Backpackers ke Kite? 10 Tips Pack Luggage untuk EuroTrip yang Awesome

Assalamualaikum w.b.t. and may all of us be blessed with Allah Azzawajal hidayah and barakah. Ini tips untuk pack luggage anda untuk dibawa pergi EuroTrip. These tips are based on my own experience as a backpacker around Europe for 18 days, harap membantu!

1.     3 Jackets and THAT’S it!

      I went for a EuroTrip for 18 days and 3 jackets (2 jackets + 1 sweater to be precise) were good to go! But unless if you are a acah-acah hijabista fashionista, 10 pun takkan cukup kaaaannnn?? Okay no offense but really ladies, 3 are more than enough but the catch is colour mesti lain-lain or jauh beza so bila dalam gambar banyaknyeeee baju kau Jah oiiii!

2.     What’s Inside Your Jacket is NOT IMPORTANT! Bring Less

      Seriously no one cares what you wear inside those gorgeous jackets so if you are going for 18 days trip, just bring 5 t-shirts NO! 3 if you are ‘strong’ enough. Ya Allah, serious sure cukup punya sebab jacket tu je dah tutup the whole t-shirt tu, so wasted je. Ulang lah 10 kali pun baju sama no one will notice and even you yourselves gonna forget what you wear. Tapi during my trip I did laundry cleaning for at least 3 times la (takde la keji sangat hokey). After all, your friends are busy envying the great vacation you’re having not your baju.

3.     LOTS of Hijab/Shawl/Tudung are Crucial

      Now this is CRUCIAL dear Muslimah. I urged those Muslimah out there who wanted to go for a long trip to pack ALL your best hijabs and bring all along! Jackets and t-shirts if ulang orang tak perasan tapi when it comes to tudung, JANGAN BUAT PASAL! I did the huge mistake once so I love ya all and saving you from repeated hijab in beautiful scenery. Pergi 18 hari jadi bawalah 10 helai tudung tu. There’s always a room for more hijab even you are a backpacker. Benda lain boleh tinggal like 2 3 helai of your husband’s t-shirts keeeee (be creative on this).

4.     2 Jeans (1 in the Bag + 1 Wearing it)

      Nampak macam terlalu sikit/pengotor sebab cuma bawa sehelai je seluar (tidak termasuk yang tengah pakai) but you know what? Let the jeans be jeans. Who actually wash your jeans after every usage, once a week pun jarang kaaann? So don’t la suddenly be ‘pembersih’ at time like this. For Solat yes we need to be clean tapi asalkan bersih dari najis maka inshaAllah bersih for Solat.

5.     Sufficient Undies

      How many is sufficient? Well, it’s up to you (hands off on this).

6.     Toiletries if Needed

      For those who’ll be staying in economic accommodation like Ibis Budget or Travelodge then toiletries is a must sebab tidak akan disediakan. Rather than buying a travel size shampoo and shower foam, lebih jimat jika di repacking by buying travel containers and fill it up. Towel/tuala tak perlu sebab even they don’t give you toiletries, towel akan always disediakan.

7.     Stoking & Comfort Shoe, Yes. Slipper? No 

      Good quality comfort shoe is NOT a bargain! Spend some money on buying high quality shoe will save more of your money later on during the trip sebab kaki umpama nyawa bila travel. Bila sakit kaki, tak boleh dan tak ada mood nak berjalan jadi akan merosakkan semua plan. It ain’t everyday you’re going for a EuroTrip so please don’t sabotage your own vacation with that cheap shoe! NOOOO!!

Lots of stoking is for hygienic purposes especially for Muslimah since Solat perlu menutup aurat tanpa pakai telekung (Solat in public places like tepi jalan mana nak ada chance pakai telekung). I did brought along a slipper but ended up not being used at all so why bother.

8.     Medicine for Emergency

      Only Allah knows what will happen to us so always be prepared! Prepare lah basic ubat macam Panadol dan minyak angin sebab ubat mahal kalau nak beli di sana. Tapi jangan bawa banyak sangat, kang tak pasal lak kena tahan as drug dealer haha. Not sure if you need any letter to bring this on board but for check in luggage no problemo!

