A Simple Life

December Updates 1 - Xmas 2008

2009-01-15T00:17:00.006+08:00

Annual Xmas Party @ Tian's

Taking a break from studying ..

2008-11-17T00:56:00.003+08:00

It is the time of the year when exams are coming soon .. my first paper is on this coming Saturday on the 22 November. Don't know why but I am feeling strangely relaxed this semester. Wonder if it is because it is my second last semester in NUS or because I only have 3 examinable modules this semester so I have less to study.

Can't wait for exams to end on 27 November!! Well I guess I should get back to studying .. Looking forward to the December holidays =)

Prawning session 24/10/08

2008-10-28T16:22:00.010+08:00

Went prawning somewhere in Sin Ming on Friday night with the gang. Finally we are doing something else rather than mahjong or poker haha =)

Well it was quite fun .. only if you managed to catch something .. and after a 3 hour prawning session, me and my prawning partner Joel caught a grand total of ... 7 prawns (of which I contributed 3). There were so many near misses .. when I felt the prawn bite the bait but when I pulled the rod up, they escaped =( I shall buck up and improve my prawning skills and catch next time.

Highlights of the night:

Yanrong thought he caught a whale and flicked his arm so strongly upwards that he ended up having his fishing line hooked onto the top of the roof .. HAHA.. and he had to get the staff to help him remove the hook .. LOL

Jessica's unglam shot haha (sorry Jess!) .. she looked quite freaked out holding the prawn. Look at the long legs she is pinching .. they bite! Oh and Tian did not handle any prawn that night so I guess we must applaud Jess for being so gutsy haha =)

Towards the end of the session, when we were getting bored .. so just stoning around and posing for the camera

All of us with our combined catch .. about 30 prawns in total. Went to Roy's place to steam the prawns so that we can have them while they are fresh =)

Yeah and the prawns tasted .. FRESH! SHIOKS

Updates.. finally

2008-10-19T22:27:00.005+08:00

Well after a 4 month absence at blogging, I thought its time I should update my blog a bit since some of my friends are complaining that I 'shamelessly' publicise my blog address on my MSN nick but never bother to update haha =)

Nothing interesting ever since I got back from SEP, life goes on as usual. Some of the things I was busy with the past few months:

1. Final Year Project: Doing a project on bead based microarrays. Basically it is a super boring experiment and I just monotonously repeat the same procedure every day. Mount beads on a gel pad, react with analyte followed with fluorescence dye then take pictures. Sounds boring huh =( Taking up whatever free time I have from Mondays to Fridays .. just when I thought I could have a 3 day week this semester

2. Fencing: Trainings every Tuesday and Thursday. Totally enjoy it because it is a time for me to relieve stress and thrash some people on the fencing piste haha .. ok just joking. Been busy helping Jason with training up the newcomers and hopefully we would be able to win some medals in the coming novices competition. Of course, not forgetting the new found friends and their great company (this is dedicated to Celeste cos she will be reading my blog haha) and the ever BHB Wei Lun who never fails to praise himself ....

3. Going out: Yes I still have a life despite spending my weekdays in school!! Watching movies, gymming, dinner, mahjong sessions, etc ..

Some highlights:
Went to Mambo with Xiaoli (who wanted to intro some of her friends to me) and SEP people, Jason and Wei Lun during the mid sem break after a long absence at clubbing and it was FUN haha =) Met a lot of friends there that night cos it was NUS and NTU holidays .. and I must say that the music was good!

Going to a club @ Tanjong Pagar with my army friends one of the Saturdays .. drank a lot and lost my handphone on the cab =(

Playing mahjong with Tian, Jess and ZJ and losing all the way .. resulting in myself being bankrupt when it was "Nan Feng" and a total of 50 dollar loss =( Luckily Tian gave me a 50% discount to soften the impact

Going to pub 3 Fridays in a row ... and catching 2 movies yesterday and eating Jumbo seafood with Tian & gang (we attacked 3 crabs .. deer meat .. baby squids ..lots of food)

And all these means spending $$$ .. considering that I am not giving tuition from now till December since my tuition kid's PSLE is over .. I better start saving up if I am still planning to go for my grad trip to USA next year =)

Well thats all for now folks!!

More updates

2008-06-04T04:59:00.002+08:00

To my friends in Singapore: I haven't forgotten you guys and I will be back in Singapore on the 27th June!! Haven't seen you guys for a long time and hopefully I would be able to meet up with you guys before school starts in August!!

End of term for SEP .. Some random thoughts

2008-05-30T22:18:00.000+08:00

Haven't been blogging for about 2 months cos I was too lazy to do so =). Tonight marks the last night for myself in Denmark before I embark on my end of semester trip tomorrow. First I will be going to Prague myself to meet up with Tian and Jess, after which I will join up with the rest of the SEP gang in Madrid, and travel to Barcelona, Paris, Interlaken, Brussels, Vienna, Salzburg and Berlin, before heading back to Singapore end of June.

This 5 months exchange programme in Denmark has been one of the best experiences in my life till now, something that I will remember in the years that come. The study abroad experience in a foreign university has been an eye opener and very different from the system back at NUS. The whole student experience had definitely been enjoyable and slack .. to a certain extent =) which I am sure all the others will agree with me.

Of course, all the weekend and holiday travels to nearby European countries definitely made the whole SEP more enjoyable as I got to see a lot of new things and learnt much about the different cultures and way of lives.

All these memorable experiences over here however would not have been possible without the company of GREAT FRIENDS =). There were ups and downs, good times and bad times but the presence of these guys definitely made the whole exchange a more wholesome and colourful one. Going out to Copenhagen, travelling to different countries, buying groceries, cooking, baking, eating, chiong-ing projects, sleeping in lessons, etc .. we practically did everything together. And I remember the late night chats with some of you guys. All these things definitely brightened up my whole SEP =)

Some of the people who made my time here:

To Xiaoli aka container mate - The only girl from NUS in DTU who is always so LOUD and CHEERFUL and always makes her presence felt haha .. thank you for always helping me with my chores, banging on my door in the morning to wake me up, washing up the dishes, the small treats you buy for everyone, being so thoughtful, etc .. and the little surprise on my birthday =)

To Kendrick - Mr NICE guy .. although you might be a bit too white in skin colour, likes to imitate me to irritate me (no effect on me though haha) and might get a bit emo sometimes =) Thanks for lending a listening ear and giving good advice, being crazy and appreciate my cold jokes haha and baking the fantastic oreo cheese cake for my birthday!

To Baolai - the EMO and the EYE for detail guy .. Thanks for always baking and cooking nice dishes for all of us .. being so thoughtful and helping .. cutting hair and taking photos for us .. your interesting blog posts (although sometimes it is at my expense haha) .. the tiramisu cake and chocolate fondue for my birthday =)

To Jialiang - who loves to eat fried onions and always so stubborn in his views .. those debates we have about everything under the sun never fails to amaze me and I actually had fun engaging in them haha =) Thanks for the ice cream treats and printing notes for me!

To Junhao - Mr Myth Buster .. Thank you for cutting and washing up the dishes during meal times .. volunteering your room for us to put our luggage .. your 'not-as-funny-as-mine' jokes (haha just joking) and always entertaining us during our 'dai dee' games by simply being 'suay' haha =)

To Joel - Mr Eat-a-Lot Muscleman 1 .. it was great knowing you guys and the happy-go-lucky attitude of yours definitely brightened up our SEP! Had loads of fun hanging out and travelling together with you guys to Sweden .. Thanks a lot for the invitation to dinner during my last few nights here .. see you in Interlaken!

To Joey - Mr Eat-a-Lot Muscleman 2 .. yes Joey you are big enough .. dun need to train up anymore or you will become the Incredible Hulk haha! Yeap it was great knowing you too and travelling with you to London and Sweden .. had fun chit chatting with you, although you are always rushing off to chat with your girlfriend online haha =)

To Brandon - Mr POPULAR (especially with girls) .. the last but definitely not the LEAST! It was really fun talking to you and thanks for always lending a listening ear and sharing your experiences and interesting views and stories with me .. really learnt a lot from you through these sessions and it was great fun hanging out with you cos your presence is always felt (in other words - kao peh haha .. just joking) .. Thanks for helping me bring back luggage to Singapore and everything else .. stay cheerful!

You guys ROCKZ!! SEP would be really different without you =) Thanks for making my time in Denmark such an enjoyable one!

Back from Italy

2008-03-24T04:33:00.002+08:00

Hi all!

I am back from Italy after a long 9 day Easter break. The pizzas and spaghetti there were fantastic and there were lots of things to see. Had an enjoyable time there. Will be updating about Italy soon .. when I am not feeling so lazy =)

Anyway I have just set up an online photo album so that I don't have to upload so many photos in my blog =)
http://albums.koffeephoto.com/user/TpWkEt9MY6Vui-1lAJSqRyFe/

Day Trip to Helsingor & Helsingborg - 8 Mar 2008

2008-03-12T00:46:00.009+08:00

Paid a visit to Kronborg Castle which is in Helsingor, 45km north of Copenhagen on Saturday with the rest of the gang.

