Exchange to Uppsala

Heading back Home =(

2008-09-25T10:36:00.003-07:00

(taken on 22 Jult 08)

05 Aug - Rome

2008-08-26T02:01:00.001-07:00

02 Aug - Barcelona

2008-08-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

10 July - London

2008-07-23T05:58:00.001-07:00

On 10th July, we arrived at London Stansted airport at around 10.30pm. We had decided to sleep at the airport for that night because of the arrival time and also to save some pounds. This video just shows how the airport looks like from the place we slept for the night.

The next day morning, we took the bus (Terravision) which cost something like 18pounds each for a two-way ticket. We then arrived at Liverpool Street Station as seen here. We realised that London is pretty much similar to Singapore:

1) Extremely crowded

2) People are really walking damn fast like in Raffles Place every week day morning

3) Right-hand drive traffic

4) Their sub-way uses the 'eaziLink' system as well, they call it the Oyster Card

5) English signboards and directions!

We then headed to our hostel, the Antigallican Hotel. It is located in Charlton, think it's considered to be part of Greenwich. It's the worst hostel I have stayed in so far. Damn old and the shower pumps out boiling water!
After dumping our stuffs in the hostel, we began hunting for what we had came for: the London Summer Sales! We started off from Bond street, then to Oxford street and so on. The shopping street is pretty long and damn crowded too. Some of the stuffs were really cheap as compared to Singapore. But in general, they are still expensive if there are not on sale.
After a whole day of shopping, we did some sight-seeing the 2nd day. We first visited St Paul's cathedral but we didn't go in because it costs something like 8 pounds per pax.
They still have this kind of 'old school' phone booth in use pretty much.

This is how their Underground looks like. The call their subway as 'Tube'. After that, we headed to the Tower of London as seen below. It's more like a castle of some sort. Again didn't went in because of the high cost and extreme crowdedness.

This was taken in a souveneir shop just beside the Tower of London.
Below shows the Tower Bridge. It might be easy to confuse the London Bridge with the Tower Bridge because the Tower Bridge is the actual 'icon' of London, whereas the London Bridge is just an ordinary bridge, which many people thought would be something spectacular.

This is the London Dungeon. It's some scary thing that u can visit and get frightened by them lol. Again, extremely crowded and expensive.
Tate Modern, nothing spectacular.

And walking along the South Bank, we finally reach the London Eye. Looks the same as the Singapore Flyer eh?
This was taken just outside another 'scary' place like that of the London Dungeon.
Here is the Westminster Houses of Parliament. Spectacular architecture, but too bad the Sun wasn't out and the picture looks kinda dull.
Woo and this is the very famous 'Big Ben'!
On that evening, we went to the Chinatown of London. It is really small, just 2 streets and everything was really kinda considered exotic and expensive, when the Singapore one is CHeap! argh...
On the morning of our 3rd day there, we went the Buckingham Palace, the place where the royal family of England lives in. And lucky enough, we caught the 'changing of guards' parade as shown in the video below.

Westminster Cathedral, again the clouds were covering the sun zzz...

Finally the Sun is out and we arrived at the Natural History Museum. It's free but the exhibitions inside were really wonderful! There were displays of dinosaurs, mammals, ocean animals, creepy crawlies and etc. They were so overwhelming that we didn't have time to finish everything.

Well, there is a shop called 'Nicolas' near Harrods which sells really cheap alcohol!! Sounds like my kinda shop with my name of it haha..
This is the street where Harrods and Harvey Nichols sit on. The sale in Harrods was really crazy, damn messy and crowded.

06 July - Stockholm

2008-07-23T05:41:00.001-07:00

Went to Stockholm again cux Lav haven been there b4. Main purpose was more to shop lol.. There was supposed to be a Redbull AirRace held in Stockholm but it was cancelled =(

But instead, we were lucky to pass by this 'Spot the Signboards' exhibition.

27June - Berlin (Germany)

2008-07-23T04:24:00.000-07:00

Berlin by far has been the city that I loved most. The hostel there was excellent, transport was 'free' (we call it easiLink because you just walk into the Bahns without trouble at all!) Me and Lav arrived there on the 27th night, and found the hostel to be extremely near the U-Bahn. Also, there is a covenient store beside opened by vietnamese that sell 500ml beers at 1Euro and 750ml red wine at only 3Euro!

