The Brain and Heart Balance

Post Florence... pre Porto

2009-07-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, didn't have time to update this blog for so long. I feel so bad..

Florence - SO... I was too cheapskate to pay 10 euros to see the real David sculpture by Michaelangelo, I just saw the replica which was supposedly exactly like the real thing. Ha.

Venice - Celine and I got to Venice on the 21st June. The hostel turned out to be almost like a hotel, but the vibe wasn't as cool as Archi Rossi in Florence. But given it's a cheap option, it's quite good nonetheless. We walked for a bit in the evening and had Jewish meal for dinner. A little pricey because it was by the canal, but it was a good meal. Everything in Venice is expensive! The stupid transport card to take the vaporetti (water buses) were so expensive but we had to get it anyway. The view at the bell tower in Santa Marco was awesome. Given the clear skies, we should have been able to see Croatia from the tower, except we didn't know which direction to look at. We then went to Murano, an island slightly further away to see glass being molded into different ornaments. Yeap, didn't get anything or mama sure scold. The useless glass candies will only accumulate dust. We met up with Mitch and Sandra for dinner, but we ate at some horrible bar. It was the cheaper option and I didn't have time to look for better alternative. Then I caught the overnight train to Vienna.

Vienna - After a gruelling 10 or 12hr train, I finally arrived in cold cold Vienna. It was drizzling and it just wouldn't stop! It's like Vienna was out to show me the melancholic side of Austria, totally erasing the idea of bright sunshine over rolling hills like those in the Sound of Music! I stayed with Cain, the art director of Invisible Children, and we went around Vienna having overpriced coffee and desserts at different cafes. He was nice enough to visit Freud Museum with me even though it was quite crap. The rainy weather made me not want to go many places unfortunately. The next day we went to a castle slightly further out from the city centre. It was huge and the gardens were amazing! There was a huge arch on top of a slope where we could see the entire city. It was breathtaking.. until it started raining again. A few hours later, I was on the overnight train back to Venice.

Travelling day.. 25th June.. I arrived in Venice at 8.30am, caught a nice train to Milan, arrived at 1.30pm. Then took the afternoon train from Milan at 3pm to Nice, arrived at 8pm. Got to the hostel around 9pm. Gosh.. I must have been on the train for a good 20+ hours. The next day, I went to Monaco and Eze Village. Monaco is quite beautiful, except everything's so bloody expensive. I feel underdressed even walking around! The yachts parked at the harbour are huge and gorgeous. But I wasn't very interested in exploring, I just wanted to rest because I was really tired from the train rides.. I went to Eze village which is along the way back to Nice. It's a small medieval village and I could see the French Riviera along the way. It's SO beautiful, more than Liguria! Cote d'Azur is really out of the world. The coastline is lined with beaches, rock formations and beautiful buildings. The clear blue skies blend into the mediterranean sea in the horizons and the view just makes me want to stand still and not move.

Onwards to BARCELONA!~The next morning I left early to get to Montpellier by 12pm. I met up with Aurelie and Sarah for lunch there. The girls brought me to a nice square where baskers played music and everyone was having lunch al fresco. It's a really nice atmosphere and they bought me lunch at a nice cafe/restaurant. I had foie gras salad and duck meat on the side. It's AMAZING. I thought I didn't like foie gras in large quantity but the salad changed my opinion totally. After lunch, I caught the 3pm train to Barcelona... in a crappy train..

I arrived in Barcelona at around 8pm. Kuba came to pick me up and we walked back to his apartment. It's a small apartment but it was in a prime location. Barceloneta. It's 50m away from the beach and walkable to La Rambla, the main centre. 2 hours later, Jerry arrived and I picked him up from the metro station. The next three days, we went around visiting museums, churches and exploring nice and cheap eating places. We went to La Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Picasso museum and hung out at Placa reial, walked about la rambla, watched the pride festival and the beautiful musical fountains at Montjuic hills. Barcelona was nothing less than expected, in fact it is much more. I couldn't bear to leave after 3 days but we had to. SO we left in the most stylish way, the Trenhotel, a super nice overnight train to Granada.

Granada is in the south of Spain, it's in the Andalusian region where Flamenco, Tapas and bullfighting are renown. Granada has two main attractions, Albayzin which is the arabic quarters and Alhambra which is a moorish castle/fortress. We explored Albayzin the first day and caught a beautiful view from San Nicolas Mirador. Then in the evening, we went to watch an awesome Flamenco show which we enjoyed tremendously. The next day we went to Alhambra, explored the castles, towers and gardens. It was really interesting because the architecture is very much influenced by Islam and there's a sense of familarity there.

We left Granada on the 3rd and we arrived in Seville several hours later. The temperature was scorching at around 38 degrees and we couldn't leave the hostel because it was too hot. Plus it was siesta time and all the shops are closed. So I soaked in the rooftop pool of the hostel, while Jerry edited photos on his computer. That evening we bought ingredients to make dinner. We had tacos and it turned out pretty decent. Then we went to a bar called La Carboneira which had free flamenco shows, but we were interested in the Tapas. Too bad, no more tapas, ended up with a glass of Sangria each. Weak weak alcohol, but enough to turn both of us red. The next day we went to the Cathedral which is the largest gothic cathedral in Europe. It's quite impressive in there, and Christopher Columbus is buried in there! Then we went back to the hostel, and made ourselves a nice lunch while the rest of Seville goes into siesta again. I too had a siesta. We woke up at 6-7 and had dinner at 8 at this nice Tapas place called Coloniales. It was cheap and delicious! for 6euros each, we had 4 tapas to share and drinks too. We then walked to the bullfighting ring and explored areas around the bridges nearby. Gorgeous views. I realised there are several places and things I didn't get to do in Seville, and I wished I had more time there.
The next morning, Jerry went to Amsterdam, and I left for Lisbon.

Sweet beautiful lisbon - I arrived at 10pm in Lisbon yesterday and I met up with Kuba's friend. He showed me around Bairro Alto but everything's closed on Sunday unfortunately. So we went back to rest. This morning, I went out, took a tram to explore the city. Lisbon is nothing less than gorgeous. It reminds me of Prague, but with more sunshine, more hills and smaller roads. the cobblestone paths and tramways just make this city so beautiful in some way. The long sunset dribbled over the rivers and meandering corners made the city shine like no others. Today Jakub and his friend drove to Costa, a nearby beach and I tagged along. The beach is exposed to the waters of the Atlantic. I was lying in the fine sandy shores under the comfortable sunshine, feeling the salty breeze brushing against my skin for a good 3-4hours! In front of me were countless kite surfers yet the beach was not too crowded. Good thing it's a monday afternoon, we managed to avoid the crowd. Now I'm back in the hostel waiting for a local chef to whip up a meat and veg pie for dinner plus a chocolate mousse for dessert! Can't wait!

Florence is beautiful

2009-06-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

So it has almost been a week into my travels..
I went to Cinque Terre which is an area where there are 5 italian villages along the coast. It's really pretty there and scenery is beautiful. The villages are small but touristy. Things are quite expensive because of all the tourism and the first day I bust my food budget. Thankfully, I have managed to even it out by cutting other expenses. It was very sunny and I went trekking along the coastline from one village to another. It usually takes 5 hours, but because we stopped along the way to explore the villages, we took a day instead. I met several people there, and they were friendly so we hung out together.

After Cinque Terre, we went to Pisa to see the leaning tower. It is quite a wonder because it tower really looks like it would fall over! I didn't thik it was worth going in so we just took photos and left. We missed the train to Rome and had to wait for 2 hours. I was quite upset and sian about it because we didn't have much time in Rome.

When we got to Rome, I met up with Charles and Mike for dinner. They were there for holiday and we arranged to meet up for dinner. It was a very late but yummy dinner at a very reasonable price. I had pork chop with porcini mushrooms, Charles had carbonara, and Mike had veal cutlet. We shared a bruschetta for appetizer and had gelato for dessert. They were very kind to pick up the bill. I had a very relaxing and nice evening with them.

The next day we went to the Vatican city. when we got to the museum, we had to join the queue in the sun and I felt like I couldn't enjoy the museum as much as I would have liked. There were just too many tourists.. Then the same thing happened at Saint Peter's Basilica. Too many people. But I must say it's a really grand and magnificent church. We also tried to join the free walking tour but the guide couldn't speak very good English so we gave up.

We got to Florence yesterday afternoon. Then we went exploring the city and it's quite beautiful. The weather was good and the place was comfortable. Lots of tourists but not like Rome; Florence is filled with nice buildings, less immigrants, more art and it is compact as most sights within walking distance.

Today, we joined the walking tour organised by the hostel and it was really good. I learnt stuff on the tour and I appreciate Florence better. After the tour, we got to know Vivian and Gary. We went around together and saw a few places like the Duomo (big church) and the replicas of David by Michaelangelo. It was not a very fruitful day cause there's really not much to see unless I go out of Florence. But I guess it would be really nice to shop and hangout by the river.

Tomorrow I'll head to venice. For now, I'm finally ahead of schedule and ready to take it easy. Need to do laundry soon...

Coming to an (exciting) end

2009-06-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's my last week in Tilburg! I can't believe it. The last sunday I'm going to be in Tilburg. The best part is, I'm still (a little bit) sick. The weather forecast says it's going to rain tomorrow. What horrible weather, the temperature is still hovering below 20 degrees. It's still too cold to just wear shorts and a t-shirt. The thought of packing is dreadful. First, I need to find a box so that I can mail some stuff back! I've started packing already and my suitcase is full!!! Damn, now everything has to fit into my backpack... which is highly impossible. I just need to recover quickly so that I can go out there, look for a box, pack my stuff in there and ship/fly it back.

Yup, so this Friday is my last exam, I'm constantly trying to study yet at the same time finish planning my epic journey. Today, I finally got down to booking all hostels and the possible transport tickets. My cousin Jerry will join me in Barcelona when I'm there! Yay! Looking forward to that. Seems like this 1 month trip is going to cost quite a bit.. The estimated cost for this trip is around 1800 euros. Aiyo.. I feel guilty for spending so much money..

Okay.. so the trip goes like this:

June
15th-16th: Cinque Terre
17th-18th: Rome
19th - 20th: Florence
21st - 22nd: Venice
23rd - 24th: Vienna
25th - 26th: Nice
27th - 30th: Barcelona
July
1st - 2nd: Granada
3rd - 4th: Seville
5th - 7th: Lisbon
8th: Porto
9th - 12th : Madrid
13th - 16th: Netherlands
17th: Home Sweet Home!!

I'm anticipating so so so much hassle getting around... these people just don't speak English. I'm going to countries where their languages are so widely spoken they don't bother learning English. I just hope I won't run into too much trouble. Basically from July onwards, I'm traveling on my own so I think it'll be a bit scary yet exciting. I definitely need to be super careful.