Kronborg Castle is one of northern Europe's most important Renaissance castle and was built in 1577. In fact, it inspired Shakespeare to make the castle the scene of Hamlet's life. Kronborg Castle is located by the sea and the scenery was beautiful. Ok enough of history, here are the pics ..

Kronborg Castle in the background

From the inside of Kronborg Castle

There were also many paintings depicting the history of Denmark inside Kronborg ..

The King's dining area

Ballroom

Sleeping Chamber

Castle Chapel

All of us

After spending a few hours exploring Kronborg, we then took a ferry from Helsingor (Denmark) to Helsingborg (Sweden), which was only about 20 minutes away.

On the ferry to Helsingborg

View of Helsingborg from the ferry

More photos of Helsingborg ..

Town Hall

Karnan Fortress

The tower of Karnan which has guarded Helsingborg for more than 600 years

Myself at the top of Karnan Fortress

All of us

We then had dinner in Helsingborg at this place called Asia Kock - which serves teppanyaki buffet.

Yup, thats all for my Helsingor/Helsingborg trip. The recent few posts have been quite rushed because I am trying to finish blogging and not accumulate blog debts before I leave for Italy tomorrow for my Easter break. Will be spending 9 days in Italy vistiting Milan, Florence, Pisa and Rome. Looking forward to it =)

More updates when I come back!!

Oslo Ski Trip 29 Feb - 2 Mar

2008-03-11T00:44:00.025+08:00

Over the weekend from 29 Feb to 2 Mar, we went Oslo in Norway to ski. There was a big group of ten of us who went skiing this time round: 6 Singaporeans, 2 Australians, 1 American and 1 Korean.

Basically we flew there on Friday night and went to ski at Tryvann Vinterpark on Saturday, which was this ski mountain located only about 30 minutes away from central Oslo, the city.

Dan, Xiaoli, Me and Jiwon posing outside Oslo Central Station before setting off for our ski trip

On the bus to Tryvann Vinterpark

Tryvann Vinterpark - the place where we did our skiing!

On one of the ski slopes

Beautiful landscape from the top

We skiied till about 5 pm and then went back to Oslo for dinner.

On the bridge to OsloCity - one of the shopping centres in Oslo

On Sunday, some of us decided to explore the city of Oslo while the others who wanted to ski for a second day went skiing again. For me, I chose to explore Oslo as I wanted to get the best of both worlds .. to ski and explore!

So here are some of the attractions we visited on Sunday

Oslo City Hall

National Theatre

Outside the Royal Palace

Parliament House

The 7 of us forming the letters "OSLO UNI" outside the place itself =)

Oslo Opera House which is still under construction .. Baolai and Kendrick (with his Norway hat)doing a jumping pose

Along the harbourfront - Baolai, Me and Sam

Akershus Fortress

Nice view from the top of the fortress

Well hopefully that summarizes most of our Oslo trip. Too bad there was not enough time for me to ski for a few more days! Otherwise the trip itself was not too bad =)

Kiruna & Stockholm Trip 20-24 Feb Part 5

2008-03-07T08:55:00.022+08:00

Day 4 and 5 - Kiruna City Centre and Stockholm

The last 2 days of our trip was spent walking around in Kiruna City Centre and Stockholm.

Kiruna City Centre is quite a small place, more like a town actually. Here are some of the landmarks:

City Hall in Kiruna - Stadshuset

Kiruna Church

All of us wih one of the church buildings as background.

That Saturday afternoon, we flew over to Stockholm to spend our last 1.5 days there. Stockholm was definitely a more exciting place than Copenhagen and Kiruna. The place is bustling with life and the streets are more crowded and well lighted with colourful lights. Also, the shops close much later and things are cheaper in Stockholm compared to back in Denmark =)

In Stockholm ..

Joey, Me and Joel on one of the shopping streets

Stockholm by night:

All of us by the river, with Alfredo (who is Brandon's friend doing SEP in Stockholm). Alfredo kindly agreed to show us around that night and the next morning despite having lots of assignments to hand up the following week.

The next day on Sunday, we did more exploration in Stockholm ..

The scenery by the river was really good!

Outside the Nobel Museum

The Royal Palace

We managed to catch the Change of Guards at the Palace at 1 pm.

With Kendrick - The National Museum as background

Another picture of Joel, Me and Brandon by the river

Stockholm City Hall

Yup, basically thats all for our 5 day trip to Sweden! Had loads of fun with the whole gang and we got to know each other better after the trip. Sweden was fun!!

Hopefully my Sweden post is not too long. I will try to summarize my other trips next time!! =)

Kiruna & Stockholm Trip 20-24 Feb Part 4

2008-03-06T01:06:00.015+08:00

Day 3 - Northern Light Tour

The 2nd day of our Northern Light tour, also the last day. That morning, we woke up early to try out cross country skiing for about an hour followed by ice fishing.

A photo of all of us during skiing - Baolai is in front because he fell on his butt while trying to ski to his position for the photoshoot (notice the empty space at the back) .. haha

Ice Fishing: We did ice fishing on top of a frozen river. A hole was drilled into the ice and we had to wait with a bait for the fish to bite ..

Frozen river beneath the snow ..

Waiting for the fish to bite ..

While we were waiting around for the fish to bite, some of us got bored ....

Some of us started to make a snowman ..

Baolai and Xiaoli shaping the snowman

While some of the more adventurous ones (more specifically Brandon only) got hungry and decided to try the bait ...

Brandon trying to taste the bait. Then I "accidentally" pushed the bait into his mouth. So he got a first hand experience of how the worm tasted. Sorry Bran my fault!! =)

All of us with the snowman (with the decorations on the snowman donated by Kendrick)

After 1 hour plus, we caught a GRAND TOTAL of ..... 0 fish! Haha!

Then we decided to have a snowball fight ..

Always beware of the people who are closest to you, aptly shown by the photo above =P

Apparently Kendrick masterminded the snowball fight (for everyone to aim me) and Brandon, my teammate 'backstabbed' me - he was the first one to smash snow on me from my back! Haha but I fed Bran the worm so we are quits =)

The snowball fight:

After a tiring day, we went back for lunch at the campsite before our journey back to civilisation.

All of us with our Lappish hut

Lying on the snow in a ring

One last photo with Taube at the end of the tour

Although we did not get to see any Northern Lights during our 2 day tour, it was a fantastic trip and all of us had loads of fun as we got to try many new things and enjoyed the beautiful scenery in the wilderness. Definitely would want to go back again if I have the chance!

Last but not least .. here is some eye candy =)

AURORA!! - We took photos of postcards with aurora HAHA!

Kiruna & Stockholm Trip 20-24 Feb Part 3

2008-03-05T08:13:00.019+08:00

Day 2 - Northern Light Tour

After spending a night at Mushers Lodge, the 9 of us set off early in the morning for our Northern Light Tour, hoping to be lucky enough to see aurora in Kiruna. Basically, aurora is a display of natural coloured light in the night sky and the frequency of seeing aurora is especially high from the period December to April, especially in the polar zone.

We went on this 2 day 1 night package in which we travelled in the wilderness to our campsite by snowmobile and dog sled. We then spent the rest of our time there chopping firewood for fire for our Lappish hut (our accomodation), reindeer meat lunch, BBQ dinner, slacking around and playing in the snow, waiting for aurora to come out at night, etc .. Well, to cut a long story short .. here are the pictures =)

Our guide - Henrik Taube giving us an introduction to the tour

Preparing the dog sleds for the journey to our campsite. The dogs are lined up in a particular order and hooked to a chain before they are attached to the dog sleds.

With the snowmobile

Jialiang - the first driver for the snowmobile for the day, and Xiaoli behind him.

The rest of us sitting on the trailer attached behind the snowmobile. We all got to take turns to drive the snowmobile as there were numerous stops along the way for us to change drivers. All of us were relatively good drivers and the journey was rather smooth, except a minor glitch along the way when Brandon 'holland-ed' (meaning lost his way) at a junction, according to Brandon, his vehicle commander Joey gave him the wrong directions .. haha. As a result, we stopped over and waited for Taube to backtrack to find us (everywhere looked the same in the wilderness, and it was amazing how Taube managed to know his way so well without maps or compasses).

Travelling in convoy movement. The dog sleds in front and the snowmobile at the back.

Changeover to dog sleds after half the journey.. 3 of us to one dog sled. The dog sleds were so much better than the snowmobile and the dogs can run really fast! Really cool to ride on the dog sleds!

Me (the driver for the dog sled), Joel and Brandon (the passengers)

With the dog at the end point

A photo at our destination - with the wilderness behind us =)

After we reached the end point, we had to trek on the frozen river to our campsite

Our Campsite

Reindeer

The place where we stay in - Lappish Hut (which can accomodate up to 10 people comfortably)

The interior - triple decker bed

Junhao posing at the fireplace - we have to chop our own wood to last us through the cold night.

