Oslo Ski Trip 29 Feb - 2 Mar

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

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

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

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 ...