Where in the world is Wendy Shu?: August 2008

Milan, Italy

The last stop on our trip! Milan is definitely not the right city to visit when you're traveling on a shoestring budget! All of the high-end stores are here, and they certainly live up to their "high-end" names.

Duomo Cathedral

And the sun sets on our journey. It was an incredible 2 months, but as the saying goes...there's no place like home!

Venice, Italy

Venice is unlike any other place I've been to. It's almost like you're on a different planet where the ground is replaced with water! We met 3 nice guys from Toronto on a "water taxi" and had a couple drinks and dinner with them. After dinner we wandered around the city and got so lost that we almost missed the last "water shuttle" back to our hotel!

I finally found a big enough gelato cone!!!

80 Euro to ride one of these for 30 mins?? No thanks!

This alleyway just seemed very Italian to me

Cinque Terre, Italy

My favorite city in Italy!!! I highly recommend visiting the small town of Cinque Terre to anyone traveling to Italy in the near future. Cinque Terre is composed of 5 small villages situated on the coast. The villages are connected by a trail which is roughly an 11 mile hike. The last leg of the hike is very difficult - the trail is only 1 foot wide at some points - which proves to be rather difficult when you have a 30 pound backpack to lug around! The trail also lines the cliffs, so one false step and you're shark bait! We stayed in the first village, Riomaggiore, which had a population of 200. Beautiful beaches, great food, colorful villas, friendly people...this is what you envision when you think of Italy!

When the population is only 200, I guess your garbage truck doesn't need to be that big!

my face was getting burned so I covered it up :)

The narrowest part of the trail. To your left....a cliff-drop to your death!!!!

Hillside vineyards

Hiking our way to the 2nd village

hiking the coastline

Pisa, Italy

No surprise here, the one and only attraction in Pisa is................. *drumroll* .......... the leaning tower of Pisa!

Backpacking buddies for life!

Here's the story behind this picture. It seems like everywhere we went, we were looking at the wrong thing. Case in point: in Paris I was snapping pictures of a building which I believed was the Pantheon. It wasn't until 10 minutes later when a woman behind me said "Honey, the Pantheon is behind you".

Florence, Italy

Florence was a very art-oriented city. We bought tickets to the Uffizi Art Museum, which I was excited about visiting, but it was hugely disappointing! After the Louvre in Paris, no other museum measures up. Italians also don't like tourists taking pictures of their artwork, so unlike the Louvre, we couldn't take pictures of anything :(

On our way to Florence, we missed our train (which was also coincidentally the last train to Florence until the next day). Fei decided to ask a police officer for help since it was 12:30 in the morning and no one else was around. The cop decides to pull her into a room, which worries me so I run after her. There are 4 officers in the room and they all start interrogating us and asking for our passports. For some reason, I remember being told that I shouldn't trust anyone in Italy with my passport...not even the police. So I refused to show them, unlocked the door and walked out. Three cops then come running after me, grab me, and tell me that if I did not show my passport they would take me to jail. Knowing that I had my passport safely tucked away in my passport holder under my shirt, I decide to humor them. But not before I kindly told them to "F--- off" :)

I walked back into the room and dumped the ENTIRE contents of my backpack on to the "head officer's" desk. (Remember, the passport's in my passport holder under my shirt). The cops were not so thrilled to have an entire backpack full of dirty, smelly, sweaty clothes dumped on their desk. I keep pretending to rummage through it, tossing dirty socks on his chair, a smelly shirt on his computer...all the while playing dumb like "oh gee...where oh where could my passport be?" The cop was so irritated at this point that he told me if I just gathered my belongings and got the hell out of his office, he wouldn't take me to jail for telling him to "F--- off". I chuckled, grabbed my stuff & my cousin and left with a smirk on my face. lol I almost went to jail in Italy. That would have been an interesting story to tell the grandkids someday :P

Getting off the train from Pompeii to Florence

Beer and pasta in bed...living in the lap of luxury! lol

This was pretty impressive

Hmmmmm....what should we have for dinner tonight? Pasta, pasta, or more pasta?

