Shibuya

Today we head to Shibuya! Shibuya can easily take up the entire day, especially if you go with girls. Instead of the usual departmental stores that you see everywhere in Shinjuku, this area focuses more on fashion that people our age can identify with at an affordable price.

Like Scotland's Greyfriars Bobby, Shibuya also has a loyal dog! This dog's name is called Hachiko and boasts the same story as Bobby. Basically its owner left Shibuya station to go to work all the time. One day, he died on the way back and this cute doggie always goes to the Shibuya train station at the usual time that its master's train reaches Shibuya for the next 9 years till its own death. =(

Located in Center Gai (Shibuya's main shopping street) is a shop called Pablo that sells baked cheese tarts. It costs quite a bit (about 800 yen) and you can choose whether you want raw cheese (more like runny cheese) or medium-well cheese (kind of like cheesecake). The matcha cheese version is also not bad but truthfully I prefer the original one.

Taken from the web

Just further down from Pablo is this lifestyle stationery shop called Loft. Loft sells a large array of products that pertain to interior, hobby, crafts and stationery. Also has a large bento collection if you are into them. Worth a visit if you are into nice stationery. If you continue down the street you woudl also see Disney Store, where you can buy tickets for Disney Sea/Land to save time on the day that you are going. 

Taken from the web

If you are more into DIY stuff, you can visit Tokyu Hands, which is a few minutes walk from Loft. Tokyu Hands specializes more in DIY items, from interior to crafts to scrap-booking to anything that is DIYable. 

If you are a One Piece fan, you should definitely drop by the One Piece shop that is in the Parco departmental store, which is just next to Tokyu Hands. 

At the basement of Tokyu departmental store which is just outside Shibuya station lies Uoriki Kaisen Sushi. This store is one of the big players in the fish trade business in Japan and sells very fresh sashimi at decent prices. While not exactly cheap, you are definitely getting a bang for your buck because you will have to pay much more for such quality meat back in Singapore. I paid about 1400 yen for my Tuna bowl that has 3 different cuts of the Tuna and my girlfriend paid about 1050 yen for her assorted sushi plate. 

Other noteworthy stores are worth visiting include

• Forever 21
• H&M
• ABC Mart - shoes store that sells sports shoes at a much cheaper price than Singapore
• Shibuya 109 - a 10 storey building selling female fashion, albeit at rather expensive prices
• Shibuya 109 Men - the male counterpart of Shibuya 109
• Seibu - departmental store
• Parco - departmental store
• Marche Japan Farmer's market - just outside of the United Nations University which is about a 10-15 min walk from Shibuya station is one of the most popular and steadily growing farmers' market. Sells an assortment of pesticide free produce and is open every weekend from 10am to 4pm. 
• Tokyu - departmental store 

Shinjuku

Hurray, we are headed for Tokyo! Japan is one of my favorite places on Earth and it is so awesome that I do not know of anyone that does not like it at all.

So this trip was quite a last minute decision as I only realized after coming back from Taiwan that I should yolo and do one last trip before I start work. I bought air tickets at about 3 weeks before my departure, and it costs about $360 without check-in baggage.

In Tokyo, it is highly recommended that you stay at either Shibuya or Shinjuku. These 2 places give you the best connections to other cities, airports, and has good connections to the rest of Tokyo. This is especially so for Shinjuku. We stayed at an Airbnb here. It's clean, affordable with great location but has thin walls.

And Shinjuku also has like the best ramen store that I have ever been to. This store is called Fuunji Rmaen and specializes in a ramen type called tsukemen, which is noodles dipped in a thick soup stock. The flavor of the soup is intense and mainly revolves around the use of bonito to give it a rich and complex taste. The noodles are also the best ones I have ever eaten, with a springy bite that goes splendid with the soup. Costs 800 yen for the basic tsukemen.

Zoo, Central Market Hall, Visegrad

Day 4

Today is another day for a day trip! Firstly, we went to the Central Market Hall. To be honest, it was a total letdown if you are expecting a Borough Market of London. It is seriously just a central market, with lots of fresh produce and some Hungarian food. Other than that, nothing much.