On the first morning (28th), we first headed to the Starbucks near the Bradenburg gate shown below. We had breakfast at Starbucks and waited for Laura and Gwen to join us for the 'free' walking tour.
Below is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. There is no definite interpretation to the structures; some think of them as coffins; some think of it as bar charts; some think of it as the cabins of trains carrying the Jews to places where they die.
Here is Checkpoint Charlie, a checkpoint where the people used to cross between East and West Germany. Everything that we see now is fake though.

This is a stretch of the Berlin Wall. Nothing spectacular, but thousands died trying to cross them. Here you go, Hitler! By right, his face shouldn't be seen anywhere in Germany because the people feel that he does not deserve to be remembered. However, some historians feel that it is very hard to describe that war without mentioning him at all.

We were very lucky that on that day, was the day when their Pride Parade is held. This is a parade which allows the gays and transexuals to parade through the streets with really loud music. Below is a video of it, but the quality kinda sux due to the loud music.

After cutting through that parade, we arrived back to the Reichstag, which is the parliament house of Germany seen below. The dome above was added on and once can go up there to enjoy the scenery of Berlin. However, the queue was extremely long and we thought maybe going early next morning might help.

Below is the TV tower of Berlin. I got the 'Soviet' cap somewhere near at 7Euros after bargaining it down from 15Euros!

This is the Berliner Dom. Very beautiful, but didn't get the chance to see what's inside. Now the weather is really warm and sunny, very nice.
Here we are at the East Side Gallery, the longest and most well preserved part of the Berlin Wall.

This is the U-Bahn station where our hostel is, and we have drunk some stuffs before meeting Venki and Sharon here. After drinking abit, we met up with 2 more Indian girls and went to this club which is within walking distance.
The next day morning, we went up the Reichstag. The queue was in fact longer than the first day, and it was so damn hot in the queue.

After that, we had to go in to the Coca Cola Fan Mile in order to catch the Euro 2008 final between Germany and Spain. The fan mile is just just beside the Bradenburg gate, and it could accomodate half a million people that night. Although most of us support Spain, we of course didn't dare to make any noise when Spain scored and won. The feeling was so funny.
We went in and sat down at like 4pm, all the way till when the match kicks off at 8.30pm.

Starting the Germans cheered and cheered like this in the video, but after Spain scored....

And here it is, Casillas lifting the Euro08 Trophy, Cheers!!The Bradenburg Gate looks beautiful at night.

The 3rd day, we headed to the Jewish Museum as seen below. Pretty boring museum, unless u wanna know more about the Jews,

This was a special exhibition in the Museum.
This is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Looks magnificient with the top of it bombed away during WWII. We couldn't get into the church because there was some kinda event going on inside.

There were lots of street vendors around, selling food and soveneirs at pretty reasonable prices. After that, we head for our shopping at Ku'Damm and Tauentzienstraße which were just beside.

We met up with Venki and Sharon again after our shopping, and ate at this restaurnt. The serving was huge and yet inexpensive.
On our last day, we went to the Sachsenhusen Concentration Camp which required a 1 hr Bahn ride to Oranienburg and a 30 minute walk.
This is the toilet of the camp.
It is believed that that the SS drowned people in those toilet bowls and feet washing basins like the ones shown in the pic below (on the left-hand-side).

This video shows how big and empty the camp is.

June 14th to 17th - Switzerland

2008-06-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Switzerland is the first country that me and Lavrina visit in Europe. It is a super expensive country, most of our money was just purely spent on transportation and food. A meal costs like 15CHF (about 20SGD) and train tickets between cities is like 50 to 100+ SGD. Even their airport clocks are ROLEX!
We are staying in my friend's place (Muthu's) who has been on exchange to ETH, the university that Einstein graduated from. His hostel is in Zurich and it is one of the Euro 2008 host cities of Switzerland. The picture below is taken in the Zurich train station.

We arrived and put down our stuffs at the hostel which is in Berninaplatz at about 12pm, took a bath and quickly went to our first destination - The RheinFalls, which is the largest waterfall in Europe. The train ticket to the fall was expensive. Even though we dropped at the wrong stop, it was actually a better spot to start seeing the Falls.

