Friday 30 April 2010

Prague

On 24th April morning, after taken my breakfast, while waiting for my wife to come back from her visit to the University Palacky Pathology Department, I prepared to check out from the hotel.

10:23 AM we pushed off from Olomouc to Praha in a very nice and comfortable Pendolino train ride. We reached Praha 2 hours later, with only 2 stops in between. Our hotel was just in front of the main train station (Hlavni Nadrazi), but as agreed with Hamimmi and Nadia, we waited for them and together we walked to the hotel. It was Chopin Hotel. We paid 70 Euros cheaper online than those walking in. What a great saving.

As the train journey wasn't a tiring one, we were ready to explore Praha after performing jamak qasar Zohor and Asar. But of course, we need to taste the famous halal Lamb Briyani not far away from the hotel. The Restaurant wasn't too big but clean and no alcohol was served. The taste was marvellous. I strongly recommend this to you.

Hamimmi and Nadia had some work to do, so Nabihah took their place to show us around. We really appreciated their help, as for only 1 day in Prague, time was gold. As many other old cities in Europe, Prague city was walkable. But we still need the trams on some occassions. This was the time when tour guides were very crucial and priceless. Thank you very much dear sisters. May Allah bless you all and make your life there easy and unstressable. Please pray for their exams end of this month.

So we managed to see what we have to see in 1 day. At the end we stopped at Hamimmi and friends' house near Charles University. It was bigger than any students house in Birmingham, I tell you. Nice and clean with huge rooms. Hamimmi stayed with 5 other friends.

We also met Wan Fadhilah from Hradec, 1 hour away from Prague, who we contacted when we were in Czech Rep before we met Suhaila and Atiqah in Olomouc. We met many more Malaysian medical students in Hamimmi's house as they were having a small gathering on the next day.

Before we went back to the hotel, Hamimmi and Nabihah showed us Wenceslas Square. All the info you need to know about Phara are here

There are a few photos in a slide at the bottom of the blog.


Nadia, my wife and Hamimmi


Having lunch at a Pakistani restaurant in Prague, just 3 min walk from Chopin Hotel.


At the market in New Town.





Royal Garden near Prague Castle






Waiting for the No . 20 bus to go up to Prague Castle







Prague Castle in the background






Diny and Nabihah at Prague Castle entrance

















From left back : Rusna, Lah, Mimmi, Syifa
Front left : Nabihah, Diny, Firyal, Siti Nadia at Al Insyirah



Diny and our dear tour guide, Sis Nabihah, yr 3 Med Student

Charles Bridge, packed with tourists, view from Prague Castle

Thursday 29 April 2010

Olomouc

It was Friday, 23rd April 2010. I woke up early, and was ready for breakfast at the ground floor at 7 AM. I found the ransack (Lowepro CompuPrimus) I bought earlier before coming to Czech Rep was really satisfying. Not only I’ve got it cheap, good quality, but also the laptop sleeve provided with the bag was really useful and it was not a shame to walk around with.

I looked around the hotel restaurant (Sigma Hotel, Olomouc) to find an electrical socket for my laptop and started to search for the wi-fi. Alhamdulillah, I’ve got it done and started to surf the internet.

9 AM, I had a job, as a photographer to snap a few photos for my wife’s poster presentation. It was still quite early when I reached back to the hotel. I looked at the clock at the bottom right of my laptop, it was
9:30 AM. So I decided to surf the internet and made a few calls provided by http://www.nonoh.net/. It was free. I was addicted to internet, and during that period, I managed to watch Malay Film, Muallaf, directed by the late Yasmin Ahmad.

It was 11 am and I was ready to tour
Olomouc city, when I realized that I haven’t changed the time zone in my laptop. Ya Allah, it’s 11 AM UK time, means 12 PM local time. So I made the move. Hopped in the tram and hopped out whenever I like. Pedulik haper khanz. I didn’t have any specific program, but I knew that there was a FLORA festival this month somewhere near the botanical garden. I heard other tourists said FLORA in their conversation among themselves, and amazingly, I was at that FLORA. I paid Kr 80, (almost £3) for a student ticket. I thought it was like Keukenhof, but I was wrong. It was just like a normal flower exhibition with Sunday market booth.