Afterwards, we headed to Visegrad. Visegrad is a less well-known city compared to Szentendre, but I was motivated to go there to visit a castle that is said to have imprisoned Dracula. To go there, you take a Vac-Szob train from Nyugati Train Station to Nagymaros-Visegrad. Costs 560 forint 1 way with student discount. Then from Nagymaros you take a car ferry to cross the Danube River (350 forint 1 way). 

It was about an hour climb and some parts were really steep. But the view on top of the castle was superb. Magnificent, really. 

Day 5

Last day in Budapest! =( We decided to hike up the Liberty Statue that is on the Buda side. Takes about 30 minutes at most from the bottom of the hill. Budapest is separated into two sides by the river, one side is Buda and the other is Pest. 

Afterwards we headed to the Zoo! It costs 1800 forint (10 SGD) and I think that it is a much better zoo than our Singapore one. Definitely worth the $10 SGD. 

Szenchenyi Baths, Hero's Square

Today we are heading to the Szenchenyi Bath area! There are lots of things to do in that area. There is a Hero's Square to visit, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest City Park, Vajdahunyad Castle, Zoo and the Szenchenyi Bath.

Berlin

Berlin
While Munich and Berlin always seems to be lumped together when people talk about Germany, they are actually 5-6 hours apart by train. Tickets have a whole range of prices, so it is best to keep checking for the best price available. I bought it at 89 euros for my entire family of 4. Like Munich, the city is much like any other European city that I have visited. There is the Germany Museum of Technology if you are into vintage stuff.

Reichstag Dome

Hallstatt

Hallstatt

Another place you can visit is actually Hallstatt, Austria. I find that a drive from Munich to Hallstatt (2-3 hours) is much more affordable than a day trip from Salzberg, considering that it takes a few more hours compared to Munich-Hallstatt and you have to stopover in Salzberg. Click for my Hallstatt post here

Lucerne

The next two days were mostly spent around Lucerne. The highlight of Lucerne was probably the Mt Pilatus Golden Round trip (80+ francs). This is a full day travel pass that includes a boat ride from Lucerne to Alpnachstad where you can take the steepest cogwheel train to the top of Mt Pilatus and then take a cable car down. 

Trummelbach Falle, Car Train, Zermatt

To be frank, by the time it was Day 3, I have actually visited the places that I have researched on. This is what happens when you travel with parents that start the day at 7am :O. So on day 3, we decided to be a little more adventurous and just drive around Switzerland.

First, we headed down to Trummelbach Falle. This is the waterfall for the Swiss Alps and apparently carries up 20,000 litres of water per second, like a mega drain of the Swiss mountains.

Mannlichen Cable Car, Panoramaweg

As the Mannlichen cable car station was just beside the hostel (which is why I picked it in the first place), we started Day 2 with Europe's longest gondola cable ride (54 francs). We took the ride to Mannlichen and actually wanted to hike all the way to Panoramaweg, but unfortunately the route was closed as the path was covered in snow. Seriously, snow in June?

View from the Cable Car on the way up

Cliffs of Moher and the Burren

The Cliffs of Moher tour brought us to Aillwee cave and the Burren just before heading to the cliffs. If you are a cave guy like me, you will enjoy it, otherwise it's missable. Here's a waterfall inside the cave.

Portree Town, Kilt Rock, Quiraing

Portree town:

Talisker Bay, Neist Point

Talisker Bay:

Fairy Pools, Coral Beach

Fairy Pools:

Les Miserable, Borough Market

Determined to watch Les Miserables today, we went to the TKTS booth at Leicester Square to get tickets at 10.30am. TKTS has a daily sale where they sell tickets that can be 10-20 pounds cheaper than other places. Check it out here. We managed to get Centre Stall tickets for 39.50 pounds each. Then we cycled to Borough Market, but most of the stalls were closed, so it wasn't a super great experience. Thankfully some of the stalls are opened for lunch and we managed to try some scotched eggs with sweet potato fries, which were surprisingly filly.