Climbing up and down the Rheinfall is pretty tiring eh?

We then took a boat ride to the middle of the Rheinfalls and climbed up the stone in the middle.

That night, we walked around the Zurich city a little bit and took some night scence photos. We were so tired that we didn't do any clubbing or pubbing as we had slept at the airport in Skavsta (Sweden) earlier, because our flight was so early that no first train could take us there on time.

The 2nd day, we took some kind of tourist package to go to Mt Rigi - the Queen of the Swiss Alps. Not that fantastic though, but still very expensive. The package was about 370 sgd for the two of us. It included a cable car ride up to the middle of Mt Rigi, a Cog Rail Train ride up to the summit, a Cog Train down to another place (Vitznau) where we take a ferry ride back to Luzern. It was pretty worth it because a return train ticket for Luzern already costs about 70+sgd per pax.
This was the cable care ride up. Its a really long way up, to about 1000m high.

This is near the top already after the Cog Rail Train. Here its 1752m above sea level.

And here we are at the tip of Mt Rigi. It was really cold up there, probably about 1degC. We even saw some snow flakes for a few seconds.
And here's the ferry ride back on a lake which I can't recall its name now.
We arrived at Luzern, another city of Switzerland and there were quite a lot of swans there roaming around.
Below is one of oldest and the longest covered-wooden bridge in Europe. We didn't really had time to tour Luzern because we had to catch the tour bus back to Zurich.
And here we are back at Zurich, and we saw the Swiss preparing themselves to support their team tonight in the group A match between Switzerland and Portugal.

In the night, we went to the fans zone to catch the match. The whole stretch of streets by the river was turned into a fan zone, stretching about 2-4km long. There were outdoor pubs and big screens screening the matches in this fanzone. This video below was taken when Switzerland was awarded the penalty against Portugal. "Hopp Switz!"

The 3rd day, we toured Zurich and the Munster was the first that we visited. It is one of the icons of Zurich and we climber 184 steps up to enjoy a pretty good scenery of the city.
This was taken at the top of the Munster.
The stairways were really narrow especially at the beginning, and it was even more challenging when on the way down!

After that we went to Fraumunster which isn't really special except for some paintings in the Church and we weren't allowed to take photographs inside.

Then, we went to St Peter's Kirche, which has the largest clock face in Europe and it's shown below.

This is taken in the old town of Zurich.
What we did last was to walk around the "orchard road" of Zurich after that, but we didn't really buy anything because everything was so damn ex!

May 10

2008-05-10T04:44:00.000-07:00

Time really flies and its now 10th of May already. The weather is really nice now, getting a little bit too warm haha (today its 23 degC!). This place really has everything, in March the country's Ice Hockey tournament was held some 1km away from my place, and today there's cycling competition! (the video is kinda low quality because it was taken from my phone).

Compare and Contrast! This was taken on 1st February, and the other one below was taken today. Now you see why Snow can get pretty boring haha..

The sun is out most of the time now, I can see the Sun at the horizon at abt 10.30pm and 1.30am. This is a pic taken arnd 4am, it is actually much brighter than it seems on the pic.

27 April - Swedish Space Corporation

2008-05-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry backtrack abit to 27 april when I visited the Swedish Space Corporation in Solna(Stockholm) because I totally forgotten to log it. A very interesting trip where we got to see model satellites as well as real stuffs going into space soon. It was really nice to get to speak with these experts and discuss the possibilities of a Moon mission.

May 1 - Hamburg (Germany)

2008-05-04T15:53:00.001-07:00

Me and Venki went to Hamburg the day right after Vahlborg. Both of us made sure that we didn't got too drunk on Vahlborg so that we won't miss the flight. Its only a 1hr15min flight from Stockholm Skavsta airport + a 50 min bus ride to the city center of Hamburg.

Hamburg is really a crazy city. This street named Reeperbahn, is really havoc. Just behind me is the Europe's 2nd largest brothel.

Look at the cars here.. power!!
They openly sell knives, swords and even guns!!

