Back!

I realised i have been MIA for a long time. So i need to post something before everyone thought i was busy plucking the spring flowers.

I am really busy! haha...busy holidaying, but also busy doing my report for my lab. For 1 week, i slept at 3am every night and woke up at 6am, so as to complete my report. But after that, it was one week of holiday in Lappland in northern sweden. To give u a better idea, Lappland is within the Arctic Circle.

This is what i saw...

Northern lights aka aurora aka 北极光

okiez...check out for my updates soon again. i need some time to organize my photos and wash my stinky cloths, tidy up my room, study....

Its back to reality!

春天的足迹

I smell the arrival of spring..

The sun has been rising earlier. People are walking much slower on streets. Kids are playing in the park. Flowers starts to appear out of nowhere. Indeed, spring is coming.

The flowers reminded me of the story regarding cherry, peach, plum and dansom (樱，梅，陶，李）. The four different flowers that bloom in spring, summer, autumn and winter respectively. They all need different conditions such as a specific range of temperature before they can start to flower. It is said that the colder the winter, the more brilliant the cherry blossom will be as it absorbs the energy of the cold winter.

Human lives are just like the different flowers. We all have the limitless potential and we just got to be patient and wait for the right conditions and time in order for us to realise and display each of our unique individuality and talents. Sometime, we may need to endure a cold winter in order for us to realise our unique mission in life that no one else can fulfil.

It has been exactly 2 months in sweden. I has been doing much reflection for the past few days, reflecting the things i have done, things yet to be done, and new things to be done. Sometime, i have doubts regarding my own beliefs. And i wonder if this self reflection bug has caught on other people. It seems that my friends ard me, and in singapore (from blogs) have been doing much reflection. I guess we got to be patient. Sometime, a cold winter or a hot summer is needed in order for us to make us realise our true self.

At least the stary flowers reminded me of this truth..

Göteborg

After a month of hibernation in Lund, i am finally in action again. This time round to Göteborg. (Pronounced as 'your de boy').

I was with Simone, Betina and Christoph. So i was the only asian in the group. And i discovered something peculiar about the Europeans when it comes to travelling. For example, they would...

Climb up a hill to see the elk...

Visit the palmhuset(palam house) to see tropical plants like..

Tour the Saluhallen and the feskekork the first thing when we first arrived in goteborg ..

Monster Looking Fish

Surrounded by kids and interesting innovation at the Universemusume, which is a science musume. .

One compartment for big bussiness and another for small business.

Cute swedish boy

(Sorry simone, but i was more interested in taking the photo of the boy)

Visiting the Goteborg opera house twice cos the night was not so fantastic for taking the photo of the opera house ...

And these are travel mates...

Christoph, Betina and simone

More photos here

Next stop, bike trip to Malmo this weekend. .

(weizhi is really looking forward to it....But he has 1 report and 1 essay yet to finish...)

CNY EVE

This is long overdue....

We have a terrific reunion dinner, or i should say an international dinner at Spoletorp on the CNY eve. We didnt really have much chinese friends over here and we haven been in contact with the rest of the spore students. Therefore, Stefanie(nus) and me decided that we should invite our flatmates to celebrate this dinner with us. And our flat mates just invited their own groups of friends, and we also invited our own group of friends, and this is what happened...

2 tables combined. So guess the number of ppl.

17 people. Yvonna, Gratta (HK), Stefanie, Kellie, Tom, Me (Sin), Thomas, Phillipp, Phillipp's gf, Flitz(Ger), Simone, Christoph(Austria), Asami, Manaka(Jap), Asami's bf(swe), Suwei(Australia), Sarka(Czech)

so our reunion dinner an international dinner. But it was really great cos we got to try dishes from all over the world. And it is the best time to understand one's another culture. I learnt that angmoh dislike bean stuffs. Cos one of the chinese cooked red bean soup. I thought it was good. It is so typical among asians, but generally all the ang moh found it werid. And they loved chicken curry and bak ku teh.

panna cotta for dessert

Thomas came up with this stupid idea. He wanted us to sing him some CNY songs. So we told him that it is not our tradition to sing CNY songs. (This is true ok! Tell me when was the last time you sang a CNY song.) He was so persistent and wanted me to teach him sing a song. I gave up and taught him the 恭喜，恭喜。 And christoph joined in after a while.

And at 12 midnight, the 2 angmohs and together with their 师父entertained the rest with the song.

