Paris and England Trip (20/6/2013-2/7/2013) – Part 3

Posted on By sweet surrender 3 Comments on Paris and England Trip (20/6/2013-2/7/2013) – Part 3

Let the post of Paris trip continues…

21/6/2013

First thing we arrived in Paris, we wanted to take the metro but ended up with taxi because some how the ticketing machine didn’t take card and we didn’t have small change. Took us quite awhile to reach our apartment! Had to walk a bit as the street was closed due to a music festival that day. Finally! So tired! It’s awesome!


It’s located in a very old building but the interior was very modern. We booked this from Airbnb. The stay cost us EUR800+ for 4 nights. It’s located near The Panthéon area. There’s so many eateries and nightspots down there! Highly recommended! The owner is Thibault. Very friendly guy.



Don’t have to worry about the noise down there, you can’t really hear them. The place is very clean and you have everything available. Felt right at home, very cosy. Carrefour is just around the corner too. Highly recommended! The place can fit 6 people.

22/7/2013

The next day, we headed out to discover Paris! First stop, The Panthéon.



Luxembourg Gardens.


Left: The random street in Paris. I just couldn’t believe that I’m actually walking in the street of Paris! All these while I was just looking and admiring the views from photos or on TV. Felt surreal! How I wish I’m there with someone… Too bad I don’t have one hahaha… What a waste!

Right: I don’t remember this sculpture but it can be found in the movie, The Da Vinci Code. However, it’s under maintenance now.


Saint-Sulpice is a Roman Catholic church in Paris.


We had our lunch at Leon de Bruxelles, a popular chain of restaurants in France that primarily serves moules-frites. Were served with complimentary pretzel while we decide on what to order.


Left: Complimentary bread too were served.

Right: Wet wipe for us as we ordered mussels. Need to clean our hands after eating.


Left: Was craving for steak so I ordered Sirloin Steak (EUR18,90), 220gm steak with bearnaise sauce and served with fries and salad. We requested for medium. Oh… It’s been a long time not having a good steak!

Right: Leon’s Burger The Cheese (EUR12) prepared with 2 savoury potato gallettes, a beef steak, mustard, ketchup, tartar sauce, sliced onions, and lettuce. I like the potato gallettes but not the beef.


Left: Fish and Fries (EUR11,40), a fillet of “meuniere”, french fries and tartar sauce. Nothing special about this, it’s just your normal fish and chips.

Right: Mussels!! We ordered Mussels with cream and fresh mushrooms (EUR17,20). Oh yummy!


Left: Fresh Salmon Steak (EUR15,90) with rice and green beans. Salmon was a bit small ;p

I have no idea of the address where we dined, we just simply walked around and saw it. Since it’s a popular restaurant chain in France, you should be able to find it in many places.

Part 4 will come soon.

Food Porn, Going Places, People Everywhere - Paris

Acer Aspire V5-471G-53334G50B

Posted on By sweet surrender 3 Comments on Acer Aspire V5-471G-53334G50B

Here you go… My new laptop after 5 years! Ended up with Acer Aspire V5-471G-53334G50B mainly because of the price factor. Would have gone for the newer model with touchscreen or other brand but they’re way over my budget, do not want to spend a fortune on a laptop anymore. Tried some with touchscreen yesterday and I’m so glad I didn’t go for touchscreen, don’t like it because the screen is shaky when you tap on it. Hence, this is good enough for me.

Intel® Core™ i5-3337U Processor
1.8GHz, 3MB Smart cache
Max Turbo Frequency 2.7 GHz
14″ HD 1366 x 768 resolution, Acer CineCrystalâ„¢ LED
NVIDIA® GeForce® 710M with 2 GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM,
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB SATA HDD
8X DVD Super Multi Plus Drive
Gigabit Ethernet, Wake-on-LAN ready
Bluetooth® 4.0+HS
Acer InviLinkâ„¢ Nplifyâ„¢ 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIEDâ„¢ supporting Acer SignalUpâ„¢ wireless technology
Multi-gesture touchpad, supporting two-finger scroll and pinch. Swipes access charms, application commands and previous applications
Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam, 1280 x 720 resolution
One USB 3.0 & Two USB 2.0 ports
HDMIâ„¢ port with HDCP support, LAN/VGA combo port cable
342 (W) x 245 (D) x 20/23 (H) mm 2.1 KG

It’s on Windows 8 and I’m still trying to get used to it. Feel rather dumb when I first had my hands on it.


Upsides:
– Lighter and slimmer than my previous laptop.
– Like the feel of typing on the keyboard.
– Processing speed is acceptable, enough for my usage. I guess because it’s new.


I have Windows 8 now and a Windows Phone but I have problem making them communicate with each other -.-” I’m not a Windows supporter, just happened that everything is on Windows.

