Cling

Summer Travels 2

2005-07-30T12:23:00.000+08:00

12/06 Ulvik

woke up late for breakfast... but then again.. we were damn early for the bus for ulvik..
so spent quite some time having breakfast at the dining hall..
wished i could spend more time there though.. they got free flow milk!!! ermm..

walked to the bus station.. almost took the wrong bus...

the ride to Ulvik took almost 2 hours..ard there. cant really remember now..
passed through the mountains.. and the view is spectacular.. there was this great waterfall along the way and the bus driver even stopped for a while for the tourists to take some pictures...
nice fella i must say.. normal drivers will just zoom past the whole thing...

passed by different fjords.. lakes.. and mountains.. and more waterfalls of course...
these things may sound the same to you pple out there.. but trust me.. I still havent got sick of the environment yet.. i dont think i ever will...

anyway.. we reached ulvik and past the campsite we were supposed to stay in...
and mr nice bus driver offered to drive us back after the dropped the rest of the tourists!!
hes the best driver on earth...

the cabins we stayed in was quite new.. the keys were left on the doors...
whoever wanna stay will just go into the cabins and the owner will do rounds in the evening and collect the rent....
we went to walk around the Ulvik sentrum... its not a big place..
can walk from 1 end to the other in like 15 minutss? hahaahah
but its a nice little town... hardly any vehicles... nice view of the Ulvik fjord... and some plantations around the town...

we went to some hiking trail... and almost lost our way there...took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the middle of nowhere...
went back for a late lunch and slacked in the cabin again...
dinner..
chit chat...
then planned for the next day..

damn.. i am becoming a tour guide....
planning all these with the rest giving me responses like "anything lor" pisses me off.
had to control myself before i erupt...
hmmm

Summer Travels 1

2005-07-30T11:59:00.000+08:00

ok.. here goes.. 1 month after i uploaded the photos.. haah

10/06
Leaving Trondheim... I was a bit too tired from the previous night's dinner to feel anything..
well.. almost missed riccardo at the train station.. we were like waiting at the opposite platform for one another..
got to talk a bit to him cos the train was delayed due to cleaning and stuff like that...

the train ride to oslo was so much better than the bus ride.. it was comfortable... clean... and the view was awesome...it was still snowing at some parts of norway! in the middle of SUMMER..
not very heavy though.. but still... snow in june??????

reached Oslo in the evening... met Jiayi and her mum over there.. (J & M)
sure felt weird to be speaking mandarin after 6 months...
real awkward.. not that my standard of spoken chinese is very high in the first place...

we hopped on to the train headed for bergen.. but the plan was to stop at Voss and meet the rest of the guys there...
we had no idea where and when to stop... so... its gonna be a fun night..
slept a bit but woke up at 3am... of course its bright outside already.
no regrets waking up so early in the morning.. the view was fascinating...
frozen lakes...snow capped mountains... cabins in the middle of nowhere...
i was just sitting in the cafe and drinking tea all the time...
then this norwegian guy came along and we started to talk a bit...
passed by a place called Geilo... i got the impression that its a winter palace or something.. its just wonderful...

sitting in the cafe... looking at the snow... half frozen lakes... it suddenly struck me... j&m dont really have any winter clothing... they gonna suffer man.. hahaah

11/06 Voss

finally reached voss.. at 5+am.. everything is closed there... but the walk to the hostel was nice... fresh air.. no traffic to worry about..
the hostel was beside a lake... we had breakfast outside the hostel's dining hall.. the water was so still it formed a almost perfect reflection of the mountains...
spent the rest of the morning basking in the sun... waiting for the reception and the staff to start cleaning the rooms for us....

the staff was kind enough to store our lugguage for us and we took the chance to walk around Voss...
saw some rowers.. or whatever you call those pple rowing boats ( there was a competition that day)
we went up to this stupid museum.. which was open only from 1100-1400 everyday except monday... slackers...

went to get some food for lunch...and waited in the lobby area for those 2 to come...
only weekiat and derek will be joining us and they are coming from bergen.. cos elgin had some problems with his passport and couldnt make it out of spain..
was so afraid that they will be late or miss the train to Voss...
we went for a walk in the afternoon again...
as the 3 of us were walking up the slopes... i saw 2 chinese guys walking towards the hostel.. and i knew it was the 2 of them coming.. how many chinese do you see ard norway? haha

after they checked in.. we went to the town again... and bought some groceries... portable bbq pit.. hotdogs.. bread.. beer.. pasta and stuff...
plan was to head back towards the hostel for a bbq.. but as we were heading back.. we saw this open field just beside the lake and decided to have our bbq there..
the experience is just awesome...the sun.. lake... snow beyond the lakes...light breeze..
there were quite a few paragliders in the area...
Voss is actually a place for those outdoor sports pple as well.. can consider coming back next time to try these stuff..

spent the evening resting in the hostel... watching soccer... handball and the 6th sense on tv.. haha

Photos are Uploaded

2005-06-29T17:13:00.000+08:00

took me 1 whole afternoon to load whatever pictures i have..
links are on the right hand side

there are some photos added into the previous folders as well... london.. oslo... cabins.. etc..

will have more to come.. as soon as i gain access to my frens' ftp sites...

Last 5 hours

2005-06-10T16:49:00.000+08:00

Yeap.. I am sitting in the sch library.. with 5 more hours before I leave the beautiful city of Trondheim...

Finished my exams yesterday.. and as the paper was quite what I expected....
haha
hope to get at least a B... an A will be a bonus.. though all i need is a pass.. hahah

so we decided to go town after the exams for lunch and for us to close our bank accounts... and do some souvenier shopping..
the 4 of us... clemence.. riccardo.. ry and me were walking out of the Spectrum..
we were walking to town and told riccardo to meet along the river.. cos he need to go off to get his bike..

the 3 of us took a turn and went another way instead of following the river...and forgot abt the italian altogether.. hahaah
he ended up cycling up and down the river and waiting for us on the bridge.. opps
sorry cropo.. haha

anyway.. nothing spectacular about lunch.. only ry and i were eating.
just a Big Bite sub... and i bought quite a few stuff to bring home...
went past the Kristiansten Festning (the fortress) on the way home..
went to Rema1000 to buy 5 blocks of brown cheese each!!!
ahahah
the cashier must be thinking these 2 asian guys are crazy

went back.. packed my bags... and we went over to Steinan for a French dinner..
hmm.. someone else got french dog.. but i got french dinner.. hmmmmmmmm

it was sort of a after exams and good bye party/gathering... quite a few people were there..
some italians.. norwegians... germans -- actually only 1..franziska..
and basically the 4 AFL renewal team..
hahaha

clemence prepared some great stuff.. foie gaz (sorry .. someone correct my spelling here)
and some other french dinner stuff.. cheese.. banana cake..
and they were fabulous dishes..
with some french wine too!

there were actually quite a number of bottles of wine... ry and i bought a bottle there too..
so we stayed on.. talked... some of them started dancing...
nice party...very nice...
maybe can bring this culture back to sg huh.. haha
well.. maybe not with my class though..freq a bit off... hmm.. opps..
hah.. we'll see..

and so.. we left at 3.30 am.. and the sky looks like 6.30 am in sg... and thats basically the whole evening..

came to sch ard 9 this morn... took pictures... nice pictures... and started to update this blog here.. hah
wanted to get some NTNU souveniers.. but they didnt look so nice.. and they are surely overpriced..

its now 11am... and i will be leaving with the 4pm train...
so.. dont expect so many updates from now.. hahah
unless there is free internet all over in Bergen and Poland...

yeap.. thats all for now... i shall go back and enjoy this wonderful place before i leave...

Ha Det Bra!!

Pirbadet

2005-06-10T16:24:00.000+08:00

8th June.. 1 day before my last exam...
went to Valgrinda in the morning as usual... but its like more of a routine than real studying there..
i am becoming more of a full time tourist and a part time student.. at least since the last exams..

going everywhere with a camera in hand... snapping pictures..
basically.. doing everything except studying...

how about last paper?
hmm.. its more of a project work.. and my group have scored very well for our term project..
therefore... i was quite confident of doing the final exam.. haha
and i only need 7% to pass the exam... translated into scores? need like 14 marks out of 100 for the final paper to pass....

heh..
ok..
so after going to valgrinda at 10 am
slack around...
read a little more of the notes..
go through the past year paper (mentally)
had a 40 min lunch at 12pm..
and by 3pm..
we were waiting to play ping pong....hahaha

then at 330pm.. we left.. what a studious day..
ruiyuan went home.. as he didnt feel like going to pirbadet..
so riccardo and i walked all the way to the pier...

Pirbadet is the indoor swimming pool in Trondheim.
its just beside the piers and a lane away from the fjord..
so imagine yourself swimming in a heated pool just beside the fjord...
looking out at the calm waters... staring at the hills opp...
shiok!
haha

i went to the gym for the threadmill...
this time i was more prepared..hahaha
covered 5km in 25min....(ok.. a bit slow.. but i havent been running much for the past 5 mths la...)
yeap.. so i was like facing the fjord... and running towards paradise... its quite a view...
with a cruise just outside the glass windows.. and the Monk Island a bit further.. and the water was wonderful

yeap.. after the run.. went for a swim... didnt really count the laps.. but after the swim.. my limbs were turning into jelly...
and the best part comes next.. the warm pool...

there are many pools in Pirbadet.. the normal swimming pool with the lane markers and stuff..
a diving pool..
a "jacuzzi" like pool
a baby pool
a wave pool and some slides...
hmm.. a lot huh...
other facilities are like the gym.. solarium (artificial sun tan)... suana..

all for 100kr entrance fee.. thats ard S$25... haha

well.. i went into the "jacuzzi" thingy.. warm water... and the water gushing out from below...
having a massaging effect.. and its just beside the glass walls.. so you can sit there.. enjoy the water.. and gaze out into the fjords...

yeap.. and ric and i went to try out the wave pool after that...
we saw the wave pool in action when we entered the place.. and thought that it will be nice to try it once..
the waves came at regular intervals.. meaning.. the operators/lifeguards will turn the thing on every now and then..
so we were waiting there.. hoping the operator will try do something..haah

the other pple in the pool were like 3 pri sch kids... and 2 of us.. a bit off...
we were looking like grown ups who couldnt swim and thus waddling in the pool with the other kids.. hahaah
then came the announcement... "hello hello... blah blah blah blah norsk"
and more pple started to jump into the pool...
shucks... they will make announcements to tell pple abt the waves and the 2 of us were waiting with the kids for so long... hmmmm

anyway.. the waves were great.. amazing even.. i have no idea how they did it..
the pool was slightly more than 1 m deep..
and theres some mechanism which generates waves almost 0.5 to 1 m high?
wow.. and everyone was bobbing up and down in the water.. laughing... and for me.. drinking some water..

then i realised.. the pool is actually constructed to simulate a beach.. 1 end of the pool is deeper and the other end is sloping up gently.. not in a linear way... but a curve thingy.. so its supposed to be the beach there..
cool..

we stayed in Pirbadet for like 3.5 hours? till 8pm when the pool close.. and by the time we changed and got out.. it was around 830pm..
haha
100 kr.. and i think its worth it..
its like once in a lifetime thingy after all.. and the place is real nice.. hahaha

oh.. did i mention that i had an exam the next morning at 9?
SEP rocks man...

Work Out Day..

2005-06-06T23:08:00.000+08:00

5th June.. sunday...

Vidar -- my norwegian buddy.. suggested to go rock climbing instead of canoeing..
hmm..
though i would have preferred to canoe more than climb... i agreed... better than nothing to do..
so.. supposed to meet him at 11 am at the Dragvoll sports center..

i arrived at Dragvoll at 1045... walked ard the campus .. searching for the sports center..
2 rounds the campus later.. i still have no #¤&¤%&!¤# idea where the place is.. wanted to give up..
the building wasnt even on the map...

luckily i saw some signboard further out of the place... Dragvoll Indrettsenter..
hiding behind some bushes... sucks..

well.. paid 70 kr for a day pass... damn ex huh...
almost 20 sg to climb and stuff...
and i havent even touched this kinda stuff for like 4.. or 5 years?

tried the easiest wall of course.. went up and down up and down..
for like 4-5 times..
then my arms became like jelly oredi..
Vidar was still going strong though... think it is too easy for him or something...
and he wasnt feeling too well also..
sian... time to shape up myself.. hahaha

left the wall ard 2.5 hrs later... but instead of leaving with him.. i went to the gym instead...
must make use of the full day pass.. haha
and time to do some running also.. even if its on a threadmill...

i hate threadmills... running on them is like a hamster running on the wheel thingy...
but... i got not much choice.. the temperature refuses to go above 15 outside....

anyway.. i started jogging on this machine.. and planned to go non stop for 15min... and see how far i can go... then judged how much dist i can cover.. hoping its more than 3...hmm

but... another ger stepped onto the machine next to mine after a while.....
and when the 15 min reached.. i thought to myself..
siao.. cant stop running before she stops ...
so i kept going.. and going... for almost half an hour...
luckily she stopped... heh...

phew.. really time to get into shape.....

Fjords

2005-06-03T19:35:00.000+08:00

I have been in Norway for about 5 months now...
and i have been talking a lot about how beautiful the fjords are and the landscape.. the clear waters... flowers.. and stuff

and more than 50% of the people will be like
"huh? what are fjords?"

hmm... everyone prefers history and literature to geongraphy in sec sch huh..
so...
i found something on the internet... those interested parties please feel free to follow this link and read something about it...
i think this article is a very good summary on what is a fjord...
but i think i have better pictures.. hahaah

http://www.ilstu.edu/~rjheitn/geo%20201/physical%20geography.htm

The Norwegian Fjords are long, deep, narrow, bending inlets which drain into the North and Baltic Seas in Northwest Europe. Many people think of the fjords as sea flooded valleys. Fjords are formed when glaciers melt in valleys and the resulting runoff meets the approximate sea or ocean. The longest fjord, Songe fjord, is about 200 km long and 110m deep. Formerly used for battle ground and Viking sailing expeditions, the fjords are now mainly an aesthetic and economic pleasure, as people from around the world come daily to see their remarkable beauty.

Norway is not the only place on earth that has fjords. Other well known fjord areas include Chile, Nova Scotia, Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington state. Many of these fjords came into existence in the same way, but it is believed to be that Norway's fjords might have been the first on earth to rise out of the Tertiary period and form on what is now the European continental plate. Unlike the Alps, and many other of Europe's great mountain ranges, some scientists believe that the formation of the fjords can date back to before the ice age (Mosby 410). Many global geologists consider Norway's fjords to be the oldest and newest parts of Europe. Newest, because it was the last part of Europe to be relived of its snow mantle, and oldest, because it has signs of the earth's original crust which has been amazingly kept similar to its initial shape and texture (412).

The climate within which the Norwegian fjords lie in is one of the most peculiar on earth. Despite having a third of its region lie in the Arctic circle, the diurnal temperature is relatively mild. Within 50 miles of the fjords during winter months, the temperature can usually be somewhere between 20 and even 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer months can see peaking temperatures in the 70's, but usually stay around 50 and 60 degrees. Like most other fjord regions, the Norwegian fjords experience a great deal of precipitation throughout the year experiencing an average of 6200mm per year (Mosby 473).

Here are some other helpful websites containing more information on Norway's Fjords:
These websites contain more in depth facts and statistics about the fjords from around the world.
encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Norway/Geography
www.gesource.ac.uk/worldguide/html/982map.html
www.geometry.net/detail/basic-n/norway-geography.html

June...

2005-06-03T18:57:00.000+08:00

Yeap.. JUNE..
time really flies...

had an exam on 1st June... the environmental module..hahaah
was trying to cram all the stuff into my head the past few days..but just couldnt concentrate...
well.. not that i was nervous.. the pressure just isnt there... not like NUS.. haha
but i think its cos we have so much time to prepare here.. 1 week for 1 exam!!
another thing is there isnt much peer pressure here...
no one really studies to 2am.. overnite and stuff like this..
its study in the day... dinner parties and relax at night...
how cool is that?
haha

was watching stupid channels on tv the night before exams... animal planet.. earth visions. some stupid game shows.... hahaah

anyway.. the exam was held at the Trondheim Spectrum... a gym beside town...something like NUS using the Suntec halls for exams last time
but the spectrum is something like sports halls and stuff..
my paper was in the indoor handball courts...yeah....
had some nice paintings and the old jerseys displays ard the hall...

it was a 4 hour paper.. 9am to 1pm...
for 3 essay questions...
nice huh...
had a lot of time to do drafts.... drink coffee.. go unlimited toilet breaks... look ard at other pple...
chew a lot of gum...
with all this extra activities.. i finished 10 pages of crap in 3.5 hrs...
no bad huh...

mr Hallstein came 20 min late for the paper and left 1 hr later...really wondered what he wrote in his paper...

anyway... i left the hall after seeing the rest of the pple starting to leave...

the main group of us... ruiyuan.. riccardo... clemence... and I of course decided to go over to the tyholt tower for lunch...pizza buffet.. hahaha
(you guys shld check out the photos)
Alice.. another norwegian classmate joined us for lunch too..

the restaurant up on the tower... Egon Restaurant.. www.egon.no for those interested....
99kr for pizza buffet.. not that the variety was good la..
there was only like 3-4 types of pizza... with salad...the pizza wasnt fantastic also..
the main highlight was we are up up up above the whole of trondheim and the view was fantastic..
and the best part was.. the restaurant was rotating.. meaning the floor is rotatin inside the tower.. so as we are eating.. we can look out and see the whole trondheim....
the restaurant revolves at 1 round per hour..
we stayed for more than 2 rounds i think... taking a lot of photos...
eating... haah
nice...

after that.. we just went back and slacked all the way... plan is to slack for a few days before starting to prepare for the last paper...
if not will sure kena burn out...

thats how i ended up watching more tv in the past 3 days than the rest of my 5 months here...
haahah
going to watch a few movies also..

anyway.. i moved into my friend's place.. to save on rent.. haah
ry flatmate.. Eivind left for home and let us stay in his room... nice huh...
he left all his expensive stuff here as well. like his phillips dvd player and sony flatscreen tv...
and better still Denon players and countless speakers with subwoofers...
worth at least 16000 kr when he bought it..
and he trust us with it...
thanx eivind...

and the bonus.. he got thousands of cds here.. movies.. songs... all the stuff that can keep you entertained for at least 1 month...

playing The Beatles for the past 2 days oredi
All you need is Love!! All you need is Love Love... Love is all you need...
yeah....

will try to update soon.. and new photos are up too.. in the Trondheim folder..

28th May..

2005-05-29T05:38:00.000+08:00

ok.. today is the officially my birthday... yeah!!
haah

didnt really do much for the whole day...
woke up... had brunch...
packed my stuff and got ready to move...
downloaded more episodes of Despo Housewives... hmm
yeap.. did everything but study for wed exams....

there are some sad moments too..
went over to ry place at 330 to send eivind off...
he finished exams yesterday and is leaving for home today...
it was a bit awkward... i dont really know how to explain it too...
it seems as if we are going to lose such a good friend...

eivind had brought us out.. helped us out on a number of occasions...
taught us skiing... though he not quite an expert himself.. haha
let us watch champions league on his tv even though he got stuff to do and dont really watch soccer...
went to parties... bbq... talked.. laughed...
and he even agreed to let us stay in his room so we can save on rental for the last 2 weeks here!!

i thought i had been through all these before... like seniors graduating and leaving hall...
but this is totally different..
at least i do meet up with those hall seniors sometimes now and then..
this time round.. i dont really know if i will ever see eivind again...
miss him oredi? hmm .. yeah.. i guess..
its like losing a great friend... even though i knew him for only 5 months?
wish him all the best... really hope to be able to meet him again...

well.. at least dinner was good..
i bought a packet of schnitzels... 4 pieces in a pack...
wanted to give myself a mini treat.. haha...
and to use up the pepper sauce too...

was preparing dinner when my flatmate eivind came back..
though we had been living in the same place for the last 5 months.. we havent talked much till the last few weeks... hmmm
but late is better than nothing huh..
well.. he claims to have screwed up his paper today... but then again..
my impression of him is that he dont need grades to get a job and survive... his passion for programming and computer stuff is oozing out from everywhere.. think he will make it someday..

anyway.. i asked him to join in for dinner..
so i prepared all 4 slices of the schnitzel... with boiled cabbage.. fries.. and spaghetti to go along...
cool huh.. haha
and the rosepepper sauce as well..
dinner was good... Sharam joined in.. though he is a muslim.. hahahahaha
best...
stayed and talked for quite a while... had some tea and a very interesting discussion...
"where did we come from?" "
"how did everything start?
nice huh... i must admit i have never and never will have thought of such questions... until i met them of course...
i cant imagine who would ask themselves these questions..haha
but yeap.. it was a nice discussion.. before we spent the whole evening shifting to the new flat.. and clearing out the old one..

we are 80% done now.. shifted almost everything.. still need to do some clearing up...
and come to think of it..
i will miss them as well...
Dennis.. Shahram... Eivind... though we were not really a party and "happening" gang...
i had some nice times with them... dinner.. chatting sessions... blackout sessions...
cleaning up sessions...
they were the ones who helped me to settle down in Norway... nice pple they are...

