Como Lago

26 April 2007
after all the hectic-frantic Milan fair mad rush, Gan suggested a trip to Como Lago and so, we went! Yian fell ill on that day so yups only 4-1 of us.. The weather was cool and a little foggy. but anw, Como Lago is still beautiful. i like this place. after grabbing 2 tourist maps from the tourist point, we basically just followed the route on it.

first stop: Duomo at Como Lago! not as glamourous as milan's. it's more toned down and humble. a different period's work i think. beside it there's an old town hall (the pink,white,grey stripes one) and further left, there is a clock tower. the piazza in front of this duomo is fairly small and is lined with cafes. looks like a really nice place! the place is filled with narrow streets lined with shops. on that day, just nice, there's this man playing music, so it was veeerrry nice~~ imagine slow relaxing day+music! happy.
inside the duomo (anw, it means cathedral in italian). candles burning; light seeping through the window; quiet; colourful stain glass:)
next, we followed the tourist map we have and went on to look for the theatre, then a palazzo. the theatre's just behind the duomo. on our way to look for the palazzo, we saw pretty orange flowers :) then guess what? contrary to what we were expecting, the palazzo turned out to be this modern building that we felt was really out of place in the town. we actually walked right pass it the first time and were like checking the map asking ourselves 'how come never see the palazzo?' haiyo, 原来就是这个了...

the town centre's really small. we went on by foot to see the other attractions - the other church and a defence tower... nice.
soon, it was LUNCH TIME!! went back to the lake side to enjoy our packed lunch plus added mac food. i really enjoy just sitting by the lake, relaxing, eating, chatting. it's good to spend time like this...
after lunch, hehe... i suggested eating gelato. so yeahh~~ gelato! our neighbour told us a place where there's a church made of seashells and brad pitt&angelina jolie got married there. we wanted to get that out one... even got the bus tix.. but waited and waited very long for the bus... it was getting late and we have lessons in the evening... see, wait until start to check out the weird weighing balance (??!) by the lake and start self-entertaining...

in the end, we decided we have not enough time, so we'll come como lago again with yian next time to check that out. anw, we also want to go up the hill/mountain plus explore the other areas further away.

and so, we just walked along the lake to a land extension in the lake. there are boats all around. could also see some people canoeing in the lake. nice~.

towards the end of the extension, besides finding a young couple kissing and doing PDA, we also found lotsa locks! apparently, there's this belief that if you write your names and lock it, you will never part (or sth like that. there's even a song about this!). yeah. haha... romantic? at first gan and i saw this really big power lock and we thought that was the winner lock liao. but see, there's even more power ones that come with CHAINS. haha... ok... the benches there also filled with 'xxx ti amo xxx' (=xxx love xxx). yah...

hung out there for a while then needa go back to school. on our way passed by a pond in front of a hotel. look! got cute ducklings~~

Ahh... lazy relax day for us ah......................

Ikea trip 2

14 April 2007

went Ikea on this saturday to get more stuff for the house. weather is still hot. i watched the Ikea shuttle bus driver hit his air-con real hard cuz it wasn't working. ...

How to make Gan happy: Chocolat

18, 19 March 2007

heh, this is the much delayed entry i promised earlier on!. haha. actually by this time, i think most of you already tried the gelato here. it's really shiok right?! esp the chocolate ones. pistachio is really good too! on that sunday, gan and i passed by this really crowded shop and decided to check it out. it was so good we were grinning from ear to ear lor. power chocolate flavours like orange chocolate, peperoncino chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate... so many so many! so good that we got yian and meihua to come again the next day! haha. it's a really nice place too. cute cow, nice ambience. serves caffe and chocolate cakes too :) MUST TRY IF YOU"RE HERE! the place's called Chocolat, near Cadorna.

Farm Trip 2: Cisliano to Corbetta

11 April 2007

this time, i was more focused cuz the assignment is due is two days' time! yeah. somemore must chop chop go home cuz alone. yep. my theme is street networks. so i took a lot of photos of the roads. i can't emphasize it further that these places are really beautiful!!! yeah.
my finally two photos for the portrayal.

Farm Trip 1: Melegnano & San Giuliano

29th March 2007

some of you might know yian and i are in this module which we have to design a service to connect the countryside (agricolo parco sud milano) to the city. then we have this first assignment which we have to take photos! it's really interesting cuz we have to try to portray the good and attractive side of the place. a test of photography skill...

after some adventure (miss train, no train, take metro, change bus, wrong bus, wait bus, miss stop, walk, ask, walk...) we finally reach the town centre of Melegnano! hurray! it's a beautiful town. we happened to be there when they have a market. quite happening.

this is one of the church we went to in the town. it's far from the town centre. but, town people are really helpful. there's this old man who offered to show us the way when we asked from directions. he brought us all the way there and even shaked our hands and wished us good day when we reached.

oh, then we wanted to see this other place on the map. we didn't understand the italian name tho. just asked around for directions. then it was really stupid. we were told to walk to dunno-wad semaforo (traffic light), go up somewhere, turn left, somewhere there. then we were lost. we ask ard somemore then this man told us to go back exactly where we came from! -_-" luckily we doublechecked with another man. and he went, 'ecco!' (it's just there!) and pointed to this memorial thing (the statue). nice!

after that, we continued our adventure. we wanted to go to a farmhouse. and from the memorial, there was no other way but to take the highway. huh?! the traffic is super busy cuz it's main road there. after a while, we got to the house you see above. it's beaufiful. especially the climber-type plants overhead. explored the courtyard a little before we realised there's a HUGE dog inside.

some nice views along the way.

next stop, a palazzo! the countryside is really beautiful. is really something you cannot find in sg. i really enjoy the view there. and the air is so fresh. everything about it is relaxing.
ha. but after that, we had to like walk, walk, walk, walk and WALK! where the hell are we??!
oooo, but later on, we found a casina which has a museo inside la. it's cool. shows all the old farm stuffs and some drawings of farms. and, there's also this cow shed. haha. look! there's a rooster communicating with the cows!! and there's one staring at me. i must be disturbing them...
finally, after so MANY hours of walking, we were on our way home :)

so it does rain in Milan!

4th April 2007

it was after italian class. going home alone and it started to rain. luckily the houses here have balcony. stood under and waited for bus. zoom~~~

home with gan

3 weeks passed without an entry! haha. school is getting busy. went naples and rome for hols and now rushing hw.

tonight, yian ling went to get a night shot of her abbazia (abbey) for tomorrow's submission. meihua went with her cuz not very safe at night.

so after italian class, gan and i went home together. we had spice chicken and peperoncino+sausages+mushroom+origano+tomotosauce-pasta. check out the broken plates from the last time we used the oven. haha. power oven sia. anw, the oven-baked chicken also power lor. spurted oil out like a fountain when gan slit it with a knife! check out how turgid it is! must have a lot of oil stored in there! oh my gosh. it was so classic! there was a trajectory of oil shooting out!! and i'm not kidding you!

pasta was hot. recently we're getting into the chilli mood. first we bought hot&spicy pringles. then peperoncino grains. then on the same day as the grains, i also 不约而同 bought chilli sauce from an asian provision shop. then, today we bought peperoncino powder. i think we really miss hot stuff man.

random updates:

• the pet slug, chenchen2, is growing fatter (and orange-er) day by day as it munches carote.
• yups, we finally got our message board
• ooo.. look at the maps i've got. really crazy. cuz i needa go out to some countryside park to do research so i got all the maps. searching and looking out for buses, trains, roads, etc, etc. city centre map? parco sud mappa? milano provincia mappa? pubblici transporti guida? all also have.

tonight i think i have no time to sleep. report report...