Bad timing...

2009-06-01T09:09:00.001-07:00

After being in Europe for so long, I'm finally sick. Urgh. Not that I have been looking forward to it, but I'm surprised how I survive winter through spring without falling sick but suddenly, two days ago I woke up with a dry (sore) throat. Initially I thought it's just dry airway but when it didn't go away in the afternoon, I kind of expected it will worsen and more will follow. True enough, yesterday I woke up with semi-blocked nose, by afternoon I could only breathe through one side and feeling slightly achy. I started my medication at night before I slept and forced myself to sleep early (i.e. before 1am). I woke up at 2a.m and took another 2 tablets of Febs and drank more water. Today, I woke up with a totally blocked nose, didn't get much better and I'm still drinking lots of water, taking my flu tablets. It's just so difficult to study with a headache, an aching body and breathing obstruction. Today is public holiday, everything is closed and I ran out of groceries. Left with bread, cheese, eggs and instant noodles. Sigh.. looks like it's instant noodles tonight..

Late late post

2009-05-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

Okay, I know I haven't posted for 2 weeks. And I haven't called home for a week+++
I feel so bad. Okay, I shall call tomorrow before I go to school... =P

Anyway, I passed my Dutch Exam!! Muahaha, I feel slightly more proficient in Dutch now! Not that I can read the newspaper, but I'm like 75-80% accurate when I'm reading short passages. Haha.. I scored a 7.1/10 and the passing was 5.5. Well, I'm just happy that I passed. Now I have to mug for 3 more exams... argh.. *stress*

I know the stress here is nothing compared to the stress experienced in SMU but because I've been travelling and haven't been as diligent throughout the term, I need to make up for lost time. Whenever I travel, I actually do bring my readings/notes along and read on the bus/train/airport!
It's possible only when I travel alone though. I feel like I can be quite used to travelling alone, but I don't like the inconvenience of it. I'm a lot more alert when I'm alone (which is probably a good thing) and I know why... it's called the 'spotlight' effect. I think everyone's looking at me... "the asian", but they are in fact not bothered about my presence.

I received a message from my Cousin (Jialiang) saying he wants to come to Europe! I told him just come! It'd be really fun to travel together in France/Spain/Portugal. Well, depends on how long he can be here for. Air tix seems to be much cheaper... apparently emirates have tickets as low as $800 to London and Airasia $1200! That's really cheap... I think it's the swine flu that resulted in it, which spells good news for people on a budget to travel!

Maybe papa and mama wants to come to Italy, France or Spain? I miss travelling with my family! The last time we travelled together (in my memory) was probably Hong Kong when I was 9 or 10 years old! I remember insisting on swimming in the rooftop swimming pool of the hotel at 15 degress celsius!! Mum was so worried I might catch a cold. Haha.. Yah, that was when we last went overseas (Malaysia not counted) together as a whole family!
Subsequent trips with papa and mama...
1999: Australia (Sydney/Melbourne) - I think kor kor didn't go
2000: Thailand (Bangkok) - I think kor kor didn't go again, not that I remember la.
Probably because of NS or something.

I really want to go on a family trip again!! Like join a tour group so that we don't have to bother with transport, bookings etc. Then we can spend some time together as a family.. We could go to China! Like.. Lijiang! Banyan tree at Shangri-La county.. http://www.banyantree.com/lijiang/gallery.html

Okay.. it's quite expensive.. haha.. but now Kor kor and Jie jie got earning power!
Oh well.. I should get back to studying and stop thinking about all these holidays...

Critic

2009-05-12T15:30:00.000-07:00

I was on google searching for "invisible children" cause I was hoping to read some critics and follow if there are any progression.. and I stumbled upon this...

"And the cast, whose task it is to not just perform, but support the narratives and carry the film’s emotional tare, by and large deliver – with the sole exception of the Army storyline, which is makeshift and seems like a scaffolding to support some jabs at disciplinary maneuvering, and how it can backfire. Here, it is an officer’s struggle with his emotional self as he gets caught between frustration in his relationship and the urge to compensate for the lack of human connection – credible, but sketchy."

http://www.sinema.sg/2008/11/02/review-of-invisible-children-debut-feature-by-brian-gothong-tan-2008/

Hmm, maybe I wasn't sure what Brian was trying to convey. Haha, sketchy? *shrugs*

Pain in the big O.

2009-05-12T13:23:00.001-07:00

O stands for Oral.

My wisdom tooth is inching out and it is pushing my molar and has caused me a lot of pain. The pain comes and go and today it decided to come. And came it did, I've been suffering a 5/10 pain since morning and it just won't go away. I knew it was my wisdom tooth when I stuck a finger into my mouth and felt for my wisdom tooth. It grew by quite a bit, I can feel the part that has grown out of my gums has become larger. I pushed it away with my finger and felt an instant relief of pain. But as soon as I let go, the pain continued.

I hope the pain will subside soon so that I don't have to see a dentist here. I don't think they can do anything here except to extract it but that would cost a few thousand euros which I don't think I want (my parents) to spend that kind of money. I may just live on pain killers for now and when I get back to Singapore, I'll go for an extraction.

My flatmate gave me some ibuprofen and I took half a tablet. I'm feeling much better now. Geez, hope the pain goes away!! >_<

More pictures!

2009-05-09T02:43:00.001-07:00

I'm back in Tilburg already and I'm gonna be here for exams in 10 days time. So I really should be studying hard now. A little bit worried and panicky, cause the volume seems quite scary.

Anyway, I was at Zurich and Berlin, my first overnight train in Europe. Not the most comfortable but it's alright. I got to Zurich early in the morning and I kept my luggage in the train station's lockers. Then I started walking at 8.30 in the morning when everything was still closed. So my first stop was at this restaurant in a supermarket called Manor and I got some supposedly cheap breakfast. And I got to use clean toilet plus refill my water bottle... Zurich is quite clean, like Singapore. Things are expensive in Zurich though. I withdrew 60 swiss francs (around 40 euros) and told myself I better be careful on my expenditure. After breakfast, I went on to explore their main street bahnhofstrasse. It's not that long, but it's lined with expensive places... nice watch shops and clothing shops. I reached the end where there's a flea market going on and it was where the zurich sea is. Then I took a boat ride around the zurich see to take a look at the regions around the sea.

The Zurich central station

My breakfast, which in the end I "da pao" the crossiants for snacks on the way.

The flea market near Zurich Sea

That's the boat I didn't board. It was another boat I boarded. Haha..

I got off before it made a complete loop and I walked back so that I could explore other areas apart from the city centre. The morning weather was beautiful. As I was nearing the city centre again, I popped into a supermarket to get lunch. There's this part of the supermarket which serves express hot food and they had a "buffet" thing. They charge for the weight you have on the plate, but the selection was pretty good. There's melted cheese asparagus, pork chop, broccoli with cheese (the swiss love cheese they put chesse in everything). I ended up paying 10CHF for my lunch.. and I didn't think I took a lot...

Some metal sculpture in a nice garden

I continued exploring the city centre, this time on the east side of the river that runs through the city centre. I went into a nice looking church, walked through the happening streets and ended back at the train station. Then it started raining so I stayed in the station and there was a beach volleyball match going on! So I happily sat there to watch the match. It was quite exciting la.

After a while when the rain stopped, I went out again to the spots which I missed earlier. Took more photos and had dinner.

There were many fountains like this in Zurich. According to the guidebook, you can drink from it! Nice...
Beach volleyball in the station!

A narrow stretch of bridge along the river that runs through the city.
Largest clockface in Europe! Or so the guidebook says.

The beautiful night view of the river. But my camera not good enough to capture. Haha.

The train to Berlin was nice. I sat in a compartment which was initially empty, then a man came in, then a family came in, then another woman came in. The compartment was now full and not that comfortable anymore.. Urgh.

When I got to Berlin, it looks huge. I bought a day ticket which allowed me to take bus/train/metro all day till 3am. I got to my hostel and checked in, had to pay an extra 2.5 euros for bed linens and it's compulsory. And found out Wi-Fi costs money. Was so disappointed! Apart from that, the hostel is clean so I won't complain.

Berlin!
This must be one of the coolest advertisement ever. The red arrow is not added digitally, it's actually a real balloon in the air!
East side galley with all the graffiti on the berlin wall.
After that I went out exploring Berlin, and bumped into a few Spanish friends near East Side Gallery. We were suppose to meet later in the evening together with the Finnish girls so we split up and met up again later in the evening. The Spanish have friends in Berlin who brought us to a nice restaurant for dinner. It was cheap and served traditional German food. I had a pork knuckle but it was not fried! It looks kinda gross but it tasted really nice. Then I had an apple struddel which was suppose to be good but it turned out so-so..

The next day I met up with the Finnish girls for breakfast, because the Spanish weren't interested in breakfast that early (10.30am). We went to a cafe recommended by the guide book and it was a huge breakfast. It kept us full through lunch. That day, we went to Charlottenburg Schloss which is a palace, had a nice walk and had our lunch digested. Then we went to the Zoologische Garten area for sightseeing. We went to a church which was bombed during WWII and kept in its state of rubbles to remind people of the atrocity of the world. Next to it was a stretch of shops and a huge departmental store called KaDeWe for short. It's Berlin's "harrods". When the Berlin wall fell, many "east berliners" went there to buy things they couldn't get before the wall came down.

The super huge breakfast that is served with a big basket of bread.

Such a dramatic photo of the Charlottenburg palace

Satu in the foreground. Yes, her name is Satu and she's Finnish.

The church that was bombed during WWII. Quite an interesting building.

The inside of the new Church next to the bombed church.

We went for coffee in the afternoon, had a pastry each before we set off for more sightseeing. We walked through another shopping street and passed by Deutsche Bank. The difference is, this branch has a shop in it! There's a shop selling nicely designed household items in a bank! I thought it's a really cool idea. Customers can browse through the items while waiting to be served!

Following that we went to a few landmarks in Berlin like the Humboldt univeristy where Einstein taught, the Berliner Dom, Babel Platz, Russian Embassy, Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (parliament house). We saw a long queue outside Reichstag and it was drizzling, so we decided to eat dinner before coming back again. We went to a place recommended by Clarisse for Currywurst and kebap. It was SO GOOD. And cheap too. Haha. less than 5 euros for a very full dinner, but no place to sit la. When we got to the Reichstag, the Spanish were there queueing, so we just joined in the queue to get inside. It's a really beautifully designed parliament house. As I was there, I thought about my history lesson during Sec 3. I actually learned about the Reichstag and there it was right in front of my eyes. The feeling is incredible, getting to see what I learnt.
It was a very fulfilling day indeed.
The berliner dom. Or Berlin Cathedral.
Pinja, Satu and me in front of the Brandenburg Gate.

According to Clarisse: The best kebap in the world.