Statue of David

Pompeii, Italy

Ever since my 7th grade Latin class, Pompeii has been high up on my list of places to visit. It absolutely lived up to every expectation I had! We had met 2 backpackers from Canada who were fluent in Italian and kind enough to help us get there and translate the brochure. For those who don't know, Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman city that was destroyed, and completely buried during a catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The objects buried beneath the ash, including buildings, household objects, and even human corpses were remarkably well-preserved for nearly two thousand years.

The cloud of ash buried the town so quickly that it captured the facial expressions of those caught in the eruption. This mummy gave me the willies.

Sitting outside the Pompeii brothel, a popular hangout

Naples/Capri Italy

Seeing as how both Fei and I have the attention span of a fruit fly, we got bored after a few days of Roman ruins and decided to hop a train to Naples. Naples is GHETTO and people there are so RUDE!!! We stayed at a youth hostel with only 1 shower in the girls bathroom...but 4 in the boys. Tell me how that makes sense??? Safe to say, I spent a lot of time showering in the boy's bathroom which led to many confused looks when I got out. Naples is the birthplace of Pizza, so it would be rude of me to eat anything else, wouldn't it? There really isn't much to do in this mafia-run town. We didn't even take any pictures! We met a couple of cool people from Canada and Australia who traveled with us for a few days. Since there was nothing to do in Naples, we took a boat to Capri. Capri was absolutely gorgeous! Overpriced, but very posh and beautiful. All the guys have their collars popped and everyone looks like an old leather bag. How do they find it attractive?? Somebody look up the skin cancer statistics of this city! I spent a good chunk of the day laying out by the beach. Its crazy...everyone goes topless here! It doesn't matter if you're 70 years old or 700 pounds, they all strip off their bikini tops! Sorry guys, no pictures ;P

I have to say, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea was a highlight of this trip!

The Blue Grotto is hands down one of the most hypnotically beautiful natural wonders of the world. We were not allowed to touch the water, but it was so blue that it was almost purple. To reach the grotto, we had to lay down flat in our boats to get through the tiny opening. Definitely worth seeing if you are ever in Capri!

Our tour guide let us jump out and swim in this lesser important grotto. The tide was so strong, there were times I was afraid I would get swept away!

Why pay big bucks for hot rock massages when you can do it yourself?

On the way to Capri, half the boat got sea sick. I managed to hold it together (barely), but the entire row behind me had vomited on the floor!!!! YUCKKKKKKKK. The ride back was much better because we took a larger boat. Here I am on the boat with Mt. Vesuvius behind me.

Rome, Italy

I was in LOVE with Rome when we first arrived. The people were so friendly and willing to help even if they didn't speak a word of English! The Colusseum is AMAZING. It makes me want to watch Gladiator all over again! I spent way to many meals eating Gelato and Pizza. By the way, Pizza here is to DIE for. I will never look at Dominos the same way again.

Trevi Fountain - it took us forever and a day to find the Trevi Fountain. We spent a whole 5 minutes there before realizing we had to haul butt to the train station if we wanted to catch the last train to our hotel. We made it with 2 minutes to spare!

St. Peter's Square in Vatican City

Inside St. Peter's Basilica where they made us cover our shoulders and knees. Apparently you can go in completely naked as long as your shoulders and knees are covered

On our way to the Sistine Chapel

You're not allowed to film or photograph the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here's the illegal video I took before I got caught filming...oopsie!

The Coloseum was my favorite part of Rome. The sheer size of it is mineblowing, and the tour guides do an amazing job of re-creating a visual image of what it was like in Roman times. We probably could have spent hours here if we weren't in such a hurry. It was an incredible feeling getting to touch something that had survived 2000 years of mother nature.