Downsides:
– No installation CD. I guess most machines does not come with this anymore.
– Very small arrow keys, too far apart.
– Enter key is so close to the key above it, kept pressing the key above instead of Enter key.
– Touch pad with no buttons, need to get used to it to locate the hidden button.
– No privacy with the screen. I prefer screen that doesn’t allow people to see what you’re doing from the sides.
– Don’t like the blue, should have chosen purple, blame myself for this ;p
– Number of USB port isn’t enough for my usage. What do you expect from a slim machine?

The downsides are more than the upsides but they are pretty trivial. Not a big deal. Overall, this laptop is good enough for me to use. Most importantly it’s within my budget for the specifications I want.

Review It!, Tech Stuffs

My New Laptop is Here!

Posted on By sweet surrender No Comments on My New Laptop is Here!

My new laptop is here! Ok... Windows 8, it will take me a bit... on TwitpicFinally got my new laptop to replace the dead XPS.

I never want an Acer but I now ended with one after avoiding it for more than 10 years! Well… Well… Well… First choice was ASUS but it’s way over my budget. Only Acer has the specifications I want in my budget. Used to own laptops cost at least RM4K and above. Now, I’m downgrading to below RM2K.

This new one comes with Windows 8, oh dear… I feel very dumb now. Don’t know how to use *LOL* Will need to take a bit of time getting used to it.

That’s all for now. Normal updates should resume once I’m fully on the new laptop.

Bulletin Board, Tech Stuffs

Still Hunting…

Posted on By sweet surrender 2 Comments on Still Hunting…

Deprived of a proper computer to do any update. Currently using a very basic netbook that can’t really do much.

Been to Kuching Festival on the first day and didn’t go back since then because was feeling rather lazy. Supposed to update about it but my XPS decided to end its life last week. Now, still hunting for a new laptop. Soon will have a new one and update will resume shortly after that as I still need to set it up for my usage.

Not yet visit Logos Hope, reason, lazy! *LOL* I’m just too lazy to do anything ever since I got a part-time job. I can imagine it’s even worst if I have a full-time job. Back from work and all I wanted to do is just do nothing other than playing games and watching series. Sigh…

On the other note, found out that Kuching and Adelaide are damn small! Some funny thing happened to a friend of mine who met a friend of mine from Adelaide while working. She didn’t know we both knew each other and there’s some histories between us in Adelaide. She was just simply asking and got that person a bit stunned and she was treated with silence the whole journey to her workplace *LOL* Then, she told me she picked up my friend earlier on and then teased me about it when I told her that that person is my friend in Adelaide, we used to do things together. She was shocked to found out about the other details, it’s was so funny! Yes, Kuching and Adelaide are very small or rather that person is just too popular in Kuching and Adelaide.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I will get a new laptop soon to resume my normal update.

Randomness

Paris and England Trip (20/6/2013-2/7/2013) – Part 2

Posted on By sweet surrender No Comments on Paris and England Trip (20/6/2013-2/7/2013) – Part 2


Day 2 (21/6/2013), we went to Westfield London Shopping Centre for window shopping and lunch.


High end shopping place *gulp*


Good thing there’s area for people like us. More affordable options.


It was a rather cold day. Not summer at all for me! I felt a bit cheated *LOL* To me, it’s autunm/winter of Australia! Summer means I can wear sleeveless, short skirt but I had to wear like it’s Autumn in Adelaide. Worst, most of the clothes I brought was really summer clothes!


After walking around, we decided to have our lunch at The Bull (Wood Lane, Unit 1033 Westfield Shopping Centre, London W12 7SL, United Kingdom).


The Bull is the first pub in Westfield London. The first and last pub I visited for this trip without alcohol too *LOL* Really love the interior, very classy. Don’t even feel like you’re in a pub. There’s 3 levels if I’m not mistaken. We were at the dining area.

We ordered 4 types of food.

Left: English Asparagus and brie, wrapped ham, pomegranate dressing (£7.50). I quite like this dish.

Right: Special of the day, Grilled Fillet of Sea Bream with warm lyonnaise potato salad, tomato, and coriander salsa (£12.50). The fish was fresh and I quite like the potato. Not a fan of coriander but this was acceptable to me.


Left: Another special of the day, Lamb Two Ways, crispy shoulder of lamb and lamb cutlet, warm salad of tomato and cowgette, aubergine caviar (£13+). As my usual saying, nothing to rave about.

Right: The British Board which consisted of Scotch egg, pork pie, salted beef, honey and mustard sausage, piccalili, and toast (£13.95). Of all on the board, I love the sausage!

Overall, great environment, food was average, portion was rather small though.

After lunch, we went back to check-out and headed to St Pancras International (I kept wanting to read it as PANCREAS! :p) to take the train to Paris.

I figure there won’t be any update with pictures for the time being until I have a new laptop. My laptop just died two days ago sigh… Now hunting hunting…

Driving All the Way - England, Going Places