Home sweet home

I have always wanted to post about my end of sem trip but my lazy bone seem to always get the better of me, until now. It is one hell of 25 days, where I got to see so many things, meet so many people, try so many types of food and experience so many cultures. All thanks to the people who make the trip special.

First off,

Brandon, Joey, Joel, Gina and Brian for traveling and planing the trip with me, albeit not completing them.

In Rome,
Greg and Shawnie for telling about Cinque Terre. Colin and gf for being the first of the many more singaporeans I bumped into.

In Pisa,
Rasendrum for being the second Singaporeans that we randomly met, which gave us an indication on how many more there will be.

In Florence,
7 or 8 Singapore LSE students for being 7 or 8 out of the many Singaporeans. Australian lady at the jacuzzi who make me realise traveling alone isn't that scary.

In Cinque Terre,
Parestoo, muslim from Iran who migrated to Canada, for helping me take photos with the ultra scenic small towns and cliffs by the sea. Furthermore, make me understand that traveling alone is not scary at all.

In Milan,
Johny, Mabel (who is from my jc junior class, yes the world is small), Korean whose name I don't recall, for bringing us to a wonderful dinner that was rather cheap by european standard. The Italian guy who got trapped in the train carriage with us and his famous quote, "we are like in a fucking cartoon".

In Interlaken,
Baolai, Huiyan, Jialiang, Kendrick, Yanli, and his two friends for injecting so much fun and laughters during the trip, making the trip so much more 热闹.

In Amsterdam,
Crew from Shelter Jordan, namely, Jonathan, Melanie, Frank, Maria, Jens, Renie, Christie and Adam for the company during the 3 quarter finals matches and sharing so much about their religion where I really learn a lot.

In Berlin,
My crazy hostelmates, Rose, Allan, Iraqis lady, American lady, 3 French Candanians dudes, crazy kiwi who ran around the fan mile with a New Zealand all black flag during Germany vs Turkey match, 2 bimbotic norwegian girls and the super loving Finnish couple for making my stay at the hostel so memorable and not to mention the soccer match with crazy cheering.
Junkang, Edwin and Huimin for being the last 3 Sgian I met during the trip and kinda break the solemn atmosphere at the concentration camp.

London trip

It was more than a month ago but at least it's here. London is quite a nice city if the air is a little less polluted I think it would have been one of the nicest city I have been to. Note, nicest, not most beautiful.

playing with lomo again

Old Naval Academy

This flagpole reminded me so much about my midshipman days

Photoshopping

It's been four days after my exams ended and still haven't sort out the photos to be printed. Since digital photography came into my life, the numbers of photo I have in my computer sort of exploded. However, the number of times I have actually look at them, compared to printed ones actually reduced. I have decided to print some of the more memorable ones so as to admire them more frequently and as a backup, just in case my computer crash or something. The next amazing thing about digital photography is that you can manipulate the photos any way you want. Although it requires lots of reading up and lots of time, I think it's worth it. Photos are usually the best encapsulation my memories so they should be as beautiful as possible. Some of the photos after I "lomograph-ed" them. For the uninitiated, Lomography is done using a camera that sort of distort the colours and act some random blurness in the photo. Photographs are supposed to be taken spontaneously from the hip. Since I can't afford a lomograph (it is being monopolised) I am just getting some kick of it via photoshopping.

Dog sledging in Kiruna

Cigarettes bin in Olso

Marina in Olso

Statue in Olso

1st paper

Just had my first every exam in Denmark. The first one in a long long time. It's also the first one that I can actually bring my laptop in, switch it on and left it there for the whole duration of the exam. It was there for the sake of being there, being a kiasu Singaporean, I just brought it there to provide me a false sense of security. If I don't, I doubt I will ever get another chance to bring a laptop to an examination. The paper itself was of sec 3 physics standards and open book. In SG, I would have expected it to last 2 hours, but they gave us 4 hours and i managed to read 1 chapter of manga (just so I can boast to others), took a 5 min nap and had 1.5 hours to go before submitting my paper. The Portuguese guy next to me was even faster, he took almost 45 min less than me. I took a quite glance at his answer script and I guess he was just aiming for a pass, skipping the last question almost completely. The grading system here is very straight forward, something like the O and A levels, where a certain grade is given after you hit a certain mark. Much unlike the bell curve system in NUS where you will never know what kind of grade you'll get and you are praying that everyone do as badly as you after the exams. At least I know I won't fail here. 2 more exams to go before my end of sem trip!