Christoph and Thomas learning how to sing 恭喜，恭喜

I guess this shall be one of my most memorable cny dinner.

Snow storm

This post is for myself. To mark this day as my FIRST ever snowstorm experience in my life. A mild one according to swedish standard. But i have NEVER seen this kind of wind before in my life. 45km/hr !

Waiting for Bus No. 6 to attend Zandankai. The bus was delayed for 20mins. This means standing in a semi cover bus shelter for 20mins. And the story about a YWD in Hokkaiddo that i read in NHR came into my mind. I can now understand her circumstances.

While waiting for my bus.

And now back in my confortable room. The snowstorm rages on. Hope Christoph is alright. Its already 1206am and he is not back yet.

CNY EVE - Morning

Went to the Konsthall (Arts Hall) on the morning of CNY eve.
And i met this lady who kept staring me from all angles.

Kua si mi! Never see Yan Dao before ah!

There's isnt much things to see. So went to the mårtenstorget (main square) to do some open air shopping.

Mårtenstorget

And i saw some familiar sights....

银柳

竹子

And i saw this - Cactus i supposed. And upon my recommendation, my friend bought this to send it to his gf. Hehe...done a good deed.

And this (photo) is for all the girls.Happy (belated)Valentine Day!

Next, the venus fly trap. i never expect to find it here in sweden. And so this (photo) is for stephy. Now you know where can you find flytrap.

Culture Shock X 2

Culture Shock 1

Spot the difference

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Ok, there are lots of differences between the 2 plates of chicken rice, but i would like to bring your attention to the circled spots

The pic on the left is taken from an asian website, while the pic on the right was taken from an european website. They are just for illustration.

I went to the Halland Nation for lunch yesterday and they were serving Chicken Rice with Cream mushroom soup! Sorry, i didnt have my camera with me, so no picture.

All the angmohs were using their fork to scoop the rice. I was comtemplating should i use the soup spoon or follow the angmohs in using the fork. I was rushing for time cos i need to rush back to the lab. So you should have guess it, i used the spoon for eating. I guess i looked stupid. I think i am the only one doing so. However, i just could not figure out why the angmohs prefer fork to spoon, even when eating rice. You can only get a small portion of rice with fork. Anyway, since I AM IN SWEDEN, i think i will try to learn the European culture the next time i visit the nation, provided i havetthe time to eat slowly.

Culture Shock 2

I was seating together with a swedish lady at lunch today, in the pantry located in the Biology building. I was eating my own-made sandwich. And guess what is the first thing she said to me:

" CAN YOU PLEASE CLOSE YOUR MOUTH WHILE YOU ARE CHEWING"

!!?@?#?#?@?!

I felt so embarassed, and i could only say sorry to her. And for the rest of the meals, i was trying so hard to chew my food without moving my mouth too much or chewing too vigorously. I dont know if i have open my mouth too much that all my bread and ham were sticking out of my mouth. But i thought i was chewing quite normally. And perhaps i have already frighten the other swedishs before, just that they are too shy to tell me to close my mouth. So, point taken. I will chew with my mouth CLOSE the next time.

Swimming

Its 2C now.And it snowed slightly (just bits flying around) in the morning.This is our 3rd snow of the winter. Sounds pathetic. BUT anyway, this is not what i am going to blog about.

I went swimming today!

Firstly, the entrance was freaking expensive!! S$11. Ok..i taking back my words, sweden is EXPENSIVE.

Secondly, i thought the pool should be heated. Yes, it was heated to about 20-25C i think. But still it was freaking cold. I started swimming the moment i jumped in. No time to just relax in water. Its too COLD.

Thirdly, here,you have a lane for swimming 'to' and another lane for swimming 'fro', just like a road. I didnt know initially. So i was just swimming back and fro in the same lane until i realise why i was i always going to bang onto someone head-on.

Fouth, i heard an alarm while i was swimming. Thought its a warning that the pool was closing, cos i went an hr before the closing time. No!! The pool suddenly turned into a wave pool. And its not fun when the wave goes up to a metre high and this a 'swimming pool', not those kind in CCK pool where u have fun in it. You just got to carry on swimming! swiM aND SWIM.

ok.. there are more things. Like having bikini blonde babes and hunks sitting beside me in a jacuzzi pool blah blah blah....

But anyway, its now 1C. It was a great night!

Sweden, the misundunderstood country

"I am going Sweden, not Switzerland."

I have forgotten how much times i have repeated this sentence. People always confuse Sweden with Switzerland. Therefore, i thought it might be good to introduce you to some swedish brands/inventions.

