I'm back from norway! It was a really short trip... 22nd feb to 25th feb (sorta). I'm quite proud of myself... I could actually spend 635 bucks travelling to the third most expensive country in the world. Kudos to Paul... for being such a brilliant planner. We saw so many places and stayed in comfortable hotels! Now I can travel to more places without feeling guilty about spending too much on one place =D
There were lots of coach taking for this trip... our journey to oslo by bus took about 7 to 8 hours maybe. Due to the really eeky and ugh snowstorms, we had to shuttle between quite a few places... like to flam, from voss back to oslo etc. So many hours spent on the bus! But I guess it wasn't that bad... we could catch up on our sleep during the looooooong bus rides and the scenery along the way was fantastic. We could see towering snow-capped mountains against a backdrop of burgeoning coniferous trees. It was white everywhere. Frozen lakes were part of the landscape as well... if you were lucky, you could spot several rapids and frozen waterfalls. At times, I found it difficult to distinguish between snow covered land and frozen lakes. It got me thinking... what if you're stuck out there in the cold and have no idea what you're stepping on. You might end up plunging yourself into sub zero waters. Scary eh? I think so. Well anyway, I just wanted to randomly point out how annoying it is to have irritating, chattering and inconsiderate people on the same bus as you. We encountered quite a few of those. I wanted to shout at them and kick them out of the bus. I especially hate it when people cough in enclosed spaces... without covering their mouths. I was trapped in a bus with this coughing girl... who wouldn't stop coughing AND talking. Wah. It was painful. My threshold for such experiences is pretty low. Okies enough bitching... and back to my narration of my nice lil trip.
We managed to get to flam despite the weather. We couldn't take the flam railway though *refrains from bitching some more* Luckily the ferry was working so we could still see the fjords and the plethora of mountains that came along. I guess it would be much nicer to see the fjords in summer or autumn... but then again, I wouldn't be able to travel during that period of time since I'll be on my way home. Sometimes, we just gotta be contented with whatever we have/see! Anyway, the ferry ride was fun cause we could get to the top of the ferry... and take lots of photos. It was really cold... with the wind whipping at your face all the time but ah well, we survived it! =D
The trip to Bergen was really worth it. Bergen has such picturesque scenery! Most of the time, I felt like I was staring at a painting... a really pretty painting. I saw colourful houses dotting the foot of high mountains. The waters in Bergen are sooo clear as well... we could clearly see the starfish at the habour. The wooden houses that we saw were tastefully flamboyant. And there was a fish market! The seafood there was soooo fresh. We tasted the authentic crabmeat and shrimp (which was free cause the guy selling them was really nice). We visited Bergen's St Mary's church...a castle and took the damnnnn niceeee tram which allowed us to land up at the top. It gave us a really beautiful view of bergen... and we had such a fun time building a snowman (who was named Sarah) and having snowball fights.
We went back to Oslo after that... and to me, I thought Oslo wasn't as nice as Bergen (which is more like a cultural city). Oslo reminds me of Copenhagen actually... it's very cityish and that's kinda expected since it's the capital of norway. Most of the shops were closed when we arrived in Oslo since it was a sunday but I guess I wasn't disappointed or anything; not really in for the whole shopping thing... not even window shopping. It was snowing quite heavily in Oslo so the mood was a bit dampened... we still covered quite a few places though. We walked around the city center, saw the parliament and the palace... went to the habour (had mac's there: I ate TWO burgers) and visited yet another castle near the habour. We went to this really really nice park as well. The park's famous for its many statues... and the statues were really interesting. Most of them were artistically carved... and most of them seemed rather wrong as well. (check out my picassa to know what I mean lol) I had fun at the park sliding down this slopey thingy. Yes I know I'm such a kid =D We kinda ended the trip with a yummy dinner at Dennis' Grill... which was relatively cheap compared to other eateries. We couldn't really afford traditional norweigen food... and we couldn't find a place anyway hah.
Well that's all I can remember for now!
Tuesday 27 February 2007
Wednesday 21 February 2007
Happy Chinese New Year!
I can't believe that it's the chinese new year period... sure doesn't feel like it. No reunion dinner with my family. No visiting. No ang pows. No snacking food. No nice red clothes. No comfort at home. I guess the first day of chinese new year was alright... we had a nice get together at spoletorp and everyone was in charge of a new dish. We had sooooo much food (but there was no yu sheng hai). There were drinking games of course... and some people got drunk. I didn't get drunk! Amazing isn't it? lol. I guess I wouldn't want to be though... being drunk will either make me laugh a lot... or it will make me depressed. I don't think I want to risk it... heh. I will post some photos that were taken that night!