This is the most crazy clubbing street. From normal pubs to strip clubs hoho. We came back on the 2nd night and it was really crazy. We were like having 'ladies night' in Singapore, but here, we could enter so many different clubs for free as students, and in one of the clubs we even got a free shot! The next morning after breakfast, we headed to the St Petri's Church, the place where we climbed 554 steps to the top of the church where we can see the whole of Hamburg. The staircases were really narrow and kinda steep too.

From the top we could see the Rathaus (Town Hall).

This is the St Nikolai's church, which was rebuilt after being badly damaged during the 2 world wars. It was black because it was covered by ashes during the war. This is a very unique building, Chilehaus. The Chilehaus depicting the form of a ship is propably the best example of the 1920s style of "Kontorhaus" architecture

Here is the St Nikolai Church turned musuem again. By the town hall, we witnessed a couple getting married and getting ready to take a ride on the chariots, what a way to get married!

Nice street dance!

This is how the Hamburg train station looks like from the inside.
We wanted to visit the St Michaelis's Church which is very much the symbol of Hamburg, only to find it under renovation (@#&$(!) Look how crazy this city is. It is not uncommon to find people drunk on the streets in the morning.
Another disappointment is the Erotic Art Museum which is not open for duno what reason.

This is the port of Hamburg, the largest of Germany. I got my shades in Hamburg because the Sun is really out almost the whole day in Sweden already, and it is really expensive to get it in Sweden. How do I look in it?

April 30 - Vahlborg

2008-05-04T15:07:00.001-07:00

Vahlborg is the largest event in Uppsala where the whole city goes crazy to celebrate the end of winter. Parties start one wk before 30th APril all the way. 29th April is Kvalborg which means pre-Vahlborg and many peopl already got drunk. There are also other events like barbequeing at Ekonomikums like this. Every year, around 30,000 people travel here just to witness this day. Some people even claimed to have seen their teachers drunk and stripping away on Vahlborg! The day kicks off where people start to have breafast by the river, with CHAMPAGNE! and as early as 7am! It was almost impossible to even find a place to stand, people were standing on dustbins and climbing trees.

At 10am, the students showcase the boats that they have built for the past month. I wanted to join the race along with a few of my friends but too bad that we were too late. The admission was full and this year there are about 92 boats in total.
These people seem to be here on the wrong day. There are really crazy boats, some playing soccer on their boats, some playing drums, some playing volleyball with other boats, really funny when you see them haha..

After that, at about 12pm, everyone finds a spot to picnic and have their lunch. Look at the amount of people here. There's even a stage for bands to perform.
At about 3pm, all the ex-students, no matter old or young, gather in front of Carolina Rediviva (Library) to wave their student hats. It's a moment where they remember themselves as students before.
3.25pm, and this is not the first drunkard on the streets. The whole city is like in anarchy, shattered bottles everywhere, drunkards walking along the roads, the police just stands there to make sure no one gets hurt.

Even the birds go crazy today!!

After the hat-waving, it was a tradition that the students race with champagne into the student Nations. But nowaways the crowd is so horrendous that people just start to queue at 1pm and therefore impossible to get in if you go there at 3pm. Nevertheless, you can still see people spraying champagne at other people and in the nations like this one below, is really crazy. Champagne all over! By the time it was like 5pm, we even saw girls so drunk with their wet shirts torn so badly that it was non-existent.

Although we didn't get into any student nation, we managed to see something really nice also. People were dancing on the roads to live music along the rivers, old and young, everyone.

After that, we went back and prepare ourselves for the party that night. Again the queue was crazy and you could already see most people are already drunk in the queue. What a day!

April 27 - Gamla Uppsala

2008-05-04T14:53:00.001-07:00

Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala) is one of the most remarkable sites of prehistoric remains in Scandinavia. It has history dating back to the 6th century. Nothing really much to see there, but the weather was so good that I was out in my Berms for the first time! The old building on the left is the Gamla Uppsala Museum.
The scenery there is pretty nice. The "mounds" you see on the right are believed to be burial sites of kings 1500 years ago, buried with precious items.

This is the Church from the 11th Century. Inside buries Anders Celcius, the one whom created the celcius temperature scale, and outside around the church buries many great people. From here I was even able to see the Uppsala cathedral and Castle from afar.

