Tourist Sites

City of Strasbourg is located near German's city, Offenburg. It is around one hour by Badden Wuttemburg (BW) train from Freiburg. This city is quite bigger as it is already more than 2000 years old. When you start the journey from Freiburg, German, you can go to offenburg and buy the train ticket for crossing the border to Strasbourg station. When I was there, the station was under heavily renovated. To go to the downtown, you can go straight. You will find a quite crowded streets especially after crossing the river. This river is quite nice with a pedestrian besides the river.

The main view is Strasbourg catedral which has tallest tower in the world. Frankly speaking, I was surprised at that time as that church was very very tall. It has a gothic style altough as not rich as Duomo (catedral) in Milano. I beg that you will have the same experience as me when you see it. Surround the catedral, you will see many shop with old style of houses. I heard that it is a UNESCO herritage site. For you, Tintin cartoon collector, you will happy to see many Tintin post cards which are sold by those shops. When I visited there, the weather was very nice, not to hot but also not cloudy so I could enjoy walking around the city. As the city is quite big, don't forget to look at the map to find the nice place to see or visit.

Freiburg is city in the border between Switzerland and Germany. It was the end of my destination during my trip on April 6-9, 2007. I started very early from Torino, around 6 am, and went first to Milano Centrale station. Then, I changed the train and by cis-alpino (1.30 pm), I accrossed Switzerland. In the border between Swiss-Italy, there will be passport or ID check (I forget the exact name of the station, but it was near Como). It probably because Switzerland is not yet member of Schengen country. So, prepare you document!! For me, because I am from outsite of EU, it took longer than the others. I just showed my passport (without italian resident permit at that time), but finally it was oke because I have schengen visa and multiple entry.
The ticket price of Milano to Basel is around 62 euro and it will take >5 hours to cross Swiss. But it is oke since the views are very beautiful: mountain of alpen with lake. So beautiful.
I changed again the train in Basel and continued by express train (ICE) to go to Freiburg. Something that you have to remember, when you buy ticket here, they will ask the price in Franc (CHF). They accept Euro (EU currency) buy if you have return money, they will give it in Franc, not in Euro. Don't be confuse: there are two Basel stations, Basel-SBB and Basel-Bad. Basel-SBB is Basel station in the region of Switzerland and Basel-Bad is belonging to Germany. It takes only 45 mins from Basel-SBB to Freiburg. So, it was completely dark when I arrived in Freiburg station. At night, Freiburg is nice although I can say that Torino is more crowded. Less people and quite silent.

The main view of Freiburg is Freiburg Munster (catedral). Interesting, big, and old with beutiful relief and gotic. That is the only building which was not destroyed when Alien army bombarded Freiburg during 2nd world war. People think that it was a miracle and holy place. In the yard of the church, they have a traditional market at saturday or sunday. I am not so sure whether only monday or also saturday. There are also some interesting places, such as Schwabentor (tower of Freiburg), small hill near there where you can see all the city of Freiburg, churches, e.g. Her Jesu, and modern building with artistic design and nice colour style. Nice small lake is also there. The train system (tram) is modern, not old as Torino or Milano, but more expensive.

Do you have 2 cent euro coint? Please check it and see the picture of one side of the coin. That picture is mole antonelliana of Torino city, or people just say Mole. The name is coming from the person who design this building. Originally, this building is dedicated for Jewish synagoga (church for Jewish) but as there was a little disagreement between Antonelliana (the designer) and Jewish group related to the design and cost of the buiding, they stop to built it. Finally, the Torino goverment continued to built it following Antonelliana and it reaches 167 meters. Since 2000, this building is dedicated for the national film museum. You can go inside but if you want to enter the museum you have to pay. The mole has a very nice shape, not round shape.

One of the intereting thing is, in one side of the (large) roof, they put the fibonacci number (a series of number which has special order) made by Italian mathematician, Fibonacci. That number will be clearly seen during night time. In the week end, the will open the Mole, and you can go to up till the small section above the roof but don't be surprise with the queue. Just imagine, my friend who stay in Torino since he was young never go up although he really wants. Why because of that. When he comes to Mole, the queue to go up is very very very long. Poor guy.

April 21-22, 2006

Busan is located in the southest part of Korea peninsula. It is one of most dense population and known as largest port city. Seoul people said that they have different accent when Busan people speak Korea. mmm .. I think so, little bit different. I visited Busan for 2 days after finishing a confrence in Daegu city by express train (KTX). By train, you will stop at Busan station which is already downtown of Busan. So, try to 'taste' the night of Busan downtown. Not as crowded as Seoul, but oke, I think.

As it is located near the beach, the main food will be sea food. Fresh sea food with delicious ways of cooking (I mean: korean ways^^). The important point is try to bargain the price first before you eat or enter the food shop that you can get the low price. The are many shop beside the beach and sometimes they compete to give the special price. Unfortunatelly, they only able to speak in Korea.
The most famous beach is Haeundae Beach where so many Korean gather at noon and sometimes it is still crowded during night in the summer season. Near there, so many hotels with cheap price or probably you can find cheap youth hostel in this area. Last time, I slept in the hostel with no-bed (they only give blanket and pillow) and the price is really cheap. Night time near the beach is also nice, may pubs also.
If you visited Busan, don't forget to visit APEC park. APEC is the meeting of asian pacific country leader related to the economic, politic issue. Some nice buidings there with the complete documentation of APEC meeting.
As in 2002, Korea held the world cup, a world cup stadium is also exsisted here named as Busan wold cup stadium. The design is very good, i think better than Seoul world cup stadium.

Malaka is the last destination of one day trip in Sept 24, 2005. It is quite long distance to visit this place from Kuala Lumpur (KL). Even, when we went there, We were almost getting lost as we used private car and passed many silent streets. Probably not the correct way, but finally we arrived there.

Malaka is a part of Malaysia where it was collonized by many european coutries, such as Pertugal, Dutch, British, and also Japan in 2nd world war. That is the reason why so many ancient european style building are in here. The nice place is the hill that you can see the beach. Before that, you can find many old buildings, such as: Satdhuys building as the residence place of european people when they collonized this place. When you go up to the top of the hill, you will find the Franciscus Xaverius church. From the tale story, during missionary works in Malaysia including Indonesia, Saint Franciscus Xaverius stayed in this church. Unfortunately, this church is heavily destroyed. It remains only the stone floor and some part of the church wall. Some written stones were there with story inside.