Rome - 3 (Colosseum)

Today was somewhat cold yet sunny. We went to the Colosseum area. As soon as you get out of the metro you have in front of you this 2000 years old beast: the Colosseum. It's massive and impressive. There are quite a lot of informative panels and interesting things to see and learn. Hard to imagine that this thing is still standing after all these years. Also hard to imagine that people came here for quite barbarous reasons, at least to us in this time and age. After all this walking around the place we decided to go grab a bite near. We had coffee and sandwich and of course it was expensive because we sat down (yes really, sitting down here means paying twice the price or something... dumb). Anyways afterwards we headed to the Roman forum and Palantino (which is really a hill). A lot of ruins in this area and of course a lot of walking! A lot of these places we heard about in history lessons and it's fun to see them for real. They are all quite impressive. Right now there's archeological work there so some sites are blocked off. Nonetheless it was educational. There was a small exhibit with the Chinese emperor terracotta warriors near - juxtaposition of two major empires in human history. We then decided to head to the Capitol. There was a Van Gogh exhibition but we didn't care about this since we saw his paintings already. We went to  free exhibition of some Italian actress from the early 1900s. The room was warm and that's all we really needed anyways since it was freezing today in Rome. We then went to the main building and some kind of exhibition on the Italian new republic and the Italian flag. It was more or less interesting. We then came out near the Plaze di Venezia. Finally the front of the Capitole - very impressive! Very nice ¨modern¨ building. We then walked back to the Colosseum metro and it was freezing... Came back to the hotel, relaxed a lot then went to eat. Took us 20 minutes or so to find a restaurant. There was one with a lot of Asians inside and the waiters were so lame and weird with us that we left! First thing they ask us is if we are tourists - what?!? Finally we found another nice family owned restaurant with Italian customers. Food was great as usual, wine was cheap and atmosphere was friendly. There's something about Italian restaurants and photos of Fernandel...

Rome - 2

Vatican museum - many interesting artworks by Michelangelo and Raphael. Sistine chapel was so interesting - so many paintings that we've seen so often in our lives and used in so many contexts. I felt that a lot of those paintings were actually less impressive once there - they were used so often that we'd imagine that they are huge and somehow illuminated or something to be obvious. The whole chapel was restored recently I think because they all look sharp and so colorful. The museum is huge but there aren't that many popular pieces, except if somehow I missed a huge chunk! The Saint-Peter square is huge and is very impressive no matter how often we've seen in on tv. There's a big Christmas tree and they are preparing something else near the obelisk. The interior of the basilica is grand and even though there are tons of visitors it's very calming. I'm not a church specialist but I was surprised to see how many chapels there were inside. We went in the crypt where all the popes are buried. Of course we can't see the whole thing as most is blocked from entry but no matter it's interesting. Of course John Paul II is popular (!) and apparently there's the resting place of Saint-Peter, but I think it's debatable if he's really buried there. There's also a possibility to go up the dome but we had to pay and we don't think it was worth it. Interesting how the Vatican is considered a state but there's no border or anything, only a big wall around the city-state. We attended a mass also - after all these things to see we almost forget that it's a church after all! One thing we found unpleasant there is not the place but the amount of people that want to sell us tours and crap and they are quite annoying and pushy and of course full of crap. Rome city officials should ban this stuff.
We changed money finally and the rate is terrible - we should've exchanged money in Montreal but didn't. Anyways exchange offices are terrible - we were lucky to find a travel agency that exchanged money with a decent rate (but still bad).
After a full day of walking we were quite hungry. We found a couple of restaurant but I was reluctant to go in because the staff was Indian or something and honestly I'm in Rome so what the hell. We finally found a nice family run Italian restaurant and very typical. Found was awesome and we were quite pleased. We then came near the hotel for coffee and the best tiramisu ever at Primi. By the way I don't know if it's the case everywhere but if you order cafè in Rome it means you really want an espresso - wow that really wakes you up!

Note to self: Cafè d'orzo = barley coffee... hehehe

Rome - 1

First of all some delay in Montreal because of freezing rain and\or snow. Then Amsterdam - nothing to talk about really. I think Dutch are tall people! Rome, Rome, Rome - why are you so angry? Damn I go to two currency exchange counters and both are angry, then we have have this guy trying to almost bully us into getting on a bus to our hotel for 30 euros (hello it costs 16 euros to take the train to our hotel). Then another currenct exchange counter with some guy really insulting the woman at the counter and of course me being the next customer she's angry at me. By the way I've never seen such high exchange rates in my life - screwing people 101. Good job guys, Of course it's my fault - should've changed money in another country than Italy!
Then we take the train to the nearest station near our hotel. All goes well on the train - except of course when I bought the tickets: the man at the counter was of course angry for now reasons: slamming the tickets and the change on the counter without saying a word. Sorry dude for not talking Italian because I honestly don't know why you're giving me attitude.
Then from the inter-regional train station we took quite a while to find the hotel - of course not indication whatsoever of the hotel name on the building. At least the hotel is reallly nice: modern and clean with good price. We have a big balcony but useless in this Roman winter weather.
We went to the a family restaurant around the hotel. Funny thing is the restaurants schedule: Romans apparently go to eat around 19:30 and I think restaurants close from 16:00 to 19:30 (something like that). So strange. Korean would be unhappy and even Canadians. So before dinner and because we had time we went to a really cool café (with DJ!) to drink the best caffé latté and a pretty good sandwich. Then we walked and found a family restaurant that was deserted at 19:30, The waiter was really nice to us and we had a great dinner - 1 liter of wine for 7 euros: super cheap! Good pomodoro spaghetti, veal and apetizers including squid!
Let's see what tomorrow will bring. We are right next to the subway so it's good for that.

Randomness of life

Ended up on some blogger's site - try to find the picture! And the odds of a fellow co-worker of finding me in random pictures she was looking at is so unbelievable...

http://blog.naver.com/ichufs/30094418342

Disabled kids in Korean public school

Ah Korea... It's all well and fine to have disabled kids (or mentally challenged) in your public schools but it should not be that way. For example today, some disabled kid went ape shit. He had so much anger in him and a wanting to destroy and hurt everyone. It was a non-pleasant experience to say the least. Now this kid as no reason to be in any classes since he can't follow anyways. The funny thing is that there are special classes for these kids in school - why they aren't all the time in there is beyond my comprehension. I keep getting told that parents want them to be in regular classes. What the hell? It shouldn't be their decision. The school or government should control this. There's a limit to how much someone can be part of the group even if this is Asia. I do understand that the parents don't want this though. I'm somewhat surprised at this liberty of choice regarding this matter in a country where there's such pressures to always conform to things. In this case it seems that they would want (or dream) that a disabled kid would somehow look and act like a so-called normal child. It's ok Korea there's nothing to be ashamed of - even Japan has disabled kids (yeah I had to slip that one in). Of course these kids are not always creating problems. Most of the time they are the quietest in class and also most of the time I'm really wondering who's the "normal" kid.

Insa Art Space

Great place to see lots of works of arts by new and old artists. Went there for the first time and will go back for sure!

Insa Art Space web (cool design) link

Chungmuro International Film Festival in Seoul

Went there this Sunday and saw a short films program as well as a Chinese movie (Distant Thunder) which was pretty crappy. The short film program had 2 awesome shorts: 1 Canadian (Junko's Shamisen) and 1 Swedish (Tussilago). Both were experimenting with animation and live action and I was thoroughly impressed.


For more information: link