The super famous Curry wurst. It's really really good. 1.40Eur for a curry wurst.
Big lips on the east side gallery!

Night view of the brandenburg gate.

On top of the Reichstag.

Close up of the dome of the Reichstag. Beautiful architecture.

The next day I went on a walking tour, but the weather wasn't fantastic so I couldn't enjoy as much because it was really cold and it was drizzling/raining. I saw a few more sights of Berlin and felt really happy to see so much in Berlin despite only being there for 2.5 days. People in Berlin were really friendly, they would come up to help us when we were looking for directions. It happened more than 3 times! And they spoke fluent English.

The statue on top of Brandenburg Gate.

The monument for the persecuted jews.

Propaganda left behind from East Berlin days.

Street art in Berlin. Posing next to the queen of england is the tour guide.. Summer..

Sony centre in the middle of commercial centre Potsdam Platz.

I took an overnight train back to Netherlands and went for class right after school. After class I was cycling home with a huge haversack on my back. Then suddenly my bike wobbled and I braked immediately to see what's wrong. I realised my bike broke. The frame broke!! I couldn't cycle on it and it can't be repaired! I walked back home pushing my stupid bike and my heavy bag, only to found out that my residence permit is missing! I was feeling really shitty, so I called the hostel and asked if they found it but they said no. Now I have to replace my residence permit, and I think it's going to be troublesome. The worst thing is, i don't have a scanned copy. What shitty luck. Well, that's the update for now. Gotta study!!

I miss my family back in Singapore!! Will be home in 2 months! Yay.

To my sis.

2009-05-06T15:26:00.001-07:00

The Marni Bag.

I know you can't wait, but you'll only get to caress the soft black lamb skin in July when I'm back. Meanwhile, here are the photos so that you know where the pounds went.

Way too behind

2009-05-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

Wah, it's Labour day and I'm super behind in my updating of posts!

Since April 10.. it has been a mad rush for me. No internet access for almost 3 weeks! Seems like I won't be able to update much until I'm back form Berlin next wednesday. I'll first upload the photos I guess. =)

Always start a tour with a full stomach... by taking in all of the Lourve.

Of course I didn't get put off by all the anti-hype. I went to the Eiffel..

Caught me in a hungry state!

The solution... crepes with parma ham and melted cheese...

In the Lourve, I fought my way through.. Mona Lisa and Whistler's mother. Why all women?

Palace of Versailles... huge and overwhelming.

I had to do it. Everyone would. =P

How can I resist.. sundried tomatoes and basil flavoured pringles! It was so-so...

Cube houses in Rotterdam. Living in a tilted world? Slanted vision..

"I AMSTERDAM" had kids climbing all over it. I could only hold on to "I"

Swans and ducks in Keukenhof. It was mating season! Seen ducks mate? Quite a sight.

Never seen so many flowers in my life. After a while, I got an overdose. Unfortunate for my companion, he has an allergy to pollen. He kept sneezing...

and I thought he might have caught the swine flu... *gasp*.

Sir Wellington the Iron Duke. The inspiration for wellies!

Change of guards at Bukingham, red uniforms and microphone headdress.

Pompidou in Paris. The queue puts me off.

Modern art in a pond!

Random shot in Paris.

The oxford trio.
Some old structure in oxford.
Some college in Oxford.
Emo oxford.

Street shot of oxford. Quite a condusive place to study. Nothing much going on though.

Nobody!

2009-04-07T11:31:00.001-07:00

This korean song is super popular!
But this video is great..

1 week has passed again.

2009-04-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

So fast! It's my third weekend before I'm travelling again. This weekend still in Netherlands, hopefully not in Tilburg. Kyle and Dong Joo are having exams next Tuesday and they have been studying real hard so we can't go on day trips out together. So it seems like I should ask someone else. So we were suppose to have dinner at Selbi's place and I was expecting Turkmenistan food. But it turned out that Dong Joo did the cooking and Selbi did the dessert. Chocolate oats. It's quite yummy. On Saturday, I went to do grocery shopping with Kyle. We cycled to the market and we ate fried fish.. After that we went to the city center and had ice cream from Australian. It's a Dutch ice cream parlour and the remix flavours were superb. I tried the Almond and Hazelnut crush, and this time round we had the macadamia madness flavour. Equally good!

Then I cooked lunch. Fried rice.
I was invited to dinner at Pinja's place on Sunday so I cooked a pot of onion, potatoes beef soup because I didn't want to go empty handed. I didn't even know what I was cooking, but it turned out great. I added some chicken stock and lots of black pepper and the soup tastes fantastic.

Don't know why I look so wierd in this photo.
Pinja (left). I forgot the name of the girl on the right. Yikes..
Both of them are Finnish.
Maria Jose from Mexico. We had pancakes for dessert that night.
I can't remember his name too. Hard to remember la.. he's from Belarus and he studies in Moscow. But I just can't remember. Urgh.. I need to see a person's name to better remember it.
Ruslan, from Kazakhstan. We're in the same Dutch class.

I can't remember what happened on Monday, I think I studied the whole day preparing for the meeting on Tuesday. Then Tuesday I had a project meeting, discussed our assignments and went to play badminton in the evening. That day, I booked my tickets for my trips to Zurich, Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm. I'm excited and worried at the same time. First of all, I'm going to Copenhagen and Stockholm on 19th May, and I'll be back on 25th May. It's 4 days before my exam. Which means I'll have to study hard for it before I leave! And of course study hard for 3 days for the exam. I think it should be okay. I'll attend almost all the lectures anyway. Then the next worrisome thing... when travelling from Zurich to Berlin, I will transit at Bern and the layover is 4 hours.. 2am to 6am. What a torture to myself. 4 hours out in the open! I hope it'll be safe.

On wednesday Celine cooked chicken rice. So I went over and the chicken rice tasted like mine when I did it from scratch. Then I realise, the short cut method is really easier and tastier, just put everything into the rice cooker...

Spent my Thursday morning finishing my assignment, and spent the afternoon cleaning the WHOLE flat. I washed the cups and plates, brought the trash out, vacuumed the house, mopped, cleaned the stove, did my laundry then went to the city centre for coffee with clarisse and celine. We went to check out this coffee place called cappuccino & muffins. Reminds me of Front Row. Nice place that sells clothes on the second level and food on the first level. It has been a sunny week and the temperature went up to 20+ degrees!

We went back to my place and I cooked Bak Kut Teh for dinner. I finally cooked my Prima packet. It's DELICIOUS. Haha. I want more prima packets!!

Today it's 25! Just like in an air-con room. I've always wondered how Singapore would feel if the outdoors were air-conditioned. I guess today I found my answer. I cycled to school wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, and a thin vest. Shiok! Don't know what I'm doing this weekend yet. I think I should go to Utrecht. I haven't gone there yet, should do it while the sun is out.

Here are my planned travels!
10th Apr - 14th Apr: Paris
14th Apr - 15th Apr: Brussels
15th Apr - 16th Apr: Antwerp
18th Apr - 19th Apr: Rotterdam
19th Apr - 21st Apr: Amsterdam
23rd Apr: Lisse (Keukenhof)
24th Apr - 28th Apr: London
28th Apr - 29th Apr: Paris

1st May - 3rd May: Zurich
3rd May - 6th May: Berlin
19th May - 22rd May: Copenhagen
23th May - 25th May: Stockholm

And I have yet to plan for June/July! I better do it soon or it'll be hard to get cheap accommodations... I may not even find any!

Miserable day

2009-03-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

Last week was a beautiful week. It was sunny for most days and temperature went up to around 11 degrees celsius.

I had dinner on Thursday at Aneta's house to celebrate her birthday. She made Czech dishes which were delicious! She made goulash soup, rosti looking pan potatoes, chicken meat in tomato based sauce and Noemi brought a huge layered chocolate cake with oranges stuffed in between. So we chatted and ate and had quite a good time.

That huge brown thing is the chocolate cake. Overflowing chocolate covering the layered (pan)cake

Goulash soup

The rosti looking pan fried potatoes

And that's Aneta.

But on Friday, I suffered a flat tire after I left school. So I had to push my bike all the way to the bike shop around 20mins away. I had two options, the bike shop near city or the bike shop near home. Considering it was 5pm, I didn't want to risk reaching a closed bike shop near home so I went to the bike shop closer to the city. The thing is, I subconciously know that the owner doesn't speak much English, but I still went anyway! So I told him to replace my inner tube and the tire. I think the tire is so worn out it has torn already so I had to replace that. Then I told him to fix up my brakes since the rear brake doesn't work very well. He said I had to replace the brake cable, in total it costs 30 euros. So fine, I said okay and I went to collect the bike on Saturday.

Meanwhile, 7 Spanish were staying in my place because they were visiting Jorge. So the house is in a mess and it's like a hurricane went through the house, so I decided to have breakfast in city on Saturday morning. I went to the city centre alone, and sat at a bakkery enjoying my Panini and Cappucino. Then I went to H&M to do some window shopping. Well, one thing led to another, I was trying on pieces after pieces and I ended up buying these...
Collared polo tee... 5 euros

Decorative pins.. 1euro

Tank top.. 2euros..

Yah.. then I had lunch at Carousel because the sun is so good and the bells of the church was chiming as though it was calling out to me telling me to sit down and have lunch. So I did...
I had an uitsmijter and a latte macciato. Then I had an apple tart for dessert. Tilburg can be nice too. Haha..

After lunch, I went to the saturday market to walk around and mingle with people because it was such a sunny and crowded day. I saw really fat rabbits for sale!

I went to the bike shop to collect my bike, then the guy told me that my derailer is spoilt! I was very upset about it and asked how much it costs to repair it. He told me it'll be 30 euros and told me to get a new bike instead, it is 100 euros for the new bike. I really didn't like the idea of getting a new bike, and contemplated for a really long time. He kept speaking in Dutch and I don't know what he is saying. I could understand only about 30% of what he is saying, and I'm just guessing the rest of it. So he basically made a decision for me. He said he'll fix it for me, and in the end he charged me 50 euros including the new derailer, new brakes, new inner tube,new tire and helping me replace the front tire (cause I already have a new tire) in total, I've already spent about 115 euros on my bike. I have no idea who I can sell my bike to when I leave. Hopefully I can get something out of it. Geez..

That afternoon, I went for a jog around the neighborhood. I saw a familiar restaurant, and got very excited. It says “大家乐” in traditional chinese. And it says de coral too! Like the one in Hong Kong! For a second I thought I can have roast meat in Tilburg! Then I went to take a look again on Sunday, but it turned out to be a fake!! It's some random chinese restaurant but they copied the name of the HK chain! They even used the same corporate colours! I was so disappointed. It made me happy for nothing.