At 3 PM I felt nauseated due to gastritis, I was hungry. I remembered my wife’s friend said that there is a halal kebab house at the end of the Main Train Station. I ordered noodle with kebab (Kr75) and a coke (Kr25). It was halal, but they sold beer as well at £0.04 per large glass. Ergh ! ! ! I was hungry and nearly felt like fainting, so I just ate the noodle. I was eating when my wife entered the kebab house, not noticing my presence there, and ordered a kebab for herself. She said, her Czech friends told her, that the hotel that we stayed was an old building in a communist era, and the train that we took from Praha was the normal old fashion train. We should have bought an express train called Pendolino which took only 2 hours journey and was much more comfortable.

So we bought Pendolino train ticket for our journey back to
Prague. The price was of course much more expensive ie double the normal train. As for the hotel, we felt it was comfortable and convenient, only 2 minutes walk to the main train station and to the Regional Conference Centre. I went back to the room to pray, and my wife continued with her conference in RCC.

Yesterday Atikah and Suhaila showed us around. They stopped over at our hotel room for maghrib prayer. Before they went back that night, we made a plan for tomorrow which was today, to go to FLORA and another shopping place which was about the same as Alamanda Putrajaya. Actually not the same but easier to imagine for you folks.

We were supposed to go at 3 PM, but cancelled because my wife had a very interesting talk by her supervisor, Paul at 4:30 PM. So we postponed it to 5PM. It seemed that we were too late to visit Flora, so we cancelled the first itinerary. It was ok for me, as I have been there earlier.

I was tired and needed a short nap. When my wife came back from the conference, I told her that we postponed our visit to Olympia to 6 PM, she decided to take a short walk but ended up taking a tram which was en route to FLORA. She got off the tram in front of the FLORA and with Allah's will, fortunately met Suhaila at FLORA with 4 other Malaysian students, Zaharah, Farhana, Nadia and Seri (hopefully I wrote the right names)

After sholat Asar at the hotel, we took a free bus specially catered for Olympia customers. We spent about 2 and a half hours there. I was very tired, but really enjoyed the time there.

All Malaysian students here were studying Medicine. All their lecturers who my wife met were very impressed with Malaysian Medical students here. I was not surprised, because all of them were brilliant students, who scored all A's in their SPM.



In front of RCC attending the 6th Molecular Pathology Symposium


With her Czech friend, Dana in front of her poster



Olomouc City Centre


If you wanna to know more about Olomouc, just type it in Google search. One of it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olomouc




Town Hall on your right and Holy Trinity Column on your left



One of many flowers at the exhibition


Botanical garden. I was tired. Just snapped a few pictures and rushed to Halal Kebab House



A morning view from the hotel's 8th floor. RCC on your right and the main train station on your left


We bought 24 hours tickets here, cost Kr40 per person(GBP1.20)


Register the ticket at the yellow box once. And we can hop in and hop out in any of the transportation services, busses and trams. Very easy


The tram


This is Olympia. I snapped it from my iPhone camera. I actually brought along my camera, but too bad, left my SD card at the hotel.

Tuesday 27 April 2010

Czech Rep

Rabu, 21 April, wa balik keje awal, atas ihsan abg Wahab. Dia tau wa akan memandu ke Egham malam ini. Di rumah semua dah sedia. Lepas sholat Maghrib, kami berangkat. Perlu wa nyatakan di sini bahawa, Thule roof rack was brilliant ! ! !

Menginap semalam di rumah ipo wa, esok seawal jam 6 pagi wa dan wife dihantar oleh abg Ipo dan kakak ipo wa ke Heathrow, Terminal 5. Bagusnya British Airways ini mereka ada online check-in. Masukkan booking code, terus wa print boarding pass sebelum ke airport. Kalau nak lagi bagus, jadi member British Airways executive club, free je.

