Six Days in Berlin :)

Dear M & M,

Well, when I say six days, if you include the time spent travelling it was more like eight days, I’d left on Sunday night and arrived back Sunday late afternoon. This time Matt didn’t even batter an eyelid when I’d left, it was a relief not having to cope with all his tears but at the same time it was kind a strange (sad? / downer? / anticlimax? / ???), I said “bye Matt, see you in a few days”, all he said was “Bye Papa, see you soon” :) haa haa haa. Of course Marcella just gave me her usual huge smile and looked away, that was enough for me :)

There were two main events this time, a huge sales meeting (Sixt Rent a Car) and the ITB Berlin (super huge Travel trade show). All the flights from BKK to Berlin were full, we ended up having to fly to London then to Berlin, it was nice to be back in the UK once again after 14 years although it was only for a flight change :)

 

 

Berlin was freezing, your mother was the best, she went out and bought all the “under garments” (eei eei) without me asking, which had literally saved my live :) Only a week before we arrived it was minus 20 :) I think the coldest it got for us was about minus 3 but with wind it felt like minus a million :)

 

 

Apart from the meetings, it was fortunate that the company gave me some free time to roam around. What a city! The history is of course a very big part of it, and the afternoon tour of the city (on one of those buses) was perfect just to get an overview of it all. The places we saw in Berlin was too numerous to count, ‘Check Point Charlie’ is a popular one, the wall of course, Brandenburg Gate, Victory monument and many more landmarks.

 

We were lucky to also have time to go outside of Berlin, Potsdam was the area and the ultimate destination was Sanssouci (Summer Palace of Frederick the Great), another reason why Potsdam is well known is because of the ‘Potsdam conference’, and if you are wondering what this is just Google it (presumably Google still exists by the time you read this post :)

The rest of the group left before I did, so I ended up alone for almost a day, decided to visit ‘Topography of Terror’ and ‘Museum of Photography’ before catching the flight Stuttgart then Bangkok. I was all so very interesting I didn’t even have lunch :) There were so many more museums, could have spent another two days just visiting them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Topography of Terror just immerged you in the history of between 1932 (ish) to 1945 (ish), basically the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler. The the Museum of Photography, it isn’t about cameras! there was a permanent exhibition of Helmut Newton and the top floor was housed a changing special exhibition, when I was there it was about Japanese photographers from the end of WWII to the modern (ish) time. Just wanted to mention that the newer building are just as interesting as the older ones :)

Then that was it, it was time to go home, managed to grab a very, very late lunch (about six pm). Would love the opportunity to visit this great city again. By the way Stuttgart’s airport is huge! Please allow plenty of time when you are thinking of making a transfer there, almost had a heart attack running from Gate Axx to Bxx, must have taken more than 20 minutes, running, and on conveyer belts most of the way :) \

 

x

Must improve!

Dear Matt,

You were a little bit strange yesterday, when your mother came to pick you up she was told by your class teacher that you had an altercation at the pool, apparently you wanted something from your classmate but he refuses to give it to you, because he was playing with it, and so you decided to take it and even bit him (luckily it was not hard). You were clearly in the wrong, the teacher did say that you felt sorry but nonetheless we decided to take action as this was not an acceptable behaviour from our view.

On the same day you had another episode, threw a ball at Chloe then hit Pui in the face, even your mother didn’t know why you were acting up like this. We took this very, very seriously, and we sincerely hope our actions and discussion will help you to improve. I spent most of my life in boarding schools, luckily they were good ones so bullying was minimal but whenever we noticed it we would always intervene.

We shall be keeping an even closer eye on you for the next few weeks, and sincerely hoping that this will not happen again.

M & M: Hello Bob, Hello Marcella :)

Dear M & M,

A couple of weeks ago it was ‘dress up as your favourite character day’ at Shrewsbury, of course judging by the last ‘dress up as your favourite animal day’ I could already tell that there would be some totally awesome costumes walking around, and I wasn’t wrong :)

First of all I didn’t expect it to be such a big event, as it turned out, it wasn’t just Matt’s year that got dressed up, it was the entire school (and a school parade too), including teachers, and oh, they were totally excellent! I just couldn’t stop smiling, there were a million princesses, but only a few prince, some went as character from ‘Car’, one teacher was a mummy (10 points) there were even a couple of Harry Potter in the running around. But to my knowledge there was only one ‘Bob the Builder’ and that was Matt! :) :) :)

 

I didn’t know why Matt had chosen ‘Bob the Builder’ rather than ‘Handy Manny’, essentially they are the same character but on the opposite side of the Atlantic :) but Handy Manny is always on the telly and Bob wasn’t, who knows, but ‘Bob the Builder’ it was. As it turned out your mother was first class once again, my mother got you the tools while Gio found a small dungaree, it was perfect :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt’s belt kept falling off, just like a pit crew at F1 I had to dashed in, tightened up the belt several times. Ms. Rachel (head of class) was a witch (no, just her costume) and I believe her assistant was a ‘Cat’. In class seeing a princess playing with a pirate was a laugh :)

I am sorry but I can not post pictures of Matt’s friends simply because I have not obtained any permission from their parents yet :) but I have loads, Best and Otto were so adorable :)

Your mother wished she had come, the only reason she didn’t because none of us knew (even other parents) that this was such a big event.

