I am very blessed to be able to have a long awaited short break to Sydney, Australia to watch U2 concert and sightseeing with dr. Tina, a colleague from the office.It was my second time to Australia. I was excited because it would be my first time watching concert abroad.
We arrived on Nov 21 and wacthed the concert on Nov 22, then spent the rest of the remaining days until Nov 25, going around the city like Circular Quay and Barangaroo, and took a short ferry trip to Manly.
#U2JoshuaTreeConcert2019
I went to the concert with dr Tina, her sister: Nana, and Nana’s friend: David. When we departed from the apartment, it was raining hard. We were all wet and cold, but it did not stop us for sure.
The Sydney Cricket Ground was full house, but I still could stand comfortably, it was not like watching concert in Indonesia where people don’t even seem to understand the concept of personal space! We could even eat pizza and had some drink in the stadium. I think it was pretty awesome!
The concert itself was GREAT. I like U2 but I am not a fans. However I enjoyed the concert very much. The whole show was very entertaining and I personally think that Bono is very charismatic for his age. I also think the giant screen was very cool.
#U2JoshuaTreeConcert2019 will continue and the next country will be Singapore, Manila, Japan and some others. For anyone who wants to know the song list, check them below:
I took some video, but I am just going to post this one of my favorit from U2. ENJOY!
I am very thankful: awesome break, awesome concert, awesome friends. I am blessed!
My niece has been asking to go to the zoo since last week. She is an animal lover and she always loves to go to the zoo. So today, I took my nephew and niece to go to Ragunan Zoo. I have not been there for more than a dacade, so I do not know what to expect. It turns out, the zoo is quite nice, although it is not as modern as Batu Malang Zoo.
We Did Our Animal List 😂😊😂.
The kids were very excited and happy. They were very curious with different kinds of animals that they had never seen before. We also set the target of the animals that we wanted to see in Ragunan Zoo and we thicked most of our list. Even as simple as seeing the animals, we are very ambitious! Haha.
What a fun Saturday at Ragunan Zoo with the Krucils ♥️♥️♥️.
I feel that the time we spent together is priceless. They are growing (too) fast and in no time they will be teens! Even now it is harder to take their pictures and selfies compared to when they were little 😥😥😥. It is indeed true that we need to treasure every seconds we spend with our family and loved ones.
When all the dust is settled and all the crowds are gone, the things that matter are faith, family, and friends ~ Barbara Bush
Ragunan Zoo.
Jl. Harsono RM No.1, Ragunan, Kec. Ps. Minggu, Kota Jakarta Selatan, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta. (021) 78847114 https://maps.app.goo.gl/MGJYiVbhYy6CG8E68
We went to Kasteel Twickel (English: Twickel Castle) after visiting Tubbergen Tulip field. The castle has just recently opened its garden (Dutch: Tuinen) and park for the public. However the castle is kept being private because the owner is still living there.
It is a big place, in which according to the Dutch language brochure that I can not understand, has 25 things to see if we fully walk around the garden and park.
The park and garden are very well maintained and clean. It has artificial lakes, deer park (with lots of deers inside the fence), flower garden with tulips and some other flowers, and lots of big old trees.
The castle itself is surrounded by the artificial lake. We passed through it during our walk around the park. We could actually go inside the castle, but it would mean that we would breach private property. Haha.
The visit ended at the castle shop that sells local farming production such as jam, jelly, syrup, wine, clay utensils, table clothes, pillow, etc. My sister bought the jam and syrup, and they turned out tasting very fresh and yummy.
It was a one fine afternoon at the garden and park of Twickel Castle ♥️. My heart fills with thanksgiving as I am writing this. GOD IS GOOD.
We never know that there is a tulip field in Tubbergen, just 30 minutes drive from Hengelo. It is not as big as the one in Lisse, but for sure the Tubbergen tulip field is worth checking out.
We went there today, but we were maybe 4-7 days late. All the tulips were mostly already being cut. It was not as pretty as the picture that we saw in the internet from a few days ago. It was still a pretty sight though. We could see the remaining of red and golden yellow tulip in the field.
My niece and nephew were happily exploring the tulip field up to its far edge, while I and my sister were taking some pictures from the side.
We went to Rannasee Lake after the Donau River Cruise, just to chill out. Rannasee is an artificial freshwater lake in Austria and in Germany, created in 1983.
The lake has walking track which people use it for jogging or just walking around. The surrounding view was beautiful with green trees and bavarian forest at far. The park surrounding the lake has a few benches and docks for people to sit down. I saw some people went for picnic and fishing.