It was damn tough trying to chop the firewood into the correct sizes because the axes and saws were not very sharp. We actually sweated while doing it and it took us about 2 hours to finish chopping the required amount of firewood.

The woodcutters' pose =)

After a gruelling 2 hours of woodcutting, we had our first meal of the tour: Lunch - which was a simple meal of macaroni and reindeer meat (tasted a bit like bacon).

After lunch, we played in the snow and slided down some slopes on these plastic seaters.

And went for a walk on the frozen river .. and 'tau pok' Jialiang because there was nothing else to do in the wilderness! Haha

Followed by BBQ dinner (chicken and macaroni)

After dinner - bread making session with all the other foreigners who also went on the Northern Light Tour.

And after that, we just sat around and waited for the Northern Lights to come out. However, it was really unfortunate because it was a cloudy night and as a result, we saw nothing! =(

So in the end we went to sleep because our guide told us that we won't be able to see anything that night and we decided that there was no point waiting. Well although we didn't get to see aurora, at least we had a great day on the dog sleds, snowmobile, wood chopping, reindeer meat .. all these were something very new to all of us so at least we didn't feel that bad.

Day 3 - To be continued ...

Kiruna & Stockholm Trip 20-24 Feb Part 2

2008-02-29T08:14:00.003+08:00

Day 1 Night - Mushers Lodge

We spent our first night in Mushers Lodge. It was a very nice and cozy place and was like a countryside resort, very relaxing and comfortable. Basically, we had nearly the whole place to ourselves and it was really cool. We cooked our own dinner to save money and we had pasta with sausage and mashed potatoes that night.

Dinner Preparations

All of us in the dining room

Main hall

Bedroom

Outside the lodge the next morning

Kiruna & Stockholm Trip 20-24 Feb Part 1

2008-02-29T06:18:00.011+08:00

I just had my virgin trip out of Denmark from the 20-24 February ever since arriving in Denmark on the 24th January. Basically the 9 of us Singaporeans skipped 3 days of school from Wednesday to Friday to go to Sweden. First we went to Kiruna to visit the Ice Hotel and then for a 2 day Northern Lights tour (to see aurora) and then followed by one and a half days in Stockholm.

It proved to be a good decision to skip school because it was all worthwhile. The 5 day trip was really enjoyable and it was one of the best times I had ever since I touched down in Europe. Adventure, scenery, eye-opener, everything was great! All 5 days were well spent and I don't think words can describe the amount of fun I had there and so here are some pictures to tell the story =)

Day 1 - Touch down at Kiruna Airport

"Welcome to Kiruna" - the whole block is made of ice!

After we reached Kiruna, we went by cab to the Ice Hotel. Basically, the whole hotel is built out of ice and it is rebuilt every year during winter (it takes 8 weeks just to build the exterior), because during summer it melts. This explains why it costs about 300+ SGD to stay there for one night.

Me and Baolai at the entrance to Ice Hotel

At the lobby of Ice Hotel

At Lobby - Joey, Joel, Me, Brandon & Baolai

Some of the hotel rooms. YES .. guests sleep in these rooms built out of ice, even the beds are carved out of ice! They sleep in warm sleeping bags placed on top of reindeer furs which is laid on the ice beds.

Some of the concept rooms:

Joey posing =P

Jialiang and Kendrick taking a break

Absolut Icebar inside the hotel

The cups made out of ice!

More photos ..

Brandon acting cute with his mermaid =)

A photo with a car that 'crashed' through ice

All of us!

After the Ice Hotel tour, we went to our accomodation for the first night - Mushers Lodge where we cooked our own dinner and then went to bed, eagerly looking forward to the next day when we would set off for our Northern Lights tour - which will be updated soon in Part 2.

Anyway I will be going to Norway - Oslo to ski this weekend with 10 other friends. My second trip in a span of 2 weeks! =) Will update about Kiruna/Stockholm and also Norway when I come back next week, as soon as I have the time!

Christiania

2008-02-19T06:16:00.005+08:00

Just visited Christiania in Copenhagen one weekend ago. Basically Christiania is also known as Freetown Christiania and it is a partially self-governing neighbourhood of about 1100 residents. It has established semi-legal status as an independent community and has been a source of controversey since its creation in a squatted military area in 1971.

We can see the drug addicts openly selling and consuming drugs (hash and cannabis) and here, open drug trade is tolerated by authorities. However, we were not allowed to take pictures of the main street where they are dealing with drugs openly. However, it was an eye-opener as the streets really looked like those run-down areas in the movies, with metal bins with fires, masked men who are selling drugs, addicts with bloodshot eyes and yellow skin walking around, etc .. something that we can never see in Singapore.

However, we could take pictures before and after the main drug peddling street. The buildings are all decorated with graffiti and some of the graffiti was really very artistic and beautiful.

And below is something interesting that we found at the entrance/exit of Christiania.

Entrance to Christiania

Exit from Christiania

Yup that's all for now. I will be going to Kiruna, which is in Sweden from Wednesday to Sunday to see the Northern Lights and Ice Hotel and I am skipping school from Wednesday to Friday for this trip =). Will then stopover in Stockholm for one and a half days to explore the place before heading back to DTU. I am already looking forward to this trip and I can't wait for Tuesday to end!

More updates when I come back =)

Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner

2008-02-14T06:29:00.016+08:00

This year is the first year I am having my Chinese New Year reunion dinner overseas away from my family. However, it is also a totally new experience and something very different from the usual dinners back home in Singapore.

We had a combined CNY dinner in our container kitchen consisting of Singaporeans, Koreans and also some of our container mates from Australia and USA. It was really crowded and we had 18 people in total! Of course, we had lots of food that night to feed all of us. We had many dishes, ranging from Korean spicy pork, dumpling soup, Bah Kut Teh, brocolli with scallops, sambal chilli prawns, chicken drumsticks, prawn and sausage omelette, cabbage, mushroom stew, dory fish, Sangría, etc .. For a full list of the photos of the food, please visit Baolai's blog: http://www.baolai.blogspot.com/ for the full range of dishes haha (I am lazy to upload all the pictures of the dishes but I will upload some, especially those I cooked hahaha)

Here are some highlights from the dinner:

First introducing the 2 main chefs of the night: Baolai and myself. Joel on the left is trying to pick up some culinary skills from us =)

And for those of you guys who think I cannot cook .. here is proof that I can!!

Here are some of my creations:

Omelette with prawns and chinese sausage.

Cabbage with chinese sausage. (YES I can COOK VEGETABLES, although I don't eat them haha)

Sambal Prawns with onions

Introducing some other dishes ...

The colourful dish on the left is Dory Fish by Baolai and the dish on the right is Mushroom Stew by Jialiang (apparently Jialiang got some secret recipe which he refused to share .. just joking haha)

Most beautifully presented dish - Brocolli with scallops by Baolai

Pork Dumpling Soup by our Korean friends

and another delicious dish by the Koreans: Spicy pork

and not forgetting Joey, Joel and Brandon for their Sangría (a Spanish alcoholic drink) which tasted great!

Spread of dishes

And while everyone else is busying cooking or helping to spread the dishes, we can see Kendrick in the background slacking and taking photos of the dishes haha =).

All of us - 18 in total with the sumptuous meal

Thanks to Joel, Joey and Brandon for washing up

The ASIANS - Singaporeans and Koreans

And HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of the Singaporeans with our mandarin oranges!!

Great food, great company and a night of fun. Although this year's dinner did not come with expensive dishes like shark's fin and abalone, it was really enjoyable and I am sure everyone else had fun chatting and interacting with one another.

Introduction Week 29/1/08 - 1/2/08

2008-02-10T09:17:00.000+08:00

DTU organised a four day orientation from Tuesday 29/1 to Friday 1/2 for the international students before lessons started officially on the 4th February. It was a fun filled week and I got to know many other international students that week.

On the first day, we were divided into different groups and then given an introduction to the school, after which we were brought around the DTU campus. In the afternoon, team building games were played and it was good clean fun, unlike in NUS when orientation always involved you getting dirty. First, we were given a quiz to solve which involved us having to move around the DTU campus to find answers. After that, we were made to build the tallest tower which could hold the most cans of beer. Though these activities might sound simple, but they were really fun and effective to bring the group together.

My group's tower, however it only could hold 2 cans of beer =(

My orientation group!

Baolai's group. I put this pic here because of the pretty Polish girl in red =)

Went to the Cellar Bar inside DTU after dinner on the first day and we met some of the other Singaporeans from Mechanical Engineering in NUS. Great to see other Singaporeans here as well! We got about a total of 10 of us from NUS doing exchange in DTU.

Joey, Junhao, Baolai, Me, Brandon, Joel

Did I mention that beer is very CHEAP in Denmark? It is even cheaper than soft drinks and the cheapest beer here is the Dansk beer which cost only about 50 cents SGD. Other beers include Carlsberg and Tuborg which are also very cheap and this probably explains the beer culture here. Nearly everyone drinks beer and they drink it like they are drinking plain water .. haha.

