so far with this one and don’t see any reason to fix anything that’s not broken.
So, here’s to the upcoming loads of booze, annoyance, 15.5 hours of flying and 6.75 hours of transiting. See you all back in Kuala Lumpur.
“Plis retun you sit uplight and faster you sit bilt, sawadee ka”
Cheers!
Fancy a cup of bubbly?
On board flight LH 3944 Frankfurt – Riga hehe!
Goodbye Germany, Hello Latvia!
Ich bin babitarian
On the strassebahn (tram)Guten tag! Sorry for leaving you guys out in the cold for a while. I’ve been caught up with work (unfortunately) and well my camera’s dead so there wasn’t much motivation to blog. Anyone want to get me the Sony DSC-T100 cybershot cam? Thanks in advance.
I believe that I’m picking up the language quite well. I understand signages (ausgang, eingang, sud, nord) and stuff now. Here are some random shots…
A disastrous result of German humour… =_=”
What were they thinking…
The IMEX 2007 trade show was concluded yesterday (the reason I’m in Frankfurt in the first place). Suffice to say it was a productive show and I shan’t bore you with details…
The Malaysian delegation to IMEX 2007, Frankfurt. Notice the “rebel” without the tie hehe
Mei Phing, Marn, Siti N and I decided to go for the traditional German babi feast for dinner. So we parked ourselves at Adolf Wagner, on Schweizenstrasse – a traditional German restaurant that was continuously packed daily. Take the line 16 tram (strassebahn), direction Offenbach and get down at Schwanthalerstrasse stop. The restaurant is famous for their apfelwein (yup you guessed it, apple wine). Siti N took a rain check and well we found out later that she was at Dr. Mullers (if you’ve been to Germany you’ll know what I’m talking about).
MP enjoying her food.. very much heeheh
There was so much pork, Marn couldn’t believe herself
Off to Latvia tomorrow, cheerios!
Willkommen zurück zu Frankfurt
I’ve always taken a liking to Frankfurt since my last trip here in September 2006.
There’s something about this city that beckons me. Perhaps it’s not the quiet suburbia like Munich is, nor does it have the glitzy glam of Berlin. But Frankfurt has its charm, very much like other European cities.
“Ladies and gentelmen, we are landing in Flanfut soon. Plis put you seat uplight, stou you tlay table back, and fast you sitbilk. Sawadee kaaaaa”
Besides the horrific flight here (which I will have to endure again on the way back), it’s been relatively mundane so far. But the best is yet to come, have a late night party to attend tomorrow night at Frankfurt’s leading club, situated right in the basement of the European Central Bank.
The weather’s been really crazy. It was 26 degrees when I arrived yesterday, and the sun was shining really brightly. This is what it would feel like in summer! If you look here, you’ll know what I mean. The average temperature this time of the year should be 16 degrees. It’s hot and dry. My skin is peeling, and nose is still bleeding.
I guess I shouldn’t complain about the weather coz I’ve always lamented how I wished my travelling was centred around summer instead of the cold off-season months.
I got what I wished for in a way…
More updates soon, cheerios.
Baci baci!
P.S.: Very thankful I decided to leave the 5kg winter coat behind.
