‘WOW!’ I screamed, ‘Hollywood setting!’ That was my impression when I saw the Basilica in Venice. Let’s rewind. 🙂
I arrived at Venice yesterday and met my roommate. We decided to hang out together today. She was quite tall, well, taller than I. When we chatted about our jobs, she told me she was an oversized model. I looked at her and then at myself. ‘Really? You are not too much fatter than I am!’ She told me she worked in Italy now. ‘You do look like an Italian.’ She laughed and she said maybe that’s why they liked her.
Several years later, I saw a few models dancing at a night club in Hong Kong. They looked like skeletons. I understood why Katherine was an oversized model.
Our hostel was on an island so every time we wanted to go out, we needed to take a ferry. Ferry was the only transportation in Venice. There was no bus or subway. That’s why I bought the pass yesterday. I remember now, the family stayed in Venice for one or two days longer that I did and they stayed on the main island. I hope they travelled to other islands. The colourful boats you can see on postcards and some websites are actually on Murano and Burano. These two places were highly recommended by my Japanese roommate in Rome.
When we arrived at the main island, I was so excited that I screamed, ‘Hollywood setting! It doesn’t look real at all!’ Katherine laughed. She was always very composed. I asked her if she was excited. She told me she came here yesterday so she had seen it. She was excited too yesterday but she was alone so she only screamed inside her head. I think I almost invited her to scream with me. 😀
I took a few pictures there and we headed to the smaller islands.






















We decided to have lunch at this restaurant. It was a reasonably priced set lunch. I was so full after that that I didn’t need dinner tonight. While we were waiting for our food, I took the above photo. It took me quite a long time to get the focus right. After all, I was taking a picture of the reflection of Katherine on the door of the restaurant and there was another customer sitting inside. After I finished, I saw the waiter with our food in his hands. He was patiently waiting for me to finish and so was Katherine. I apologized to the waiter. I was so focused that I didn’t realise he was there. After he put our food down (he was smiling all the time. That was so kind of him), I showed Katherine the photo that I took. She was amazed. She said she was wondering what I was taking with my camera. Then, she asked me if she could try to take one for me. Here it was:

Katherine wasn’t happy with the photo. It was actually a bit blur. So, she tried it again:

This time, we were both happy with the photo.
That’s how the photos of my homepage were born. I put the two photos together and added ‘Learn x Travel‘ in bold.


I bought a watch in Murano. I thought it was a good deal but I later found out that the watch was actually over priced (EUR20 more compared to other shops in Venice). 🙁






When we went back to the main island, we walked around and I bought a pair of cuff links. The price was reasonable this time but I don’t know where I put them. I can’t find them at home now. 🙁
We went to Al Mercià for a drink (today was a day I ate most and spent most. 🙁 I decided to stop buying any more thing) and met a couple. We talked. They planned to go clubbing. We were not sure about the ferry schedule back to our island so we decided not to stay for too long. As we walked towards the pub, we ran into an opening of a sports wear shop. Free drinks. Yeah! The Italian owner introduced his future son in law to us. It was so funny. I could tell he was very happy and proud.
We stayed there until 8pm and then headed back to the hostel.
What a lovely day. 🙂

At around this spot, we met another backpacker. He told us about a hostel he stayed at in Florence – it had an indoor swimming pool, a sauna, a Turkish bath and he only paid for EUR10! WOW! Florence was on my list. I immediately asked him for more info. But when I checked it online, EUR10 was the promo price. I couldn’t get it. I could only get it for EUR20 but that was a really gooooood deal!
11-12 March 2015
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