My Travelogue #5
Last updated: Sunday November 7th, 2021
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You are still here, so I bet you are not bored by me yet 😄. If this is your first time visiting my travel blog, you can start here to understand what I am doing and why I am doing this.
There are some big name cities in this blog, so here we go:
020 Montréal
You may think that I must be rich to travel to so many places. The fact is that you don't have to have a lot of money in order to travel, as long as you are willing to make some sacrifices, like going to Montréal in the middle of winter.
So it was cold, it was grey, and it got dark early. But it didn't stop me from appreciating what the city was like and how the locals lived. I learnt that Montréalais were mostly bilingual and could speak English well; and the city buildings were all connected underground so people could walk for miles indoors when it was freezing outside; and they turned their white elephant Olympic velodrome into a Biodome.
037 Munich
Munich is all about beer, BMW and Bayern Munich 😍. It encompasses all your German (or Bavarian) stereotypes, such as the Oktoberfest. It was neat and efficient, and a great base to explore the nearby Neuschwanstein and Salzburg too.
097 Naples
My advice is to always do some research before travelling. When I was in Naples, I didn't know that it was a long weekend in Italy and absolutely everything was closed and it was like a dead city. Luckily I managed to catch a ferry to Sorrento and the tourist shops and restaurants were still open. I hope I'll visit Naples again when it is open. I did not have enough time to visit Pompeii last time, and an excursion to the Amalfi Coast would be nice.
002 New York City
OK I think the centre of universe (at least that's what the New Yorkers think) deserves more than one picture. I'm sure New York does not require much introduction, but I'll share a little bit of my experiences.
I visited NYC 3 times in the past and I went to The Met each time. I remember the excitement when the first time I got out of Times Square subway station and saw all the billboards there. I then went to the top of the Empire State Building, braved the chilling winds to see Manhattan and beyond (I was on the same trip as Montreal in the middle of winter).
As a side story, during the tour of the UN headquarter, the tour guide asked the group trivia questions like how many member states were there, which country joined most recently, and which were the two observer states. I was the only person who answered all these correctly (thanks to years of JetPunk 😂), and earned admiration from other tourists.
001 Paris
Which city knocked New York off the top spot? Paris of course.
Everyone knows Paris and it is almost cliché to write about it, so I won't bore you with too much details. Though I can tell you that there is a side entrance to the Louvre where you can skip the queue; or to save money you can stay at hotels in La Défense on the weekend; or you don't have to keep asking for direction when going to Versailles - just follow the crowd and you won't get lost. And don't worry about feeling weird visiting a cemetery - the Père Lachaise Cemetery is really a tourist destination and there's a tourist map to guide you to Oscar Wilde's tomb. And Mandarin is the lingua franca in the Louis Vuitton shop on Champs-Élysées. And if you are Asian like me feeling sick of eating bread for every meal, then head to the 13th Arr. and get your Vietnamese phở fix.
Finally, don't get too shocked or disappointed when you venture outside the 20 arrondissements and find that Paris is not as pretty or ideal as you imagined. Paris is a real city, not a museum. There are millions of working class Parisian who live in non-fairy-tale areas and work hard to serve a tourist like you.
047 Perth
OK I cheated. This was not my photo, I took it from Pixabay. Unfortunately soon after my trip to Perth, my computer crashed and I lost all my photos 😭. But I swear I did visit Perth, and honestly I quite liked it. I now find few photos from Perth in my old backup hard disk, so this is my own photo 😃.
Although I heard rumour that the people could be a bit racist, as many Whites were from South Africa who left at the end of apartheid, I did not experience anything bad to myself. In particular, I enjoyed Fremantle very much. The colonial buildings were well preserved, and the Fremantle Prison tour was interesting. Cottesloe Beach was an excellent spot to watch sunset. Although Perth is probably not the first destination people think of when visiting Australia (and it is far away from everywhere else), I would highly recommend it.
056 Phnom Penh
No I'm not posting a photo of the Khmer Rouge killing field here, it was just too upsetting.
Cambodia was a poor country. Not that I had anything against poor countries, but the problem was that everyone there seemed to try to rip you off, whether it was real or imaginary. It has been a long time since I last visited, so hopefully things get better now.
014 Prague
Like Amsterdam or Barcelona, Prague was another victim of its own success. The old city was packed with tourists from all over the world, and many shops inevitably became tourist traps, like those selling trdelník which could be found everywhere. I did not think that the locals went to the old city centre often unless they were shopkeepers.
However, Prague was indeed beautiful. I've been there twice and it still mesmerised me. So don't be discouraged by the crowd, try to get to Charles Bridge in the early morning or late evening for example. You'll be rewarded by its stunning beauty.
095 Québec City
So naturally when I visited Montreal, I went to Québec City as well. It was famous for being the "European city" in North America. But since I had been to Europe and I didn't live in North America, the attraction did not have much effect on me. I was not saying that Québec City was not a nice place to visit though.
006 Rome
Finally, the eternal city attracts travellers from all over the world. However, I would not say it's my favourite city. Again the tourist mob could be annoying, and some locals were dodgy. The food was overrated, service was usually bad, and queues were long. If you have never been to Rome then definitely you should go there, but after three visits I don't think I will go there again intentionally.
So this is the end of my fifth blog. I've described 50 cities so far, including 7 of the top 10 cities according to Lonely Planet (1 Paris, 2 NYC, 4 Barcelona, 5 London, 6 Rome, 8 Bangkok, 10 Istanbul). In my final two blogs the cities are going to be similar (Europe, Asia, North America etc.), as these are all I have visited and I have never been to Africa or Latin America.
Please leave me a comment as I enjoy hearing your feedback, and thanks again for reading.
You are telling the cities you visited according to that list of best cities (excepting the best of them...)?
Yes Brazil is always in my bucket list, if it wasn't covid I'd have probably visited already :(
i want to go to nyc again just to answer geography questions at the un