Summer trip around far east Asia

Munich airport looks beutiful, but after 3 hours waiting and 2 hrs of sleep in the bus i am getting tired n bored, however still 7 hrs of waiting, in front of me :(. And than? Let this trip begin - Viva Dubai!

This flight was unforgetable!! I would ban those noisy children from flying. The asshole sitting next to me just could not say stop it to his freaky bastard, but just kept watching him with a smile how he is kicking my bag! Also i would have never believed that people can leave such a mess, and all of them! That asshole threw headphones on floor and instead of picking them, he just shouted on the flight attendant to bring new one and if you hear please or other polite words, you can b sure it is foreigner!! Before landing they turned on their cell phones and i had to watch them for half an hour thinking about whats wrong with their cells :D. Are they just stupid or it was an addational service from, (by the way very luxury), Emirates airlines, that want to prepare me for total different cultures ?? For now i am sure, culture of those by crudle oil dollars spoiled society - no thanks.

Yesterday i arrived to Beijing. I am trying to get a map of the city a of the subway however it is harder than I thought :D. Not many people speak english, but they just stare at you, usually they dont even understand simply body language, their mimics are different eg numbers.. Well fortunatelly in front of Starbucks i found a chinese lady majoring in english. I walked down the shopping street, full of overpriced western brand store and there i have met first 'students' who started to talk to me in good english telling me that they are from other part of china and that they have never been to beijing, and they wanted to show some other famous place, however soon i realised that they want to scam me and i tried to walk away. They wanted me to have a drink with me, but i refused, because i have been warned about this behavior. Usually they will order you very expensive drinks and let you pay for their drinks, than the barowner shares the profit with them as they brought him customer. I know this from cuba already. I walked to tianmen square, where i met other two similar kind of students, so i tried to take an advantage from them as well. I pulled all the information from them, they made me a small tour around the mao ce tung mausoleum, people's hall (chinese parliament), national museum, the forbidden city gate and the monument dedicated to the soldiers, died in the revolution. Than i backed up and refused to have a drink with them, so it was the cheapest tour guide i evef had! On the way back i met another guy who tried to sell me the ticket to the wall of china. Of course he asked how long i have been here and when he realised that i just came, he told me the price. Nevertheless it was very overpriced as he thought that i have no idea about the price. It was quite late, but i still didnt want to go home, so i visited the olymipic park, so called bird's nest. Its a completely different lplace from anything else in beijing as it was built in a western style. There is a beautiful park right in front of the subway station and a huge pedestrian part great for relax. In the evening the whole place lights up and many people come there for jogging, street aerobic, runninh, or just watching many of street artists performancing there every night. You can find a man built river, that still soesnt have name and a forest. However the forest closes already at about 8. Tomorrow i will visit number one beijing's tourist attraction - the forbidden city, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

I am getting used to the big asian city life. Sometimes i notice that i am clicking mine tongue as asians do, btw it is really annoying habbit, it will be hard to get rid of it omce i came back home! However the thing i cant get used to it is the heavy air pollution and the crowded places. Today i visited the # 1 must see sight in beijing - the forbidden city, which is a complex of about 900 houndred buildings from early of 15.century. The entrance fee is 60 ¥, however it still doesnt disencourage enough people from getting in and the place is really crowded. At first sight it looks amazing, but in a while you will understand why chinese are masters of copying. Rest of the buildings are basically similar. Admirable are the gardens and few statues of chinese symbolic animals, eg the lion, especially the golden ones, and also other many sculptures. In some palaces you can see through a very dirty windows the interiers of former emperors living conditiones. To be honest i dont enjoy the dark design and bedsheets of a light brown colour, that looks just like a dirty white one. I also dont really apreciate all the golden decoration. However some exhibition rooms are really interesting and i strongly recommed to visit the book stores and art exhibitions, where you can see artefacts from whole periond of both Ming and Qing dynasties living in this place. Very interesant are the northern gardens and if you take the northern gate out, keep walking straight across the street and pay the 10¥ entrance fee, you can admire the whole complex from the hill, where another few nice temples are. The middle one is hiding a huge golden statue of Budha. The air today was not really clear and i literally had to bite out my way up there, but although thisi believe it was worthy. I am adding a picture, so you can check it out (btw it is incredibly hot and humid). Of course this is a must see place, but i can say once a life is enough. Although many places in the complex are still closed to public (i guess the main reason is that they havent been reconstructed yet!). Forbidden city is also listed in the UNESCO world heritage list. Pretty early i started to be fed up of sightseeing and also it started to be much harder to take a deep breath full of dusty air and so i headed back home with a stop in a close shopping mall, however some stuff were incredibly overpriced and so i just decided to take a tea and a couple of delicious dumplings filled by some meet in a hongkong - style restaurant, although very luxury with more front employees than customers, it was relatively cheap. Three small dumpling made me full, there is no need of eating a lot in this weather! Tommorow i will visit the sommer palace and i am shifting the great wall hike on saturday as i will join my hostel roommate and so it will be much easier and more fun. So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Another tiring day full of walking. First of all i jumped in to the subway and fortunately met an american guy studying in beijing so he told me that there are actually two summer palaces, new and old one. If you get of at the yuanmingyuan park station on line 2, you are close to the old ruins of former so called european city. This place is inside a beautiful park with many lakes and a there is a lot of green everywhere. It is great for relaxing. You need one ticket to get to the garden and one to the ruins, however you can take an adventurous and if you wear flipflops also dangerous tour behind the railways. You see almost the same as from inside. A single entrance ticket to the park is just 10¥ and another 15¥ to ruins (or 15¥ might be for both). Although she was comlaining something about my ISIC card, i persuaded her giving me student discount - half price, so i paid just 5¥, the same worked in the new summer palace ticket office, so from original 30¥ i paid only half price. The new summer palace complex is very similar to the forbidden city. I felt it yesterday and i havent changed my mind, all the buildings are copies! There are at least two entrances to the palace. I would recommend you to start from beigongmen station, walk up the hill and enjoy the view. The way down you can walk all the way to the huge lake. There you also find some halls and gates. The wenchang tower looked interesting and also from bottom you have a nice view on the toppest hall. When i started to be fed up of it i jumped back to the subway and went from very northwest to very southeast to see the temple of heaven. It is basically the same again, you pay 15¥ park entrance and another 20¥ to get inside the temple, i would strongly recomend you to go inside, i came unfortunately too late but it looked very pretty. Also it is hard to make a picture from the park. The best way is to go on the other side than where the gate closest to subway station tiantandongmen is, where you can find a lowered wall. As i still had some time before i was supossed to meet my chinese friend jason, so i decided to walk around and i came across to some pearl market. Oh my god! It looked like a chinese market! Sorry i forget where i am :). Well, speaking about the prices was a nescessarity and all the foreigners were called from each stall. I just looked at some beutiful wooden chopsticks and the seller lnew, there will be a deal. First price was 150¥. after hearing this i tried to walk away, but than she made me to suggest my price. As yesterday in the restaurant they wanted 10¥ for each used one, i used same price and so i got a pair for 20¥.:). Later on a girl persuaded me to buy a quicksilver and a ripcurl shirt each for 50¥. Well even if it would be some fake fastsilver, its a great deal!! I met jason than and we had a real beijing duck, most famous dish in surrounding area. He paid for it and didnt tell me the price, but i guess it was expensive! Well tommorow is my last day and finally the trip to the great wall of china. Btw my feet are from all day walking deep black coloured :). So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

Another tiring day full of walking. First of all i jumped in to the subway and fortunately met an american guy studying in beijing so he told me that there are actually two summer palaces, new and old one. If you get of at the yuanmingyuan park station on line 2, you are close to the old ruins of former so called european city. This place is inside a beautiful park with many lakes and a there is a lot of green everywhere. It is great for relaxing. You need one ticket to get to the garden and one to the ruins, however you can take an adventurous and if you wear flipflops also dangerous tour behind the railways. You see almost the same as from inside. A single entrance ticket to the park is just 10¥ and another 15¥ to ruins (or 15¥ might be for both). Although she was comlaining something about my ISIC card, i persuaded her giving me student discount - half price, so i paid just 5¥, the same worked in the new summer palace ticket office, so from original 30¥ i paid only half price. The new summer palace complex is very similar to the forbidden city. I felt it yesterday and i havent changed my mind, all the buildings are copies! There are at least two entrances to the palace. I would recommend you to start from beigongmen station, walk up the hill and enjoy the view. The way down you can walk all the way to the huge lake. There you also find some halls and gates. The wenchang tower looked interesting and also from bottom you have a nice view on the toppest hall. When i started to be fed up of it i jumped back to the subway and went from very northwest to very southeast to see the temple of heaven. It is basically the same again, you pay 15¥ park entrance and another 20¥ to get inside the temple, i would strongly recomend you to go inside, i came unfortunately too late but it looked very pretty. Also it is hard to make a picture from the park. The best way is to go on the other side than where the gate closest to subway station tiantandongmen is, where you can find a lowered wall. As i still had some time before i was supossed to meet my chinese friend jason, so i decided to walk around and i came across to some pearl market. Oh my god! It looked like a chinese market! Sorry i forget where i am :). Well, speaking about the prices was a nescessarity and all the foreigners were called from each stall. I just looked at some beutiful wooden chopsticks and the seller lnew, there will be a deal. First price was 150¥. after hearing this i tried to walk away, but than she made me to suggest my price. As yesterday in the restaurant they wanted 10¥ for each used one, i used same price and so i got a pair for 20¥.:). Later on a girl persuaded me to buy a quicksilver and a ripcurl shirt each for 50¥. Well even if it would be some fake fastsilver, its a great deal!! I met jason than and we had a real beijing duck, most famous dish in surrounding area. He paid for it and didnt tell me the price, but i guess it was expensive! Well tommorow is my last day and finally the trip to the great wall of china. Btw my feet are from all day walking deep black coloured :). So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