Well... I actually feel really homesick atm. I reaaaaaaalllllly miss my friends. You know... friends who will always be there for you. Friends who will wait for you. Friends who won't make you feel alone. Friends who will laugh at you for doing silly things. I miss the high pitched 'hey babe!', the funny face, the short skirt, the incessant laughter, the caring voice, the girl talks, the powerpuff girl, the hugs, the suppers, the pseudo licking, the guy talks... and so much more. Though I'm sooo far away, I miss you all so much.
I think when one is left behind, one shouldn't sulk about it. One should pick herself up and move on. Don't ever feel sorry for oneself...don't blame anyone, that's a sign of weakness. Shit happens. Think about possible nice things that will happen. You won't feel so bad anymore =)
I know this is totally random... but I'm glad that I'm living in modern times. Not in an era where women are trapped in perfectly moulded stereotypical female roles. I'm glad I wasn't forced to marry someone at a tender age. At least we have the freedom to marry the person we like/love. After reading the book 'Money' by Benedictsson... I feel really lucky. I'm thankful for all that I have.
Well... I actually feel really homesick atm. I reaaaaaaalllllly miss my friends. You know... friends who will always be there for you. Friends who will wait for you. Friends who won't make you feel alone. Friends who will laugh at you for doing silly things. I miss the high pitched 'hey babe!', the funny face, the short skirt, the incessant laughter, the caring voice, the girl talks, the powerpuff girl, the hugs, the suppers, the pseudo licking, the guy talks... and so much more. Though I'm sooo far away, I miss you all so much.
I think when one is left behind, one shouldn't sulk about it. One should pick herself up and move on. Don't ever feel sorry for oneself...don't blame anyone, that's a sign of weakness. Shit happens. Think about possible nice things that will happen. You won't feel so bad anymore =)
I know this is totally random... but I'm glad that I'm living in modern times. Not in an era where women are trapped in perfectly moulded stereotypical female roles. I'm glad I wasn't forced to marry someone at a tender age. At least we have the freedom to marry the person we like/love. After reading the book 'Money' by Benedictsson... I feel really lucky. I'm thankful for all that I have.
Saturday 17 February 2007
Randomness
No more pink party, just utter cold winds and sinking thoughts. For one moment, I wish I was home.
Thursday 15 February 2007
London - There and back again
London, a place filled with marvelous architecture and wondrous arts. I was thrilled when I arrived in a bus. Everywhere I looked, I saw streets lined with colonial white buildings and beautiful churches. There was so much history in the air. It was really overwhelming. I didn't think I'd enjoy london so much really. I'm really glad I went.
It's great to go to a place where the first language is actually English. I could finally understand the signboards, menus and of course the people, with their nice british accent. I didn't feel that lost. The unfamiliar wasn't that unfamiliar... if you know what I mean. I had such a good time going on the big bus tours... going round and round the city... watching the world go by. We were quite suay the first day though... it snowed quite heavily and it was like the first time in eleven years to have so much snowfall. We had the teeth chattering experience of going to the second deck of the bus and taking photos whilst it was snowing. Now that I think about it... I think we were pretty much insane.
