Happy Chinese New Year!

This is dedicated to my family and friends! 恭喜发财, 万事如意，心想事成，身体健康，财源滚滚！ 狗年行大运！

And this is specially to those in Finland Helsinki (thanks to zm) hahaha. This is my reply to the picture you sent!

Skiing at Romme Alphin

I never knew skiing was so fun until 22nd January 2006 I love it when the wind blows on ur face and the adrenaline when ur ski lifts off the ground hahahaha It was a trip the university ESN organised. Total cost for all the falling down and embarassment : 420 SEK hahaha Because the skiing resort was so far away (there wasn't any near linkoping) , we had to take the bus at 6 am - in order to reach Romme Alphin at 9 am! See Linkoping right at the bottom and Romme Alphin right at the top :S

Uthyrning! This is where we queued up to get our ski equipment...very efficient because we gave them the details of our sizes beforehand and it was a breeze to collect it...

Temperature during skiing: -15 Before going upslope...we still had the mood to snap pictures not knowing the danger that awaits.....

Nice to see...but not really nice to go up!

Lesson 1: you have to learn is how to properly get up the ski lift. I thought you were supposed to sit on the thing and in the end I kept falling. There was even a time i refused to let go and got dragged up the snow slope hahaha The people behind and the lift operator was like laughing and getting frustrated. Luckily the ESN guy brought us to another slope and learn the very basic...HOW TO SLOW DOWN. However, I was glad i din't get up at the first try. 2 of my friends went all the way up for a first timer and one of them crashed into the tree while coming down! hahahaha

Lesson 2: Slow down by crossing ur 2 skis together. It should work but for me, it seems I can't slow down as much as my friend. I started down the slope later than him but ended up down there faster than him. Up till now I still don't get it!

After these 2 lessons and countless times falling, I am ready to conquer the slope! Let's take a shot of the view before we go....

In the background, you can't really see the slope already :S Well its not that steep really...its a beginner's slope :S Kids younger than me all strolled down.

I couldnt take any shots on the way down (although i very much wanted to, but then it might be the last pictures I will ever take in sweden if i do fall halfway!) And here we go again! Down the slope......and yes i survived...but look at my friend here.

Morale of the story: Don't Gei Kiang!

After clearing the kiddy slope, we moved on to slope 2. It gets progressively higher and higher and so the view gets nicer and nicer!

There's always a price to pay to get nice shots....slope 3 higest of them all! Let's take a picture before going for the drop..

Yes we can still smile :)

Half way down hahaha

Safe and sound finally keke

And the group of survivors (mostly first timers) ...

The most lesson I learnt at the end of the day: Never let your ski drop off halfway down the slope. Very common when you fall and tumble. Unless you got someone you can cling to to wear back your skis , if not, prepare to struggle or slide all the way down! Cos it is so damn difficult not to slide down after u clip on one ski......it happened to me and it could happen to you too!

I can't wait to go skiing again!

Herrgar'n

Kiruna trip has been shelved indefinetely but you can see the pictures at my fren's blog on Kiruna and the Ice hotel. I am too lazy to repeat this post haha :D I shall move on yeah!

Introducing the Herrgar'n...which is the student pub in RYD, where I stay. Every tuesday is the international students' night.. so free entry on that day for all international students but of course, the drinks are not free haha

So pre-party they call it, drink before going to save some money! It was also the last night here for teehoon and jiaxing! Many thanks to them for taking care of us, giving us an important life line and the si-fu jiaxing who is the number 1 cook due to 3 special ingredients in all his dishes.

1. Pepper

2. Light Soya Sauce and last but the most important

3.

Yes! LEE KUM KEE OYSTER SAUCE - A MUST HAVE FOR ALL DISHES! Can get it at 23 Sek (approx $5 ) at a Thai shop in town!

Pre-party at Junxiang/Teehoon's place

Half a bottle of Raspberry Vodka and look at all the drunk faces except me hahahaha :P I was sober enough to set my camera to self timer mode

And off we go!

Jiaxing here trying very hard to tell her it was his last night in Sweden...