Then on Monday Dennis visited me. He came with another guy from NUS who is now in Bristol. Dennis came up from Antwerp and stopped by Tilburg. So we hung out in the afternoon and we made dinner that night. Clarisse (from NUS) made japanese curry while I made some Dutch food; stamppot and ertwensoep. But the Dutch food turned out quite terrible. Ertwensoep (pea soup) was from the can so I couldn't help how it tasted. Blah... That night the weather turned horrible. I saw a flash of lightning, followed by rolling thunders. Suddenly it was hailing, small rocks of ice fell from the sky.

On tuesday Dennis and Ben went to Amsterdam while I stayed to finish my assignment. Then at night we went to mentor dinner and LG (clubbing). I drank a bit, but still very much in control.
The theme was sex change party but I didn't dress up. There are so many ugly drags.. haha

Then when Dennis left on Wednesday, I sent him to the central station. Along the way, it started raining/hailing. He caught a bus to the station while I cycled in the rain! I got all drenched and was feeling super low. We had lunch at Breekx which was excellent. Cheap and good.

My pita bread with chicken and mushroom costs 4.75 euros. Very filling! After lunch I cycled to school for class and reached school all wet and cold. I sat through 2 lectures feeling sleepy and wet and uncomfortable. I felt so miserable I went home straight after school and didn't even want to gym. After I got home, I helped Jorge to cook Spanish dinner. He cooked for Clarisse because it was her birthday and I offered to help. I washed, cut and helped to cook for 3hours... what an arduous process. I was drained by the time dinner started. The food turned out great though.Tonight there's dinner at Selbi's place. Turkmenistan food.. hmm.. hope it's good! I better be studying in the afternoon.. or I won't be able to finish my assignment. >_<

Dated post! Rotterdam/The Hague

2009-03-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

A week flew by since I last posted. I'm in the Netherlands for 2 months already! It feels longer than that though. So since I got back from Prague/Budapest, Dong Joo has been studying so hard everyday! He goes to the library at 8am, leaves school at 11pm!! It's quite disturbing. I asked if he wanted to go to Rotterdam last week, but he said no. Even though he was initially keen on experiencing how the Dutch lives. So I went to Rotterdam alone to meet oom(uncle) Frank. Oom Frank picked me up from Rhoon Metro station around 9.30 or 10 am and drove me back to his house which was about 5-10 mins away. It's close to the main part of Rotterdam city but it was not buried in hustle and bustle like most homes close to cities.

I met tante (auntie) Jos that morning, she was very welcoming and showed tremendous hospitality. She even planned out where to bring me for the two days! After serving me coffee and some Dutch snacks (a platter of stroopwafels, kretenbroodje, holland windmill cookies, some unidentified cake), she told me some things about Den Haag (The Hague) before we set off for the day. It turns out that Jos' grandfather was an architect and many of the buildings in The Hague still retained the designs which her grandfather has come up with. In one of the walking tour guide book for The Hague, her grandfather's name was mentioned and she took much pride in it.

We got to The Hague and it coincided with a half marathon in the city. It was nice and motivating to see people running a race. It motivated me to run more in Tilburg. So anyway, we went to Mauritshuis museum. It's a really small (3 storey) museum which has an interior that looked like a palace. There were huge stairways and beautiful intricate details on the hand railings. The ceiling was covered in a colourful fresco and all the rooms were filled with art pieces of famous Dutch artists such as Jan Steen, Rembrandt and Bosch. There was one particularly interesting art piece which depicted gods having sex. Venus was having sex with Mars while Jupiter wanted to be next in line so he recruited the help from Cupid while Zeus watches in one corner. Something like that. The painting, though small, is full of details, vivid colours and deemed too erotic for public display until the 20th century.

Mauritshuis museum
The erotic painting
Three of us next to the museum!

After the museum, they took me on a walking tour around The Hague and she explained to me what ceremonies took place, where the queen stood when she makes announcements, how the horses would trot into position and how the guards would march in front of the parliament place. She also showed me the buildings, explained how the older buildings had round glass corners while the newer ones simply had squarish corners.

Then we had lunch at this shopping centre which is quite "atas". It carried luxurious brands and used to be so expensive, people didn't dare to step in and the shopping centre had to carry less intimidating brands to attract patrons. I ordered an uitsmijster. It's fried eggs with roast beef on bread. It was quite yummy.

We went to this museum called Panorama Mesdag. It's famous for a panorama view of Scheveningen (the beach area) and the painting stretches 120metres and forms a circle! It's 14m wide, and when you stand in the middle, they block the view of the top and bottom of the canvas, so you can only see the painting and it looks as though you're looking at a real view of the beach. In between the viewing centre platform and the painting, there was a pile of sand which feels like the sand on the beach so it blends in with the painting making it even more realistic.

After The Hague, we went to Scheveningen to see the beach. We went to this super luxurious beach hotel called Steigenberger Kurhaus. (http://www.kurhaus.nl/homeenglish.html)
It's like 400-500 euros a night. Wanted to have coffee but the cafe closes at 5pm and we were 5 mins late. So we took a walk along the beach and ended up at a men's only social club. It's a really old building that has stood there since more than 100 years ago. And we saw a choir group of old ladies dressed in traditional Dutch wear! They look so cute together I had to take a photo with them.
The kurhaus

Dutch ladies!

We went for dinner at a seafood restaurant but the dinner was only average. Maybe because I didn't really order the right dishes. And we ended the night after having some tea in the living room back at their house.

The next morning, we had breakfast at 9am. I helped to set the table, bring out the food and it was a sumptous spread! There were 3-4 types of cheese, 3 different hams, coffee, tea and juice, soft-boiled eggs, toasts, kretenbroodje met maseipen (raisin bread with marzipan), hagelslag (traditional rice chocolate added to bread), it was great! After breakfast, I showed oom Frank how to use windows movie maker to do basic editing for videos. He was so glad I showed him that software and I'm glad I could contribute too.

Soon after, we went to Rotterdam city. It was a beautiful bright sunny day and I was glad because we went up the Euromast and got a clear view of the city. It was windy but the view was worth it because it really showed me how big their port is! Jos told me which buildings are for what and I was trying to remember at least some buildings. We then went to Boijmans museum. It's a rather big museum with classical and modern art work. There were international classics like Joan Miro, Jan Steen, Rembrandt, Cezanne and a few more, and there were modern art which we didn't explore because we got tired after an hour. I like Joan Miro. Very strange but interesting. Then oom Frank drove past the houses like looked like cubes tilted at an angle and it was very interesting! Jos and I walked past the Erasmus bridge (also known as the swan bridge) and explored the American-Rotterdam Lijn building (now it's New York Hotel). It used to be a building where ships left Rotterdam for America. After that we went to the city centre and they showed me the main shopping street. There wasn't much to see in the city so we ended up in the mall, having coffee and pastries before they sent me to the central station to catch a train back to Tilburg.

From the Euromast.

In a cafe in Euromast. They even have hotel rooms called Heaven, moon and stars.

The cube houses
Outside National ArchitectuuralInstitutie

Kudos to my parents + Prague Trip (Budapest on the way)

2009-03-13T09:15:00.001-07:00

After I came back from my trip to Prague/Budapest, I sent an email to my dad. I felt bad for not calling home but that's because I didn't have my computer with me in Prague and I couldn't use Skype to call home. So anyway, right after I sent the email, I called home but it was engaged. Which only means...... the phone at home is still spoilt. It's been almost 2 weeks and it's not fixed!! So anyway, my dad promptly replied my mail (super high efficiency dad) and he told me that my mum showed him my blog! Yay!! I'm so happy mum is reading this blog. I made a shortcut on her browser so when she clicks on it, she can read updates about my life.

Ma, if you are reading this, I want to tell you I'm so proud of you! You are now internet savvy! =D
By the way, you can leave me messages on the right side in the small box. Just type "mum" in the box with the word "name" and type in the message you want to leave in the box that says "message" then click "go"!

So about my trip... Dong Joo and I had a dinner with Petra (Czech), Aneta (Czech), Kyle (Taiwanese), Sandra (Austrian) just the night before we left for Prague. I cooked 鸡饭，蚝油香菇芥兰，苞菜排骨汤 and we had some other instant dishes like swedish meatballs and frikandel (Dutch hotdog). They liked most of the food, but the girls didn't seem to like the soup. I loved the soup, it reminds me of my childhood days when mum would cook 苞菜汤。 So yummy. Kyle thinks it's not salty enough. Anyway, we slept at 2am, but we had to catch the earliest train to Amsterdam to check-in at Schiphol airport. So I took Dongjoo's keys and he took mine so that when one of us wakes up, we can check on the other and make sure we don't oversleep. We cycled to the train station at 5.15am!!

We reached Prague by noon time and we went to the hostel. Our hostel looks like a castle!! Only 7-8 euros!

In front of the National Museum.
That's the Tyn Church in the old town square. It's one of the more beautiful structures there.

This is the astronomical clock of Prague. It's very interesting. When the clock chimes, there is a skeleton figure will start pulling the bell. And two windows will open and the apostles will start moving across the windows. So every hour there are many many people gathered to watch. But my friend also warned me that's the most dangerous time. Very easy to get picked-pocket. So I was very wary while taking photos. =P

This statue is outside Rudolfinum which is like a concert hall. That evening we went to watch a concert in Rudolfinum. It was not very expensive, around 15 euros for very very good seats. They played classical music, and many tunes which I've heard before when I was very young. Tunes by Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and some others.

This is the church in the Castle. It's a very important church because there's a lot of history in it. Buried in this gothic church are 5 Czech kings. It has many treasures and precious relics too.
This is the golden lane in the castle. There are many small houses lined next to each other. One of the house was the residence of Kafka, the famous Czech artist.
We climbed up Petrin Tower to see the city view. I was panting but I can't tell whether it's because the view is breathtaking or simply because we ran up the tower. =)

The panorama view. I'm not very good at taking this kind of photos. Haha.

The old town square. It's filled with hawkers selling food. But I'm sure they are overpriced. Like Lau Pat Sat!

We went up the clock tower to see the square from the top.

This is the "dancing house" designed by American architect - Frank Gehry. It's really strange but unique la.
I was very lucky, the last day in Prague, the weather was beautiful.

Here are some photos of the food I ate in Prague....

Fried potatoes wrapped around leg of pork.

Poppy seed pastry.

Some fried potatoes
Dumplings!

Omelette
Pancakes!
I don't know what's the english name. It's probably called delicious.
Yummy cinnamon /sugar bread
Fried cheese sandwich
Kebab and big sausages.

And the night view...

Morning flight from Schiphol is a bad idea.

2009-03-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

So it's an exciting weekend! I'll be going to Prague - Budapest! My flight leaves from Schiphol at 9am! Which means I've to be there at latest 7.30 and I have to catch the 5.55am train from Tilburg! Oh my gosh. It's the earliest train. I have to wake up at 4.30am! Argh.

