Europe Travel - Day 7 Vienna, Austria

Woke up in the morning and packed my stuffs off to Vienna, Austria in the afternoon! My friend and I took the Student Agency Bus from Brno, Czech Republic to Vienna, Austria. The journey takes about 2 hours from Brno to Vienna. Click here to read about the review on Student Agency Bus!

FYI, if you are entering another country student agency may not provide wifi service for that country except Czech Republic. While I was on the bus when we entered the Austria border, our wifi on the bus was disconnected.

We decided to get off the last stop which is Vienna International Airport. It was easy for us to get most of the tourist information at the airport.

For the next 4 nights we stayed at the Renaissance Wien Hotel. It is located near the Schonbrunn Palace. I really wanted to see the palace so, I decided to stay near that place. FYI, not a good idea. If I ever go back I'd probably stay near the city centre & I will never go back to this hotel. Review coming soon! 

Once arrived at the airport we went to the tourist information and ask how to get to our hotel. The customer service staff was very helpful and showed us we have different transportation passes we could use during our time there. For tourists you can get the "Vienna Now or Never" aka "The Vienna Card". There are 2 types: 48 Hours Pass or 72 Hours Pass. You are able to use this card and get on any transportation within the time period once you punch in your card. 

To get to the city you will have to either take the "CAT" aka City Airport Train, which is a bit more expensive and faster to get to the city centre or the normal train which takes a longer time but in a cheaper price. You can purchase the CAT tickets at the counter at the Airport or online. As for the normal train tickets you can purchase it at the tourist information desk with The Vienna Card. 

I purchased the 72 Hours The Vienna Card since I was staying there longer. Once you have purchased the card you can place your name and the date on the card. Remember to bring your card every day, just incase there will be any sudden inspection in the U-Bahn, Tram or Bus. 

It just seems like a better bargain for the transportation, since I was living far from the city centre so, I had to purchase the ticket. If you are inside Stephansplatz and you are not going to travel on transportation that much except going to the Summer Palace for a day, then there isn't a need to purchase it. 

Top: 72H The Vienna Card Bottom: Train to city center

Before leaving the Tourist Information don't forget to get your maps and most of all "The Now or Never" booklets! There are a few for you to select. Get all of them and most important one get the "The Now or Never Coupon" book! With the card you just purchased you can use it with the coupon book to get discount offers on selected restaurants, museums, cafes, stores etc. I promise you those can be handy during your stay!

Vienna is a very convenient city, with the U-Bahn you can get to all the tourist attraction places! There are stops where you have to transit to get to places where you are but it is fine. The directions are very easy. There is 1 advantage living away from the city centre that is you really know how to use the U-Bahn well during your stay there.

Credit: http://lexikon.freenet.de/U-Bahn_Wien

I was staying in "U4 - Meidling Hauptstraße" the Green Line and the Airport was on the Orange Line. I had to transit on "U3 - Landstraße" the orange line and interchange on to the Green Line in order to get to my hotel. The ride was about 1 hour, since we took the slower train and not CAT.

Most of the tourist attraction place will be in "U1 - Stephansplatz" the Red Line. As you can see it is in the centre of the U-Bahn map. That is where everything you will want to visit during the stay. During my stay I had to travel the U-Bahn to get there. It only takes 20 minutes, so it wasn't that bad at all. Experiencing a little part of Vienna life and culture instead of just being where all the tourists were.

Next Blog... Review on the Renaissance Wien Hotel!

Cooking - Crabmeat Soba

I have been craving a lot of cold foods lately because the weather has been insane! It's so hot in Hong Kong. The moment you walk out the apartment you can feel the heat wave just came through your body and it's a on going sweating for the day. YAY! For deodorant! FYI, not many Hong Kong locals wear deodorants. Nasty!

Last weekend my friends and I went to Kurotaki to get some cold soba. I am a fan of soba, specially during summer. It's healthy, light and I like the taste of buckwheat. Even though the soba itself is light but my friends and I didn't eat light. We had seafood hot pot with soba, Pork Katsu with soba etc.

Tender Pork Katsu & Buckweat Soba is a perfect match!

Green Tea Soba - Sashimi- Seafood hot pot - Soft Crab Sushi

Yes, it was feast! After having soba, I thought I'd go purchase a pack of soba myself and cook it at home! Just to let you know, mine isn't the real version on how to make it. I simply just alternate the ingredients that I found and already have inside my fridge. The only thing I purchased was the soba noodles. All ingredients are less than $15USD!

Let's start cooking!