April 19 - Gothernburg (Sweden)

2008-05-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Me and 7 other people went to Gothernburg which lays to the west of Sweden. We rented this 9-seater Renault car and drove about 6 hours there. I also drove on the way back and it was really a different experience. It was at night when we came back and I had to drive on streets without lights, keep toggling between high and low beams, steer this left-hand-drive car and shift gears with my right hand when I haven't touched manual cars for like 4 years! It was so dark that I can't see which gear im on, so most of the time I just shifted from gear 1 to 4 to 6 haha..

This are the 4 other guys I was with along with 4 other gals. From the left is Mike from Massachusetts, Venki from SG, Daniel from Texas and beside me is a Swede which I forgot his name. Of course he was the one who did all the directions ahha.
It was really warm here in Gothernburg, I was already walking around in my T-shirt only. The streets look pretty much the same like Stockholm and it is really crowded. Btw, Gothernburg is the 2nd largest city in Sweden.
We went to this park which is really famous and there were quite a few animals to see. It was really weird as to why to put this animals here! Behind me is the moose, the national animal of Sweden, damn huge!
Here is the boy band again haha.. After that we went to the its port, the largest in Scandinavia. Scenery was nice but the boat trip after that was even better.
This is the boat ride which is kinda interesting. Halfway through it, everyone has to sit on the floor of the boat because the bridges were made so low in the past. There were made low because they can actually be lifted up with gears at the bottom. We got the Gothernburg pass to enjoy this ride, free trams and also entrance to a few museums. A pity that the theme park (Liseberg Park) which is the largest in Sweden is only open from next week, DAMN!

This is a playground outside Universeum and the guys got a chance to 'feel young' again..The musuem has alot of offer and I'll show you about them one by one. Firstly is the ocean aquatic animla display and you can see from this video what they offer, from Nemo to sharks like this!

They also have a showroom of snakes showing many of the world's most venomous snakes such as Anaconda.

Up next is the tropical zone. They really make it so real: the temperature and moisture was like singapore, so bad that the first thing I entered the place was to roll up my sleeves, and the most funny thing was the Swede left the place in 5 minutes!!
The last 2 showrooms we went to were really fun. Playing with really stupid games and taking pictures with cars like this.
O ya and FYI, I have gotten an internship at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (INSTITUTET FÖR RYMDFYSIK , IRF). Almost like a dream come true. I always thought it was impossible to get into the Space industry haha. Btw, I obtained it through real hard work: had to sleep for only 5 hours daily for almost 2 weeks to design and draw an antenna that they are going to propose to some company in USA the week after. It was a real 'real' experience. They are offering me a monthly salary of 14500SEK which is about 3400sgd! But the high taxation will only result in me drawing home only 2500sgd. Nevertheless, when you start to compare it with an SG internship... muhahaha. The institute is actually making a proposal to make components for a Moon Mission Chandrayaan-2 (Indian) and if they are selected, my supervisor says I'm going to be part of a real Moon Mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First sight of Rainbow in Sweden

2008-04-18T09:22:00.001-07:00

Uppsala is becoming more and more warm and beautiful. I saw this rainbow over my school just 3 days ago and I was so happy haha.. Today its 10degC but it fluctuates alot (last week still got snow!), and I saw people playing volleyball in shorts beside my faculty! Now we have so much sun, it's rising probably at like 4am now and setting only at 9pm already...
How does this Salmon Pasta w Egg look??

Helsinki(Finland) 19 March

2008-04-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Wao its been a long time since I've updated on myself. It's because I have been so busy with this quarter's projects plus I just completed an antenna modelling to be used in Antarctica. Finally got breathing time! well I have went to Helsinki via a cruise. It was a really rush trip because the cruise is like 16 hours each way and we only have something like 8 hours to see everything in Helsinki. Helsinki is pretty similar to Stockholm, nothing really spectacular I think. Luckily the cruise was cheap (50sgd only), but everything on the cruise is damn expensive even though its 'duty free'.

This is the inside of the cruise..

On the deck of the cruise.. which is damn cold to stay on.. temperature is something like 0degC and lower because of the strong winds.Jacuzzi in the cruise.. too ex!

