On Skiing and Singlish

CHARMONIX - MONT BLANC

18 - 23 March 2008

Chamonix is a popular winter sports resort in France. The 1924 Winter Olympics were held here. As the highest European mountain west of Russia, Mont Blanc (4808m) holds a special allure for mountain climbers, and Jon Krakauer, in an essay in his collection Eiger Dreams, described the town as "the death-sport capital of the world" because Chamonix serves as an ideal playground for almost all types of outdoor activity, especially in their more extreme variants, such as ice climbing, rock climbing, extreme skiing, paragliding, rafting, canyoning... Chamonix is also a haven for advanced skiing and snowboarding... the valley has about six separate ski areas... Many of these provide challenging terrain, especially off-piste, with runs down to Switzerland. (wikipedia.org)

the pretty town of chamonix, lying in the valley surrounded by towering french alps

so much for a first ski experience.

i must say that i've been spoilt. to a world-class ski resort, with advanced pistes (runs). thanks ah, petrified me with fear and forced me to learn faster. i was the only person on the trip who has never gone skiiing before. david & sarah have been skiiing since they were like 6 or something; james picked it up a few years ago; jimbo is an expert snowboarder; wibke is on her 2nd ski trip, but learning snowboarding this time. i was on my own.

carol goes skiing

we flew into geneva airport on 18th (tues) night, where james & sarah (david's sister & brother-in-law) picked us, Jimbo & Wibke (their friends) up and whisked us off in the rented MPV, to Les Houches, the heart of the Chamonix valley. there, a very pleasant apartment awaited us. we settled in, and skiing was to begin bright and early the next day.

our living quarters!

armed with our ski passes (special prices for etudiants - students- yay!), and our skis (blue for the boy and pink for the girl)

ski-rack loaded!

pretty snowflakes on the car

learning skiiing was really painful. james taught me for the 1st morning at a beginner's area, and then i got a 1-hour lesson while everyone else had lunch. that was it. in the afternoon, we zipped off to 'la flegere', where we had to take a huge gondola (cable-car) up 1000 - 2000 + metres. everyone tried to stick together on the first run down the green (lowest level of difficulty) slope, but i took too long and kept falling down that they all just went ahead without me. david waited around and helped me put on my skis again each time they fell off, but i still took mighty long. like 45 mins to cover 1.2km, as opposed to 10 mins. after 2 runs, i told david to go ahead without me, so he went on the blue (2nd lowest of difficulty) and red (advanced, a notch above blue) runs with sarah & james. i struggled along, and repeated the same run on my own. that was my achievement for the day.

james: ski instructor par excellence

clockwise from top left: (1, 4, 5) the place we went (2&3) the chairlifts, (6) signs ata cross junction showing where to go. i'll take the green, thanks.