Most of things you think about chinese is true, however there was a lit that surprised me here also. Chinese people never wants to loose their face, so they gonna always say yes when they dont understad, what can cause problems. China is one of incredibly fast developing countries and although it is communistic you can find all the western brands and chains here (at least in big cities). It is definately worthy to see this crowded place, although the weather makes it much more uncomfortable. I was sweating all the day and although i drunk so much water i didint need to go to the restroom at all! Chinese hardly speak english, and their body language is different also, especially their numbers, but i always found my way out. There are not so many western tourists, but i surprisingly met a lot of those living in here and working in foreign companies, or many studenrs majoring in chinese doing their intership here. Foreign workes can enjoy much more better working conditions and higher salary also. Beijing is also more expensive than i though, but you can always find alternatives to everything, as the street food and suveniers from markets. In beijing you can see the traditional common chinese life next to the huge shopping malls, that are so common is our countries. The system here is significantly different to the terror we had to came through second half of 20 century, however when government doesnt like anything, there cant be a discussuon about it. For example they keep blocking facebook or twitter, just because they are affraid of information that could fastly spread into milions of people at a time. Cliking one's tongue is normal in here and sometimes you would be surprised how loud they can be! Also all the crowds makes life harder, but people just get used to it, i guess. Although there are many europeans here, some natives still gonna stare at you like you are from another planet and many asked me to take a picture with them! After all it was amazing to see beijing and i definatelly want to come back to china one day and explore also more rural areas and so many interesting places china offers, however before that i should learn basic chinese though. Tokio is comming next (hopefully as they did some changes to my flight and i didnt really get it) so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

Yesterday i fell asleep very soon, tired from beijing and all the walking around. Right before i went to bed i checked my email and saw that my "favourite Delta" rescheduled my flight from 8:55 to 7:30. I was rushing through the whole airport without knowing not only the gate but even the terminal (bloody Delta!!) Everybody sent me to terminal 3. Fortunately i met a guy who understood me just half way, but sent me to terminal 2. The train was about to leave and i had to make the fast decision what terminal to choose. The probability was 33% and i had no time to be wrong! I jumped back to the train, get off at terminal 2 and tried my luck. Hapilly i found hidden delta counter. After yelling on delta employers how they can reschedule flights without noticing passangers and being pretty annoying they have rather put me into a business class. Wow it is awesome, i dont wanna fly economy class any more!! 3 flight attendant just for us, so much room for my legs, awesome tasty full english breakfast including fresh bacon, egg omelette, boiled tomatoes, a bowl of fresh delicios fruit. Flight attendants treat you much nicer. Well i just gotta say wow delta surprised me but this time in a good way! Hapilly i am in japan and i will be able to check my facebook, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Happily i have arived to japan's capital. My friend kota and his ex asami picked me up at the airport and drove to the asakusa - old japanese temple. It is pretty similar to chinese architecture, however some things differs. The park was very cozy and clean, we walked the market street, pulled the fortune, washed our hands and face and made a pray in the temple as a kind of ritual. Then we drove to make picture of the new sky tower 3, which is beiing built and will be the highest building in tokio. On the way to diet building (seat of parliament) we passed the emperor's palace. As in buckingham palace, the emperor lives here so it is closed to public. In our plan were still tokio tower shibuya crossing and the rainbow bridge missing, but those sights and most fabulous at night, so we decided to take some sushi before. The food in asia tastes significantly different than in europe or usa, where it is adjusted to our tastes. Some dishes were tasteles, some i didnt enjoy, but most i loved. Kota ordered so many different types mostly of seafood stuff as macrel, sardine, tuna, samon, prawn, also the octupus and many others. The only i didnt like was something similar to caviar and a squid, the rest was tasty cuz i really like fish meat! We wanted to visit the observary at tokyo tower, but it was unfortumately closed when we got there and so we aimed to the rainbow bridge, but definately i will visit it Again tomorow! However it started to rain so we just jumped outta car took pictures and jumped back in. Thats actually what we did whole day, simply the real japanese tourist :). After all we headed home. Today i could not stay at kotas place, so we just found a capsule hotel, where the japanese managers working in tokio sleep, it is simply a bed and the place looks like rabit cages, will see how comfortable it will be! Tomorow We gonna have more time to see places, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Today was a hard day!! I had to stay late to charge my cell and my camera, because in the capsule hotel was no socket. I asked the receptionist to leave it the re overnight, but he sent me to the common room. When I told him that i am affraid that somebody could steal it, he say just maybe somebody will. Asshole! I was trying to check my emails but the connection was really poor. I went to bed at about 2 am and hoped it will be good. It wasnt! The bed was so small, that i could not fit even my bags in. Somehow I squeezed in using two "rooms". Every tube looked like a room in the submarine. only with one small tv with one porn chanel. Thats the place where japanese managers lives. Although it was very expensive! Earlier that day I pulled the bad fortune, but I didnt believe it until I saw this place! Well the other day I woke up and had to check out, but I already knew that I will not stay there again, Trying to cennoct and book another hotel took me due to bad connection very long. and after some hours I gave up, knowing only the name and subway station near to the hotel. I decided to go there. Also I was supossed to meet kota, but he unexpectly had to go somewhere and although he tried to call me, it didnt work. At subway station I asked a random japanese guy about the direction and he asked about my story and after all he offered me to sleep at his place. I was a bit affraid, but also very desperate. I joined him. We gett off the subway, went to his house, where i left my bags and we headed to Shybuja, the times square of tokyo, where we met kota had few drinks and went to see the tokyo tower. It is a spectacular building, simlar to eifel tower, from where is an awesome view to whole tokyo! Than we went to the restaurant and had some sabusabu and sukyjaki, which i really delicious! He paid everything for us, I guess he spent about 10 000 yen on me (90 eur). I am really happy for meeting him, but also little affraid. Now i am at his place, with his wife also. They are really kind! Their 10 year old son is on holidays now, so i can stay at his room. We stay about 5-10 minute walk from minami sunamachi subway station, please let the police know :D. Well Japan has one of the lowest crime rate and my hosts are so kind, that i feel pretty safe here, but just in case! Hope to see you evere again, if yes, i promise to bring you new pictures from tokyo tower a nd shibuya. So stick on to my place and keep checking ontheroad.to.

Yesterday we talked a bit more till late with my new friend and his wife. They were so cool and i stopped being affraid. I woke up pretty late, we had a good breakfast and went to shinjuku. It is an amazing place. Famous are its home appliances shops and the two towers of government building. There are also few skyscrapers and high luxury hotels. We went back to shybuja, where i met kota, took my bags to his place and than we picked up his friend and visited the china town, which actually looks much better than beijing. We spent some time at the yokohama bay area enjoying the breathtaking view and than we decided to eat some japanese noodles. I cant remember the name, only i know is that it was with pork. All the japanese are eating really loudly well so i did the same, clicking my tongue also, simply i was eating as natives, of course using chopsticks (i am already pretty ok with them!) the only difference was that i had much more food on the table! Eating fast also caused me small stomach ache, :D. I gonna upload a funny video on facebook soon so check it out. Now i am going to sleep in a awesome real japanese tea room on a tatami, the room looks so awesome, i feel like in kill bill movie :D. Tommorow i will go to kotas university and in the evening i will take the night bus to osaka, hope to survive that, i am pretty tired, but it is just last stop before korea where i will rest!! So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

Uf after 10 tiring days on a tough schedule, i started to be tired and so i decided to stay at kota's house until he comes back from university. I slept till late had another awesome japanese style breakfast and surfed the internet until he came back home. On the way to pick up asami, his ex, we stucked in a traffic jam. Prague's traffic is nothing compared to that crazy shit. After about two hours we were already there. All together we had dinner and headed to find the bus station. Well i though bus station, but here buses just leave from street. The whole bus system is incredibly complicated and i would never found the right one without them! So many buses were leaving to osaka, but from my ticket i even could not figure out what is the name of the company. Tonight will be a boring time in bus and tommorow full of annoying finding the hotel stuff, will see. So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

The bus was not as bad as buses usually are. Most probably because of that i am really tired and so i slept most of the time. I was sitting alone and on front seat, so i had plenty of room for my legs. When i arrived it was raining, so i wanted to wait a little, but it didnt stop. Around midday i left my tiny room in the business hotel, that actually looks very luxury comparing to capsule hotel! Only stupid thing is a schedule for showers! I visited osaka's top sight - osaka castle, which is actually new builded, but i guess some similar building was there even before. It is a nice place in a cozy park surrounded by a man-made river. I didnt enter the castle museum, neither the museum of osaka's history near the tanimachi 4- chome subway. It was 600¥ each and i dont think it would be worthy, maybe only if i stay here longer and get bored of the city. Instead of that i decided to find the futuristic observatory on the umeda building. The entrance is a bit higher 700¥, so i firstly doubted about if to enter or not as i already saw many other observatories, however this one is very special. On the top of the building you can enjoy 360* view and in lower floor are some well designed places to sit. It is awesome to see osaka from birds eye! I was walking around umeda and yodojobashi stations, very nice was the garden below the umeda sky tower and soon i headed back to my hotel. Tommorow i will visit kyoto so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

