*MeowZz Paradise*

Day 4 - Recollection of Visit to Grindelwald & Gimmelwald

Monday, May 15, 2006

The time now is 8.30 am. I am on my way back to Zurich, where I'll be visiting the Rheinfall. The trip will be taking us 3 hours by train to reach our destination, which will be approximately 11.30am. We'll be needing to change trains at Ber, at Zurich, and at Winterthur. Now, I know why the lower decks of the train the so quite. Cos it is the quite area.

Yesterday, we were adventurous enough to visit 3 places - Grindelwald, Gimmelwald, and Murren. Wee, they aren't tha far apart, as both are only about 1/2 hours train journey from Interlaken Ost.

Once we reached Grindelwwald, we wasked around for places of interest where we could go. The answers we got was none, except if we go up to Jungfraudjoich, which will cost us more than CHF100 each. We didn't plan to go up to Jungfraud, due to the cost that we'll incur, as well as the fact that we had already went up to Matterhorn, and Junfraud, although it's a different mountain, asa well as of a differenet height (Jungfraud if the Top of Europe), both are still mountains, and we couldn't see the difference.

Although so, we did take a bus ride up to Busslap, another lower mountain, where we could see Jungfraud. However, the coulds were still low. There was a point where the bus drove through the clouds! Imagine how low the clouds were! Besides this, the road up the mountain was very narrow and curvy! It was so narrow, that from my seat, I though that the road is narrower that the bus! And with such a narrow road, when the bus was making turns, I could see straight down the mountain, as if any moment, the wheels will get off the track and the bus falls down the mountain!Of course, the bus did not meet with any accidents, if not, howwill I be able to write these now?

For this ride, we paid CHF 19.80 each, which is 1/2 of the normal price again, as we have the Swiss Pass. Can you imagine? I paid CHF19.80 to scare myself? Well, I did learn and see a lot of things too! I saw lots of the summer huts on the mountain, and learned that the families only return to theirhuts in summer, as the other times were too cold. I wonder if they need to buy the piece of land their huts is on.

When we reached back at Grindelwald, we realised that it is a Sunday, and most shops were closed. But still, I managed to buy a cap for brother, but I don't know if he would likre it. If not, I'll have it myself then. Besides, I've also bought a fashion watch at CHF64.60 after discount. It has quite a long face, and its strap is tourqoise in colour. This is considered the most expensice watch that I bought for myself. I only buys watches that were SGD10, and the most expensive watches were a Fossil wacth from Geralding and sister, for my 21st birthday, and a Citizen watch from my group of colleagues for my 22nd. What a splurge!

The next destination was Gimmelwald and Murren. They are just a cable car stop next to each other. Remember I said that we went back to Interlaken Ost from Grindelwald? It was the same train to Gimmelwald. It's just that at one of the stations, the train spolits into 2, with 1/2 of the train going to Lauterbrunnen, which was the station to alight for Gimmelwald, and the other 1/2 to Grindelwald. From Lauterbrunnen, we took a bus to __________, where we took a cable car (free) up to Gimmelwald.

Once we reached that station, all those in the bus who saw the cable wires got a shock of their lives! Of course, this includes me. The gradient of the slope was so steep, that one can hardly imagine! In Singapore, our cable cars are all horizontal to the ground, but the one in Gimmelwald was from 2 very different heights! The cable car, unlike Singapore's, can occupy a lot of people, all standing up, and there is only one cable car, going up, and the same one going down, unlike the ones in Singapore, where a cabin only caters for a few people, and there are a number of cabins on each wire.

The scary part was not going up, but in the middle of the trip up, there will be a tower that holds the wire. It's after this wire that the cabin will have a slight drop in height, and made me feel that I lost my legs. This was the 2nd scare on the same day.

Once on Gimmelwald, we saw that it's very different from Grindelwald, where it's like a small shopping town, it's more like a chalet town in Gimmelwald, where there are cows, sheeps, chickens, and even horses around, and they have vegetable and even flowere plantations. It's a very relaxing and serene place.

Next was Murren. Same thing, there's only one cabin up to Murren from Gimmelwald, and the same thing happened at halfway of the journey up. Murren is like the in-between of Gimmelwald and Grindelwald. It does not have the shops like Grindelwald, but it has lots of hotels and chalets, and the houses are quite packed in a systematic order. However, it also has the atmosphere of Gimmelwald, where it's relaxing and serene.

The way back to ___________ was even scarier! Imagine the height going up Gimmelwald. Next we were going down! Wow! I lost megs for a even longer period of time!

As the places we went yesterday were of shorter distances, we thus could get back earlier, and walked around Interlaken Ost. There, we saw lots of people paragliding! The people coming down from the skies seemed to be neverending. At first, we thought that they are from a club or society for paragliding, but it was when we walked further down the street, that we realised that they were doing business, providing the paragliding service. I wouldn't mind trying that, but it's just that I don't know how to navigate the glides, thus someone must accompany me. But, I won't want to paraglide with a stranger. No. It's too dangerous. There would only be the 2 of you up there, and you will feel so helpless. Now is 10.45am. Reached Zurich airport. In around 45 minutes, I could be reaching Wintherthur.

LA~mour @ 4:45 PM