the next day, all the advanced skiiers were getting more adventurous. they decided on a new ski area 'le tour', which didn't even have any green slopes! so the easiest runs there were the blue ones. not good news for a noob like me. david went with me on a long blue run, which had so many bends because it went around the mountain (and my turns were still not good, i was so scared of falling off the cliffs!) so i went rather slowly; and when steepness that i've never encoutered before, combined with narrow pistes bordered by dangerous looking snow cliffs, i was defeated. of course, i went way too fast for my liking down the slope (not that i could help it) , and braking distance increases with speed, right? so when i found myself not braking in time, i started to panick, and because skiiing is so frustratingly counter-intuitive, i didn't lean forward to help myself to stop like i'm supposed to, so i stopped myself the only way i knew how - by falling down halfway down that slope. that wasn't too brilliant either, because every time i fall down, my beginner skiis will snap off to prevent me from twisting my ankle or knee. and putting on those skis again on a slope is no mean feat. david tried to help, but we still took like 10 mins or something like that to put on the skis again, which got him really frustrated. as for me, i was seriously scared. i knew that even after i put on those skis again, i still had to get down that same slope somehow. with some tears and a lot of grit, i completed that blue run. as if that trauma wasn't enough, david started to get ambitious and suggested that we go on the red piste next, because it was 'wider and only a little more steep than the blue'. i protested, but upon his re-assurances that it would be ok, i (very bravely and foolishly) went along. i did well at the beginning, but there was this really steep part where once again i panicked, and didn't turn properly, and my beginner skis snapped off again. grrr. we tried really hard to get them back on for me, but to no avail. this nice french lady even came by and offered to help, but after a few tries i decided not to hold her back, thanked her and told her to 'allez' (go). james & sarah skiied by, and tried to help as well, but couldn't. (told you it was really steep) so i decided that i would just slide all the way down. david took my skis and skiied down (yup he's good. skis are really heavy). but james & sarah said that i'll end up with a big hole on my pants if i do that so i had to walk down the slope instead. they were really sweet as to wait for me to go down a little bit before zooming their way down. but walking down a slope angled at about 60 degrees at an altitude of 2000+m was traumatising enough for me. i was ready to give up. after lunch i left david to do the more difficult red runs which were apprently very scenic (but please la, i'll be too busy concentrating on not falling down - who am i kidding, i'm simply not anywhere near there yet) and james offered to teach me for a bit on another blue and 'very wide and rather gentle run without any cliff edges'. he taught me a great deal about becoming stable on a slope and some tips on how to put on my skis by myself, which helped a lot in boosting my confidence. but of course, i was still too slow, and he left me to my own devices (i.e. bid farewell & go down the rest of the blue by myself). that slope wasn't gentle at all. i struggled, took it one turn at a time. by this time my knee and shin was already hurting like mad from all the force unfairly placed on them. i was going so slowly that david spotted me while going up on the chair-lift, he got to the top and skiied down to find me still halfway only halfway down that run. heh. at the end of the day i took the cable car back down to the valley, which david, james and sarah skied down. they were really fast too, i followed them with my eyes (and camera) all the way down and took quite a few paparazzi shots.

it's a beautiful day... along the super hard piste (yeah i didn't get to see that WHILE skiing)

skis hanging precariously outside the cable-car on the way down (yup i thought it was a nice shot)

but i have improved, and by the end of that day, if not skill-wise, i learnt confidence, the single other most important thing in skiing. fear causes falls. and i stopped falling. each time i fall, i get scared and exasperated and i want to give up; then i manage to ski properly towards the end of a run and actually feel the breeze on my face and actually enjoy myself for that short while, and i'd feel like i want to go all over again. see how it plays with my feelings? evil.

sarah and her snowboard.

kids inspire me, they look so cute all bundled up in thick ski outfits, and with their short little skis, they seem to be fearless going down the slopes. i also tried to get free lessons by following those people with instructors for a while, but they go too fast and i lose them.

girls decked in pink, and a little boy who can barely walk, learning to ski. (this is why singapore cannot have a winter olympics team)

qn: what are those people in the background looking at?

ans: this. a breath-taking spread before them.

the next day was good friday. and the weather, who has been really kind to us in giving us clear days with snowy nights so that we can ski on nice soft snow but not be hampered by poor visibility and risk of avalanches, decided to turn against us. i say it's because we didn't go to church on good friday : anyway, so david and i decided to take a day off skiing, and do some other touristy stuff like go up the 'mer de glace' (literally: sea of ice), some famous largest glacier in europe (i don't think that includes scandinavia). but the weather was so bad that they closed it, as they did with a few other ski areas. we also tried to buy the swiss pass, which would allow us to take the scenic train ride from chamonix to martigny (a town in switzerland) and from there make our way to the rest of switzerland. lo and behold, after driving around to the various train stations, we found that they didn't sell it, and that part of the train route was closed anyway because of the weather. we wanted to drive to martigny to get the pass, but was advised against doing so even with snow chains on. so many cars were skidding even at 30km/hr. thank God for safety. it was david's first time driving on the left hand, and in such heavy snowfall. to give you an idea of how heavy it was, we parked our car for say 15 mins in a lot, and when we return, we have to plod in knee-deep snow to get to the car doors. oh btw, i got a chance to practice my french quite a bit that day too, which made me very happy. haha. i miss french.