Pagi tu kami tertinggal poster untuk presentation wife wa. Kalau tak bawa rugi lah dah penat sediakan. Ia perlu untuk perkenalkan Unibesti Putra, seterusnya ia perlu untuk kerjasama wife wa dengan universiti antarabangsa. Nasib baik abg ipo dan kakak ipo wa sporting giler, kalau tak giler pasti mereka tak akan hantar punya mende tu ke airport.

Kebetulan pula flight ada sedikit tergendala. Maklumlah tuan tuan dan puan puan, airport baru sehari dibuka setelah hampir seminggu ditutup gara gara letusan gunung berapi di Iceland yang menghasilkan debu yang boleh merosakkan enjin kapal terbang

Rencana terbang jam 7:55 pagi, tertunda ke 8:15 pagi. BA ni agak selesa dan yakin. Namun seperti biasa wa akan baca Al Fatihah, 3 x Al Ikhlas dan Ayat Kursi. Perjalanan lancar dan kami mendarat seperti diramalkan sebelum penerbangan tertunda, maknanya laju lah tu

Akhirnya, kalau sebelum ini wa hanya melihat di skrin info kapalterbang, sekarang ini wa mendarat di PRAHA atau PRAGUE di Czech Republic. Bekas tanah komunis, yang kini ramai dihuni yahudi.

Namun tuan tuan dan puan puan, Prague bukanlah tujuan utama kami. Kami mesti ke Olomouc, negeri kelima terbesar dalam Czech Rep, negeri kedua terbanyak peninggalan tugu seni ukiran bersejarah dalam Czech Rep ini. Unibesti kedua tertua (Palacky University) di Czech pon terletak di sini. Dari airport ambil bas, AE (Airport Express) Kr 100 untuk 2 orang ke main train station. Kali pertama sampai sini maka ambil sahaja apa keretapi yang ada.

3 jam 14 minit. Kereta api buruk. As expected, jadi tak kisah. Namun sesuatu yang mengkagumkan, baik bas mahupon keretapi, adalah ketepatan waktunya. Tak ada lebih kurang. Sampai waktu, pintu tutup terus jalan. Inilah agaknya impian PM kita nak hapuskan kata lebih kurang tu agaknya

Sampai Olomouc, nginap di hotel, harganya (wife wa nak yang paling murah) maka dapatlah yang paling murah. GBP25 semalam. Depan stesen keretapi dan 2 minit jalan kaki ke tempat konferen.

Pertama wa lihat anak tangganya, maka dalam kepala wa terlintas, aku akan balik ke tahun 70-an. Anak tangganya berkarat. Bilik besar, ada living room dan bilik tido, bilik air besar, ada tv, hu hu hu ada tv you, thak sangka I. Cuma yang sungguh I thak sangka, thak ada esbok, malah kettle phon tak ado. Nasib baik wa lihat ramai gak la orang yang nginap di situ dengan pakaian dan gaya yang agak bertamadun. Lega sikit hati.

Sarapan agak mewah, seperti biasalah hotel 3 bintang. Asal kenyang, wa no hal. Yang penting bagi wa, ada internet, walaupon hanya di lobby. OK lah. GBP25 je yeop. Lu nak harap apa. Itu pon wa kira lebih bagus dari kebanyakan hotel di Malaya tu. La ni, wi-fi patutnya satu kemestian dan patutnya juga kena FREE




Petang tu, lepas letak beg, mandi dah sholat, kami berjalan. Maka dengan itu dapatlah gambo wa dipukul, walaupon dari belakang. Kota Olomouc ini agak sepi dengan populasi 100k. Ia bersih dan nyaman. Cara mereka renung orang yang pakai tudung pon semacam je.


Di salah satu dari banyak sungai dalam kota


Wa ske lihat anak sungai yang jernih ni. Boleh lihat kilasan ikan di dalamnya. Jauh sungguh sungguh, dari kebersihan sungai Klang yang mengalir membelah bandaraya indah Kuala Lumpur. Atau keindahan Kuala Lumpur telah dicemari dengan sungai Klangnya


Beginilah kebanyakan banggunan di sini


The holy trinity coloumn ini adalah tugu setinggi 35 m. Dalam 2000 ia diiktiraf sebagai salah satu dari senarai Peninggalan Kebudayaan Dunia oleh UNESCO. Terletak di dataran Town Hall