And I was trying to learn from him, but damn the stupid photographer who can't take at the correct angle! Same girl, half of the front view and side view...so you all can piece her up urselves :DIt was the first international students night for the year...so it was a huge crowd definetely! As it got later, the crowd begun to thin...they left 2 by 2...don't know do what,errr errr :S

And yes! there we are, stealing a shot with the coat hanger student at the entrance! If you wear a coat, 10 Sek to hang it! You can't bring it in! So we were freezing outside, queuing to get in before this!

After all the partying was the LAST SUPPER at my place, TUNG-I noodles with chopped chilli (also from the Thai shop)

Coincidentally, I and Jiaxing share a common hobby, eating the chopped chilli and sweating it out! We wanted to do it outside in the snow but well.....it was too cold :P Thus change of location! hahaha

It was an enjoyable night but very tiring, looking forward to some more of this soon! ;)

Dinner for 13!

안녕하세요 (Ahnnyung Hasimniga = Hi!)


Dinner for 13 people was no joke! It was a major pasta operation with many many meatballs! Spot the korean in the picture ;) Same name as the actress in My Sassy Girl! Woot!

Glimpse of my school!

Note: All these pictures were taken when I first arrived 2 weeks ago... Most of the snow has now already melted. It is wet, slippery and very easy to fall! Happened to me like 7-8 times :P

This is the main stretch of path across the school. It goes slightly less than 1km i think. Buildings are located on either side of the path...You can imagine how much it snowed before I arrived!

Campus is like a 30 minute walk from the where I stay. The swedish way of labelling the different buildings are A-Z. Buildings are called husets.... and most engineering and orientation classes are held in the C-huset ( I THINK SO ) heh. Below is the K-huset, where you can find 2 computer labs here. Swedish courses are also conducted here for us.

The Zenit is the building where all international students will defintely go to... its where you get the keys to your hostels, get ur bills, student card, modules etc! This picture was taken 2 weeks ago when there were much snow...now most of the snow is clearing....SPRING IS COMING! YEAH! (RIGHT)
3 Heroes (Junxiang, Teehoon and Weijan) posing in the sub zero temperatures...The real hero was the one holding the camera with his bare hands freezing in the cold! No prizes for guessing who!

This is the sports centre. Every single activity there needs $$$. Gym membership is like 470 SEK ( 1 SGD approx 4.6 SEK ) every month which is ridiculuous even though the building is very nice. The blue trailer sells food, but i have yet to see it open for business. Maybe winter's too cold for him to stay inside hahaha. Heard that one can get a big and cheap burger there, spilt into 2 one for lunch and dinner. BIG AND GOOD.. MUST BUY!

More random shots of LiU!

My living area!

My address in Linkoping is Rydsvagen 244A Room 21, 58434 Linkoping feel free to send me cards or even food haha :) thanks in advance!

Here is a picture of my room, quite a big area 20 square metres + a personal toilet! The mirror, christmas hat and 1 litre beer mug (most likely from oktoberfest) were left behind by the previous tenant, which i heard was a french girl. Too bad I din't get to see her

This is my corridor. Very clean and nice right? This is how it works. In each block, there are a few levels, each level has 3 corridors A,B,C and each corridor has their own kitchen. When i first arrived on the 2nd Jan, no one was around... i stayed alone in the corridor, no internet, no noise nothing at all. It was eeriely quiet!

This is the common area where fikka (coffee session) is held among the corridor people. There's a big dining table + a tv here.

And there is the kitchen! This is where experiements are carried out hahaha! You can see the dartboard over there... its for passing time as you cook your stuff. Everyone has their own cupboard and place in the fridges. As i am an exchange student, i din't buy much utensils. I used the centre cupboard where supposedly everything is shared...so just make do with it as time goes!

Ta da! This is the first experiement! Pasta with swedish meat ball! Damn nice can! hahaha

Sending off

My family, auntie and cousin sending me off at the airport..

Alvin, Me and Yousheng...

and my YEP friends of course

OK many apologies i finally found the picture hahaha :D Please dun post hate comments anymore!

OKOK I missed out one more photo and KZ Lee is very unhappy hahaha so here we have it. Please calm down :P The band of brothers photo! Can you spot the number of guardsman inside in the photo?

Thanks for coming!