travel – Page 7 – missruslee

Header of the Month: the Holocaust Memorial.

March 19, 2015September 5, 2016 missruslee4 Comments

Trust me, no one has been wanting to see an update on this site as much as I have. Even though my actions don’t speak as loudly as my words, you have to believe me when I say that it has been hectic three weeks of March. A lot of things claimed my attention that I had no choice but to neglect this blog, but I suppose I could summarise all the madness in one word.

German.

I found myself unexpectedly hanging out with a group of Germans and even got myself jokingly offered a PhD programme in Berlin on Statistics (for reasons that I can’t fathom), which I obviously rejected because I am not an academic person like that.

Which is why you may or may not have noticed that I have sneakily slipped in and changed the Header of this blog and left it there without giving any explanation. So now that I finally managed to squeeze in some time to breathe and write, let me introduce you to the Header for March, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

The Holocaust Memorial is one of my absolute favourite memorials, although the word ‘favourite’ may not be very appropriate for something that carries such morbid meanings. I mean this whole thing is actually called Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Continue reading “Header of the Month: the Holocaust Memorial.” →

Copenhagen brunches.

February 28, 2015September 5, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

In my opinion, Copenhagen is one of the most underrated cities in the world.

From time and again, I still get questioning look from people whenever I say that Copenhagen is one of my favourite cities in the world. Some even go so far as asking, “Where is Copenhagen again? Is it in Europe?”.

That’s how underrated this city, and Denmark is. The city where the famous statue of Little Mermaid is situated. The capital city of where the world renowned writer Hans Kristian Andersen came from. The city where Carlsberg brewery can be found (everyone must have heard of Carlsberg, surely!). The city which hosts the headquarter of Maersk, the biggest shipping company in the world. The capital city where LEGO, the world-renowned toy company, comes from. The city where Noma, the world’s #1 restaurant is! I mean come on people. Either I only care about things that no one else in the world cares about, or most people are simply ignorant, or Denmark has the worst marketing team ever.

And now, I shall add one more thing to the already long list of why Copenhagen is amazing: the city has many cafés with some of the best brunches that I have ever had.

Now, brunches aren’t really my thing, so I wouldn’t call myself a brunch guru. But I have had enough of them, especially in Singapore, where they are simply unimpressive. Brunches are always overpriced for the portion that they serve and most cafés, at least in Singapore, only focus on decorating the place and making the food presentation pretty (so they can charge a premium to it) without paying much attention to how it actually tastes (there are exceptions of course).

But I remember being very impressed with Copenhagen brunches, at least those few that I have tried. Or perhaps I was just being biased about this city as usual. But who cares, here are the list of my favourite brunch cafés in Copenhagen (note: it’s all of them):

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A regret and a keyring.

February 20, 2015March 5, 2015 missruslee2 Comments

People deal with their miseries in different ways.

One of my main sources of miseries is from regret of not doing something that I could have done. It was something I had known right from the start I wanted, but over the years, I got distracted and the possibility of fulfilling that wish seemed a lot more remote than how it had been in reality. I could have visited London 2012 Olympics had I worked hard enough for it, but I had not. So the Olympics came and went and my life is still Olympic-less.

It is so unlike me to dwell in past regrets, especially those that happened a few years ago. But I just finished reading ‘Stardust’, a novel by Neil Gaiman and re-watched the movie subsequently. It was then that I remembered that the end credit of the movie was Take That’s ‘Rule the World’, one of my favourite songs of all time. Naturally, I went to YouTube to search for all the different versions of the song, and this came up:

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Highlights from Mariner of the Seas.

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 missrusleeLeave a comment

A lot of people say that cruise trips are not for the young and energetic. I wouldn’t lie and declare that I disagree with them; it can be slow, lazy and full of old people and families with small kids. But just because the majority of your company is not young adults doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, and looking back at my holiday pictures last week, I actually think that I was a lot more active than the past four months sitting in front of my computer at work.

My family and I decided to go on a short trip to Malaysia on a Royal Caribbean cruise since we got a very good deal for it. SGD 300 for 5 days 4 nights is a steal considering the price practically includes accommodation, food and transport. So that’s how we found ourselves on our second Royal Caribbean Cruise after more than two years (the first was in Alaska back in 2012). This time, we had the honour to be on board Mariner of the Seas.

Here are some of the highlights from my cruise trip.

Continue reading “Highlights from Mariner of the Seas.” →

This feeling.

January 31, 2015 missruslee1 Comment

It’s been a while since I felt this way.

