Leglessbird Travel Guide

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I had business meeting in Seoul and Irene came over for the weekend. Seoul has a special place in our heart because we officially started going out when Irene came to Seoul to visit me in Sept 1999 while I was working on a telecom project. On this ocassion, we had dinner at Grand Hyatt Seoul where I stayed during 1999, it certainly brought book many fond memories. We also were able to catch up with Wonsik and Bomsinae, 2 of my Korean friends with whom we worked on that telecom project. We also discovered some new areas to visit and had dinner at 2 other nice restaurants, called Hanilkwan (very traditional Korean food) and Tani (modern fusion food), both excellent choices. Irene enjoyed some shopping as well.

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Melaka is one of the most historical town in Malaysia, it was once occupied by the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, Japanese and British. One of the local food specialty is the chicken rice ball.

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Came to Malaysia for business meetings and visited some local attraction at Kuala Lumpur

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Came here for business trip and stayed for the weekend. Visited new restaurants at Three on the Bund and also went to Madam Soong Ching Ling's Residence.

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We have mixed feelings towards the city Rome, on the one hand it is a very interesting city full of historical monuments, like the Colosseo, Palatino, anywhere you go in Rome, you find a piece of history, not to mention that Vatican is right in the middle of Rome. On the other hand the city itself isn't exactly the type that we like, even though we are quite experienced travellers, we still had some problems with the transportation... Accommodation is generally quite expensive, but we managed to find a place called Pigneto House (essentially someone's private flat) that was reasonable and only 15 minutes from the centre.

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We have mixed feelings towards the city Rome, on the one hand it is a very interesting city full of historical monuments, like the Colosseo, Palatino, anywhere you go in Rome, you find a piece of history, not to mention that Vatican is right in the middle of Rome. On the other hand the city itself isn't exactly the type that we like, even though we are quite experienced travellers, we still had some problems with the transportation... Accommodation is generally quite expensive, but we managed to find a place called Pigneto House (essentially someone's private flat) that was reasonable and only 15 minutes from the centre.

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This is my second time n Vatican, it has been a long time since my las visit. Took plenty of photos at the Vatican museum and Saint Pietro. There is so much to see at the museum and the Saint Pietro (St Peter) Cathedrale is simply magnificent.

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We went to Lyon and took on a 2-week course at Lyon Bleu International, a small friendly French language school near the central area of Lyon. We heard about this school from a former teacher who now lives in Hong Kong. We had a fun 2-week and met many nice classmates from Germany, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Sweden etc. Adding multimedia elements like music and movie to the traditional teaching, we think this is something in between our Paris School (very interactive and more practice on spoken French) and the Antibes School (more traditional teaching). Paris is a busy capital with many interesting things to offer, and Lyon is more relax, cleaner and nice in many other ways.

The school helped us to find the accommodation and the rate was quite reasonable and included breakfast and wifi access. The room was pretty decent with ensuite toilet, shower, kitchen facilities. It was also within walking distance (20 minutes on foot) from the school.

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Lyon is the second largest city in France, we decided to come to Lyon to do a 2-week language course on the recommendation of a French teacher whom we met in Hong Kong. We quite like the city, as it is not as busy (and stressful) as Paris, there is an old town which is both interesting and historical e.g Ancient churches, Roman Theatre, French Puppet (Guignol) etc. Lyonnais cuisine has it own unique offering, we had dinner at some well known restaurants like Orsi (Chef Perrie Orsi, nice and high-end restaurant), Brasserie Georges (nice and affordable) and Le Sud ("The South", also nice and affordable one of the restaurants by "The best chef in France" Paul Bocuse). Paul Bocuse's flagship restaurant is also in the outskirt of Lyon, we missed it this time.

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While we were staying at Annecy, we took this boat ride around the lake and stopped by Tallories which is a small town also by the lake side. We visited a small shop and met with the owner's family who appreciates oriental culture very much, and they have spent much time in places like India and Nepal.

This is part of our 2-week French language trip in Lyon.