Finland is just beside Russia and you can see some structures are kinda Russian influenced.
Streets are pretty similar to Stockholm's only that they have trams in Helsinki.
This is the most unique church I have ever seen. Its a stone church, where the church is build inside a stone!
This is how it looks like from the outside (top view) during winter. We first visited the fortress island which was really pretty but kinda too well 'renovated'

This chuch is the icon of Helsinki, looks majestic. The inside well, so so only..

Stillll SNowing

2008-03-18T10:12:00.001-07:00

ItsMarch and its still snowing.. where is Spring????

Yea and I made Minestronne Soup a couple of days ago and it tasted damn nice.. damn proud of my cooking now muhahaha..

Fireworks on 1st March

2008-03-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

Fireworks that I could see just ouside my room on 1st March which I have no idea what they are for..

International Gasque (Spring 2008 - 29 February)

2008-03-02T14:07:00.001-08:00

In Uppsala, there is this traditional dinner called the Gasque, where everyone has to dress formally and have a 3 course dinner. And yes this is unique to Uppsala, nowhere else. Initially I didn't wanna go because I didn't have a blazer. But so many people said so much about it and anyway I needed a blazer too next year too for interviews, so why not try to look for a cheap blazeR? I searched and searched, blazers cost about 400SGD on average here. But lucky enough, I found a nice one at slightly less than 100SGD. Don't I look good? haha It was a really classical dinner. Served in candlelight, with beer, wine and a duno what shot for everyone.
This is my very good American friend, Brad.
A German girl with her bf in the gasque too.

And they have this men's choir which was really really cool..

In between, we have to sing traditional Swedish songs and after every song we are supposed to toast to the people beside us and in front of us. For guys, its like a norm to toast to ur right-hand-side, then to your left-hand-side, then to the front and finally drink the wine. After drinking, you have to toast again to your front, then to your right and back to the person on the left before you can put down your glass.

They have this excellent violin group, nothing to say, just watch it!

This guy from Greece is really damn funny. Although he used to be a drug addict, he's still a university student on exchange here!
This guy I forgot where he came from, think he's an Australian.
This Danish sitting beside me was really irritated by the drunk guy sitting beside him. That guy even broke a plate with his spoon!
And an afterparty is always there after the gasque!

FREEze and Easy in Abisko (21 Feb to 26 Feb)

2008-03-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

It was an 18 hours train ride to reach Abisko, the best place on Earth to see the Auroras. The train ride was damn bad, you get so tired and you just cant get to sleep on that chair. Abisko is really a 'No mans land', where its town has a total population of only 70 inhabitants. It was really just snow and more snow up there. Here is a video on the train when it was changing a 'restaurant' cabin.

And there in front, somewhere on the tip of that mountain is the Aurora SkyStation. A very pretty dog.
This is below the mountains. In the woods, snow can go up to above my knee level.
On the first day, we went Ice climbing. Look at those shoes I wear, there are so heavy and hard that I can't even move my ankle at all.
Don't I look like some China fireman?
Climbing this ice is impossible, we were really a joke haha.

German, Finnish, Turkish and a American we met there who are on exchange too.This is the at the bottom of the mountain and its the first time I ever wore this damn yellow jacket which I borrowed from my friend because they say its going to freeze like hell up there. I look like one damn banana waiting to be peeled. We estimated a -19degC up there.
There is only one way up the mountain, and it is via this damn chairlift.. scary.. have to go up 2000metres on this!!! Imagine taking just this to the tip of Genting, yes the same height as genting.

Well it was an unlucky first night, we didn't get to see the Northern lights. However, the scenery up there was exhilirating. The view of the vast mountains on the right, and a lake that is totally frozen on the left. The lake is so huge, estimated 20-15km and the whole damn thing was frozen!

On the 2nd day we went skiing! I love it so much that I really really feel like going back again.

Again I have to wear this tele-tubbie coat again so that I don't get wet and freeze.
It is what they called nordic skiing and we have to skii through woods like this.
Until we find a good place to sit and have our lunch,and with awe-inspiring views like this eating our biscuits.

A fozen river below, with skii trails on it.
Trying to act like a pro.
Look at how my friend Venki skiis, really a joke haha.

And now its my turn...

On the 2nd night, the temperature went crazy... A FREEZING -24degC. But maybe its because of this temperature that we were really lucky to at least catch abit of the northern lights.