I'm looking forward to Prague and Budapest. One reason is because it's cheap and beautiful. Yet I'm dreadful about not being able to get around because few people speak English. I guess it's about the same in Spain, France and Italy.

I think Czech Republic has many beautiful people. Haha. I hope I get to sit down to people watch at some coffee place. But knowing Dong Joo, chances will be slim. It's going to be a tough trip. We're spending 4nights for this trip, 1 night at the hostel, 2 nights on overnight coaches to budapest and 1 night at the airport. Cause our flight back is 6.50am. Which means we'll have to be there at 4.50am! So I guess we'll be at the airport around 12am and wait for 5hours. Perhaps we'll take turn to get some sleep.

I'm sure I'll be really tired. In fact, I'm already tired from the past few days of lack of sleep. Geez. Need to last for 4 more days! =x

Saturday & Sunday

2009-03-02T15:24:00.000-08:00

Had a really relaxing week. Didn't do much. Saturday morning I woke up pretty late and I decided to go to the market. I didn't intend to buy anything, but being at the market, I couldn't resist buying some groceries. I bought beansprouts, prunes, cabbage and a pillow! Yes, a pillow for 15 euros. That's because the pillow provided is so flat I wake up with a painful throat almost every morning. There's no support on my neck so my head tilts back and my mouth wide open vulnerable to cockroaches and lizard poo. Thankfully, I haven't seen either here. I'm quite sure my room would be infested with them if they are here because of the amount of food I keep in my room.

So anyway, back to the market. It's kinda funny seeing Dong Joo compare prices for every item. I've slowly lost that enthusiasm to compare prices of the vegetables with that of SG. I just have to accept it. Half kg of tauge (beansprouts) cost 75 cents. I bet mum would kill me for buying. Haha. 75 cents for a small head of cabbage. And 5 prunes for 1 euro. A bit expensive la. It was a nice day and I was wearing my new windbreaker. Dong Joo bought 4 packets of snacks for me because he said he has been eating my snacks in my room so he would buy some for me. After we were done with the market, I suggested coffee in the city centre, since it was such a beautiful day. So we went to V&D, an emporium which has a nice cafe. They had a combo of coffee + fruit tart for 3 euros. Quite reasonable or even cheaper than Singapore. But drip coffee, no espresso. So I gave that cup of coffee to Dong Joo and ordered a Latte for myself. Shiok!
He ordered a foccacia sandwich with tuna filling and I ordered an "Appelbol" (Apple ball literally) even though I'm not sure what it was.

The fruit tart was really tasty, the sandwich was average (though the bread was good) and the apple ball had an apple in it! It's like apple soaked in sugar syrup and deep fryed with a layer of cinnamon dough. It was sinfully sweet but sure tastes good. But it's not cheap la, 2.4 euros for that apple. Then again, desserts in Singapore are usually SGD4.5 - 6.5. So I guess it's comparable lor. Besides, I don't eat that everyday. =P

Shopping.

2009-02-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

I went shopping today. I tried to buy a pair of jeans but couldn't find anything with a right budget and yet looks good. Wanted to buy a diesel shirt, 40 euros after discount, still too expensive given the shirt doesn't look AMAZING.

Almost left city centre but turned into the shop Superfly. I bought a SuperDry t-shirt for 12 euros and a SuperDry windbreaker for 21 euros. What a steal. =P

Carnival in Netherlands!

2009-02-26T17:04:00.000-08:00

The City has never been more happening. It's the carnival. Only in the southern provinces of Netherlands is this event celebrated. I don't really know the origins. something religious obviously. Everyone is dressed up and drinks from dawn till dusk. It's good that I missed the first few days and only join on the last day. Went clubbing with many people and I wore a funny costume. I had a swim cap, goggles on and wore my swimming trunks on the outside. I also wore a super tight top. It's quite funny, and fugly too.

London - Milan!

2009-02-26T11:44:00.001-08:00

So last week, I went clubbing at LG after the mentor dinner on Tuesday. I woke up groggy on Wednesday but excited that I'll be off to London that very evening! I went for all my classes that wednesday and took a train to Eindhoven where Ryanair flights take off.

I got to Eindhoven on time and went through the procedures of checking-in rather smoothly. I traveled with one backpack and no check-in luggage. I still don't know how I managed to survive.

When I got to London Stansted airport, I rushed out to find where EasyBus is cause that bus is going to take me to Central London. I was suppose to catch the 8.30pm bus but the stupid airport is so huge and it took me so long to get out of the airport. I missed the bus. The thing is, I was right in front of the bus when it left and that BITCH didn't want to let me get on the bus. I was fuming mad with her. So I was left behind hoping that I could catch the next bus 30mins later. When I tried to board the bus, the driver said I had to wait till all the passengers have boarded and if there's room, I can get on the bus. So I waited anxiously... The bus looked very full, but thankfully there was 1 seat left. I was so damn relieved that I could get on the bus.

As the bus pulled out of the station, I tried to sleep but I couldn't cause I was squeezed on both sides and the bus was terribly uncomfortable. I looked out into the dark night and saw yellow lights lined the windy roads. Suddenly, I felt familiar. I felt like I was in Malaysia! With similar coloured road signs, vehicles on the left and dirty yellow lights, I truly thought it felt like Ayer Hitam road or something.

I reached Victoria station earlier than expected, so I popped into Sainsbury (even though David told me not to move about and he'd pick me up) My curiosity for supermarket got the better of me. Besides I felt that I should buy some food to bring to David's place since after all he let me stay at his place.

So we caught a bus back to off Elephant & Castle along Walworth street. We got to his apartment at around 11ish at night. I met Brian (his roommate) that night and I think he's a very friendly guy albeit shy.

The next day, I allowed myself to wake up a bit later since I was so tired. I went to buckingham palace to watch the change of guards and then Westminister Abbey and took photos of the famous buildings there. In that area, there's the Big Ben, Parliament Buildings and London Eye.

Then I agreed to meet David at Harrods where he brought me window shopping. We went from level to level and saw many many expensive things which Harrods sold.

Then we walked through bond street and regent street, passing A&F, CDG on Dover Street, went pass Chinatown, SoHo and eventually arrived in Covent Gardens where we met David Chew, Vince and Brian for dinner. We ate at this Belgian place called Belgo where they have a beat-the-clock promo. The amount you pay is the time you order your food! And it starts from 5.30pm till 7 or 8pm. There are several choices of what to order, of course mussels will be an all time fav. I had the roasted chicken because I had mussels in Belgium already. The portions were filling and I was stuffed by the time we left the restaurant. We walked around Covent Gardens and ended up at a dessert place where they sold chinese desserts. I had boiled milk with ginger juice, while others had pandan cake, mango cake and we had soya milk. It's like the stuff you get at the bakery below Bedok South Block 21 or Ang Mo Kio block 789. Well, you get what I mean.

The following day, I went to the Tower of London where I had a fantastic tour. It is called the Yeoman Warder's tour. The beefeaters led the tour in their uniform and they spoke theatrically throughout the tour. These beefeaters have to achieved a minimum rank of sergeant major and lived in the tower of london itself. The guide was really humorous and he gave a very interesting account of history. True or false, I don't know since I can't tell the difference between King Henry II and King Edward IV. I am absolutely clueless about English history.

After the Tower of London, I walked across Tower Bridge and walked along River Thames. I went past the London Bridge Experience (pseudo London Dungeon) and then I walked to Shakespeare Globe Theatre and Tate Modern. I met David at Tate Modern for coffee and dessert and we explored the museum for a bit and walked across the Millenium Bridge. It is quite a beautiful work of architecture, walking straight into St Paul Cathedral. We caught a bus which took us to Trafalgar square and from there he headed towards Chinatown while I headed towards Picadilly circus where I met Terence.

Terence took me to this Japanese place for dinner. Dinner was quite bad. It was a cheap place and the food was not delicious. Unsatisfied, we walked for a bit and decided to have coffee/dessert. Since Terence bought me dinner, I offered to pay for coffee/dessert. The desserts were too yummy to resist. I had a coffee eclair and he had a fruit tart. Very English. Haha...

After that we went to a bar/club where he bought me cider. It was surprisingly tasty but I was very bloated and I couldn't finish it. Plus I suck at drinking. At the bar, I met Terry and Young. We hung out for a bit and danced till around 12ish. I wanted to head home but they suggested I stayed over at Terence's place since it was too late and there's no more tube and the bus stop is far away. So I agreed. Terence's place was quite messy and looks quite old. But I was happy to have a couch.

Anyway, at 2.30am, I was rudely awaken by a phonecall over some issue and I didn't realise that my credit was being drained even though I'm on the receiving end. I got quite frustrated as I needed credit in order to make phonecalls when I'm in Milan. So I went out to buy a new Sim card, now I have a UK number. The surprising thing is, calls back to Singapore only costs 4p a minute! But calls to UK number is 10p a minute! Doesn't make any sense right?!

The next morning I went back to David's place and rested for a while before I went out again. I went to Tate Britain to see what's going on. After which I went to the National Gallery. It was huge and I was too tired to slowly walk the whole gallery. I went to SoHo to get a late lunch and then went to Selfridge for some shopping. Selfridge was AWESOME. I really liked the place because it's more affordable and fashionable compared to Harrods. I was so tempted to buy but I know I can't carry them and I should wait till April when I'm going to be back in London again.

In the evening, I met up with David, Vince, David Chew, Audrey & her husband, Jeya, Brian and David (yeah..3 davids in one dinner). We had dinner next to the very famous roast duck place. We had roast duck too. It was AMAZING. 9 of us, we had about 8 to 9 dishes and free flow of rice. The roast duck tastes SO freaking good, and the rest of the dishes were just like those you get at a good Hong Kong restaurant. We ended up paying 13pounds for dinner which was much lesser than I expected. They even serve watercress soup for free!

After dinner, we went to a rather "atas" looking restaurant to have coffee/dessert. I had a cappuccino and a chocolate cake which ended up costing almost as much as dinner. I was so full that night and I was so glad to have met all of them. Everyone's like from different background, have different experiences, very sociable and friendly. The best thing is, they are not trying to act cool or care only for drinking/partying.

I stayed up till 3.30am that night and caught a night bus to Victoria Station so that I could catch my 8am flight to Milan. When I got to Milan, I was half groggy. Luckily half the flight was empty and I could sleep on the way there. I took a coach from Bergamo to Milan Central, it took me an hour but thankfully the bus ride was quite comfortable.

From Central station, I went to the Duomo to soak up the Milan air. Eww... it was gross. When I got out of the Metro station, the Duomo looks impressive. But when I got onto the plaza, there were too many people! There were so many dodgy people trying to sell non-milanese some stupid things. But there's an entire street of shopping which kinda perks me up. Haha. But I had to be careful because the street was lined with dog poo. Urgh..