In front of the lake, there is a large playground for the children with small flying fox, sliding, and swings. My niece and nephew ran very fast toward the playground when they saw it. They took turn to play the flying fox nonstop for one hour. I think children are very easy to please, unlike adults. Haha. Give them playgrounds and swimming pool, they are happy already 🥰😄😊.
My End Note & Thank You
The Rannasee lake was the end of my Austria-Germany trips. It was indeed a great fun getaway with The Hampsink 😊.
Thank you, my brother in law: Stephan for driving 8-9 hours back and forth and my sister: Grace who arranged all the accomodation.
I am grateful for everything. God is really good to give me the opportunities to have the break from work, relax, and to visit new places.
Today my brother in law wanted to take the kids to do river cruise. The ship dock is in Donau River, Passau, so we went back there again. Donau (English: Danube) river is the second longest river in Europe, located in Central and Eastern Europe, flows through 10 countries.
Along the Donau river in Passau, I saw many cruise ships, from the small one for short cruise until the very big one for 3-7 days cruise trip.
MS SUNliner, our ship name, is a small cruise ship with an open cabin (that can be closed with with an automatic roof) can carry maybe around 100-150 people at its full capacity. One cruise trip takes around 45 minutes and it sails every 1 hour.
I think the cruise ship make money from selling drink and food. It sells from hot drink like coffee, latte, choco milk; cold drinks, different kind of ice cream, cocktail drinks, and snacks. I saw majority of people would order at least a cup of coffee.
The adults got free tickets from the hotel, but the kids had to pay 5 € / person. We enjoyed the Passau city view along the Donau river with the drink that we ordered from the ship.
My niece and nephew loved the cruise very much! They went to the open dock and spent half of the cruise standing there. They spent the rest, drinking their choco milk and made fun of themselves.
It was a beautiful day! I thank God for a wonderful day with the family ♥️♥️♥️.
Our trip to Baumwipfelpfad continued with exploring the Nationalpark itself. Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald (English: The Bavarian Forest National) is a national park in the Eastern Bavarian Forest immediately on Germany’s border with the Czech Republic. Founded in 1970, it is the first Nationalpark in Germany. Since its expansion in 1997 it has covered an area of 24,250 hectares (Source: Wikipedia).
It is indeed a super large forest and the hiking route varied from 6 hours track to 30 minutes track. The visitors can choose which tracks they want to do. We originally wanted to take the shortest 30 minutes route which was only 1.2 km.
Where we started
However, my niece and nephew insisted that we had to find at least one animal there. They read the information board that vistitors could find different kind of animals like moose / elk, fox, bear, etc in the park.
The Nationalpark is the home of many native trees like European silver fir, European beech, spruce trees, and protected Norway spruce trees.
It was a serene park with green trees view and bird chirpings sound around us. When we walked quietly, what we could hear were only our foot steps and the birds.
After finding our Elks
We finally found 2 elks on our way (Thank God!), but the kids were a little bit dissapointed that they were far and protected by fence. From the beginning, I and my brother in law thought that we would never find wild animals on the human track, they must be at the side seperated by fence. It would be scary to encounter a bear during our hiking 😆.
We ended up walking/hiking in the Nationalpark around 4 km and finished after 1 hour. In total, we walked around 5.8 km combined with our walk at the Tree Top Walk.It was a wonderful day yesterday. I thank God for the opportunity to enjoy the walk in beautiful nature and clean fresh air. God is good!
After some arguments about where to go vs. today’s weather forecast with my sister, we finally agreed to go to Baumwipfelpfad (Treetop Walk) which is located in Nationalpaek Bayerischer Wald.
Today’s forecast was not really promising, as most part of Austria would be raining whole day long and the temperature would be around 5-10 degree celcius, depending on the time.
However, the forecast around Baumwipfelpfad was cloudy with the chance of 10-20% raining. The temperature would be around 10 degree celcius, which should be bearable for us.
To avoid rain in the morning and to keep the promises to my niece and nephew for swimming in the morning, we took off from the hotel around 12.30 pm.
The swimming chipmunks this morning
It took us 1 hour drive from the hotel. It was a short beautiful drive with beautiful scenary of mountains, bavarian forest, and green fields everywhere I gazed my eyes.
When we arrived at the entrance, we were welcomed by information about the Nationalpark and how to conduct there. Before going up to the tower, take my advice to go to the toilet (located just behind this information board), as there would be no toilet along the Tree Top walk until reaching the end.
Nationalpark Information Board
To reach the obeservation tower, we took the elevator up and then walked along the path to the ticket counter to buy our tickets.
From the ticket counter, our Treetop Walk began. The walkways wooden are step free and designed to be accessible with a wheelchair / pushchair and very family-friendly. With its overall length of 1,300 metres, this walkway through the treetops is one of the longest in the world.