And now the last day. Haha finally see a real snowman. Say hi to him!

This is the frozen lake, yes the whole damn thing is frozen and you can walk on it.

It is really like a tundra or a snow desert whichever you like to call it. Just flatness with snow blowing so damn fiercely. Initially abit scared to go onto the frozen lake. But walking on it awhile, I laid on it haha...
So damn cold that we are running away liao..
And sadly all things come to an end, we have to head back finally.

You can see how Sweden differs so much just in the train ride. A beautiful country, we should all just migrate here.

Tom Yum Chicken... yum yum..

2008-02-19T08:58:00.000-08:00

Chef Ang cooks again, yum yum.. I think this was the best dish I ever made (tastewise). Tomyum chicken with abit of corn and mushroom.

FYI: The soup is ready made and canned one.. haha..

More pics in Slovakia

2008-02-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

O ya before I forget, after this trip, I realise how nice the Swedish really are. They are so nice and polite. On my way back from Slovakia, I nearly missed the flight because of the customs officer in Slovakia. He looked at me and my photo like 20 over times and I don't know wat the f*** he was looking. Seemed like purposely wanna play prank with me. And when I reach back to Sweden, again the customs officer are so nice: they greet you, ask you where you are going and what are you doing here in such a polite and smiley way. Having only stayed only one month in Sweden, I have had 3 encounters that when I take out my map and try to find my way, people just walk to you and ask you if you need help with the map!!! Amazing right? And now back to more photos in Bratislava, this one has a wall with bullet holes on it here... Some bullets are still stuck in the walls..
Wanna play soccer here?
One of the hot chocolate 'bars'..

This is from the train station in Uppsala I think..
LOOK at what I'm drinking! Miracle???

Slovakia Day 4 - Devin Castle

2008-02-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Devin Castle, damn damn damn nice!!!! Looks like those castles you see in Lord of the Rings. This is built in 13th century and has history linking to the 8th century. Enjoy the scenics. Abit wasted that its too misty that day, but its still exhilarating!

Waiting for bus at the bus-stop, 'artistic' bus-stop? Looks like some bus-stop in Bagdad instead..Yea on our way back I managed to take this pretty shot.
The shot is even nicer with me!

Bratislava Day 3 - The Bratislava Castle

2008-02-17T10:04:00.001-08:00

This is a pic of the Danube and the Bridge of the Slovakian Uprising taken from on top the Bratislava Castle.
And this is the Bratislava castle, awesome....

Its damn cold to lie on a ground like this!
Damn misty that day, damn cold..

So cold that my ears become red if I don't wear my mufflers.

Bratislava day 3

2008-02-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

The tall building on the left is Saint Martin's Cathedral, and the UFO look alike thing on the right is the Danube and the Bridge of the Slovakian National Uprising. Oh ya btw, never go to Slovakia on weekends, the city is literally dead on Sundays.
On the way up the Bratislava Castle..

Another Flag added to my collection hehe.. This was taken in a cafe after visiting the Bratislava castle. The Slovaks love to have hot chocolate and they are damn thick like hot Nutella. But its really really nice!! If you eat them in Singapore its almost certain to get sore throat the next day. The people here have their famous "sheep cheese" and "Fried Cheese". I don't really like them haha..

This is the day which we then get to walk around the city.

Bratislava Day 2

2008-02-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

We guys went a few places to club and slept till 2pm on day 2, before that the girls have already went out to do shopping. The clubs there are damn underground, with loads of guys in shaven head and tattoo. You can feel a little racial discrimination against asians too, a little bit scary. There was this club in a ship which is not bad, but its pretty underground too.

Bratislava - Slovakia Day 1 (9 February 2008 - Friday)

2008-02-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

At about 2pm in the afternoon, we boarded the flight on Ryanair to Bratislava - The capital of Slovakia. Slovakia is supposedly the richest country in eastern Europe and should be safe too. This is the Bratislava airport, damn small and budget, probably 1/3 of Changi Terminal 1.
And we were trying to find our hostel when the sky was getting dark already. You really have to look out for cars there, the people here ain't as polite or as nice as the Swedish; they don't signal when they wanna make a turn, and most of them don't give way.

This is a photo of their Tram Station, damn budget right.. Transportation is relatively cheap, about only 1SGD for half an hour ride on bus/train.