From osaka it is just about half an hour by something between train and subway to the city of kyto. Somehow i took the express train, but i think i was not supossed and it didnt stop on the station i wanted to go, but a further one. In japan you have to buy the ticket from certain point to a certain point. Everywhere are fare adjustment boxes but i cant undersrand how they work so i just run throw the gate before the doors closed or any staff could notice that i didnt put the right ticket. I had some convenience store sushi for breakfast and started to find my way through the unesco city. It took me some time before i figured out how it works in here and i lost a big part of my day. Finally i made a plan according some tourist map i got from random tourists. First of all my plan worked good. I visited the kinkakuji temple, but i didnt get in as it was really crowded and admission was 500¥. In the bus a girl told me about a whole day bus ticket for 500¥ so next famous place royanji temple, which was only two stops further, i could easily reach by bus. Than i kept following my plan and entered the ninnaji temple. There my plan crashed down. I guess for last two places i needed the ticket but i just sneaked in passing by the ticket office without noticing and nobody stopped me. My original plan was to go by bus, see the temple and keep going to the next one as there are really many of them in kyoto. However always it took me some time to find the way in and out, cuz here the tourist signs arent so popular as in europe. Also the ninnaji temple was a beautiful place with a nice traditional tea room. I bough one green tea and when i was asking wheter i just paid for one cup or unlimited refill, she get me another cup, later i understood that the price was just for one. The second reason why my plan crashed was because some temples were much futher than my stupid map said. It was supossed to be a tourist bus map, however only some route were there and mostly the unfrequent ones. Sometimes there was no name of the bus stop so i just had to guess, sometimes the same point on my map was in real half kilometer far away. I met some half japanese half french high school guys and they showed me the way to ninjo castle. However before i get there it was already 5 pm and most places were already closed. I jumped to the bus again and get off when passing the imperial palace. After 10 minutes of walking through the park i was just in midway between the bus stop and castle. So i decided not to walk closer as here buildings are usually small and there are walls around them, so there is nothing to see anyway. Than i took the bus to the east side of kyoto. I think i took some bus i had to pay bacause it didnt accept my day pass, but the driver didnt spoke much english and i think he rather let me go. On the east of kyoto are few hills and bellow is a so called philosophy path. I guess thats where i was walking as there was no sign in english again, but also no other path. I passed the honenin temple but it was also closed. However i came across another nice place, that even wasnt in my great map. Hicha ninji was empty by the time i get there and all the japanese lampions made it look very special. Than i took bus #32 at nearest bus stop, because it was supossed to go to the same station where i should take the train back to osaka. There i saw how wrong my map was. These places even werent on same side of the river and they were about 1 km far from each other! The way back i stopped at umeda station to ask about how to get to the airport, cuz i guess i will not go there tommorow again. Maybe i will check out the bay area, maybe just places around my hotel, will see! So stick on to my trip and keep checking obtheroad.to!

Instead of whole day walking i decided to spend my day on the costline. From osaka i took the train to kobe, which was about an hour long trip. I was very excited, that i finally will get relaxed on the beach, until i saw it. That place was a mess! Rubbish all over, dirty green water as some steady water lake, also the smell and although that was the place really crowded! At about 4 pm i got too bored and i decided to come back home, pack my bags, eat my last dinner in japan and get ready for korea! So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

What to say about japan? Well i spent there less than a week, so i can not judge, but i can say some differencies i have noticed. First of all, comparing to china, japan is much more developed and actually belongs to top 3 economies in the world, however the close distance to the worlds factory makes some consumer goods very cheap, but food, also transportation is almost always expensive. Japanese people are all the time in a rush and they would not notice even if you are dying in the middle of the street. However whenever you ask for help, they always give you a hand. They rather walk with you and ask many other people as they are affraid of "loosing their face". Very famous word is maybe, everything is maybe in japan, maybe you can die in the earthquake, maybe the bus leaves from here, maybe we gonne be there on time, maybe your stuff will not be stolen... The last maybe i used could be changed to unusual as japan is very safe country! Before i came here, i was warned that people will not be talking to me if i dont learn some japanese phrases, however always you can find your way out, ask subway staff or policemen, they know most and if not, they cam look it up for you. Learning japanese is very hard and of course their alphabet is impossible to remember, all 3 of them. Yes in japan you can write in 3 different ways - most common hiragana, than katakana used mostly for foreign words and the hardest is kanji - the chinese alphabet. Japanese write most verbs and adjectives in kanji. I am a big fan of food including fish as eg. sushi and most food i have tasted was really deluciuos, i recommend to everybody to have at least one night dinner at fancy restarant. Also japanes loves pachinko - gambling place, but due to my bad luck i was rather avoiding those places. Traditon and rituals are also strictly recommended to follow, however people here understand that foreigners have different habits. Be aware that they are eating really loudly! If you know that you gonna meet natives, bring some present, best typical for your country, they will really apreciate it and you definately get something japanese also. Last advice: never rely on capsule hotels! Today i should arrive to korea (south of course) so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

Yesterday i arrived to incheon airport and met with boae. She guided me to inha university campus and gave me a welcome pack with maps and stuff and also the transport card, that works as kind of credit card in here. We arrived to the dorm, it looks pretty new and clean, the only stupid is the midnight curfew.. We talked a bit with my buddy and other new classmates and than we decided to drink some beer. Out of group of about 30 only 7 of us survived till morning, partying until 5am, because we could not enter the dorms earlier!! Well it seems that we will have to start partying early than!! Orientation was boring, guess so i rather stayed in bed, also the hangover was in favor of the second idea! The university prepared a buffet to welcome us so we could taste the delicious korean food. Than we just talked with my russian and german roommates, didnt really do anything today. Classes starts tommorow so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

Today we had the first lectures of korean. Wow it is such a hard language, guess i will not be able to say a word after only three weeks!! Our classes start at 9 and last until 4. Yesterday i could not sleep at all so i am really tired and almost fall asleep dyring the second class, but i was not the only one! The a/c was broken, so there was no air at all! We got some hw, but i am able to remember any word in korean! After class we walked through the campus of inha, it looks really great! But except of that, there is almost nothing around. I think to go to the downtown tommorow so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to!

First week of our summer school is over and i finally have some free time to update my trip! Well the life here is awesome. I really luuv it!! Our school starts at 9, we have a korean language, than other class of korean culture, have some lunch and go back for one more class. At 4 pm we are off the school and we usually hang out somewhere around like our favourite go bar. On thursday we tried the karaoke. In here you rent a small room and so you have some privacy. We had a lot of fun there!! The dorms i am staying at have curfew at midnight, i dont like it, but at least we are not out till late, we get some sleep and we are not tired in mornings. There are so many people are sleeping during lecture, i cant imagine the situation without having curfew :D. Classes are usualy pretty boring as they dont give us any overview, but just deeply describe some topic eg history overview ended up by stucking in 8th century and literature class turned into reading only one book the whole time. The ac is all the time broken, it gets incredible hot and many people dont understand teachers english, so they just sleep. The only interesting class was on thursday, when few women prepared a presentation and also brought some tradional food and clothes, so we could try it on. Otherwise korean school is just boring lecture, one way communication from teachers to students with no feedback or discussion. Also is the schoolday is quiet long and it takes us more than hour to go to seoul center, so i cant be there all the time as i though before. I havent been almost anywhere yet, except of few hours in chinatown with boae on wednesday and seoul on friday. But i still enjoy it here and apart from that, i luuv this place. Our stay in seoul on friday was unforgetable. It was a group of at least 40 student going crazy in the capital. We had so much fun there, but the sightseeing on saturday was pretty tough than :DD. Well i hope the other two week will b at least similar and i will enjoy my stay as i did the first week, we also will have some field trips later on, which will b interesting, hope. So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Second week passed by and we have only few days left. It has been a great time as we all summer school students became closer friends and we had so much fun! Classes kept being boring and we all are completely lost during our korean lessons. Well except of todays class when we made our teacher sing a kiss song i was made for loving you baby in korean, it was hilarious!! Anyway, of course we schould have studied harder, but we didnt come to korea to stay at home and read books. It has been a busy week with only few hours of sleep every day and full of talking and passionate discussions about one's country. Inha university prepared some field trips for us. First one was a visit to national folk museum and a palace next to it on wednesday. Second two day trip fri - sat to gyeongju, a unesco place in south part of korean penisula, was legandary! I have never had so much in just few days. However laughing all day long is really tiring and we all need a good sleep :). In addition to this we visited the seoul tower and took a ferry on han river last sunday and this sunday we spent the day at the beach. It was the dirtiest place ever, i would never go there again!! Well check out some pictures. Btw i bought flight ticket to boracay, white sand beach resort in philippines, so i am definately going there! I will fly to manila this saturday already, although i really do not want to leave this place! Well stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Last week of our summer school passed by really quickly. Everybody was sad, tired and nobody wanted to say goodbye. However we did enjoy our time till the last second! This week we visited only few places and rather than that we were hanging out around the campus. On wednesday we had a field trip to museum of korean immigration and some traditional village. It was quite boring as it had no history at all, in fact is has still been under construction. Later that day we invited our korean teacher to our favourite go bar. She was partying like an animal till morning. It was great, but the class next day was really tough for all of us. However we passed and on friday we recieved a certificate. There was also a spech contest on friday morning. When contestants started to talk about our jerry (program coordinator), he started to cry. Jerry is a legend! We had the best food ever since we entered korea at farewell party organized by school and than we kept celebrating in go bar, singing legendary hit i was made for loving you from kiss and korean bounce with me song for the last time. It was crazy, but awesome!! I hope to repeat it again and i hope i will have time and money to visit all my new friends from inha summer school 2010. Now i am flying to manila, where i gonna stay one day and on monday i will move to beautiful boracay island! So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

To sum up korea i need to say that there is a big difference between all those 3 asian countries i have been.
Koreans are, i would say the most shy are stressed people i have ever seen. When we entered the club in seoul, many girls tried to touch me, but when i started to talk to them, they either run away or started texting. When we sat in family mart and some korean girls knocked on the window to attend our attention for couple times, we decided to take a picture of them. However they freaked out, their hands started to shake and so i decided to find out what happend. Well they were affraid that we will hurt them, why they knocked than?? Well i think it is nescessary to stay in korea longer than 3 weeks in order to explore its culture in deep. Before i entered korea i have been told many times that korean food is delicious, i was happy to try, but it was completely wrong. Sticky rice and spiciest kimchi (cabbage mixed with hot red pepper) with every meal, even breakfast!!