Town Hall dengan Astronomical Clock
Pertama dicatat pembinaannya adalah dalam tahun 1378, berstruktur Gothic dengan adaptasi Renaissance, sementara astronomical clock dibina dalam kurun ke 15


Astronomical clock
Ia merupakan jam dengan kelengkapan peralatan bagi memberikan infomasi astronomik seperti kedudukan relatif mentari, bulan, zodiak dan terkadang kedudukan planet planet yang besar


Dalam bulan April setiap tahun, terdapat pesta bunga, FLORA di taman botani di Olomouc. Belon udara ini menjadi tanda ianya telah dan sedang berlangsung.


Olomous city, macam ASDA tempat kami beli kettle, GBP6. Bersama Atikah dan Suhaila

Kunjungan kami di Czech Rep ini relatif singkat. Tapi Alhamdulillah dengan bantuan adik adik mahasiswa di sini, perjalanan kami yang singkat menjadi bermakna kerana bantuan mereka. Untuk itu setinggi penghargaan kepada mereka kerana sudi menyediakan masa untuk kami. Kami dapat menghubungi mereka dari Cikgu Jue. Ada antara mereka pernah datang ke UK untuk menghadiri program siswa


Dengan mereka, langkah kami menjadi bertambah panjang. Dalam tram

Saturday 17 April 2010

Back Country Museum Dudley

Salam semua

Minggu depan bermulalah kembali alam persekolahan setelah mereka bercuti selama 2 minggu. Maka bermulalah juga hari hari sibuk wa menghantar dan menjemput mereka ke/dari sekolah. Namun dari segi baiknya, wa dapat bekerja full time. Undang undang di sini tidak membenarkan kanak-kanak bawah 14 tahun tinggal dirumah tanpa penjagaan oleh orang dewasa. Maka atas sebab tersebut, wa tak boleh lah pergi kerja jika mereka ada di rumah

Bekerja full time bermaksud tersirat banyak sikitlah income, gitew. Maklumlah makan gaji part time, begitulah kisahnya. Kalau dapat kerja di rumah bagus khanz lu all. Lu all tak nak terfikir ke buat aplikasi iPhone ? Pengguna iPhone seluruh dunia telah melepasi jumlah 45 juta orang, dan jumlahnya sentiasa meningkat. Pada pengguna Blackberry dan Xperia, jangan marwah, iPhone is SIMPLY THE BEST, BETTER THAN ALL THE REST, awwwww ! ! !

Dah nak menyimpang dah, lupa pula akan kisah wa kali ini. Inilah cik Kian, wa nak ceta, wa mulakan cuti sekolan anak anak wa dengan Disneyland Paris, lepas tu wa perok anak anak wa di rumah selama dua minggu. Maka tergeraklah gak nak habiskan cuti sekolah mereka dengan suatu yang boleh mereka ingat. Lalu kami approve kunjungan ke Black Country Museum Dudley. Dekat jer dari rumah wa, 25 minutes. Beli tiket online, kalau tak pasti jenuh beratur

Tips : Kalau lu all tak tau nak pegi mana, lu all type je www.enjoyengland.com. Isikan mana yang patut, lalu click search.




Sesampai je kami naik bas lama yang disediakan dalam museum berkeluasan 20ha ini. Berhenti dekat sekolah 'infant' ini. Di sini kanak kanak boleh masuk sekolah apabila dah berumur 3 tahun.


Bagi yang nak merasa pengalaman bagaimana persekolahan zaman 1800an di UK bolehlah duduk dalam kelas ini.