On the second day, we were brought around Copenhagen in a bus tour and we visited some of the more famous places like Amalienborg Palace, Little Mermaid, etc .. as I mentioned in the previous posts. After the tour, we were brought to this restaurant for buffet dinner and then we went to this club called the Student House in Copenhagen drink (socialise) =)

Photo with my new Italian friend Julia

Dinner with the international students

On Thursday, we went to visit the Carlsberg Brewery where we got to see how beer is made and the different types of beers available. Each of us were given 2 beers to taste which was included in the admission fee. The beers were freshly brewed and they tasted really good, and the alcohol percentage in the beers were higher than usual. I think some of the more special beers are not available commercially. I tried a Carlsberg 47 and Tuborg Guld and my face turned red (apparently the beer alcohol content inside the beer is 12.5%). I shall not post any pictures with my red face haha.

Carlsberg Brewery

Me acting surprised to see this fencing mask in one of the rooms! Don't know why it is there anyway haha.

Found this sign which was quite interesting .. haha. I dedicate this specially to Jason Pek who loves to drink beer =)

Posing with all the beers =) .. I didn't drink all of them!!

On the last day of the Introduction Week, each group was to prepare a dish for dinner and our group was made to prepare chicken. It was pretty simple as we only need to put the chicken into the oven to heat up since they were already marinated and pre-cooked. So our group spent our time chatting away while the chicken was cooking. We were not allowed to steal food though so we had to resist eating the nice smelling chicken =(

At the dinner table with some of the members from my group. Look at the beer cans on the table ..

After dinner we went to another club in DTU itself to club. I bought a shot and a cup of vodka orange. Really cheap! But I resisted the temptation to buy more alcohol or beer as I do not want to kill my liveror get a beer belly.

With another new friend Moritz from Germany

Well, that's all for Introduction Week. Really fun and I definitely had a great time!

Copenhagen Trip(s) - Part 2

2008-02-05T17:45:00.000+08:00

Hans Christian Anderson Museum - where there is a collection of all his fairy tales and some statues etc. Brings back fond memories of the past when I read his stories =)

Little Mermaid

Amalienborg Palace - the Danish Royal Family's Winter palace. In the middle of the courtyard stands the statue of Frederick V.

An artistic pose of myself patting the head of Frederick V's horse

Copenhagen Opera House

Copenhagen Zoo - we went there since we were bored and it was free entry with the Copenhagen Card. Nothing much to do there except to see the animals and enjoy their smell =(

Posing with Flamingos

5 of us =)

Church of Our Lady - Quite a small church but it is a nice place to visit.

Copenhagen Trip(s) - Part 1

2008-02-03T07:04:00.001+08:00

Went to Copenhagen 3 times within a week - first exploration was on a Saturday, 2 days after we arrived in Denmarkfor our first, and then the following Monday we went there to visit some museums and during Introduction Week on Wednesday, we were brought around Copenhagen in a bus again.

Copenhagen is a much bigger and interesting place than Lyngby and there are more things to see and shop. Throughout the 3 days, we went to quite a few sites in Copenhagen and explored most parts of it. Things are of course as expensive in Copenhagen and we did not do much shopping but just went looking around in the shops.

Here are some of the more interesting sites:

Rundetarn - The Round Tower, which is along Kobmagergade. We had to walk round and round up to the top of the tower. Luckily the tower is not very high so it was not a tiring ascent.

Round Tower

View of Copenhagen from the top of the Round Tower

The five of us (Me, Xiaoli, Baolai, Jialiang and Kendrick) posing in front of a fountain in one of the squares in Copenhagen.

Another one along the streets

Outdoor Ice Skating Rink

The Little Mermaid in Langelinje
- created by sculptor Edward Eriksen who was inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale

She is quite small though =) and apparently she is about 94 years old.

DTU Campus and Lyngby

2008-01-31T07:18:00.000+08:00

Haven't been blogging recently as I was quite busy settling down and also with Introduction Week (something like orientation .. will update more about it soon). Well, here are some overdue photos of my campus and also the Lyngby district. Nothing spectacular though .. haha.

Lyngby: 15 mins away from campus by walking and this is the place where we get all our daily needs and groceries. Quite a boring place and the shops all close by about 6 pm (basically most shops in Denmark close around this time).

Lyngby train station

Going Ikea on the first day to shop for our necessities

DTU Campus: the colours of the buildings are really dull and in winter (with all the bare trees), this further adds to the dullness of the campus and makes one feel really depressed. Look at the pics below and you can imagine ..

Trees trees and more trees .. zzz

Well so this is the place I will be staying in for the next 4 months. So I guess I better get used to it, or hopefully when spring comes, the surroundings will be more colourful =)

Coming up: Copenhagen Trip and Introduction Week

Photo Updates

2008-01-27T15:27:00.000+08:00

Departure at Changi Airport T3 on 24th Jan -Thanks to everyone who came!! Didn't manage to take photos with everyone though because I wasted a lot of time trying to unpack =(

Family

Fencing Gang

With Roy

Mark

Michelle

DTU Campus Village - made up of container rooms

Block P - where I stay in

The Kitchen

My room - Before & After

Sofa Bed

That's all for now .. going to cook breakfast. Next up - Lyngby and Copenhagen.

First days in Lyngby - Denmark

2008-01-27T05:53:00.000+08:00

Hey people, haven't had the time to blog since I departed from Singapore. Finally found some time to blog tonight. I don't know why but the first day I was in Denmark, I was not excited at all and feeling a bit depressed, but I guess this feeling will pass soon (hopefully). A couple of screw ups at Changi Airport before I departed, like being forced to unpack and my luggage exceeding the weight limit, and my scissors being confiscated definitely did add to my depression I guess. Also, the bare trees in Denmark and overcast skies on my first there there made it worst. But I think the main reason is probably that I know that I will miss everyone back home in Singapore.

Really appreciate those of you guys who came down to the airport to send me off - Tian, Roy, Jess, Michelle, Mark, Jason, Weilun, Moses, Yaowen, Zer, Xinling, Maggie & Yianling. Really great to see you all there! And thanks to Zer and Xinling for the Ba Kwa, although I didn't manage to bring it over to Denmark due to my excessive luggage, the fencing gang for the interesting T-shirt and to Nicholas and Yianling for buying it. Also thanks to Roy for the farewell dinner the day before I flew off and to Jason too for the farewell treat =). Will miss all of you guys.

More about what I have doing the past few days. Basically, my university - Technical University of Denmark is located in Lyngby, a district in the Lyngby-Taarbaek municipality. Quite a small district with nothing much to do. The skies here get dark after 5pm and most shops close really early (around 6pm) so nothing much to do at night.

I finally realised what is the meaning of EXPENSIVE after I arrived in Denmark. Everything here is freaking expensive, clothes, food, etc .. at least 3 times of the price in Singapore. A meal here (which consists only of a hot dog bun) easily cost up to $10 SGD, compared to maybe like $2 in Singapore. And there is a lot of bakeries in Denmark, most of my meals are bread .. haha. The only cheap thing in Denmark is perhaps its beers haha - costs only like about 60 cents for a bottle of Dansk beer. So I realised that everytime before I buy food I gotta think for a long time before deciding on the cheapest. Even when we are shopping for groceries for cooking meals, we gotta compare prices (and seriously, cooking is the cheapest, although it is quite troublesome). Even the groceries cost a lot, for example, a whole raw chicken in the supermarket costs about $20+ SGD, compared to Singapore markets where you can get it easily for $5-$6. I guess you get the idea =(

Of course, the Danish girls are also damn 'chio' (pretty). But they are not very friendly though. Some of the Danes ignore you when you ask them for help for directions or translation on the streets, but there are some really nice and helpful ones.

Well I guess thats all for now .. very sleepy already .. long day. Will blog more about my container dormitory, our attempts at cooking meals, and trip to Copenhagen soon and upload photos.

Taiwan Trip 30 Dec - 5 Jan

2008-01-11T17:15:00.000+08:00

Just went to Taiwan over the new year with Jason, Freddy and Moses. This is my second Taiwan trip this year! Just went Taiwan there during summer in July. Well at least it is winter this time round so I guess it is a different experience.

As usual, Taiwan is lots of fun with lots of good food, lots of clothes to buy and lots of pretty girls =). This time round we stayed in a hostel instead of hotel. The place we stayed in was called Eight Elephants (EE) Hostel, somewhere in Shida, near Guting MTR. The location of our hostel is quite good and the hostel is very well maintained and very clean, so I guess I did not get a 'culture' shock when I arrived at the hostel.

Our room

Living room

We took damn a lot of photos there over the 7 days I will just do a brief summary of the trip with some photos:

Day 1: Singapore to Taipei, followed by dinner at Ximending then a bit of exploration there

At Ximending

Day 2: Shopping at Wufenpu, visited Taipei 101 at night, followed by Countdown to 2008 at Taipei 101, lots of fireworks and the crowd was overwhelming!