outside the main gare (train station)

little david in a sea of white. he thinks he looks really cute, therefore this picture now adorns my desktop.

we spent the rest of the evening sitting around, drinking hot chocolate, and...

building a giant snowman in the small backyard

my 3rd day of skiing was not that much better tho. this time, we went to 'les grand montets', an area only for advanced people. the rest of them were itching for more action, you see. and that area is famous of off-pistes (which means unmarked paths which have not been groomed, i.e. anywhere you want on the mountain). and once again, the greens didn't exist. that was also the day i got david really angry with me because he brought me on the blue again, and because of the heavy snowfall the night before, the runs were full of little 'snow hills', which made for a very bumpy and unpleasant ride down, which in turn caused me to keep getting stuck, and hence was very slow again. this time, he gave up on me altogether. he refused to help me when i fell. and when my poles got left some 10 metres up the slope, i had no idea how to get back up to reclaim it. i had to resort to asking strangers around to help me get up (from my awkward fallen position) and retrieve my poles. he then proceeded to miss lunch to reclaim lost time, and went on the reds and blacks (a notch above red, and also the hardest) by himself. talk about throwing a tantrum.

the last day was probably my best. i told david to leave me alone, because they had grand plans to cover 2 ski areas that day, and go all out at full-speed. i didn't want to hinder them, so i just went on my own, and ocassionally with wibke, who also asked to be left alone for the same reasons. we went back to 'le flegere', and they wanted to cross over to 'brevent' from there but the weather didn't allow it as a lot of pistes were closed. it was easter sunday, and we were unusually early on the slopes. i finally got the chance to ski on fresh powder, which felt rather good. but on a green, of course. the rest of the day, i ventured to a blue by myself a couple of times, which the pros entertained themselves by going on the blacks and off-pistes most of the day, landing themselves in heaps and heaps of snow. i was quite happy with my progress, and how far i've come. after days of being thrown out of my comfort zone, i could now conquer slopes that i never imagined i would. to end of the whole ski experience, david went with me on a super high (starting at 2396m) and long run (4+km) blue run. i was really tired by the end of it, but at least it all ended on a positive note!

that's the blue slope (yes the one with small dots of people) i went down all by myself! =) doesn't look steep from the chairlift (from which i took this picture, but believe you me, it's a lot harder when you're one of the small dots...

carol - tired after 4 days of skiing

night activities

usually, after skiiing, we would head into chamonix town for a drink or walk around, and then proceed back to cook dinner. we took turns to cook, and david and i cooked cabonera. haha. on the last night, we decided to give oursleves a treat by going to a restaurant for some french fondue and raclette. (ok, technically, james & sarah treated us). i've never had meat fondue before, it was an eye opener, and it's been ages since i had raclette, and this one was different anyway.

another view of chamonix ville

yummy raclette with a GIANT piece of cheese

before going to sleep, we'll just sit around the house, chat and laugh. the company was great. i'm really grateful for the invitation to come in the first place; and for wibke and jimbo, who made the trip so enjoyable.

our kind hosts =)

the closest thing we have to a group shot: carol, david, sarah, wibke, james (jimbo)

now for the bit about Singlish:
due to the nature of the company we were with, we had to speak proper english. it was really funny though, when people broke out into singlish purposely. wibke and david kept speaking in super extreme ah lian/beng language, which was pretty funny; everyone kept trying to make james speak singlish (yes he's a full-fledged brit who has left his ACS days far behind); jimbo was trying hard to learn singlish, he even had the oxford singlish dictionary so that he can be fluent next time he comes to singapore.

we stayed 1 day longer than we had planned to, because of the glitches in getting the swiss pass. we went back down to geneva on Monday morning, waking at an unearthly time of 4am.

after 5 days of prim and proper english, we had to switch (effortlessly) to fluent singlish.

next stop: switzerland, where luyi, bingkai and maccann were waiting. but i shall write about that after my corporate finance exam on wednesday, and try to get down to some serious studying. sigh.

