nomad

minutes before landing in denpasar

I am nomad once more. Well, by the time I wrote this log, I have had eights connecting flights already. This is the second overseas backpacking I made in less than 3.5 months. Too much? Maybe for some. I have to scrap the plan to go rio carnival with CJ. I waited too long that I couldn't get accommodation during the festival. Ah well, on the bright side, I can visit mum instead. At this stage, I think I begin to have the dictionary that translate to whatever she says only means "son, I love you too" or "I'm just concern" or "I just want you to be happy". It's just the way we express it or perceived them in different way.

damn you coconut

I didn't really do much at home but helping to proof read my brother's thesis. He's lazy ass when it comes down to writing that reminds me we wrote our undergrad thesis together. I proof read his as well as my own. Glad that I can help at least. I don't wanna complain but just suck it up. It's life.

Apart from that, I helped my brother and mum to clean up graves. Just three of us. Started from dad's then all my grandparents. Dad's and Grandma's grave seems still fresh, the wood sign has gone eaten by termite but mom says we cannot put stone until a thousand days. Not sure why, it seems that I'm the only one who doesn't understand the tradition. Of all people, I should know since I travel really well.

old pics with mum

I tried to climb the shortest coconut tree because I want the water in it. Refreshing because for whatever reason the water is cooler than what we have in the house.

I left mum and give her a big hug before I flew. She seems to get used to with me not around then dad then my brother. One tough job I guess.***

euro bable pt.7 [prague]

I never thought I would have time to continue this post. After several dramatic events in the past month with B, B2, I try to stay away from my own blog as it wasn't really nice things when I started over 12 months ago on top of that I have audit coming my way. No offence, I'm kinda hating auditor now. They dream for me and I have to make the dream come true, which is the real job part. Anyhoo, I'll do two post in one go.

12th leg : Prague

Arrving on day one. It was freaking hot. Here I thought summer is back and I'm happy to see the clear big blue sky. Until the second day, it was pouring rain since I opened my eyes in the morning until we left the city late night.

Despite the weather condition, I actually had one of the best moment of this holiday. That is when there's this old lady next to our table having lunch with her husband nearly drop her plate until Y catch it. Then the four of us started making conversation. Roughly, I think they both are in their 60's. She was amazed as to how many language Y can speak and even more suprised with mine. But I think this couple is even more amazing than their skin deep look. They have been spending their past 21 days tandem cycling together around Czech republic. Effectively cycling for 10 days and covers over than 500 km just the two of them. That's hell lot of determination to do so. Their story really inspired me more to explore the world.

old town square, the very reason I wanna see Prague

and the orloji, since I saw the pic on J's computer, I really wanna see it myself

I wonder where is this padlock tradition begins, need to look up on wiki

euro babble pt.5 [Stockholm]

Stockholm central

magic wand

Work and social responsibility have taken its toll by leaving this blog on hiatus. I better start writing again. Afterall, this is where I pour my sweet and bitter moments of my life. So, next is eleventh leg

Eleventh leg: Stockholm We took the early morning train from Oslo heading to Stockholm. I was sleeping all the way on the train from Oslo, despite the fact that we need to transfer twice along the way I simply just fell asleep. The scenery in Sweden was totally different from Norway. I still like Norway better despite the weather. Yellow with blue tone is more dominant than Red with White tone for houses in this country. I guess it is pretty much reflected in their flag color combinations.

A boat hotel accomodation

at the airport, time to leave in silhouette

euro babble pt.3 [norway on the road]

feeling so colorful with the cow

Before I continue with the posts about the norwegian boys [wink] let me finish the post about Norway.

The logs continued by road trip around west part of Norway. Waking up in the morning I was greeted by rainy Oslo. Walking under the rain to Radisson Blu Hotel to pick up the car only to find that they ran out of the car I booked. Surprise…!!! I got free upgrade to Audi A3 instead. There's only a small problem with it tho. I'll be driving on the other side of the road on a fully MANUAL car.

free upgrade, why not?

This gets interesting because I use the opposite hand to drive the gear stick. It takes a while to get used to it not to mention driving on the [normally] passenger seat makes my brain works around it. The complicated [open/close roads] of Oslo old town streets in the wet rainy morning makes everything so difficult to navigate, I feel glad when we finally managed to get to highway and I kept telling myself outloud "stick to the right" that's where slow lanes are, at least until I can get used to it. Today we're heading to Geiranger fjords for the next leg. It was sunshine along the way to Geiranger.

Norwegian typical old church

Fourth leg : Geiranger
As we arrived, it was late already. The drive was wet and we went thru so many christmas trees [I guess now I know why Papa Nöel choose these trees for Xmas]. Tundras are also the views that amazed me, but the most interesting part was where I had to go thru numerous of super hairpin in slippery and wet road. That was kinda fun.

fifth leg : Hellysit
Finally getting on ferry with the car [my first time ever for me to do, it got me so excited]. The patchy on and off rain was a big dissapointment. But then again as the shop keeper said, this year Norway have been having more rain than usual, so bye bye blue sky, let alone having a really odd chance to see Aurora Borealis. I'm sure with big blue sky, these fjords will look even more magical, majestic, and grander than what I've seen in New Zealand.

Getting off from this ferry, I drove the car around and pass other fjords and regular ferry. Their view is pretty much standard, mountains, red houses, green patches of fields, and water [reminds me of Glenorchy but a hundred thousands more red houses]

even cruise ship looks tiny

houses blending with the greens [must have something to do with the giants]

Sixth leg : Bergen

Arriving in Bergen was late already. Y let me stay with her as my hostel was overbooked in their system and the replacement accomodation was too far away from the city. This really isn't my preference at all. Roaming around the town, we just realised that we're staying in historical part of the suburb in Bergen. They are even protected by UNESCO. wet weather still followed us, so I don't have much to tell but some pictures.

McD operates in old building from

so green

Seventh leg : Gudvangen and Eighth leg : Myrkladen Voss.

This is another sweet surprise as we got a full size apartment for the cost of one bed of backpacking in Oslo. Freaking cheap that I couldn't believe it.

Ninth leg : Flåm

I should call this the gay day. When you see rainbow seven times in seven different places within the span of less than 6 hours, that's just too coincidental. Luck maybe? Call it whatever you want but it is pretty much a gay day to me. It's like seven gay brothers or something. Along the way from Myrkladen Voss we made a stop in this small town called Flam. simply for this superb view before we head back to Oslo for tenth leg.