My heart is racing and I can’t focus. I smile at everything and at nothing in particular. I want to keep this feeling a secret, but I end up telling the whole world about it. I toss and turn on my bed before I sleep and I look forward to waking up in the morning. My life has basically gained back its colour all because…

I’m travelling again tomorrow! 😀

Inspiration: The Everywhereist.

January 22, 2015February 12, 2015 missrusleeLeave a comment

I haven’t been feeling the best the past few days. I’m not sure if it was because last week was a particularly good week that I had to compensate for it by having a crappy one right after. Or perhaps it was Monday blues gone bad that extended all the way until Thursday. Or perhaps my body was operating mainly on the seven cakes that I ate last week and the sudden dip in the number of cake consumption severely affected my mood.

Anyway, I can’t tell the cause for certain, but I know for sure what the effects are: sulky face and muddy mind with a severe writer’s block. Good thing for me, I have a surefire way which helps to alleviate this: reading my favourite travel blog the Everywhereist.

I had always thought that I was a good reader. When I was younger, I would spend hours reading a novel, absorbing every single word that the author wrote. I would feel a sharp pang of disappointment whenever I finished a novel and would be begging for more words. These days, it is really hard to keep my concentration at one place. I would start walking around after two pages of reading, or maybe browse through different things on the net instead of focusing on a webpage. Ironically, I find myself dreading reading most travel blogs, not because they are not great, but because I may have developed some kind of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

But the Everywhereist is different. Geraldine’s writing style makes me hang on to every word she writes. Not many people know this, but the Everywhereist is one of the main reasons that this blog even exists in the first place. I got very bored previously writing a travel blog where I spelled out my itinerary for the day, the tourist attractions that I saw, etc. But reading Geraldine’s blog gives me the reassurance that I am not alone in being fascinated by little things encountered during travels and not the normal touristy stuff.

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A Christmas gift.

December 25, 2014January 14, 2015 missrusleeLeave a comment

Happy Christmas everyone!

Christmas has always been a special time of the year for me. When I was younger, my family always travelled close to Christmas time since that was the time we could escape from the tropical heat and went somewhere cold. As I got older, I had the habit of travelling on Christmas Day since that was when flight tickets are cheapest. In 2012, I had one of my best Christmases ever when I decided to take on a solo trip to Copenhagen and London after being deprived from my beloved Europe for two years.

As of last year, Christmas Day has just gotten a little bit more special, with the birth of this blog. Not only has this been my travel diary for this year, but it has also become one of my main sources of comfort and helped to get me through tough days – from days when I get a little stressed out over travel preparation, or when crappy things happened during travels to when, like these days, my travel plans look bleak and I feel miserable…

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A blast from the past: 2009 travel memories.

December 20, 2014February 10, 2015 missrusleeLeave a comment

As I have mentioned in passing several times, earlier this month I moved out of the flat I have been staying here in Singapore for the past eight years.

A lot of people warned me that I would hate moving – it’s troublesome, dirty and tiring. While it was definitely not my idea of absolute fun, I found it pretty entertaining. Having stayed put in a place means I collected a lot of memories, as well as mountains of junk and forgotten things. The junk made me question my decision making ability (why would I ever think of buying those things?) while finding the forgotten things felt a bit like treasure hunting.

I will save you from the gory details of what junk I found in my house. Instead I will just show you the sole most important finding through it all:

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Header of the Month: Autumn in Oslo.

November 7, 2014November 11, 2014 missrusleeLeave a comment

Even though I live in a single-season country, I have always closely identified November with autumn ever since I visited Oslo in 2009.

It was my first time coming head on with how autumn looks like and feels, walking on leaves-strewn paths in the park, admiring colourful trees that are in the process of shedding their leaves, and of course going around in a trench coat to keep warm from the chilly weather.

I fell in love with autumn then and there.

I visited Oslo very briefly on a cruise trip from Copenhagen. It was something organised by our university, where they would put all of the exchange students on one cruise and shipped us to Oslo for a day trip. Our cruise departed from Copenhagen harbour on a beautiful afternoon.

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Halloween at Tivoli.

November 1, 2014November 1, 2014 missrusleeLeave a comment

One of my favourite 8-acre areas in the world, Tivoli Gardens, get even better as they light up in orange-and-black lights over the Halloween.

I was there only once, five years ago now, and looking at the pictures posted by a friend of mine on Facebook of the Halloween decoration this year, things don’t seem to have changed much over the years. So I feel less guilty showing you pictures from five years ago and claiming as if I know what is going on in the Garden.

The thing that I like the most about Tivoli is that it is not pretentious. Halloween, for example, is a classic carved pumpkin affair with witches walking around the Garden and smoky giant cauldron that visitors can play with a giant ladle.