1) Ikea

Probably the most famous swedish brands for singaporean. This is IKEA in malmo.

2) Sony Ericsson

3) Absolute Vodka


4) Electrolux

5) Tetra Pak - Almost all your milk packing are tatra pak product.

6) Skype

7) Volvo

8) Karyotyping

This is a pic from BS309. Haha..

9) Anders Celsius - developed the Celsius system we used today for temperature.

10) Carl Linnaeus - Taxonomy

Arent you surprise that swedish brands/inventions are just around us, and yet we know so little about sweden. I think this has to do with the swedish culture. The swedes are reserved and modest people. They dont boast around like some others does. And the number of inventions for a country of just 10 millions people is just overwhelming.

So people, dont ever tell me to buy chocolates back, cos I AM IN SWEDEN.

Life as an exchange student Part 2

Once again, it's the application period for INSTEP, GIP and GSS. I thought it might be good to promote this for the IRO (Haha...cos they are kind enough to select me for sweden, and i should repay my gratitudes). Here are the top 5 reasons of why you should go for an exchange, particularly Sweden, particularly Lund.

1) 读万卷书，不如行万理路!

Although i have only been here for 3 weeks, i think i have learnt much more about the History, Geography, politics and Culture of Europe than i did before. It is always interesting to talk to people from all over the world. I realised that Singaporeans (or maybe its just me) are just like frogs in the well. For example, the govt keeps saying that we are so effectively bilingual and we are ready to face the world since we mastered our English and Chinese. However, most Europeans are effictively bilingual or even tri or quad-lingual. They are good in both their Mother tongues and English. So, what that big deal if we know just two langauges. And anyway, we cant speak both langauges well.

And some interesting facts i have gathered:

Sex change is very common in France.

Do not use the word 'Caucasians'. Use the word 'Europeans'.

Europeans dont drink luke warm water.

Germany is actually part of Austrian in the past.

'Lund' means 'dick' in Hindi.

My flatmates.

2) Be a proud ambassador of Singapore

You find yourself telling people about your country like you never did before. And many Europeans dont exactly know where singapore is. One gal thought Singapore is a city in China. Another thought Singapore is near Mynammar. So here comes the friendly ambassador from S'pore.

3) An English-friendly country

Most swedes speaks very good English. No worries about asking for direction or talking to the locals. They are also very willing to help. I can gurantee. I am never given a 'smelly face' or being ignored when i asked for directions. Also, some English and Swedish words are similar, so you can guess what a swedish signboard or food label is trying to say.

And anyway, it get quite intersting to learn a new langauge. 'six' in swedish is 'sex'. and 'good' is 'bra'. 'Hej' in swedish means 'Hi' and 'Hej Hej' means 'bye' . !!?!
Well, these are just some werid examples.

My Swedish langauge classmates

3) Clean, Green, Safe and Organised.

Sounds like Singapore, isnt it. And you will appreciate it. And since Lund is at the southern end of sweden, winter is actually not as horrible. You certainly do not wish to see snow everyday once you re here. Cos its horribly cold once its snowed.

4) An University Town.

Even wondered how it feels to live in an university town? Forget about Cambridge or Harvard. Lund University is founded in 1666. (341 years old!). Being a Uni Town means that is always something for every student in the town itself, and they are quite reasonably priced as well.

The shopping district is just round the corner. No need to take the slow and always fully-packed 179 to JP. There are many Nations (aka student clubs) that offers parties, cheap alcohol and sports.And it is a great place for sport freaks esp if you like floorball. They also got an indoor swim pool and indoor tennis courts. And the town gym is so cheap! s$100 membership and you get to attend lessons like Yoga, Boxing, Aerobic. Even guys do aerobic here. There are many dance classes too. I attended a Salsa class just now, S$25 per semester. Singapore where got so cheap! And there are more guys than gals! Commodities in Lund are not so expensive as compared the rest of sweden. Price of clothings are actually comparable to Singapore. Cafe food are ususally 2-3x more expensive. Stuffs in the supermart are quite reasonablely priced. And I managed to find s$0.20 instant noodles.

Winter in Lund

5) Alcohol, parties and blonde hunks and babes

What else you want!

I hope after reading the above entry, some of you guys might be inspired to go for an exchange, and hopefully, Lund will be your first choice.

Valkommer till Lund!

(welcome to Lund!)