Dennis will be leaving for London tmr... to take a short break from his thesis...
Shahram will be staying at the new flat...
eivind will be shifting to somewhere nearer town..
and me?
i will be staying at the new place for like 2 days and then shift out to share room with ry...
all of us will be going in different directions...
another parting moment....
how can my birthday be happy in this sense?

i seriously dunno whether to laugh at myself for being such and idiot or cry...
not really cry la.. sob? hmm
watever..
i will really miss having them around me...
i cant imagine leaving trondheim.. which is only in 2 weeks!!!!!!!
damn..

leaving lars and gang.. riccardo.. clemence.. mikal...
friends are leaving 1 by 1..... eric is going off on mon also..
though we cant find time for some good bye dinner and stuff.. at least i know i can get to see him back home in nus...

well... all good things have to come to an end isnt it?
i do hope to meet these nice people i have met here...
i really do...

Celebration time!

2005-05-28T07:51:00.000+08:00

hmm
1st Birthday spent overseas...

well.. i expected it to be some quiet thingy as well..
my mum called me at 9am.. waking me up... yeah..
was quite a torture.. but of course its always nice to hear my parents voice....

so after spending the day in Valgrinda.. thought i will give myself a little treat...
yeah...
bought myself 1 tub of mango sorbet.. and a can of kilkennys....
not bad huh...what a healthy lifestyle...haha
and dinner was some pasta with shrimps... mushroom and stuff... all the good stuff thrown into the pot...
and ym called to make it wonderful.. awww...

theres this party over at Moholt Alle 24... 3rd floor.. so i knew it was gonna be a noisy night... didnt feel like joining the party though.. haha a bit lazy and tired... and was catching up on Desperate Housewives.. and enjoying my mango sorbet with it... haahah
after that.. i was surfing the net.. chatting on msn... then i heard the door buzzer...
shit.. i thought.. drunkards from next blk coming over to use toilet...
closed the door and hope nothing happen...

next thing i know..
BANG BANG BANG BANG...
a monster was pounding on my door.. shit... drunkards trying to get the whole world to the party....
opened the door.. and there was a whole gang of pple out there...
happie birthday to uuuuu... and u guys shld know the song...
haha
its riccardo and ry and gang.. some of the other foreign students... some i met only a few times.. some never.. haha
there was a cake too!! some apple thingy they baked
nice stuff!

i must say.. if this happened in hall.. it would be common.. but i have never never never expected it to come from this bunch of guys.. haha
and i am really touched...
awwww... cling getting sentimental here...awww
and although i am not tearing... i still appreciated their thoughts and efforts..
really really really happy..

went over to the party for an hour or so... think half of moholt was there or something..
damn crowded..
left early though...a bit tired.. and need to pack some more stuff...

and thanx to Clemence as well... she gave me some postcards she got from lofoten and stockholm...
and thanx to janet for the e-card as well.... nice.. though dunno what that fella singing abt...
and to all my friends out there who messaged me and called and all the nice gestures...
really appreciate it peeps...
thanx..

Hello from fellow singaporean in norway.. .

2005-05-27T00:56:00.000+08:00

Got this email today.. haah

Hi there,
i really dont know how i managed to stubble into your blog page!! i didnt know that NUS has exchange programs with Norway.. at least not during my time.

I am 30 years old, married to a Norwegian. i have been living in Norway for about 2 years now, i actually live in north norway, in the Lofoten islands, home of the cod fish, and midnight sun, and very beautiful scenery..
anyway it seems that you are having a good time,
well just thought i would give a fellow singaporean a shout!
Happy birthday in advance, and all the best for the rest of your exam!!!!

Best regards,
Clare

quite cool huh.. can actually get to bump into other singaporeans here..
heh..
nice to get the shout from the fellow singaporean haha.. thanx to Clare..
of course its better if i can get some roti prata or nasi lemak here...
hmmm...

lofoten is a wonderful place.. at least from the photos i have seen so far...
imagine getting the midnight sun in summer and total darkness in winter..
wow..
would be nice to go up all the way.. haha.. but need quite a bit of planning...

1 more month.. and i will be back in the sunny island of singapore...
and hot too... i can imagine myself sweating like a pig after touching down at changi airport...
sianz..

anyway to all those from SH...
u pple remember Deepal Singh?? hes coming over to NTNU next semester.. what a coincidence
fated sia.. maybe will leave the rice cooker and stuff back here for him...
sure useful stuff...

come to think of it... i am in an awkward position now...
part of me wanna go back sg... another part of me wanna stay here forever..
its good food + family and friends vs nice scenery + fresh air + tolerable stress level...
hmm...

maybe i should invest in a cabin here or something.. then can come here for "sit around and do nothing but stare into the fire" sessions...
that would be perfect...

Mixed Emotions

2005-05-25T19:52:00.000+08:00

Got the mail...
appeal is successful... so shld be able to get a room back in Blk A next sem...

But... ym didnt manage to get a room...
hmmm

so... not sure if i still wanna stay there...

Gossips??

2005-05-24T17:29:00.000+08:00

heh.. havent been in touch with the singaporean world for quite some time...
got some very new updates!!
haha

ermm
but i shld act blur la..
wait till those involved pple come and confirm with me...

either tt... someone can comment along this tag and post new stuff... hahaah

Screwed Big Time!!

2005-05-24T17:25:00.000+08:00

Lousy paper.. no not even paper...
Oral exam.. sucks.. sucks.. sucks....

Sitting in front of 2 prof...
dont understand wat they want...
dont understand what they asking..
dont know the answer..

and the worst thing is...
they dont understand what i am saying...

i am so screwed...
i shld be able to pass... but with a D?? or C at most...
i am also expecting pple to post or msg me tt its juz a pass/fail thing...
but.... its still a sucky feeling... (and please dont post anything like this.. makes me feel worse)

well.. on the positive note... the hardest exam is over...
now can try to read up on some other crap courses...
hmmm

Sucks..

2005-05-22T06:16:00.000+08:00

Argh!!
Hate mugging for exams...
esp when u are alone.... in some foreign land... with hell lots of other bugs bugging u...
and facing the prospect of shifting house on ur bdae...
eee....

Oral?

2005-05-18T20:04:00.000+08:00

yeah... potentially another oral exam coming up..

as quoted from the tutor email..

Hello!

Would the two of you prefer to take an oral exam instead of a written one? We will be flexible regarding the date (between the 24.5. and 26.5). It would make our lives a bit easier, as we do not have to make an English version of the exam.Think about it, but please reply as soon as possible. If you have any questions regarding the exam (how, what, etc.), feel free to ask.

cheers,peter

not bad huh... they still setting the paper i think.. hahaha when exam is next week...

but this one a bit more challenging...
Production and Network Economics...
a lot of formulas and calculations...
dont even know how they going to have it tested orally...
sian...
memorise the formulas? no le... its supposed to be an open book exam...
hmmm

see how at tmr meeting...

17th May

2005-05-18T05:00:00.000+08:00

Happy 100th Anniversary Norway!

17th May is a very special day for the norwegians...
and this year.. they are 100 years free from the Swedish..
i hope i got this right.. haha

the celebrations are nationwide... from oslo to stavanger to bergen to trondheim to tromso..
EVERYWHERE..

i woke up at 9.... and rushed to prepare myself... there are parades in town for almost the whole day and i wanna be part of the action...
hahah

Shahram's tv was on.. so i was watching the celebrations in other cities... oslo.. bergen and stuff...
BIG EVENTS..
i wonder how many Singaporeans actually feel for the national day...
except those who go to the national stadium.. maybe most of us just treat it as a normal holiday...just another break from the boring and stressful life...
for the Norwegians.. wow.. i wont be surprised if they tell me 80% of the norwegians are out celebrating...

went over to Ry place... cos cant call through...
stayed there for a while cos they planned to go for the 2pm parade instead... and they tried to settle a bit of the troubles of the prvious night..

finally got going ard 1pm... nice.. Eivind was dressed up in a suit... tie.. suspenders... vest. everything
the norwegians dress up in the BEST just for this day..
quite a lot of the norwegians actually dress up in their traditional costumes to go around town..
its really a fascinating sight!!
(check out the photos)

went for the parade.. its totally not like Chingay-- which is so touristy... and no one actually identifies themselves with
the parade is comprised of different associations and groups of people...
the TKD federation... Veterans club... Musical Bands... Schs... Sport clubs...
nice.. and ESN as well (the international student grp).. heh.. i was a bit lazy to be part of them also.. hahaah

the parade feels so homely.. even though i am here for like only 5 mths?
i can actually feel the joyous mood.. the celebration mood.. the festive mood.. or whatever you call it..
its great.. just great..

i missed the kiddy parade in the morning though.. they started at 10am..
those 10 +- 2 year olds have to take part in this parade with their schools...
well.. maybe some are quite unwilling.. but there are still a lot of these kids around for the later parades.. and i can see that they really enjoy the parades too
heh... compared with my sec sch days.... the whole sch tries to pontang such events as much as possible..
dont ask me why i am comparing so much with singapore.. i dont really know as well..

we went ard town after the parades.. saw the WW2 veterans showing off their medals.. and stuff.. speeches...
its sort of a habit to have ice cream and hotdogs after the parades.. haah but it was too cold for ice cream..
so we just wandered around...and walked back..
not before catching the high school students' parade..
these are a bunch of special students.. haah

the high sch grads are like crazy.. the walk ard with a coat and some pants/hats of a certain colour representing their courses.. there is red/green/blue..
they have sort of 20 days of "freedom" to do whatever they want...
and they really go crazy... drinking.. smoke.. i heard even sleeping around...and stuff like tt...well u get the idea...
saw some of those pple i went to the 1st cabin trip with... and they sure looked tipsy...
1.5L of beer in 10 min... power huh..

they have some sort of name cards as well... with their names and picture printed on them.. and the little kids love to go ard and ask them for the cards.. like some collection or stuff..
i wanted to get some as well.. but not very nice la.. like a small kid oso.. haha

well.. i did get an ice cream cone on the way back...
had a great national day...
haaha
lets hope this years parade in singapore will be nice as well!!

Party Time!!

2005-05-18T04:42:00.000+08:00

yeah... exam period. and i am having the holiday of my life...
went for the cabin trip first.... then come back and watched the Rosenborg match..
a bit heartbroken cos they lost...
but.. hmm
nvm..

still on the 16th may... came back from the match... ate dinner... and prepared myself for the party...
its a tradition or habit or whatever you call it that there is a major party at moholt on 16th may
the eve of the national day...
the weather was not ideal... hmm.. a bit cold and stuff... but i thought i will go take a look and see how things go..

there wasnt as much people as i expected... and its mainly international students..
(reason later on)

some of them set up the "traditional" bon fire near the bbq pits...
and the Securitas people were already standing by with their fire extinguishers... ready for any trouble...
and there were people all round... drinking... making hell lots of noise...
yakking... shouting... cheering... singing....
playing drums....
esp the spanish and italians... haha they are the party animals...

it was a great start.. the fire warming up everyone.. haha
well.. the fire is one of the main reasons which the locals are being "chased" out of the parties..
according to Eivind... a few year back.. the whole place was packed...
Norwegians outnumbering even the international students.. after all.. they are also party animals...
the fire was the standard... and they burnt everything...
when the pple get drunk.. they started to burn not only the firewood..
but also pianos.. chairs... tables.. and whatever they can find in neighbouring unlocked flats...
power huh... hahaah
another reason is this is still the exam period after all... and after some complaints... Sit Bolig had to do something..
so they closed the basements (indoor party places) which were normally used for the parties on 16th may... and over the recent years.. the weather hasnt really been that good.. so the locals normally go somewhere else like town or friends' houses for the parties...

hmm
well... the evening ended with quite a number of incidents...
basically... miscommunication... getting too drunk and outbursts... showing of anger and frustration...
note here: I wasnt involved in anything..
and because i am not involved directly... and i have yet to obtain all details regarding those 3 incidents... i shall not elaborate here...

saw Riccardo piggybacking Laura back to Steinan when i was walking home... haha
and they invited me over for pasta...
at 330 am....
i thought they were too drunk to say anything sensible ... and cos of those unhappy incidents i turned them down
(though they really cooked pasta at 4 am in the morn.. crazy pple)

well.. i wanted to make sure i can wake up in time for the parades on national day anyway..
yeap..

and i was so tired after i got home... i just changed (in record time) and went to sleep... heh...

Soccer Match..

2005-05-18T04:31:00.000+08:00

16th May
went to watch a soccer match...
Rosenborg vs Viking (pronounced as Vee-king)

Rosenborg is quite famous soccer team... was in champions league this yr as well.. though they didnt go far...
hmm and they are sort of underperforming for this season as well..

but then again.. they are the home team of trondheim..

its supposed to be quite a special match...
cos its the eve of the National Day for Norway...
so the stadium is packed with high school graduates and the atmosphere is supposed to be special cos of the national day... hmm

went with Franziska.. Clemence and Ruiyuan..
got the cheapest tickets we could find some weeks back... (75 kr incl tax)
haahah
so we were like sitting at the corner of the stadium... abv the corner flag..
but the view was good...
and the stadium is nice..
though the weather was a bit off... cold.. windy... rain...

the crowd wasnt as noisy as i expected... well... at least its not like the English crowd u see on tv..
and one of the 1st thing Franziska noticed was.. "they dont sell beer here!?!!?"
heh.. germans...

i did buy some souvenier from the club store... a mini RBK flag..
the jersey was too exp at almost 600 kr..
i dont really like scarves... the soccer ball looks tempting at 100 kr...
the addidas cap look good at 99kr..
but i settled for the flag... cheapest thing at 50 kr... can use it for room deco next time as well..
yeap..

Viking is from Stavanger... and the stadium isnt really divided for home and away fans...
so we ended up sitting beside 1 whole group of Viking fans (think they bought a whole lot of seats together)
shit...
and to make things worse..... Rosenborg lost 0-2
urgh... those idiots cant control the ball sia...

but still it was fun... esp the taunting between the Viking fans and the high sch grads...
haha

IGLBU

2005-05-16T21:07:00.000+08:00

Went for another cabin trip over the weekend..
a totally different experience...

and yes.. I am still going ard during my exam period... hahaha

Igblu is the name of this cabin... organised by Riccardo... for his birthday...
18 of us went to this cabin which was meant for 8 pple only.. cool huh..hahaha

left on sat (14/5) from steinan.... reached some farm 1.5 hr drive away...
forgot the name of the town though...
well.. the cabin is up in the mountains... so we had to park at the farm and walk ard 5km up the mountains??
normally.. that wont be much of a problem.. but there is still like a lot of snow ard.. and i was wearing a pair of Asics...
power..

so basically... my jeans got a bit wet (and i forgot to pack my spare pair of jeans even though i left it on my chair)... my feet were soaked... and freezing... heh
doesnt help that we had to cross a river to get to the cabin..

river crossing was fun... had to take off my shoes and socks.. and waddle through the river...
it wasnt very wide...but imagine stepping on snow before going into the freezing water... carrying a bag full of ur stuff and food... then stepping out of the water into snow again...
and to top it up... your jeans get soaked up to slightly abv knee level..
sure was fun... hahahaha

there was a lot of discussion on where the cabin is... all we had was a map and 2 compasses...
i left all the discussion to them.. cant be bothered to topo my way...
at least we got to the cabin like 3-4 hrs later... and after crossing another smaller river...

Iglbu is just a small dot in between 2 peaks... no running water.. no electricity...
the real outdoors!!!
the germans brought 2 tents along and pitched it beside the cabin.. they got some nice camping equipment though.. impressive..
and the 2 singaporeans are totally not prepared... no sleeping bags wearing sneakers instead of boots...and so on..
well... i thought of bringing mine along.. but then again... mine is so thin it wont make a difference anyway.. so.. hahaah

spend the whole time indoors... wanted to climb the mountains.. but the weather conditions werent really ideal...
yeap and being the introvert me.. i kept to myself most of the time... esp on the first day...
heh... had a good time though..
sitting beside the stove.. keeping myself warm.. looking at the burning wood..
it may sound like a waste of time.. but i feel that it was a real break from looking at notes and the computer screen.. yeap.. it was a reaaalll gooodd break..

talked a bit here and there... ate non stop..
drank watever water i could find... haha

then came the chance for me to talk... heh
an italian girl.. was trying to whisper to another guy she didnt even noe where singapore was...
caught by me.. hahaa
well tried miserably to describe where it was located...

(digress a bit here)
and dont be surprised.. hell lots of pple dunno where the #$!%!# is singapore..
riccardo admitted he knew nuts abt where in sg.. and thought it was the capital of m'sia when we first met... though he acted as if he been there for 10 years..
and those foreigners we meet here.. only 5-10% know where is it..
of those who heard abt it.. they know it as the no chewing gum place...
or some funny thing..
yeap... chewing gum... singaporeans dont feel it anymore.. but it seems like a joke to foreigners..
and 100% of them are shocked that we went through 2.5 years of national service..(wow!! what a waste of time!!)
heh..

ok back to topic..Iglbu..
spent the nite singing... erm.. they were singing.. i was more of listening...
nice though.. they were playing the guitar and it was good..
went to sleep on the beds...with a big blanket which was found in a corner of the cabin...
(one of the advantages of not bringing a sleeping bag -- getting to sleep on the bed instead of the floor)

2nd day..
woke up at ard 930... feeding time.. and slacking time... as usual...
ry and i tried to write something in the guestbook from the cabin..
and drew a horrible map of SEA... the map i drew was horribly out of shape...
damn embarrassing come to think of it...
lucky the national flag still looks alright..
left the cabin after lots of procrastination... and clearing up...
the journey back was easier... cos we tried to go further downstream... and yeap.. lucky us.. we found a narrower gap and need not step into the river again..

drove back to moholt... had a great dinner.. and slept..
cool stuff.. what a way to relax while having exams... hahaah

thanks to riccardo and gang... had a great time... though i not really into talking and communicating.. haah

Updates

2005-05-13T22:57:00.000+08:00

scored an A for HRM.. after crapping for 20 min..
abv expectation? maybe... but i tink the lecturer is very lenient... hahah
retirement mood mah...
anyway.. the lowest was a B i tink... so....
but i wont complain abt an A though...

env proj still lost somewhere in the lost world...
have totally no idea if it is compiled... not to say submitted....
i sick of tinking of it.... and i dont even feel like emailing those pple anymore...

norway is a beautiful country full of idiots... lazy idiots... like the hallstein fella.. the alumni office idiots...

the Japanese emperor is in trondheim for these 2 days on a state visit... tink he went to oslo before coming over or something
he was in school today...haha.. for some meeting or opening or something la...
saw the whole entourage.. came all the way today hoping to catch a glimpse of him and his wife...
but too bad.. can only see nice cars and hell lots of police ard...

went for dinner last nite at riccardo's place though... in steinan.. got lost on my way there again...
i hate steinan... 100% record of getting lost whenever i going there on foot..
had some spanish omelette.. and some shrimp pasta...
by our spanish classmates and ric
i got some prawn crackers and tangyuan over.. hahaha
easy to prepare stuff.. tink i too slack after the exam...well it was nice..
and ric norwegian flatmates joined in too.. had a nice time... relac 1 corner and drinking wine...
his jap flatmate went for some other dinner party though.. but not before letting us try some of his sushi.. shiok..

hmm...still deciding whether to go for the USP summer program... its in july.. 1 week after i go back to sg...
then can get to travel the region and meet some big shots there...
but still... 500 bucks... and wont be home for another 3 weeks... dunno how oso...

going to another cabin trip tmr.. this time with ard 20 other intl students.. a bit sian to tink of it...
go there.. they clique together.. drink... make a fool out of themselves...
not my type of weekend i suppose... but wat to do...

still trying to settle lots of stuff though... cos all those norwegians check their emails like once a month??
less this weekend since its the national holidays...
sianz... dunno when can settle everything also...

and i think theres something wrong with my room phone...i can call internal calls and it works perfectly fine..but... there are these mysterious phone calls.. when i pick them up.. i cant hear anything except my own echo..sian...dunno if its my phone.. the phone service.. or some prank..sucks..nvm la.. see how it goes...

weather isnt helping a lot..
theres a lot of rain now.. and the temp is still hovering ard 5 degrees?
sure sucks when there is no sun and its cold and wet all ard...

the only positive thing i can think of is the flowers are blooming!!
ahaha
makes a great sight..
some yellow flowers... with the red houses as backgrounds... nice contrast...
and lots of tulips as well..
purple.. red... yellow...
cool stuff...

1st Exam

2005-05-12T16:46:00.000+08:00

heh.. juz finished my first paper...
cool

Human Resource Management...
read so much.. then go there talk for 20 min...
shldnt have worked too hard for it.. hahahahahaah
though come to think of it.. my answer for the 1st question could be better.. but heck it.. its over..

its a totally different experience for me to have an exam in oral form ---- meaning go there and talk... not do something else...
1 thing is.. if you dont know what to talk abt.. you will suffer.. haha
the examiner can see it easily...

i guess i did well enough to pass... but maybe a c or a b at the max... heck la...
will know in another 2 hrs...

Bug Bug Bug

2005-05-11T04:06:00.000+08:00

just listing down on whats bugging me right now...

1) Stupid NTNU Alumni... they just cant be bothered in answering my emails...
fine if they dont wanna answer my questions... but at least have the courtesy of replying my email la!!! maybe they dont understand my english email... heh...

2) Bergen itenary... another case of norwegians not understanding english emails?
damn... those cabin pple simply refuse to reply to my bookings and stuff... how to plan ahead like that?? then i dunno where to go oredi.... cos all so messy right now.. then everyone is having exams... so cant plan anything at all....

3) poland... same case... nothing is finalised... waiting for sook may to confirm if she going or she going to somewhere else first... hmm... but this one shld be more or less safe... hopefully can get it sorted out by the weekend..

