An active silhouette

Last week's photo theme was silhouette.

Spending so much time at the Relau Sports Complex, it occurred to me that one of the silhouettes there might work for this theme. :P

Digging out my coin collection

I did not check my Euro collection before leaving for Europe. So when I was there, I just saved some coins that looked like I had never seen before. As a result, I came back with:

1. An Italian coin that I thought I didn't have, but did.

2. An Austrian coin that I thought I had never seen before, but in fact I already had the same design at 1-cent and 5-cent denominations. But this inadvertently completed my collection for that country because the one I found was 2 cents. :)

Austrian coins are the one in the column "A" (if you don't recognize the flag - I don't)
The new coin is the one sticking out a bit.

3. A German 2-cent coin that I didn't know was German, but it turned out I had the design only for 1-cent, so it turned out well.

Germany is the column with "D", for Deutschland

4. I kept a German 20-cent coin just because it looked so shiny and new, even though I knew I already had the design. Turned out I only had the 10-cent denomination (though this one, I definitely had seen loads of it when I was in France…I just wasn’t collecting all denominations at the time, because my friend only gave me the collector’s book at the end of my stay there). Then I realized I had put the old coin (the 10-cent coin above it) upside down. I didn't know Brandenburger Tor at the time… Now I totally know which side is up! :P

The shiny 20-cent coin is in the middle...the coin above it is upside down. And below it...there is no coin, just the image waiting to be filled :P

And when looking at the leftover coins that I didn't bother specially saving, I found that Belgium had changed their coin slightly. Hmmm... Why did you do that? Want to make things more difficult for collectors? :P

Spot the difference!

I also found that I had a German 1-euro coin that was shinier than the one in my book…so I guess I can swap that out.

And while going through all these, I found that I have a commemorative coin from Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday in 2006 (my trip to UK was in 2007; I had forgotten when, but I looked it up :P )

This trip also gave me a commemorative 2-euro coin from Berlin, and a Latvian coin (Latvia joined the Euro club  in 2014, after I left France), so I am happy about those.

And also some Danish coins... I didn't get any from Poland or Sweden because those were only day trips and I didn't exchange any cash; we only used cards!

A dramatic weekend

Before I get to posting photos of my trip, I need to write about how the universe seemed to be conspiring against my return to Penang. (there were no serious events, but there were so many little things…little “signs”, if you will)

It started with my luggage bag. It has a simple combination lock to hold the zippers in place so that they wouldn’t move so easily and open the bag. After I packed, I somehow inserted the zippers into the lock…and then moved the combination…and then I realized something was wrong.

The zippers were not supposed to go into the lock unless the combination was correct!

Too late, I did not know what the combination was when I put the zippers in. So now one zipper was stuck, unmovable in its lock, while the other one had somehow fallen out, so it was free.

(Here I guess what happened was that I had somehow moved the combination while the lock stayed in the “unlocked” position. I am not sure how that happened, but it must have been when I first opened my luggage at the hotel… I had moved the combination after unlocking it, simply NOT to have the lock in the “unlocked” position. So much for that…I guess that backfired on me.)

It was already rather late and I had to check out. So I decided I had no choice but to handle that later. I finished the rest of my packing and headed for check out. While waiting for my friend to check out, I started trying out a few combinations (3-digit lock, 1000 possible combinations), hoping to hit the jackpot. I tried numbers in a row (just changing one digit), jotting down what I had tried, so I would not need to try those again if I really ended up trying the 1000 combinations later.

Here I was thinking, I would be spending the whole journey home thinking about how to open the lock when I get back. Because the other option would be to ruin the zipper to open my bag and get my stuff out first. (I doubted that I would be able to try 1000 combinations after a 24-hour journey from Berlin to Penang)

Then as we sat in the hotel lobby (my friend was finishing up a drink that he didn’t manage to finish the night before), my friend suddenly recalled something that he had read about cheap locks before…we can see how some notches appear when we turn the combination. From there, we can find the correct number to unlock it. And. It. WORKED!

Whew! That was such a relief…

(wow, so much written just for the “first episode”... :P )

Then we called for a taxi to the airport. (we asked the hotel receptionist to call one for us; they did it with a simple push of a button :P )

We waited for a while but didn’t see a taxi come…Then we asked the hotel receptionist about how long it would take, and he said it was supposed to have arrived. No matter, he would call another one. It arrived in less than 5 minutes…so probably we missed the first one because we did not expect it so quickly!

After that it was off to the airport and all the way to Doha airport.