Well i had to write a report for our culture class, there it is! I think it will speak for itself!
Experiencing Korean culture:

At the first korean culture class our teacher asked me whether I think that Asian democracy can work. I was not able to answer his question and still cant even after three weeks spent in Korea, trying to understand how people live.
Maybe even the teacher did not realise how complicated question it can be. Some people answered right away, but most told him the same answer as I did. I told him to wait three weeks until I have enough information and time to think about it. Nevertheless I am still not able to answer. First and maybe the biggest problem is the actual definiton of the word. Democracy is a term. It means that it has to have same meaning everywhere, however comprehension of the word differs from person to person. Uninitiated usually explain democracy as “I can do whatever I want, unless it causes negative externalities to other”. And those borders and its perception is the main crux of the matter. In Korea external conditions are set and it is the starting point. In Europe we usualy set an aim and try to make the conditions, so we can achieve it. Although many korean students sometimes didn’t agree with a certain rule, they do not tend to change it.
Students attitude to education is much differnet to this in Europe. In Korea most childer are attending school and trying to memorize as much as they can, in order to value parents effort and money they are spending on them. It means that students are usually attending shools according to their parents desire even if they would be rather majoring in another branch. In Korean culture confucisnism is deepely rooted. Respecting olders, parents etc is strictly demaded by society. I respect my parents and apreciate them, however it is my right to decide which university, where and what major I want to study. Above that, my parents never told me what should I study. They would support me, no matter what decision I would make and they would never try to control it. In Korea it is vica versa. Parents usually decide about their childern’s future. Sometimes they directly send them to a certain place to study, sometimes they indirectly made them think that their idea is the best for him and even if the child disagrees, usually he does not have enough courage to say his own opinion.
This issue seems to be only a small part of life, but the relationship between parents and children form one’s personality. When children grew up, leave their houses and start working they tend to keep same kind of relationship, they are familiar with, in contact with other people as manager, teachers, people who supported them etc. In fact this feature cause the perception of rules as I described before. The rules are set up and people have to follow it without redundant questions. My point leads into an agravation of the simple question teacher asked us at the begigning. Of course Asian style democracy can work, however it depends on the place, respectively inhabitants. The only result I can come up with is to avoid answering through responding “yes, but not in Europe”.
Also a significant difference I took notice of is the different apprehension of circumambience. When I talk to people I usually look at their eyes and completely forget about others who might listen to me. Nevertheless korean natives always keep looking around and are scared of what other people are thinking about them. When we were talking with my korean friend in subway’s train, everybody stared at us. I didn’t care and actually I even didn’t notice it since the beginning. Nevertheless soon I realised that only half of her attention belongs to the conversation, while the other half keep watching people around. Other passangers in the train were probably thinking about what is she doing, why she speaks english, why is she hanging around with a foreigners etc. Korean society puts a strong pressure on an individual being and many natives, I talked to, were really stressed out, scared of being wrong, making a grammer mistake etc. Some people doesn’t want to talk english at all because of the fear of making mistake. English is not my mother language as well, we all are human beings, no supercomputers. Everybody can make a mistake even in his mother language. However most koreans are still too afraid of loosing their face.
It is hard to sum up all I have learned about Korea and its culture. The society is completely different to the one I am used to. I can’t say whether it is better or worse, however I am happy that I spent some time in here, because it was a excellent experience for me and it helped me to elevate my reception of different culture to a higher level. Next time I will meet a korean person, it will be much easier to find a common topic to talk about.

After few tough moment i finally made it to my hostel. First time i already had to struggle atthe airport when I had to fight for 2 excess kilos. Well after all they let me in. They flight was supposed to be delayed, but after all we managed to land at manilas airport even few minutes earlier. I took the taxi as it is the only possible means of tranport at night. The driver took me somewhere around but could not find the right place and so he kept telling me that my hostel is some random and it has renamed. The histel was clised, so i knew i cant be mine. After some time i started to be really angry and told him to drop me at some other opened hostel. Fortunately they knew where it is and so i rented a tricycle and finally managed it there! I never imagined that i can be so hard!! It was late so i went to bed. In the morning i was supposed to meet my friends, i had the directions however the taxi driver kept telling me to get off at another place again! Also he "foget" to turn on the disrance counter, so the money he earned came straight to his pocket. My friend were late, well it is philippines, nobody cares about time as the spanish dont. In past philippines were colonized by spain, it might still have an influence! When waiting for my friend i kept watching masses of people passing by through the dirty street, sometimes especially the children started to beg for money. I met marushka and zarah and we went for our city tour. I tried to eat balut. I didnt know what it is, but soon i realised when i saw the duck embryo. Well it tastes like regular chicken egg, only there is something extra, but the feeling that you are eating duck with little feather already is really strong. Well we left the place we met and headed to themalacaňang palace, however we didnt know that it is nescessary to get the tickets in advance. They even didnt allow us to take a picture, so we left for intramoros, which is something like manila's old town. There are couple things to see like the fort santiago from 16. century and its museum dedictated to national hero called rizal. I was really suprised when i saw a bronz relief with a czech traslation of one of rizal's poem. There is also the oldest church and biggest catherdal in intramuros. We jumped to the little trolley pulled by horse and the driver showed us around. We visited another church, which was really busy and pretty modern equipped. After a delicious pork ribs in aristocrat restaurant we jumped on a jeepney, a crazy, coloured and pretty small jeep, which can easially trasport 15 people at a time, however it is quite dangerous and uncomfortable. We entered the rizal park, walked around, check out numerous statues and monuments. Next place on our schedule was the manila bay. Although the water was dirty and full of rubbish it was nice to listen how the waves are crashing the stoned cost whereas the sunset kept changing the coulor of water and sky. Right across the street is the mall of asia 4th biggest shopping mall in the world. Nevetheless it has hundres of shops i could not find any brand i like. Above that it was slightly more expensive than in usa. I decided to come back home. I never realised how hard it can be to get a taxi. There is no public transportation in manila, only few train, so a tourist have to take a cab, however when you enter, you have to ask for the price and tell them to turn on the meter. They are trying to scam tourist all the time and sometimes you need to ask 10 drivers to find one who is going to play fair with you. For example some drivers asked 500, some 300 and after all the price was 150 piso!! It is also better to have a map and try to see whether the driver is goinh straight or if he is circeling around. Also never tell that it is your first time, better try to pretend that you know the place. I finally made it back home and my roommate from australia suggested to go out. We met my friend in a bar near the manila bay and had a great time. Tomorrow j will fly to luxury beach resort called boracay, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

This day was horible, the way from manila was a disaster, started in the morning when i checked my flight again and realised that my flight is earlier than i thought, the taxi driver tried to scam me again, but after long talk he agreed to be fair and so he drove me straight to the airport. Than it started to be even worse. Airport security started to argue with me about my bug spray as it is flammable spray and so it can be dangerous. Ok maybe in my carry-on, but how can i kill somebody with a spray if it is safely stored in the plane and i dont have access to it. Well i just gave up after about 20 minutes and went for another fight. Totaly fed up i discovered that my bag can be only 10 kilo and 5 kilo of hand luggage. It is nothing! Well so i put all my clothes i could on me and paid the last 3 excess kilos. I thought i will get a heat stroke, but everything was fine, it all ran smooth, even easier than i expected and we took off a bit earlier. Soon we arrived to boracay. To get to the hotel i had to pay couple fees like enviromental, terminal fee, airport tax, tricycle rent, and so on. I dont really understand the enviromental tax as all those tricycles polute so much, but obviously no money from the enviromental tax actually help to modernize them! Well it was a tough time, but it was definately worthy! I fell in love at first sight with this place! I have never seen anything better than this place. It a great remuneration for the todays struggle! I wish i could stay here longer!!! I make some pics tomorrow, to show you what i am talking about, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

I spent the whole day on the spectacular white beach, one of the top ranked beaches in the world, which is even though its rankings and beuty still undiscover by masses of tourists. Yes there are a lot of them and it is a low seasson, but i expected even much more people. Its maybe because of the complicated infrastructure and the distance from manila. Anyway it is an amazing place. I walked all the way to south, where i found a small beach cut off from the main beach by a kind of gate in the rock and i stayed there couple hours. Thats what i needed after all those big cities, just a beautiful secret place where i could be alone. In the evening we had an eat as much as you can delicious mongolian and seafood buffet for a very affordable price. By the way any of those pictures doesnt capture how awesome the place is, i will try to make better later! Also i came accross a diving place owned by a french guy living in boracay for almost 13 years and yes, i am going to scuba diving tomorrow! I am so excited and the price is also very reasonable! So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

It was cloudy, windy and a bit cold today. The conditions were perfect for kitesurfing, however i already had the scuba dive on my schedule. Water was 27 degrees, which is just perfect. I had to take a short introduction course which took about two hours before i could do the actual dive. Finally i felt ready. Put on the neopren suit, air tank, fins and jumped into the water. At the beginning i had problems with equalization, but soon i managed it so i could not feel any pain in my ears. Second problem was to control my body as i was just floating around, 12 meters below the sea level, feeling like a clumpsy astronaut. I got used to it and i could start watching the spectacular scenary around me. There was an awesome coral reef full of beautiful, colourful fishes. I got a piece of bread and all the fishes tried to bite a piece, they could not distinguish between the food and my hand so i felt the fishes everywhere. Afterwards we started our underwater tour. My private padi instructor showed me all the beatuies of the sealife. Couple times i just stucked staring at some place and he had to push me to see even better things. Soon i managed to swim around on my own, alhough i needed help from time to time. We saw the most famous fish - clown fish and its house like from finding nemo movie. Also we took a picture with a huge blue starfish and after 53 minutes we were running out of air, so we headed back up to the surface. It is really hard to guess the distance and the feeling that you are somewhere deep and you cant just get up, because of the air in blood could kill you is very uncomfortable, but i didnt even have time to think about it. Once we were back on boat i was still shocked and could not talk for a while. It was also because i was holding the breathing thing really carefully and my mouth and teeth hurt after almost an hour of biting it! I have an awesome video and couple pictures. Unfortunately i cant upload them now. Well tomorrow it is my last day in paradise, and on friday i have to do the adventureous trip back to the airport, fly to manila and taipei later that night so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Yesterday, we decided to try the phils nightlife. So we entered the first club, however it was a really weird place so we moved to other club. It was a dancefloor right next to the beach. Although it was much better it still sucked, so we headed back home soon. It has been raining the whole day and the temperature dropped to only about 28 degrees. Currently there is a pretty strong wind and occasion heavy showers, so it is not very convenient to swim in the sea. So i am just hanging around, resting and recharging energy. Later on, when it stopped raining i went back to beach and i could not stop staring at all those kitesurfers. It is amazing how they are connecting the power of wind and waves. I gotta come back to learn it! Tomorrow i will fly to taipei so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

