Beaulotus is very busy

was last month. Stayed at the Pulai Desaru resort. It has a very nice pool and decent massage services. Also a private stretch of beach but the waters were so rough there was no way one could swim in the sea.

Be warned that there is no alternative F & B outlet around the hotel unless you charter transportation and go elsewhere. The hotel has a limited menu and the prices are quite steep for the so-so quality of the food or you’ll be forced to go for the buffet.

Otherwise if you have kids and want a quick getaway from Singapore, Desaru’s a good place for a few days. 30 mins by ferry followed by 30 mins by shuttle bus, hassle-free.

Well, I’ll be seeing alot of Maranello and Ferrari soon. Just spent a week there. My hubby just started working there a month ago. He sees a new Ferrari driving past his office every few minutes. Last month, he was introduced to M. Schumacher.

The town is quite a mess though and there isn’t much to see and do except visit the Ferrari museum and buy a few things from the Ferrari shop. I didn’t need to pay to visit (membership has its priviledges), but 12 Euros is pretty steep for such a small museum. The audiophone will cost an extra 5 Euros. I honestly prefer the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart. But the Ferraris are of course wonderful (if you’re into them) and my eldest son went crazy snapping pictures of the cars. His favourite is the Enzo Ferrari. We got a pedal one for our youngest :-).

However, if you go beyond the park where there’s a monument to Ferrari (and where Ross Brown’s former house overlooks the town and park – it’s up for rent now at 5400 Euros per month), there are rolling hills that are really quite charming, I’ll try to explore them another time. We move to the region in July.

If you want to rub shoulders with the Ferrari staff, lunch or dine at the Self Service restaurant at Maranello Village (a 4-star Ferrari Service Residence). It’s cheap and the food’s decent. Otherwise in Maranello itself, the restaurant La Brace serves good pasta, meat and seafood dishes and in the evening, a few of the Ferrari people dine there too (usually very late) as quite a number of the guys live and work in Maranello in the week away from their families.

I’ve been there more than 10 years ago, though I only remembered it when I was last there in February this year! I saw the horses and images of them shitting all the way up to the castle jogged the memory…

A really lovely castle, very well maintained, a true beauty. I liked the way the few fully-completed rooms were decorated, the mix of Gothic and Medieval in the architecture. Everything was also very well-organised, we had a number for our tour and a time slot to go on it and everything ran like clockwork!

And for a few days after, I was intrigued as to how and why Mad King Ludwig II died the way he did – drowned in the lake near the castle and with a doctor too. Anybody knew the answer?

PS : The reason why we couldn’t take pictures inside the castle was, according to our official guide, because the German Government has copyright to them! So when you’re inside, you can take pictures of the outside (thru the windows) but nada of the inside.

We stayed 6 months in Rochester, NY a few years back. Lots of snow, great places to snow sled, and they have an excellent museum for kids – the Strong Museum. Love the miniature supermarket, post office etc for kids.

Went to Munich for the weekend recently. Great city, really lovely old town houses with lots of style in some areas.

Went to a river near a Modern Art museum where surfers could actually practise their surfing in it and had good cake near the castle. Quite a number of restaurants around. Interesting shops. The people dress very well in general, it shows that Munich is a rich and cultured city.

The next time (probably next month) we’ll try to visit the WW2 concentration camp in Dachau.

Shop shop shop, didn’t know where to start when I was last there, there were so many branded shops selling factory-priced goodies in the 3 main shoping areas (2 in Pont Ste Marie and 1 in St Julian les Villas)...

Only complaint was the lack of restaurants. How could one eat a sandwich or a burger before starting to shop? Not me in any case.

Otherwise, when in Troyes, eat their andouillete, it’s famous.

I grew up on Japanese Mangas, TV series, pop groups (ah, the annual Red and White Singing Competition)...and I love the Japanese language. Though I am no sushi lover and we’ve had some bad memories of the Japanese Occupation of Singapore during WWII…

It is a land of contrasts and must be worth the visit. And maybe I’ll be able to learn how to tie a kimono when I’m finally there (find it very erotic).

I want to get myself a few Aao Dais tailored. They are so light and graceful on those Vietnamese girls – though I suspect that one may need to be light and graceful to start with (hiccup)!

I would also like to slurp down a few piping hot bowls of Pho and Saigon noodle soup, and those delicious crepes filled with meat, prawns, bean sprouts and herbs…

And soak in the contrast between its French colonial past, Communist near-past and where-is-it-heading present.

I am fascinated by this Buddhist country with its robed monks, where they feed their dead to the vultures, its rooftop of the world status, former home of the Dalai Lama…

I just hope that the country will be able to remain Tibetan and not more and more like China by the time I get there.

In 2000, we took a ferry to Banda Acheh from Medan City. It was full of people and we had narrow planks to sit and sleep on (under glaring white light). Hubby and I wanted so much to hug and cuddle but were told by our Malay and Indonesian neighbours not to do so. They also warned us that the police and soldiers carry guns at the port at Acheh and may not hesitate to shoot us if we carried out “unmuslim” behaviour…As gunfights were common at that time, we took the warnings seriously.

At Acheh, we took a boat to Pulau Weh. The island has a traditional Malay village at the jetty where we were not allowed to expose our shoulders etc. We walked towards the “tourist” part of the island where there was a beautiful beach, diving school, huts built on stilts, a restaurant in a wooden hut…

Hubby dived while I suntanned on the beach (yes, in my bikini). Shark meat curry was on the menu, can’t remember if we tried it. Anyway I’m fond of shark meat, it goes beautifully with curries and preserved Chinese vegetables.

On certain evenings, we put on our T-Shirts and dined in the village, simple but delicious fare e.g. grilled fish (catch of the day), stir-fry vegetables, ayam goreng. We ate better there than in the rest of Sumatra. I still remember how at 7pm, when the sun set, all the chicken that were walking around on the ground suddenly flew up all at the same moment onto a big tree next to our table (to take shelter from predators at night). It was an amazing sight. And I thought that chickens couldn’t fly.

The huts on the beach had no private facilities. We had to wash ourselves next to the well or something in the middle of the main “street” and the toilets were way back in a small building. In the middle of the night, I would usually go do my business on the beach as I was too afraid of the dark and whatever to make my way to the toilet.

It was a lovely stay. I wonder if the island survived the Tsunami.