chamonix-mt blanc: been there, done that.

love.

vanity fair

i love retail therapy.

but i wasn't even need any therapy when i got waylaid by vanity fair. was merely (and innocently) on my way to the supermarket (yes my favourite activity) to get meat for dinner when i saw....

an aldo sale in the middle of the atrium of the shopping mall! i had to check it out... and i came out with a pair of purple peep-toed flats (ok i dunno how to name the shoes... but owellz.. it had a bit of a wedged heel - ren, like your red velvety ones except that it's not completely covered... ankle tie i think that's what it's called).

anyway, my point was that,
i was waylaid.

vanity of vanities... heh.

on the loss of time

but i made up for it by waking up super early today. yay, all that training waking up early for skiing in chamonix has tuned my body clock well...

my handphone is so cool. it adjusted the time automatically for me when we had to move our clocks forward by 1 hour at 3am last night. (why must it be such an unearthly hour?!)

but i lost 1 precious hour of sleep... grrr!

anyway, copenhagen is now only 6 hours behind singapore. just.... fyi... not that it matters anyway. heh.

Beautiful Belgium

Here's my super out-dated entry about belgium, typed while still on the trip, just never got down to posting it with the photos.

Belgium (Leuven, Brugge, Antwerp)
29 Feb – 2 Mar

We arrived in Leuven, a little university town east of Brussels at about 10pm. Met up with Lester, and walked in the rain with him for 20 mins to his place. I had to switch bags with Debbie after we were halfway there cos it got quite heavy. Didn’t help that i’m getting weaker too, nowadays. She was strong enough to scale 3 storeys of stairs to get to Camy’s room, where we were to stay for the next 2 nights. Camy and Lester are SMU students on exchange to Leuven, but Camy was away in London for the weekend and she kindly consented to let us sleep in her room, how nice! Both of them live just a few doors away from each other in a student’s residence anyway. We were so tired after cycling and rushing around all day that we just took a shower and went to sleep.

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The next day, we decided to head to Brugge, apparently the most visited place in Belgium. Not uncharacteristically, we overslept, and only managed to get on the train at 9.35am, instead of 8.35am. BTW, jinjoo decided to stay in Amsterdam, so there were only 3 of us, plus Lester. It was an hour and a half’s train ride away. On the way, we passed by Brussels, which pple have generally advised us to miss because of its lack of charm and appeal. We took heed and contended with just passing by the major train stations and catching glimpses of the high-rise buildings Lester describes as ‘Shenton Way’...

Brugge is a medieval town, so when we arrived, we felt as if time rolled back a few hundred years. The cobbled streets looked worn, and the buildings look really rustic. Horse carriages were a common sight, and the clicking sound made by their hoofs added to the feel.

We visited the 'Ten Wijngaerde' beguinage, a nunnery which used to house widows and other women who joined the beguine movement. Today it is a benedictine monastry. Its grounds were so beautiful and peaceful, we didn’t dare to speak loudly (not that I could anyway, my voice was half-gone).

Just walking down the little streets and looking at the rows and rows of little shops was an interesting activity in itself. Lester told us that Belgium is famous for 5 things: Chocolate, Fries, Mussles, Waffles and Beer. 4 out of the 5 above-listed I love – guess which. Literally on every single street, every where you turn your eye, there would be a chocolatier, and a waffle and/or a fries stand, a café and a place that sells mussles in pots. It was like junk food/gourmet heaven. I couldn’t resist peering into every chocolate shop. Even the cakes and bread in the bakeries looked so good. Lester couldn’t resist getting both a waffle and a cake in the early stages of the day, while the rest of us walked into this super crowded chocolatier and got some chocolate, fudge and truffles. I knew from that moment that I was gonna spend quite a bit on chocolate in Belgium. Of course, pralines were invented in Belgium as well, and I wasn’t gonna pass on that either. I love Belgium. And chocolate.

