An Italian Temptation

With reference to my previous blog on Spanish flirtation, now comes Italian temptation.

Another soccer nation, Italy is also one of the soccer strongholds in Europe. My fave Italian team is AC Milan and they beaten Liverpool last Champions League. Unfortunately, they are drawn against Arsenal, my soccer first love, in the second round of the UEFA Champions League 07/08. Hence, I can only support Arsenal to win and go through.

Italy is soaked full with history, culture and monument which attracts a lot of tourists and couples to take their wedding photos there. Hence, tourism is one important economy pillar to Italy also. Hence, hotels in Italy is easy to find, from cheap stays, such as backpackers' inns to luxury resorts like 5 stars hotels. With high competition, it is easy to find last minute and year round discount prices with free inclusions often included, eg such as cheaperthanhotels.

As Italy is rather big, compared to the size of Singapore, you probably need to have accommodation in various places, such as hotels in Rome, hotels in Venice, hotels in Milan, etc, to travel to each location for their places of interest and tourist attractions.

At Milan, you can join in the Festa del Naviglio on the first ten days of June which has a potpourri of parades, music and various performances. In November, there is the Milan Jazz Festival for the musically inclined. Slightly later on 7 December, there is the Festa di Sant’Ambrogio with services, offerings and fairs around the Fiera di Milano. If you are interested in Opera, Milan’s renowned opera house La Scala opens its season opens on the same day~!

For Rome, it is drenched in history and weighted with monuments famous the world over - the Vatican and the Colosseum.

For transportation, the Leonardo da Vinci (Fiumicino) airport is 16 miles southwest of the city with the Stazione Termini direct train running hourly into the city. The main bus station is located outside the Stazione Termini. The Rome Metro service has two lines, both of which go through Termini. It runs from 5:30 a.m to 11.30 p.m. and 0:30 on Saturdays.

In Rome, during Holy Week (Easter), Catholics from all over the world arrive on pilgrimages to visit the city’s churches and to hear the Pope at the Vatican. On Good Friday itself, a procession of the Cross goes from the Colosseum to Capitoline Hill. For free entertainments, free concerts, street theatre and outdoor cinema are available during the Estate Romana (Roman Summer) from June to September. Those more culturally inclined can visit museums, galleries and shops in September as they stay open all night from 8pm to 8 am on the occasion called Notte Bianca (white night). It’s also a time of free concerts and other happenings all over the city.

NDSL stylus!

Dear and I finally found the Capsule Machines which dispenses the NDSL stylus at Suntec City. It is located at the far corner on the 2nd level, at the end of Carrefour. Outside of Carrefour and not inside.

So far, there is only one machine which dispenses the stylus and currently it is featuring the Mario stylus.

Dear got the turtle while I got the squid. We exchanged the stylus as dear prefers the squid hee.

Face green green - the song~!

ipod shuffle

Bro got an Ipod Shuffle as a corporate gift from one of his company's vendor/client.
A smart move as an Ipod will definitely interest anybody except someone who has already an Ipod Shuffle which my bro has it liao, even though it is the oder gen.
The Shuffle was engraved with my bro's name so the personalisation touch is there.

Since my borther has a Shuffle already, he is not interested in it and gave it to me after I asked for it. T&C is that he gets to retain the plastic case it came in as it is a nice case and can be useful

After many days in exile on my side table, I finally put some songs into the shuffle. At 1GB capacity, I can't dump my whole 4GB mp3 database into it. This is the smaller DB as I have previously lost about 4-5 GB of mp3. Slowly ripping the songs off CDs is a painful process which I will only do for new CDs I purchased.

While listening to the shuffle, I heard the theme song of 1 of the many Jap dramas I saw before. This led me to search for on wikipedia the 2 jap dramas which has etched into my mind even though I probably watched it more than 5 years ago.

The 2 jap dramas are Beautiful Life and Love Generation.

Beautiful Life is about the life of a hair stylist, acted by , who almost bumps into a wheelchair bound librarian, played by . He eventually fell in love with her and learnt to appreciate life and in turn, encourages her to believe in a beautiful life with a beautiful view at a height of 100cm. However, she eventually subscumb to the disease which handicapped her when she was 15. She managed to see him finally becoming a famous hairstylist with his own show before she passed away. After her death, he went on to fulfil their dream in opening a hair salon by the beach which is barrier free and with a view at a height of 100cm.

Love Generation is about a Creative designer who fell in love with colleague. Throughout the whole show, there is a glass apple which symbolises true love but it was inverted as the couple pursued their love. At the last episode, the glass apple was finally upright, as the couple finally found their true love, each other, after a particular hard and rocky road of love. Also prominently featured, is the advertisement board showing a model holding a glass apple with the words "True Love never runs smooth", which basically pointing at the various relationships shown in the show.

I hope I can find the 2 dramas and re-watched it all over again.

Arsenal Song Clip

Japanese Police vs Darth Vader!!

Trying out embedding youtube video here~!

Funny video, I and sure you will like it~! hee

Rising Costs..

Got this from a colleague. will try to add links etc if possible.

Seems like my colleague got it from the blog, theonlinecitizen.

It will be better to refer to this particular post as they constantly updates it and with sources.