It is hard to leave a paradise, especially if the weather changed to be sunny again and i already made couple friends there. I went to swim in the sea for last time, than i took the crazy homemade tricycle, as there is no taxi in boracay. Our flight was bit delayed, but nobody knew when it should take off. All the airport staff were confused and passangers were affraid of missing their flights. Finally they let us board the plane, there were only about 20 passangers with me. In couple minutes the pilot announced that we are landing. I made couple more pictures, so i am attaching them. Tonight i have a stopover in manila and later on, after midnight, i am supposed to arrive to taipei. Tomorrow we should go to a place in east taiwan to try white river rafting so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

During the flight we experienced some turboulences, but finally we safely landed in taipei. Candy, her friend and her father picked me up from the airport and i crashed at their place for a night. In the morning we met my friend wei, and we drove all the way to east taiwan to a place called hualien in order to try white river rafting. I didnt know that the whole island is so montainous actually even taipei is a valley! It was 6 of us all together. We stopped at jin heng memorial bridge and walked to place called swallow grotto. Then we moved to shakadang trail to hike there. However suddenly it started to rain. We were completely wet, rain in here is really heavy. We took some traditional filled dumplings, salty and crispy chicken, pork noodle soup and a chicken hearts on stick for dinner and came to our hotel. It was a cozy one roomed wooden cottage. Tomorrow we will go for the actual rafting, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Today we woke up early so we can raft the xiuguluan river. It was totaly different from rafting i know, although the river was similar level of difficulty as in czech. First of all the colour was dark grey, because of the mud and also it stinked little bit. Well before we could leave we had to take part into an introduction course to rafting. I started to be scared and i was thinking about how dangerous it can be, but soon i realised that there was no need for any fear. We got lifejacket and helmets and there were lifeguards all the time with us. We also had to stay together in a group of about 100 people, which was pretty ennoying. We all had to leave together, went for lunch, and had to finish at the same time. If somebody was slow, the lifeguard in an engined boat helped them to catch the others. I had a lot of time to think about differencies between asian and european cultures. Definately asians are much more childish. They love cartoons, teddy bears, first thing they did when entered the river was that they all took buckets (standard equipment in each raft, firstly i though it is for getting the water out of raft) and started to splash the other (no matter if they knew them or not) the lifeguards from rafting centre had to stop the fun so we could move. After few kilometers floating around no matter if sideways or backwards, i tried to explain at least some basic skills. They were just putting their paddle in the water with no effect. Well after few minutes we synchronized and actually we went pretty fast. Soon we were far away from the others and so we could enjoy the peacefull and quiet place. Asian people always need a leader, otherwise they dont start moving. The same happens everytime we go for food. Everybody wants to go somewhere, but nobody says it, so they all just wait. Sometimes it takes forever. I thought that everything in asia will be much faster as all people seem to rush, but than they stop and wait for nothing. Like today when some wanted to buy a snack, but not the others. Everybody just waited in cars and waiting for the decision. Then they had to wait in the line again. It would be much faster to decide while waiting in line. Well asia is different, i cant judge them, anyway i had a lot of fun and these days i understood asian culture by being with people much better than i could ever do at school. Tomorrow i am going to visit some taipei's top sights, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

I have only one day to see taipei. Fortunately the capital city of taiwan is extremly tourist friendly. Subway is easy and handouts are in english, so i dont waste time when finding the right way, just follow the tourist sign. According to a map i made a plan what to see. First stop was the national chiang kai-shek memorial hall. He is really important for taiwan as he is the one who established r.o.c (taiwan). His importance expresses the 75 ton, 16 merer high bronze statue in a huge hall surronded by parks, gate and national theatre. Second stop on my city sightseeing day was the lin family mansion and garden. However as most museums, it was closed on monday. Anyway around that place is a lot of traditional stalls, where people can buy clothes or souvenirs. Than i took the subway and get off at longshan temple, a building from 1738. The budhistic longshan temple is a magnificient place where people come, lit the sticks and pray. You can feel nice smell everywhere although it is opened area. Many of golden budha statues and a lot of detailed decorative articles makes this place to be one of best temples i have seen so far. Next stop was so called martyrs shrine. On the bus to the shrine i have met the first unpleasant lady. She spoke very good english without strong accent. However she kept telling me that it takes one hour to the shrine and once i get in the bus i cant get off until somebody wants to get off as well. What a bullshit! I get off the bus in front of american hotel, there they ensured me that the girl was a liar, the shrine was about 5 minutes walk from there. Dont know why she said that. Maybe she didnt like foreiners. It was raining heavily and i got completely wet and in addition to it the shrine was closed on mondays. Still some sights i havent seen remained, but due to the rain i could not continue. I had an awesome lunch in the shopping mall for an even more awesome price. For a while it stopped raining and so i came back to the memorial i wanted to visit earlier. The national dr sun yet-sen memorial hall is full of exhibitions, there is a library education room and of course another huge bronze statue. The memorial is close to taipei 101, second tallest building in the world, but the visibility is very poor today, hope it will get better at nigt or tomorrow evening, so i would be able to see something. So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Yesterday evening was great i have met about 10 friends of mine and we had a honkong-taiwanese style dinner. I kept talking about the skyscraper taipei 101, first of all i though i will not see this top one sight in taiwan, however the clouds went away and the sky was clear for a while. We rushed to the building buy the ticket to the observatory. They closed few minutes ago, hiwever the security was cery kind and let us go up anyway. It is an skyscraper observatory like every other and i would recommend to go there during the day (or sunset) as than you can see all the mountain ranges around. At night it just turns to be a big black spot. Anyway it is an incredible building, that remind a bamboo as it is a very fast growing plant, as taiwanese economy is. Taipei 101 is rich in symbolism, but the most amazing was the worlds fastest elevator designed by samsung. It took only about 40 seconds to make it to the top! We haf a very clear view, because it stopped raining fir a while, but in few minutes a big cloud surrounded the top of the building and throw the heavy rain we could not see anything. Anyway they were closing the whole observatory. Today it was also raining, but i still sticked on to my plan, met my friend sharlin and we left for north of taiwan. We drove all the way to yehliu geopark, which is an area with many incredibly shaped rocks, that sometimes it is hard to believe that it is not manmade. The most famous is the queen head. We were supossed to take the ferry to a fishrman village on another island, where my friend grew up. However due to heavy rain we had to skip it. On the way back we stopped at a texas style steakhouse. I ate almost the whole 24 oz piece of beef (680 grams), i thought that ny belly will explode. We arrived back to taipei and i moved to my other friends house as she lives near the airport. Her mother cooked a dinner for me. She grilled the whole chicken. Although i was too full, it was so tasty. I tried to eat as much asi could. It was a great day yesterday, even if it was rainy. Well three taifoons are around taiwan, hope that my flight will be fine, will see, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Today was a long day! I woke up early to catch my flight. It was sunny so all my worries about typhoon disappeared, nevertheless i didnt know what is comming. There was a big traffic jam on the highway to the airport due to an accident, but we had pretty good time reserve. Everything was fine until we took off. The plane started to shake, turn, sometimes it went straight down, just like an acrobatic plane. I have never been so affraid, i thought that we can never make it through. I was so happy when we landed and i get off. It was in kota kinabalu, malaysia. I was considering not to take the flight to brunei after this experience and just stay in malaysia. On the other side was my desire to visit the small asian sultanat. Fortunately the desire prevailed. It was probably the shortest flight i have flew. We took off, captain switched the seat belt light off and in five minutes he announced the magic sentence prepare for landing. I have met my friend charles and we visited the water village, but didnt enter it, we will do it on friday. Afterwards we had an indian buffet dinner for only 7 brunei dollars (which is around 5 usd), checked out a bruneian market and headed to his house. I must say that the standard of living is really high here. Living is cheap, government takes care about insurance and all social issues, there is no income tax and above all everything is really cheap here. Liter of gas cost only 0.53 bnd! The crude oil money changed this tiny country to a welfare society, camparable to uae. Tomorrow we will check out some sights, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Today was a very interesting day full of discussion about asian culture and their way of thinking. In asia people just accept everythinh the way it is and dont even think about that it could be changed. In brunei two law systems applies at the same time, depending on what religion you are. The majority of people are malay muslims, than taiwanese/chinese christians, indians, philipinos and as low paid labour the workers from bangladesh are used. Although brunei officially has oil reserves only until 2015, the country still havent developed any other industry. There is still probably much more oil than is officially known as the oil company keeps hiring new employees and government keeps building houses for them. Probably they just want the rest of the world to know about how much oil they have. I think it is a good idea these days! Anyway the living standard is really high. Everybody owns a house, or gets one from government, electricity, water, food is really cheap. Most goods is being sold at a lower price than elsewhere and the gas costs only ridiculous 0.50 bnd. All the costs of living are really low, people doesnt have to pay insurance personal incone tax etc. However the wages are comparable to developed countries in western europe. Citizens of sultanat brunei doesnt have to worry about money, living, future... It has been so for couple years (gas was found in 1929) and so people got used to it. Nobody cares, nobody worries about the issue that are really hot in other part of the world. However people always need to worry to keep their lifes having a sence. Thats why many people cares about sometimes very ridiculous things. Which way to park on an empty parking lot or if to use the front door or backdoor can turn to be a problem impossible to solve. People worries how to manage their lunch, because they are used to eat at 12, but it is already quarter to and they are not hungry yet. Five cars is already a traffic jam and the drivers already start to be unconfident, although the roads are very wide and comparing to even rural places in europe, street of brunei are empty. Today i went with my host charles to a high school where was a oxford and cambridge roadshow. They tried to convince high school students to apply for one of those top uk universities and if they are succesful, government pays all the expenses. Afterwards we drove couple of students back home and stopped by at the empire hotel. It is the most luxury hotel in brunei. Due to the low seasson, it was empty. Personally i would not choose this place to stay, although it is very cheap! We visited also charles former student house. It was a beautiful residence with an awesome interior. We drove out of the capital to see the place where the oil was found. It is the headquater of shell company exploating crude oil in brunei these days. Around are many govermental houses and whole settlements where workers from different countries lives eg the british part. It was very interesting to see where the money actually comes from. Later on we visited the main mosque. However due to the pray time we could not enter and so i will come back there tomorrow, so stick on to my trip and jeep checking ontheroad.to