We had a glance at all the touristy attractions the first day... big ben, westminister abbey, london eye, st paul's cathedral, tower of london, tower bridge, london bridge and the list goes on... We saw notting hill too! We walked quite a bit just to see the travel bookshop where hugh grant and julia roberts met in the movie. Notting hill's really quite quaint. We headed down to manchester at the end of the day and visited the Man United place of course. I'm not a Man U fan... well, I'm not a fan of any soccer club but I still enjoyed myself. It was nice being at a place where lots of people dream to go to. It was fun running out into the field (kind of), pretending to be one of the soccer players. I dropped by liverpool as well... and I actually recognized the places that I visited before. Fleeting memories. Anyway I realized that manchester and liverpool are pretty racist places -_- They're not really tolerant towards asians... and it's very frustrating really. It sucks to be part of the minority... to be undermined at looked down upon. To think that racism is an ongoing phenomenon is scary... to be a target of it makes me shudder -_-
When we returned to london, yuxian and I stayed at this place called Picadilly's backpackers hostel. It wasn't too bad... but the most eeeeeeeky thing was, there was no hot water when you wanted to shower. I almost died when I showered there. It was so bad for me cause I usually shower in damn hot water (if anyone really knew me, he/she would know). Anyway the best thing about Picadilly's was its really central location and close proximity to chinatown! I had SOOOO much chinese food when I was in london. All the duck meat, char siew and fatty pork. Wahhhh. I was in heaven. The duck meat at bayswater was damn nice lah. Thinking about it makes me salivate. I don't think I'll be able to get duck anytime sooon.... booooo. Oh and the most unfortunate thing happened... our hostel actually had a fire on the last night of our stay there lol. When the fire alarm sounded, we thought it was just a drill... we actually wanted to stay in our room. When were got out.. people were taking forever to get out. It was quite funny... well in a morbid way. The fire (presumably a small one) got put out very fast though... so nothing catastrophic happened =D
Ohhh... I watched TWO musicals in london! Les Miserables and Wicked... both were soooooo gooooood. If only musicals were as common in Singapore... I'll just watch every week lah. They weren't very ex to watch in london cause we had student prices... and the seats were actually very good. I really loooooveeeeeee watching musicals. If I have the money, I'll watch all of them! Another thing that I learnt about myself... I actually enjoy going to the musuem... well the British musuem anyway. I was very intrigued by all the egyptian artifacts; the mummys and intricately carved walls and sculptures. Egyptian history is so rich and mysterious.
For the whole trip, I was trying to improve my photography as well. Taking photos from different angles... fiddling with the functions of my camera. I still have a long way to go hehe. At least I've developed a new interest! Whee!
What else did I do in london hmm... took a cruise, visited emirates stadium, tate modern, shakespeare's globe, southwark gothic cathedral...went to hyde park and shopped at harrod's! Soo many nice things at harrod's =D I bought four bags there lol. Oh yessss... I went for a strip show at Soho! We got conned at the place... bah. So dodgy. We only saw one dance... and I felt sorry for the woman (she seemed quite old -_-) Can you imagine life being a stripper? I think it's so difficult to even respect yourself then. Saddening. And how can I forget eating krispy creme donuts?! They're heavenly lah. I've never tasted such nice donuts in my lifeeeee. Someone should get the franchise in Singapore. I'll never get sick of themmmm.
Ohhh wellll, enough blabbering lol. To wrap things up (sounds so essayish), I can honestly say that I had a fulfilling trip. Though it was tiring... and we had severe lack of sleep for some nights, I had loooads of fun. I wonder when I'll ever go back to london. Will I? No idea. I'll be looking foward to it anyway =)
It's great to go to a place where the first language is actually English. I could finally understand the signboards, menus and of course the people, with their nice british accent. I didn't feel that lost. The unfamiliar wasn't that unfamiliar... if you know what I mean. I had such a good time going on the big bus tours... going round and round the city... watching the world go by. We were quite suay the first day though... it snowed quite heavily and it was like the first time in eleven years to have so much snowfall. We had the teeth chattering experience of going to the second deck of the bus and taking photos whilst it was snowing. Now that I think about it... I think we were pretty much insane.
We had a glance at all the touristy attractions the first day... big ben, westminister abbey, london eye, st paul's cathedral, tower of london, tower bridge, london bridge and the list goes on... We saw notting hill too! We walked quite a bit just to see the travel bookshop where hugh grant and julia roberts met in the movie. Notting hill's really quite quaint. We headed down to manchester at the end of the day and visited the Man United place of course. I'm not a Man U fan... well, I'm not a fan of any soccer club but I still enjoyed myself. It was nice being at a place where lots of people dream to go to. It was fun running out into the field (kind of), pretending to be one of the soccer players. I dropped by liverpool as well... and I actually recognized the places that I visited before. Fleeting memories. Anyway I realized that manchester and liverpool are pretty racist places -_- They're not really tolerant towards asians... and it's very frustrating really. It sucks to be part of the minority... to be undermined at looked down upon. To think that racism is an ongoing phenomenon is scary... to be a target of it makes me shudder -_-
When we returned to london, yuxian and I stayed at this place called Picadilly's backpackers hostel. It wasn't too bad... but the most eeeeeeeky thing was, there was no hot water when you wanted to shower. I almost died when I showered there. It was so bad for me cause I usually shower in damn hot water (if anyone really knew me, he/she would know). Anyway the best thing about Picadilly's was its really central location and close proximity to chinatown! I had SOOOO much chinese food when I was in london. All the duck meat, char siew and fatty pork. Wahhhh. I was in heaven. The duck meat at bayswater was damn nice lah. Thinking about it makes me salivate. I don't think I'll be able to get duck anytime sooon.... booooo. Oh and the most unfortunate thing happened... our hostel actually had a fire on the last night of our stay there lol. When the fire alarm sounded, we thought it was just a drill... we actually wanted to stay in our room. When were got out.. people were taking forever to get out. It was quite funny... well in a morbid way. The fire (presumably a small one) got put out very fast though... so nothing catastrophic happened =D
Ohhh... I watched TWO musicals in london! Les Miserables and Wicked... both were soooooo gooooood. If only musicals were as common in Singapore... I'll just watch every week lah. They weren't very ex to watch in london cause we had student prices... and the seats were actually very good. I really loooooveeeeeee watching musicals. If I have the money, I'll watch all of them! Another thing that I learnt about myself... I actually enjoy going to the musuem... well the British musuem anyway. I was very intrigued by all the egyptian artifacts; the mummys and intricately carved walls and sculptures. Egyptian history is so rich and mysterious.
