Journey of Life

The park were celebrating its 20 years since the openings. I'm referring to Walt Disney's Studio Park, the second theme park opened in 1992. We took all-out joyed in the park since it was our last day in France... :( This park is dedicated to Disney Animations of showed and themed after movies, as well as behind-the-scene tour. So, it less thrill than the Disneyland park. But hey! No matter what, we should spend as much time as possible...

Disneyland Paris has two parks, Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park. We bought 2-day/2-parks tickets that have one-year validity starting from the date of purchased. We opted to have fun at Disneyland Park on the first day and the Walt Disney's Studio Park on the later day. It was our first experienced having fun at Disneyland outlet and definitely Nu'man was the most happiest person on earth that day. That morning, we had breakfast at Le Marché Gourmand Restaurant before boarded to a shuttle bus to get to Marne la Valle Chessy Station, which provided by the resort. Disneyland Park opens before 10 am and we spent all-day till late night to watch the spectacular firework show. Yup, we spent more than 12 hours at this jovial temptation park that divided into many sections. The park itself was also overwhelming, so we just grab the map, and got into the ride as possible as we can!

You ask, where the heck Magny-le-Hongre it is? Well, it's actually a commune, or administrative division, under the Île-de-France region, which is the same to Paris. Then you ask again, why is so interesting that we came to this place? Well, we came here only for two reasons, shopping and excitement! Rather than shopping at Latin Quarter or  Av Des Champs-Elysees , we decided to shop at La Vallée Village,  and is located within Disneyland® Paris! To get out of the best from this trip, we spent 2 nights at Kyriad Disneyland® Resort!

We opted for Bruges and Ghent trip by bus organized by Brussels City Tour . Avail one self of the green scenery along the journey that took about an hour to reach the city center. And nearing Bruges city center, we felt in love with the calm and serene neighborhood. Upon arrival, we were guided to a medieval bell tower known as Belfry of Bruges  from the backside before proceeded to Markt. It was a public square with a neo-gothical architecture of the Provinciaal Hof. We took our sweet time enjoying the view of the Markt.

Given three days for Paris wasn't enough actually. If we were having more time, places that might be considered are Versailes or maybe extend further to Monet and Giverny. However, we would rather to visit a small country, Belgium. In the morning, I presented a technical paper at ICCCISE held at Holiday Inn Paris-Gare Montparnasse. At noon after checked-out, we took metro 4 to Gare du Nord station to catch Thalys train for Bruxelles-Midi station at 2.25 pm. The journey tooks around 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Joie de vivre is a French phrase to express a cheerful enjoyment of life and that's how our heart felt for this city. Yet, the feeling continues when we visited the majestic and iconic Louvre Museum that tell so many stories from the arts collection, to the building itself. It was initially built as a fortress at early twelfth century and then to became a palace during the reign of King Charles V in the fourteenth century. However, it turned out to be a museum during the French Revolution in late seventeenth century The building itself  is rather overwhelming that divided into three main sections, Sully, Richelieu and Denon. Wiki: The Musée du Louvre contains about 460,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments.  The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objects d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds.  There’s something quite special about seeing these famed creations up close and in person.

A city of romantics, art enthusiasts and museum lovers. With over 50 museums and monuments included in and around Paris, so we ought to get Paris Museum Pass and avoided the long queue especially at the Louvre. We bought the 2-days passes during our visit to Musee Rodin for 39 euros each. The closest station to the museum is Varenne of metro 13. For your info, there are 16 lines, numbered 1-14 and two 3bis and 7bis. Its about 180 metres to the museum. We stopped for breakfast before got into the Musee Rodin line.

On the second tripped to Europe continent, we chose to visit France and Belgium for a week stayed, although I feel that Paris alone deserves a week. We still keep at 3 days per city rules for each trip, even so we reserved for Ghent and Bruges during our stay at Brussels. Belgium is a small country, yet there are many places that worth visits the Flemish region or you may extend further to Amsterdam or Cologne. But hey! we tried to avoid ' 6 cities in a week'  or '10 countries in 2 weeks'  of frenetic and restless kind of travelling. Let's travel leisurely!

The final day coming so soon. We made our way back to Padang and spent one nights before catching early inbound flight on the next day. I just combines these two days into single post. Half-way backed to Padang, we stopped at Padang Panjang for Sate Mak Syukur lunch. Sate available in the morning, which is not norm in Malaysia. The gravy was bit different and tasted more spicy than our sambal kacang. An hour apart, we stopped for lunch at Rumah Makan Lamun Ombak.  We decided to tour the city of Padang before late checked-in to Rocky Plaza Hotel.

This post gonna be short since more than half of the day allocated to visit Buya Hamka's Birthplace Museum, the prominent Muslim scholar in Malay archipelago. Located about 36 km to the west of the city center, we passing through 44 hairpin corners heading to Lake Maninjau. Known as Lekok 44 by local, offers stunning view of the lake. We stopped for coffee at one of small shop.  The sharp corners ended once we entered Maninjau small town by the lake. Buya Hamka's museum was about 15 minutes from the town.

On the Friday morning, Mr Sindep picked up us to continue with a full day tour, circling the Mount Marapi. We stopped in several small cities such as Bulakan, Batusangkar and Padang Panjang. The main highlight for today, I guessed would be the Kiniko Coffee in Tabek Patah. So, let's begin... Our first stopped was Sulaman Hj Rosma shop, located in Kampung Baso. It's merely a training center for those who want to learn clothing embroidery. You can buy their product at a bit higher tag and fine quality products is assured.

Its Nu'man's 5 th birthday! When our flight took off for Minangkabau International Airport, one of the cabin crew announced and wished him a best birthday celebration. :P. You're growing up too fast my boy!  Our flight touched down in Bukittingi 8-ish in the morning. We headed to the city of Bukittingi after met with our tour guide cum driver. It was just about 80 km from the airport to Bukittinggi city center, but it took almost 2 hours. Certainly the distance doesn't determined the journey it took, neither the traffic. It just the local drove leisurely at max of 60 km/h.