Surprisingly, Kobe wasn’t what I expected. It was much smaller with no tourist information. Me and my dad missed the train stop the day before and we ended up in Hemeji – which was far better! Nonetheless, we had a nice coffee whilst waiting for the world to go by.

On a better note, the typhoon warnings for Japan have gone off… so I’m going to be in one piece, so don’t worry I’m going to return to the Netherlands in one piece! At least I hope so!

If you are ever in the Kansai area, you definitely have to visit Nara! Nara (奈良市, Nara-shi?) is the capital city of Nara Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The city occupies the northern part of Nara Prefecture, directly bordering Kyoto Prefecture. And Nara was a fantastic suggestion of Benard where I had a great time there!

Firstly, Nara is approximately 60 minutes from Osaka via the JR. As Nara isn’t on the circle, I half wondered if I was getting lost whilst in the midst of attempting to translate English – Chinese – Japanese words on the board whilst getting by with very little Japanese except どうもありがとう. Nara is quite quaint with nice little stores and cute eateries, but what went well was definitely the deers, or naras (as I call it). I started buying nara biscuits and then I realized that you can have every single nara chasing you. They also started eating my map, so probably if you are a student there you can say that the nara ate your homework.

I also ate more soba (great store btw) and Okonomiyaki! Since nobody understands me here I kept hoping that I got something at least right, so far I haven’t gotten anything weird to eat so it works.

And well, of course I stepped into a Japanese drugstore and its one of those OMFGZ moments in life when you want to buy up the entire store. I also bought alot of Jill Stuart cosmetics.

Till Kobe!

xoxo, Summerrainx

Was at IFA 2009 (Consumer Electronics Unlimited) in Berlin last weekend. Its been a while since I attended these trade fairs so I personally thought it was awesome!

I’ll blog more about it once my brain has recovered from the massive lack of sleep I’ve done over the past few days…

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Since a very long time, IFA 2009 was the first trade show I ever attended in Europe. I’m so into Berlin right now that I’m definitely going to be at CeBIT 2010 in Hannover! Since you have all your favorite gadget blogs to talk about the highlights about IFA, I’ll just say a few things which struck me.

Samsung was a massive sponsor obviously. Flags all around the main entrance and a host of televisions which well, definitely astounded. Sony also had a fantastic looking Make. Believe. booth which had the next wow factor. But since I had way too little sleep the night before, by the time I was at Sony examining the new e-book readers I was ready to throw in the towel.

Philips and Toshiba also had really nice clean looking booths.

There was a 21:9 television, as well as many connected televisions. In fact, there was so many televisions at the IFA I was half believing it to be a television exhibition.

Even more televisions, but super sleek this time round.

Well, obviously I’m not in a mood for blogging too much. Nonetheless, Berlin is famous for its techno music, so obviously that was the plan for the night of IFA. That, and of course, Starbucks!!!

Heel lekker!!!

Till next time!

xoxo, Summer

Since my dad and I are such fans of Japanese food. Berlin was once again a Japanese food hunt – which we found quite a number along Mitte.

The first incredible recommendation was Cocolo Ramen by Kuchi, which made me think of the many reasons why I really need to go to Japan for a vacation. I had the Tonosku ramen and it was fantastic. I heard the chef is actually a German with the heart of a Japanese – awesome stuff. Prices were till 9EUR and not expensive at all. The rice tea was great as well. I could very well say this was the first authethic tasting ramen I have ever taken in Europe.

Next was a recommendation by a friend called Makato Noodle Restaurant. It speaks of authentic home made noodles and I really had to try it.

I went for the Shio (salt) based seafood ramen. It wasn’t the greatest but I’m not a great fan of Shio, its just that I already had Shoyu, Miso and Tokutso over the past few days.

The broth was salty and the noodles was nice and springy.

I was hungry so I obviously started ahead and then remembered to take the photo!

Will update if I’m going to be eating any more ramen, but I’m so loving Germany, thats for sure!

Last few photos from Dresden. The weather went good again today so it was nice to take alot of photos. The Church of our Lady ‘tour guide’ which was kind of useless on the first day aka steamer boat tour here you go. Well, she advised us highly to go to the Art Museum which showed how rich the saxons were.

And so we paid 7EUR for it.. well, just to see Raphael’s angels.

I’m the kind of person who goes to the Louvre just to see the Mona Lisa – I’m not exactly a very artsy person at all!

Can you believe those angels are like only at the bottom of the Madonna painting?

And they are world famous?

And since the weather is great I just had to take more photos.

Yeap, probably this is the last time that I’m going to be in Dresden. Its really too small a city.

Next up… Berlin!