9.     Ready-to-eat Foods

      Ready-to-eat foods will certainly save you a lot of money dan lebih mudah untuk Muslim macam kita. Tak susah nak cari makanan Halal in a big city like London and Paris tapi makanan Halal yang murah (€6 – €15) mostly would be Arabic/Indian foods. Dah kalau 18 hari trip nya muak lah kan asyik makan kebab je. My family even brought nasi impit, beras and rice cooker and it helps a lot! But make sure NOT to bring too much because you gonna get ‘sick’ with all that lauk segera. Sometimes you definitely wanna taste those local Arabic/Indian foods and their Wifi LAJU!!

10.             Others (Power Bank, Monopod, Rain Coat, Botol Air untuk Toilet)

      What kind of vacation if you can’t share the breathtaking sceneries, so pack up the power bank and don’t stop uploading those photos!

And oh I just knew that in Europe there is NO monopod, the Europeans will find your monopod quite interesting and it also means it is expensive there around RM100++. Especially for my husband and me, monopod is our life as no one gonna help us take our picture geeeehh.

While for the raincoat, the rain on the other side of the world is ain’t that hard as in Malaysia. Rintik-rintik je most of the time padahal langit macam nak lebat sangat dan surely inshaAllah takkan basah lenjun except that one time in Amsterdam.

Botol air sumpah penting! Sebab European countries toilet semua tak ada paip jadi everytime nak pergi toilet mesti kena ada botol kosong untuk tadah air.

Backpackers ke Kite? 7 Tempat WAJIB Lawat di Amsterdam

Assalamualaikum w.b.t. Here are some places in Amsterdam that I would love to share with all of you! (Kenapa 7? Sebab ni je yang sempat pergi hari tu)

1.     Keukenhoff

      Syurga dunia bagi peminat bunga! The view here SubhanAllah, if you’re not a flower fans you still gonna fall in love with all of the blossoming flowers! It doesn’t matter what you’ll wear because each and every single photos of yours still gonna be lawa gila!

Tips: Pakai sport/walking shoe kerana tempat ini sangat luas dan ada banyak yang perlu dilihat. Bawalah bekal seperti makanan dan minuman jadi boleh picnic sambil menikmati keindahan alam ciptaan Allah.

2.     I Amsterdam Letters

      Salah satu mercu tanda Amsterdam dan semua orang akan berbut-rebut nak panjat those alphabets. The one outside Schiphol Airport is similar just smaller and without the Museum background.

Tips: Be there as early as you can and NOT on weekend to get a perfect spot for Instagram pictures! CLIMB UP, everybody does that.

3.     Canal Cruising

      The best way to see the whole city! And going to this cinematic city with your partner in a cruise is certainly a romantic moment. Honeymoon ke, babymoon ke or even oldmoon pun masih romantic uolss.

Tips: Catch an evening cruise and it will be perfect!

4.     Zaanse Schans

      Breathtaking tourist attraction venue that can only be found here in Holland and you definitely NEED to be there! Bukan sahaja dapat melihat sendiri kincir angin yang popular, di sana juga ada tempat membuat Holland Clog (terompah tradisional Holland) dan pemandangannya MashaAllah.. cantik!

Tips: Pakai EXTRA tebal sebab serious sejuk gila kerana ia merupakan kawasan lapang maka angin sejuk sentiasa bertiup kencang.

5.     Madame Tussaud (Wax Museum Amsterdam)

      A place to snap picture with your idol because you just don’t have an opportunity to meet them in real life so dapat tangkap gambar dengan identicial wax pun jadilah kan.

Tips: Make sure to have a camera with awesome lighting/flash to get a great shot with your idol.

6.     Flower Market

      The ONLY place to get your souvenirs because it’s REALLY CHEAP here and many options to choose from and sometimes the only place to get it. Situated by the river in the middle of the town, ia juga merupakan spot cantik untuk snap picture.

Tips: Bring lots of money!

7.     Hard Rock Café

      Either you are a collector or not, Hard Rock Café is a place to visit because they do sometimes have rare souvenirs and the building itself is beautiful to pose with.

Xi'an, China Day 5 (Part 2 - KangFu Road)

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh!

All praise is to Allah s.w.t and may peace be upon our dearest prophet Muhammad s.a.w and his companions.

Today is the day. Finally! Today I shall continue with my tour, shopping experience I mean, in KangFu Road clothing market, the northwest's largest comprehensive trade and other places I visited on Day 5. By the way, in previous post I already shared my tour in the City Wall.

After we came out from City Wall, we went straight to the mall and everybody were so excited! Well actually after 4 days in China, this was the first time we had an opportunity to do shopping. Like real shopping!