Today i stayed in the capital city of brunei called bandar seri begawan and visited the most touristic places. There is not much to see. I started in the museum. The entry is free of charge, than i continued to the mosque and afterwards the water village. Museum in the royal regalia building about bruneian history presented hundreds of important documents as various treatments and agreements with great britain. It is boring to read through hundreds of papers, so i moved to other part, where was the exhibition of gifts recieved by sultan from various countries, but soon rooms became again full of papers and pictures of politicians signing agreements. I didnt find anything about modern history of brunei, the thing i was looking for. Most interesting was the explabation of state symbol. It cobsust of many parts as umbrella, column and hands symbolizing govermental care, support and generousity. Also it contains an arabic writing and islam symbols in order to express how important the religion for bruneians is. On the way from the museum to the most famous mosque i passed by the sharia court. Both places are not allowed to enter, so i decided to visit the water village, one of most important sights in brunei. During the rain seasson there is a lot watet, but now it looked more like swamps. The houses are connected by a scary wooden bridge. I really cared where to step. People livibg here got used to throw their rubbish outside, so it is full of trash and it stinks a bit. However the people there are very kind. Many children live there and a lot of them started to talk to me. The village has its own mosque and two schools. Some parts of the village are close to the forests, where a lot of animals live and due to all the rubbish many monkies and lizzards dare to leave their safe houses in forests and try to find usable things people threw away. I stopped and watched them for a while, however they were affraid of people and as soon as i came closer they run away. Only one was brave enough and started to defend its place. It looked scary so i rather backed up. Afterwards i met my friend and we drove to the sultan's palace. It is another place, imposible to enter. Tomorrow is flight to jakarta via kota kinabalu on my schedule, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

In the morning we went to visit brunei museum. It was much more interesting than the yesterday's one. They showed couple unusal animals living in brunei and a big collection of islamic art. Afterwards we visited the sultans tomb. It was the 5th and one of the most important sultan in brinei's history. During his reign, the country ocuppied the whole borneo, third biggest island in the world. He died during an accident, probably on the boat, when his wife was neeting. She felt guilty and killed herself as well. Around the tomb are few paths through the forest full of mangrove trees, bamboos and many animals. We walked a bit around, but soon all the mosquitos were eating us and so we decided to have an indian lunch. Although brunei is small, there are many immigrants and so you can basically get any asian food easilly. In the afternoon i took the airasia flight to jakarta with a stopover in kota kinabalu. Tomorrow i will walk around the city of batavia and the other days i hope to see some indonesian mountains. So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Yesterday's flight was horrible again. When i checked the weather at kota kinabalu's airport, it was supossed to be sunny in jakarta. However by the time we reached indonesia's capital, it all has changed. It started to rain really heavily and the wind was playing with our plane like with a toy. We were almost on ground when the pilot turned the engines back on, and we headed to the sky again. I got freaked out as all the other people did. Pilot tried to calm the passangers down and so he announced that due to the weather, they have to land at another airport. Afterall the second runway was just nearby, so i dont know if it was really due to the weather conditions, but anyway i was scared to death. Ratih, my cs host was already waiting at the airport. We took the taxi to her place. She lives in an, as she call it 'traditional' house. We would just call it slum-like house. Bathroom is actually a corner with sink and you just take a bucket and keep pouring the water on you. I could not figure out what happens after making a poo. There is no toilet paper even a water jet.. Well referomg back to ratih's traditional living and the way how to name things is one of the important culture differencies i have noticed. Indonesians are very different from other asian cultures. They would never call anything a bad way. Everybody has a really big self confidence and people are kind of bigheaded. Whenever i said that something doesnt work properly in indonesia, they got offended, it is not possible, their country is the best and everything here is completely perfect. I dont know where they got this selfconfidence. If something doesnt work properly, it is just because of.... than they were adding excuses as its ramadhan, its weekend, it far from city, you need to stay in jakarta longer than 5 days etc. With the last one they actually really pissed me off, because everybody keeps telling me that 5 days in indonesia is not enough, but nobody is able to suggest me any plan for even one day. Always they just tell i cant go there because of this and that etc. but of course always it is my fault, because i dont have time, because i didnt search for it, because i did come in peak seasson.. Already before i arrived i tried to find what to do in here, unfortunately with no result. I found many places i would like to see, but most of the tours required group of people, to enter some national park filling in permitt application week ahead was nescessary, and of course many places are not reachable by 'public trasportation'. Of course every native would say that public trasportation works smoothly in jakarta, in fact those few buses i would not even call transportation. When i ask about how to get to some place they just suggested me another place instead, but didnt tell how to get there again. And also they were really surprised that i dont know every village near jakarta, it is the center of universe for them, but cant understand that in europe people dont have any clue about this 4th most populous country in the world. Always they were asking why dont you wanna go to bogor if you dont know how to get to krakatau. My answer was that i simply dont have an idea what it is. Instead of telling it to me, they just suggested another place and the vicious circle started from the begining. Indonesia is totally different culture from what i have seen so far it is the first place in asia i am not enjoying. Today we visited bogor and its national park in the area of gede and pangrango volcano mountain. All the indonesians were singing the whole journey in the bus no matter that most of them sang really badly and i must say that bahasa language is probably the most ennoying language i have ever heard. Even in english they have really strong accent. Especially when using words containing letter 'r', they put a strong stress on this constant and it sounds pretty much like russian accent. It was funny when my friend told me that indonesians speak always better english than filippinos! Of course again its their proudness because of many indonesians, even at the airport, could not speak english at all, on the other side all filippinos can comunicate in english very well. However i still had kind of fun. Except of the fact that we had to woke up at 4:30 am to get to bogor and there we were waiting for about 3 hours for the rest of our group. Except of not understanding the language and the fact that me and the whole group of about 15 indos were tottaly diffeeent and i was on completely different wave, it was an experience in term of getting to know another culture. Also the park was beautiful. We walked the path through a rainforest-like area all the way to famous waterfall and on the way back we saw couple of monkeys hanging around and many other interesting animals and plants. Later that night we had an indonesian dinner at one of my friend's house and than we left for karaoke. I had to lie, because of i could not say that the food was just ordinary because everybody would be angry on me. The karaoke was also very, lets say strange experience, for me. I cant describe my feelings, i was just watching them with my mouth wide opened and they didnt stop surprising me. Well their fun is completely different. There were also two germans, but they were already used to it and actually they joined them doing the silly things we were doing at the age of 10.(usually they were over 25, and many even more than 30 years old). I just kept feeling weird and uncomfortable. Well tomorrow i will go to visit some sights in jakarta city and than i will just wait and let the days passing by until i will finally leave indonesia. I am flying back to civilisation, to singapore, on thursday and will stay there 4 days. Always when indonesians hear it they ask me why dont i make my stay in singapore shorter, or even skip it and extend my time in jakarta instead. I cant tell them that i am not enjoying jakarta at all and that i am looking forward singapore much more as i dont want them to get mad at me. I will keep my travel blog updated, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Although i had big plans about visiting indonesians nature, nothing worked out. The locals just kept telling me places i could go, but they have never been able to tell me how to get there. If you dont want to waste time here in jakarta, you should just pay a private tour guide and rent a car to make things reachable. Well as all my plans crashed i decided to stay in the city for the whole day. Jakarta is huge, crowded third world country's capital. There is not much to do, although locals will keep telling you how many amazing things are here worth to see. However most of the time you will spend in everyday jakarta's traffic jams. The second problem was the heavy rain. So we decided to stay in a shopping mall. There was a whole floor full of traditional indonesian articles as for example wooden statues and batik clothes. Some things were much cheaper, however some, especially branded clothes or electronics cost almost the same as in europe. When it stopped raining we started our sightseeing tour. First place we visited was the national monument. It remained me the washington monument in usa. The presidential palace is also kind of similar to white house, however nobody could answer me if there is any connections between those places. We walked futher passing by many governmental buildings as ministery of home and foreign affairs, military headquater etc. Soon we arrived to the biggest mosque in asia. Right next to it was a christian church. Both places are new built, so they dont have such a long history and atmosphere as the ones in europe. Yesterday ratih told me about the possibility to drink cobra's blood so we went to a special restaurant, where i picked a snake, they cooked for me. I have chosen a black cobra. After they killled it they made me a drink from its blood, wine and a gall. It is a deep red and very strong drink with a bit bitter taste. I was kind of affraid to drink it, but than i just closed my eyes and tried to enjoy it. Afterwards i was not allowed to drink coffee, tea or milk, but they didnt tell me what would happen. It takes about an hour to cook the cobra's meat. In the meanwhile they showed us other merchandise as turtle oil that should enlarge guys dick, or woman's breast. Soon the meat was ready. I didnt know that cobra has so many bones and so delicious meat. It was another awesome experience which i will never forget! We had to change our plan and skip the coffee at batavia cafe because it would effect with the cobra blood. Instead of that we were invited to have a late dinner at intercontinental hotel. It was again a weird occasion as we met the whole group from yesterday again. Those people really like to hit on people and embarass them in front of others. I dont really feel very comfortable if there is more than one indonesian around me. Indonesian culture is simply not my cup of tea at all. Tomorrow i will probably take rest, because of i am really tired and i dont have any better plan also, but on wednesday i want to visit one of many jakarta's slums, so my adventureous stay in indonesia still doesnt comes to an end so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Yesterday night we went with the whole group to some cafe. I wanted to go to the famous batavia cafe, but they just told me that they know better place, that batavia is bad and just refused to take me there. It is strange, because everywhere in the world the host adjusts the plan according to what guest wants to see. Whenever i was yawning, drinking or eating something (well basically anything i did) they kept making stupid jokes of it. They keep persuading me that i have to eat the street food and it is impossible to explain them that i dont like it. They think that if they can handle it, everybody can. Also whenever i use bug spray they keep making their stupid jokes again, they just can not understand that not everybody is used to the mosquito bites as they are. In the cafe i was quite tired as so i was not very friendly. I am already really fed up of their stupid comments. I started to defend myself and so i was making same kind of stupid jokes right after their comments to pay it back to them. Sometimes it turned into a very akward moment, and so i was enjoying how they were feeling embarassed. I think that they have finally understood, that it is not so funny as they think and they have reduced most of the comments. Ratih wanted to pay for me all thr time and to calculate all the expenses afterwards. I told her that i prefer not to do it, because it makes things easier, because i wasaffraid of miscalculating, in order to take an advantage from me and cut down her expenses. On sunday we took the taxi and i paid even a bit more than the half, however today she tried to persuade me that i didnt give her anything. I dont know if she did it on purpose or not, but it is not honest from her at all. Therefore i dont really trust her now. Anyway thats how it is and i cant change it, the problem is that due to the peak seasson all the hostels are already booked and so i still have to pretend to be friendly to all of them and i just have to accept their inpropriate behavior, but of course there are borders and i dont let them to keep crossing it all the times! Here i feel more like being just a clown to entertain their group than being a guest. Well because of that i decided to stay at ratih's house for the whole day and just rest, watching movies etc. Ratih had a lot of pirate copies of many movies. Some of them had subtitles in something like 'indonesian english'. Although the original sound was english, they made a funny transcription of the english dialogs, but with addition grammer mistakes. Now i understand where they got the confidence that they can speak good english. Most of them have never been abroad, they have very strong accent and i can imagine that they would be convincing native english that indonesian pronounciation is the correcg one! When ratih came back and started with her stupid jokes again i just refused to talk to her. I checked my email, read some magazines and went to sleep. Tomorrow is finally my last day, hope i will manage it to visit the slum so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Today we were walking around with a friend of ratih and also an american screenwriter joined us. We visited the bank museum and than we moved to place called kota = old town, where is located another museum. Afterwards we haeded to the slum area. It is a dirty stinky place, full of rubbish. It must be really hard and dangerous to live there. From the slum it was close to the old harbour, where they still use the 'traditonal' way of handling the cargo. Again traditional means old fashioned here. No machines are being used, but people have to do everything by usings hands. For lunch we went to the colonial batavia cafe, finally. Of course it was much better than the cafe they kept suggesting me. The atmosphere is very cozy and you can easilly get the feeling that you are back in time in the colonisational era. Tomorrow i will fly to singapore and we will be celebrating the hari raya festival (end of ramadan). So stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Just in case i came to the aiport very early to make sure that i will not miss my flight. Anyway i could not sleep very well yesterday because of the rats chasing each other right near me. I met my friend michele and we visited the old port area. We walked along the river and later on we had some beers at hooters. Everybody keeps telling me that i could see the whole singapore in fewer days, however there are so many things, i want to see that i woukd not mibd to extend my stay. Maybe there is not much to see, or do, but singapore seems to me to be a great place to live. I will see how i will feel after those days, but so far i am enjoying it very much. Tomorrow i am going to celebrate the hari raya festival with fiza, my malay friend i am staying with, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Today was the hari raya festival. It is kind of christmas for muslim. The month of fasting called the ramadan just ended and new year started. The whole muslim world is visiting his relatives and celebrate this event. There are 13.4% of malays in singapore and almost all of them are muslim. Everybody dress the traditional suit and always every family wears different colour, so they match. People leave their doors open, so everybody can walk in. We visited about 5 houses today. Every family baked cookies, quite similar to christmas cookies and also prepared the main dish. Usually every table has beef stew, chicken, kalamary and curry meat. Also steamed rice cant be missing. People dont use chopstick or cutlery, but hands. The food is a bit influenced by indian cuisine. The tradition is that younger asks the olders for forgivness. It is a special ritual and a very emotional ocation. Often people start crying as it is not only an abstract general saying, but sometimes they do apologize for a particular behavior, if they realised that it was not apropriate. Shaking hands ceremony has also some specific features. Younger uses both hands to catch olders right hand and pass it to their forehead. At the end they bring right hand to the heart. If the person is already working, he gives a pack with some money, usually 4 sgd to the children, students, or to those who does not have job. Some women dont shake hands with men, but as the difference from arabic cultures, women dont avoid eyecontact. The day was very nice. I am really happy that i had an opportunity to see this event and especially that it was in singapore. I think i woul not be very welcomed in indonesia, but here everybody was really friendly to me so i could feel as being part of the family. In the evening i met my friend michelle and her friends to hang out in downtown. Tomorrow i will probably do some sightseeing so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

