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

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.

7 Nights in Munich: (part 2) Friday & Saturday.

Sugar high… just drank three pints of full sugar coke… :) Ok, back to Munich, while we were there, one of the most famous global event was being held in Munich, the grand, the fantastic the unbelievable, Oktoberfest :) I mean who hasn’t heard of it, but I never realised how f-ing ‘HUGE’ it was!

Our German colleague said each “Tent” takes around 2 months to complete, in my mind a “Tent” should take more than 30 minutes, an hour max, of course when one of the tent (and there are 14 of them) can hold 8,500 and 2,500 seats inside and outside respectively, now two months seems pretty short.

From a quick glance at Wikipedia, “The Oktoberfest is known as the Largest Volksfest (People's Fair) in the World”, enough said. Disneyland + several breweries & wineries, what a perfect combination for quite a mess :) in fact I almost went that way too and I didn’t even need the rides, lol.


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I wished I could post photos of all of us making a fool of ourselves, but of course that would be so, so wrong of me (lol), Friday was only a half day at the office, everything was wrapped up by around three in the afternoon, our kind German colleagues when to change into their traditional clothes, what a lark, I was already having fun and we were no where near the festival yet :)


































The undergrounds took us straight to one of the main entrance of the festival (above top), I’ve seen lots of rides in my time but doesn’t that ‘Column of Natural Selection’ (right) seems insanely high to you?


I really thought I had more ‘showable’ photos than just these four, some were out of focus, a few were private but frankly, mostly were rather of poor quality, the subject were quite interesting but the composition was just terrible, must practice two things, a) taking photos while walking (without stopping) and b) taking photos after a few beers (PUI, Photographing under the Influence).

Well, this was the final day of work, and talking about ending on a high, great city, great friends and colleagues, even great weather, and the most important thing of all, super great beers :)



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Our flight on Saturday was in the evening so we had the whole day to roam around, most of the people from our group was somehow tied to BMW, now being in Munich, everyone told me to visit the BMW Welt and the BMW Museum, so that was my first port of call on this final day.

All in all we must have spent over three hours in BMW Welt and the Museum (mostly in the museum), so that was the morning very well spent. According to the plan, the next stop was supposed to be the high tower in the Olympic park, but because of the timing the three of us decided to go to the Deutsches Museum instead.


































































































I think we took off from Munich around eight pm, and it was around two pm when we landed in BKK; I was given one of those blow up U – shaped pillow by an elder colleague that must have contained some strong magical power… this is how my flight went… got on the plane, took off, had dinner, put the pillow around my neck… blank, blank, blank… woke up, had breakfast, land… the ten hours flight felt like two hours… :)