For the whole trip, I was trying to improve my photography as well. Taking photos from different angles... fiddling with the functions of my camera. I still have a long way to go hehe. At least I've developed a new interest! Whee!
What else did I do in london hmm... took a cruise, visited emirates stadium, tate modern, shakespeare's globe, southwark gothic cathedral...went to hyde park and shopped at harrod's! Soo many nice things at harrod's =D I bought four bags there lol. Oh yessss... I went for a strip show at Soho! We got conned at the place... bah. So dodgy. We only saw one dance... and I felt sorry for the woman (she seemed quite old -_-) Can you imagine life being a stripper? I think it's so difficult to even respect yourself then. Saddening. And how can I forget eating krispy creme donuts?! They're heavenly lah. I've never tasted such nice donuts in my lifeeeee. Someone should get the franchise in Singapore. I'll never get sick of themmmm.
Ohhh wellll, enough blabbering lol. To wrap things up (sounds so essayish), I can honestly say that I had a fulfilling trip. Though it was tiring... and we had severe lack of sleep for some nights, I had loooads of fun. I wonder when I'll ever go back to london. Will I? No idea. I'll be looking foward to it anyway =)
Sunday 4 February 2007
Homebody
I stayed at spoletorp for the whole of today. It actually feels good *beam* Friends came over today for lunch so yuxian and I were in charge of cooking =D I cooked the chicken drumsticks and it didn't turn out too bad... it just took forever to be ready. Yes! One step closer to becoming a better cook. *cheer*
We learnt how to make bread today! From scratch! Never thought I'd learn lol. John taught us... it didn't seem too difficult. Let me recall the recipe:
1kg of flour
14g of yeast
2 and half cups of water at 45 degrees celsius
1 egg if you want your bread crispy on top
So making bread involves a lot of kneading... and a lot of strength heeeh. You gotta leave the dough to sit for like 45 minutes so that it raises. Then put it in the oven for 10 minutes... at 230 degrees celsius. =D Walaaaaa! You can freshly baked bread! Seems easy ehhhh. I'll try next time =D
I'm feeling kinda bothered by my essay. Gotta get it done by wed... cause I'll be going to london! I can't believe I'm going this wednesday... I wanna go without being bogged down by anything. Be light hearted! You can dooooo it!
-missing you-
We learnt how to make bread today! From scratch! Never thought I'd learn lol. John taught us... it didn't seem too difficult. Let me recall the recipe:
1kg of flour
14g of yeast
2 and half cups of water at 45 degrees celsius
1 egg if you want your bread crispy on top
So making bread involves a lot of kneading... and a lot of strength heeeh. You gotta leave the dough to sit for like 45 minutes so that it raises. Then put it in the oven for 10 minutes... at 230 degrees celsius. =D Walaaaaa! You can freshly baked bread! Seems easy ehhhh. I'll try next time =D
I'm feeling kinda bothered by my essay. Gotta get it done by wed... cause I'll be going to london! I can't believe I'm going this wednesday... I wanna go without being bogged down by anything. Be light hearted! You can dooooo it!