 

 

I was away for the entire week last week, Berlin was freezing and I did miss you all terribly, due to the current schedule finding time to hold Marcella was a bit difficult, usually Matt and I would leave  before she was up and by the time I was home she would have already been tucked up in her dream land :) So I never pass up a chance to hold her whenever I could :)

I hope you two get along well as you do now, Matt totally adores Marcella, and I so hope that she doesn’t give him too much trouble, lol.

 

Four days in Vietnam :)

Dear M & M,

Earlier in Feb. I’d visited Hanoi (the capital) and Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) on a business trip, what a wonderful couple of cities, I feel the set up is exactly like Beijing (the capital) and Shanghai, one is the administrative city while the other is the business/trade city (respectively), of course the latter is much more enticing for businesses, but one can not avoid the capital as that is where the policies that dictates the country come from.

Geographically VN is in such a strategically important location, the coast line is 3,260 Km long (excluding islands), running the entire length of the country. To the North is China, to the East is Laos and Cambodia, and I think that was/is why VN was/is so attractive. Long coast line means easy access for both ‘trade ships’ as well as' ‘war ships’, for once VN is in your hand one can easily move east to reach Laos, Cambodia and eventually Thailand, and that is it the whole of South East Asia in a jiffy. The Chinese came by land from the North, the French came by sea from the West and the American came from above by air, you two must read up on the history of VN.

Crossing the roads was fantastically fun, it’s like playing Russian Roulette with an automatic revolver. It had been some years since my previous visit and it was amazing to see all of the development! There is no doubt that soon Vietnam will (economic) become a major player at the regional level, and perhaps the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not going to bore you two to tears on the business side of the trip, just wanted you two to see some of the pictures that I had taken (when not in meetings). You two must read up on the history of Vietnam, it had gone through a lot of heart aches, war after war, and in the end the people did come through, victorious, one must look forward towards the future but the past should never be forgotten.

As I am finishing off this post, I am sitting in Berlin and have been here since Monday (5th of March 2012), this trip was for the ITB Berlin (World’s leading travel trade show), all I can say is WOW what an event… however I think I’ll leave the detail for another posting :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All together in Pattaya :)

Dear M & M,

This past week was Matt’s half term break, so it was the right time to find something fun for the both of you to do, we were a little apprehensive at first because Marcella is so very young, even with Matt, he was at least nine months before we took our first trip to the sea.

Your mother decided to go back to Centara Grand, Matt managed to have a fantastic time there (so many moons ago) even though he had a bit of a run on his tummy :) the water park is superb for children.

Your mother booked a bigger room this time, so all five of us (Pui came too) could be together. The room was fantastic, spacious with a huge balcony and an amazing view. There was a bunk bed for Matt, of course he bagsied the top bunk as soon as he saw it.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Not long after our arrival in the room, Matt disappeared behind the wardrobe’s door without my notice. By the time I heard the ‘beep beep beep beep beep, aaarrrrrrr, clunk’ it was of course too late! He had already locked up the room safe… I wanted to be cross, but from the conversation that we had I ended up laughing my $%@# off :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me:        Matt can you tell me which numbers you’d pressed? (assertive voice)
Matt:     I don’t know Papa
Me:       Come on Matt, you must remember, what was the first number you’d pressed?
Matt:     Zero…
Me:       And then?
Matt:    eight, five, two, one, three, four, fi…
Me:       No, that is too many, let start again
Matt:    Ok Papa, zero, eight, two, four…
Me:       Ok, tell me again which number you’d pressed?
Matt:     zero, eight, four, five…
Me:       ??? tell me again ???
Matt:    zero, two, one, three…
Gio:     Haa, haa, haa, haa, haa (from somewhere outside the room)
Me:      Come on Matt, let start again… (with a huge smile, which was a sign of defeat)

I ended up pressing different set of numbers each time until the safe locked itself for fifteen minutes, of course I gave up and called the engineer, who promptly came with this huge machine, Matt was impressed :) but he promised not to touch the safe again (and he didn’t too :) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The long weekend was wonderful, Matt ate well and virtually lived in the water park, especially the tunnel water slide, he just couldn’t get enough of it, but surprisingly he wasn’t too keen on the sea though.

We had pretty much spent all our time in the resort, so that Matt could have as much water time as possible, but after about two hours or so he would request to go back to the room, to further play in the huge bath.

Marcella had her first real dip for the first time, and didn’t even cry, the weather was very hot from the searing sun, but the small pool was in the shade, so it was quite cool. The water was warm, just right for Marcella, she looked absolutely adorable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately most of the photos were not of us by the pool, I had decided not to take the camera but to actually join in the fun with the two of you (the pics below was taken using your mother’s BB).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the drive back, we stopped off at this great restaurant, ‘Moom Aroi’ (a direct translation would be ‘Corner Delicious’, well, ‘Delicious Corner’ would make more sense) (your mother’s choice again, ten stars for you, Mama), more than highly recommended. On the GPS, there were two ‘Moom Aroi’, so we picked the one by the sea and we were not disappointed, the service was fast and professional, the food was great and the most important thing for me… there were plenty of parking :) We didn’t arrive in BKK until five, of course my parents were there waiting to see you two.