4) ENV PROJECT... more than 36 hrs after the deadline... and still nothing COMPILED.. not to say submitted.... 3 of the exchange pple got an exam in 2 days time and we refuse to be taken for a ride.... ry emailed hallstein a few hrs back... telling him off... luckily riccardo and i were there.... stopped him from sending a super hostile email...

5) Exams... no mood for exams at all..
HRM oral exam in 2 days time... i cant concentrate on my notes.. and the txtbk is better than any bed time story.... sure put u to sleep in 15 min...
same case for the other courses.... no motivation... no sense of urgency... no nothing..

6) packing my room... gonna shift in 3 weeks time... but room is not ready for any shift at all..
but guess that can wait till 25th may.. after the network econs paper..

7) short trip to geiranger fjord... tinking of visiting this famous fjord.. but not sure if got the time and pple to go with... difficult to say...

8) going to leave trondheim in exactly 1 mth time... sad... time sure pass by quickly...
and i gotta leave just as i am settling down here...

9) hall... dont tink i will get any place in hall...
osa screwed up... again... maybe its not called screwed up anymore.. its normal for them.. if they get something right at all then is called an exception.. well.. they sent some of those pple who got more than enuff pts to other places in the world except sh...so these pple are now put on appeal list ...
well.. i tink they would deserve to get back hall more than me too..
so... gotta wait and see...

10) next year projects... SDP and FYP... scary combination... when do i get to choose these projects? or even preview them??

11) even more scary question...
what have i learnt from norway? what have i gained? how am i going to distinguish myself from the rest of my class?
my result sucks... and other pple are getting a lot of experience and education for their internships.... come to think of it... the ttsh internship is a bloody big joke...
learnt nothing at all... supervisors dunno what to do.. no time to supervise us....
sucks...

12) july.. what am i going to do when i go home? slack all the way? hmm
dont feel like slacking though.. anyone out there with job vacancies for me?
i dont mind working during term time as well...

BEST!!!

2005-05-09T05:49:00.000+08:00

environmental project is due tmr... or today... abt 12 hours later?

and the whole project grp have not met together a single time...
final project 24%...

wonderful isnt it??
and all the individual parts are still not up yet.. except mine and riccardo's part...
and everything is not edited... its all drafts...

dunno wat ry is doing with his part now..
and hallstein even better.... in fact hes the best!!!
hes supposed to edit part 1 and 2 of the initial projects.. and compile the whole thing...
and he didnt realise deadline is TODAY!!

i love this project grp...
its exactly the same pple.. swap hallstein for clemence and its the quality assignment grp which is doing very well...
wat a difference 1 person makes...

Norwegians

2005-05-08T18:11:00.000+08:00

Dont feel like studying.. though the first exam is like 4 days away.. and i barely started on that.

and i was having this conversation with Riccardo and Eivind a few days back.... abt the culture of these norwegians..

1) drinking culture.. the alcohol in town is too expensive.. so they normally have this before party drinking--the vorspiel....
to get high before going to town and party and get drunk...
after which.. they go back and have a nach party.. to destroy their liver... think i mentioned something like this in one of my first few posts... haahah the norwegian parties...

2) so this led me to think.. where the heck these pple get so much money from???
well... the norwegians have this welfare system in their country.. for uni students like eivind...
they are getting like 6000 kr a month from the state...
6000kr!!!!!! tts almost S$1100+++
after excluding rent... still got a lot left la.... abt 3000-4000 left for food and living expenses...
and the best part is every start of the sch year... they get 10000kr... supposedly for their books and stuff...
no wonder things here are so @%$^%$ expensive!!!
everytime i go to the supermkt and get groceries.. i am indirectly supporting them!!!
wtf....

3) one of the big big big differences between us and norwegian kids is this.. they are very independent...
not in the sense that they are strong and can live on their own and we cant..
but after a certain age... they dont really live and depend on their parents anymore...
like for these varsity kids.. they shift out... rent their own apartment... get money from the state and some do part time (their part time jobs get paid damn high as well... can be like 2000-3000 for a weekend worth of work in convenience stores)
their parents dont seem to mind a lot too...

like ric was telling me abt his fren from last sem...
after she moved out from her parents place... they transformed her room into a gym.. moving all her stuff into the basement... and when she goes back for visits or need to stay overs.. she feels more like a guest than family..

for eivind.. he goes back only in summer... stay over cos his parents place is near his summer work place... and he too prefers to stay alone outside...
well.. he can bring more gers back too... hmm... thats what he said la...

i guess there are pros and cons to this type of lifestyle huh...
i cant even imagine this... going back to visit ur parents and you feel like a guest instead?
hmmm

Dinner

2005-05-08T17:57:00.000+08:00

Went for a dinner party last night..
wasnt really a big party though... haha

it was at lille's place...
lille == mikal's sister
mikal == lars's fren/classmate
lars == ry flatmate..

cool huh...
anyway... they asked to try some of asian style food....
ry got some asam paste and chilli prawn paste -- the maggi type...
and i offered to do wanton...

heh.. went to some supermkt and got all the stuff and then went to lille's place..
quite a nice house... big... the toilet is the best...
almost 2-3 times of the room in SH...
and they got this grey cat at home... good life cat..
always a supply of fish.. cat food and milk ...
even i dont get to eat fish everyday la!!!!

i was struggling with the wanton... cos the skin they got was the popiah skin.. and i needed to refresh my memory of how to wrap the thingy...
and the meat itself is not pork.. some mixture of different meats and stuff like tt...
haahah
so the taste wasnt what i wanted.. though i tink its quite ok la..
the prawns and the asam was good...
but the best is still the chicken la.. the one which lille did.... supposed to be green curry chicken.
turned out to be some borwn paste.. but still nice..

watched a dvd after that... Smala Sussie.. a swedish film with english subtitles..
Very Nice film.. now i thinking if i wanna buy the dvd and bring home...

after that was normal procedure for them... drink drink drink...
lucky i brought only 2 small bottles of beer.. if not i sure concuss drinking with them wan..
roy did offer me a cup of moonshine though..
i drank like 1/2 of it? or was it 2/3 of it?
hmm.. not sure.. cos mikal took some also..
dont care la.. not as if its some nice taste of wat...

we came back ard 1.... they dropped us off near school... before heading off to town for more drinks...
fast marched back in the cold... and that was abt it..

hmm.. but its a long time since i put in so much effort into cooking... hahaha
yeah....

CONFIRM

2005-05-05T05:06:00.000+08:00

ok..
summer plans settled liaoz...
everything is booked except for accomodation...

and my calendar is going to be filled up quite soon...

something like this..

May

9th -- Env Proj Submission
12th -- HRM exam
16th -- Watching soccer at Lerkendal
17th -- Constitution Day (National Day of Norway)
25th -- Network exam
27th -- Start to shift out of room
28th -- CLING BIRTHDAY..
29th -- Must finish shifting out of room
31st -- Check out of room

June

1st -- Env exam
9th -- Last exam
10th -- Leave Trondheim... hope i wont cry here..
11th -- Reach Bergen/Voss or wherever the final plan is..
15th -- Leave Bergen
16th -- Reach Oslo and Fly off to Krakow in evening
19th/20th -- Taking train to Warsaw
23rd -- Leave for London
25th -- Fly home to Singapore
26th -- Touch down in Changi Airport

time sure flies...
dont help that its gonna fly faster during exam period...
got the feeling that i gonna miss Trondheim already... hai.. but cant really do anything about it...

i should be starting to mug now.. next week is the 1st exam..
but there seems to be no sense of urgency to open the books...
siao liao...

MAY!!

2005-05-02T06:25:00.000+08:00

May is a very important month...
cos yours truly here is gonna turn 24 on 28th may.... yeap... keep that in mind...

well... had an interesting start to May....
went to a mini party on saturday... 30th apr... Labour Day eve... hahah
they claimed to be an occasion to have a drink on this day...

anyway met some new people there.. Tom and Roy... thats not their real name anyway... its just a name that resembles their norwegian names....
heard of Roy before though.... Ry and Mikal have mentioned him before..
and he sure is a funny guy.. a bit weird though.. or should i say crazy?
hmm nvm la... abt the same..

Tom is also another interesting fella... one hell of an adventurer...
he was in Tibet.. went to Papua New Guinea...Thailand (some remote part of it) and Laos as well..
he reminds me of those adventurers and those national geographic journalists... going to all these exotic places and look at the "dirty" side of these places... like how tibet is developing and what are the problems and main concerns of the tibetans.... hes the kinda go and chiong type.. no previous plans.. just go where the wind blows...
cool...

and come to think of it...
it would be Perfect if I can travel like this.. go to these unknown places... learn abt their culture.. problems... and way of life.. then get paid to write for national geographic or something..
but tt is near impossible huh... no one would employ me to write nonsense...

anyway.. isnt it amazing how a norwegian has travelled more of SEA than me?
and this Tom guy is a real ambitious guy... tinks of big plans.. like how he is going to spend 1 year on a yacht... sail down to Africa from Norway.. wait for good weather... and sail across the Atlantic to spend half a year in he Carribean...then return to norway via the american coast...
and he seems to be serious abt this.. hes even been reading on the currents and weather and stuff...
talk abt dreaming BIG!!! and i am so fascinated just by going to a non english speaking country like Poland...

I kinda admire this guy.. how he can live without a care for anything else.. just leave home for months... travel and experience the world... how i wish i could do that..
leave everything behind and go out into the world and look for the real me...
test my limits and push all the way...

sounds incredible huh... as i am typing this.. i am thinking how can i possibly leave everything behind... family.. friends... and comfort of civilization.. but that is just being a standard singaporean isnt it?

lets try to dream big... i would love to come over scandinavia again within 5 years and travel the whole region... not as ambitious as sail boats of course... maybe cycle?
start from oslo.. to stavanger.. bergen.. trondheim.. bodo.. tromso... go over to finland... kiruna.. stockholm... maybe end off in denmark...
it will be nice... take a 1 year trip... and absord scandinavia...

anyway... i got to try some moonshine as well... roy brought some of this stuff over..
moonshine is some form of stong alcohol... damn strong..
95%...
haha
drank it with tea... powerful stuff...
not the best alcohol i tasted.. but its a new experience...

yeap.. welcome to May everyone.. and dont forget my bdae...
though i will be busy with shifting from my room and exam prep...
1st time in my life sia!!! studying for exams during my bdae period...

Lets count...

2005-04-29T22:14:00.000+08:00

yeap...
how many places have i been so far??

1.London
2.Trondheim
3.Roros
4.Roan
5.Berlin
6Copenhagen
7.Prague
8.Oslo

hmm did i miss out anywhere??

and for summer...
Bergen
Krakow
maybe Warsaw... and back to London...

hmm... its not a lot of places huh...
where the hell have i been all these while?? tink mostly stuck in trd.. with nowhere to go..
siao.. i have no life sia...
dont help tat its damn difficult to go somewhere else from trd...

tink jiayi going to travel more cities in her 1 mth here than where i have been to in 6 mths...
hahahaha
and miss lee sook may is complaining she havent been to a lot of places...
duh...

4 mths..

2005-04-29T21:59:00.000+08:00

yeah... thats how long i have been in europe.

its now end of april... and i got another 2 mth before going back to sunny singapore...

gotta start getting busy.... exams... summer plans.... and packing...

dont even know which to start first..

exams in 2 weeks...
HRM -- 12th may
Production and Network Economics -- 25th may
Environment -- 1st june
Quality -- 9th june

and need to settle the summer travel plans fast... if not its gonna be more ex... and worse.. no place to sleep at nite...

basically.. i am going to Bergen on 10th june at 1600 hrs...
reaching there on 11th jun at 0700hrs...
what i going to do there remains a mystery...
i have no idea how to plan for 6 pple who are leaving on different dates and times...
sian ah....

watever... i will leave bergen on 15th nite... and travel to krakow via oslo...
will reach krakow on 16th june evening..
what i will do there is also another mystery..
and where i going after krakow is again... mysterious...

playing the waiting game... wait for the others to decide wat to do in Bergen
wait for advice from eric polish flatmate on wat to do and where to go in poland...
wonder how long more must i wait...
dont help that i am quite an impatient person... hmmm

errr... heck with it la...
those interested in coming along the trips juz drop me a mail...
yeap..

and anyone out there interested in 3-star canoeing in july??
or is there any expeditions/trips in july???

Stress ah....

2005-04-29T03:11:00.000+08:00

Wah...
exams in 1 mth time...
12th May... till 9th June.. for 4 papers... not bad huh...

anyway.. was planning where to stay and what to do in Bergen with the rest...
big headache sia.... dunno where to go....
dunno what to do...
need some help here sia...

i will be checking out from my room on the 31st may... which is the last date i supposed to shift out anyway..
thought that i can save on the rent and go over to stockholm for a few days in june... but the train tic turned out to be quite exp..
so i guess i will have to stay in Ry living room for 10 days...

now... time to start revision.....

Roan Fishing Trip

2005-04-26T16:43:00.000+08:00

hehe...
went on a fishing trip over the weekend...
Ry's flatmates fren-- > Mikal brought us over to his grandparents place for fishing...

Its a town called Roan... its in the fjords... dun really know how to spell the name of the fjords there....
well..
its a very nice place.... large area with nice mountains... clear waters.... and only a few houses here and there...
and the weather was Perfect!!

there were 7 pple who went on the trip (just nice their car was a 7 seater)
me.. ry... mikal.. his sis and her bf... another couple. maria and marios (something like tt)

we left last friday...22nd april...
went to sch as usual in the morn.. and rushed back home as they were coming to pick us up at 4pm...
went on to the store and got more beer... (if u pple tink i drink a lot.. those pple are worse by 10000 times)
we then went to Flakk... a place where we have to take a ferry to cross the Trondheim fjord.. if not we have to drive round the whole fjord and that will take at least 2 hours... yes... the fjord is almost as big as singapore oredi... cool huh... hahhaahah

after that... we drove all the way up to Roan.. a 2.5 hr drive.. yes... longer than singapore again..
got to see a lot of beautiful sights along the way...
semi frozen lakes... cos its spring and the ice is melting...
mountains still full of snow!!
still lakes... with a perfect reflection of the mountains and trees...
lots of pine trees... snow... flowers... and even faces in the rocks!!
hahaah...after years of weathering... some of the mountains seems to have an indian face in the rocks..
and over hanging cliffs right above the car... best... if the cliff suddenly gave way... all of us will become roti prata...
the best part is ... we were driving along the coast all the while.. of 80% of the time... so we got to see all the fjords.. lakes... ships...whoooh... everything!!
Afjord... Brandsfyjord... shiok..

the 4 norwegians have family living in the Roan district... we first went to Maria's mum place...
a small cottage/cabin/house/watever..
a very cosy place.. all made up of logs.. tink it existed for like damn long oredi.. since their ancestors time or something like tt... imagine that the toilet is a shack outside..
got to eat some homebaked cookies... drank a bit of Power brandy.... saw a lot of very nice photos... hahaha
and got 1 shell as a souvenier... her mum is sure a funny fella...

spent like an hour there... then went on to Mikal's grandfather place...
another cosy cabin like house... or watever u call it.. i cant really be bothered with the definitions here... hahaha
the place is just beside the waters!!! shiok huh...
we left our stuff there.. and went to marios and maria's place... her father had built a home for them abv the garage opp his place...
confusing?? haha

their little apartment is still being touched up... got some renovation work to do here and there..
but their bedrooms and the living rooms are done up...
so we sat there.... drank... (i drank onli 2 small bottles and i lost count of how much alcohol was consumed) ... talked... went over to the father's place to use the toilet and bake some pizzas...
haha
by the time we were walking back... i was dead tired...
dont blame me la.. i woke up to attend the 8 am lecture tt day...

along the way.. we just sat by the road.. and if we kept quiet..
all we hear was the sound of waves from the Atlantic ocean...
nothing else... no insects.. no cars.. no ships...no wind... just the waves..
and it was quite dark as well...
hardly any lights...(not much houses around)
it was just peaceful...
slept like a pig after we finally got back to our rooms...

Day 2
went down for breakfast at around 11am.. haha
together with mikal.. his parents... and his grandpa..
well i not very close to mikal.. i hardly knew him... and i must say i a real shy guy.. haha
i didnt really dare to eat much...
though the food was quite power... fried hotdogs.. salami.. cheese.. jam.. diff types of bread..
but slowly got to open up and whack the food..

his parents then drove us to his grandma's place.... a 15 min drive away.. to the Skjørafjord..finally found the name.. haha
they got another house there...(or cottage or watever u call it again) and their own boatshed and little garage..
the place is just wonderful... almost 0 pollution... fresh air...mountains surrounding it... the water just in front of the house... the waters so clear you can see the small fishes and seaweed at the seadbed ..the seagulls... the soft grass...

its like paradise.. my words cant describe how magnificent the place is... its just awesome...

they provided ry and i with some overalls.. and fishing boots... and off we went...
5 pple in a small boat... off into the fjord to fish...
there was 1 rod --> mikal using his few thousand kr rod...
and the rest of us shared 3 fishing lines...
and guess wat..
I was the first to catch a fish!!!!!! YEAH..

a cod fish to be exact... maybe 1-2 kg or more... hmm..
quite a big wan... abt my shoulder width... hahaahah
you guys shld see the photos... damn cool...me in the red overalls and with my fishy fishy..
i got 2 of these fishes for the whole trip ... hahaah

the seagulls were settling around us.. hoping that we will give them some fish... haha
well we did... to see some earthvisions type of scene..
and when they cleared the guts of the fish... they threw it to the seagulls as well...
then we saw 2 eagles... soaring abv the sky...
mikal threw the smaller catches to attract the eagles down... so we can all see the eagles close up...
the seagulls didnt dare to take the fishes.. hahaah
all scared of the eagles...
but too bad.. the eagles didnt bother abt the fish we threw... maybe its too small for them.. hmm
not worth their effort to come down....

we got a bit cold in the end.. and the tide was receding... so we headed back to shore...
did i mentioned i caught 2 big cods?
oh... and ry got 1 only.. haahahahaahahah

we went back... to the grandma place and had a sumptuous norwegian lunch...
yeah...finally some traditinoal norwegian food.. warm food..
its some fishkake.. with potatpoes.. and some sauce. with bacon... and boiled carrots...
flushed down with 2 glasses of orange juice...
wat a way to end fishing
they also boiled some of the fish roe (from the cod) and we tried them as well..
quite nice.. though i would prefer the jap sushi type la.. hahaah
diff fishes i guess...
and mikal was saying the best fish roe/caviar is from russia...some special kinda fish..

we went back to our rooms... and got ready to take a walk... or more of a hike around the fjords.
we ended up climbing some rocky terrain... yeaaaahhhh
first it was towards some cave in the hills...
hop hop hop.. jump jump jump.. over rocks.. stones.. thorny bushes...
shiok sia!! like a childhood dream come true!!!
beautiful sights.. perfect weather... a fjord in front of you.. hopping around big weathered rocks...
risking breaking an arm and a leg... carrying a can of beer in 1 hand...
its really paradise...

climb climb climb... at 1 pt in time.. i was climbing up to another rock.. and when i reached there..i realised i was actually walking along the edge of a cliff... meaning.. if i stepped on a loose rock.. or missed a step..it would be an express way down... 20-30 m... onto the rocks below..
COOL!! hahaha
wat an experience!!!
too bad my family and ym not there... if not it will be absolutely Perfect!!

we climbed around.. ry was struggling... esp with a heavy back pack... haha
tt weakling... eh. ry.. if u reading this... yeah..
you Wussy!!! hahahaahahahaahahah

we climbed up to a flat peak... and rested there..
i pee-ed there facing the ocean...
how many chances do you get to pee with such a magnificent view??
hahahaah
we just sat there... and once again.. if we kept quiet.. all we could hear is the ocean...
and sometimes.. can even hear pple talking... from the nearest house below.. and tt is like a few hundred meters below...

we went for some bbq session after that.... and talked all the way till late at nite again..
and the walked back in the still of the nite...

Day 3
woke up ...and whooh..
we going fishing again!!!!
haahahah
did the same routine.. except that we have to pack breakfast this time...
cant afford to waste time as we had to get back to trondheim in the afternoon...

and this time round.. i caught another 2 fishes again!! yeah..
not cods.. some other fish i dun even know of... and slightly smaller than the cods i caught the previous day..
we went to the opp rocks and relaxed there.... took pictures... look at the waterfalls....
ate cheeseballs.. drank coke... hahah
the waters were amazingly clear... the seafulls extremely hungry... and me??
totally relaxed and enjoying myself...

we went back at around 1pm... had another norwegian lunch... with meatballs and potatoes this time..... the grandma sure knows how to cook sia..
makes me regret not treating my own grandma nicer when she was around...
now wan to repent oso no chance oredi...

the journey back to trondheim started from there...
we passed by some mountains and climbed a flight of stairs..
i dont even know the name.. haah
somewhere near the indian face in the rocks...

and that was more or less the whole trip to Roan.. to sum it up..
fantastic trip...
wonderful experience..
beautiful scenery..
peaceful surroundings...
awesome friends..

thanks guys..

