Footsteps: Switzerland - Bern, Basel (120408)

++ BERN and BASEL ++

Originally was headed for geneva.. but the ah ma which GG & esther wanted to meet was occupied for the dae.. so esther decided to accompany her fwen to Locarno while e guys, me, GG n bern decided to visit.. well.. Bern.. haha.. N we will meet in basel at 5pm to shop..

Early in the mornin while i was lazin in bed, i recd a msg from esther, sayin tt she had boarded the wrong train and ended up in some ulu place.. Felt bad for her coz its a lousy feelin to screw up rite at the start of the dae.. Met the guys at ETH to print out the tix but to our horrors, it was sold out.. Instead we had to buy tix which costs us 9 chf more.. N luckily i was Susumu katayama for the dae which i enjoyed halbtax n gleis 7! ahahha.. boarded e train n off to bern!

although we r on a hol trip.. Muggers stil sighted onboard!!

In an hr time, we reached bern! pretty fast coz i was used to takin trains tt take ages to travel.. (record is 12hrs to berlin) got off, got the map and off we go to the City of BEAR~ But the 1st ting we saw was nt bear, but..

Butter hares for 90 rp each! cheap~

A bull dog! no, i mean blue dog!

Swiss amry knife shop!! so tempted to buy.. but lucky i bought later.. u noe y lata too!

The town was nice, got an old town feeling but it was rainin! sigh.. tink my poor meaniemachine is goin to be kaputt soon.. keep soakin in the rain.. 1st stop! the 2 colour river as seen from kirchefeldbrueke!

As wetter ist schlecht.. both the river look green.. zzz.

Off to nx stop! einstein hse! It was supposed to be the place he stayed in with his family and where he developed the Relativity theory. We were hesitating whether to go in anot since it costs munnie but since theres slight discount for us, we went in aniwae..

Einstein's son, Hans albert's crib and bear

I left a dumb comment there n shamed spore.. hahaha

Esther called us to cfm the meeting in basel in the midst of our Einstein video and since we had 5hrs more.. We decided to do tings leisurely.. haha.. Nachste halt.. BEar pit!! E famous bears tt everyone who is been to bern certainly takeS! So should we!

snappin on e way..

When we reached n saw this, we were dismayed.. coz rain may have drove the bears inside n we wasted our tip again! but luckily!!! they were out! even if there were oni 2, better dan nutin rite..

they were so lazy and spoilt and pampered tt they juz sat there waitin for people to feed em.. even if the food landed few cm from them, they will be too lazy to move over to them!! growin fat like me.. sit n wait for food.. ahahha

Nx, we decided to go to the Rosengarten where sakura blossoms were promised! wad a scene to behold!! Eagerly anticipated! and this is wad we got..

juz a norm garten... zzzzz..

decided to sneak into a corner of a restaraunt to have lunch w/o anione noticin.. heres the spread!!

my fried rice!

GG's spaghetti!

bern's sandwich!

Juz after we finished,we were caught by the assistant and asked to leave.. so malu.. but we pretended to say tt we thought it was public area.. aniwae.. sceneries were much better on the downhill side..

Sakura cherry~~~

we wanted to watch the clockwork recommended by wikitravel in bern, so we hafta wait for every start of the hr.. Had time so we scouted ard the shops.. Wen into a swiss army knife shop! saw a design tt i liked so much n was unique! But it costs 69 chf.. which is ard 90 sgd.. so ex!!!!! n after pinchin myself.. i wen ahead to burst my purse for once.. BUT! miracles happen... dont they.. ahhaah.. Thank God.. mb the salesger was too stunned by me.. she charged me only 46 for tt knife!!! YIPPPPPEEEE~~~ saved 30 sgd!!! hahahahaha.. so hapi! n the knife was so gud! (tried n tested..I was bleedin profusely for a few min when i accidentally cut myself when exploring.. hahaha) Finally caught the clock work after tt.. juz lik a cuckoo clock!

Cursin wikitravel yet again for a wrong tipoff, we set off to Basel to meet our dear esther who is so desperate to see us after a dae gone wrong.. Finally met her there n everyting felt so nice! lik meetin an old fwen! hahaha.. Once again psychoed by wikitravel, we set off in search of basler leckerli.. a supposedly local special gingerbiscuit tt doesnt contain ginger.. lol.. sounds ridiculous but we found it in e end.. there was cheaper version in Migros, so i got a 1kg pack for 11 sgd.. but luckily it was a better tipoff dan the clock.. taste nice!

We started to walk towards st alban tor in search of the little venice shown in the local brochure.. pics on the way!

I juz cun help to be amazed at hows pictures can do the real place injustice sometimes.. n in our case a neg sense..

looks nice? wait til i zoom out and it wil look lik a long kang to u.. ahhaha but nt to spoil e place ya..

papier mill!!

After our venice trip.. we felt dejected n decided to go for shoppin instead, as a tip-off from anni says tt its nice n cheap to shop.. on e way, barged into a church tt has no one but it has such nice innercourt tt we decided to take some pics!