Inilah sekolahnya tuan tuan dan puan puan. Untuk pengetahuan semua, banggunan banggunan dalam museum ini adalah banggunan asli yang dipindahkan dari tempat asalnya. Angkot naik lori. Lori khusus


Kami sampai agak pagi dalam 10:30 AM. Orang tak ramai lagi. Tapi lepas tu berderu pengunjung yang terdiri dari semua lapisan umur. Kebanyakannya orang tua. Memang agak relevan, kerana ia boleh mengembalikan nostalgia kehidupan muda mereka. Relevan juga untuk kanak kanak yang tak pernah merasa kehidupan seperti itu sekarang


Konsepnya 'live'. Kita boleh temuramah mereka yang ditugaskan berada dalam setiap bahagian pekan tersebut dan mereka 'pretend' bahawa mereka hidup dalam zaman tersebut. Macam di Kuching Sarawak tu lah kalau pernah sampai di sana


Kedai jahit ini adalah kedai jahit yang sangat mahal pada waktu itu. Ia tak menerima kredit kerana menurut mereka kredit adalah duit mati


Depan salah satu kedai cookies


Tahun 1800-an dah ada farmasi macam ni, haaa jangan main main. Kita pon apa kurangnya khanz. Diberitakan bahawa KERAJAAN MELAYU MELAKA telah pon wujud sejak tahun 1200-an. Sebelum kedatangan bukan Melayu. Jangan buat buat tak tau pula. Kalau tak tau, wa minta tolong lu all yang telah menjadi ahli PERKASA agar buat saranan untuk diajar balik sejarah ini di sekolah. Ha ahli sejarah pon boleh buat duit jika dia pandai buat aplikasi iPhone tentang sejarah TANAH MELAYU ini


Belakang farmasi ni ada taman, yang menurut wa, mungkin ada ditanam dengan tumbuhan perubatan


Dikhabarkan bahawa, ini adalah keadaan asal kedai serbaguna ini.


Salah satu pekerjaan turun temurun rakyat Black Country ini adalah membuat rantai. Dari sekecil kecilnya hinggalah sebesar besarnya. Elok je hasilnya. Temurun lah katakan


Sauh kapal


Setiap rumah yang dibawa ke sini mewakili taraf kehidupan masyarakat pada ketika itu. Rumah ini kira sederhanalah, namun semuanya lebih kurang sama, 1 bilik, 1 living room, kalau kaya sikit, adalah bilik membasuh pinggan dan kain. Unggun api itu pelbagai guna. Di situlah mereka memanaskan badan, keringkan pakaian, memasak dan juga mandi dalam bath tub. Dikhabarkan, bapa merupakan orang istimewa, iaitu pertama masuk tub tu, kemudian diikuti ibu dan anak anak mereka. Air tak ganti, hanya ditambah air panas sahaja. Hari minggu giliran mandi berdasarkan kepada siapa yang bersih dahulu, yang yang paling kotor terakhir.


Polizia.


Dengan pemandu canal. Canal ini merupakan salah satu jalan pengangkutan masyur


Canal tunnel, maknanya canal ini lalu dalam tunnel


Sejuk



Pada jam 1:30 tgh, ada pertandingn 'egg rolling'. Permainan kanak kanak zaman dulu kala la. Mana ada PS3 khanz. Siapa yang nak sertai kena decorate telor tu dulu. Menang dapat hadiah


Beginilah agaknya petrol station di kala itu.


Bas jaman dulu


Ada gak fun fair dulu dulu. Laju bukan main. Mungkin digerakkan guna steam


Marry go round. Menariknya, ia digerakkan oleh tenaga manusia. Tu nampak tak gadis berbaju hitam sedang memusingkannya.


Bas ni tahun bila wa tak tau. Mungkin 1900-an


Latest edition of Aiman


Yeehaaaa. Dah nak balik. 5 jam lebih kami di sini. Jangan lupa bawa makanan. Ada banyak tempat melepak. Bawa lah makanan yang senang dimakan seperti burger, untuk alas pewut jer. Cuaca sangat elok hari ini.


Duduk atas sauh kapal


Ini adalah Amir. Jangan tak tau. Belakang tu talian letrik untuk kegunaan bas dua tingkat eletrik. Owch ye, Black Country terkenal dengan arang batunya. Maka di sini juga ada pengembaraan masuk dalam kawasan lombong. Sejuk, gelap gulita. One of the best experience in this museum.


That green bus was using electric power.


16:05 tamatlah pengembaraan kami ke Black Country Museum. Verdict : sangat menarik. Cost : 7 orang GBP40 (korang lebih). Naik baj dalam tunnel GBP25.
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