It took us only 15 minutes to get to the mall and our bus driver dropped us somewhere near the wholesale mall and we walked for 2 minutes from there. And the best part about walking was I could see lots of new things! Like..

The local favourite breakfast meal; steam corn, pau, taufu, egg, bread etc.

I saw lots of stalls and hawker selling these breads like those nan we have in Malaysia.
And at the back you can see the KFC but I don't think its Halal.

Local selling newspaper by the pedestrian walk. Nothing new about that except that their Xi'an-ese! Well that's new right haha

That was the police officer, nice pose there Mr police officer. 

I don't know what this is called but it is something like taxi, a small taxi.

Xinnantian - perhaps that is the name of the taxi company. Definitely gonna ride one of this the next time I come! InshaAllah.. 

The nearest railway station to this mall is the Kangfulu Zhan station. For more info on Xi'an transportation, visit travechinaguide.com 

The wholesale mall, huge!

And McD, but again.. non-Halal.

This was how the mall looks like from inside.

In Malaysia don't have the -1 floor, so I snapped picture lol!

There was this center court for shoppers to eat and smoke

We spent an hour and half in the shopping mall which definitely not enough time for the ladies, if you know what I mean ladies. So after that we went back to the bus and headed to Halal restaurant for lunch.

Well actually, whenever we wanted to buy something Miss Mei (Xi'an guide) will stop us and say, we will go somewhere inexpensive and have more choices. So finally on the final day, here we were! (And for this reason most of us in favor of Mr Leo than Miss Mei.. except for me of course. My feeling was genuinely because of his looks..haha!)

We walked for about 5 to 10 minutes to the bus and passed through some shop lots along the street where the things sold were slightly expensive if compared inside the mall. 

The cleaners were everywhere keeping this city clean and beautiful

There were shops selling foods, bags, shoes, clothes..everything! 

The streets were packed with public transports, easy for you to get to anywhere you want.
And at the back there, Xi'an Plastic Surgery Hospital.. big. I thought it is popular in Korea only, ohh well.

To get to the bus we needed to go through short this tunnel some sort of underground flyover

We had our lunch in this restaurant

It was big and clean, and most importantly, Halalan Toiyibban inshaAllah!

These were some of the foods we had and all of it were good

Happy faces after lunch haha

After lunch we continued the tour with few more places which I will share later (hopefully as soon as possible).

Till then, Assalamualaikum..

Xi'an, China Day 5 (Part 1 - City Wall)

Assalamualaikum w.b.t!

First of all, I am sorry for taking such a long time on this post. Well anyway today Alhamdulillah I'm finally gonna share on my trip to the City Wall, the largest and best preserved present city wall in ancient China and is probably the best military battlement in the world.

(Check out my previous post in Luoyang, China Day 4)

25th Oct 2014 (Day 5)

I fell in love with the architecture design of this historical City Wall.

Tour to City Wall was actually scheduled on the first day in China however, because our tour guide afraid that we might be late or hurried to catch our bullet train to Luoyang therefore she rescheduled it to the last day. 

Due to pack schedule we had that final day, most of the places we visited were in hurry and frankly speaking a rushed holiday just ain't good enough holiday. But anyway, I still enjoy the cinematic view of this magnificent City Wall subhanAllah! 

Somewhere around 8.30 am we checked out from hotel for the final time and then walked to the City Wall. The MengFei Hotel situated only 100 meters or 5 minutes walk from the City Wall and a walk in autumn's breezy morning was really nice.  

Checked out at lobby of the Flying Dragon Hotel, Xi'an - love the concept of pond filled with koi fishes.

Most of Japanese and Chinese love to keep koi fishes. This may due to the characteristics associated with the koi: (Taken from: feng-shui.lovetoknow.com)

Good fortune
Success
Prosperity
Longevity
Courage
Ambition
Perseverance

The street view right outside of the hotel where as early as 6.30 am (local time), you can see (and hear from your hotel window) the citizens started their daily life; busy going to work, market and sending children to school. 

Headed towards one of the main gate that was so high and huge!

This is the South Gate of City Wall Xi'an. 

The City Wall includes four gates, the east gate named as Changle which means eternal joy, the west gate named as Anding that is harmony peace, the south gate named as Yongning with the meaning of eternal peace and finally, the north gate Anyuan which means forever harmony.

There was this map showing those gates and what lies inside this City Wall that you can refer to just near the South Gate.