Day 3: Visitied National Palace Museum, then Miramar Shopping Centre & the Ferris Wheel, followed by dinner and shopping at Shih Lin Night Market

Outside the National Palace Museum

Miramar Shopping Centre / Ferris Wheel

In the Ferris Wheel

Day 4: Beitou Hot Springs, Danshui Fishrman's Wharf, then pubbing at Roxy 99 with 2 of our newly made friends from EE hostel. Free Entry and 4 free drinks before 11pm .. super worth it =)

At Beitou

Hot Spring Hotel

Me and Moses doing the "Taiwanese pose" =)

Freddy, Moses and Jason posing and acting cute

Fisherman's Wharf

At Roxy 99 with our foreign friends

Day 5 - All of us woke up late due to pubbing the previous day, so we decided to do shopping at Ximending, Wufenpu and then visited Huaxi Night Market later in the evening.

Moses' favourite toy: Gundam, which he spent a lot of time and money on

Huaxi Night Market

Day 6 - Visited Yeliou to see the famous Queen's Head Rock and the scenery there. Went Ximending at night for dinner and desserts.

Beautiful Scenery at Yeliou

Queen's Head Rock

Yummy desserts from Ximending

Day 7 - Went to do some last minute shopping in the morning, followed by steamboat lunch then back to Singapore.

Steamboat

One last photo at EE Hostel

Our baggage after 7 days!

Well I guess I will not be going back to Taiwan soon, at least not for the next few years, although it is a really nice place. Will be exploring other places.

That's all for now, shall go back to packing my bags for SEP.

December Updates

2008-01-11T16:29:00.000+08:00

Well been quite lazy to blog recently because I was really busy with preparations for SEP and meeting up with friends. Quite a few gatherings over the Christmas period and here are some updates, quite late though .. haha.

23rd Dec - Met up with Primary school friends for dinner at Changing Appetites at Marina Square, followed by movie - National Treasure. There were a few outings previously during the year but I was unable to meet up as I was really busy with school. It was a great time catching up with them as I haven't seen them for quite a while.

Primary School Friends - All of us with our gifts for gift exchange

24th Dec - Met up with a few army friends for buffet dinner at Sakura international Buffet followed by movie - I am Legend and then pubbing at Boat Quay. Photos are classified and I shall not be posting them on the blog haha =)

25th Dec - Xmas Gathering at Tian's place for the second year running. It was potluck and as usual, we had lots of good food which we cannot finish. After dinner we had poker/board games and then gift exchange.

Display of gifts

Zhenjin and me - we got water bottles =)

All of us

26th Dec - Post Xmas Dinner at Heeren Village with the fencing people, aka birthday celebration for Yianling. The food at Village is so similar to the previous Marche, nothing very fantastic or different. But I guess great company is more important than the food =)

Birthday Girl Yianling with her NYDC cake .. Nicholas being extra as he insisted to be in the photo haha

Jason got the most 'amazing' gift of the night - a pink wallet from Weiquan. Either Weiquan thought that a girl will surely get his gift or he is trying to be very funny .. haha

Group photo

For the rest of December, basically nothing much that I did except for some shopping and lazing around before I went to Taiwan for holidays from 30 Dec to 5 Jan.

Next up - Taiwan trip updates!!

RJ Invitationals 2007

2007-12-17T21:39:00.000+08:00

Just took part in a fencing competition organised by RJC over the weekend. Haven't been fencing for about a month ever since exams started and I was feeling a bit rusty in skills and physically unfit. However, I was kind of looking forward to the competition as it will be the last competition I will be taking part in before I fly off to Denmark for my 5 months exchange program.

This is also one of the last chances for me to win a medal, since I wouldn't be fencing in Denmark. By the time I come back, I believe that I would have to start training from basics again after such a long absence from training. I guess I will retire from fencing then, shall see how things go.

NUS performed very well this year in RJ Invitationals, clinching quite a few medals: Gold in women's foil individual event, Silver and Bronze in men's foil individual event, Gold and Silver in men's foil team event.

Silver Team for men's foil: Nicholas, Freddy, Me and Frankie

Gold Team: Sirui, Wei Ann and Jonathan

Upcoming champions: Jason, Yaowen and Mingquan

Maggie: our champion for women's foil individual

The whole team with our haul of trophies

Well done guys! Hopefully in the Novices competition in January we will be able to haul in more medals.

Chocolate Buffet at The Fullerton

2007-12-16T20:10:00.001+08:00

After a few months of waiting, we finally satisfied our craving for chocolate on 13 December. We have been wanting to go to try out the Chocolate Buffet at The Fullerton but due to our busy schedules and loads of work, we have to postpone it till after exams. Went there with Huiyian, Anqi, Baolai & Mark for our feast. Due to the festive season however, the price of the buffet has gone up from $32++ to $48++ .. Super Expensive! But I guess it is a one time treat for all of us =)

Wide selection of chocolate pastries and goodies and the ambience there was very nice. The chocolate goodies were good, especially the chocolate oreo cheesecake and donut with chocolate filling.

Chocolate Spread

Fondue Fountain

Chocolate Drink - You get to choose the type of chocolate you want

Pastries .. Yum Yum

Me, Mark, Anqi, Huiyian & Baolai .. all feeling satisfied and full

Had a great time chatting over the buffet and catching up before some of us fly off for SEP in January.

Next up: Max Brenner at Esplanade .. anyone?

Busy Busy holidays!!

2007-12-10T12:21:00.000+08:00

Been meeting up with quite a few groups of friends after exams and going out quite a bit the past few days. Only one word to describe this: SHIOK! It is great to not worry about anything and look forward to going to Denmark in January =)

The weekend that just passed was quite fruitful. Managed to grab Tian Jerry and Jess for mahjong on Friday night, met up with some army friends on Saturday and fencing outing organised by Shirlyn on Sunday evening.

This week is going to be a busy week too, with some errands to run, going out and a fencing competition this coming weekend. So many things I want and need to do this holidays, better put them down before I forget:

1. Shopping for luggage, winter wear, and whatever clothings I need for SEP
2. Buy laptop
3. More mahjong and board games with the gang
4. Meet up with friends
5. Chocolate Buffet at Fullerton
6. Catching up on movies
7. Kelong Fishing Trip
8. Taiwan Trip
9. Xmas party at Tian's
10. Learn to cook for survival in Denmark . haha
11. Gym and run more often so I don't get fatter and fatter
12. Pubbing
13. Work part time and give tuition for $$$$ !!!
14 . Find girlfriend .. LOL .. quite impossible .. haha

Well I guess thats all for now .. in the meantime .. I shall DOTA =)

LIBERATION!!

2007-12-04T23:25:00.000+08:00

EXAMS ARE FINALLY OVER!!!! TIME TO PLAY!!!!

So many things to do this holidays .. Shopping, going out, movies, cable skiing etc .. I forsee that I will be spending lots of money on these activities. Plus I am going to Denmark for Student Exchange next year in January which will cost me a bomb! I should go find a part time job to earn some money to top up my bank account.

So excited about my exchange trip! YES! Finally can take a break from boring & dreadful NUS for one semester!! Good time to refresh myself after 2.5 yrs at NUS! Can't wait to travel Europe too =)

Jessica's 21st at Amici Bar & Restaurant

2007-11-16T23:32:00.000+08:00

9 Nov 2007 - A great night consisting of good food and great company. Jess is finally 21 years old! Had her party at Amici Bar at Tanjong Pagar. It was a timely party to have, great time to de-stress and it was an enjoyable night catching up with the rest of the gang.

The Birthday Girl - Jess giving speech

Jess with her tiramisu cake - which was absolutely delicious!!

All of us (6 bachelors plus the last remaining couple - Tian and Jess)

The 6 bachelors without Tian

Tian Loon looking very happy with his balloons .. haha

Went to Tian's place after the party to chill and chat and we stayed there till about like 3 am. Can't wait for December to come and we can resume our mahjong and board games sessions =)

I need a break!!

2007-10-12T22:16:00.000+08:00

Just been through the most busy and crazy 2 weeks of my life, in which I had 3 tests in the first week and 3 project deadlines to meet the following week. Now that is is all over, it is time to take a break and update my blog =)

Realised I haven't updated my blog for such a long time .. because basically nothing interesting happened in my life .. was busy mugging and trying to complete the never-ending tutorials, assignments and projects which our Chemical Engineering professors happily dished out at us .. thinking that we only have one module to take, which is their module and all we do in our lives is just to mug. And the best part is .. for all the hours and hard work which we put into these assignments, the percentage of our total grades allocated to these assignments is miserly.

As of course, as usual, the tests killed us all (most of us). Apparently, studying hard and doing past year papers is not enough .. because for some reason, the difficulty of this year's semester tests shot up like 200% or something. Past year papers were nothing compared to the difficulty of this year's papers. Well, I have sort of gotten used to it now .. after 2.5 years in Chemical Engineering. And I am not expecting the exams to be any easier . so just get on with it.

Enough of ranting. On a happier note .. the weekend is coming and this week, although there is still work to do .. at least I got some time to go out (I hope) and have fun. Really looking forward to the December break .. but I have to get through the next few weeks first. I want my break!!!