Upon arriving at the lounge, we put our carry-on luggage in their lockers so that we wouldn’t need to carry them around. Those lockers have a combination lock that we set ourselves. There is also a card inside with the locker number, and we would take that card with us, and put it back after we retrieve our luggage.

Just before leaving the lounge, I went to get something from my bag to use in the washroom. (without taking my bag out) After coming back from the washroom, I entered my combination and pulled at the door handle…and my hand slipped right off.

Here I need to explain what the door handle is like. Instead of an actual “handle”, it’s more like a flat piece of metal sticking out. The metal is a vertical plane, and we need to really grip it properly so that our hand won’t just slip off the metal. (My hand had actually slipped a number of times before when we used that lounge on the trip towards Berlin.)

So I am fully convinced that my hand kept slipping off because I had just used their (awesome) hand lotion in the washroom. The light on the locker had already turned green after I entered my combination.

After I failed to open the locker a few times, the person at the locker area came and asked me whether I had forgotten my combination. I told him it was probably because of the lotion, but I’m not sure whether he heard me; in any case he was already opening the locker for me. I had just taken the item from my bag less than 10 minutes ago; I guess he remembered me!

As I joined my friend (who had already taken his stuff out), I told him, “I really have no luck with locks today,” and told him the story. Here was where he said, “They don’t want you to go home!”

Then we made our way to our boarding gate, which was something like A10. As we reached the gate, we saw a long queue…but was surprised to see that the flight was not ours, but another one later than ours. Checking the nearest display for boarding gates, we realized that our gate had been changed to B7 (if I remember correctly). And not only that, the status was “last call”.

PANIC.

There was more than half an hour before departure. Last call?!?!

We sped all the way to B7. (not running, just fast walking, otherwise I would have run out of energy before reaching) It was like going from almost the end of the A terminal to almost the end of B terminal. I think my friend might have gone even faster if he weren’t with me…I did tell him to just go ahead, because he could tell them that I was on my way, and that would be fine.

When we reached B7, they were already boarding, but with a lot of economy class passengers left to go. I was panting as I reached the counter. The man there greeted me and asked, “How are you?” (the irony…was that included in the standard greeting or did he ask that because I did not look fine?) I had to catch my breath before I could reply to him “I’m okay”, and I deliberately added, “You all changed the gate?”, to which he laughed a bit.

As we were going to the new boarding gate, my friend and I had remarked again, “yeah, they really don’t want me to go back…”

Why didn’t we notice the gate change? Because there were way too many connecting flights in Doha, it seems… In the lounge, we had checked the departure display at least twice, but our flight did not show up. It was leaving at 1:50am, and the last few flights that showed up were also leaving at 1:50am. And after those last few flights, the display switched to the first upcoming flights again. So we just went to the gate that we had checked earlier (before going into the lounge).

Fast-forward to KLIA…things seemed to be going smoothly now. And then…just before departure for Penang, there was an announcement that they had to change a wheel on our plane, and that it would take 20-25 minutes. This was when we had all already boarded. Here I started thinking, “This is blog post fodder!” But at the moment I could only recall our sprint to board the flight from Doha, and asked my friend what were the other events that had happened to make us say something was conspiring against us. He couldn’t recall it immediately either, but he did mention that “there was a lot”. After a while, I recalled the two luggage incidents and told him so. Then he mentioned that the first taxi also went missing! (Still remember it from earlier in the post? :P That was such a small thing that it would have been totally forgotten if not for the other events.)

After the first announcement, there was another one saying that they would need another 15 minutes. And then…finally we took off!

It seems that they flew more quickly. As my friend said, the stewards and stewardesses seemed more stressed, and had to serve us more quickly. We also had less time to finish our in-flight satay… :P

In the end, even with all the incidents, only the last flight was delayed...by maybe half an hour? So the trip schedule actually went according to plan despite all the hiccups!

These dramatic episodes made me recall another airport drama that occurred before…I mostly remember being extremely jittery on the bus to the airport, and my name being called on the PA system. Reading back my old blog posts, it seems like my memory merged the events from my Vienna and Munich trips. I’m actually glad I didn’t recall all these before my trip to Berlin, otherwise I think I would have been quite worried about the flight that I would be taking from Copenhagen to Berlin! As they say, ignorance is bliss...

A "back to Malaysia" Photo Friday

After the previous Photo Friday bumper post, here is the "normal" one for the past week.

The theme was restaurant. I stupidly forgot to snap a photo of one of the multiple restaurants at one of the multiple airports that I passed through last weekend, and on Wednesday I started panicking about where to find a restaurant to take a photo of (without going out of my way). Luckily I happened to spot this "new" restaurant ("new" because I don't think it's very new, but I seldom walk past that block of shops) near Pisa Corner.