Since I’m in “vakantie” mode, I bought a whole bunch of relatively useless but feel good stuff. I first got the Schwarzkopf got2b anti-frizz lotion and dumped a whole lot on my hair. I actually bought this because there was a charm hanging off the hair lotion. Now you know how to appeal to my demographic, hang useless but pretty things on the side.

But since I’ve dumped a ton on my hair with this photo, you can see it was actually a great buy at 5EUR! At least it smells nice and makes my hair seem of flowers.

And by popular demand, if you are ever in Dresden you definitely need to drop by the Ogura Restaurant in the Hilton. I took the ramen today and it was wayyyyy lekker!

Tempting you with a picture!

Just couldn’t help it with the title. Since everyone seems to be curious at the kind of food we sell in Singapore. We eat snake, pigeons, cats, dogs and Kangaroos. (As if!)

Sure looks like some really tasty chicken doesn’t it? Well, take a look at what it came from.

I heard sewer rats are kind of easy to find.

You need to wash them clean first, you know. Can’t have sewer scum on them.

Chop them up real nice to make sure they look like some form of chicken. You know, meat is meat, we just pretend not to know where it came from.

Fry it. Because Caucasians do not know what they are eating once things are fried.

Looks absolutely tasty doesn’t it???

Hey! This is an absolute joke… I hope! Apparently they are selling this in a restaurant in China but I cannot be sure of that.

*Disclaimer: In Singapore, we eat normal food like chicken, cow and pork *

I admit, after I was semi-coerced into the iPhone gang, I can’t live without it, especially on Holidays! Since I’ve taken it for a run in UK and Belgium already, I kind of understand the data roaming via T-Mobile. Anyway, here is the must-haves for travel according to Summerrainx. You can see my laptop bag edition next time.

Contrary to popular belief, I have not exactly very high maintenance. Honest!

(1) Trusty Bag

I recommend the LV Speedy 30. It was an impulse buy, but now I use it for everything including groceries. I throw it around but it still mantains its shape. And you can carry three days of clothes, and makeup, and skincare (Which trust me I have alot). You can even throw in an Airport Express, iPhone and charging cables if you want. Not big enough for the MacBook though.

(2) Passport + Money

Too simple to explain this.

(3) Sunscreen

Paul & Joe Body Protection Cream with SPF30. Because all of us can dream about staying young forever.

(4) Makeup & Skincare of some sort

If I’m trapped on an island with three pieces of things, I would take my pressed powder, lipgloss and facial foam.

(5) Apple Airport Express

Its kind of weird to say this, but when I was in Standford, I was stranded without wireless internet and only wired Internet! And I kicked myself for not brining along my AirPort Express because it is so small and handy and easy to set up. And well, you just need to have a wireless portable router you can put in your bag, because you may never know when you might need it. I wished it could charge my iPhone though, but it no longer does. Apparently it did previously.

(6) iPhone with a ton of Apps + Charger

- Remember to set your phone to non data roaming: Settings > General > Network > Data Roaming = OFF

- iTranslate / Translate to ask the nice waitress for beer.

- VOIP something to call home / work and avoid the expensive roaming fees expecially if you have wireless. Recommended: Skype, Vopium, Fring (with SIP Voipstunt).

- Lonely Planet App for the street guide on your gadget. However, I found that the good ole’ paper guidebook actually works better.

- Tube / Train offline map for the country of your choice: I found London Underground Tube useful… until it meant going to Zone 6 which was not on the map. Then it was back to asking the drivers. Plus unless the App is supplied by the Train / Transport themselves, you would probably won’t know if places are under renovation anyway.

Last weekend, I went to Leuven, and fell absolutely sick in the meantime. I went with the test team, or the Dynamic Duo of the Testing world, as well as Dan & Bart, which most of us worked together with my Masters thesis last year. Of course NXP Semiconductors has changed dramatically as a company since then, and most of us are in different places right now. But still its nice to catch up with your supervisors now and then.

I’m really bad at architectural details because I’m not the most culturally inclined person around. But there are 300+ over statues of saints and important people, and a mere 60 are female. The tiny structures also told a story, which was really nice to know. Like you see Adam & Eve on one… and then you see them banished on another. The last time I went to Brussels, all it reminded me was of gay bars, strange structures and alot of beer, Leuven naturally did not disappoint.

Where Brussels had their Manneken Pis, they had Fons. Which involves a boy who is pouring beer down his empty brain whilst he is reading a book. Brilliant ain’t they?

We signed up for the city tour which also showed us one of the house breweries – huisbrouwerij. Apparently the pike transfers beer from one side to another, so imagine breaking the pike when beer is being transferred from one end  to another….

Told you belgium is all about the beertje.