The plan was to have mussles for dinner, cos they weren’t cheap. But we couldn’t wait any longer and decided to have them for lunch instead. But by that time, we were around the city hall, a really grand looking square, and the start of an expensive looking shopping street. And the restaurant that we walked into was rather posh-looking. The waiter immediately knew we were gonna be cheapskate and didn’t even bother to serve us properly. Anyway, we got what we wanted. Ordered 2 pots of mussles, and they came with fries. It was very very very good, though it ended up costing us 10 euros each. Ouch.

they need to translate everything into 4 languages: flemish, french, german and english. told you it was a confused country...

famous sculpture by michelangelo in one of the cathedrals

apparently, belgium is also famous for lace... but not THAT famous i guess...

After lunch, it was time for dessert. So we abandoned plans to scale 365 steps up the tallest tower in Brugge for a good view. We headed straight to Choco-story this chocolate museum which tells of the origins of Chocolate. Once again, we tried to ask some random stranger for directions. But the problem is that Brugge is so touristy that the chances that you actually stop a local is quite slim. Anyhow, this Belgian couple we stopped were really helpful- they were from another town, but they tried to help us figure out, and when they couldn’t, they stopped a passing policeman on his motorbike and made him direct us. Another sign of true helpfulness and hospitality. Btw, lester’s as touristy as us la. He’s only been in Belgium for 3 weeks and haven’t even gone to Brugge himself. The chocolate museum was fantastic tho – a really educational experience. The word ‘chocolate’ was adopted from the earliest discoverers of the chocolate drink. Chocolate used to be drunk by only the noble man and royalties, and was mainly brought to the world by the Spanish, who ruled Belgium in the past. It wasn’t until a few hundred years ago that the common man started to enjoy chocolate drink, and only much later that chocolate in the solid form appeared. Of course with the industrial revolution and all that the process became easier to mass produce and chocolate became more common, blah blah. But the cacao seed has always been really important. It used to be the currency in the Mayan dynasty, and 100 cacao seeds would buy you a slave, while 10 would buy you a rabbit, or something like that…. There was also a praline making demonstration, which is in the video. The demonstrator was fantastic too – she just rattled off in 3 different languages… and her pralines tasted really good too… haha.

check out how pralines are made!

Coming out of the chocolate museum, we were all feeling so enlightened about chocolate, and in particular, why Belgian chocolate was so fine and famous all over the world (Leonidas, Godiva, Guylian, Cote D’Or, etc.), we were really inspired to buy chocolates for ourselves. And when we saw this chocolatier which was having some promotion – 250g for 4 euros, we decided to buy some for ourselves. It’s not that cheap la, about 50 singapore cents a piece I think? But well, it seemed like the right thing to do. Sigh now that I’m typing this I feel like having one right now! I had wanted to buy some leonidas for david, but thought that I’d do that back in leuven the next day so that they’d be fresh longer. So I thought I’d settle for some cheaper chocolate for myself. But it turned out that leonidas was one of the cheaper brands around. All those brands I’ve never heard of, plus those small shops selling home-made chocolates and pralines were about the same price or more expensive. Haha.

chocolatiers galore!

Anyway, there wasn’t much else to do after all the eating we did, so we headed back to leuvan for frozen pizza dinner, after spending so much money in the day. The winds at leuvan are crazy, I say they are worse than Copenhagen, and I hate the way the wind plays with trash on the ground, making them twirl around in circles and fly everywhere, like there’s a mini whirlpool coming at you or something. So we had Lester’s special frozen pizza + salami + egg for dinner. It was not bad! Haha. I ate a lot. Oops. But I was feeling quite tired and sick so I chose to stay in while the rest went out after that for ice-cream and some drinks. Stella Artois and Hoe Gaarden are the home brands, and they cost like 1 euro a mug or something, something ridiculously cheap, like tuborg and Carlsberg in Denmark.

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The next day, we decided to just walk around Leuven a bit and then go to Antwerp, the 2nd largest city in Belgium. But Leuven was a dead town on a Sunday, everything was closed, including most eating places, so we ended up at Quick, this fast food place for brunch (gives you a clue of how late we woke up, and we slept before midnight the night before). We bid goodbye to our friendly host and made him promise to buy some chocolates for us before going back to Singapore in summer.

the beautiful city hall

camy's room, and lester, our host...