I spent the night at Michael's place. He shares a place with Ray who was his wing mate back in OCS. I think they are quite lucky to stay together in such a nice apartment although the rent is very high but they have a good amount of space. And they are so close to the Duomo! What a great location. Met some of Mike's friends, Saiko from Japan, Linda from Texas, J and Sean from Korea, Grace, Nicholas and Xinjie from Singapore. They were preparing for xinjie's birthday which was the next day. I must say that whole crew was very thoughtful.

The next morning, I went to Lake Como together with Linda. It was a short ride there, 30mins by train. We left at 9.30 in the morning and walked around for a bit. I got the return ticket for 3.10pm hoping we would have enough time for Bellagio. But turns out the boat leaves quite late and comes back quite late too. So we gave up the idea of Bellgaio and went up the mountain instead. There we saw the Alps in the far background and it was so beautiful. Although it was a little bit foggy, but at least it didn't snow or rain. We had delicious pasta for lunch with the Alps in the backdrop. Nothing can beat dining in that kinda environment.

At night, everyone cooked something and had a huge dinner party for xinjie. There were chicken rice, green curry, risotto, seaweed in soup, tempura cucumber, okonoyaki (i dunno how to spell it) and other don't know what. It was super sumptous la. Then 6 of them danced for xinjie to the tune of Nobody by Wondergirls (korean). It was hilarious and J was so good at it! Then the song ended with Mike bringing out a delicious chocolate cake and a tub of gelato.

After which, the drinking games started. Nicholas reiterated the rules of Ray and Mike's place.

The first rule: you do not talk about Ray and Mike's place
The second rule: you do NOT talk about Ray and Mike's place
The third rule: if this is the first time you're here at Ray and Mike's place, you get drunk.

Well, we started the game and it didn't take long before I had to down my first shot of vodka. Followed by whiskey, followed by a whole lot of "trying to divert attention to others" before I had to drink more whiskey and vodka. It didn't take very long before people started puking. Wasn't the most beautiful sight. I think Dennis got quite high and did handstands which I suspect was part of the reason why he started puking soon after.

Yeap, the second night in Milan, I saw merlions. I felt right at home.

Good thing I didn't miss my flight the next morning. I woke up at 6.30am and made my way to central station to catch a coach to the airport and flew back to Eindhoven where I took a train back to Tilburg for the last day of Carnival. That's for another post.

Korean Dinner

2009-02-26T04:53:00.000-08:00

In a bid to attract a Czech girl, Dong Joo invited Petra over for dinner. To make it less awkward, he asked Kyle and me to be present for the dinner. I must say fatty meat with sesame oil is really damn delicious (and sinful)

Mentor Dinner!

2009-02-26T04:45:00.000-08:00

Every Tuesday, we have a mentor dinner. All the exchange students are divided into groups of 15 or so and there are 12 groups. Each week, 2 groups will get together and have dinner together. This rotates for many weeks so that every group eventually gets a chance to eat with one other group and maximizes the opportunities to meet each other. 2 people from one of the two groups eating together will cook. So it was my turn to cook on 17th Feb.

I decided to cook fried rice and curry chicken. I got the curry paste and coconut milk from Asiana (asian supermarket) and bought the rest of the ingredients from the supermarkets.

On tuesday itself, Lisa (my partner from Canada) met up with me and we went to get alcohol for the dinner. Usually, dinners go through about 3 cartons of beers. We ended up with 72*500ml of beer and 2 bottles of white wine. Dong Joo offered to help me that evening in the kitchen. Throughout the evening and even after the dinner, he helped me to clean up the place so that I could still join them clubbing after the dinner. So since everything was cleaned by 11pm, I joined them at LG for a night of partying.

That night, I received many compliments about how great the dinner was. I don't know how many of them are paying lip service, but a mentor (dutch student) came up to me and said it's the best dinner she has had in the past 1 year of mentor dinners.

Lisa made salad and got marshmallows while I made the curry and fried rice. It was really quite easy to cook although it made quite a mess in the kitchen. Some of them who were not suppose to be here crashed the party because they think I can cook well... Haha, I seem to have earned a small reputation for myself for what I can cook. Shrugs.

Overdue posts!

2009-02-26T04:03:00.000-08:00

Geez, if I don't update more regularly, I won't be able to finish posting everything.
I need to backdate this. To... maybe valentine's day? 14th Feb, Saturday.

There wasn't much to do and there weren't much of an atmosphere to speak of in Tilburg.
No overpriced chocolates or flowers, unlike in Singapore.

Dong Joo and I decided to cycle to Breda, a city that's about 20+ km away from Tilburg. We asked Kyle along but he decided to join us later and he'll go to Breda by train. So after breakfast, Dong Joo and I set off for Breda. We travelled along Bredasweg (Breda way) all the way into Breda. I guess it's common sense to name roads that lead to the next city/town the same name as that city/town. Like in Malaysia, the road name "Jalan Ayer Hitam" brings you to Ayer Hitam. Although in Singapore, Marine Parade road IS in Marine Parade.

We went to Breda because I wanted to go to Ikea for swedish meatball lunch, and at the same time show Dong Joo what Ikea is.. (yes, he has never been to Ikea. And Korean only has 1 Ikea outlet which is faraway from where he lives.. or so he claims)

We took about just over an hour to reach Breda, along the way we stopped to take photos and enjoy the scenery. It was a chilly morning, but it was beautiful nonetheless. When we reached Breda central station, we went to the VVV (tourist information centre) to get a map and waited for Kyle to arrive. After we met up, we wete about to set off when we saw 2 hong kong girls who are on exchange too. They too decided to cycle to Breda that morning. They are Gigi and Sunny. Gigi is a pleasant looking girl, the guai guai type who borders on being called a nerd. Sunny is the over self-confident kind of girl who borders on either being irritating or very irritating.

So they decided to join us, even though we were not being very welcoming. We just want to have more flexibility in getting around.

We spent a few hours in Ikea walking and looking at pretty things. Tempted to buy whatever we saw, but we ended up buying meatballs. I bought some mirrors for my room. Yes, vanity only encourages spending.

On the way back, we convinced Kyle that we should cycle back. But about a few kilometres later, we realised that Kyle's bike is so freaking small and it's taking a toll on him. He couldn't keep up with our speed and the girls overtook us eventually. Kyle was sweating and panting even though the temperature was hovering just above freezing point. So we stopped to take a break and I offered to ride his bike hoping we can get back to Tilburg as soon as possible. Once I got on the bike, I immediately regretted. It was a fu**ed up bike man. It's too darn small for anyone's height and it's a pain to ride. When we got back to Tilburg city, I told Dong Joo to take the bike from there, and he did. He was struggling worse than I was and 10mins away from home, he insisted on getting a chocolate bar to 're-energize'. I was rolling my eyes.

I spent the following day recuperating from the traumatizing cycling trip back.

Trip to Boxtel

2009-02-16T15:11:00.000-08:00

So last week I went to Belgium for 2 days and I went to Boxtel on Sunday to visit Luc and family. Luc is the brother-in-law of Steve who is the director of Camp Spring Creek in Bakersville, North Carolina, USA. A little less than 2 years ago, I was in Camp Spring Creek working as a summer camp counsellor looking after dyslexic children, ensuring their safety and organising activites for them. Luc, Suus (Steve's sister), Daan and Bart (2 boys of theirs) came to the camp to help out and have fun at the same time. Steve is Dutch by the way. So Luc and Suus stays in Boxtel, which is less than 25km away from Tilburg. Much as I was tempted to cycle there but I didn't want to get lost in the cold. Besides cycling alone quite sian. I took a train there and it took less than 20 mins. Luc, Suus, Daan and Bart came to pick me up from the station and we took a slow walk back to their house. They didn't change much, still as friendly and lovely as ever. Along the way, they showed me the castle of Boxtel.

It was such a cold day, the moat was frozen and Bart could stand on it!

Daan with a cheeky smile

Bart

I had a typical Dutch lunch which consists of a Sausage Broodje (Sausage bread) and KaiserBol with a generous serving of cheese and butter on the side. I was also served juice and tea after lunch. It was delicious despite the simplicity of the meal.

I learnt that Daan got a tortoise and named it after me!

It's so heartwarming to know that the kids missed me. I feel rather flattered. Haha.

Daan is really quite a kid. He converted a small guest room into his personal museum where he kept all sorts of things. He has shells, gems, shark's teeth, a range of dinosaur figurines and he even called up the newspaper reporter to visit his museum! He wrote me a museum pass which allowed me limitless entries! Haha. To be honest, the "museum" really looks impressive.

After lunch, I joined Daan in a few games of Wii. He wanted to show me all the games he plays and I played along for a bit. In the afternoon, we decided to head to oosterweijk. It's a city in between Tilburg and Boxtel. At Oosterweijk, we took a walk in the woods before heading to the main attraction: Mini Golf!

We played 18 holes of challenging obstacles and it wasn't that easy! Haha, in the end, Luc claims that he and I are tied at 63 points. They bought me dinner and a Dutch goodie bag! I was so surprised and touched by their thoughtfulness.

I had erwtensoep (dutch pea soup) for the first time and it was DELICIOUS. I thought Dutch food was all about deep fried stuff with mayonnaise but I was wrong! The pea soup was heavy and filling, the most ideal winter food.

In Erwtensoep, it has potatoes, peas all mashed up. Together with it is rookworst (sausage). On the side, it has ham and a slice of bread. It's not an ordinary slice of bread by a hard piece of bread. I don't know what it's called. Haha...

In the Dutch goodie bag, they gave me a pack of stroopwafels, Dutch chocolates, liquorice drops, Unox Broodjes (sausage bread) and a Dutch recipe book! I had such a great time and they were really nice to me. They sent me home and I showed them my apartment. The kids want me to visit them again and we can take a trip to efteling (amusement park just outside Iilburg). I plan to do so when their cousins from America come to visit them in Spring. I think it'll be fun.

Tour after tour.. Antwerp - Bruges

2009-02-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

Just to show the photos first. The trip to Antwerp and Bruges can only be summed up in one sentence. Fashion, chocolates, beer, medieval, waffles and mussels are truly outstanding.

Swarovski for Charles!

For Murphy

and Kenneth,

and Aaron!

In Antwerp

Pizza at Da Giovanni.. 20% discount for students! Bargain! =P

This is an old stone castle in Antwerp. It's not as impressive as it sounds but it does looks good on the outside.

A ferris wheel in the making? There are no carriages yet but I think I saw some near the structure..

Hmm.. diamonds... I never knew Antwerp is a key player in the diamond industry until Dad mentioned it during a dinner with Bram (a Dutch friend)
Dong Joo also mentioned that Antwerp was one of the economic strongholds for the cotton industry. But we didn't see anything cotton related. Haha..

This picture reminds me of a photo I took with Ronald McDonald when I was a kid. Childhood friend!