Crab Meat Soba

 Ingredients

• Cucumber (Use as much or less as you want)
• Carrot (Use as much or less as you want)
• 1 egg
• Crab meat (Use as much as you want & use any protein you want)
• Buckwheat Soba (Use as much as you want)

Cooking time

• Slice all the ingredients into small thing stripes
• Place each ingredient separately in a bowl or a plate
• Boil hot water
• Add the soba. Usually takes 2-3 minutes to cook.
  Taste the soba and see if you like the texture of the soba noodle. 
•  Remove the soba and hot water using a vegetable basin.
• Rinse with cold water
• Prepare a bowl of ice with water. Add the soba in.
  If you don't have ice, you can skip this.
• Drain any excess water from the soba and add it on a plate.
• Add all the ingredients on top of the soba

The Sauce! 

FYI, this is my alternative way to make mine because I don't have all the ingredients to make the sauce at home. 

• 3-4 tsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1-2 tsp sugar
• mix well 

*** Taste the sauce and if you like it more sweet add sugar. If you like it more salty add a bit more soy sauce. 

Finally, before eating the soba place your soba inside the fridge to cool down. I placed mine for about 15-30mins before serving. Afterwards, simply add the sauce (Little by little) inside your soba and mix them well so you won't find it too salty for the dish. 

The dish may not look so grand but it's my alternative way and it still achieve the flavour I want. 

YUMMY! - Photo from Instagram @kitty_cheung

Enjoy!

Hong Kong Dog Rescue Day

Last week 12 June, 2014 my friend Betty asked me if I would like to participated on volunteering at the Hong Kong Dog Rescue Shelter. I agreed to it along side with Katherine aka cooking meow. There were 18 of us that participated on that day.

HKDR is a shelter for dogs that have been abandoned and owners that have signed off their dogs to the shelter because they can no longer take care of them. The shelter does not promote putting down any dogs. It is for adoptions. The shelter is a non government organisation. It's funding is purely from companies, donations and adoption. There are 2 locations for the shelters, one is in Tai Po and one in Ap Lei Chau.

Prisilla
 Skin infection currently segregated from other dogs. She loves affection so much! Call her name and she is very happy!

The shelter I went to was in Tai Po. The shelter is in a remote area where only private car or taxi can drive up there. It is about a 30mins walk to the shelter from the MTR.

The land owner of the place lend the place for to them so the dogs can stay there. Inside the shelter, the organiser told us there are over 400 dogs living in this shelter. There are only 5 full time staff that are working there and taking care of the dogs. Volunteers will come during the day and walk the dogs. Surely, not every dog can be walked during the day since there is a lack of volunteers to do so. 

Our first job there was to clean up and take away a lot of fragments of cement inside a big dog cage so, other dogs can find a place to sleep inside. There are over 50 cages from small to big around the area. The small cages fit about 4-5 dogs. Medium cages can go from 6-9 dogs and the large ones there can be over 10 dogs living in there. The area inside the cages is very clean. No feces. Food and water are there all the time, so the dogs will not feel hungry or dehydrated. 

By the time we were done with the fragments it was time for lunch! So, we had dim sum. Not much to say about it. After lunch we headed back and started our next project!

Our next project was to help to put shading nets around the passage ways so, that the staff and volunteers can walk in and out without being under the sun during the summer weather. It can seriously make a person fall ill and dehydrated without the shades. 

Once that was done most of us got to walk the dogs! The best moment of the day! Honestly, these dogs need so much love and care. You can just tell from their eyes. They are desperate. No dogs or even humans would want to live in a place like this. Surely, the place is clean with plenty or food and water but the most important thing that is these dogs do not have the attention that they need from a home. 

Walking time for each dog can just be 15mins - 30mins. It isn't enough but that's all they can enjoy because there are so many other dogs that are waiting for their turn in their cages. 

Super wild and curious about everything puppy!

I got the chance to walk a few dogs. A few dogs and a puppy. Seriously how can people abandon these dogs? It's okay, the staff there will organise you and let you know which dog you are allowed to walk. Most of the time they will let you walk the friendlier dogs. The friendlier dogs are in Green and Yellow tags and the dogs that have serious issues due to their past are in the Purple and Red tags. Those dogs needed to be walked by a professional or the ones that the dogs feel comfortable with. 

Such a cute puppy!

As you can see the dogs are taken care of. During the summer heat there will be shower heads inside the cages. The staff will turn them on so the dogs can cool down from the heat. Also, they get a huge buckets where the little pups can soak in to cool down their body temperature.

Meet Baldwin!

Yes, even pure breeds get abandoned. Most of the dogs there are mix breeds but there are some pure breed dogs. There are an increase of pure breed dogs sent to the shelter nowadays. Most of the time it is due to movies and marketing promoting on a certain type of breed and ended up people buying them and a year or 2 later they just don't want the dog anymore so, they are either put on the street or was taken here or to SPCA.