-missing you-
Friday 2 February 2007
A first time for everything
I've learnt something new about myself =D Not only can I play pool... I can play table tennis as well lol. Even though it's slow-mo table tennis (you will probably fall asleep when you watch me play), I'm still glad that I can actually return the ping pong ball without making a fool of myself. So I guess my ball sense isn't entirely non-existent. I shall remember to go to Spoletorp's table tennis room more often... make use of the facility since I'm paying so much for my room hah. Yay! Go go me! I shall conquer badminton and tennis next! I seem to be learning everything here... trying new things that I was once reluctant to attempt. Maybe I have too much time on my hands.
So I played table tennis on tuesday and I had a salsa lesson yesterday! Had it after gender class (which was soooo boring... I kept yawning in class) at sparta. Eugene was trying to teach me shoulder isolation, jazz box, susie Q uhhhhh and I revised most of the beginner's steps for salsa. It was fun but very stressful of course. I felt quite stupid when I lost track of the beat... and for some reason, I couldn't do the hip popping thing right. Need to practiseeeeee. I wanna go to intermediate level! I'm really glad that I can do salsa in lund though... I know that if I'm back at home, I wouldn't be as motivated cause I probably wouldn't have the time... and I would be stressed over school etc.
Ohhhh and I cooked chicken wings for dinner at sparta! I'm so proud of myself rofl. Although the chicken wings looked a tad too black... I still think that they tasted nice. (well maybe the rest didn't think so buuuut who caresss) For once I managed to cook something substantial! I mean I know how to cook plain rice, eggs, pasta and stuff... but I haven't really had the chance to cook a meat dish. Now I wanna cook chicken wings again =D I can try the method that gerald mentioned... chicken coated with honey and covered with biscuit crumbs. Mmmmmm.
I finally managed to see how VG's like! We went there pretty early to avoid the queue... in the end, we were the first to go in lol. We actually managed to get a couch... how rare is that. I mean usually back in Singapore, you don't really get a chance to sit down in a club... anyway we just sat down and nua-ed. The dance floor was empty so noone wanted to start dancing... noone was that confident about their dance moves hehe. We got to know a couple of swedes there... they were really nice people. They were more friendly that the average swede so our conversations weren't very awkward or anything. I had cidar to drink... and it's sooo sweeeeeet and nice lah! Apparently it's a very common swedish girl drink. Hehe, I'm really getting immersed into the culture eh. Of course there was dancing... the music was better than the first nation that we went to. Some R&B! =D The manchester guys joined the group of us... and I think ross went a bit insane. -_- I think I've had enough partyinnnnng. I wonder how my flatmates can go to nation parties every week.
So I played table tennis on tuesday and I had a salsa lesson yesterday! Had it after gender class (which was soooo boring... I kept yawning in class) at sparta. Eugene was trying to teach me shoulder isolation, jazz box, susie Q uhhhhh and I revised most of the beginner's steps for salsa. It was fun but very stressful of course. I felt quite stupid when I lost track of the beat... and for some reason, I couldn't do the hip popping thing right. Need to practiseeeeee. I wanna go to intermediate level! I'm really glad that I can do salsa in lund though... I know that if I'm back at home, I wouldn't be as motivated cause I probably wouldn't have the time... and I would be stressed over school etc.
Ohhhh and I cooked chicken wings for dinner at sparta! I'm so proud of myself rofl. Although the chicken wings looked a tad too black... I still think that they tasted nice. (well maybe the rest didn't think so buuuut who caresss) For once I managed to cook something substantial! I mean I know how to cook plain rice, eggs, pasta and stuff... but I haven't really had the chance to cook a meat dish. Now I wanna cook chicken wings again =D I can try the method that gerald mentioned... chicken coated with honey and covered with biscuit crumbs. Mmmmmm.
I finally managed to see how VG's like! We went there pretty early to avoid the queue... in the end, we were the first to go in lol. We actually managed to get a couch... how rare is that. I mean usually back in Singapore, you don't really get a chance to sit down in a club... anyway we just sat down and nua-ed. The dance floor was empty so noone wanted to start dancing... noone was that confident about their dance moves hehe. We got to know a couple of swedes there... they were really nice people. They were more friendly that the average swede so our conversations weren't very awkward or anything. I had cidar to drink... and it's sooo sweeeeeet and nice lah! Apparently it's a very common swedish girl drink. Hehe, I'm really getting immersed into the culture eh. Of course there was dancing... the music was better than the first nation that we went to. Some R&B! =D The manchester guys joined the group of us... and I think ross went a bit insane. -_- I think I've had enough partyinnnnng. I wonder how my flatmates can go to nation parties every week.
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