National History Museum, Leicester Square, Big Ben

Sunday is a pretty slow day for London as it is a rest day for most of the musicals and markets. I would recommend watching Matilda if you are in the musical mood that I was in. The show is at 3pm and we only realized that at 3.30pm, so that was a waste. Our first stop for Day 3 was the National History Museum. Not history like World Wars and stuff, but the history of Earth, Dinosaurs, Men, Mammals, etc. Pretty interesting but I only wanted to see the Dinosaurs part.

Wicked, Burger and Lobster

Next day we went to queue for Wicked day seats. Every day, Wicked sells 24 front row seats for 29.50 pounds on a first come first serve basis. We went at about 8am, were the 7th person in queue, but as everyone in front of us bought the matinee show, we were able to get front row centre for the Wicked. Afterwards, we headed for Singapore Day, which is a day where they bring Singapore to London, like the food, drinks, etc.. To be honest, I regretted going there as it was on a Saturday and I could have gone to explore Borough market (Fri and Sat are the best days to visit) and watch two musicals (most shows have a matinee and night show). Instead, I queued like an hour to get a small plate of Sambal Stingray, another hour for Char Kway Teow, so on and so forth. Not a very efficient way to spend half my Saturday.

Mont Martre

Because we have only had 1 restaurant meal so far and everything else was pastries or home-cooked, we decided to spend big at a nice restaurant today! This place is called L'office and the food was godly. I feel so inspired after eating from the place. Meal cost 30 euros each!

Pont des Arts, Eiffel Tower, d'Lourve

Today our first destination was Pont des Arts. This is a bridge that was featured in Now You See Me and it is a love lock bridge. Basically many couples come here, write their names on a lock and lock it on the bridge. It is a symbol of eternal love. Naturally we had to do our own one too! A small lock costs like 3 euros.

Pierre Herme, Notre Dame, Pantheon, etc.

Bonjour everybody. Woke up early today. Actually while you are on exchange, you tend to wake up pretty early like 6am-8am. But it may be due to the jet lag. Our first destination was Pierre Herme! That is a very nice macarons and chocolate store, especially in Paris.

From Warsaw to Paris

Ah, Paris on V day. Simply a romantic idea. Well that's the plan anyway.

Woke up at 7am, ate my breakfast, bathed and everything. Then skype my girlfriend to get some last min advice and tips on where to go and meet her. Then at 9am, I set off to Paris! The tram ride was quite short (8 mins) and then I took a 45 min train ride to the Modlin train station. The train is quite empty so it was a comfortable ride for me. Modlin is also super beautiful with all the snow. I also saw some people ice fishing on a frozen lake while on the train.

Keukenhof

If you haven't heard of Keukenhof, it is this massive tulip garden near Amsterdam. To my dismay, I realized that the season for Keukenhof is in May! Somehow my research wasn't extensive enough and I chose to go Amsterdam in February =(

Koog-Zaandijk

Head off to Koog-Zaandijk, which is a 6 euro roundtrip, 1 hour from Amsterdam Central. This is the city of windmills, and there are a lot of mills to see and they are pretty interesting. There is a spice mill, cheese mill, clog mill and they will demonstrate how the goods are made and I found the cheese one to be rather enlightening. It is also a beautiful place.

If you start at like 9am, you can probably finish Koog-Zaandijk by 1-2pm, so after that you can tour Red Light District and Chinatown and visit some coffee shops. 

Skocjan Caves and Predjama Castle

Another place that we visited was the Skocjan caves. There are two famous caves in Slovenia, the Skocjan caves and the Postojna caves. The latter one is much more expensive than the Skocjan caves, so we went for the cheaper option. The Skocjan caves is really huge (it can probably fit an underground city) but the walk was really fast and it was all over in like 1.5 hours. 

Taken from the web since no photos in the cave

Whitewater Rafting, Triglav National Park

Cloudy Weather, so I took this from the web.

Vintgar Gorge

A short drive from Bled is a gorge called Vintgar Gorge. Costs like 2 euros to enter if you are a student.

Zagreb, Zadar and Split

There is nothing much to do in Zagreb, no walking tours or things like that. Pretty much coverable within half a day. You can visit the Museum of Broken Relationships (seriously?) and the cathedral and that is more or less what there is in Zagreb.