FYI, animals that are sent to SPCA normally will survive max. 4 days. If no one adopts them they will be put down. Most of the dogs that are put down are the big dogs and most likely that people do not want are the mix breeds.

The picture above is Baldwin. He is super cute and love human affection. While he was in his cage among the other 10 dogs, Baldwin is always in front of the door. He will jump up and put his paw out to you just to get some affection. He will even lick your hand.

The story behind Baldwin is his owner had to move to a small place and could no longer have Baldwin in his new home. He didn't have time to walk and take care of Baldwin due to his work, so Baldwin was sent here. I urge someone who has the heart and loves a husky to think about adopting Baldwin. He is very timid and doesn't harm anyone nor fierce to other dogs in the shelter. Check out more information about Baldwin! 

No animal should be in a place like this. I do urge many future pet owners who do want to have a pet, no matter it is a cat, dog, rabbit etc please please please think about adopting first! 

There are so much advantages on adopting an animal than just buying it off in a pet shop. Adopting an animal is even more safe because all these dogs that are in a shelter have been neutered and their injections have been completed. If you get it in a pet shop, they don't have it and many bad pet shop owners will inject the dogs some hyper active substances that will make you think they are active and cute. Once you have taken the dog home, they will fall sick. Also, dogs that have been abandoned will not take anything for granted. They know what happened to them and they can feel that a home is the best thing they should be and not being surrounded by dogs barking all day long. 

As I mentioned Hong Kong Dog Rescue is an Non Profit Organisation. They get money to run the shelter by company donations or from people and from adoptions. I personally put my effort on purchasing a top from them! The top cost less than $20USD ($100HKD) it is something at least I can help. 

If I didn't have 2 dogs and a cat in my home right now, I'd probably will adopt a dog. All I can say that I am a proud person that I have a mix breed dog that my family and I adopted last year through a person who cannot take care of the dog and I adopted a cat due to the shop that had a cat made a bunch of little kittens. Lastly, my family and I did purchase a dog in a dog shop and that was 13 years ago. We didn't know better. Now we do so we are adopting and say NO to purchasing! 

If you would like to contribute you can either become a volunteer or donate to the HKDR!

Donate: http://www.hongkongdogrescue.com/public/general.php?pageId=76

Volunteer: http://www.hongkongdogrescue.com/public/general.php?pageId=78

Shop Online: http://hongkongdogrescue.com/public/shop.php

MEET MY PETS! 

BB - 13 years old - Boy - Pomeranian (Purchased)

Cat aka Mao Mao - 12 years old - Boy - Mix Breed Cat (Adopted)

Kirin - 1 year old 6 months - Girl - Mix Breed Dog (Adopted)

I'd probably do another blog mentioning my pets. They are super cute and adorable! I love them!

#HKDR if you visited or attending any events! Rescusing a life is a life changing experience for you and the animal.

1600 Pandas Invasion in Hong Kong

It's finally here!!! The long anticipation of the 1600 Pandas finally arrived in Hong Kong! As we all know this event is to draw awareness and help fundraising project for WWF. The pandas have all around the world France, Netherlands, Italy, Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany and finally they have arrived in Hong Kong!

The whole city is very hyped about this event. Personally, when I knew about this I wanted to visit the pandas and I couldn't wait any longer. By the time it was June there weren't any news until I found out from my friends that they will be arriving on June 9th.

Credit: 1600 Pandas Facebook

Since the cute pandas have arrived in Hong Kong and spending a few days at the Hong Kong International Airport and The Big Buddha their first event of the day was in Park Island, Ma Wan near Noah's Ark. The image above shows the location where the pandas will have a flash mob pop up and their final destination will be at the PMQ.

I got very excited that the pandas will pop up in Ma Wan from 12:00pm - 3:00pm so, I asked my friend Katherine aka Cooking Meow was interesting of going and she was interested so we decided to go together! We met up and took the ferry from Tsuen Wan West Railway to Park Island.

We walked for a while where most of the people were and you can see where the pandas were from a far because it was so crowded.

The Disappointment News...

The moment we got there it was a little later than 2:00pm... BAD NEWS!!! The panda caretakers were already putting away the pandas!!! On 1600 Pandas Facebook Page, they posted that the flash mob will start from 12:00pm - 3:00pm but by 2:30pm all the pandas were gone. I could just see a hundred left at the beach. Honestly, many people there were really bummed out or even angry because a lot of families bought their children to see it and they didn't get the chance to because the pandas left early than organisers mentioned on Facebook.

Instagram @kitty_cheung

Due to the caretakers have already started taking away the pandas I could just take one shot of them. I was very bummed out and the organisers could have done it better or at least kept their promise on finishing at 3:00pm. There are some comments about the pandas are just here not for the locals but for celebrities and other famous people to promote this fundraiser for WWF, it isn't for the locals here.