CNY in Uppsala

2008-02-17T05:46:00.000-08:00

On Chinese New Year's Eve, had dinner with all the Singaporeans at this restaurant named Fugu operated by a HongKong couple. This was the first time all the Singaporeans gathered together.

On New Year's Day itself, many Asians gathered together to have a potluck session. It was only then that I got to know that Koreans and Japanese use the Lunar Calendar as well, and Koreans celebrate the same new year! "Sei hei Poot, Mani pardi Seiyo!" means "new year luck, many please take". There was people from HongKong, Korea, China, Japan and of course Singapore.

Chef Ang

2008-02-05T12:59:00.001-08:00

Don't know how to cook? Just Whack!!!! O ya, something I just realised, not only the people here are white, the hens are white -> the eggs are white too!

Snow Snow Snow

2008-02-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

It has been snowing and snowing and snowing.. Temperature is getting lower and winds are getting so strong. The first time when I saw snow I was really happy, but now its not really pleasant that its snowing! Walking or even cycling in Snow is crazy. Especially when the wind is so strong, u just get snow piling on your face. The roads become so difficult to cycle on, and the worst thing is you can't even see the roads that you are cycling on! When it snows, people just stay at home like me.. O ya and I got a 'cheap' haircut here for 40SGD!! Its really crazy here, the average price is like 80SGD per hair cut!!

Crayon Class

2008-02-03T04:51:00.000-08:00

1 Feb (Friday)

"Class today its Friday, let's do something relaxed and interesting!".

And the teacher gave us a piece of paper and crayons haha..

"I guess you haven't used crayons in any tertiary lesson before"
And he is right! I haven't touched crayons since Primary school? And he says these classes can be pretty usual here, where we colour the diagram based on their heat characteristics and fold them into 3 dimensional model so as to get a 3-d picture in mind of what we are trying to understand. And this pic depicts the different regions around planet Earth.

Modern Stockholm

2008-01-30T02:41:00.000-08:00

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

The Swedish Parliament House and its Palace

2008-01-30T02:03:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-30T01:54:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-30T01:48:00.001-08:00

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

Stockholm!

2008-01-30T01:34:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-01-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

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

MIC

2008-01-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

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

First Day of Class

2008-01-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-21T12:34:00.001-08:00

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

IKEA

2008-01-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T12:04:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

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

The next morning

2008-01-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

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).

Doha Airport

2008-01-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

At least the internal of Doha's airport looks better, only that it is really small, maybe like only 1/3 of Changi Airport Terminal 1. There was an internet access room with 5 computers where you have to queue for but the network is like the 5 computers are sharing one 56k modem. I gave up, couldn't even open an e-mail. And also I didn't have much time because my flight extended by half an hour. Reached there only like at Doha time (GMT +3) 11am. O ya, my flight also suffered a pretty bad turbulence! SCARY!!!

The Bus ride to the airport's main building

2008-01-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

Another shocker..

2008-01-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

And at Doha airport, you the aircrafts don't park near the Terminal where you can just walk down the tunnel and hit the airport, you will have to take a bus that took 15mins to reach the main building. Well, at least I got a chance to take this cool photograph!

SHOCKED!

2008-01-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

This is the ultimate shock! This video was taken when the aircraft has just landed. I never expected Doha airport to be like this! I thought Doha is a well-developed city and this is like.... like IRAQ!

On Flight

2008-01-19T11:04:00.000-08:00

Well, this is how Qatar seats looks like.

Boarding the flight

2008-01-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Yea this was the gate which I boarded flight QR639, Qatar Airways, A330.

Leaving my Darling

2008-01-19T10:53:00.001-08:00

This was where we had our breakfast, and this is my beloved bao bei! Well, very sad of course that I will not be seeing her for 6 months. Don't know if anything will happen this 6 months. Hope not. Hope she can take good care of herself.

Leaving Singapore

2008-01-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

On 14 January at around 5am, my family, gf and I reached the Changi Airport Terminal 1, departing to Stockholm Arlanda Airport transiting via Doha Airport. My flight was 7am and we had breakfast there too. Mixed feelings, very excited about the exchange program, yet scared because I will be travelling there all alone.