This is Miss Mei, our tour guide at Xi'an. She told us that she was born in Xi'an, raised there and plan to die nowhere else and indeed Miss Mei was like a walking Xi'an's encyclopedia. She knows every single thing about Xi'an.

We climbed up these stairs to get on top of the wall.
Need to be there early in the morning cause when sun started to show up, there's no place to hide.

It is not only because I'm small but it is also because there were many stairs to climb to!!
Well okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. 

There were two museums of the South Gate which are the barbican and the archery tower. Tourists who visit the wall can enjoy a free visit to these two museums. Back in those days when there were enemies, the archery played an important part as the first defense squad for the city and for more info on this you can get inside the museum (which I did not have time to visit).

And tadaaa!!! The view on top of the City Wall!
That beautiful building on the left is the archery tower.

The South Gate (Yongning Gate) is the most time-honored and magnificent one among all the city gates. There were bicycles for rental up to the South Gate. So it is popular for visitors to ascend here. There were also battery car (long buggy car) to ride on.

To cycle round the wall for a whole circle takes 1.5 to 2 hours at a medium speed. The bicycle deposit is CNY 200. The single bicycle costs CNY 40/100 minutes. The tandem bicycle costs CNY 80/100 minutes.

An extra charge if more than 100 minutes. An extra 10 minutes costs CNY 5 for a bicycle, and CNY 10 for a tandem bicycle. Bicycles should be returned at the South Gate before 20:00 if you don’t return them before 18:00 at the other three gates.

The ordinary sightseeing battery car costs CNY 80 for a circle ride while the luxurious one costs CNY 120. One can also visit the wall by sections. The ordinary type costs CNY 20 between two stops. The luxurious type costs CNY 30.

Route: South Gate – West Gate – North Gate – East Gate

Info taken from: travelchinaguide.com

At only about 8.30 am this place is already packed with visitors.
Those green buses were some of the tourist buses. 

Its colour is preserved including some of the detailing in order to give the original 'feel' to the tourist.

There was this rule where any building inside of the City Wall must not be higher than the wall itself. Why? Well of course to ensure the safety of the building inside the wall, right? During the day that we visited the wall, we saw a morning market (pasar tani some sort of thing) far down inside the city wall. 

And there was this lorry filled with lots and lots of apples and many kinds of vegetables. I did not go to the market but from the looked of it I bet you can surely get most of the things, especially local foods, there.

So from this picture it is obvious that on the right side is the inside of the City Wall as on the left side there are many tall buildings can be seen.

Tour on the wall really impressed me with its work of architecture. While walking around, I saw these gaps in between the wall that facing outside the city, they were exactly like the one that can be seen in the most of the old castles. The purposed were same, to see the enemies who were approaching towards the wall and then to attack them while that wall become the shield of protection.

And for tourist like us, that was the perfect spot to take a selfie/wefie haha! (excuse me la, can't see many building like this in Malaysia).

This is the south wing area, the only part we visited.

Can you see those gaps in between the wall?

After only an hour (you need to spend at least two hours), we left the great City Wall. During the earlier part of the tour Miss Mei did explained some significant history of the wall and there was this one fact that I love the most about the history.

"..When Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), captured Huizhou, a hermit named Zhu Sheng admonished him that he should 'built high walls, store abundant food supplies and take time to be an Emperor,' so that he could fortify the city and unify the other states."

The hermit gave such a wise advised to the emperor that all of us can also take lessons from. Zhu Sheng said store abundant of food supplies and for what reason? This is to ensure the welfare of his (emperor) people be one of his top priority. 

Back in those dynasty days, people defected and started a riot as due to hunger. Thus, once the emperor took care of the folk's welfare he would definitely wins their loyalty. And this was what exactly happened, the citizens were happy, the states unified and eventually known as it is today, China.

If you are an employer, or a group leader or even a house-father, do not rush to be seen as a 'leader'. Gain respect from your followers first, fulfill their rights and only then they will give their undivided loyalty and service towards your leadership.

After all,

Respect can only be given to those who have earned it by working for it - Habeeb Akande

This was how it looks like outside the South Gate.

This was the city guard. He wasn't crying or anything, I just caught him at the wrong time since I took this picture from inside a moving bus.

You can also take picture with this cute (cute here referring to the cartoon image of the city army, obviously heh!) thingy displayed by the stairs near the gate.  