Life as an exchange student Part1

Something happened today which inspired me to start this topic.....

Living aboard in a foreign country means that you got to be independent and be willing to try out new things. Take for example, cooking.

Cooking is a love-hate affair. I have never cooked on my life, so this few week has been the experimentation period. I would said i have more or less perfected my rice (ps:i am not using a rice cooker). And i tried cooking fried noodles even though my mom have not taught me before. Curry pork was my boldest experiment. Although i bought the ready made powder from ICA (supermart), i tried to vary the taste by coming out with a sweet and also a sour verison. Well, perhaps the curry pork didnt turn out to suit everyone's taste, but i thought the sour version was nice. It resembles Malay Asam. Anyway, while i am writing this entry, i am actually boiling porridge for supper. Hopefully it turns out well. Its my first time.

And i shall tell you why i am inspired to write this entry...

Washing cloth was not new to me, since i stayed in the hall for 3 years. And this machine in my apartment has a program for wool clothings. Although i knew wool cloth should be dry cleaned, i decided to trust the machine. So i happily threw in my S$56 100% wool sweater into the washing machine on sunday.

I was feeling cold just now and i decided to pile emyself up. And to my horror, my S size sweater has shrinked to XXS.

What a costly experiement! And goodbye to my sweater. I dun wan to be seen with my belly button.

And now off to see my porridge.....

københavn on 27 jan 07

My first out-of-sweden trip to Copenhagen,Denmark.

Denmark is connected to sweden via the Øresund bridge and it takes just an hr train ride from Lund. we didnt even need a passport to enter copenhagen.

Radhus(Copenhagen City hall )

Change of Guard Parade @ Amalienborg slotsplads (Palace)

We went next to the National Musume. Nothing intersting at all. I thought it will be a good musume since copenhagen is suppose to be the most famous scandinavian capital. Our trip ended with a dinner at the Hard Rock cafe.

I didnt really enjoy my trip. Blame it on the cold weather. The temperature was hovering around sub zero. My not-so-waterproof nike shoes made my legs cold and freezing. On top of that, melting snowing in cities is really disgusting. Look at the constast below. The snow that was steped by people or cars was dark and dirty. Luckily Lund was a smaller town and melting snow doesnt get that disgusting. I guess i will return back to copenhagen again in spring.

However, i got a nice travel mate, Thomas from Germany. Before coming sweden, i really had a bad impression of the Germans. Blame it one Klaus and Peter Dorge.

I pity Thomas cos he has to travel with someone who speaks bad english. For example, i was trying to tell him that i was very "cold" and he could not understand me pronounce it as "col" without the "d". Sometime, i wanted to say some cold jokes, but it turns out really bad cos i didnt know how to convert my chinese cold jokes into english ones, and he just gave me a lost look. I shall work harder to improve my english. I seriously have some difficulty talking to the ang-mohs. Sometimes, i find myself stumbing over my own words and have to repeat myself again and again. While having group conversation, they speaks so fast that i can catch only 60% of their conversation. I shall try to improve my powder-ful English.

And thats Thomas from germany

More photos can be found

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AYs2TZy4ctGLoo

Its snowing

Finally, it snowed.

It starting snowing in the morning of 22 jan.

I could not get out of bed cos it was really cold. When i finally gotten out, i saw snow. And the first thing i grab was my camera. However, snow is not always good. It got wet and slippery and i nearly fell a few time. More pic on

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AYs2TZy4ctGLmQ

Party week

The ang-mohs really love beers and parties. I had been drinking almost every night! And i guess its common for them to get a cup or two after lessons, cos i went drinking with them in an English pub on thurs after our swedish lang lesson, even before we had our dinner.























Thomas (german), me, Andrew(Irish), Eva(Austrian)



Before the 19th century, the swedes actually thought that drinking water is bad for their health, hence the drink beer instead, 6-7 liters a day. They used poatatos for alcohol fermentation, and in one of the year, they have used up so many pototoes, that it actually caused a famine in the following year. On the other hand, germans have a strong drinking culture cos after WWII, water condition was so bad that they have to drink beer. So i shall not sterotype the Europeans (they dun call them caucasians) as beer hungry people anymore, cos its pretty much a culture.

Corridor(aka hall or block in singapore context) Party is also something they liked. Its a time for them to get to know one another, and always with a can or two in their hands. They didnt have orientation camps like what we have. I wasnt quite used to this sort of party on the first few days, but i getting hooked onto it now. It is a good way to meet many people at one go.