Biscuit @ Prague

I have been here for four days already and about 2 hours later, I'll be heading to Munich. :)

Day 1 in Prague

As a psychology student, I believe that first impression says it all.

If Austria is to peaceful, then Prague is to chaotic.

On the first day of our arrival, the city was holding something like a bike tournament and the streets were flooded with toursts and on-lookers. In profound exhaustion after a long train journey, it's difficult to fight my way through the crowd with all my luggage. By the time we arrived at the hostel, we were informed that our room had some problems and thus were forced to change to another hostel (in fact, I felt cheated). So that's another long knocking-people-out-of-my-way walk.

People here didn't look as nice and helpful, and cars were more aggressive. I was melting in the sweltering heat and my shirt and pants were drenched with sweat.

Moreover, English is an alien language here, so it's not easy to get directions from the local.

So the first day didn't go as smooth as I thought.

Day 2

Time seems to crawl in Europe. In just one day, we finished visiting most of the tourist attractions in Prague. Weather was extremely dry and hot here. Loads of water evaporated from my body and my lips were peeling.

I felt better today as I met some nice people finally. ^-^ One thing I didn't expect was, I always saw batches of Korean tourists around wherever I went. They even outnumbered Japanese tourists!

Prague was really a beautiful city, especially in the Old Town where you're enveloped in a festive atmosphere. However when compared to Austria, I like Austria more as I felt more comfortable and welcomed there. By the way, there's a higher percentage of good-looking guys and girls there ~.~

Day 3

We took a 2-hour bus journey to Karlovy Vary west to Prague. It's a small spa town dotted with hot mineral springs. It didn't take long to walk around the place and it's more peaceful and comfortable than in Prague.

By the way, we could taste different types of spring water erupting to the ground but I dare not do so in case my stomach protested.

We just spent one day here and headed back to Prague in the evening.

Day 4

Like the last day in Vienna and Salzburg, we visited all the seemingly interesting places on the map already! We even re-visited a few places. So we ended our trip in Prague in an internet cafe.

But the city looked more loveable today as the streets were less jammed and the weather was a bit cooler. I could finally enjoy the peacefulness here.

Anyway, I have to stop here as my money is burning away with every second passing.

Blog later.

Biscuit@Salzburg

I'm now blogging from Salzburg, Austria right now.

It's my fourth day in Europe and everything goes perfectly fine so far, including the weather. It's sunny most of the time despite the gloomy weather forecast (never trust a weather forecast too much).

Except that everything is at skyhigh price. Just a sight at the pricelist will make your jaw drop on the ground--a little bottle of mineral water can set you back as much as 2 euros (which is about HK$19! Jeeeeeez..) and using the washroom costs you a few HK dollars. Things here are even more expensive than in Britain! So now, besides all those cathedrals, palaces and castles on the itinerary, supermarket becomes a must-visit place.

It reminds me of the good old days in Scotland when I had to survive on shoe-string budget. But of course, I'm a bit better off now ^_*

Anyway, Austria is really a tourist friendly place and people are exceptionally helpful even though they don't speak English. It's a peaceful place especially at night; it's as if making a slightest bit of noise will wake the whole world up.

I have visited Vienna and will visit Prague tomorrow. I hope that everything is fine in Hong Kong as well :)

Blog later!

Gone for good

Twelve hours from now, I will be flying thousands of miles above the ground and am about to set my foot on Europe.

Thunder rumbled all night so I was a bit worried about the flight last night. It also reminded me of the scenarios in Lost when the flight tore apart in mid-air and landed on a deserted island...

Forget it.

Anyway, I've been longing to leave the bustle and hustle of Hong Kong and to immerse myself in a sun-drenched wonderland : )

I will blog-on if I can have Internet access there.

See you all a couple of weeks later.

Excuse me, did you say you're teachers?

Too many cooks spoil the broth. When there are 70-something cooks cooking the same pot of broth, how long does it take to get it done?

I was one of the cooks working on the broth in the staff meeting today afternoon. As usual, the principal unfailingly provoked a babble of discussion after presenting her ideas. And as usual, everyone believed that they knew best but none voiced out.

What disturbed me most was, some did try to contribute their ideas, but their voice was drown out in the excited buzz of conversation even though they were using a mic.

Could somebody stop them for a while and give them a lecture on how to respect and listen to the others? I would if they were my students. Obviously, teaching something and doing something you teach are entirely unrelated aspects of behaviour.

So as usual, a meeting which could have finished within a couple of hours went on like this for more than three hours.

As this term is about to end, a string of meetings are coming forth. Hopefully, they won't spoil the broth. I will keep my fingers crossed.

Confession, again

Ok, I don't like camping, be it wild-camping or dormitory-camping, with friends or with students.

I hate packing and unpacking things.

I hate draining all those toiletries into little bottles for which I have to turn my home upside down to search. And I never know what to do with the leftover.

I prefer my bed, my pillow, my bathroom and my food (I've got a compulsion/ obsession to strictly follow my diet regime.) at home.

To be frank, I can see no point camping in Hong Kong while my home is just a no-more-than-2-hour bus journey away from the campsite and the town is just a stone's throw away. Well, yes, you can play different kinds of activities at one stop, but you don't have to stay overnight in order to play tennis or cycle there.

And the one thing I dislike most is, I have to wait ages for the bathroom. If you think a teacher can enjoy the privilege to use the bathroom first, you are completely wrong. When it comes to the bathroom, girls will never compromise. So as a teacher, I have to be the last one to use it. (I've another compulsion that I can't sleep without a shower especially after a whole day of moving-around.)

Waiting for the bathroom on Thursday night (I was on an English camp with my students for 3 days and 2 nights—a torture for me.), I browsed through my phone book to see whom I could have a chat with at eleven something at night. Not really for time-killing; in fact, I did feel desperate for the bathroom thing at that time (ok, call me stupid and childish, but I had been waiting for almost 2 hours and I was completely drained.).

I called a few and I could just reached two or three. Occupied though they were, I was glad that they still spared some time to talk with me.

I kept browsing the phone book in disappointment as I realized that there's no one to call anymore, not even those for a causal chat. I had a somewhat crestfallen air. It happened before: I didn't feel well and I felt like talking, but I couldn’t get anyone to talk to. (Not that I couldn't get through the line, I just couldn’t think of anyone.)

Despair conquered me and I passed a night of difficult sleep (after shower, of course).

I pondered on a few random thoughts as I dragged myself home in pouring rain the next day: Friends are about quality but not quantity. What happens if both quality and quantity don't work on me? Those who once got into my life left eventually. How many of them will stay? How many of you are still reading this blog? Who is the first one that pops up in my mind when I need support…

Once I got home, I took a shower and fell into a comma.

Everything on my mind faded and I could enjoy a peace of mind finally.

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以往我一直否認，但如今我不得不承認…

我太心軟，

所以…

我容易受騙，

而且…

我很眼淺。

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「算把啦。」

近日，不同人於不同的場合跟我說著同一句說話。

我執著嗎？

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收到舊同學的消息，一位曾教導我的中學老師離世。

人來人往。

只好歎息。