Modern Stockholm

Yup and this is how the modern Stockholm looks like..

The Swedish Parliament House and its Palace

This is a photo of their parliament house...

And we were very lucky to be able to witness the 'change of guards' at the palace where a took a few clips and also a photo with one of the female guards!

Churches in Stockholm

There are quite a few churches in Stockholm, and we actually went into 2 really beautiful ones where one is a deutsche church.

Gamla Stan

Here is how Gamla Stan looks like. Erm for the movie, ya gotta tilt your head a little haha..

Stockholm!

On 26 January, I visited Stockholm with my SG pal, ZuWei, and 3 other Hongkong Students. Their capital is so different on the two sides, centralum is super modern where you can find huge malls like those in Orchard road, and the other side is Gamla Stan, a super old and classic town. 'Gamla' = Old. 'Stan' = Town.

Uppsala Cathedral

Yea today I finally got the time to walk into the Uppsala Cathedral, inaugurated in 1435, and its the tallest church building in Scandinavia. The insight was really amazing..

Cycling in Snow?

In the morning when there was snow, I wanted to walk in the Snow to have the 'feel'. But also, I was scared to cycle in the snow haha.. In the end, I tried and its pretty much the same!

Snow!

And its finally Snowing!!! First time in my life hahaha... So happy to experience it and its a pretty heavy snow today morning!

MIC

And you can see from the bikes behind, everyone cycles here. This is a pic taken at MIC.

First Day of Class

Today, 21 January, I went to my first classes. I had lecture clashes and for today its like 3 lectures at the same time! In the end, I went one hour each for 2 modules, and gave up the 3rd one because its so far away.. This is one of my lecturers, looks like Einstein?

And this is how the classroom looks like, they are still using chalkboards. The FEM class was pretty big, around 30+ students, but the Space Physics class h ad only like 10 students. My friend had a class which had only 4 other students! O ya, and they have a sink for people to wash their hands, as well as paper cups where you can just get a cup of water, something you don't see in Singapore.

Norrlands Nation

Went to Norrlands Nation last night, did a tour and this is how it looked like inside.. Retro eh?

IKEA

Yesterday on the 20th Jan, the Singaporeans met up and we cycled to IKEA, which is like 5km away. The prices in IKEA are almost the same as what we have in Singapore, and they have the 1SGD hotdog too! Everything looks exactly the same as the IKEA we have. Only that here, as well as most huge shopping malls, there is a coffee/milo/tea dispenser that you can drink for free! As you can see, the Singaporeans are in action on the dispenser haha.. and O ya, they really do have funny things in "Stadium", the shop that sells sportswear like what we have in SG.

PINK Bike

Can you belive it? I bought this bike for 400 kronos (90SGD)! Its 2nd hand, super hard seat, stupid stand, spoilt gear, no headlights. And guess what, I have gotten like one of the best deals around. Usually people pay around 800 kronos for 2nd hand spoilt bikes too. I was lucky to meet this German guy named Tim and he told me he had 2 bikes, and I just grabbed it! And the funny thing here is, its not like in Singapore that you have hand brakes. All the bikes here you have to cycle reverse to break! I was lucky to have one with a weak front break already. Cheers to my wonderful pink bike!

Pond in Uppsala

And in Uppsala, you can see really cute and fat ducks in this pond just beside the Centrum. They really go quack quack quack haha.. And today when I went to Willi's a supermarket that is like 3-4km away, when I passed by this pond I saw a really HUGE bird. Its really like ten times of these ducks! It was raining and hence I couldn't take a pic of it.. The next time I see it I will sure snap a pic of it. O ya and something interesting is, the Swedish really love to keep huge dogs. Yesterday when I was at the Centrum having a Fika with my Swedish buddy, I saw this humongous black poodle. Can you Imagine a poodle that is like 1 metre tall!? It looked like it was a black lion! Btw, Fika in Swedish means to have coffee. The Swedish culture is damn shiok. Everyday start work at 9am, Fika at 10am to 11am, lunch at 12-1am, Fika at 3-4pm, dissappears at 5pm.

If you notice, these two photos were taken just a minute apart at 2.42pm and 2.43pm. The sun sets like a Ferrari.