Studenterhytta 2

2005-04-22T01:45:00.000+08:00

heh.... took a long time to post this up...
hahaah

went to the studenterhytta last wed...
Riccardo's friends came over to trondheim for a visit.. and he brought them up to take a look
and invited RY and I along too

so we went in the afternoon and mr Riccardo showed us ard..
this is a very different experience...
1.. cos we went in the afternoon instead of nite time.. so we saw more things than the previous time.
we went up by bus... and walked up the hills...
there was still a lot of snow up there... though its already in mid april and its spring time..
cool huh...

we went to a spot overlooking the fjords (well.. trondheim is at the end of a fjord)
so bascially.. it a fantastic view...
took many pictures... but those pics cant be compared to being there personally...
simply awesome...
we found s pile of rocks which sheltered us from the wind... and had lunch there..
some picnic style thingy... and it even snowed for 5 min... in the mid of april!!!!

well.. we went to the cabin after that... where they had hell lots of fun in the suana..
i wasnt really prepared for it... so i was stuck in there with jeans and my brown t shirt..
till i could feel a bit of sweat... then i got out and went upstairs to take a nap... hahah

turned out that we were one of the last to see the suana... it got burnt down the following saturday...
hahaah
how?? i not sure too.. but the suana is now closed...

went back to town on tram no 1... didnt noe trondheim had trams huh... hahaha
and then rushed back to watch the champions league match between juve and liverpool..

heh... not a bad way to spend a wednesday... haha

Closer...Closer... Closer...

2005-04-18T05:40:00.000+08:00

hmmm
wanted to go for some screening of a Jap film/anime...
walked all the way to the ISU basement with Eivind (my flatmate)... yes.. finally communicating more with him...
but the basement is full... damn...

cant even sit on the flr...
so we came back and decided to watch a movie in our kitchen instead...
and if u are smart enough... you would have guessed the movie we watched...
Closer.. haha
Natalie Portman... Julia Roberts.... Jude Law... and forgot the other guys name..

Well.. it wasnt a really story film.. err...
but the issues presented were very thought provoking..
talks abt deceit... fake images... deception... lies... lies... lies... and more lies....
heh.. basically its really 1 thing.... lying...
some other side issues... abt how pple flirt with others and stuff... but i find the deception part most interesting... of course Natalie Portman was happening la....but its a different story altogether...

The part i found interesting is how people seek for the truth everytime...
and the "truth" they seek is the words they WANT to hear...
it may or may not be the real situation...
hmm
am I making sense here??
ermm.. nvm... guess i cant really phrase my thought properly... shucks...

and the part where during the exhibition.... and how it can be a lie as well... a lie for the rich pple to believe that the world is a nice place and how the exhibition portrays the people...
heh...
shiok... tink i shld watch it 1 more time to comprehend the whole picture..

Updates..

2005-04-17T21:57:00.000+08:00

I am now slacking... big time.... and i am not very happy abt it...
abt time to start reading some notes and stuff...

went to get do some shopping yesterday though...
bought some stuff... which was worth my 1-2 weeks of my grocery..
dunno if it was worth it though.. but too bad.. buy oredi... hmmm

watching newcastle - man u match now... newcastle suck big time sia...
playing like losers from the start...
no wonder everyone talking abt a arsenal - man u final...
tink it would be more interesting as well...
hahaah

and thinking abt how to find pple to go on a short trip... maybe to some weekend kayaking trip or something..
but everyone i know here are only interested in drinking and partying..
no one seems to be interested in working out at all...
shit...
maybe i am mixing with the wrong crowd...
need to find some lobang to go outdoors more...
getting depressed stuck in my room...

arghhhhhhhh..............

Winter. Spring... SUMMER...

2005-04-16T03:24:00.000+08:00

yeah.. for those blk A personnel.. summer is a season.. not a person..

anyway...
my here goes my tentative summer plan..

9th jun: finish exams
10th jun: leave my hometown trondheim for bergen
11th jun: reach Bergen at 7am
15th jun: take the nite bus for oslo
16th jun: fly off to Krakow
16th jun: have a great adventure in Poland.. where the pple dun really speak eng..
try to find my way to Warsaw from there
23rd jun: fly back to London..
25th jun: fly back to Sg...

wow..
it sure is fast... it was just weeks ago when i was having a headache planning for Easter..
then having so much fun... laughter.. beer... over Easter...

then now.. i am planning for my summer trips.....
and the go back to my Potong Pasir.. where the sun shines 12 hrs... and the weather is hot..

for all those readers who are in singapore out there....
Get ready for all my crap!! I am going home!!!

I am a Resolver!!!

2005-04-15T03:13:00.000+08:00

This is from the website...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/index.shtml

u pple shld try it out... it is very true... at least for me...

The four aspects that make up this personality type are:
Spontaneous, Factsm Heads, Introvert

Summary of Resolvers
Good at getting to the heart of a problem and quickly finding a solution
Make rational decisions using the facts available
Think of themselves as understanding, stable and easy-going
May focus on short-term results and lose sight of the big picture

More about Resolvers
Resolvers are independent people who quietly learn how things work by analysing large amounts of information. Should a problem arise, they solve it with as little fuss as possible. Resolvers are only interested in abstract ideas, if they can be used to solve a problem quickly.
Resolvers like to take risks: Many of them seek jobs and pastimes that put them in harms way and guarantee an adrenaline rush.
Resolvers have changed jobs most frequently since leaving full-time education, according to a UK survey.
Resolvers are often tolerant of behaviour different to their own as long as their values aren't compromised. They sometimes give the impression that they agree with other peoples' viewpoints because they don't actively disagree.
In situations where they can't use their talents or are unappreciated, Resolvers may become cynical, negatively critical or put off decisions. Under extreme stress, Resolvers could be prone to inappropriate, tearful outbursts.
Resolvers are quiet and sometimes it is difficult to get to know them; however, they often talk freely about subjects they understand well.

Resolver Careers
Resolvers are often drawn to hands-on jobs that require an analytical mind and careful organisation of large amounts of data.

I must say they are all true.. impressive...
u guys agree with the abv???

Time sure know how to fly...

2005-04-13T01:34:00.000+08:00

just like the birds...
hmmm

been here for slightly more than 3 months now...though it feels more like 3 weeks....
and everything is so different...

no more snow.. no icy roads... no more slipping and falling...

no more darkness at 4pm.... in fact.. the 9pm here is like 5 pm back in sg...
cool huh..
a few more months and i may see the mid nite sun...

mixed feelings abt going back to sg as well... wanna go home and meet up with all my frens..
but the thought of going back to NUS sure sucks man...
sianz..

hmmm... gotta ting tian you ming for now...

Amazing..

2005-04-10T19:51:00.000+08:00

Dont bother asking me why the title is called amazing..
i dont really know why myself..

went to another party last nite...
to some norwegian guy's place.. and i dont even know his name... haha
supposed to be Lar's classmate...

as usual... lots of drinking...
and tts the main reason i went anyway...
after 1 whole week of shit.... time to let my hair down..
ermm.. just cut my hair la.. so dont really have much hair...err...
lameeee.... whatever....

anyway... drank quite an amt... dont rem when was the last time i drank so much..
i conciously brought 6 bottles of beer over.. cos i didnt wanna get too drunk..
heh.. the host brought out the vodka and stuff and tts it...
come on.. its free man.. hahahaahahahah

being a bit dizzy can set you thinking...
abt the problems you tried to avoid when you are sober..
of course on the condition on not getting too drunk la....
hmmm.. at least it works for me...

but please dont quote me on that and start drinking like theres no tmr...

last night wasnt a real happening party... but as mentioned.. i just wanted to drink... and drinking alone is not really fun..
i guess its a good way to end a lousy and busy week....

now its time to sober up and get ready for the new week!!!
lets start with going to watch soccer at Samfundet later...HAHAHAHHAHAHA

Praha

2005-04-10T00:47:00.000+08:00

Finally getting down to this...
Its exactly a week since I came back from my Easter break though it feels more like a month...

Anyway... for those who dont really know their geography..
Praha == Prague == capital of the Czech Republic... u noe??
where Petr Cech, Milan Baros.. Pavel Nedved come from???

Ok..
Prague was the next stop after Copenhagen...
Reached there on the 27th March at ard 1830 hrs...
Ry and I wandered ard the airport... trying to figure out how to get to the city center... and how much Czech kronors to draw...
I must say that the airport staff wasnt the most polite...
hmm

well.. we got onto the bus and headed for Dejvicka.. the train station..
from there.. we were supposed to take tram no 1 or 25 to the hostel... and then meet Elgin (another ISE classmate) there at 2215hrs before heading for dinner..

so we went to Dejvicka and took tram 25...
25 min later.. we got worried when we cant recognise the place.. so we asked some guy on the tram...
turned out that we were taking the wrong direction...
the guy wasnt really proficient in eng.. and kept pointing at another tram stop on the map..
we thought he meant take towards that direction.
so we got off.. and crossed the road to take the opp tram 25...

it came after 10 min.. and we boarded it after confirming with other people that this is the correct direction ....
we counted the stops on the tram schedule and after 18 stops... we alighted...
damn.. nowhere near our hostel..
and to make things worse... the tram stop didnt even have tram no 25!!!!
the tram can change direction without telling the passengers!!! or maybe they did la.. just that we didnt understand czech...
shit... we were stuck in the middle of nowhere and we didnt noe how to get back...
and worse.. we were starving in the cold...

so the decision was to find something to eat first and plan over dinner..
found a KFC nearby... yeah... hahah

after fooling ard.. asking pple and stuff... finally found our way to Sir Toby's Hostel..
reached at 2220 hrs... took almost 4 hrs to get there from the airport.. not bad huh...

elgin reached there even earlier... even though his train only reached at 9pm+++
duh..

anyway.. we were just damn glad to see him there... dunno y... maybe is cos finally get to see some familiar faces...ahahah
we went to have a drink in the basement pub... and drank some more...
Damn.. Beer is CHEAP!! even cheaper than coke sia..
abt S$2 only... for a pint!!!

drank and talked hell lots of bullshit... a lot of power phrases came were created...
like some Spectrum of Zero...
and some Aussie chinese --> 谢谢你妈妈给我们兔子。。。
laughed our heads off... that was damn senseless la

tt was more or less the first nite in Prague..

cked out of the hostel on the 2nd day... moved to another hostel on the outskirts... Boathouse..
walked ard town with our big bags before going to Boathouse...
had lunch at some pizzeria... nice...
for the same standards ...it was cheaper than sg... though the meal was not really the cheapest in Prague...
err. a bit confusing.. but.. nvm tt
walked ard to see if there are any musicals or concerts to watch... walked past the National Museum... but didnt find anything much...
we cked into Boathouse... then came out for dinner again...
saw the Municipal House... it was a very old tower... black... like it was burnt or destroyed by fire... but it was beside this new theater.... it was a big contrast!!!
after tt... walked into some supermkt.. Billa..
and bought a lot of snacks.. and Beer... hahah

They forced us to drink almost every meal la... it was just too cheap...
1 bottle like S$1 .. believe it...

went back to the hostel and drank there... and tt was more or less day 2...

went to look ard the western part of the river Vltava..
Metronome.. inside the park... and mr Ry was complaining the whole time...
just a few days before.. he was saying that he wanna train up his fitness and stuff.. .so that he can play soccer with some liverpool supporters back in sg..
but after walking ard for 10 min.. the complaints started...
imagine walking ard like this for the whole morn...

walked west towards the Prague Castle...very nice place..
its just different from the other old places i been to... maybe because they tried damn hard to preserve the place...
the castle is comprised of many different buildings... a damn big and nice cathedral... a lot of museums...
we saw a phamplet for some concert in the castle itself... thought it would be great if we could go for this... but the price is a damn turn off sia... abt 600Czk... siao...

didnt really go into the museums as well.. cos it will be quite an amt to see everything...

we walked down the Old Castle Stairs.. dunno why they called it old... it looked new... and there are hell lots of souvenier stalls along the stairs.....
i think tts where the term Tourist Trap came into use...
this term will be in use for the next few days.. hahaha

walked around to the Charles Bridge... had some hotdogs and Jaffa Cakes for lunch on the way...
Charles Bridge was also another form of tourist trap... haha
a lot of stalls on the bridge.. selling all the funny stuff.. a lot of buskers.. and hell lots of tourists...
makes quite a sight i would say...
the bridge has lots of sculptures along the sides... they were mostly dull in colour.. except some parts.. where they polished and it became some shiny gold colour.. brass maybe??
this is for almost everywhere in prague.. from the buildings... national theater.. the castle.. and the bridge of course...
dont really know the reason why they did this.. hmmm
any design/archi pple out there who can explain this???

anyway... went on to the St Nicks Church after that...
and went to climb some hill... admist lots of compliants....
if u ck out the pics.. its where the tower comes in...
its a very beautiful place... not a lot of pple... and the air is fresh.. too bad the day itself was misty..
so spoilt the view of the city.... we walked ard... saw some observatory... and went for dinner
dinner was at some restaurant called Pommniku... and tt is because we missed our stop to look for the 怪怪的 building.... The real name is the Fred and Ginger Dancing Building... u pple should check out the pictures..
anyway.. had a fantastic dinner... great service... delicious traditional Czech food... and of course... cheap beer... hahah
beer has become sort of a staple diet....

end of day..

We checked out of Boathouse the next day... shifted to another hostel in town.. Advantage Hostel... nice name huh.. walked ard the New town for a while... cos was waiting for the check in time....
Spent the rest of the day walking ard the Old Town...
The old town square... Tyn Church
St James church... Wencesclas Square...

the St James Church was particularly nice for me...
The interior was not like other churches I have been to.... it was dark... not because of lack of lighting.. cos it was covered by a lot of paintings.. and a lot of artifacts....
it was not as restored as the Tyn Church (the main church)..

well there was a performance at the St James church... and Elgin was going like
Concerts in churches are damn power.... cos he went to some in Vienna before that... and it was great.. he even claimed that the acoustics stuff can even make the choir sound good even if they are not singing properly...
heh.. maybe i can have my own personal concert in some chruch next time ah...
Chijmes or something like tt
well... we decided to try out this organ concert.. with a solo singer somemore...
and its cheap... 150 for students...
We fell into a tourist trap....
the concert sucked big time la.. the organ was amazingly horrible...
imagine going to some Yamaha music sch... and u listen to those kids banging the keyboards..
it sounded something like tt....
the concert realli sucked...

went for dinner at some chinese takeaway restaurant along Wenceslas Sq after that..
tried to look for some music bars after that... but couldnt find any... so we went back and zzzzzz...

end of day...

The next day was interesting... Super Interesting..

I got an email telling me abt flight change.. my flight was rescheduled to fly from prague to Oslo...
WTH!!! I booked my flight from prague back to Trd!!! How the hell am I supposed to get back to Trd from Oslo?!?!? they already changed my flight time... now they changing my destination too?!?!!?
I sent an email back and hoped for a positive ans... turned out tt the fella who sent the email typed in the wrong city... stupid norwegian....

well.. the plan was to visit some Nazi concentration camp at the outskirts of Prague..
we went to Florenc and bought the bus tickets ... for 72 Czk...
bus scheduled to depart ard 12...
and we went to the supermkt to ta pao lunch...
went to the platform after that... and saw that there were 2 buses there... the bus in the front was almost full and the door was closed.. so we thought we juz queue up for the bus behind..
the font bus left just as we boarded the 2nd bus..
damn...
the driver told us our ticket was for the bus that juz departed..
ARGH!!!!!

we were shocked... damn... urgh... disgusted.... watever.... kena a form of tourist trap...

we then wandered ard aimlessly .. went to the Prague Market in zone 7....
its just a normal pasar malam... hmm.. all the fake goods and stuff...
haha
saw some interesting food stall though... we were like staring at a certain stall... cos a lot of pple were buying something that looks like pizza and chicken cutlet from it...
after like 15min.. i went up and asked what the hell was it..
turned out to be some hungarian speciality... called langos...
it was just a piece of fried dough... tasted something like the fried mantous...haahah
i added some tomato.. cheese and garlic.. and it tasted good!! for 29czk..
quite ok for that prize..
Elgin and Ry tried some other stuff... Bamborak.. or something like tt
the chicken cutlet lookalike... hahaha
it was fried potatoes.. looked good.. tasted good at first...
but after eating half.. their faced turned constipated... hahaah.. another tourist trap....

lesson learnt : u cant eat 1 whole piece of fried mashed potatoes at 1 go...

well.. we went to the National Museum after that...
it was quite cheap... 50 czk... but the museum was crap...
nothing inside.. with half of it being under renovation somemore..
the only thing impressive is the ceiling...
kaoz.. another tourist trap...
shit.. got trapped like dunno how many times in a day...

we did meet another NUS guy in the museum though.. Wee kiat..
same hall as elgin and on exchange with elgin in sweden also... wat a small world..

we went to some hair dresser place to get our haircut...
reached the place at 5pm.. and it was supposed to close at 5...
went in anyway... and tried to ask the pple there ard..
guess wat.. they didnt understand any english!!!

sian...what a lousy day...
luckily for us.. a customer there acted as a translator for us.. phew.. haha
at least something good for a change...
we we got our haircut.... worrying that they didnt understand what we were saying and give us some funny haircut...

it turned out well in the end... pheeewww...
and it cost like only 34 czk... less than S$3!!!
how to fight!?!!?!?
turned out that the place was a hairdressing sch and we got a student cut or something like tt..
hmm
who cares... i got my cheap hair cut... haha

went to some restaurant after tt... had some fantastic food.... and tt basically ended our day...

Friday was better.. we went to walk ard the Jewish town...
Did you know that Golems originated from Czech??
hahha
bought some postcards.. nice postcards... and hanged ard there for quite some time..

and we finally got to visit our weird weird building...
hahaha
took some pictures... and headed west.. hoping to find food...
went into zone 5.. into another shopping district..
haha
shopped at Carrefour... for graceries to bring back to Trondheim..
come on.. it was so much cheaper than in Norway!!
the snicker bars cost the same... except that one is in Nok and the other was in Czk!!
I can even afford to buy honey there...

Elgin and Ry saw something tt looked nice in Carrefour.. bought 200 grams of that stuff each.... and couldnt finish even half of it..haha
turned out to be some pickled cabbage... damn sour...
Tourist Trap....... hahahahaah

we hung ard the mall ... i bought a book.. The Shadow of the Wind.. but Carlos Ruiz Zafon.. some czech writer i suppose...

and we went to some pub for dinner...
very cool place.. playing good music.. and a very cosy environment...
and no
i didnt drink there... i got sick of beer by then... haha
and i wasnt feeling tt well .. tts y i didnt drink as well..

we went back to the hostel after that.. picked up our bags... and left..
Elgin went to Florenc to take his bus to Frankfurt (he flying back to Sweden from there) and Ry and I made our way to the airport..

spent the nite at the airport.. sucks...
cant sleep well at all.. not when sitting on a wooden chair with a table in front of u...
i thought i got a lot of practice sleeping in lectures..
how wrong can i get... hmmm...
shld practice more....

we bumped into Alexander (our environment tutor) while checking in our baggage the next morn... kena caught skipping lessons.. hahaahah

it was a relief to be back in Trd after that..
guessed Trd is something like home already.. hmmm

and tt more or less ended my Easter Holidays... one of my best holidays ever!!!
hhahaha
all the memories.. nice food... beer... laughter... tourist traps....
really appreciate the opportunity i getting here...

Be Strong!!

2005-04-09T17:52:00.000+08:00

Still trying to get up after the shock from the midterm..
rem posting something on him_bo blog regarding this issue as well...

hmm

and good thing is that i have tons of work to keep my mind busy with other things than that..
got a HRM essay due tmr.... and another tut due on mon...
luckily the environmental project ddline is pushed back by a week...

In Deep Shit...

2005-04-08T03:00:00.000+08:00

In blardy deep shit...
got only 56 for my mid term exam...

its damn bad... esp when it is the lowest in class...
fark...

and its like 40% of final score.. means even if i get full marks for exam.. still cant get an A...
worst thing is i thought i submitted a piece of decent work..
not that i wanna top the class... but i didnt expect to buang till so jialat...
fark again...

went to discuss the paper with the teacher today...
and was in for a culture shock..

when they ask to generate a forecast... they wan not only the forecast.. they wan u to analyse different methods for forecasting.. talk abt the end result and shit...
y cant they just state everything in the question then??
fark the third time..

mid interpreted q5... asked me to design possible contracts... and this time.. i went to discuss which types of possible contracts... but they wan a more detailed one..
fark for the fourth time...

last q was my fault... didnt check for distribution of the data... and this was the only q i can blame for my incompetence... and it didnt help that its the one which i lost most marks in....
but i accept that it was m fault for dropping these pts....

but i still think the marks lost for the previous 2 q is still the most idiotic...
i cant even bring it to blame myself for being stupid... or being incompetent...
the questions were crap!!!!!
damn...

dunno whether to be angry/disappointed/upset/.......
totally confused now...