Fencing AGM

2007-09-08T22:33:00.000+08:00

Just had our fencing Annual General Meeting at Alumni House, Saffron Hall this Tuesday. Finally handing over my responsibilities as captain after 2 years in the committee. Had a great time working with the 2 committees over the past 2 years and now it's time for me to relax =).

Well here are some photos:

Committee 06/07Group Photo

Class Gathering at Tian's

2007-09-08T21:48:00.000+08:00

Haven't been updating my blog since school started in August. Been really busy with work and reading up my notes. Well, here is a quick post of the more meaningful events outside school.

Had a JC class gathering at Tian's on the 25 August. Quite a number of us turned up, including a few who don't usually come for class gatherings. One of our best turnout so far. It was potluck and everyone brought lots of good food so we had a really filling dinner. Had fun catching up and meeting up with all of them. Really great that 5 years after we left JC, we still have regular class gatherings. BIG THANKS to Haoyun who is always so enthusiastic in helping to organise the gatherings =). Really appreciate it.

Taby's name card. WOW, She's already a Doctor! I am still a student at NUS ... zzz

Our class 2S03M

Hong Kong Trip 17-21 July

2007-07-24T00:14:00.000+08:00

Just returned from Hong Kong on Saturday night. Went there for 5 days 4 nights with my army friends Hongye, Hongzhen and Shou Woon. Been a really great trip and had loads of fun there. Visited quite a few places that I didn't visit when I went there 2 years back, namely Disneyland, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and seafood at Lamma Island, in addition to the usual places. We also went to Shenzhen for some cheap shopping.

We stayed at the same hotel which I stayed 2 years back: Metropark Mongkok. Somehow, the room seems a bit smaller this time round, maybe because we shopped quite a lot and filled up the room with shopping bags .. haha. This time round, I bought more stuff than when I was in Taiwan as the clothes here were more suitable for me, not as 'blink' as Taiwanese fashion. Food was great, especially the dim sum, wanton noodles, 'shao la' (roast), iced milk tea, iced yuanyang, eggtarts, the list goes on and on ..

Here are some highlights:

Day 1: Walked around in Kowloon and went to Avenue of Stars in the evening to watch the Symphony of Lights.

@ Avenue of Stars with Bruce Lee

Day 2: Went to Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in the day, visited the Golden Bauhinia Square, followed by shopping at Causeway Bay. Went up to the Central Peak at night to visit Madame Tussauds and then dinner at one of the restaurants there.

Golden Bauhinia Square

At Madame Tussauds:

Anita Mui

Double Twins Effect

The Royal Family David BeckhamActing Jay ChouMy supermodel fling .. hahaDinner at the Peak .. our spread

Day 3: Went to Disneyland and took lots of pictures! Other than the very hot weather and running into some very rude and uncivilised mainlanders, the time spent at Disneyland was quite enjoyable.

The Sleeping Beauty castle .. I thought it was smaller than expected

With Minnie

Mickey the Pirate

Pluto and Goofy

Disney Waterworks Parade .. where they spray waterjets at you to cool you downNight Scenery

Day 4: Went to Shenzhen in the day for some shopping. In the evening, we took a ferry to Lamma Island for seafood.

Train to Shenzhen

Outside the seafood restaurant at Lamma Island

Day 5: Basically just did a lot of last minute shopping and in the afternoon we went to the airport and had dim sum there. Walked around the airport a bit before we checked in. After I went through the Hong Kong customs, I realised that the Krispy Kremes shop that Jess was telling me about was located in Hong Kong airport itself!!! Shucks! I was looking all over for it but didn't realise that it was right before me .. Sorry Jess! Haha.

At the dim sum restaurant at the airport

Well I guess no more overseas trips this holidays anymore. Now I need to get out of holiday mood and wake up! School starts in 3 weeks!!! Time really flies man.

Taiwan Trip 5 - 9 July

2007-07-12T11:38:00.000+08:00

Just went to Taiwan for 5 days with Jeriel, John and Adriel. During the trip, we stayed in Paradise Hotel which is conveniently located near Ximending, the shopping area. The hotel facilities were not too bad for a three star hotel and there are about slightly over 100 channels on their cable TV (spoilt for choice)! We visited quite a few places in and around Taipei but we didn't travel out from Taipei due to a lack of time. 5 days is definitely not enough!

Taiwan is a food haven and there is an abundance of street stalls selling food everywhere. The food was really good and I found myself eating non-stop throughout the day. The people there are also really friendly and nice to talk to. I realised that most of the people in Taiwan, especially the young, know how to dress up well. In fact, most of them (especially the girls) look quite good. You can hardly find an ugly girl on the streets and about 70% of them are either average or good looking - lots of hot chicks around .. haha.

Things there are not exactly very cheap and I didn't really buy a lot of stuff. Found the clothes there a little too 'blink blink' and some are quite 'beng'. Spent most of my money on food instead =).

Well here is a summary:

Day 1: Reached Taipei in the evening. Spent the night exploring Ximending.

At Ximending

Ah Chung Rice Noodles, a must try! One of the dessert shops
Generous helping: Portion for 2 but can feed 4

Day 2: Travelled to this place on the mountains called Jiu Fen and spent the day there. Towards the evening, we went to Shih Lin Night Market.

At Gold Ecological Park, an old gold mining town

Outside the mining tunnel

The mining tunnel itself

Acting cute =)

Ancient concrete golf courseGreat scenery from the top
At Shih Lin Night Market'Smelly' Beancurd

Day 3: Went to Taipei 101 and walked around the shopping area. At night, we travelled to Huaxi Street Night market where snakes are killed for their blood and gall bladder (apparently they are very good tonics and good for health). After that, went back to Ximending again for further exploration.

Taipei 101

We took 37 seconds to reach the top of Taipei 101 taking this lift

On top of the tallest building in the world

View from the top

At Huaxi Street Night Market, the lady was going to feed the snakes with a rat. The cups in front of her contains tonics, snake's blood and juice from the gall bladder

We ran into a pyjamas party at Ximending

Day 4: Travelled to Beitou for a dip in the hot springs and later in the afternoon, travelled to Dan Shui (Fisherman's Wharf) to watch the sunset and beautiful scenery.

Indoor hot spring. You are supposed to be totally naked when taking a dip. No photos allowed but I quickly snapped a few when no one was around

Cold spring. For cooling down.

Outdoor hot spring. Here, you must put on swimming trunks =)

At Dan Shui

Taking the ferry to Fisherman's Wharf

At Fisherman's Wharf in the day

Sunset

View during the night

Day 5: Visited the historic sites in Taipei City itself. Mainly Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, Martyr's Shrine. Chinese Temple and National Palace Museum.

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial GateChiang Kai Shek Memorial HallMartyr's ShrineChanging of guardsA photo with the guard

Chinese TempleOutside National Palace Museum (we are not allowed to take photos inside the museum)

Yup .. Taiwan is quite a nice place and there are lots of things to explore. I haven't been to the other parts of Taiwan outside Taipei and it is one place I would definitely go back to visit again.

Life after ICT

2007-07-03T21:27:00.000+08:00

Haven't been updating my blog for the past few days. Basically I have been going out nearly everyday and spending quite a lot of money on food and shopping (to beat the GST increase .. haha). I think I need to save a bit of money considering that I have two trips (to Taiwan and Hong Kong) coming up this month and I will probably spend quite some money overseas.

Friday: Went shopping with Roy in town and bought a T-shirt from Adidas and Mizuno running shorts. After that we had dinner at Imperial Treasure at Marina Square. Spent about $70 on that day.

Saturday: Met up with some of my ex-hall mates from Kent Ridge: Loh Jie, Changjie, Wei Aun, Hongye and Cheryl for dinner at Swensons at Marina Square (again!). Before that, I went shopping and bought some stuff from Fila. Spent about $90 on that day.

Sunday: Budget day. Basically I went for Mainly I Love Kids (MILK) run at Zouk in the afternoon with Roy, Yee Ling and some of her friends. After that, went out for dinner at McDonalds but it was free as Roy gave me a treat! Yay! Thanks =). After dinner, DOTA all night.

Monday: Met up with some of my ex-platoon mates for dinner at Cafe Cartel at Plaza Singapura (organised by Tongyu). After that we went for drinks at this KTV pub called The Labyrinth at 101 Plaza. The place was quite nice and had a nice ambience, especially since now smoking is banned in pubs, so the air is exceptionally fresh .. haha. Drank 1 pint of Hoegarden. Spent about $50 on that day.

@ The Labyrinth, 101 Plaza

TOTAL spent in 4 days: $210!!! I need to cut down on my spendings!!!

Well I guess I will start saving up again after I come back from Taiwan next week. Will be flying off on this Thursday. Yeah! Hopefully I won't spend too much on shopping and also not grow too fat from eating all the delicacies over there =).