Antwerp was about 1 hour away by train. First thing we did when we got there was to try and get train tickets back to Amsterdam that night, and dump our heavy bags into the lockers. We were really thankful to get the train tickets cheaper than we had expected, which helped us to rule out of the option of having to take the bus, which would have make me sick, and cause some inconvenience because it doesn’t bring us to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. All in all, our tickets to Belgium cost 22.70 + 17.30 euro.

antwerpen station is an attraction in itself, it's SO grand. and the bus conductors are so cute, their uniform is classic man. i think it's in tin-tin...

and the locker which we squeezed all our luggage into.

Antwerp is a completely different town from Leuven or Brugge. It was in a state of transition, while there were lots of majestically grand buildings, there were also lots of modern looking buildings around, giving the town a rather confused look, as Debbie would put it. Nonetheless, we were just glad that there was actually life in the town, on a Sunday, despite the fact that all the shops were closed. Not leonidas tho, I saw it open and better yet, there was a promotion! 750g (40-45 pieces) for 10 euros! I got a box for david and some other stuff, feeling both satisfied and guilty at the same time. I really did spend a lot on chocolate in 2 days. I wanted to buy some to send home with uncle kp in march for the family, but they said that the chocolate should be consumed within 2 weeks otherwise they lose their flavour. Sorry… I know it’s quite rare that one can find something that is actually cheaper in Europe than in Singapore. And 4 times cheaper too.

the giant box of leonidas nicely wrapped up! :)

the combined stash of chocolate we lugged back all the way from belgium!

the stoic buildings in antwerp, unfazed by the changing tides of time

the gothic cathedral; even commercial buildings seem like from out of a heritage collection: the Hilton, and Fortis, the belgian national bank.

Anyway, we basically walked around the town a bit, and then hunted for this old-fashioned café which sold this famous chococino – a fusion of coffee and chocolate. And they serve it with a piece of homemade chocolate. This country is crazy about chocolates I tell you. The drink wasn’t great, but the ambience was. Or maybe we were just too lazy. Deb and I just sat there for a long time and refused to move, while jiamin was eager to hunt down this shop which sold a hundred different types of beers. Anyway, just any random supermaket has like a zillion different types of alcohol on display. It’s crazy. Too bad I couldn’t really care less about it.

a random 'supermarket'/ beer store

Some other interesting little places in this place include a bar which is full of figurines ousted from the nearby Cathedral during some religious riots (also the oldest Gothic cathedral in Belgium), called ‘Holy Beer’. Antwerp is also the city of diamonds. De Beers is Belgian and lots of diamonds are cut by Antwerpen hands.

Holy Beer

There was also a fries museum which we did not go into. Belgian fries are generally thicker, not salty, and usually come with some kind of sauce topping, which costs extra.

We also tried some authentic Belgian waffles there. I think the Singapore Belgian waffles are fake or poor imitations…. They only got the shape right, but not the taste and texture.

The other great thing about Antwerp was that they had student discounts for some eating places, so we decided to go into this Italian restaurant for dinner. The place is really cute, cos the table clothes, lampshades and waiters’ uniforms are all the same pattern – red and white checker. It’s funny to see all the tables, lamps and waiters decked in the same cloth. And so I ordered the cheapest pizza, 4.50euros before discount. And it turned out to be an entire pizza. I was determined to finish mine tho. Jiamin and Debbie gave up and decided to pack it for breakfast the next day. But I took about 1 hour (the longest I’ve ever spent eating – we had lots of time anyway) and I finished the whole pizza. Disgusting, but true. We hung around at macdonald’s for the free wifi before taking the last train out of Antwerp to Amsterstam Schiphol so that we wouldn’t have to spend so many hours in the airport.

our dinner (mussles and pizzas) & dinner place

other interesting sights: a really small car, signs sold at a flee market, scouts (ahem) and brownies doing stupid stuff in a quaint old town square