Copenhagen

2005-04-07T02:16:00.000+08:00

ok.. a bit late.. but then again.. late is better than never...haha

Copenhagen was the next stop after Berlin..
the bus leaves ZOB at 730 am.. so i had to wake up at 545 to wash up... pack some stuff and get to the bus station...
it was very misty that day... as if all the clouds had fallen to the ground...
scary....
but still.. managed to get find Thoben.. the pastry shop and packed breakfast and lunch....

reached the bus station and went to the platform... a green bus was parked there.. hmm
not like the one i took to Berlin.. and it was some funny german bus company...
so i just sat there at the platform.. waiting.. waiting...waiting.. till like 715am..
i got a bit worried... so i tried asking some other punky fella sitting beside me...
whoooww... the funny bus is the one going to cph...almost missed the bus...

anyway... slept all the way... got onto the ferry again... but this time.. it was like a phantom ship.. the kind you see in the movies.. cos of the mist and stuff... can check out the photos... its the one with the lighthouse sticking out in the mist...

reached Gedser... and a Chinese guy got detained by the police... most probably that fella has no visa or something.... then went all the way to Cph from there...
reached the train station and tried to look for Ruiyuan... that ass.. didnt appear...
either he overslept... or he was too piss drunk... or he missed his flight.. cos of the day light saving thing...
but i was lucky... bumped into Eric...
so we happily started to walk to the hostel..

blardy hostel... supposed to be 4km away from the train station (from website)
4km my foot...
we were walking along the river for like 1 hr and it is nowhere in sight...
i thought.. hmm maybe i became really unfit... and i was carrying quite a heavy bag... so just keep walking..
and we did... went into some old abandoned estate... shit...
did i take the wrong direction? no le... i was quite confident of going down this path... but how come nothing in sight? not even metros or bus stops... sian
and we were supposed to check in before 5pm... according to the website again...

we stopped and asked an old man for directions.. and he was like pointing towards the way we came from and told us to follow the road... duh... and the time was like 440pm...
i was super confused... how the hell did i go wrong???!?!!?!
nvm.. gotta trust the locals.. after all they are supposed to know the area better....
walked for another 400m back.. and found a map... the park maps...

i went to check where we were... and i was still thinking... eh... we supposed to go down again le... how come the guy tell us to come back... lost big time...
5 min later.. that fella came back and told us the right direction.... the way we were going originally... wanted to slap him sia... but then again.. he was trying to help also la.. so...

finally got to the hostel at 525pm.. and the counter was still open... in fact.. it was open till 2am or something like that... wanted to slap that guy again sia... wat a website!!!

bumped into RY at the hostel.. tt idiot was too tired to meet us at the station la... duh...
that was more or less our Day 1.. or half a day in cph... quite happening... haha
well at least we had a nice portugese guy for a roommate...

Day 2
went out to town the next day... a lot of shops were not open.. cos it was the Easter holidays... sux... came to cph at the wrong time...
went to catch the change of guard at the palace.... nothing to see at all sia...
not very grand.. in fact.. it was a bit of a let down.... the one at the Buckingham Palace more shiok... but managed to take pic beside one of the guards...hahah
went to walk around somemore... saw some fortress... and went to take pictures with the MERMAID... hahaah
cool huh... actually.. not very la... at least it was a free thing...
and for ur info... the mermaid's lower body is not something like a fish...like some cartoon...
instead... she has fishy legs... hmm..
err... dunno how to describe le... check out the pictures la.....
went for lunch after that... where Ry shattered a plate with a coke glass bottle...

went to some museum... display of modern craft... supposed to pay... but we just walked in happily... hahaha
both of them were waiting outside for me cos they realised this but i was happily walking ard the museum.. oblivious to the fact that i didnt pay... hey.. i really didnt know gotta pay to enter la..
the guy at the entrance didnt stop us....

nothing much happened for the rest of the day... haha
went to the asianmarts to get something for dinner... and got beer!!
Carlsberg.. haha
a lot of variety... got the easter beer... elephant beer... carlsberg special....
i got the easter beers and a bottle of the carlsberg special... got 4 bottles to be exact...

had a bottle in a park.. somewhere near Norreport... nice place..

went back to the hostel.. cooked dinner and went upstairs to drink outside the tv room.
it was a good toking cock session.. one of the longest in recent times... hahah
talked to eric more in 1 evening than the previous 3 months in fact.. though he didnt drink la...
drink drink drink... talked talked talked...
then suddenly.. a guy came up to us..
"are u guys from singapore??"
of course we are!! hey!!
tt guy turned out to be studying in france.. but on exchange in stockholm now...
his name is xuan ching... hmmm
nice guy... scholar some more... and from Dunman High.. eeeeee...
but he is a very nice guy i would say... got the scholar aura around him..
this is the kinda scholar we want in singapore... not some losers who are blardy chao geng in army and cant even swim that type..sucks...
well.. at least i got the chance to meet a respectable scholar huh..
and that was more or less the end of day 2..

Day 3

met up in the morning.. took the bus to town... and the scholar took lead... well.. hes the one who has got the map in hand la..
went to the latin quarter.. museums.. though we didnt go in...
saw many statues...city hall square.. took pictures with Hans Christian Anderson statue....Christianborg Palace... went to the shopping districts (this time hell lots of people)

was a bit disappointed cos we didnt go into the museums... but guess i gotta be more accomodating when travelling in a grp which is low on budget huh. at least i got company....
had enough of solo travelling.. and the museums in cph are not exactly cheap as well...
but there is a very interesting museum showcasing all the designs of different products.. very cool... had nice postcards and stuff.. but too ex la..

we went to chritstiania after having a mac lunch...
and after RY went to shit at some ship museum... rhymes huh..
a lot of pple smoking there...
christiania used to be a drug haven.. and it has very nice graffiti there.... ahaah
wanted to get some souveniers there.. but the quality of the stuff there cannot make it wan... waste money sia... walked around the place... pusher street.. some tibet museum...
the bridge..

but had a very interesting experience there..
we went into a pub called woodstock to have a drink...
and when i was walking out.. i felt a kick to my right calf...
i thought some drunk ass kicked me and i was about to turn around and scold all the vulgarities i can think of....
turned out that someone fainted and knocked into my leg... power sia.
a crowd gathered around.. with a lot of pple asking... did he smoke some hash???
heh...
we stayed behind to check out what happened next... kaypo a bit... haha
some of the pple gave him drinks ... and keep saying cos he smoked hash and that lowered his blood sugar content and stuff..its normal to faint...
a lot of nonsense la.. but they fed tt fella a lot of sugar water la..
and being the kaypo sgreans... we offered some bread also.. haah

that fella had fallen behind into xuan ching before hitting me... and XQ spilled some of his saft onto his jacket... hmmm ... wasted the saft...

we went to the bus station to send xq off after that... and that basically ends our day 3....

Final Day... finally..
woke up... finished all the food we have... checked out of the hostel.. and went to town for the last time...
went to the botanical gardens.... very very beautiful... esp when spring is coming and some flowers have started to bloom...
after that.. went to the national gallery... art again!!
haahah
saw some nice pieces of art... and 4 of them caught our eye... even went to buy the postcards for these 4 paintings after that....
it was a very small gallery... as compared to London and Berlin..
but it was just nice to kill off 2 hours...

all the shops were closed... cos it was a sunday.. but it was still pleasant walking through the streets.. one thing abt cph is the architecture is very nice..
everything blends in together... old and new buildings... landscapes.. all blend in very nicely.. not like berlin.. where it can be clashing at times...
imagine putting the esplanade in ang mo kio... u know what i mean???

well.. we went to the train station and had some ice cream there... took the train to the airport... quite a nice ride.. though short...

reached the airport... and left eric there to fend for himself.. hahaha
flew off to Praha from there...

well... cph wasnt the best trip i had so far.. but it was still a nice trip... great place... beautiful landscape... and had a nice time relaxing there...

Think of it..

2005-04-05T18:49:00.000+08:00

Had a HRM lesson yesterday... talking about competence and staff management..
and there are 2 questions which keep ringing in my head...

thought everyone should try to think of this as well...

1) how competent are you in your field? how would you distinguish yourself from your peers?

2) how long will your competency last? how much time would you have before you become obsolete??

sounds simple right?
try sitting down and think abt it for like 30 min...
it will be good if you can find answers to these questions...

Cabin Trip... Again.. hahah

2005-04-05T05:40:00.000+08:00

This group of students at Øya school...

They had this English week.. so they invited english speaking pple to join in their cabin trip..so they can practice speaking more english..

hahaahahOk..
i not the best person to practice with... with all my la..leh.. lor...
But i think my standard of english has improved as well...esp when its my most impt survival tool in Norway... Trust me pple... Its even more impt than any math or sci... Its the only tool you can use to communicate with other foreigners...

So...
The class rep.. Ann Kristine Damli (pronounced as "Onn Christine") and other pple, teachers includes, calls her by her nickname.. onn-ki..something like tt la...she emailed me the morning before telling me about the trip being still on... and I had tons of work to do and bags to pack... and that explains the last min headache... hahaha

But still I went along the trip...And it was simply WONDERFUL...i cant even use words to explain the beauty of the place...It was simply awesome... and I had never felt so relaxed for so long...It was simple PERFECT....wooohhhh........

The teacher picked us up from Moholt and drove us to the school. There, we met the other students... hmmm... not as young as I had originally thought...
cos they were supposed to he high sch students.. and my impression is something like jc or poly..
turn out that they were just a few years younger than me.. hmm

there are 2 big dogs which joined in the trip as well...
very cute dogs i would say... these 2 were in a totally different class from scooby....
they are much stronger.. and bigger.... and ....very different...

the cabin is near Roros.. place called Vikheim.. either that or it is the cabin's name...
the whole cabin is covered in snow la... and i mean very deep snow...
picture this... the snow is from the ground to the window...even the door is blocked...
when i tried to step into it... i sank into it till the snow reached my thighs...
power huh...

the people were very nice... quite friendly for norwegians... haha
can talk to them very easily...

went into the cabin.. cleaned it up a bit... found a dead rat in the cooking pot.. and went to the 2nd flr to put our bags...
well.. no one spontaneously joined eric and I in our room....
it is only later when 2 gers asked if we mind sharing the room... we were like ok lor..
haah
but its more because they had their dogs with them la... and its damn obvious that our room got more space...

lunch followed.. and the rest of the afternoon was spent skiing.... jus a short route... and relatively flat... and I didnt fall!!!
1st time nv fall when skiing sia.... shiok.. and the teacher was telling me how to identify some of the animal tracks in the snow also la.. all the fox.. bird.. and the hare....
he is damn power...

went back to the cabin to relax after skiing... just sat by the fireplace and warmed my feet by the fire...
it was just fabulous....

dinner was great... in fact.. all the meals were great..
all the food that i could only stare at in the supermkts.... cos they are too expensive for me...
all these food are displayed on the dining table..
HAHAHAHAHAAH
all the ham.. salami... spekeshinke... sauce... jam.. different types of cheese and bread... crackers..honey!! pepperoni..
and all these are the better quality ones.. not the cheapo types i normally get...
we even had deer meat for dinner....
well.. i didnt feel comfortable going to this trip for free .. so i brought some chrysanthemum tea and some CNY cookies to share with them... haha.. so at least i eat their stuff wont feel so pai seh...

most of the free time was spent playing cards...
learnt some new games from them... "nervous", ïdiot" and 5 games in 1 thingy...
taught them tai ti... and heart attack...
u should hear how they scream during heart attack sia... can die wan..

also played some form of polar bear... they call it farmers and mafia though.. hmm

got involved in some role play thingy....

that was more or less day 1...

had 2 options for day 2... to go either ice fishing or go on a skip trip...
i chose the latter.. thought better practice more of my skiing.. ahaha
the original ski trip was like 7km... and tt is 1 way only...
part of the grp went on this trip... and there was another catered for me.. haha
a short short trip....luckily i didnt go on the longer trip.. haha they got lost while trying to come back... so....hmmm

i got to borrow some stuff from another norwegian guy... cos my ski equipment cannot make it.. at least compared to theirs la..
borrowed ski shoes... socks (cos the shoes too big.. so need to fill in the extra space) .. thermoflask... skis.. sticks... and some of device which keeps the snow out of your shoes...
tt is one of the best inventions...
my feet were super dry after i came back from the trip..

so.. it is not surprising that i was the bottleneck... hahaha
shag le...
we went along in the thick snow... then onto the main rd...
this is the best part...
they suggested letting the dog pull me along on the road!!
hahaha
something like dog sledging... the dog is called something like "rookie".. the black one..
so FUN!!
stumbled at first.. cos the dog was running and stopping... very jerky.. but after getting used to it.. it was super SHIOk!!!
haahah
imagine letting a dog pull you along a road while skiing.... hahaah

we then broke off into the woods... 100m into the trees... we stopped...
kristian then created a seat out of a snow mould.. and they set up a fire in the middle of nowhere..
on the snow somemore... hmmm... using firewood they brought out... and other stuff like tt..
you cant imagine the stuff they had in their bags... food.. kettle... firewood... and hell lots of other stuff..

that was in the morning...
we went to Roros in the afternoon... chilled out there.. bought more junk food... hahaah

well... the night was spent playing cards and talking rubbish again...
relax by the fireplace.... having a good life...
All NUS pple shld come to the cabins at least once sia... then life would be much better back home....

we went back the next morning....
met a whole bunch of pri sch kids who were skiing outside.. some sch trip or something
and they were damn pro la... if i were also skiing i will feel damn pai seh sia...

we walked around their school a bit before coming back to Moholt..
visited their pets and stuff.. they sure got hell lots of animals... haha

this trip has really been wonderful... made me love Norway even more..
how many chances in your life do you get to relax in a cabin away from the city that overlooks a frozen lake.. and with such wonderful companions.. and pros in outdoor life...
it is just amazing and i am very thankful for being given this opportunity...

well.. it was one hell of a post... hope u pple are still alive after reading this.. haha
and check out the pictures!!! though the pictures cant really show the beauty of the place.. but its the best i could do...
enjoy!!

Withdrawal Symptons...

2005-04-01T03:59:00.000+08:00

I am now in Prague... came over from Copenhagen a few days ago...
and suffering from the Internet withdrawal symptons...

its juz too expensive to get online in cph and praha...
luckily this hostel offers free internet access...
hmmm
BUT.. the comp is so damn old and slow that it takes forever to open a website and the internet explorer version is so old that i cant access even the NUS email...

cant even tag on the tagboards in blogs or anywhere...

and to REGINA....

Happy Bdae from Prague!!
yeap... its been a long time.. still rem yr 1.. asked the single guys to parade in front of u also.. but too bad.. u chose other pple.. hahaah

anyway...
will be back on 2nd april to my room in TRD...
then got 10 days to submit 4 assg --> 2 projects and 2 assignments...
only 1 proj is 1/2 done...
so gonna be quite busy...

will try to post more after tt... and do look out for the photos... hahaah

Berlin Part 3

2005-03-24T04:38:00.000+08:00

ok...
someone actually provided some feedback that no one will know where the hell i have been...
hmm...
go check website lor...hahahaahah
i still put it down so i will remember it when i go home mah...

anyway.. today is my last roaming day in Berlin...
woke up at 8 in the morn... showered...

and went to the Scholß Charlottenburg in the morn..
wanted to visit the interior...
but some happening stuff occurred along the way...
i needed to take a leak... and it was damn urgent....
the place wasnt open yet... cos it was like 10 min to opening time...
so i hurried ard the vincinity... and found some museum after 5 min...
i was like asking the person there for the toilet... but she didnt speak english... damn...
after 2 min... got to find some english speaking fella to tell me that the toilet was inside the museum... and if i wanna go in.. i gotta pay...WTF?!?!!?!?
but my bladder was leaking by than.,.. gonna explode soon!!!
so bo pian.. gotta go in...
there was another grp of tourists in front of me in the queue to get the tix... and i really gonna die soon..
so i ran back to the entrance and begged to lady to let me use the toilet first...
wah... luckily she agreed.... went into the toilet and had the 'time of my life'... heh... (the song is playing now in the cafe la..haah)

so i paid for the tic after tt... and i went ard the museum...
not bad...
ying huo de fu... hahaah
i hope tt was correct... the museum is another art museum!!!!!!
cool huh... and there was a whole floor of art pieces by Picasso!!! SHIOK
it was amazing....
enjoyed myself thoroughly there...

after tt... i went to hunt down more museums to go into... cos i bought the day ticket instead of the single entry ticket... meaning.. i can go into selected museums with that single ticket...

i went to walk ard the palace gardens before that... and the gardens were fantastic...
i tink i am more of the nature person after all... i prefer all these trees and plants to the cities and shopping malls... hahahaha

went to the East Side Gallery after that.... the replica of the Berlin Wall...
and to another 2 museums (to utilize my day ticket) hahaha
went to the old National Gallery.. another wonderful art museum... and the alte museum and see all the artifacts...
hmmm

it was evening by the time i finished....
time to do some souvenier shopping...
i saw this pouch at some shop near Alexander Platz... wanted to buy for my mum...
so i went there again...
heh... the 2nd time i saw the pouch... saw the sign... made in paris...
siao... buy this like no pt le... made in paris?? hmm
got some postcards instead.. hahahahaah

went to the Zoo station after tt... got into the supermkt and bought some supplies to go back to Denmark... and met Quan wei for dinner there...
we went into the Ka De We.... something like the 'Harrods of Berlin'... haha tts my own opinion...

but food there was too ex la...
so we went to some place near the Scholß Charlottenburg.... its a restaurant called Luisen-Bräu..
Perfect place for dinner...
the dish of (forgot the real name) fried pork coated with bread crumbs... and potatoes and salad is only like 5.80€...
and i had 3 beers!!!! and these were house brew beers!!!!!
SO SHIOK!!!!!
Drei Beers!!!!!!!!!
hahahahahahahaa
they were so smooth.. and tasted so good... one of the best beers i ever had...
really damn cool.. and the food was good as well...
i didnt realli have many chances to buy souveniers... cos not much time left to shop after the museums......
but i was damn lucky.. hahaah
i bought 1 beer glass and 1 beer mug from Luisen-Bräu...
hahahaI will be the only one in Sg to have them!!!!!!

POWER!!!!

thats more or less my last roaming day in Berlin...
sitting in the internet cafe and blogging now...
most prob should be getting another hotdog on my way back....
hahaha
spent a hell lot of $$$ here in Berlin.. and most on it on food.... damn...
sorrie pple...
will try to get soueniers for u pple back home... hahaha

for now.. i will keep enjoying the after taste of the wonderful beer and look forward to my hotdog supper...

Berlin Part 3

2005-03-23T06:15:00.000+08:00

ok.. Day drei..

Another Singaporean checked into the same hostel as me.. same room some more
called chuan wei...
heh.. maybe my bro ah...
Wait long long ah...
tt fella from Uni of Chicago.... came to Germany to spend his break..
i was tinking.. .wah this fella so rich ah...
he turned out to be some scholar... for the Firefly scholarships... its a damn prestigous scholarship la... from RJ... eeee...
came all the way here to see and listen to orchestra........
POWER!!!!!
and to improve his german as well la...hahaha
he studied in Vienna last time... and he came to Berlin and Munich before... power hor...

ok.. now abt me.. more abt him to come later....
Wanted to spend my time walking ard more...
But ended up spending most of the day in museums... 3 of them to be exact...
National Gallery... and 2 museums at the Kulturforum....
heh... cant help it...
i tink i sucker for looking at paintings.... cool huh...

well... went to the Potsdam Platz after tt...
looked at the Sony building... and the shopping district... very nice.. though didnt have the mood/cash to shop ard too much..
was wondering if i should go into the film museum.. would be interesting.. but didnt have time to do so...
hahahaha
ta-paoed some Yin Burger from Macdonalds and ate at the Bellevueallee in Tiergarten...
So shiok..
sitting there alone.. .enjoy the light breeze.. look at some cute dogs run by... cyclists rushing past... and all the trees are bare.... so it gives a very dry feeling...
wait till i upload the photos...

i walked on to the Siegessäule... right in the middle of the Tiergarten...
went up all the way... Fantastic view from above the monument...
worth every cent of the 1.50€ to go up... great workout climbing up too... was panting like crazy when i went up... hahahah
a surprising thing is that this monument is so badly vandalised.. and no one seems to be cleaning them up... wat a monument to represent ur country.. heh...
bet the PAP would have disowned the thing if this is in sg...

well... took the S-bahn back to zoo station...
saw so many cute dogs along the way!! esp the silky terriers..
they are so well groomed and cute... looks so similar to Scooby... like the female version of scooby la... cos the hair a bit long...... haha.. makes me miss that smelly dog oso...
went to walk ard the Zoologischer Garten after tt... had a bockwurst...YEAH!!! hahaha
and bought a carton of milk for 0.61€ ... for 1 liter!! cheap huh...

after tt.. i went to the Deutche Oper to meet Chuan wei... met him to watch an orchestra performance...
hahahaahah
i becoming a culture man liao...
not bad hor...
watched a st matthew thing... got orchestra.. choir...soloists.. its abt jesus la.. something like the passion of the christ i think...
but its in deutsch... but i still enjoyed it... the woman in black is so damn power la.. tink if she sing in the streets ah... all the glass will shatter ah... her voice is so high la...
and i was juz seating 4 rows from the front...
hahaha
for 12€.. student price.... so got all the empty seats from the front...
i muz say i fell asleep during the 2nd part la... a bit cant take it and i was walking ard for the past 2 days...

while walking back... talked to chuan wei for some time...
tt fella is real power la... he plays the piano... and a few other instruments... tts y he so on abt this kinda thing..
hes the classical music person... hmmm.. the very serious kind somemore...
he even bought the scores for the opera thing....
and he claims to take singing lessons somemore...
the private lect type.... and this is juz as a personal enrichment mind u... not as a career thingy or something,,,
rich pple sure can have these privileges huh...

well.. found this internet cafe... cheap and open till midnite...
so typing now...

hope to wake up tmr.... early... then can finish wat i wanna see... hahahah.. and time to do some souvenier shopping too.. saw this nice pouch yesterday... maybe can get for my mum... hmmm

ok then will try to keep the blog updated as much as possible..
tschuss

Berlin Part 2

2005-03-23T05:46:00.000+08:00

ok.. juz spent the 3rd day in Berlin... so much things to type here... hmm
a bit lazy... but dun wanna go back and sleep...
siao.. dunno what i toking abt oredi...