As many others like me who went to this event posted a comment on 1600 Pandas Facebook Page asking some feedback on why the flash mob finished early as they announced. Their feedback was pretty simple.

"As we have volunteer got heatstroke during the flash mob under the hot weather, so we had decided to end the activity while mission completed. However, thanks for your suggestion! And we will consider and review our performance further. hope will see you next time!" 

Acceptable? or not acceptable, well it is yours to critic.

Some other situations happened and I think the organisers can address during their flash mob and something for everyone to know & expect when you are at the next flash mob locations:

• No touching permitted on the Pandas. (If you are lucky you may land your hand on one!)
  Honestly, I find this ridiculous! Is there really a rule on it? If yes, please let every one know. Some people are allowed to touch, hug or even hold them and some can't. It happened to me. After asking a few caretakers and got rejected I simply gave up. Some caretakers just simply told me to just go over to the other caretaker and ask!
• Be there EARLY as possible!!!
  Most of the people who got there early were the press. The moment the press were done with filming and shooting the caretakers just took them away.
• Expect least on the situation.
  When you have less expectation on something, you won't feel too bummed out.

The 1600 Panda Flash Mob will continue and their locations are...

1600 pandas has landed Hong Kong! From June 9 to 21, pandas will visit more than 10 Hong Kong landmarks, to give Hong Kong citizens a nudge of surprise. You are welcome to visit the pandas at 5 sites:

Ma Wan Tung Wan Beach (12:00nn – 3:00pm, 10 June, Tuesday)

Clock Tower at Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza, Tsim Sha Tsui (1:00pm – 4:00pm, 14 June, Saturday)

Victoria Park (12:00nn – 2:00pm, 19 June, Thursday)

Tram Touring (12:00nn – 3:00pm, 20 June, Friday)

Statue Square, Central (8:00am – 10:00an, 21 June, Saturday

Information credit: PMQ 1600 Pandas world tour

FYI, the schedule for the flash mob doesn't seem to the accurate. There are so many versions about where the Pandas will pop up so, I think the best way is to follow their newsfeed on their facebook page. 

If you are not into the flash mob or you don't have the time to attend any of the flash mob, no worries! The pandas last stop will be at the PMQ and they will be there from June 25 - July 17 from 10:00am - 8:00pm. For more information about visiting the pandas visit the PMQ 1600 Pandas World Tour website.

Don't forget to #1600Pandas when you spot them!

Europe Trip - Day 4 - Day 6 Prague to Brno

My last day in Prague then off to Brno! After packing and checked out my friend and I decided to just chill, so we decided to go feed the swans. They are so friendly and beautiful!

We went to the other side of the Vtava River to feed the swans. Bring some bread with you. They're not afraid of humans and they come really close to you!

After that we just roam around and walked all the way to the National Museum.

There are many different kind of shops along the street. The place was packed of tourists! Along the street walking up to the National Museum you get to see these billboards talking how this area developed. It pretty fascinating to see back then there were no roads and gradually there were carriages and streets etc. 

In front of the National Museum there will be a statue monument the Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia. The area is very relaxing. From the top you can see another side of Prague.

Where is the National Museum?

It's very easy to get there. From Metro you get off at Muzeum station exit A will be the closest to the museum.

Website: http://www.nm.cz/
Address: Václavské náměstí 68, 115 79 Praha 1

After visiting the national museum we headed to Florenc Station to buy our tickets to Brno, Czech Republic and headed back to the hotel to get our bags.

Florenc Station has a main bus station and train station where you can go anywhere in the city. Since we were heading to Brno, my friend picked Student Agency. It is a very popular bus company because the seats are wider, it has free wifi on the bus (only available in Czech.) and plenty of movies, musics, tv shows to watch during the journey!

Student Agency Bus. Yes, it is Yellow!

Florenc Bus Station. The easiest way is to take the Metro to Florenc and get out of Exit C. Simply walk across the road and the bus station will be there. It won't be hard to notice because many people are walking towards that direction and there are plenty of taxis there. 

It takes 2 hours from Prague to Brno. We got on the 4:00pm one and arrived in Brno at 6:00pm. Luckily my friend's husband came to pick us up! 

For the next 2 days I just stayed in Brno to rest a bit before heading to the next destination Vienna! 

Hello Brno!!!

Just a few photos in Brno. It is a lovely chilled city. It's small and people are all wide spread comparing to Prague. There isn't much to talk about Brno since it is just a stop over for me to unpack from my huge luggage to a small one because my friend and I were going to Vienna and Krakow for the next 8 days. 

Next Blog.... Vienna, Austria!