Dong Joo and I couldn't resist the piping hot and fresh Belgium waffles the moment we stepped out of the train station.

And in Bruges

This castle-looking house next the canal is such a beauty. I would love to own a house like that.... haha..

I think sis is right, there will be too many churches in Europe.. so much so that I will be so freaking sian.

Chicken with mushroom cream sauce

Belgium mussels au vin blanc (cooked in white wine) served with friets (fries).
It was yummy! Although I think I like pesto better. Haha.

This is cool. I think I'm quite sua ku cause I've never seen this before. Stiring choc on a stick directly into hot milk to get hot chocolate.

These are the snacks that came with the tea/hot choc we ordered. Quite good snacks, so I guess that makes me feel less sucky having to pay 3 euros for my chai tea.

This belgium waffle has hot chocolate fudge dripped over it instead of having choc covered all over. It's extra yummy with the powdered sugar!

Brings back memories. Did you know Tintin is Belgian? I read it when I was 5? 6?
It left such a strong impression, even more than Asterisks!

Kyle and I had a discussion over the difference between swans and geese. I realise I didn't know the difference. I seem to remember they can fly because they are migratory birds. But Kyle's logic of them not being able to fly is that there are fence around these birds. If they could fly they would have flown away. Haha... I found out (from wiki of course) that they are from the same family. Swans are bigger, have longer necks and has less variety of colours compared to geese. =)

This is the oldest City Hall in Europe. It is the city hall of Bruge. Dong Joo learnt that from a Korean guide book. Haha... not that we really care actually.

Naughty shapes and sizes of chocolates on disply.

The pictures above were taken from the top of the Belfort tower. This is the tallest structure in Bruges and it's 366 steps up a spiral stairwell. It's really beautiful on a clear day (I can only imagine since it was a little bit rainy that day).
There's a movie (In Bruges) made in Bruges (DUH).. starring Colin Farell. Tragic ending but quite interesting and bizarre at the same time. The city is beautiful nonetheless.

This is my dorm bedroom for the night. Decent for 15 euros.. breakfast included, linen included, walking distance to the centre, free map and clean toilets.

Belgium beer! We went to this place called Bruge Beers (I can't remember the Flandish name). It serves around 300 kinds of beer. Apart from the draughts, we tried the strawberry and the blackcurrent beers.

Nice display (above) of spreads for toast (below)
A good range of peanut butter, jams, butter, honey

Amsterdam Trip

2009-02-03T14:08:00.001-08:00

Excursion with ESN to Amsterdam. Paid 24 euros which included transport (by bus), the Anne Frank house and a boat ride along the canals of Amsterdam. Quite a good deal.

Anne Frank House - a house where 8 Jews hid from the Nazis during World War II. There's a secret annex in that house and 8 of them (including Anne Frank) had to live there discreetly. In the front of the house, it was Otto Frank's (Anne's father) company. His employees helped to keep their whereabouts a secret so they managed to escape from the Germans for a period of time. However the Germans eventually found them and kept them in concentration camps. While Anne was hiding, she kept a diary, one which nobody has ever seen. Anne had a teacher who taught her how to write. While in concentration camp, Anne felt devastated and thought her father has died. Her sister has died. And she felt meaningless to live. Eventually she died and when that was confirmed, the diary was handed over to the father. Anne's diary has been written into a book and translated into many languages. Quite an interesting place I must say. Although I wouldn't mind missing that sight. Haha..

Anne Frank House:

View opposite Anne Frank House:
After the Anne Frank house, we went for a canal boat ride. It was quite nice for the first 15mins or so. After which I was a bit sian.

After the boat ride, we headed for the Van Gogh Museum. Initially Dong Joo and I were planning the itinerary for the free time in the afternoon. People started asking what we were going to do and we told them. So some of them leeched on and said "can we follow you?"

We were fine with having Maria along since it was her birthday and we had intentions to have dinner with her, then there were a few who just wanted to tag along. AAR, I told Dong Joo that it's too difficult and slow to move in big groups (there were 8 of us).
I can't imagine travelling with this number of people. So I told him future trips will have to be more discreet. It's not the nicest thing to do, but we can't afford dependent leeches. I'm here to travel, not to be a tour guide.

Anyway, Van Gogh museum was excellent. Some pieces were really attractive and listening to the audio guide allowed me to appreciate his works much better.

After the Van Gogh museum, we hurried over to the Heineken Experience. I suspect Tiger Experience in Singapore is something similar. In the Heineken Exerperience, it show cased the brewery which used to be there, and interacted with visitors using multimedia technology as well as having their staff to serve us. The entrance was pretty expensive, 15 euros, but guests were entitled minimum 2 beers. I must say it tastes very good. it's not as bitter as Tiger. But after 1 glass, it was enough for me. Haha. I'm still a lousy drinker.
After the beer tour, we went to celebrate Maria's birthday at an Argentinian restaurant. It was nice and delicious, surprisingly affordable. After which we walked through the red light district. It was quite an adventure and eye opener! That's the true red light district!

The simulator at the Heineken

Boat ride.

This is a post about food.

2009-02-03T13:51:00.003-08:00

This may be a little bit disturbing to some! WARNING!

You're looking at typical Dutch snacks. Yes, Dutch fries and some fried shit-look-a-like. It's really just a deep fried sausage. It tastes like... a deep fried sausage. Not worth the money. NEXT!

Just a photo from the steamboat on New Year's Eve.

One of the first few dinners at Dong Joo's place. Broccoli and Curry Chicken.

Lunch in school: A piece of bread, salmon spread, soup, pastry with meat and a hot chocolate. I think that cost me almost 5 euros. Good thing is, I felt 80% full after the meal.

My fried rice. Gotta keep improving on it until I can do it like mum. Something is still missing. Maybe it's mummy's love. Haha...

Update time!

2009-02-02T01:48:00.000-08:00

I realise I shouldn't update weekly. Too much to update at one go!

Besides my ailing memory doesn't help. Last Tuesday I had my first mentor dinner. (After every mentor dinner, it's partying at LG) so that's standard procedure already. And the theme that night was "Welcome to Holland!" Everyone had to dress in orange or in colours of the Dutch Flag (Blue, white, red)

At the mentor dinner, the mentors (Dutch students) cooked us traditional Dutch fare. I was half expecting frikandel but I obviously forgot the cheaper alternative - Stamppot. Stamppot consists of mash potatoes, carrots and a brown sauce. It is served with a section of a huge wurst. The Stamppot is pretty okay, not much to rave about. They prepared another dish similar to the Stamppot but it's all green vegetables. That didn't taste that great, neither does it look too good. Haha... For desert, we had vla (pudding). Vla is like smooth viscous pudding instead of the agah-agah we have at home. That was quite tasty.

This is my mentor group, I manage to learn all their names by the second time I met them. Not too bad for someone who can't match names to faces usually.

Theme party at LG was quite good. Most people were dressed up and we had a great time. That's Kuba in huge $$ glasses and wizard hat.

And that's Denis from Belgium. I think he couldn't remember my name, so he called me Singaporean Man.

After LG, the camera battery went flat. That was when I realise I brought the wrong charger. Well technically speaking, my sister lent me her camera, and gave me a charger for my dad's camera. What a mess I got myself into. I have only myself to blame since I thought I can use my dad's casio exlim. But the camera was really quite crappy, I couldn't take proper pictures with it so I gave up in the end.

Next morning I went to class half awake. Group Dynamics wasn't too alien to me so I felt okay for the first session. In any case, that was only the first lesson so naturally it's not tough. There are a few assignments to do and we'll have to pass all of it. I hope that's not too difficult. But I really want to get the textbook soon but I refuse to pay 58 euros for the textbk. I'm getting a friend to find the book and bring it to London. I'm so troublesome. Better think of how to repay him a favour.

That afternoon I packed lunch. It was good lunch. I made 2 sandwiches and I bought warm soup from the food plaza (that's what it's called here). After class, I went to gym. There's an Abs workout program conducted by one of the gym staff that lasts for 15mins. I haven't been able to survive the first 5mins in good form yet. But I think it's good, I feel harder abs. Haha. But I still feel a bit skinny, have to eat more, or eat correctly.

I dragged myself to pilates and I felt so sleepy. Didn't enjoy the class, it was cold and there were too many girls. I felt intimidated. I didn't enjoy the class very much. Oh well.

On Thursday i had dinner with Dong Joo's place. We invited Jessie, Sandra, Kiwon, Celine, Kyle and Maria. But Maria couldn't come. I was suppose to cook the main dishes that night, but Dong Joo ended up cooking some main dishes as well. So there was some mis-comm. I made ginger-spring onion fish (姜葱鱼片） which crumbled as I was frying it. I also stir fried broccoli with carrots and meat, I made an ABC soup and steam egg with minced pork. The broccoli and fish received quite good feedback. Haha. Dong Joo made meat patties and pan fried tofu. The meat patties were so yummy! I have to learn from him.

On Friday I just took it easy, went to gym with Dong Joo and we played squash. It was great fun! I really liked the sport. Small racket sports are so much fun (read: tennis rackets are big rackets). We went for kebab dinner.. paid 8 Euros for it!! So expensive. But it was a huge portion which filled my hungry stomach.

2nd weekend in Tilburg. 新年快乐！

2009-01-26T01:35:00.000-08:00

First off, 新年快乐！恭喜发财！吉祥如意！步步高升！财源广进！
If you can't understand the characters above, they are just New Year greetings in Chinese. It's my second weekend in Tilburg, all is well cause I'm quite well connected to the world via internet now. Skype phone calls are quite cheap (approx 3.5 cents SGD per min). My last update was on wednesday, so I should talk about what took place between wednesday and today.

Wednesday: there were course enrolments and immigration talks (for applying residence permits)
We were informed that if we don't get our residence permits, we won't be able to travel out of Netherlands if we have a Single Entry Visa (which I do). The residence permit can take up to 3months to process and there's no way we can rush the immigration office. Now I have already bought tickets for London - Milan on 18th Feb. So if I don't get my residence permit in time, I'm quite screwed. I'll have to change dates which is going to incur costs and I don't even know if that's possible.

After the worrisome immigration talk, I went to the City Centre hoping to find something to buy. I ended up in Albert Heijn (AH), a supermarket. I was suppose to meet Celine there but she couldn't find her way and ended up being really late. I waited for so long and was quite pissed. The plan was to go back to Stapps (the place where I live), drop the groceries and go back to school for the program at the sports centre. I got a sports card that night for 83 euros. It allows me to play sports and use the gym there. It's quite well equipped and classes are for free. So I can join the spinning class and play badminton and pilates class and what not. Today I shall go for Pilates!