And we had a wonderfully cheap meal at the Myake. There was a set meal for 9.95EUR with bubbles as a starter, and a main dish. The place was wonderfully decorated and it allowed full flexibility even though it seemed that we were cheapskate (with the meals).

Catch me in the window.

Of course since then, the temperature actually dropped way too low for my liking, plus it was rainy so I kind of caught sick. Luckily this week is a very short 3 day week so I look forward to the long weekend!

xoxo, Summer

This is a very long post with lots of photos. Be warned!!!

I’m not sure where I saw the ad, but it was for Singapore Day 2009 in London. And since London is just an hour away, I just had to go. I took the photos with a mix of my iPhone and Sony T20. For the record, it has been 20 years since I’ve last been in London, London was the first place I have ever lived for a few years outside of Singapore. And I have no recollection of Singapore in my earliest childhood. I can only remember London and Robinsfield Playschool where I had a blond best friend called Abe, that I sucked ladybugs out of trees with little gadgets, and that once I wrote alot of Ks on my paper such that my teacher thought that I was someone else, and that I had to choose between a pink bag and a green cat bag in Harrods and my dad buying me a little ball which costs too much since the GBP was like seven times to the SGD.

I also remember vague things, like things my parents said about Camden Town and that I should be left there with a milk bottle, how we would possibly return when we were older, and arriving at the maisonette in Singapore when I came back, only to realize that Singapore was in fact my home country, and not UK. I also realized that people hated my British accent and everyone wanted to speak Singlish.

The Ryanair tickets were really cheap. I paid like 60EUR for a return trip to London Stansted Airport. There are trains running from Stansted Aiport, and the Stansted Express takes you from the airport to some known location or to the Liverpool Station for about 15GBP. From there, take the underground, or overground to your destination. This, I don’t really understand because the transport system in London looks like Japan! The iPhone App I had (London Underground) was useful at some point, but not all the time because sometimes you need to take a mixture of train, underground, train, or bus to a certain place. No 3G didn’t help either.

We rented an apartment at the Marlin Apartments Olympic View for about 60EUR / night. Can I say it was the BEST DEAL ever???

Yes I will say it.

Marlin Apartments were the best deal ever!

The apartment was clean, big, and neat. And suitable for two to four people. There were twin beds and a couch which doubled up as a sofa bed. It had everything! Almost like the suite they booked me in (because the hotel was overbooked) when I was traveling for my last business trip in Groningen. The kitchen had a dishwasher, oven, microwave, utensils, pots, cups, champagne glasses. There was a washing machine, bath tub, digital TV with a gazillion channels. It is even better then my own home in the Netherlands!

The downside, however to living in Stratford, is that it is located where the Olympic Games 2012 London is being held, so the scenery is facing the construction site of the Olympic games. It was also an incredibly shady neighborhood being on the outskirts of London and it freaked me out slightly to be trying to find directions at 11pm at night in a neighborhood of black prostitutes, sleazy bars, drunk brits and buying kebah from a guy with a seriously disfigured face which looked like he got beaten up so badly. The main gate to the apartments also disappeared on the second night I was there…

However, there was a Porsche parked next to the apartments so it couldn’t be that bad.. right?

The next day, going to Hampton Court Palace for SG day was kind of fun. The transport in London is very expensive, and the transport system is separated into different zones which I never tried to figure out. But a good plan is to get the day ticket which costs approximately 7GBP. Going from Stratford to Hampton Court costs about 7GBP too…. one way.

Because most of my friends here are non-Singapore and mostly Europeans, it was quite funny to listen to so much Singlish in one day. It was almost like being back at home. But I’ve already talked about Singapore day so you can read that story here.

Since attempting to travel great distances and getting lost at 11pm is a really tiring thing. We went back to Stratford and shopped at Sainsbury supermarket, everything was so cheap there! I had Fishermen’s Pie for 75p – now thats’ absolutely gek (crazy)! I was also happy to know that there was many, many Starbucks around, even in such a sleazy neighborhood.

Sorry I just had to be unfaithful to my Nespresso for the next couple of days. Its like meeting your first love again.

Oh this is so sinful. Whipped cream, Berry mocha Frappuccino for Summer….

I’m glad I walked so much along Oxford Circus that all the cream didn’t go to my ass. I checked! I’m still the same weight as I left! The day however, ended weirdshit. Because everyone except me, slept at 7pm!!!! 7pm!!!! I wanted to party at maybe Ministry of Sound, or God’s Kitchen, or some great big hot club in Central London and its unearthly for people in their 20s to start sleeping at 7pm on Saturday nights!

Bah!