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I am now sitting in a wheelchair beside some random powerpoint in the airport typing this. (Debs ingenius idea...) Debbie and jiamin are fast asleep in the chairs nearby. The time is 3.41am. I should go catch some rest soon. Danish homework beckons tomorrow morning as well, argh. I don’t want to go back to school! But then again, it’s about time to go home, David’s had some bathroom choking nightmares while we were gone… but I also need to guard my 2+kg of chocolates! Dilemma! It’s about 3.5 hours more before we check in and leave BENE for good. It was a good trip. For the tastebuds at least! Not so much for the wallet. Now I need to concentrate on getting well so that I can eat the chocolates I bought. And prepare for skiing in 2 weeks! (:

wonderful copenhagen (2)

yesterday, we finally got down to seeing the city we've called home for 2 months. wonderful copenhagen, they call it, but a combination of the not-so-wonderful weather and super-lazy us caused us to shelf plans to see the sights the small city has to offer.

it was only yesterday that we got our first visitor, finally. (uncle - he says we shouldn't call him that, but i dun want his kids to call me auntie!) kah poh landed his boeing 777 at 7am in the morning, and after a short morning's rest, he was ready to tour the city. we met him at his hotel at vesterport at 1.30pm and offered him 2 modes of transport - bicycle, or train. he picked the bike. but we only had 2 bikes (thanks jiamin, we took your bike without asking you.. heh), so david took the train with his monthly pass. here's an overview of the places we went (highlighted in blue).

(click image to enlarge)

1. Imperial hotel, strategically located right next to the city hall, tivoli amusement park, and the central station.

city hall, and tivoli in the background. ok this was taken a few saturdays when i decided to venture out shopping alone...

what do you notice about this picture?

i. the temperature- getting warmer, yay!

ii. carlsberg, it's everywhere in denmark.

iii. jyllands posten - the newspaper that first published the infamous prophet mohammad cartoons.

taken on the same day as the previous shot. near city hall.

2. Christiania, the freetown, where a group of hippies live and govern themselves and are basically anti-establishment, located in a corner of the fashionable district of christianhavn, across the canal from copenhagen city centre. in the same area also stands Vor Frelsers Kirke, a church with a open-air spiral staircase that goes all the way to the pinnacle.

at the entrance to christiana. there's 'art' everywhere. uncle kp insisted that the bikes had to be in the picture as well, as proof that he cycled there. haha,

christiania sports club: you'll never smoke alone. joint the club.

totally cracks me up.

3. Kongens Nytov, the other centre of town, where the shopping street starts/ends, (think orchard road) and nearby is nyhavn (literally- new harbour), a stretch along the canal which is full of cafes and al-fresco dining. think boat/clark quay). the last time i passed by it was bitterly cold and wintery, so it was completely empty, it's alive now!

4. Marmorkirken (The Marble Church), a churh completely made with different kinds of marble. for the longest time i thought it was the 'mormon' church... heh.

5. Amalienborg palace, the queen's winter residence. also, there is amalihaven, a little park beside the harbour, overlooking the royal opera house just across. we missed the changing of the guards, but i'm attaching a video which i took in january.

the center of the palace compound. it stands in a straight line with the marble church (background) and the opera house (behind photographer)

this picture was taken in jan, you're supposed to stand 1.5 metres away from the guard, and i dunno why i looked so scared!

a small part of the very elaborate and grand guard-changing ceremony, and the very cute but nice carnival music the military band plays...

6. Den lille Havfrue (The Little Mermaid), a gift from the founder of Carlsberg to the city of copenhagen, based on the character in Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale, made famous by Disney. One of the most photographed ladies in the world, apparently.

think in relative terms: how small the statue is compared to life-sized people, and how many people are gathered around her...

the industrial harbour of kobenhavn, where shipping (e.g. maersk) and wind energy companies (e.g. vestas) are sited

7. to get to Norreport station, another key train station & meeting point in town, we passed by the Botanisk Have (botanic gardens) and the Rosenborg Have (where all the palace guards live and start their procession for the change of guards). and we stopped by for an authetic danish hotdog from a hotdog stand.

