The Beginning

AC Hotel Milano is a 4-star hotel, located near to the town centre of Milan, Italy. The hotel belongs to AC Hotels Group, a popular hotel chain in Spain, Italy and Portugal. The range of hotels presented covers almost all of Spain and part of Italy and Portugal. I am staying in AC Hotel Milano due to my project commitment. Although this is not a 5-star luxury hotel, but they offer great service and comfortable stay to every guest.

“Our aim is not only to grow, but to always offer the best quality and the same level of innovating and exclusive details in each one of our hotels.”, adapted from their website.

AC Hotel Milano, Lombardia

King-sized bed?

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Last 16 draw for Champions League 2008/2009:

1. Chelsea v Juventus
2. Villarreal v Panathinaikos
3. Sporting Lisbon v Bayern Munich
4. Atlético Madrid v FC Porto
5. Lyon v Barcelona
6. Real Madrid v Liverpool
7. Arsenal v AS Roma
8. Internazionale v Manchester United

There are quite a number of tough matches, especially for the English clubs.

Arsenal seems to be on the lucky side, getting Roma as their opponent. I am sure they can take the Romans down if everything goes well. But who knows?

For Liverpool, my favourite club, they have an equally like chance to beat Real Madrid. It looks simple now for Benitez’s men to advance but Ramos is able to turn the team around after couple of weeks. You’ll never walk alone,  The Reds has to be the winning side

There is another interesting match, between Inter Milan and Manchester Utd, as Sir Alex Ferguson has to face Jose Mourinho again. This time, Jose is neither with Porto nor Chleasea, but Inter Milan. Who will get through and who will be eliminated? I am confident with Manchester Utd. provided if and only if Christiano Ronaldo can demonstrate his world-class performance.

The first round will start on 24th February 2009, and hopefully, there will be surprises for the fans.

Blue Ribbon is a term used to describe something of high quality. According to Wikipedia, The usage came from The Blue Ribband, a prize awarded for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by passenger liners—and prior to that from Cordon Bleu which referred to the blue ribbon worn by a particular order of knights.

Check out the list of Blue Ribbon Companies Year 2008 from CNN Money

So, are you working with one of those companies? Report here if you are and share your experience with us.

Milan is a city renowned as one of the world capitals of designs and fashion. No doubt, you can find Giorgio Armani, Valentino, D&G, Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Fendi, Bottega Veneta, Luis Vuitton and much more…

Luckily, there is a shopping outlet in Serravalle Scrivia (roughly an hour drive from Milan). Reputed to be the first designer outlet in Italy, Serravalle Designer Outlet (Official Website) is also the biggest designer outlet in Europe. With more than 180 stores stock clothing, footwear and accessories, it also offers 3000 parking lots, a children play ground, bars and restaurants to the public. There are several ways to reach this place, and the cheapest would be taking a bus from Milan Foro Bonaparte (€20). Check the shuttle service here.

the Main Entrance~~

the main Square at the entrance

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Looking forward to this PDA, HTC Touch HD…Hopefully I can have this before CNY 2009, but the market price is around RM 3300… zzz

Official Website

Highlights:

• 3.8-inch wide, WVGA (480 X 800 pixel) display offering a cinema experience on the go
• Vibrant TouchFLOTM 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media
• Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity
• Google Maps enhanced by the wide screen viewing platform
• 5 megapixel camera for quality stills and video
• 3.5 mm audio jack makes the Touch HD^TM compatible with the majority of audio equipment available

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Venice is a city in northern Italy, which is about 300km away from Milan. The place has been known as the “La Dominante”, “Serenissima”, “Queen of the Adriatic”, “City of Water”, “City of Bridges”, and “The City of Light”.  It is also one of the most beautiful cities in the world, especially for the couples.

The high-speed train operated by Eurostar

On a lovely Saturday morning, I bought myself a train ticket, which costs me EUR 26.50 (single-trip) and headed straight to Santa Lucia Station at Venice. The train service was operated by Eurostar, and took me about two and half hours for me to reach Venice, which is about 300km away from Milan.

Water buses or vaporetti

Water buses or vaporetti is the main transport in Venice, and definitely you have to buy a ticket for that. There are many different packages for the travel cards, and I chose the one with 12 hours of validty, for EUR 14.

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Euro is the official currency for Eurozone, including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. Hence, there are many different Euro coins circulating in the market, ranging from one cent to two Euros. It is not easy for someone to tell which country this coin comes from. Why?

All Euro coins have a common side, showing the value of this coin. However, the obverse side or often know as National sides, varies from country to country, with each member allowed to choose their own design. Hence, 12 members and 3 minor states with 8 different values, it makes up 120 different coins. Luckily, certain country like Belgium, they use the same design for each denomination. Even though there are many designs of Euro coins, all these Euro coins are still valid everywhere within the Eurozone.

Check out the design for each Euro coin value here. Perhaps, it can be a very interesting if you can collect them all

The next day (Day 8), we decided to visit Ocean Park, as this is the famous recreation park in Hong Kong. It is located in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island. Unfortunately, there is no MTR to reach this place, and you have to take a bus or cab.

The park, ranked 7th in ‘The World’s Most Popular Amusement Parks’ by Forbes in June 2006 ^[1], had 4.38 million visitors in the fiscal year 2005/2006.^[2] Ocean Park also ranked 16th in the TEA/ERA Theme Park Attendance Report 2007 with approximately 4.9 million visitors, higher than Hong Kong Disneyland at 21st place with 4.1 million visitors.^[3] It covers an area of 870,000 square metres.^[4] The different parts of the park are connected by a gondola lift system (or cable car system), as well as the world’s second longest outdoor escalator.

The theme park currently has over 14 rides and other attractions such as aquariums.^[4] Besides housing two roller coasters, Ocean Park also features a Giant panda exhibit, a jelly fish and shark aquarium, as well as a four-story aquarium displaying more than 2000 fish. The official mascot of Ocean Park is “Whiskers”—a waving sealion.

Besides being an amusement park, Ocean Park Hong Kong also operates observatories, well developed laboratories, an education department and a Whales And Dolphins Fund.

(Wikipedia)

It was quite crowded at the bus station but luckily we still managed to catch up the bus service. The ride took us about 25 minutes, departing from Central to the Main Entrance of Ocean Park.

Main Entrance~~

Hot Air Balloon (under maintenance !@#$%)

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