I have finally moved all my Berlin trip photos to my computer. I have a whopping 1099 photos...with minimal filtering, so that number probably includes some useless, non-touristical photos as well. But it still means there's a fair thousand of trip photos to go through...can I finish in six months? :P

Overdue photos coming up!

It's about time I posted my overdue Photo Fridays!

I spent four weeks in Berlin, and have been snapping the photos but not posting them here. So here's a bumper edition with those four photos.

The theme that I received just before I left was home.

The most appropriate photo for the occasion was to show my home for the upcoming four weeks. So once I arrived in my hotel room, I snapped a photo of it. (well, I would have done that even without this theme... :P )

Spot the kitty!

The following week's theme was school. I didn't see many schools as I went around Berlin, but one morning while walking around, I spotted a colourful kindergarten.

Then came the theme eyes. One night we walked by this poster of a play... Those are some scary eyes! It wasn't until I zoomed in with my camera that I realized the eye was actually a QR code. Before that I thought it was a diamond!

Here's the full face on the poster:

(A scary face too, don't you think? :P )

The next theme was silver. This was when I went to Copenhagen, and from my hostel, I present you: A silver staircase to... the bunk above mine.

Very highly polished indeed, wouldn't you say?

Other photos of Berlin will have to wait...there are plenty, more than I have time to handle, I feel!

A quiet rainy morning

Last Sunday there was a heavy downpour in the morning, right after I woke up. But as is the case with recent downpours, it ended very quickly, and was already over after I took my shower. 

So I went to the market as usual.

Unsurprisingly, the streets were quiet after that huge downpour, suiting the photo theme of the week!

Perfect plan

The photo theme for this week was perfect.

But it was not the perfect theme for me, as I found it difficult to find something “perfect” to photograph.

I took a number of photos for the theme, but wasn’t exactly very happy with any of them. Then I went to the USM badminton court (after years!), and discovered that they had installed roofs for the car-park now.

As I parked, I suddenly realized that the roofs were actually solar panels!

Now I guess we can call that the perfect use of space or solar panels!

I wonder why they didn’t put the panels closer together…there are actually gaps in between, so the parked cars are shaded mostly from the sun, but some rays will still get through, and of course the rain still falls through! Maybe it is for the solar panels to expand in the heat?

Hidden Pikachu

This week's photo theme was hidden.

So I asked Pikachu to go into hiding.

Can you spot it?

Growing wild

I planted a small onion some time ago, because it was starting to grow a shoot. 

It grew all over the place, which suits last week's theme of wild.

Another photo to show how high it grew (it was probably too heavy to stand up straight?)

Cheap cordon bleu and French onion soup

We went to try Jack & Grill Western Food because they were having a promotion, with 50% off chicken cordon bleu, and also a discount on French onion soup. 

chicken cordon bleu, RM11.50 (promo price at 50% off)

The server who brought us the dish warned us to be careful because there were toothpicks inside. Turns out that they poked toothpicks in to hold the thing together, and when they cut it into pieces, some of the toothpicks were cut too! Quite dangerous, if you ask me...I don't think a warning is enough; they should have pulled out the toothpicks before cutting and serving (the ends of the toothpicks were still poking out of the sides).

There was a tiny bit of ham and cheese in the middle, but it was pretty non-existent. Not sure whether they skimped on it because of the half-price promo...

white sauce Mexican chicken chop with cheese potatoes, RM15.90

This was a recommended item. The photo showed chunks of potato in cheese, but when the dish arrived, most of the potato were melted/mashed into the cheese. Good for cheese lovers like Snorlax, but the rest of us couldn't eat much of it. The sauce on the salad is tartar sauce, which makes me confused...is that sauce meant for the salad, or for the chicken? (the chicken already had some Mexican marinade)

fish and chips, RM17.50

Very crispy batter, and nice tartar sauce.

French onion soup, RM7.90 (promo price)

I first heard of French onion soup in Three Star School Lunch, a Japanese drama that I wrote about before. I think I have seen it on the menu when I was in France, but “onion soup” doesn’t sound that appetizing to me. Then in the drama, there was one episode that featured French onion soup. I found out that it isn’t only about onion, but made of a beef/chicken stock. They even crack a whole quail egg into it at the end. This one also had an egg inside, though from the size, it was chicken egg. :P

Basically all the dishes hat we ordered were pretty good. The batter was crispy, which is the most important for dishes like these. The chicken was also quite tender.