Anyway the next day, we went to the Oxford Street and Regent Street and naturally did alot of shopping! We went to the huge Apple Store in Regent Street and it was my only source of Internet as I brought the WiFi equipped iPhone without my Airport Express (There was free wired broadband at the apartments), and I used Vopium and Skype to call my parents and back to Netherlands. Got to love Free WiFi!

The iPhone in the UK costs only 340GBP for an 8GB version without contract, and we “almost” got another one because it was seriously quite cheap! There were a few stores which sell it, O2, which is the main carrier, as well as Carphone warehouse and a few more small stores. The uncontracted version however, was a simlocked version which was Pay as you Go, and it required a UK Credit Card or BankCard – no cash allowed! It was irritating! We managed to get those small stores which allowed you to unlock iPhones with their special Simcards and he said that he would use his card to get us a phone if we paid him twenty quids. The cash machine promptly did not want to let us withdraw money and we felt uneasy taking money from his “little machine”, so we left it as that. How do you unlock a locked iPhone 3G anyway? I never checked that part out.

Disappointed, we also went to the Nike flagship store and it was fantastic!

I have to admit, I was walking in my slippers in the rain all around Central London. After a while I was kind of grumpy making wet puddles with my shoes, so I went into Nike, saw this wonderful pair of Nike Plus.

You know what’s Nike + right? They sell shoes with this empty space in the sole, and iPod sensors along with it for like 19GBP. You drop the sensors in your shoes, and connect them up to your iPod nano and you can track how much you run! The suxy thing was that it didn’t come in my size, so J ended up with a kickass shoe anyway and I had to choose a different model.

The Nike store also had Nike ID where you could customize your shoes and they could sew it on the spot. The entire store was decked in iMacs and it was super pretty and awesome really.

So now I have Nike+ shoes without the iPod nano! Anyone wants to get me a really early birthday present? The shoes cost 68GBP, the same pair of shoes sold in the Netherlands costs 120EUR. Go figure at how much the GBP has dropped!

Thus, after blowing about 400 quid in the Nike store, we decided to walk on…

Suddenly I realized that I just HAD to buy Paul & Joe. I know, its like a crazy realization that it was available in the UK so I started asking every big departmental store on where to get it, where on earth do they stock these things?!! Since everyone was tired, I threw a great tantrum in order to go to Knightsbridge to buy Paul & Joe at Harrods! I mean, it was a waste not to go to Harrods if you were already in Central London right?

I bought an awesome Lip Gloss and other random stuff.

And since we were at Knightsbridge we had to go see Buckingham Palace. Who knows who I might meet, the Queen? Or maybe some Prince charming? Actually no, we went there to see if we could make the guards laugh.

At Buckingham Palace, I was surprised that the guards did not wear big tall black bear hats. The main gates were also closed so we could not disturb the guards.

So yeah, I did not actually meet the Queen, or the Princes. Sad.

I look soooo geeky here! But the temperature suddenly fell to like 5 degrees and I only had a very thin windbreaker with me so I was really very cold. From Buckingham Palace you can also take nice strolls along the Palace Parks, as well as see the famous London Eye. I started checking out all the people running to see if they also purchased the Nike+.

Otherwise… I really like the many channels on British Television… especially Dave! There was Top Gear every other hour, everyone sounded like Jeremy Clarkson, and there was this really nice show called Dragon’s Den. I also bought into the Raggae Raggae sauce which was featured on the show but was unfortunately confiscated during customs.

On the last night however, we stayed at Russell Square hostel. Great location, but horrible place. Bad news here. Its like moving from a 4 star hotel suite to a zero star shelter. Not the best place to go because the place kind of stank and we were so out of place there with ten thousand kids and me holding on to my iPhone and Louis Vuitton bag. We decided to hang out at the Yino Japanese Restaurant because it had better toilets and smell. Still, it was 10GBP a night, and the room was shared with 18 people and we had to leave at 2am in the morning.

The good thing however, was that there was this fantastic Thai food place nearby. I think its called Thai Ten but I can’t be sure. A starter and main dish cost only 10GBP and it was the best thing my taste buds have ever tasted for a while. It was even better than the Hokkien Mee I ate at Singapore Day. Honest!

And then, it was time to go home…

I actually liked my trip to London. It wasn’t all I expected, and I was let down by the British weather. Its also kind of hard traveling with new people because at the end of the trip either you’re friends or you never want to speak to each other again, but all went well. But otherwise it was kind of enjoyable and I spent a grand total of 500EUR for the entire trip inclusive of transport and accommodation! For five days i think that’s quite reasonable but then I got really lucky with the accommodation (Come on! 60EUR a night for a 4 star hotel comparable suite) even though I lost my day ticket once!

Till my next holiday! xoxo