The walkways just after the ticket counter
The walkway going to Observatory / View Tower is 8-25m above Bavarian forest floor with 6 learning stations & breathtaking views of Lusen and Rachel valleys and mountains. Beside us were the tree tops of beech, firs, and spruces trees.
My niece and nephew enjoyed the “playgrounds” along the walkway
Learning station
We could find some statues of wild Nationalpark animals
At the end we finally found the gigantic round egg-shaped Observatory / View Tower.
Hello… Egg Tower
Quite stunning building in the middle of the Bavarian forest
We then continued to walk until reaching the Observatory / View Tower, 44 meters above the forest floor.
The tower from the ground walkway
The panorama from the tower walkway
Information about Lusen and Rachel
The views from above was stunning! We could see the Bavarian and Bohemian Forests, which spread out beyond the Rachel and the Lusen.
The view from the top
One of the pointers of the city around the Observatory / View Tower Top
The kids were playing with the binoculars
Hello from the Observatory / View top!
From here, we went down from the tower and continued to walk until reaching the ground level at the Hans-Eisenmann-Haus, where people can find more information about the Bavarian Forest Nationalpark in its museum, as well as rest and eat/drink in the Restaurant.
The Tower walkway from above
At the Eisenmann restaurant, we sat down to rest and ordered a cup of hot choco milk to warm ourselves. The kids kept saying it was yummy… oh well maybe because it was very cold there.
Chocolate milk to warm us up
We had tired legs but happy heart. The visit to Baumwipfelpfad was surely the highlight of my trip.
P.S.: our today’s trip continued with the hikingin the Nationalpark Forest. Read the next story.
It was rainy, wet, and cold in Leinz yesterday. Lienz is a medieval town in the Austrian state of Tyrol (source: Wikipedia).
I am not sure why my sister wanted to go here at the first place. She said we would try the panorama train, but we did not find the station, so my brother in law just drove up to the top of Leinz. And we found a look up place where we can see the towns below.
And after that we spent the day just walking around the town and did a bit of shopping at stores at Landstraße, the main Lienz shopping steet. Oh well, shopping was my reason to warm up myself a bit inside the stores. It was freaking cold outside. It might be around 3-5 degree Celcius.
The highlight of the visit, at least for me and the niece/nephew was to Xocolat, a chocolate store which sells all kinds of chocolate bars, powder, pasta, as well as hand made chocolate truffles. I counted Xocolate has around 50 kinds of chocolate truffles to pick from. I have difficulty to pick 8 (100 gram) out of 50 kinds.
Some pictures from Leinz:
Stadtpfarrkirche Mariä Himmelfahrt
Small stores, restaurant, and cafe at old town of Lienz. It is located at the back of The Linzer Landstraße (the main shopping street in Lienz)
Mozart House, now it is the home of Calvin Klein store.
A passage with old building that we went through on the way to Hauptplatz (Lienz main square)
XOCOLAT, a chocolate store which has 3 stores in Vienna, Lienz, and Baden
We went back to the hotel to catch the dinner schedule. While aunty and mommy were a bit sick because of the rain, the kids were still happy and energetic. They bought Lego for themselves and built it once we arrived at the hotel. See their happy smiles 😊.
I forgot to write yesterday that April 28 was my sister and Stephan’s 12th wedding anniversary ♥️.
HAPPY WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!
What I see… their marriage life might not be always gliterry, but the journey itself has been beautiful with its ups and downs. I hope and pray that God will grant me the beautiful marriage life someday too.
Now… let’s continue. Yesterday after our sommerrodelbahn ride, we had lunch in Passau and strolled around the city. It was Sunday, so the stores in city centre were mostly close. I am not into shopping that much, so I did not bother, however we saw some interesting local stores. We thought it would be interesting to just look, so we might come back again today.
The local stores in Passau. Left: the traditional wooden statue. Right: The clock of the year 2018.Passau Centrum
Passau is a German city on the Austrian border. It is known as Three Rivers city, as it lies at the confluence of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers. The old town is known for its baroque architecture, including St. Stephen’s Cathedral (source: Wikipedia).
St. Stephen’s Cathedral, PassauSt. Stephen’s Cathedral is the house of an organ with 17,974 pipesSt. Stephen’s Cathedral with its distinctive onion dome towers
We also strolled around the river bank and enjoyed the surrounding view. Guess, who were the happiest? My niece and nephew! They were happily chasing the ducks and pigeons along the river bank. Their mom screamed all the time, reminding them not to fall down and be careful. LOL.
We enjoyed the walk and we would come back for more Passau. We are exciting with our plan to visit Veste Oberhaus, a fortress and observatory which overlooks Passau today.
Live Fullest Life 