Day 2 in Berlin
started the day talking rubbish with my hostel roommates... 1 indon who claims to be a doctor.. and another german guy who is staying there while his apartment is being renovated...
hmm.. the indon guy seems to noe some medical stuff and names and even hospitals in sg... cos he accompanied a lot of rich patients to the hospitals ard the world... hahaah..
well.. sounds real... but then again.. y would a doc stay in a cheap hostel?? when they can afford at least a single room to themselves?? heh.. dun care la... as long as he dun steal my stuff can liaoz..

after crapping with them for 30 min or so.. i went to get a day tic... so can travel ard Berlin for a whole day on the S-bahn..U-bahn... and buses..
but in the end i took the S-bahn only 2 times... to another station and back... walked on foot for the rest of the day..
i tink i got some hangover from army or something ah...

went to a lot of places though...
started from the Reichstag... to the Brandeenburg Gate... down Unten Den Linden... had lunch at some Hong Kong Fast Food place... (and the guy spoke chinese with me.. hahaha)
went to some museums.. but they are closed on montag.. then i sat in the afternoon prayers at the Berlin Dom (just happened to be at the right place at the right time). went to the Alexandar Platz... City hall... Charlie Checkpoint... walking through a lot of streets in between...
walked past the high class shopping malls...
paid 0.20€ to go toilet in 1 of the malls... pple looking at me cos they were wondering wat the heck is someone like me doing in their kind of shopping mall... hahahahahah
had dinner at Subway...
then walked back to the Reichstag to queue up to go up the dome....
the wind was howling and it was super duper cold...
but the view up there was so worth the wait...
it was awesome... esp on a clear nite... and the whole city lighted up and you can see so many things... damn nice...
you people should come to Berlin... its very affordable...
not so expensive like Norway or other European countries..
In fact.... I juz heard Berlin is 1 of the cheapest cities in Europe... cool huh... made a rigth choice in coming here... now i eating like siao.... as if i haven eaten for the past 2 months...
just imagine... 1 hotdog, 2 bratwurst, 1 bockwurst since i came here...(till day 3)
not to mention all the chinese food.. mac... pretzel which i took..
and the pastries here are like 0.50€ and so damn nice...
even better than breadtalk.. hahahaah

well... on the downside... some pple can be real irritating..
i was trying to find my way home after the Reichstag.. and it was like almost 11pm..
I tried to ask a guy which platform should i take to go to the Charlottenburg station...
i juz said Hi.. and he went 'NEIN!!!!' and walked away..
hell to him..
as if i some beggar asking him for money like tt... idiot...luckily the next old man i talked to was more helpful.. though he knew like 0 english...
all he needed to understand was zoo station.. and he pointed at the correct platform and the direction
hmm. .. but guess this happens everywhere....

Trip to Berlin

2005-03-21T03:52:00.000+08:00

ok..
wanted to leave afte the last post...
but.. i exceeded my time by like 4 min and the fella charged me for 1.5 hrs of usage...
damn..
so got anoter like 25 min left...
duh.. these pple sure noe how to tok pple sia...

ok.. now for the trip to Berlin..
the bus ride from Oslo wasnt too bad..
cos there wasnt as many stops along the way... and i was too tired to care...

i went from oslo.. through Sweden... and stopped to changeover in Copenhagen... cool huh... went to 3 countries in 1 nite...
the best part was the bridge from Malmö to Copenhagen...
Very nice...

well..
stopped to change the bus in Cph... not a very good start to the day i would say...
I packed my bag into the lugguage comparment... and 10 min later... the driver annouced something in Dansk... and pple started to look out of the window... I was having breakfast then...
so didnt really care much
but after that... thanks to my Singaporean blood.. i was a bit kaypo and looked out of the window as well...
Blardy hell... my bag was lying on the floor...
Some areshole took my bag out to put in theirs!!!
lucky i was kaypo!!
if not i would die in germany la!!

so i got down and put my bag in again... this time i stuff it all the way inside... hmmm
then when i got back to my seat..
the ger in front of me was crying non stop...
not a young ger... a bloody grown up female...
then the guy next to her also give up trying to console her...
wth.. early in the morn... i havent got enuff sleep... and almost lost my bag... and now shes sobbing and mumbling nonsense to herself...
miss home ah.. miss home then dont travel la!!!!
DUH...

at least it was a non stop trip...
so the bus kept going on and on and on.....
then we had to stop for a while... for a moment.. i was lost... y was there so many buses stopping together??
hmmm .. maybe its the customs to get into germany...
heh.. kind of..hha..
it turned out to be that we were waiting for the ferry!!
shiok...
haah

had a great time on board.. though didnt really felt like buying food.. cos it was so damn ex.. haahah
but did buy some snicker bars though.. just in case..
well.. everything went well after that... and i arrived in Berlin ZOB at 2pm...

i didnt have a map of Berlin... hmmm and in the the first 20 min of wandering ard.. i dropped my hostel booking confirmation print out...
so now i dont even know the full address of the hostel...
all i rem was it was near the S-bahn station...
heh..
not bad huh...

was damn desperate.. cos not many shops are open on sun.. and there was not many pple ard also...
so i did what was best for me at that time...
go look for lunch... hahahahaahahahahah
Macdonalds !!!
didnt have mac for like 2 months... the sudden urge of stepping into the first one i saw was too strong to resist...
and it is Cheap!!
well compared to london and norway la...
heh..
but enjoyed it..

and found my hostel in some corner after lunch...
hmm

went wandering ard town after slacking in the room for a while...
with a bit of fever and headache...
but i will live..
and i got better by the time i found this internet cafe... and having a bratwurst.. and some fried rice for dinner... hahaahahahah#

this place is real cheap compared to norway...
shiok liao...
cant imagine go prague how...
hahaahah

okok
time is almost up again...
hope to go see more stuff tmr... and then blog here asap...
Tschuss!!

Oslo

2005-03-21T03:11:00.000+08:00

Ok...
Finally online.. in Berlin...
hahah

Its so much cheaper here than Norway.. so can start to post here instead..haah

anyway.. i left trondheim on 18th march... started to walk to the bus station at like 10 pm and boarded the bus at 11.20 pm..

not a very good bus ride i would say..
kept on waking up in the middle of the nite.. cos there were many stops along the way... and the driver kept announcing the stops... in norsk...
hmm
shitty...
but some of the towns are quite nice i would say.. even in the midle of the nite...
and there was this 2 pple which are super exciting.. 1 is a guy who looks like the pai kias in movies.. black leather jacket and pants.. thin like a bamboo and wearing those caps.. almost like he was there to assassinate someone... haha
and another ger...kept eating non stop for the whole journey... at least 2 bars of choc... 1 bottle of tea and endless sandwiches... she ate almost everytime the bus stops...
power...

and now.. Oslo.. reached there at 8 am...when everything is closed... haahah
no one was ard...and i was the lonely soul walking ard the city...
its a nice place.. at least it looks more like sg than trd...haahah
1st place i went to was the supermkt.. not bad huh... got myself a choc milk and ate breakfast..
felt like an animal though...
whenever someone passes by me.. they look at me eating... majiam some zoo like tt...
and most were going skiing... heard there was some ski competition going on up north as well..
not so sure of that though...

well.. i wasnt realli prepared for Oslo.. i didnt really read much about where to go and i didnt even have a map...
all i know is there is some castle somewhere...
hmm

but i still anyhow hump thump la... walk here and there and everywhere...
and guess what...
i found the castle in less than 1 hr...
haahah
not bad huh...

and i must say...
Arkeshus Fortress and Castle is Magnificent!!!!
Damn nice..
it overlooks the fjords and whoooh... takes your breath away.. just like the song... hmm
but its very nice..
esp when there is no one ard (cos its too early in the morn)
there was a guard there though... the kinda guards u see outside Istana and the Buckingham palace...
gurading the top of the fortress..heh.. cos when i tried to walk up the flight of stairs to the top.. he chased me out..
wonder how much he gets paid to do such things... hahaha
juz wear nice nice.. stand on top of the place and enjoy the scenery...
then when some visitors tries to enter the forbidden zone.. juz say 'utt' (out)
quite good huh...

after that... i went to walk ard the malls beside the harbour...
they were new malls and the shops were great as well..
too bad i wasnt really into shopping mood..
cos i carrying my big bag pack and oslo isnt very cheap...

a guy stopped to talk to me though..
a bit crazy huh... like trying to pick me up like tt... hmm too bad not a hot babe...hahaahahahahahah
so we were talking beside the pier for a while... he asking me how issit in norway..blah blah blah...guess he was trying to be frendly la...

after tt.. went to walk a bit of the outskirts of the sentrum..
gers note this..
1 Whole Street of shopping district..
almost twice the lenght of orchard rd... nice stuff all the way...
comparable to london shopping..hahaha

well...
i went back to the pier... (beside the fortress) and had lunch.. cos i thought i shld get a tan.. and the view was perfect for lunch...
fed some pigeons... haahah... there was a whole lot of birds after feeding 1 pigeon...
they are damn smart...

after that.. i tried to find my way to the National Gallery of Oslo..
went to the tram station and tried to find the place on the map
but couldnt find it... hmm
cos i was looking at the wrong part of the map..
heh..
and luckily for me... another guy came to my rescue..
this fella a bit gay though.. hahaah
the kinda very soft guy...
eee
but at least he pointed out the gallery for me...

the national gallery was nice..
saw some of E.Munch paintings...
they were good...
its different from the gallery in London...
there are more abstract art here.. and more of those scenery things..
london´s gallery more church stuff and more self portraits and stuff...
and i was so tired i slept in the museum.. hahahah

went back to the pier to have dinner.. hahah
the place is juz fantastic..
and i met the guy i talked to in the morning!!
talk abt coincidences... hmm
well we exchange emails this time... more like i gave him mine la... more out of courtesy than anything..hahaah

went to the bus terminal and slack there after dinner... cos nowhere else to walk by then..
shops close early on saturdays...

and the toilets at the bus/train stations are killers...
10kr to enter...
who the hell pay S$2.50 to go toilet wan!!?!?!?!?
not as if the toilets are super new or super high tech...
so i just wait outside.. wait for other pple to pay and i juz follow in... hahaha
or wait for pple to come out.....
cheapo u may say.. but... who cares...
10 kr le...
its more abt buay song to pay than being poor...

heh..
slept a bit in the bus terminal... and boarded the bus after that...
time to go Berlin!!

Just ate a Bratwurst in Berlin....

2005-03-21T03:08:00.000+08:00

hahahahahahaahhhhahahahahah
heheheheeheheheheheheheheheehhehe
hohohhhohohohohoh

so happy..... its so damn nice....

Last Minute Headache.. Turns into a Beautiful Dream

2005-03-19T01:12:00.000+08:00

Wow...
This group of students at Øya school...
They had this English week.. so they invited english speaking pple to join in their cabin trip..
so they can practice speaking more english.. hahaahah
Ok.. i not the best person to practice with... with all my la..leh.. lor...
But i think my standard of english has improved as well... hahaha
esp when its my most impt survival tool in Norway...
Trust me pple... Its even more impt than any math or sci... Its the only tool you can use to communicate with other foreigners...

So... The class rep.. Ann Kristine Damli (pronounced as "Onn Christine") and other pple, teachers includes, calls her by her nickname.. onn-ki..
something like tt la...
she emailed me the morning before telling me about the trip being still on... and I had tons of work to do and bags to pack... and that explains the last min headache... hahaha

But still I went along the trip...
And it was simply WONDERFUL...
i cant even use words to explain the beauty of the place...
It was simply awesome...

and I had never felt so relaxed for so long...
It was simple PERFECT....
wooohhhh........

************
heh.. I got no time to finish this post now.. gotta prepare some food and pack my bags... leaving in 3 hours time... to catch the nite bus and head for Oslo... hahaa
will try to get it up when i come back from my wonderful europe adventure... u pple can enjoy being jealous of me for now...
Ha Det Bra!!
***********

Last Min Headache

2005-03-15T18:51:00.000+08:00

argh...
she muz email me now!!!

invitation to go to the cabins... free of charge...
BUT... I have project meetings ... and meeting with my tutors.. lectures...
Assignments to finish before going off to Germany...

and i need time to pack!!!

and the trip is TMR... till fri afternoon... and i am supposed to leave on fri nite..
how to pack in time?!?!?!!

Holiday plans..

2005-03-15T00:21:00.000+08:00

ok..
enough of sad and negative posts...
here is something more relevant.. and more happy

Travel Plans!!!
this is the final plans i have.. hopefully..
so if anyone out there misses me and wanna see me..
juz look for me somewhere out there.... over the rainbow..

18th Mar --- Taking nite bus to Oslo..
19th Mar --- Arrive in Oslo at 8 am.. then walk ard and leave at 10 pm for Berlin..
20th Mar --- Reach Berlin at ard 1300... Then i will start to build up the Berlin Wall once again..
24th Mar --- Will leave Berlin at 7am after completing the wall.. hopefully i will get to taste some bratwurst and german beer by this time... hmm
24th Mar --- Arrive in Copenhagen at 3pm... Hope to meet up with Ruiyuan at some Metro station before I go check into the hostel.. Ck in is by 5.. so.. a bit of a rush here.. will be in CPH looking at the mermaids till 27th..
27th Mar --- leave for Prague at 5pm...... and arrive there 2 hours later.. will be looking ard for Mr Elgin Eng and ck into Sir Toby's Hostel.. this is a special hostel.. all readers.. do search for this hostel on yahoo/google and go read how they describe their hostel.. Damn Power.. hahaha
2nd Apr --- Flying back to Trondheim at 10 am to conclude our Easter adventure..

after going back to norway..
gonna have 3 deadlines to meet... all within10 days after going back.. shit..
6th Apr --- AFL project.. less than half done...the main part is finished.. and that is the most difficult part.. but still got a lot of minor stuff to work on.. but luckily this group i working with quite zhai... (zhai only.. no ning)
10th Apr --- HRM assg... tedious work.. hope to finish before i even leave TRD
11th Apr --- Environment part 3.. this one jialat.. grp members are all chao slackers.. and nothing has been started... (come on!! the presentation for part 2 is tmr... its not even over for part 2!!!)

ok..
lets hope the boat will straighten itself when it reaches the harbour then.. hmm
SU SU SU SU... dun kan chiong... all SU... dun be like the me in NUS anymore... SU SU SU SU su su su.......

Hall . once again...Someone Tell Me What to Do!!!

2005-03-14T23:43:00.000+08:00

Heh...
Can talk abt this topic for 3 days 3 nites and still not complete 10% of the stories...

and warning to all readers.. this post is completely nonsense.. its juz for me to vent out all my frustration.. anger..disappointement... etc etc etc..
it is totally irrelevant to europe..

here goes...

Thought I can avoid SH altogether after coming over for exchange.. but still...

first.. it was hall application..

Dont know if I still wanna go back to hall or to go pgp...
Yeah.. as Sook May wrote in her blog.. maybe shouldnt go back at all and therefore leave onli the precious memories and not corrupt it with the potential bad experiences...
even Regina hates hall now... must be real bad huh..
latest was the MAB saga... if they can make reg so pissed ah.. something is very wrong.. reg dun get pissed over small things wan.. unlike me.. hmmm..
was reading laggist's blog.. and stumbled across jolly's blog as well...
wooh.. one can feel all the anger and disappointment towards that cursed place rite now..

and was talking my Youmin last nite.... her mum wants her to go pgp....
but nothing to do with hall politics of course.. its more to save on the meal plan.. and that she can not worry about joining activities and conc on her sch work..
sounds reasonable doesnt it??
final year after all.. gonna be busy with fyp and stuff..
logically speaking.. i shld follow her to pgp as well rite?
cos i in my final year.. and dun tink its good for us to be seperated...

but i must admit.. a part of me still wants to return to SH..
was reading janet and HH's blogs... yes.. i very free.. keep on reading other pple blog.. and trust me still got more to come...
DnD was just over... everyone had fun.. and more importantly... they are a great bunch of pple to hang out with.. though i not really in their clique la.. hmm
but sure had some fun times with them.. talking cock.. making a nuisance out of myself.. listen to their lame jokes.. ok.. more of mine..
watever.. they are nice pple..

was reading olenia's blog too...
she seems to have more positive thoughts abt KR... old KR and stuff..so happy there..
how come SH cannot?!?!?!
my one and only explanation..

all from last year (my yr 2)
Cos some arseholes thought that they are dissatisfied with hall life and tried to change the lifestyle.. they wanted to win stuff... to up the hall spirit...
my arse..
How the f*** can one person determine how high the hall spirit is?
tell me... how can you measure it?? cos u feel it??
then its your own fucking problem cos you are with the wrong group of frens...
i was having a great time with my blk mates...
and is there any shame if you dont win in sports?
you win a sport and you feel happy.. yes..
but so what if u lose?? you go to hell because someone up there decreed that all hostelites must win something..
I Hated the JCRC to the core...(sorry reg).. know its all over.. but the scar still hurts..
I trusted them to do something proper..
I thought they are sensible to do something right..
but it was not to be..

No.. i am not jealous of SMB getting super major.. its not them at all..
its more of how they got it that irks me.. and hurt me so deeply as well..
The chairpersons were assured of fair decisions... but because some president thought of something else... like wanting to be better in sports.. and then used some underhand tactics to finalise the results...
Fuck off...

Tat decision made me super angry... and i gave up the intention of doing rag... either as chairperson or even taking part in it...(but i still tried to help a little la.. bo pian.. reg was chair.. though my contribution was almost nothing..)

Year 3 came...
didnt join back handball... sorry to the guys there.. esp binghe.. even though he tried to get me back in..
but i told myself.. i dont want anything to do with that fucked up prez anymore...
no contact == less chance of conflict and less chance of feeling angry..
i wont be playing ihg anyway.. and the problem lies in me... so i might as well back out...

hmm...
how things have changed...
all the happy memories of year 1.... the palm trees...
my roommate.. peter... the lizard..
gathering at the blk compound and shouting for everyone to go for dinner or supper...
go ah leong room to watch champions league..
go ad da's room to use his fridge...
bernard and his receding hairline and his catchy phrases.. ta piaann...
youmin of course... and her braces.. hahaha..
Blk comm...
the kitchen... lounge...
so fun back then..

and now?? hmm
need i say more??

how i wish the place can be torn down... either tt or i jus grad immediately.. or i transfer here to study full time in Trondheim..
then i need not be so vexed abt hall anymore... no need to think abt what is happening back home.. no need to re consider begging pple so that i can have a room next year...

hmm..
dunno what to say now.. dunno what to do as well..
guess will have to leave everything to fate...

well.. if anyone is still reading this post..
congrats.. its almost ending..
and if you thought that it was crap and bullshit which is super disorganised..
you are rite..
it is disorganised... i just typed down whatever juz came to my mind...

heh..
ok..
better not bore you pple any further..

Crazy Day..2

2005-03-13T04:32:00.000+08:00

forgot to mention my powerful flatmate...Dennis Okello...

there was this shop Datakjeden... selling all the computer stuff and electronics stuff... something like the mini Sim Lim thingy..
and for this sale day...
they had 2 sets of the Cana Ixus II digicams... selling for like 1385 kr each..
abt er. 350 sg?? its normal price was like 3000-4000 kr..
somewhere there la..
and he queued up since 6 am and he got the cam...

power huh.. and not only the digicam.. he got another webcam for 79kr..
down from abt 400kr??
all because he queued from 6 am in the morn...

its not so much abt the bargain that is impressive... the thing is he bothered to go at like 5 am and start queueing at 6 am so that he can be the 1st 2 customers when the shop opens at 9 am...

not bad for a guy huh....

Crazy Day..

2005-03-13T03:16:00.000+08:00

woke up at 7am... so that i can get to town early to snatch the best deals...
hahaha
took a long walk to town at 8... and it was wonderful...
the roads were free of snow/ice..
a gentle breeze blowing...
the sun beaming down on your face..
no cars on the roads.. except for a few buses here n there...
no other pple around at all..

time appeared to have stood still and it seems that you are the only person in the whole world...

and its at times like these when you appreciate the environment more. like I never noticed how beautiful the houses here are...and the mountains... whooh..
amazing... and theres this fat cat lying atop a stone wall enjoying a sun tan...
it can be compared to garfield i would say... haahah
so cute... and fat...

arrived in town just before the opening hours of the shops..
and pple were queueing up outside those shops... just waiting to rush in and get the best deals...
hahaha

my neighbours told me there will be A Lot of pple in town today..
my first impression is huh?
you call this alot? the numbers dont even reach 20% of that at the mango sales at each shop la..
but then again.. i have never seen the town with so many pple at 1 time.. maybe its really a lot of pple in town for the locals..
hmm.. nvm... sounds like rubbish here... haha

anyway.. i spent my next months allowances in 1 day.. Crazy Day..
Bought 1 book... 3 pairs of socks... and 1 pair of shoes...
550 kr.....
and tts enuff for me to stay alive for the next month...
hmm... was still wondering if i should get those track pants..
and those winter clothes and jackets are half priced!! and they look damn cool too.. haha
esp some of those blazers... very very nice.. for like 400 kr?? and its better looking and better quality than those you can find at Topman la...

then again.. i cant really spend on everything.. broke already.. hahaah
but still enjoyed the shopping trip...
better not have too many of these... if not i will starve to death...

Crazy Day is Coming!!