In Camp Training

2007-06-26T00:40:00.000+08:00

Just completed 2 weeks of high key ICT. After 2 weeks .. Release from army and back to civilian life. I can wake up late everyday and don't need to book in camp so early! FINALLY =)

Well ICT was not as dreadful as I imagined it to be. It was kind of fun actually, meeting up with friends and laughing over the silly things we did when we were in full time national service (NSF). The best part is that during ICT, we (the NS men) can just take our own sweet time (the army term used to describe this is "ba long long") to do things and joke around with everyone else, including the commanders. Everyone is one big happy family, so unlike NSF days where we get punished for being slow. Basically NS man = KING and HECK CARE .. haha.

The only down side was that our activities were quite packed and tiring, unlike some other units who are actually quite slack during ICT. On our very first day, IPPT was held in the afternoon and amazingly I managed to get silver, which is a huge improvement from last year. This means another extra $200 in addition to my NS pay =)

Yeap, other than that, we also had 3 days of range where we tried the combat shoot (basically it consists of random targets and we can cross-fire into other lanes) for the first time. It was one of my best performance in range ever, in which I only missed 4 shots out of a total of 30. However, as we need the whole detail (group of 6) to perform well to achieve marksman award, our detail did not get marksman award as we had 2 'bobo' shooters .. haha (but anyway no one in the company got marksman award).

Other activities included a mask run, MOPP 4 route march, and equipment training. For those who are wondering, my unit is CBRE (Chemical Biological Radiological Explosive) Defence Group. So MOPP 4 actually refers to wearing the whole protective suit with the mask on.

Now that ICT is finally over, I am beginning to miss some parts of it .. can you believe it? Well, I guess I have to wait another 1 year for my next ICT. In the meantime, I should just get back on with my civilian life.

Lousy Friday and Saturday .. plus dreaded ICT for the next 2 weeks

2007-06-17T23:22:00.000+08:00

Will be going for my second In-Camp Training at Seletar Camp for the next 2 weeks from 18 June to 29 June. The past few days weren't exactly smooth going for myself, especially Friday and Saturday.

Friday night was the start of a series of unfortunate events:
Well to cut a long story short, I paid $40 to cut my hair short and colour it black (in preparation for ICT) but I got a haircut that is worse than a $8 Indian barber haircut. Now my hair looks like a bowl and I am super pissed. And the thing that pissed me off the most was that when I told the hairdresser that my hair is too short, he told me: "It is better that I cut your hair short than you go back to camp and let the army barbers cut". What the heck! So now I have to wear a cap when I go out and I shall not be posting any photos of myself until my hair grows longer and I get another nicer haircut .. HAHA.

Saturday:
Took part in National Individuals and fenced very badly, my worst performance ever. Didn't know what I was doing and couldn't execute my moves properly. I was eliminated after the round robins. Plus a scolding from coach after that .. ZZZ. (I suspect the bad haircut from Friday night affected my mood haha).

Went to watch Fantastic 4 in the evening. Halfway through the show, some very rude 'Ah Beng' sitting in front of me stood up and shouted at me for moving my legs too much and shaking his chair. What the hell man, I don't even remember moving my legs. He was the one who kept on rocking his chair and knocking them onto my legs. In the end, I had to open my legs wide so that he can happily rock his chair for the rest of the show. Seriously, he could have just asked nicely, was there a need to shout? What an idiot!

Well, these were enough to spoil my mood for the rest of the weekend, right before I go for my ICT. Hopefully next weekend will be a better one.

Genting Trip 10/6 - 12/6

2007-06-16T10:37:00.000+08:00

Just went to Genting Highlands over last weekend with my family from Sunday to Tuesday. Haven't updated my blog for quite a while as I was busy and feeling quite lazy. Well anyway here is a summary of my Genting trip and photos.

Panoramic View from our room at First World Hotel

Went to play jackpot with my brother on the first night and we managed to win 2000 credits which worked out to be around 200 Singapore dollars. However, we lost the money away by playing Sic Bo (Small/Big also known as 'Da Xiao'). Sad.

Our winning combination:

One important lesson I learnt from the casino episode is that we should always observe first before betting. Then follow the bets of the person who is very lucky and keeps winning. After winning for a few rounds, then change table and do the same thing. Sure win formula .. maybe somebody can try it out .. haha.

A photo of myself at First World Plaza after my casino stint

Went to Genting Theme Park on the second day. Nothing new there compared to a few years back. Well pictures speak a thousand words:

Space shot

Up we go:

One of the water rides

Group photo at the Theme Park:

Went to Chin Swee Caves Temple at mid mountain on our way home the last day. The scenery was fantastic there and there are many beautiful structures and statues around. Took quite a lot of photos and here are some.

Nine Dragon Wall

ALL OF US

Busy week

2007-06-07T15:56:00.000+08:00

Spent the past week working at World Book Fair selling some primary school software to earn a bit of cash to cover up for my expenses. Just bought a Lumix FX-30 and Ipod video 30GB at the recent PC fair which set me back by about $1000. Coming up in July is another two trips to Taiwan and Hong Kong which means more money will be spent. I guess working ad hoc is the best alternative to ensure that I replenish my bank account.

After a gruelling 7 days at the World Book Fair, I spent the first few days of this week catching up on all the movies I missed out. Watched a movie every day from Monday to Wednesday, haha. Well here is a brief summary:

Monday: Pirates of the Caribbean 3 with Taby, Roy & William, followed by dinner at Fish & Co and soya bean for dessert

Tuesday morning: Worked at Castle Beach at East Coast Park (building sandcastles) with Taby, Roy & William then lunch at Marine Parade

Tuesday evening: Zodiac with Tian Loon, Jess, Roy, William & his brother Hans

Wednesday - Dinner at Dian Xiao Er at Marina Square then Shrek 3 with Tian Loon, Jess & Roy

Coming up: Ocean's 13, Fantastic 4, Harry Potter, Surf's Up, Transformers .. So many movies to watch this holidays!!!

Well, gotta go for training soon. Haven't been to training for a week plus .. Sirui is complaining that I am 'ponning' training too much now as I am blogging .. haha.

23rd Birthday Dinner at Mezza9

2007-05-29T11:34:00.000+08:00

I am 23 years old!! Used to look forward to becoming an adult so I that can have all the freedom in the world. However, now that I am 23, I am actually looking back to the days when I was a teenager. In 2 years time, I will graduate from NUS and will have to start working full time. That means: NO more long holidays, NO time to go out so often with friends, NO more pocket money from parents, NO more late nights, and NO more DOTA!! Well the only good thing about graduating is that there will finally be no more dreadful exams .. haha.

Anyway, I went out with my parents for lunch yesterday and later in the evening, I celebrated my birthday with Roy, Tian Loon, William, Jessica and Michelle over dinner at Mezza9 at Grand Hyatt. Dinner was fantastic, with good food, nice ambience and great service. Had a great time savouring the food and chatting over dinner.

Glorious food ..

All of us

Towards the end of dinner, Jess, Michelle and Roy disappeared and I suspected something, especially when Tian started to strike a conversation with me (by asking me the same question which he asked me at the start of dinner) .. haha. Nevertheless, I was quite stunned when a group of the hotel staff suddenly appeared behind me (I did not know how they managed to sneak up behind me without me noticing) and started to sing me a birthday song.

The birthday song was really SPECIAL, the tune and tempo was totally different from the usual birthday song. Those of us there would know. I think the rest of the gang wanted also to join in the singing but apparently, they themselves were also a bit stunned by the presentation of the birthday song and just stood there watching =). But it was kind of cool though, a first time for me, haha.

Me with my cake!

I also officially joined the Braun Buffel wallet gang (namely Roy, Tian and William) as they passed me my birthday present handpicked by William. According to William and Roy, all decent guys should own a Braun Buffel wallet, but I always disagree with them. Well I guess now that I have no choice but to change my stand .. haha. Anyway, to William: the wallet is very nice and I like it very much =).

Braun Buffel gang!Jessica and Michelle

After dinner, the rest of the night was spent at Roy's place playing poker and admiring William's new Ferrari Acer laptop, which was quite cool. Ended games at around one plus as Jess, Tian and William had to wake up early the next day for work/go hospital.

I had a really great 23rd birthday and thanks to you guys for everything!!

Pictures from Jess

Gathering at Halo Bar

2007-05-27T15:33:00.000+08:00

Spent Friday and Saturday afternoons working for Blue Orange Pte Ltd at the World Book Fair, selling some educational software. Yesterday after work at 10 pm, I met up with some of the army gang (Chris, Weijie, Qianfu, Jason, Chee Wei) at Halo Bar for a KTV/drinking session organised by Weijie.

Haven't seen Jason and Chee Wei for quite some time and it was really nice catching up with each other. Chris and Weijie ordered two towers of beer and according to him, since it is sort of an early birthday celebration for me, I had to keep drinking with them. The rest of the night was spent singing/drinking/talking and of course .. listening to Chee Wei ('Ge Shen') singing.