In the fine city of singapore (fine because you can be ticketed for almost everything) you can explore 3 cultures in only one day. The mayority of people living here are chinese - 75%. Besides, there are about 13% of malays, followed by 9% of indians. The rest are foreigners and other nationalities. Also there are many permanent residents about a milion out of the population of 5 milions. Therefore singapore is a very cosmopolitan city. We started our culture tour in chinatown. A lot of colorful lampions and chinese symbols decorates the streets. The main colour is red as it is the color of luck and prosperity in chinese culture. However it is chinatown, there is a hindu temple and also one budhistic temple. In both tourist are welcomed and also allowed to take photographs. It feels to me that the hindu minority is the lowest and poorest part of the society. We proceeded to the little india, where mostly shops and restaurants are. Vendors sell traditional hindu clothes and many accesories. You can find all kinds of shops from malls to markets, where you can bargain and the shopkeepers will be trying to offer you their products until you finally leave their stall. Nevertheless this part is called little india, you can visit a muslim mosque there. Of course there is also a hindu temple. Our last stop was the malay part. However due to the hari raya festival, this place is very quite these days. I will explore malay culture in deep next week in kuala lumpur. Singapore is a multicultural city and so all its races had to find the way how to live next to each other in peace. The government sets many rules and law to prevent any interpersonal disputes. My friend told me that singaporians Are usually missing the sence for social responsibility, so before there was the law about littering, chewing, smoking in public etc, nobody did care about the enviroment and cleanliness of streets. Nowadays schools are in english and every child must learn english and also his own language according to his racial background. People are very tolerative and the current layout doesnt cause problems, islam, budhism, hindu and christianity goes along by each other. People dont have many prejudice about others, however of course most of their friends belongs to the same race as they always will have more things in common. Government wants to prevent people from forming unadaptive groups, so they introduced a city plan, where in every district a certain ratio of all races has to be presented. Although singapore is considered to be a democratic country, in western world many people would never accept a big piece of govermental lawd currently required in singapore. It might sound ridiculos, but most noticable is the ban of chewing gum. It is ilegal to bring any to singapore and you can be ticketed for the actual chewing. The law is to prevent from littering, however most tourist feel that it already touches they human rights. As i asked people, singapore ensure alm the human rights to all the people, however the freedom of speech has borders elsewhere than in europe. People here (and basically in whole asia) never critisize the goverment or their decision. For example in singapore drug smugglers faces the death penalty. It was very shocking for me as it is realjy easy to put a pack of heroin to sombody's bag. Although people here realises, that it can be dangerous and easy way how to get rid of certain people, nobody here has the brave to protest, as europeans do all the time and against everything. However different village different language. I cant judge other cultures, especially if the system works smoothly as it does in singapore. In the evening we visited the newly opened marina bay centre and it sky garden. The building consists of three piles and an observatory in the shape of a ship connectong its peaks. The view is magnificient. From one site you will have an opportunity to stufy city's skyline and from backside the harbour shows you how important role for singapore it plays. For guests from the 5*hotel marina bay is the pool of infinity availible. It is an amazing experience to swim on the top of the skyscraper and enjoy the view in meanwhile, however they dont allow public in the pool. Afterwards we had a late dinner at a place called timbre, an open air restaurant with life music. We met michele's schoolmates. One of them was very familiar to me. Yes it was the guy i met last semestr in prague, what a coinacidence. He introduced me to the rest of the group and two other girls from my faculty. What a small world! However they left for clubbing soon. Tomorrow i will check out the beach side called santosa so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