Kampsax Notice

The management from Kampsax (a hostel that is occupied by mostly Danish students, much like the 6 halls in NUS) must be damn pissed to put up notices on every single container in campus village (a congregation of container-like structures that is meant for international students, analogous to PGP with regard to only the population make up). I wonder who is the person caught stealing a barstool.

Budapest! Easter travel 08

Long due photos of Budapest, an amazing beautiful city with amazing night view, nice people along the street and incredibly rude service staffs at entrance of most sightseeing spots. It has an wonderful transport system that does it job. Prices there are comparable to Singapore and at times cheaper.

Daylight saving

Other than cross time zones, this is my first ever artificial shift of time. One less hour of sleep isn't that much but still significant enough to cause some rambling here and there.
The ideal of shifting time is still kinda new to me. I always thought that time is absolute and precious enough to piss people off when enough of it is wasted. I guess I was wrong. Time is more manageable, changeable and not absolute. Examples are in abundance. Singapore can alter its timezone to match the major financial hubs in Asia. Time can be push forward so that we can make full use of day light. Small islands in the pacific ocean can be put into "special time zones" to match their home country. It is fair to say time is just another human creation. However, people like me are still manipulated by it more than manipulating it. I guess I just need to try harder at managing my time (such as finding time to blog about my trip in budapest and prague). I shall start by sleeping now!

The day it snowed in Denmark

Being a Singaporean, tropican, equatorian,.... in short, someone who had never really traveled to winter countries implies that I have never seen snow prior to my trip to Kiruna, where I saw more than enough snow to last me a few years. However, the feeling of snow falling infront of your door step, your window next to your study table, the path you take everyday, is just something special. So our trigger happy selves took the better of us and we behaved like how you would expect tourists would, infront the Pyramids. Just that this time, there isn't any major photo-friendly backdrop, just pure snow flakes falling from the sky and a minimal amount of sunlight

Look at my surprised face! I always thought I have a careless attitude towards seeing snow. I was so wrong.

Look how high I jumped.( me, Jialiang and Kendrick)

More jumps to tame our excitment( me, Baolai and Kendrick)

Christiania

The weather here is so cold that I feel more nua than when I was in Sg. Which explain why I seldom update my blog other than the fact that there is nothing much to blog about. I have also reached the stage where I can wear singlet and shorts to stay in my room where the average temperature is 22 degrees and gain the ability to commute short distance in below 5 degree climate with shorts (,thick winter clothings) and havaianas flipflop.

Some photos before we reached our destination of the day, Christiania:

random street in CPH

famous candy shop, with a looonnnggg history

ancient lift beside the shop

Finally we reached Christiania in the early afternoon. In brief, Christiania is a place in Denmark that is not under the jurisdiction of the Denmark government. Their "special"autonomy allow them to sell soft drugs in the street aptly named, pusher street. It is not really a big place like the size of sengkang. Based on my own estimation it is at most the size of VJ. With 1100 residents, and buildings seldom exceeding one storey, I guess it can be quite cramp there.

Graffiti art in abundance

Snail

I suppose this is the real entrance to Christiania which we only found at the end of the tour.
On its reverse side, it states, "You are now entering EU".

After our short brush with drugs, we proceed on to visit the "gay" bars in the city since we have nothing better to do after our dinner and we happen to have a "gay map" with us.

Weekdays seem to zoom past you and weekends never seem to end. This is how I feel right now. Despite the sunny weather now, I don't really feel like going out as there isn't much to do. The few things that are left to be done are too expensive and way out of my budget. Now I find Singapore an interesting place. There are always movies to catch, majong to play, supper places to visit. Here, you can expect parties where everyone drink tonnes of booze at most.

Random pics of the day:

1st Day of School

Starting of a new term in an entirely new environment is not exact new to any Singaporean but this time round, it's an entirely new country, culture and climate for me. The day started off with a change of classroom which implies that I had to walk in the chilly wind for another 200m. From the 4 hours thereafter, I realised 2 things-- danish students are hardworking and the younger the dane the better their spoken English. The lesson style here is more personal. The prof made an effort to engage everyone in the small class setting which is different from the tutorial class in NUS. Tutors in NUS should buck up. Well, I miss international week now where there will always be someone to talk to.

building a tower to hold beer cans

New rm

This the where I am staying now..... It is exactly what it looks like, a container. Anyway the room itself is about the same size as my room in sheares, just that is less furnishing which makes the room looks kinda spacey.