@Halo Bar. My face is so red due to the sunburn =)

As I haven't been drinking for quite some time, I got quite drunk yesterday and was in a daze towards the end of the session. We left Halo Bar at around 2 am and went for supper before heading home. It was really great to meet up with the army guys and crap about everything, especially Chris, who always has endless jokes to tell us. Thanks a lot! (especially to Weijie who organised the gathering)

Sandcastle Building

2007-05-27T14:25:00.000+08:00

Just spent the previous few days (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) of the week working ad-hoc with Roy for a company called Beautiful Minds. They conduct sandcastle building workshops for corporate companies and also for schools to promote team building. It was quite fun learning how to build sandcastles and apparently, there are a lot of skills involved to build a nice sandcastle and not as childish as I used to think it was.

The major project was at Sentosa where we had to build a sandcastle on Thursday in preparation for Friday's corporate event for 200 over employees of Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Thursday was really very tiring as we had to use shovels to pile up sand into a big pile for the centerpiece and also to carry water to wet the sand. Me, Roy, Anthony and Val (the new part-timers) were basically Bangladesh workers for the first part of the day: piling sand and carrying water, while the more experienced staff scupltured the sandcastle. Only later in afternoon did we manage to finish our Bangladesh work and help to build some parts of the castle. It was really satisfying to see the completed results and here it is:

The castle looks really nice! No chemicals used, just sand, water and pressure =)

However, the sun was really bad and I got a horrible sunburn on my back, feet and face!! Really regretted taking off my shirt.

Roy and Me (Sunburnt)

Anthony and Me (Even more sunburnt) Top half of my face when I got home on Thursday

Well luckily the pay was not that bad and Friday was quite slack, so I managed to survive the sun at Sentosa on Friday with lots of sunblock, wearing a T-shirt and cap .. haha! But it was quite an experience (minus the sunburn) and hopefully my sunburn will recover soon.

Chalet at Aloha Loyang

2007-05-23T10:03:00.000+08:00

Just went for fencing chalet over the weekend from Sunday to Monday at Aloha Loyang. Haven't attended any chalets for about a year plus and thanks to Weiquan who kindly organised the chalet (which is also the first time fencing is organising a chalet), we were able to take a break from the usual training routine and have fun at the chalet.

BBQ was held on the first day and I ended up cooking my own food as Grace did not help me cook any food (despite her claiming that I was her 'best-est' friend). Usually I just hang around the pit and steal food from others, but I decided to be nice this time, haha. BBQ turned out quite ok except the potatoes, which had to be microwaved instead as it was too troublesome to BBQ them. Xinling and Yaowen turned up late and happily went to the living room to watch TV, waiting for food to be served. However, after some time, they felt bad and decided to help by collecting money and washing dishes respectively, haha.

After the BBQ, we started playing mahjong/poker/board games/watching DVDs. At some point in time, I believed I was tricked into going into the room at to play Big Two by some of them and a while later, the rest of the fencing gang showed up with a birthday cake and singing me a birthday song. I was a bit shocked that they remembered my birthday although it is 1 week later. Really touched and THANKS to everyone!! (especially to Shirlyn who reminded me that she spent 10 minutes choosing the cake with a rat on top .. haha)

The rest of the night and the next day was spent on more mahjong/poker/board games/watching DVDs and TV. It was a great time at the chalet and I thought it was quite nice that there was no activities related to fencing for once and everyone could just relax. Hopefully we can have another chalet during the next holiday (**hinting to the next Chairperson) and hopefully those who were unable to join us this time could attend the next one.

Fencing resumes

2007-05-18T21:23:00.000+08:00

After 1 month of break, fencing training finally started this week on Tuesday. Training started off training with a slow jog around the track for warm up. It was really a SLOW jog as everyone was quite unfit after a long break, and some of them were complaining that a 10 minute jog was too long. Luckily I started training (for IPPT) a couple of weeks back and so it was quite relaxed for me. The rest of Tuesday was spent doing some basic footwork and free fencing so that everyone could refresh their memory.

Coach came down on Thursday's training and there was only 1 word to describe it: SHAG! Apparently he did not realise that we have not been training for the past month and drilled us quite a lot. My poor legs and arms, they were totally aching after training, such that I had a minor cramp halfway when I was driving home, luckily it recovered quite fast and I did not get into an accident.

After such a long break, I realised my fencing has gone down the drain, forgot all my moves and did silly stuff while fencing .. haha. Hopefully I don't get scolded by coach on Saturday when he trains one-to-one with me. I really need to work doubly hard and train up to a reasonable standard. Next competition is in June which means I have less than one month (minus all the trainings I will miss due to work).

Well I guess I have no choice but to work doubly hard. I need to OWN everyone else .. haha!

Dinner with ex-Starhub colleagues

2007-05-16T14:53:00.000+08:00

Just met up for dinner on Monday evening with Junli, Junzhong, Jingxiong, Eileen, Joanna and Kai Jing, some of my ex-Starhub colleagues at Fish & Co. The last time we met up was almost one year ago. Haven't seen them for quite some time and we had a great time catching up over dinner.
It was interesting to find out what everyone had been doing over the past year and of course, we also reminisced about old times, when we used to listen to slack together (after finishing our work of course .. haha). Jingxiong and Junzhong are both doing their internships and only me and Junli are slacking away. Eileen has found a boyfriend and cut her hair short! Kaijing is still as thin as ever. And the ever so rich Joanna is going to Japan again (2 times within 12 months .. although according to her it is once a year .. once in 2006 and once in 2007 haha).

Dinner ended at around 10 as some of them had to work the following day. Joanna promised to organise the next gathering, so we shall look forward to the next gathering. Hopefully more people can join us the next time round.

Grandma's 80th birthday / Mahjong night

2007-05-13T21:50:00.000+08:00

Just celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday at the Teochew Garden Restaurant at the Concourse on Saturday night. I always thought my grandma was in her seventies and only realised that she was 80 yesterday night (Oops!). Time really flies.

The food there was really fantastic, especially the shark's fin (the fin was huge). The portions were also quite large and all of us were quite full from the dinner, especially myself. When it was time to cut the birthday cake, my stomach simply had no space to contain any more food and I had to forgo the cake.

Grandma was really happy yesterday, especially during the cake cutting. Dinner ended at about 10pm and the rest of the night was spent at Tian's place playing mahjong (again).

Well, yesterday was another crazy mahjong night with myself winning like over 10 bucks at the beginning of the game. However, towards the end, I started to lose but overall, I still made 4 bucks =). Roy also won some money, which means only Tian and Jess lost. Actually I felt kind of bad for winning their money, especially when they kindly hosted us, but I guess they won't mind .. haha. (Next time it will be your turn to win)

2 consecutive nights of mahjong was really SHAG! We should start earlier next time and end earlier so that we can make the winner give us a treat for supper. But I guess the next weekend will probably be board games or poker with more people, unless Tian and Jess wants to recoup their losses .. haha.

Mahjong at Tian's place

2007-05-12T13:01:00.000+08:00

Have been waking up at 11 plus these few mornings due to late night DOTA games till 3 plus in the morning. Yesterday afternoon was spent trying to spruce up my blog and the remaining time was spent on DOTA (again ..).

Luckily there was mahjong to look forward to at Tian Loon's place yesterday night. Haven't played mahjong with the gang in quite a while. The last time we played mahjong was during Chinese New Year at Roy's. Well, the game started off slowly (with Michelle happily snapping away pictures of everything) and things only seemed to speed up towards the end when everyone was tired.

Luck was on my side for the BEGINNING of the game, with myself on a winning streak (but in SMALL denominations) but towards the end of the game, lady luck seemed to have migrated to Roy's side. So Roy was the big (ONLY) winner after 16 rounds. According to him, he has been on a winning streak on his past few mahjong games.

Tian and I wanted to continue for another 4 rounds to recoup our losses but Roy refused to give us a chance for revenge, citing that he has soccer at 12pm that afternoon and he needs to sleep (haha just joking). Jess was also not in favour because she has to give tuition that morning.So we ended the game at around 3am. However, being a nice guy, Roy offered us souvenirs he brought back from Chiang Mai and a treat the next time round to make us feel better =).

Nonetheless, it was a great time chatting and joking with each other, especially after such a long absence from mahjong. Next time round, it will be my turn to give a treat .. haha.

Bored ..

2007-05-11T13:40:00.000+08:00

Yeah! Finally I have my own blog. Been wanting to start a blog for a very long time but I am kinda lazy to do it. Now that its the holidays and I have nothing better to do, thought that I better get down to it before I procrastinate again. Haha

After trying out several sites, I decided to settle for Blogspot. I am still trying to get the hang of things and hopefully I can figure it out over this long 3 months break.

Now that the long awaited holidays are here, I suddenly find that I have too much time and too little things to do. Been meeting up with friends the past few days and hunting for part time jobs to pass time. Of course, the remaining time is spent on DOTA (which is a pretty good way to waste your day away .. haha)

Well, I guess next week would be a better week as fencing training starts. At least I will be occupied on my Tues/Thur evenings and Sat mornings. I need to exercise more and workout for my IPPT in June =)