After woke up i took the mrt (mass railway transportation) to the sentosa beach. Although there are many adventurous attractions to try as the zip ride, maritime museum, segway riding etc, it is quite overpriced. I decided to spend my day on the beach only. It is a nice place to relax, but it has been quite comercialized these days. The beach is clean, and although the water is a bit green, it looks way better than i expected, especially after i saw the oceansides near cities like osaka in japan and incheon in korea. Sentosa is a great place to relax, full of bars shops and restaurants. Near the maritime museum is a small free preview and at 4 pm you can watch turtle feeding in a pool of a huge species fighting for a piece of cabbage. In the pool nearby are couple of stingrays. Visitors can try to surf on an artificial wave, visit the southernmost point of continental asia, or just relax on the beach. For those who dont want to spend much is the best option couple of 7/11 convenient stores, however it is much harder to find place where they accept credit cards, than i have ever expected. It is worthy to wait for the sunset that covers the whole bay into a deep red colour. In the evening we talked with fiza mother about religious topic and singapore culture. She is very openminded and is not affraid of talking about anything, as most singaporians are, in difference to many other asian nations. Tomorrow i will visit national museum and the famous night safari, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

I wanted to see the city centre in the day as well and so i get off at the city hall station. I walked around the main sights. From st andrew cathrdral i walked around the parliament and the supreme court, which has two buildings, new an old one. The old one is a modern building which reminds ufo. I took the baywalk passing by statue of sir raffles, who is considered to be a founder of singapore, cenothap and the civil war memorial i reached the esplanade theatre, which people call the durian as it has shape as this smelly fruit. I walked to the esplanade driveto the oppositeside in order to make better shots of theatre and the marina bay resort. The best point is the pier where merlion statue is. Merlion is a mythycal half lion half fish animal, that according to a legend saved singapore from huge floods. Afterwards i visited the national museum of singapore, where just the free tour started. The guiding woman was very good, she answered all our question and it actually took us twice longer than the average due to our curiosity. It is a great place to explore the history of the lion city (sinapora means lion city is malay, so that's where the name comes from). I still had some time before the dinner we arranged with fiza, so i took a walk in the forz canning park. There are ruins of old fotress, but it is not a tourist highlight, but more a place to relax. Later on in the evening i visited the night safari in one of the top ten zoo in the world. Although the admission is 22S$, it is worthy to see it. It is possible either to walk or take a tram for additional 10S$. Due to this and also the fact that the visitors can't shut their mouth and keep shouting and taking flash pictures, which sxares the animal, i decided to walk around. You can enjoy the night life of many animals as hyena, zebras, lions etc. Very nice is so called mangrove walk where are many bats and sometimes it happens that they crash into people, but they are not dangerous at all. It took me about twohours and by the time i got back to the entrance, most of the shows already finushed. Tomorrow i will take the bus to kuala lumpur, my last stop on my trip, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

I wanted to visit the holland village today, but packing my luggage took me longer than i expected. Therefore i went straight to lavender station and chill out there while waiting for the bus to kl. Regardless the ticket was cheap, it was the most luxury bus i have ever taken. Soft, wide chairs, that could be positioned to almost a bed, very clean and plenty of room for my legs. Also the countryside full of palm tree forests and plantages and a lot of green all around makes the journey much more enjoyable. After the sun had drawned to the forests it coloured the sky and it made up an awesome picture that i have never seen before. Blue along with deep red, yellow and grey were contrasting with green palm trees like on an painter's masterpiece. It was one of the most beautiful sunset i have ever seen. Unfortunately it was not possible to capture this magnificient view from a moving bus. Soon we arrived to kl. The city is much cleaner than i expected. I thought, that it will be another dirty place as jakarta or manila, however it looks more like singapore, no rubbish, bins everywhere and it feels pretty safe also! Although the hostel is a really dirty place, i think that i will gave a good time here. In fact there is so much to do that i think i wont be able to shrink it in only 3 days! Tomorrow is the visit to batu caves on schedule so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

The hostel is a very dirty place and or room has 8 beds and also people from other two 8rooms bedrooms have to walk throw our place, so there is somebody moving around all the time. My bunkbed has a really bad statics and anytime the guy below me moves the upper bed multiplies it. Above that the person next to me was snoring really loudly and when he finally finish at about 4 am the one below me started to fart. Those people should be banned from hostels! However there is nothing to do about it. I was really tired today. I met other 4 cser and they took me to visit the hindu temple at batu caves. I recognized this place from very large distance thanks to the huge golden statue. After walking up hundreds of vetry steep stairs we finally reach the cave, where people built few hindu temples. It is a nice connection between nature made cave and many man made golden figures and little building. However the most famous sight are probably the monkeys. First of all they were affraid and kept a very long distance from people, but they kept coming closer and soon they tried to steal the whole coconut i was drinking the milk from. After taking some pictures i gave it to them and many others came down from the trees for another one, even a mother brought her baby monkey, she was raising. After batu caves we visited so called frim, or forest research institute malaysia. We took a hike through the rainforest, chatting and enjoying the nature. There is a hanging bridge called the canopy walk, howevee it was closed due to the maintainence. Canopy is actually a term, that explains how trees grows in order to keep a small space between each other's branches, so it allows the light in. Many monkies, lizards and other animals lives in the rainforest. I was really tired, so i came back to the hostel to take a nap. Later in the evening we visited a concertedvand a firework show at midnight, because of 16th september is the national malay day. I hope to get more sleep today, so i wont be tired tomorrow when riding an elephant, gonna make some pics, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

It was couple hours of driving to so called elephant santuary. On the way we stop at a visitor's centre of royal selangor, the pewtery factory, where many products are still handmade. Next stop was at the rubber tree plantage and very interesting was the deerland park, where they allowed us to feed deers, bears, take picture with a python snake around your neck and also showed a lot of other domestic animals. Our driver took us around the aborigines village, where still people lives in traditional houses, however they agreed to govermental help and so all their houses were destroyed a rebuilt, so they all have electrocity, water and children attend the school, same happened with the slums in the city. There are really few of them remaining in kuala lumpur, so it doest look like jakarta at all. Finally we reached the elephant reservation. The entrance is free, however unless you have the car, you can not really get there and it is nescessary to buy the tour, which is a fair price for what will see, actually. After couple of shows and explaining how to behave in front of those huge animals, they provided us with fruit and let us feed them. Later we could try to ride on elephant's back and try a so called elephant bath. About six people sit on elaphant's back standing in the river and he shook them off to the water. Also we could splash and wash the baby elephant in the same river. It was really good experience, elephants are very interesting and friendly animals. In the evening i walked around the city centre specifically the menara kl tower and world's third largest building - the petronas tower and its suria, luxury shopping mall. My hostel is in china town, the place place to eat and shop in most major cities, therefore i wanted to do some shopping, bur on the way back i lost my way and by the time i finally found the place i was too tired. I leave it for tomorrow as all the city sightseeing, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

The city of kuala lumpur has a great tourist infrastructure compared to other asian cities. There is so called hop on-hop off bus. Several buses keep circleing on a route that allows visitors to see the whole city. It is also easy to get off the bus, walk around and take the next bus. My first stop was istan negara, the national palace. However visitors can not enter and so it gets boring afrer you already have the pictures. Next stop i got off was the lake garden, a huge area full of green around a big lake and surrounding butterfly, bird, orchid and deer par. Except of bird park admissons to all of them are free of charge. Not far from the gardens is an asean sculpture park, but more important is the national monument nearby. It shows six people and is dedicated to those who died when fighting for independence. Tgere us also monument dedicated to victims of world wars and from the top of the hill you can see the parliament building. Next stop was the national mosque. From there you can take a nice picture of the old headqueters of petronas (now this govermental owned petrol comoany seats in petronas towers, of course). Near the national mosque is the ktm railway headquters and across the street the old railway station. I took a short stop at merdeka square with it's st. Anne's church and sultal abdul building, former courthouse. Afterwards i proceeded to the lake titigawsa. It is another great pkace to relax and for culture lovers, there is a culture palace. Even though you are not interested in seeing one of many performances, the building is worth to see. I have heard that ampong park is a nice viewpoint to see the petronas tower, but i could not really find where it is and as i was really tired, i decided to go back to the hostel. In the evening i walked in chinatown. It was quite crowded place and at about 10 pm a promenade of people passed around carrying the chinese dragons, whistleing and making any kind of noise, in honour of malaysian prime minister (dont know if the current or any previous). Tomorrow i have to wake up extremly early to catch my flight back to china. I might do last sightseeing in tianjin and proceed to beijing to fly the biggest plane in the world - airbus a30 to dubai. There i have 4hours stopover before i finally get in the plane back to europe, to munich. I am already looking forward european climate, especially the winter! Still stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to for my last experience!

I didnt sleep very well and i had to wake up very early today, at 4:30 to take the bus to lcc terminal and from there the 6 hours long flight to china. I didnt expect that it will be so long. In the plane was extremely cold, luckily i had a sweater in my carry on! After landing i started to seek the transportation to beijing, the city where i started my trip and now also ending it. It has been pretty long time, but fortunately i still remember the way to the airport. I had dinner with my friend jason and than proceeded to the beijing's airport, since now emirates is taking care about my luggage, finally i got rid of it! Soon i will arrive to dubai. I hope the flight will be ok, so stick on to my trip and keep checking ontheroad.to

Airbus a380, the biggest flying means of transport in the world can take more than 640 passengers and it is a pretty comfortable and luxury aircraft, however i still could not get a proper sleep. For dinner a delicious and famous beijing duck was served. I was interested about how the first and business class looked like, so i asked the main flight attendant and after we landed and all the passengers get off, he took me a tour to the luxury second floor. I was not allowed to take a picture, however on emirates.com you can check out how it looks like and so you can kniw what i am talking about. I have couple of hours in dubai before my flight to munich. I managed to change my seat so i will have plenty of room for my legs in first row and hope to sleep the entire flight! I should land in munich at 1 pm local time. Anyway tahts the end of my trip, but keep checking ontheroad.to for my future adventures!