2005-03-11T05:49:00.000+08:00

finally...
Crazy Day is coming!!!!

so what is crazy day???
hmm... basically is a day where everyone goes crazy... hahah

yeap.. a day when everyone goes crazy because its the major sale day in Trondheim...
something even bigger than the stupid Mango sale in sg...
haha

the prices are supposedly going to be super crazy... a digicam for S$100 anyone??
juz an eg for crazy day... hahaha
finally going to get some proper socks and maybe a pair of running shoes and who knows.. maybe an MP3 player...

hmmm
now i sound damn bimbo right??

but who cares... I am all geared up to go shopping this Saturday!!!

No one Left..

2005-03-08T00:09:00.000+08:00

hmm..
hall application started...

Not sure if i wanna go back to SH again...

mainly cos no one from my batch are left...
except 2?? God and Chuanleng...

dun help that i have 0 pts.. ok maybe got 5....
but still....
go back to the hall politics and all those shit?

hmm..
sounds real bad huh.....

2nd Ski Session

2005-03-07T01:49:00.000+08:00

Went to Dragvoll for the 2nd time...

And it was better this time round...
Much Better...

there wasnt too many people ard... in fact.. there was nobody ard today..meaning we can fall all we wan and wont feel embarrassed... hahahah

the snow condition was ok... weather was perfect...
and my skiing techniques are at least 10 levels abv that of the 1st ski trip...
hahaah

I remembered we stopped at this steep slope the other time cos we werent competent enough to go up that slope...
but for today.. we reached the top of it and it took us less time than expected..haah
at least we are quite comfy going on flat ground and upslopes...

but when it comes to skiing downhill... still got a long way to go sia...
it was better than the last time.. but still falling here and there... hmmm

and guess what appeared before us when we were heading home??
a moose!
cool huh.. too bad didnt bring my cam... but then again.. even if i had brought it out.. i wouldnt have dared to take a pic of it..
later the flash frighten the animal and if it comes charging towards me.. i will be gone..
cant outrun it.. and its worse that i am on skis...

well.. at least we got home safely.. hahaah
getting excited abt skiing oredi... esp when we are improving leaps and bounds.. hahaha

Busy week

2005-03-06T03:16:00.000+08:00

hmm...
wanted to bitch about this week here...
its supposed to be 2 weeks of reading week...
then other international students are out travelling and stuff...

but we cant go anywhere for too long... cos of financial constraints... and we got lots of work to complete and catch up on...
well... I am having the mid term on now... 1 week long... deadline is coming wed..
then i keep getting stuck at the questions... damn...

then got 2 other projects which need to be rushed out...
1 is the environmental project which is due on 15th march which is next week...
then the AFL graded assignment... this is due 6th april... but as all of us will be going ard... we gotta finish as much as we can now....

this is considered a busy week for me...
2 projs and 1 midterm...
but come to think of it...
its similar to a normal week in NUS isnt it???

was reading my frens' blogs... janet... himbo... wah... muz say they really remind me of the standard Hell Week in NUS man...
esp my sem 5.. almost died.... even after declaring 2 S/U modules...
nitemare of all nitemares...
guess that will disqualify me from bitching about my week huh...

all the best to everyone who are mugging hard....
and to those who are slacking to their fullest..
keep up the good job....heh...

2 Months!!

2005-03-06T02:55:00.000+08:00

Wah...
6th March...
been here for 2 months oredi...

the only difference is that the days are getting longer.. the sun now rises at 830 am instead of 930... and sets ard 630 instead of 330pm... hahaah
and of course i am getting used to the temperature here and the slippery roads...

but then again.. i still feel like a first time traveller whenever i go out...

come to think of it..
i havent really explore Trondheim at all..
Havent been to other shopping malls other than those in town
Havent been inside the church and the museums...
Havent even really explored the town...
and i honestly dont know the bus routes...
quite loser ah...
hmm...

better get out more often... or else i will rot to death...

Easter Plan

2005-02-28T04:35:00.000+08:00

This is one of the features of SEP...
travelling!!!
POWER!!!

come easter... Come to Daddy!!!

plan
18th mar --> take nite bus to oslo
19th mar --> take nite bus to berlin
20th mar --> arrive in berlin and enjoy
24th mar --> take bus to Copenhagen and reach in the afternoon.. link up with Ruiyuan and Eric
27th mar --> fly to Prague
2nd apr --> fly back to trondheim...

any readers interested in joining this wonderful plan please email me as soon as possible...

well...ym sister zijing thought of going to cph as well.. but didnt want to go as the only female in the grp...
so if there are any pple who are female/willing to act female/planning to become a female are interested in going..
juz drop me a msg.. then can work things out...

now back to do tutorial... tmr submission... sianz...

Authentic Pizza!!

2005-02-28T04:25:00.000+08:00

Went over to Ruiyuan's place on Sat...26th Feb...
Supposed to go over for some project discussion with Riccardo...
Needed to rush a bit because he is going off for a week long trip to the northern part of Norway...

so i reached there at 2.15pm.. thought i was late by 15 min...
but mr Riccardo reached only at 3.15.... He went to the wrong block... DUH...

we did some work... slow progress.... very slow in fact... did work till 530pm
then we suggested... y not Riccardo teach us how to make pizza?
The Italiano way... hahah
cos he is always complaining abt the pizza here... he calls them norwegian bread... cos its nothing like pizza... hmmm

well... so ry went to get the stuff needed for the pizza...
and then we had the 1st lesson in pizza making session...
not bad...
its quite different from the frozen/pizza hut style...hmm
there is less topping.. and the crust is not tt thick...
hmm...

we made 4 flavours... tuna w onions, ham, mushroom w garlic, olives...
the olives are quite good...haahaha

another italiano, Antonio, joined us.... and lars and eivind too...
quite power...
drinking wine/beer... eating pizza which was made from scratch... talking hell lots of crap...
till 130 am in the morning..
not bad huh....

the pizza didnt realli taste super good... and mr Riccardo was like sorry guys..
please... give me another chance..
i will perfect it...
hmmm

of course ok la... then i get to eat more pizza... hahahhahh

maybe next time i can open a pizzaria in sg ah... dun play play...

Blackout!!

2005-02-26T20:24:00.000+08:00

Happened on sat morn....
My mother called me and that woke me up... tt was about 0945

1000hrs
went out and dennis informed me we have no electricity... hmmm
no wonder feeling so cold when i woke up...

1015hrs
after trying to the key to the fuse box.. we gave up and called the resident assistants for help..
and the guy conveniently told us to wait while he tried to get his colleagues to help.

1030hrs
another guy called us to go collect the key from his apartment.. when its his job to come over and sort things out ---> sounds like Stephen Phua huh....

1045hrs
cos its the old system.. and not the switch board kind... so everything is screwed on and there is no indicator of which fuse is blown.. we tried to take out some fuses...hoping to see some broken stuff but we couldnt find out which was the blown fuse...

1050hrs
called the number for security --> supposed to call them for more impt stuff like lost keys etc...
think i called oslo or something like that... cos the lady was like öh you are from Trondheim? Let me direct you to another department" or something like that...

1105hrs
This guy from securitas came along and he found the broken fuse.... and we realised that when we took out some fuse to check on our own.. we caused a miny blackout downstairs.. hahaha
hmm... but the security guy didnt have any spare fuses on him... so... he gotta go back and call the maintenance guys... cool huh.. he left abt 1145hrs

1200hrs
the same guy came back with the fuse and fixed the thing in 1 min...

not bad huh.. took 2 hours to fix a blown fuse... talk about efficiency!!!!
for these 2 hours... we couldt bath.. go toilet.. cos it was too dark w/o lights..
cant cook.. cant boil water for tea/coffee...
cant use comp... fridge is down and melting...
and both of us were freezing cos the heater was down as well

and it took 1 min to screw in the new fuse...

well.. instead of bitching too much on it... lets look on the +ve side...
at least now we appreciate how impt electricity is to our daily life...
hmmmm

Nice Weather

2005-02-26T07:22:00.000+08:00

The weather this week has been fabulous...

temperature ranging from -12 to 0 degree celsius...
the sky is clear and the sun beaming down on you...
you just feel great... having the sun shine on you and not feel hot..
ironic isnt it??
hmm...

the weather is forcasted to be colder though... may drop to -ve 15 to -20...
with snow n stuff
BEST!!!

hhhha

well... haven posted here for 1 week and all i can talk abt is weather...
sort of sums up my week huh...

got 2 projects coming up next week.. and my team members taking turns to go on short trips in Norway... cos its our 2 week long study break...
but too bad i got another 1 week long mid term test during this 2 weeks too...
nvm la...

conserve all the power for Easter Break!!!

Trip to Røros

2005-02-20T20:34:00.000+08:00

Went to Røros yesterday...
Had a nice trip there and it was a very nice place...
though I have to wake up like at 630 am for the 3rd day in a row...

The bus journey took like 3.5 hrs... cos the road was slippery and the bus couldnt like go faster...
but it wasnt too bad... the scenery is simply Amazing... Snow covered mountains.... Icy rivers... Small cabins in the middle of the forests.... and just the bus along the whole stretch of road...
quite cool huh...

I chose to go to the museum when we reached there... small mining museum... basically... Røros is abt mining.... there are some other activities like skiing.. fishing... farms... dog sledging... but our trip was mainly abt mining la... so...
yeap...
so i got to see hell lots of mining history and tools.... can check out the photos via the new link...

went to walk around the marketplace after that... its similar to our pasar malam... but with better stuff and more variety la...ahahah
got a lot of interesting stuff to see as well... reindeer fur.. horns... meat...
i cant resist myself from a burger... haha... though it cost me 60 kr...
but it was good.... real good...
haahah

Saw this sweater... the norwegian product.. with the knitting all their style n stuff la... wanted to get 1... but it cost like 490 kr... 900 if i get 2... hmmmmm
very nice.. maybe my father can take 1.... but in the end... i chose to find something else la...
maybe can find something nicer when i travelling over easter.... hope so...

we went to the church as well.. super old church... made of wood (cool huh)..
got free tea n cakes inside... but i pai seh to take oso la... not worshipper then go eat for free....
dont feel right...
but eric enticed me to take a small piece of cake la...
opps...haah

went for dinner at 3pm... with the group... and we went to the Olavsgruva mine...
an old mine open for visitors...
we had to put on plastic bags over our shoes... so that we wont dirty the bus after that...
and the whole group looked like idiots walking in those Coop Mega plastic bags... n with helmets somemore..
well.. theres nothing much in the mines.. cos they cleaned it up a lot... not as dirty as i would have thought... but its a copper/iron mine la...and not coal mine... so...
at least i have been inside a real mine... hahaah

Though I wont say its the best trip I had.. It was still a good trip.... except that the bus broke down on our way back... delayed our return by almost 1.5-2 hours...
but it did help me spend a whole saturday.. haah

Beep Beep

2005-02-20T07:16:00.000+08:00

Damn it...
I lost 2000kr.. tts like more than S$500

Either I dropped it accidentally...
Or I hid the $$$ somewhere which I forgot..
Or I spent it within 1 day....
Or someone took it from my wallet...
---> if this is the case...#^%*&%^*$%&%$&%$&%^&^^%&#%#%^^
Whatever the reason......***********************************!!!!

Ok...everything is settled....sorry for all the language used originally....
(i dont really think properly when i realised i misplaced so much cash at 3 am in the morn)
yeap... time to move on....

ski-D

2005-02-17T03:12:00.000+08:00

heh...
hangover from skiing ...

the temperature now is like -10 outside... and all the roads and pavements are frozen...
somehow or other.. my shoes dont seem to be reliable anymore...

doesnt help that I have to walk downhill to get to school everyday...heh...

and so... instead of walking downhill... I can SKID downhill...
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee....
as if i am on some invisible skateboard....

and like skiing... i stop using the only way i know how...
turn ard... bend over...
and try to use my hands to stop sliding down all the way...

it looks quite cool and fun to skid downhill...
but I'm telling you... it can get damn embarassing when there are other pple ard...

the road conditions better get err... better...

SKI

2005-02-15T17:26:00.000+08:00

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of the century ---- > Able to Ski and Chu Pattern on skis...

Skiing was fun....
was supposed to go with some trips to Vassfjellet... but we went to the bus... and all those pple are damn pro.... with all the skis/snowboards/attire/ everything basically..
so we thought it is not a good place to learn skiing... hmmm...
Is it us? Or is it all asians/singaporeans all scared of embarrasing themselves???

anyway.. we tried to ski Unsuccessfully behind where we live... cos there was too much snow on the ground....
we ended last saturday with the only way we know how... watch soccer...
sad right...
then ruiyuan went out partying at night while i stayed in to nua..

I thought that was it... no chance of skiing over the weekend... cos they went out partying and no one will be awake on sunday..
haha
I was Wrong..

They called me on Sunday at... ermmm 2pm?
So we went to this place in Dragvoll... a forest or something like that... not exactly a forest la..
you guys can check out the photos...
anyway.. we looked like ducks... and it was very obvious we were trying to learn x-country skiing...
cos we cant control our direction properly... we steered too left when going downhill... n kena "reminded" by some auntie... damn...
the slope was bending to the right la... i can only go down straight... of course i would steer out of lane la...
not as if i wanted to crash into other people...
well... she realised tt after a while... and she tried to be nice and talk to us in Chinese--> pu tong hua...
hahaah
heck her la

anyway... had a great time trying to make a fool out of myself...
especially when going downhill...
kept gathering speed... dunno how to control direction... dunno how to brake... scared of crashing into other people...
cool stuff... hahaha... and i stopped myself using the only way i know how..
fall into the snow by the side of the road...
ouch....

well... at least we skied home... via Dragvoll campus...
It was a damn good workout... works your whole body... arms and legs...
All of you out there should try it out..

Opps

2005-02-12T08:08:00.000+08:00

Time flies...
next Monday is Valentines Day....
meaning I've been here like more than 1 month already!!!
Urgh... I dun wanna go back to NUS!!!
I rather stay here and freeze in the snow...

anyway... I have to admit that I didnt send anything to Youmin for v-day... opps
sorry ym...
will get something nice here for you when I go back ok??
But then again... didnt send her anything doesnt mean i dont care abt her right? I still do...

hmm...
ok.. better keep it short... if not i gonna get it worse...

Studenterhytta

2005-02-11T17:53:00.000+08:00

Nice trip for 50 kr I must say...
I left at 6pm... reached the mountains at ard 7...
haha

Its really a nice place... having a slope just for skiing just beside the cabin...
too bad couldnt really take pictures of the cabin.. cos it was too dark.. and the flash doesnt really make it better...

well.. the inside of the cabin was also nice...Very Nice..its really like those huts/cottages in fairy tales
went in.. and everyone had to take off their coats and SHOES...
damn...
my socks had holes in them la...
n its so embarrasing to be walking around with holes in your socks...
heh...so i juz took my socks off as well.. hmmm...
think i the only 1 barefooted...
but what the heck...ahhaah

there is a fire place there... with all the french are enjoying.. they crowded round the place and put their feet on the wall... so that their precious feet can enjoy the warmth of the fire...
errr...

nvm then... so i went into the dining hall.. real nice place..
with those err... animal heads?? (sorry... forgot the correct term) hanging from the wall...hhaha

so we sat in between a group of germans...
they are quite an off group... in the sense that they dun go crazy like the italians.. french... dutch... and so on... hahahah

they had to sing some songs before the food is served... and we totally have no idea what they are singing about..

then played a few games to kill the time...

then DINNER!!
best!!!
had some kind of fish .. nice sauce.. but damn a lot of tiny bones..
yucks..
but there were prawns... cucmber... potatoes... n lots of mayo to go along...
i would say that is one of the best meals i had in norway... hahahaha

after dinner.. they cleared the place for games n stuff...

we had 3 interesting games... though i dont really know the names...hahaah
interesting...
and as usual.. most of the participants are the crazy italiano and the french...
i sat with the germans and looked on and laugh... hahaha

the last game was the most interesting...
simple... think most of us will have played before...
the game hostess was to ask for an object.. and the participant will have to go find it and bring it to her... the last person who arrives would be out...
and the last man standing wins...
hahah
so it started off normally... shoes... earrings...
then things got more interesting...
she first asked for a bra..
hahaha
so the guys had to go ard to beg for girls to take them off... u can imagine...
hahaa
next were boxer shorts...
n its the girls turn to beg the guys...
the last item was even better...
a condom..
hahaah
so this german guy stood up after like 5 min of searching by the participants and declared he had one...

he became the star of the game... hahahaahahaha

it became pretty boring after that...
cos i dont really dance.. and i didnt feel like spending money on drinks...

hmm..
left with the early bus at 1130pm...
and it was snowing by then!!!
yeah
can go skiing on sat...
haahah

it was a great evening out i must say... cheap as well...
50 kr for return bus trip... and a wonderful dinner..
and able to meet so many pple...
hahaha

will upload the photos soon... but i must say that they are not very nice.. cos my angles and choices were quite limited...hahaha

well.. i met another chinese though...
a phd student from china... hahah
finally got to see some cheenaman...

hmm

CNY Dinner...

2005-02-10T05:13:00.000+08:00

Hei!!
Just finished a wonderful dinner with the other Singaporeans.... ruiyuan and eric

feeling quite shiok!!
not that the food was superb... but its more of the company... hahaah
errr.... not that we are super good friends with one another la..
its just that having dinner with someone you know for CNY is nice...

well.. it was a good dinner...
we met at 6 to shop at Rema1000 for our dinner...
and the menu is as follows..

1) Baked Chicken -- Weekend flavour... its the pre-marinated kind.. we didnt have too much time to prepare the curry chicken
2) Brocolli with baby carrots -- not bad.. quite standard dish... and everything tastes good with ajinomoto....hahah
3) potato wedges -- baked till golden brown with special chilli sauce and salad dressing
4) Fried Salmon with butter and garlic..
5) Fragrant White Thai Jasmine Rice
6) Italian Kiwis for dessert

the meal is quite idiot proof... with ruiyuan doing the brocolli and me doing the salmon... the rest were more like just throw into the oven...
had a great time preparing... eating and just chatting with them... talked about easter travelling and stuff... not bad...
at least theres something going on...

maybe should try to cook together more often also... its quite worth it considering the dishes we had...hahaha

and it softens the impact that we are spending the 1st CNY away from home...

just uploaded more pictures into the Trondheim folder... do check them out..

CNY

2005-02-09T08:09:00.000+08:00

This title may be used by 10000000 other pple in their blogs... but i dont really care about that...

It is now like 1.10 am on the 9th Feb 2005.... and its officially the 1st day of the year of the Rooster... My Year... hahaah
damn... means i going to turn 24 this year... time really flies...
still rem the 1st CNY during BMT... booked out on the eve and went to pizza hut buffet with 2 frens... the next moment, i was stepping out of the army and into uni... that moment was when i was 21...
wow... 3 years have passed... i am getting ooolllldddddd.....

ok.. back to topic...
so basically, no one celebrates the Chinese New Year here in Norway... and that includes the other Singaporeans who are here with me now... well at least they are not as excited about it as me....

well.. i spent the CNY eve with my norwegian buddy... a guy called Vidar... haha
(my buddy is from a buddy program organised by the student clubs here)
it was more of a coincidence that we met up on tue for dinner --- it was his only night free...
and the other 2 guys were quite reluctant to prepare some nice food together...
so i thought heck them la.. i shall just treat myself to something nice in town....
hmm... i did invite ruiyuan to go along.. but think he not interested in it..
and i went to town after spending some time in school...
bought myself a Choc Milk Shake from Macdonalds as i arrived early... hahah

Vidar came along... talked for a while in Mac... and decided we should go out and look for dinner..
I did see some nice restaurants the previous times i went to town... but the food there wasnt really in my price range...
so it was quite an easy decision to find a place for dinner...

Burger King!!

ok.. stop laughing...
It is really a treat to me... at least in Trondheim...
a meal costs like 74 kr!!!
which is like almost S$20..
not bad huh... can imagine the prices at the restaurants already??
for that price... i reckon i can go to the supermkt and get myself 1 week of supplies... or even more..
but then again.. its CNY eve la.. so there..
haha

well... wanted to go play 'billiards' after that... thats what they call our form of 'pool'
but the only table in town was occupied...
we went to the Student Samfundet (the place i went to during the norwegian party) and had some tea there...
there was quite a crowd there... as there was some form of quiz going on there...
winners of the quiz supposedly get some free dinners....
we arrived just as they were finishing the quiz.. so we managed to squeeze a seat for ourselves...
and so we sat there.. talking crap... from CNY traditions to life here n in sg... blah blah blah

well... left ard 10pm...
came back ..
watch the 4th episode of Desperate Housewives..
sent an email to the whole ISU... wishing them a happy CNY... haha
and then tried to do my HRM assignement...
of course the last entry wasnt really productive... cos i am blogging while supposed to be doing work... hmmm...
but i am bored sia!!! Doing work on CNY?!?!
sounds fun isnt it??

haha
ok... enough of crapping... hope to finsih 1 question before i sleep tonight...
and then gatecrash the norwegian survival course tmr....

Crazy Monday..

2005-02-08T05:08:00.000+08:00

This is just not my day...
well... not my weekend at all...
it was boring.... boring... and boring...
the only plus point is I finally went to the gym downstairs.. haha
and i had trouble reading about singapore unions and labour laws...
come to think of it ah..
everything in singapore is under PAP la... they are just 1 bloody big mafia... which operates using their rules.. and that happen to be the laws of sg as well la...
but then again... nvm...