On Thursday, there was an orientation to the Library and how to search for literature and stuff. Then a city tour later in the day led by ESN. It started raining and it was freezing cold! I couldn't remember much of the places we walked, but we ended up in City Hall. Where we had a reception to welcome our arrival. A speech was given by the deputy Mayor and he was a funny guy. I wonder if that's Dutch humour cause he was being very sarcastic yet funny. We were told some history of Tilburg, for example this was where one of their Kings felt at relaxed and Vincent van Gogh had his drawing class here. It must be one of the most pleasant speech I've heard.

Tilburg is the 6th largest city in Netherlands but it has no Metro. Many visitors were looking for the Metro stations but since there weren't any, the Dutch added a fake metro!
Check out this video.

This is right in front of the City Hall! A fake Metro map and an opening from the ground where you can hear the sound of trains stopping and leaving the "station"! How bo liao is that? =P

On Friday, most people went for the introduction camp organised by ESN. I thought there's gonna be a lot of drinking and partying, which I'm not that keen so I didn't go in the end. I didn't really wanna get sloshed and tired over the weekend so I took it easy, relaxed and cleaned up the apartment. I cooked several meals together too. I kind of just wasted Friday away cause it was raining a lot and I didn't feel like doing anything. At night, I had dinner at Celine's apartment. We had pizza and curry with Ho, Dong Joo and Ewa. Then Selbi came home with Ruslan and Jane and one other friend whom I forgot her name. It was really cool cause there're Koreans, Kazaks, Turkmens, Singaporeans and Polish!

Since Ho was leaving Netherlands, we decided to have breakfast early the next day. I offered to cook breakfast at 7.30 and we had a great time chatting.

This is Ho (above)

Ho, Me and Dong Joo.

Our breakfast spread. Scrambled eggs, fried rice, toast with jam, peanut butter and hazelnut chocolate completed with tea and apples. Yum yum.

After Ho went left for the airport, Dong Joo and I decided to go to the Asian supermarkets. Since it was next to the Koningsplein Market, I suggested walking through the market as well.
Outside Sin Fa (asian supermarket), we met a friendly Dutch.

The piping hot deep fried fish is absolutely delicious in this cold weather.

After the market, we went to another bigger Asian supermarket because we couldn't get some stuff from the first one. I bought many items for the steamboat there. I had to get it on a Saturday because many shops close on Sundays.

Picture of a church in Tilburg on a beautiful day.

On Sunday, we had lunch at Dong Joo's place. He tried to make bibimbap for all of us. Good attempt although it turned out quite different from what I've tried in Singapore. The key is to just add a lot of "gochu-jang"; the chilli paste.

Finally on Sunday night which was 除夕 (the eve of Chinese New Year), we had steamboat! We did it in my rice cooker. Haha.. We spent about 25 euros? for 6 people. We were all full by the end so I guess it's quite okay. We had some leftovers too. As we were eating, I suddenly remembered what we were missing... fish. 年年有余！ But the steamboat 没有鱼！ The closest we had was 鱼圆！ Haha.. well as the saying goes, 没鱼虾也好（bo hrr hei ma ho) We had prawns!

On the first day of CNY （初一）, I went to school to set up my wireless account, collected my student ID and went to gym. The 15min abs workout was intense and crazy. The lady instructor was high powered and I couldn't survive the first 5 minutes. I simply struggled through the whole process. After which I went for Pilates, that was quite good except I was aching quite badly already. Plus I was feeling cold too. After the workout session, I went to buy fish. Cause I was deteremined to have surplus (余） this year! i Also bought glutinous riceballs! Even though it's not winter solstice or "yuan xiao" (元宵）. With the remaining ingredients from the steamboat, I cooked noodles using my mum's style of cooking. Although it doesn't look great, but the taste is very nice! I used ikan bilis, dried shrimps, garlic, scrambled egg for the soup, added cabbage, fish slices and meat balls too. I liked what I cooked. Haha.

My noodles!

Glutinous Rice Balls

My New Year clothes, new sweater and pants. Both from H&M. Haha.. cheap stuff.

Finally, my video greetings (in order) for my immediate family, relatives, copar gisbu and friends.

(For parents, siblings)

(For uncles, aunties, cousins)

(For Copar Gisbu)

(For Friends of blog!)

Video / Picture updates!

2009-01-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

I have some video-logs and some photos to share since i arrived... =)
Looking back, i look kinda silly in the videos.. haha
Nonetheless, here they are.

At Schipol (Amsterdam) airport:

In my room at Stappergoorweg (in short, Stapps):

Tilburg University's tour. Led by Dutch students from the Erasmus Student Network (ESN)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppzUrmRza6c

Schiphol Airport entrance with Celine. Walking along Heuvelstraat, the "Orchard road"

On Sunday, we went for a kick-off drink. It started at 3pm, where most exchange students were at Cafe (pub) Bolle. The two opening sentence of most conversations " Hi my name is XXX, you are?" and "So where are you from?"

It's cool though, meeting people from all over the world.. Turkey, Korea, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, American, Poland, Canada and Turkmenistan. So many names to remember! It helps to remember them by where they are from though.

In the first picture, Clarisse who's next to me is a Singaporean who has been in Tilburg for a semester, now she's doing her second semester. Such a sweet looking girl. And on the right, it's Gigi from Hong Kong. There are about 15 Hong Kong students in this semester. And the guy standing next to me is Dong Joo from Korea. Very pleasant and humble character.

After a beer, a big group of us adjourned to grass company. It was quite an interesting place. Imagine ordering a joint off the menu! Apparently a good one cost about 4 euros. I didn't try cause I wasn't feeling adventurous. Ha.

As the Magnificus blah blah blah (I think he's like President or something) was giving his welcome speech, we were busy snapping photos. Check out my bicycle below! Nice? 40 euros!
But the bike is a bit too small for me.. urgh.

That's Noemi from Hungary (above)
and that's Khubba from Poland (right)

They are very happening people!

We had our first mentor dinner not very long ago at a nice pub. I had ham served with lots of fries instead of fish. Got to know this guy Christian from Cologne. He says that place is nice... and it's worth visiting. Oooh...

After dinner, it was party at LG. LG is a club in city centre, where the exchange students and some dutch students go wild every tuesday. Yup, yesterday was my virgin experience. After dinner, it started raining, so we parked our bicycles underground. It was so cool. At LG, it was strange, they played all sorts of music. R&B, handbag, hip hop and even country!

From the top, Maria from Iowa, Francesco from Milan and Christian from Cologne!
Most pictures will come at a later date!

First week in Nederlands!

2009-01-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

Goedevanond! Good evening!

Almost a week in Netherlands and no internet yet!!! >_< (I'm blogging from school's internet terminal)
I've moved in to my apartment since Friday but it just takes so long to get it going. What a pain!
The weather has been really cold, and I was told I couldn't get around without a bicycle, so I got myself a bicycle at 40euros. A bus ride to school cost 1.60 euro, so if i cycle to school and back, i save 3.20 euro. To break even the cost of the bicycle, i'll only have to go to school 12-13 times! In less than 6 weeks, I'll make my bike worth it. Moreover, I probably can sell it off when students arrive for the next semester. I hope the bike doesn't get stolen though.

The sun is setting right now at 5.30pm, and I just feel a bit lazy to go out cause it's so cold. Everyone here seems to be beer guzzlers. I feel a little out of place. And also when they smoke. A roomie of mine is a chimney! And he's stoned almost every night man.

I can't wait to be more connected to the world then I can post photographs. Now I'll just have to fight administrative fire first... Grhh..

Losing streak.

2009-01-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the third match of the badminton IVP tournament. SMU vs SP. The boys went down 2-3 and the girls triumphed 3-2. I must say the boys tried our best, hopefully the experience is well worth it. Jonathan is truly commendable because he managed to play out his training standards and his form has been generally consistent unlike most of us. Although SMU boys crashed out this year (like last year), at least we didn't look as pathetic as last year. It's tough when priorities have shifted for many of us and we don't have the pool of players like other schools do.
The girls had the most exciting match. They were tied at 2-2 and Elaine played the deciding game. The last singles dragged into a rubber game and Elaine managed to progress steadily towards the match point throughout the game.

Elaine in action:

Celine's Singles:

Alex and Yong Kang's Doubles:

The question is, do I still want to play next year? (Seems like this question keeps on popping up)
Oh well...

The lurking monster.

2009-01-07T19:10:00.001-08:00

There's a friend of mine who gets pissed from work rather easily (notice there's a self-serving bias here since I wrote as though I'm more saint-like than this friend when in fact I may not be). Anyway, it's not about me. This situation has happened many times, and I knew the remedy. (1) Choose an eating place where food is served QUICKLY. (2) Have some (sweet) snacks handy and offer him before he starts complaining about what happened. (3) It's always good to be with a big bunch of friends to diffuse his intense energy.

That way, the lurking monster dissipates. =)

Yesterday I bought the eurail pass for 4 countries. To convince myself that it's worth the $662, I tried to find the price of every leg of my trip along the Mediterranean Sea. From Rome to Lisbon. It totaled up to be about $800. Along the way I'll have to make reservations for my trips which I assume adds up to be about the same. WTH... I bought it anyway. Ha.

7 more days!

Testing out Youtube posting

2009-01-06T06:04:00.000-08:00

Just trying out posting videos from youtube.. it might be faster than actually uploading the video onto blogger one by one...

Testing Photos and Videos

2009-01-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

Haven't tried the new interface of Blogger... So I'm experimenting with posting videos and photos..

Wow... it seems pretty good as of now.. can see the photo while I'm typing. At least it's not in some url form. Now.. let me try to figure out how to add a video...

Shit Stirrer...

2009-01-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

When all is peaceful and there's nothing to talk about, a person starts to twist words and conjure up accusations in the name of others, making irresponsible remarks. This person is known as a Shit Stirrer.

My sis just did a Shit Stirrer stint today. It made me rather upset and feel quite shitty about myself. I'm not indulging in self-pity. But I can't accept her accusations gracefully. Maybe I'm too "cocky".

On a lighter note, I learnt that when someone says something which everyone already knows, you may call him Captain Obvious. When he continues to say the obvious, he gets promoted to Major Obvious. =)

Life goes on...

2009-01-01T03:20:00.000-08:00

New blog!

I've stopped blogging since two years ago, before the Standard Chartered Marathon 2006. I was still ranting about school work and results. Well, things have changed significantly since then.. I'm half way through with school, done my internship, went to USA, going to Europe and grown significantly more jaded about things. Good and bad I guess. Yeap, probably still as indecisive as ever. I still can't make up my mind whether I want to have the New York strip or Sirloin at Astons, or whether to have a latte or a mocha.

I lost the exhibitionist-like desire to share my life on a blog, but I figured I should continue with this carthartic habit. Even if it's not for my own sanity sake, at least my parents will be able to see my life in Europe. It seems like I'll have to take many photos. Gosh.. cam-whoring is so passe.