Pub Crawl

Yesterday on the 18th Jan, there is this event called pub crawl. Its called "pub crawl" because you are supposed to crawl back home at the end of the event haha.. The idea is to visit all the 13 student nation pubs in Uppsala and drink a mug of beer at every one of them. Luckily we didn't have time to go to all the pubs, had only like 8 drinks, survived! I was really happy that day, because that I was phrased by an Aussie and Canadian that I speak really good English! haha I was so shocked!
Also, I think I really can get along well with "ang mors". Just the first day meeting at the pubs, I was treated to drinks by one American and Dutch! That American even called me today to ask where I was going! And ya something surprising was, we drank the same amount of beer, and that American and Canadian got so tipsy, when I was still ok! All thanks to the training from my brothers in SG!

MIC building

This is the MIC building, where all the IT people will be. I am taking Finite Elements Methods here, a module needed for my aeronautical specialization. They have seperate buildings and the block numbers are not in sequeuce. Happy searching in the cold!

Angstrom Laboratory

This is the Astrophysics and Astronomy departement where I will be taking my "Space Physics" module. Most likely, I will be taking one more module called "Space Mission design Project". Sounds cool ya?

Ekonomikum

This is the Ekonomikum building, where business, politics, communication and media are taught. I will be taking up a communication module here, there they will teach us how to handle press conferences!

Registering for modules

Uppsala Universitet is really a different University from NUS.Its so sparsely spread out. For example, its like you have a IT department in NUS, one Engineering department in Singapore Poly, and one Economics department in SIM. And there is NO shuttle buses, you have to get to your classes by foot because its just too expensive to take bus! Its crazy!

And can you believe that these two photos are taken at 1.30pm!? The sun's setting already!

Long way to Dobelsgatan

Well I finally got my keys, but.. I have to walk over with my HUGE luggage, backpack, pouch and laptop bag. Its like 2km away wtf... And here, the roads are crazy. So much stones! and I have to drag my stuffs over grrrr...

Uppsala is a city totally different from Singapore. Everything is so sparsely spread. The cars are left hand driven, you pull to flush the toilet instead of pressing buttons, bus trips cost like 8 SGD per trip! An average meal costs like17SGD, one macdonald's meal cost like 12SGD. One small glass of coke, half the size of what you get in SG coffee shops is like 1SGD.

It took like a 30 minutes walk to Dobelsgatan 2 where my room 407 is.. and finally I have arrived.

The Castle

Uppsala is really a wonderful city, not only having a medieval cathedral, there is a CASTLE too! This are the outlooks of the castle, I will go into it as well as the cathedral someday soon!

The Cathedral

Wao this cathedral looks really cool, tooks loads of pic on it..

The next morning

I woke up pretty early next morning, at around 8am and went outside for a walk to take photographs. Its really really cold there even though it wasn't snowing. People say that its the warmest year ever for Sweden and it usually snows the whole summer. Look at that road man... "Martin Luther Kings Plan" - he planned something here?

Complication

The complication I faced when I reached Sweden was crazy. I wasn't sure if my Swedish buddy had already asked her friend to collect the keys for me and meet me at the train station or not, because she was then in the woods, no internet or phone network. Luckily, my cousin's friend Erna, had a Singaporean friend here named Sinnisky was really nice to come with her husband whom drove to the airport and fetched me to where I needed. They drove me to the train station, where I tried to find Philip whom was supposed to be there but to to no avail.

Next, they drove me to Akademihotellet at Ovre Slotsgattan. And, the reception couldn't find my room keys, WTF! But luckily, they offered me to stay there free of charge for the night till I get my keys, gave me a complimentory beakfast and it was a really nice place to sleep at. Had my own TV and bathroom. And the best thing is that, I got a temporary internet account right away! People had to wait like 2 weeks to get their internet access!

I was really tired from that jet lag. Took a shower and fell asleep real fast. Here are the pics of the room at Akademihotellet!

Stockholm Airport

On my transit flight to Stockholm, I didn't get the window seat so I couldn't really took photographs of anything. Beside me sat 2 super old Swedish women. I got really tired because I couldn't sleep the night before and there was once when I fell asleep on this flight, when I opened my eyes, I saw one of the women standing on her seat trying to go over me and to the toilet! I was so shocked and she just told me its alright and she continued crawling over. Well they are nice people, even gave me gums to chew. This is the Stockholm airport, and I arrived there at like 6.30pm Stockholm time (GMT +1).