Monday was a bright and sunny day... Really...
the sky was clear...the sun beaming into the whole of trondhiem...
and i thought its going to be a good day...
so i wore my brand new shoes to sch!!
but i not sure if my feet shrunk or the shoes grew bigger.... they were like damn loose on my feet.. and by the time i got to school... i got blisters on my heels...
urgh........

well...went for my HRM class where Prof Per Sletten told us that he got another more impt thing to do.... so he could only spare like 30 minutes of discussion with us...
HUH?!?! never knew such things could happen...
and so... we were free at 2...
and had to wait till 3.30 for the meeting for a presentation tmr...

that Mr Cropelli.... had to do the slides over and over and over and over and over again....
making us feel damn frustrated....
add in tired as well...
almost wanted to smack someone to vent all the frustration...
and they are meeting at 10 am tmr morning... when i thought that we were supposed to present at 9am..
not bad huh...
those idiots... better not make me fail my 1st presentation in norway...
will ask someah neh to screw them upside down...

went to get my tickets for thu trip though...
trip to studenterhytta... some place to have dinner and maybe drinks...
wanted to stay overnight there... but we have lessons on fri morn at 8...
so... too bad...

at least i am getting out of here...haahah
cant wait for thu evening to come...

How Come?

2005-02-06T04:23:00.000+08:00

How come some people just cant be bothered to talk about their problems properly?
How can people be so rude... like juz shut you off in the middle of conversation!?!?!?

Beer Beer and Some More Beer

2005-02-05T03:55:00.000+08:00

quite an exciting day for me... hmm.. fruitful should be a better word...

supposed to have an 8am lect and i woke up at 805...
Fantastic start to the day...
haahahah
but went for the lecture anyway... cos the lecturer for this lecture is good.... sehr gut...
one of the best lecturers i ever had i must say...
he speaks good english (which is a major plus here) and he gives very clear and consise explanations n examples...
well... i dont really know his name though... hahaah

Afternoon was even better....
went for another lecture on production and network economics...
and we played a game during lecture....
The Beer Game...
not bad huh...
well... it was supposed to be simulate us as managers of different distributors/warehouses/factories/retailers.. something like that...

main thing was to let us experience what it was like to be managers and how to order crates of beer to satisfy customer demand...
think the ISE pple would relate better to this.... that is if there are any of them reading this..
so we had to deal with uncertain demand... lead times... inventory control... stock outs... back orders... blah blah blah....
dont be scared if you dont understand any of the above terms... it means i am learning something original in my course...

so our team was named "The Bottlenecks"
nice name huh...
hahaahah
basically... it because we are all screwed up....
the factory guy was producing a lot of beers..
and the wholesaler and distributor (another 2 guys) did not order enough for me (the retailer) to satisfy demand...
so basically... we make a super lousy supply chain...
which is one of the main aims of the game anyway... to let us know the troubles of supply chains..
and other aspects of real life situations and human behaviour..
hahaah

the top team got a box of chocolates.... means they have done well to minimize costs....
and The Bottlenecks.... we got a box of chocs too!!
for fairplay... hahah
cos we were like stuck to the rules of no communication between each player....
other people had a lot to talk among themselves i supposed...haahh
but if looking from the pessimistic point of view.. maybe its because the norwegians dont find it comfortable to talk to 2 chinese guys...
hahah
but what the heck... we got a box of chocs...

that was more or less my day in school...
quite interesting... fun.... exciting... learned a lot of things... liked the lectures..
Makes me feel like transferring here FULL TIME......

NUS SUCKS!!! No 18 my foot....

hmmm...think i am going Crazy... hahah
though i am supposed to have a lot of work to do now...
i am sitting here drinking beer and crapping into my blog...
well..... at least that sort of explains the title... hahah

Rag

2005-02-05T01:08:00.000+08:00

hmmm
got the email from Francis pleading for cans this yr... hahaah
a lot of grammar errors in the mail... but then again... not that my EL is that standard...

well... its heartening to know that there are no delays in getting things done for rag this year...
hopefully can make up for the disappointment last year...

All the best to SH rag team 0405...
hahaha

What a Day...

2005-02-04T04:38:00.000+08:00

i am supposed to be putting up some references into my write up for the environment module...
but somehow or other.. i just cant be bothered...
so sian....

maybe i just slack too much already la....

but at least i saw a nice rainbow today... haahh
saw it on my way out to school... too bad didnt bring my camera though....
but then again... who nv see rainbow before rite....

Still got a lot of things on my mind though... things like:
1) How to finish the stupid environment project when i am totally not interested in.....

2) Who and how to travel over Easter... no one seems to be travelling.... if they are... its with someone else.... shit....

3) When can I settle my admin stuff --- bank acct and student permit...

4) Very tempted to take a 15 credits Scandinavian Film module... then can max out my MCs here... but the take home exam of 10-15 pages is very scary... i got this phobia after taking the Singapore Film last sem... i am doubtful i can take all the stress again... and its going to be hard to crumble here in Norway... very hard...

well... i am still more fortunate than the pple back home... hahah...
was reading other pple blogs...
himbo... emily.i... olenia....
all suffering from midterms and SDP...
my turn next year....
just hope i can settle my stuff and relax a bit this sem...

Looking for Travellers...

2005-02-04T04:10:00.000+08:00

Who is Free from the 19th March till 29th March 2005?
Anyone wanna tour scandinavia over this period??
Looking for pple to travel with.....

pls email me at u0204632@nus.edu.sg if you are interested...

everyone can apply....
unless.. you are gay or you smell damn bad..

Almost Died

2005-01-31T01:50:00.000+08:00

The previous batch of exchange pple were kind enough to leave some stuff for me...
Too bad they left before I arrived in TRD... if not can meet up and ask abt some stuff... change money....etc etc etc

but they left the bag of stuff with their housemate.. Sven...
so i was supposed to go collect this bag when i am free...

n today seems like it...
i was locked in my room as i have nowhere to go over the weekend...
soccer seems boring cos its some FA cup matches... n my sunday skiing trip was called off cos there isnt any SNOW!!!!
damn...

so i decided to go over to Steinan and get the bag from Sven...
but the thing is... i have no idea where the hell Steinan is... and it was raining very heavily... n the wind was howling outside....
its the kind of wind which makes a whole row of trees shake and dance..

then again... heck care la... i am too bored here... cant possibly spend my whole weekend reading some HRM stuff...
so i took a nice walk to Steinan...
in the heavy rain and the wind which makes a whole row of trees shake and dance...

big mistake...

i didnt know the way to Steinan and i ended up climbing some hill...
as if it wasnt bad enough... the wind on the hill was stronger...
add in another part where i slipped and fell...
makes the trip a perfect trip...

so i thought... hmmm better play safe... go back first... cos it was getting dark as well...
and i have totally no idea where i was...
just as i was trying to figure my way out...
i Found the Place...
not bad huh...

so i went up and called on Sven... took the super big bag.... and tried to ask for directions back to Moholt...
he gave some horrible instructions.... i got a glimpse of what he was trying to say... n left..
so i continued walking back home... already wet and cold... and the weather conditions wasnt really improving..
walk left walk right walk center...
n i ended up climbing another hill...
shit...

i walked around in circles.. n got lost.. again...
with the rain splashing in my face.... and the wind still making rows of trees shake and dance...
ARGH!!!!

just as i got desperate...a woman drove past and i asked for directions....
well... i got some horrible directions again...
"see the house?? you have to go round it and up the road.. then cross.... blah blah blah..."
damn it la
i was in a housing estate la... there are houses EVERYWHERE la...

but i tried to follow the road... n phew.. i saw some similar landmarks and got home..
after like 2 hours when it normally takes 1 hour to walk slowly.....

it was such a relief to reach home..... though i am super cold... super wet... and super low morale..
and i was almost super dead...

but still thanx to Kwoh Miin and gang for the stuff they left behind... ahaah

TOP!!!!!!!

2005-01-28T22:31:00.000+08:00

Date:
Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:33:09 +0100
From:
Jan Vetle Moen
To:
'Chuanling Foo' , Cropelli@stud.ntnu.no , Ruiyuan@stud.ntnu.no , Baudrilc@utt.fr
Subject: SV: Exercise 1

Very good! Best case this week. Keep up the good work!

Jan Vetle

-----Opprinnelig melding-----Fra: Chuanling Foo [mailto:chuanlin@stud.ntnu.no] Sendt: 26. januar 2005 12:03Til: Janvetle@stud.ntnu.noKopi: baudrill@stud.ntnu.no; ruiyuan@stud.ntnu.no; cropelli@stud.ntnu.no;chuanlin@stud.ntnu.noEmne:
Exercise 1
Dear Sir,
This copy of work is submitted by
Clemence Baudillard
Riccardo Cropelli
Chen Ruiyuan
Foo Chuanling

Best Regards,Chuanling

POWER!!! CAN ACTUALLY TOP THE LECTURE GRP SIA....
when i kena stepped on and spit on in nus...
hmmm..
maybe we got advantage cos we are more comfortable in english... hahaha
but still so shiok..
TOP LE...

I miss NUS

2005-01-28T01:14:00.000+08:00

hmmmm..
sure miss NUS sia
all the stress and the heavy workload...and all those super C**** chao muggers....

here at NTNU... you dont even need to attend the practice sessions (tutorials)
the slots are just consultation hours...
so if you wanna do your work.. and happen to bump into some problems.. u can just go there and clarify with the tutors...

then the work is done in groups.. so its a lot of discussion and interaction...
yeap...

and the pple here dont work over weekends...
its really a break from everything.. go ski... go parties... get drunk... talk a lot of crap... travel around...
makes me miss those days in nus where you can work over the whole blardy weekend and still not finish your work... and everyone's morale gets damn low...

and the canteens... yeah.... it sure is fun to go to the canteens and have to try your luck and get a seat.. even in engine canteen...
its just walk in and you can find a seat here...
hmm... but then again.. maybe theres not much in the canteens here la... haha..

cant wait to get back to NUS... and get back to the super stuck up life there...

Snow Snow Snow

2005-01-25T01:09:00.000+08:00

Weather is getting better and better these few days....
hahaah

its been snowing everyday for the last 3-4 days...
and the depth of the snow is ...er. deep enough?
when i went out this morning... the snow was somewhere above my ankle...
the height when you pull up your socks.... (normal socks.. not those ankle type)

when i came back from school...
it was even higher... hahaah
almost half of my shin is covered if i were to step into it.

i can only walk those places where other people have walked..
if not my feet would have been freezing...
not that its not cold enough...

but snow is cool...
an even surface of white cream...
makes the place looks nicer... cleaner...
and makes you feel like just lying in there.
though i wouldnt do that la...

well
just hope that it keeps snowing...
and hopefully i can rent a pair of skis soon enough to play ard in the snow...
hahaahah

ARGH

2005-01-21T23:24:00.000+08:00

Went to the supermkt and bought 1 big bottle of chilli sauce for 20 kronors...
so shiok... finally got some dip for my food....

then comes the best part..
i came back... put the plastic bag onto the chair to search for my keys and open the door...
n yeah...
the bottle got too excited and rolled out of the bag to see the new environment...
it fell onto the floor after a magnificent somersault in the air...
and there goes my chilli....
all splattered on the floor...

damn... didnt even get a chance to taste it.... didnt even have the chance to open the safety seal...
urgh....

think have to walk in the snow to buy another bottle again...
sucks...

Progress...

2005-01-21T05:43:00.000+08:00

heh.. i was trying out some basic html stuff... haahah ok.. no real pro stuff... its like my 1st time using html... and trying to read the syntax n stuff...

for someone who hates programming to the core... it took quite an enormous effort.... hmmmm at least i got some links to sook may's blog and my pictures..... hmm... sook may name again..... sian...

maybe i can try add in somemore pple.... or maybe i should just try start studying my course stuff... hahahaah

Classes

2005-01-20T02:49:00.000+08:00

school here is quite different compared to sg...

there are still the normal LTs and the tut rooms...but are better furnished..
maybe they just renovated the place or something like that..
and most of the rooms are card accessed...

lessons wise....
well... the lecturers are very flexible...they are the most willing to change time slots for lectures and practice sessions (tutorials) to suit everybody..
like they will arrange for the classes to be earlier in the day if the actual timeslot is in the evening from 1700 - 1900
this is good.. taking into acct that the sky gets dark at around 4pm...
so having class at 5pm onwards and walking back to our rooms at 7pm doesnt really sound fun...

the workload here is still ok.... so far...
everything is planned out here ( except for 1 course) ... so we have all the work and stuff..
it is also not compulsory to do ALL the work given... like in 1 course... TKP4110.. we need to just do a minimun of 3 out of 6 assignments to be able to go for exams... hahaah
there doesnt seem to be any individual work.. at least so far...
most are done in groups...
well... it is going fine so far... just that both Ruiyuan and I have to speak slower and use simple english words so that our other team members --- 1 italian and 1 french, can understand and digest what we are talking about...

the exams are even better...
4 hrs long.. shiok ah...
i though i heard something like we form groups of 2-4 people to do the final exam somemore...
maybe i heard wrongly... maybe its true... haahah
some courses have take home exams too... means they give you a set of questions and you have 1 week to write out the essay and submit it... but those are mainly for arts courses...
not in engine...

another new thing is ORAL exam...
hahaah
for my HRM... it is supposed to be taught in norsk... but the lecturer actually offered the 3 exchange students special lessons which are conducted in english...
and the exams will be in oral form as well...
cool huh.... hahah
go there and talk cock can already...

ok... time to go back to my readings for toyota...

And the Work Starts Pouring In.....

2005-01-19T02:52:00.000+08:00

ok...
i was super bored last sunday...
cos no shops were open.... except the petrol stations...
n i didnt go out as the ice was all melting and that makes walking super uncomfortable and the floor is super slippery...
so i had to stay indoors the whole day....

2 days later...
the flood gates open....
n all the work starts to gush down into my timetable..
urgh...
and i havent even registered for my modules yet....

but tues was still an interesting day...
went for 1 lecture... only to hear that fella talking in norwegian..... and after 15 min...he walked out...
after asking ard... it seems that that lecturer just told the class he wont be teaching the course anymore... cool huh...

well fortunately... we met this italian guy, Riccardo, from another class..

and he was like telling us about this other module which was in english.. but its on another campus 15 min walk away...

i have no idea what is that building called yet... but it does passes by the stadium of Rosenborg.. hahahaah

anyway.. i think it is a cool module... and i should be able to take it... though it is listed as some Master Degree module...
its time to get some challenging module anyway.... hmmmm
the only set back for this module is that lectures are on fridays at 8am...
which means i have to wake up at 6.45... eat... pack lunch... then walk to that building at 7.30....
how to wake up so early when i dont have any form of alarm???

will see how then...
i have more to think about for now...
like 2 sets of readings... 2 projects.. and how to get all the textbooks...

Norwegian Party?

2005-01-15T17:48:00.000+08:00

Ruiyuan's flatmates organised this Party at their flat last nite... n asked me over to join them..

basically... the Party is similar to our merlion sessions or barley tasting nites or watever...hahaha

but more powerful...

the trend here is to bring your own drinks to the party....

so you just bring whatever you have or feel like drinking over there... beer... or hard liquor... maybe coke.. haha

i didnt start off well.. there is some regulation that says all forms of alcohol cant be sold after 8pm on weekdays... n i didnt noe... so i couldnt find any beer...

sucks...

luckily ruiyuan bought quite a few bottles... hahaah

so i 'borrowed' his stuff first...

i went to the party at 815... when the thing is supposed to start...

n i saw only 2 guys in the common area... evan n ''larsh'' ---> the 2 organisers...

(the names are not spelt correctly... but its supposed to be pronounced this way)

n i was like... duh... so exciting...

but they transformed the common area which is supposed to be the kitchen into some damn nice place la..

they actualli cleaned up the place... lighted up tealights all over.... played music --> from evan's room...

impressive i must say... hahaahhaah

so we were just talking... then another girl came in and they started to converse in norwegian....

urgh...

so i just drank some beer.. talked a bit..

well... more and more people came in.... very interesting people.. hahaha

there was this girl who looks like kirsten dunst who is super overweight.. then there is another guy wearing this blazer kinda thing... n i was like... huh... need to wear so nice meh...

i was wearing my army brown t-shirt la... sianz...

the Party was mostly about talking... n drinking...

n going to the toilet...

then the blazer guy started to get drunk... n was trying very hard to gain attention to himself...

walking ard... smoking... damn kiam pah......

hahaha

anyway...

everyone left together ard midnite... n i tot it was over...

but.... that wasnt all to the party... they were going to town!!!

n they invited us to join them...

well... i was hesitating... 1 thing is abt cost... another more important thing is....

i am wearing my best outfit... army brown t-shirt...

POWER... hahahaha

but we thought it was a good chance to look at the night life here... especially with such a big group...

so both ruiyuan n i were wearing some army t shirt... covered with sweaters of course... n we went to some student club in town..

the club is opened mainly for students....

n it was damn big la..

bigger than most clubs you can find in singapore...

it has 8 rooms!!

even 1 specially for soccer matches... tink thats where i am going later to watch the liverpool vs man u match la... hahaha

so we went down to the disco place... nice for me...

not because of the music... but more of no smoking is allowed indoors...

cool huh...

at least i wont smell of smoke when i get out of there... hahaah

anyway... we were having a great time there... then this ''larsh'' guy was trying to hook up some girl... a very hot girl i must say...

but according to evan... she is super slutty...

cos he experienced it himself... hahaha

the plan was to let larsh get stood up by her n tell him the truth later... hmmm...

so she was like chatting up by 1000 other guys as well... and larsh was so super drunk he goes ard telling pple he loves them... n that he tinks she likes him...

n he was like going around bear hugging people as well... so after a while everyone was like trying to get out of his reach...hmmmm

well... the night ended about 3am+?? or so i thought..

the 4 of us shared a cab back to moholt... n evan told me about the nach party... the after party....

hhahaha

so i was like OK... lets go see how it goes...

as we were walking back... evan was showing us the glass that he took with him from the club..

n it was like so funny...

the better part was when they saw this mini construction site... n the 2 norwegians took 1 cone each back to their apartment...

hahahaahahahahah

so now they have 2 stupid cones in the toilet... blocking the toilet bowl...

hahaahahahahah.. wonder how they gonna pee when they wake up later....

anyway...

the after party was like crazy....

we went back to their apartment.. n the music started to come on... blasting like crazy...

those who complain about me blasting music in hall.. this is like 10 times louder.. with some super speakers n sub woofer...

SHIOK AH...

the place was already super messy cos of the party earlier... but larsh happily and readily made it worse...

he was so drunk that he was really really crazy...

he threw stuff ard... potato chips... spilled coke all over...

n the pizza he was eating...

the best part was the cognac evan brought out... its damn strong la...

the windows were wide open and we were like singing with the music and inviting those who were passing by to join us.... hahahah... these people are really crazy....

i didnt stay too long after that..

went back around 4am.. n washed up n slept...

this norwegian party is super power la...everyone should at least try it once... hahaha

maybe can try to introduce it back in hall or something...

hahaahahhaah

1st day of sch

2005-01-13T17:23:00.000+08:00

ok..
official day which school starts is on the 10/1..
but after 2 days of frantic module hunting... we found 4 hopeful modules... and hoped to start lesson today..

well the first lesson on thu starts at 8am..
so i woke up at 6... thinking that it is better to come early and find where is the classroom...

after slipping once on my way here... i found the classroom... at 0730 hrs...
this is like 45 min before the lecturer came...
anyway... the fella was quite nice... he actually shook hands with all the students who were present.. and greeted everyone who came in after that.. cool huh..
how many of us actually shake hands with our teachers in singapore???
hmm...

but there was a setback..
the course was to be taught in norwegian..
cos the norwegians were struggling with english for the same course last time round...
so the lecturer told us...
we can still take the module... but we have to read an english txtbk on our own.. and meet up once a week for discussions...
yeah...
how nice... haha
do self study...

and so.... i am stuck here in sch at 830 am... waiting for the next lesson which is at noon...
so spent the whole morning in the school comp lab reading news... and.... wasting time basically..
hahaha..

Cling

Summer Travels 2

Summer Travels 1

Photos are Uploaded

Last 5 hours

Pirbadet

Work Out Day..

Fjords

June...

28th May..

Celebration time!

Hello from fellow singaporean in norway.. .

Mixed Emotions

Gossips??

Screwed Big Time!!

Sucks..

Oral?

17th May

Party Time!!

Soccer Match..

IGLBU

Updates

1st Exam

Bug Bug Bug

BEST!!!

Norwegians

Dinner

CONFIRM

MAY!!

Lets count...

4 mths..

Stress ah....

Roan Fishing Trip

Studenterhytta 2

Closer...Closer... Closer...

Updates..

Winter. Spring... SUMMER...

I am a Resolver!!!

Time sure know how to fly...

Amazing..

Praha

Be Strong!!

In Deep Shit...

Copenhagen

Think of it..

Cabin Trip... Again.. hahah

Withdrawal Symptons...

Berlin Part 3

Berlin Part 3

Berlin Part 2

Trip to Berlin

Oslo

Just ate a Bratwurst in Berlin....

Last Minute Headache.. Turns into a Beautiful Dream

Last Min Headache

Holiday plans..

Hall . once again...Someone Tell Me What to Do!!!

Crazy Day..2

Crazy Day..

Crazy Day is Coming!!

No one Left..

2nd Ski Session

Busy week

2 Months!!

Easter Plan

Authentic Pizza!!

Blackout!!

Nice Weather

Trip to Røros

**Beep Beep**

ski-D

SKI

Opps

Studenterhytta

CNY Dinner...

CNY

Crazy Monday..

How Come?

Beer Beer and Some More Beer

Rag

Beep Beep