Slovenian Sanctuary

It was last saturday morning that I went for this trip. One of my colleague here has been so kind to invite me to join her and her boyfriend to a trip which both of them and another 67 people has planned for sometime. A kayaking trip for their kayak club to a small town in Slovenia, just about 20mins outskirts of the Italian border.

I basically just tag along on this one. I am not prepared to do any kayaking. I have neither the proper gear or equipment. And most importantly, I dont know how to kayak. I've only done it once or twice in my life.

There was some minor 'confusions' when I arrived at the Slovenian checkpoint. I guess checkpoint like this one, probably hasn't seen an asian passport before. They had to flip through manuals, check on the computer and made some phone calls before putting a stamp on my passport and let me through.

I stayed in a hotel, just upstairs a restaurant. With 35 euro/nite, the room was cozy enough and has 3 single beds all for myself. The rest of them have their own camps at the campsite just about 2-3km from my hotel. So usually after my shower in the hotel, I'd walk down to the campsite just to sit with them. I cant speak italian, nor can they speak english much. So most of the time, it's only me and my colleague or her boyfriend talking. Occasionally, there were a few who were not so shy...would walk over and have a line or two to converse with me.

On Saturday night, there was a huge campfire and dinner. Barbeque. It was really good. The meat, the bread and the crowd. Though at first it seemed kinda awkward for the rest of them to have an asian in their crowd, towards half of the dinner...we sorta sparked off into quite a topic. Those few who speaks a little english, my colleague and her boyfriend, wanted me to teach them how to count from 1-10...in mandarin. Though i'm no expert, but 1-10 is still more than what i can do in this case. The crowd then grew to a larger number, attracting more attention. And at the center...there was me :"). It was a great evening, we enjoyed the talk...and the laugh.

The next day my colleague and some other women and children (those who didn't participate in the kayaking)...went for a walk to the waterfall. The scenery was amazing! I've never seen such a view before in my entire life. Cold mountain air, birds...flowers...bees...waterfall...natural rock formations. It's just good to have been there. I guess this is my once in a lifetime experience. I probably won't be back there anymore in this life.
















As for this week, I was doing world of worldcraft most of the time. I finally found the signal for the broadband downstairs. Though its only at 40%(+/-) but its good enough to keep the game goin. With a daily subscription of 14.95 Euro...its probably the same as going out and spending money.

Night of the Baccarata

It's raining this morning. It was raining too last night when I went to Venice after work for a baccarata. My fellow colleagues have very nice to invite me for my 2nd baccarata in life. It was a good round. We went from one pub to another...drinking and snacking as we go along....chatting, laughing and giggled like girls when we got drunk...though my italian is not as good as their english...they did put in alot of effort to make sure I wasn't bored or left out from our group of ten.

I was rather drunk in the end. Hmmm...I think I had...2 glasses of Spritz, 2 glasses of red wine and a glass of white wine. We visited a total of five bars in Venice...luckily, we have some locals among our group so they know where to go and how exactly to get there. If its not for them we'd probably end up at some tourist bar instead. Those bars that they have brought us to were very authentic ones...original Venetian style. And the snacks were awesome too. It was a great night out. I took the bus home after all that...can barely held myself together. Luckily the alchohol did not stretch into full effect on my way home. It's only when I got into my room that I started to feel dizzy and couldnt even stand up properly. I didnt know how I managed to shower though but I did had a quick one...and head to bed with my hair still damp. And best of all, the whole night's expenses were all paid. Though I offered to pay for a couple of rounds...but they insisted that we will do it again...I can pay another time. Fine People, Fine Wine...what a night!

I think this is my 2nd red wine...
I think this is the last bar we visited...
I think this is the 3rd bar...or 4th...
I think this is the 3rd...or 2nd...
This is definitely the 1st bar...
Chichetti...small light bites...

My first glass of Spritz and Chichetti...

Unaided Cooking Disaster

It's just a regular Friday evening.
The streets are exceptionally quiet today, except for a bus load of chinese tourist shouting over each other's shoulder about catching the tour coach at 7. I got home early after a grocery shopping trip at PAM.
Bought myself over 20Euros worth of grocery. Could probably last me a week I hope.

I was feeling adventurous...and besides the fact that I had had a gelato earlier before the shopping trip at the piazza, I wasn't really feeling hungry. So I unpack my groceries and start on my cooking journey.

It's my first time cooking rice, without the help of a rice cooker. I didn't know what to do at first, just sort of recalled one of my friend telling me to put the water 2cm higher than the base of rice and keep stirring. So I stood by the stove and stir my way till the rice turn to porridge...and from porridge to sort-of-become rice again. Not solid though. I didn't know how it will look like once its cooked or how to even tell if its cooked. I just took my chances and lift it up from the stove after 15mins of continuous stirring. Leaving that aside, I decided on the dishes I would like to have. I've thought about having canned pork cubes. I brought two from home. But that alone is kinda pale, so I opened up my fridge and found 2 sausages from the same pack as yesterday's dinner and 4 eggs...i think those are from yesterday too. So i heated the pan and start frying an egg. Since I had scrambled yesterday, I thought I would have sunny side up today. It turns out my sunny side up became a molten lava. And the sausages was later a lil too over-fried. A disaster. Well, at least the canned pork cubes is still good. And the rice...hmmm well...it wasn't that bad too. The next time...I'll definitely do better.

And a week has gone by

It's the weekend again. My first one week went by uneventful. I hope the three weeks that follows would be the same too. This morning I was out early, so that I can take a slow leisurely walk to work. On the way, I have my camera out...and as I go along, I try to capture some interesting sights. Sights thats worth my notice and a few of my precious moments to look upon everytime.

Was doing some browsing earlier, came across a description of this small town. Just got to know a lil bit more of this place till now and its from a website - kinda sad.

I only noticed this today, its still pretty expensive...




This last one is my favourite set. I once told myself that I would buy this set if I did come back here again...now, I wonder if I really should do it. The price was about 100plus euro if not mistaken...and its pretty heavy too...


This shop sells plenty of nice lil hand-crafted items. It's a small shop but plenty to see...



One of those narrow streets by the piazza.


Yesterday's dinner was just a bowl of instant noodle, fried eggs with sausages and a cup of green tea.

X-Men-Conflitto Finale; showing soon - 26 May. Too bad its not gonna be in english and no subtitles. :(

And a few more pictures...

Coin / Pam / Lebarche ... where I did most of my shopping

The 'Black Shop' ... still open for business ...

The shitty underpass ... still as smelly as ever ... esp. at this corner

Flowers ... tiny ones growing through the crack of walls and dying roses

Mestre ... same old thing ... still as Kampung







Venice ... still as peaceful as ever ...



The first thing I'd like to eat. I miss the wings.


My favourite kebab from my favourite kebab store...still the same ol taste.


A Gelato is always good. Amarena. The sweet taste of cherry...


Sunday's Flea Market in one of the streets in Venice. I bumped into this spot accidentally...don't think I'm able to find it again next sunday.





I bought this from one of those chain One Euro store. Just like those we have back home...those RM5 for everything they sell in their shop. A good way to start a day :)