Well, that's it for City Wall and in the next post I shall continue with the second place we visited on the final day.

Til then, Assalamualaikum!

Luoyang, China Day 4 (Part 2, Luoyang to Xi'an)

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh!

May Allah have mercy upon us the sinners and may patience be with those flood victims all around Malaysia who were facing great musibah currently.

In my previous post Luoyang, China Day 4 (Part 1 - Longmen Grottoes), I already shared my wonderful experience in one of the three famous treasure houses of stone sculpture in China therefore I shall now continue with more awesome journey! Read through!

I showed some of the things sold at the Pedestrians Street and here some more!

Beautiful bracelets and necklaces made from jade.
All these are genuine and yet cheap.

Varies types of street foods to try.
All these were non-Halal but tomorrow (Day 5) at Xi'an's Muslim street nothing but Halal.
Good things come to those who waits!

I don't know what were these but I imagined that they are crispy and sweet, can I do that, imagine the taste? Haha layankan je la ea

Actually there were more handcrafts and beautiful embroidery stuffs but I was too busy shopping so no pictures, sorry hihi!

Anyway, after all the shopping we finally went to a Halal restaurant situated about 30 minutes from the Longmen Grottoes.

Yes, that the sign of Halal. Name of this restaurant? Read it if you can cause I can't, sorry.

This was how the restaurant looks like from inside. Pretty decent just excuse the washroom part.
We (Muslim) performed our prayers here as the restaurant was kind enough to close one VIP dining room for us to pray. 

And so this was how our trip in Luoyang ended. I believe there are many more wonderful places to visit here in Luoyang but our trip was short thus we only had limited time to see it all. But one fine day I wish to return here and finish where I stopped, InshaAllah.

About 1.30 pm we finally leaved Luoyang and headed back to Xi'an by bus. I was so sad, no! I was devastated to leave Mr Leo. Its okay to leave this magnificent city but that adorable tour guide, haish..kidding! Hahaha! But it was...

The journey back to Xi'an supposed to take about 5 to 6 hours but we got lost and it took us 9 hours! It was such a waste of time and because of that we missed our Musical Fountain Square at Grand Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

I am not quite sure how did we got lost but perhaps it was because the bus driver was originated from Luoyang and when he was asked to drive to Xi'an, 'incident' happened. Didn't he owned a GPS? Yes he did, hmm.. But anyway, good experience (good but I wish it will never ever ever happen ever again). Heh.

Taking highway route gave us the opportunity to see this scenery.

Ron 93 and 95 available at the gas station.

Fall asleep and got up and suddenly its almost dawn. And yet, still far away to go.

We stopped by at one of the R&R (Rest and relax) pit stop along the way.

Restaurant available there.

And also mini mart to get some snacks.

To get Halal snacks, you gotta read at the back carefully and find the China's Halal symbol.

The R&R provided not only washroom, restaurant and mini mart but also one narrow alley with many ceramics based stuffs. Many were Chinese's tea pots with lovely design and size, vases with beautiful hand-painted arts (which I regretted I didn't buy it for my mother because I thought it will be available in Xi'an's Muslim street and which obviously it didn't. So if you like it, just buy it!) and of course Jades and many other things.

At about 6 pm we continued the long journey..

Police car, like those in the Chinese movie!

Toll plaza that looks like the front 'head' of a mini train. 

And finally at about 10.30 pm we safely arrived at Xi'an, Alhamdulillah and we were starving! I ate biscuits along the way that once arrived my face already looks like one gaaaahhh! But no worries, I'll let you know how to avoid this 'incident' in my future post in tips to travel in China (tips that I learnt the hard way..sob)

This is where we had our late dinner that night. I supposed it can be called as supper.
And thank god no one died due to starving but believe me, many where diagnosed with high blood pressure that night!
Just thinking of it back still able to make me frustrated, Astaghfirullahal a'zim..

The foods were tasty unfortunately we were too tired to open our mouths, except for that akak in the middle who seems to enjoyed her cup of tea.

After dinner we checked in to the same hotel as in Day 1 we arrived in Xi'an, the MengFei Hotel or also known as Flying Dragon Hotel. 

8821, the heaven I slept in after a long wasted tiring day Zzz 

I will continue with our final day in China in my next post. Many places to share in my last day there and this is because, our guide in Xi'an cramp everything in the final day.

Til then, Assalamualaikum w.b.t!
Have a barakah day and be grateful always!