(uncle) kah poh evidently satisfied with his danish hotdog! i got one too, my 1st one in denmark, haha... yay, thank you!

8. Griffenfeldsgade, our place. looks like we didn't have time to come back and clear up our house. and we took forever to cook too, danish/swedish meatballs and cabonera. meanwhile kah poh entertained himself with his cool iphone... and... youtube. we had a really long dinner, ate and ate and talked and watched youtube and looked at photos and a even a home video of baby ian! before we knew it. it was 11+pm. we gave him 2 options for transport again - bike and bus, and i kept trying to make him take the bus cos it was 3 degrees outside, not such a pleasant temperature to cycle in, but he was still hardy and caring enough so that i won't have to cycle alone at night. we went back to his hotel to get my package from home! and unloaded some stuff to bring back to singapore too. he gave us some potato chips (calbee!) and then it was goodnight and goodbye... till we meet again, somewhere in europe again maybe in the next few months?

the famous dining table shot that has appeared one too many times on this blog...

gifts from home - par avion: disc, boots,spring clothes, sauces to cook, hand cream, toothpaste/brush, cough drops, lozenges, timtams!, moisturer, toiletries, RPGs, grocery bags...

as you can see, copenhagen is really quite small, we kinda covered most of the places in one afternoon, i hope all the cycling was not too much to bear! personally, i think cycling is quite a good way to see more of the city, compared to taking the train, and faster too. poor david had to keep up with us from place to place, by train and on foot, but he was quite happy doing so.

i'm so so grateful to have (uncle) kah poh so willing to transport things for me, and my dear family for taking all the trouble to pack things and send it around choa chu kang to get it delivered here! hope you guys like the presents, haha.

ok, we need to start hitting the museums soon! no more time!

Our Humble Abode

looks like the outube video didn't work the last time, so here's the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jDqVEAcIBw

I'm a Flash Mobster!

Before anyone gets freaked out, here's the definition of a flash mob, taken from my trusty source of information, Mr wikipedia:

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.

word usually gets around by emails and SMSes, so there the people there were mostly students or people who looked below 35. you can read http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2003/aug/07/onlinesupplement for some other instances of flash mobs around the world.

We got word that there was gonna be one in the middle of Stroget at 1230pm today, so we rushed all the way down to norreport. bumped into jianfeng, who was on his way to the netto (the supermarket) to return his glass bottles and get some money back, we were in such a hurry we just asked him to follow us and he ran all the way with us, with an entire crate in his arms, feeling really really puzzled the whole time. haha. poor guy.

we found some other friends and got to the square, only to find out that it was actually scheduled for 1pm. there were lots of young pple jus hanging around the large open area, but no one really knew who was in the know and who wasnt... so everyone just stood around and waited. as it was approaching 1pm, some random guy asked us if we were here for some 'event', he tried to organise some people together because no one knew who the organiser was. so we planned to just walk casually around and when the clock from the church struck 1, we would just freeze. but, before the bell could even toll, there was a sharp whistle that rang out through the air. and. everyone. froze. that was it. it was quite amazing, passers-by looked on with rather bewildered looks on their faces... and david got the whole thing on video. it lasted 4 minutes, which was mighty long if you're in an awkward position, like some people were, but it was quite fun!

we should have something like that in singapore. apparently it's happened before, organised by mr. brown. but it was quite mild, just strangers all wearing brown shirts at a certain mrt station for a brief moment before dispersing. go read the stories on wiki about the ones in the US, the americans are always crazier and more happening!

after a trip to stroget, i conclude that copenhagen is slowly awakening from winter hibernation. the city's coming alive.... finally! (:

i'll leave you with a random group of buskers we found this afternoon! enjoy!

Our Humble Abode

Finally, the time is now ripe to show you a video of our humble (temporary) home. I finally did some packing so that our things won't be strewn everywhere. now debbie would claim that it's not an accurate representation of our place, but well... to please the mums and impress everyone else.... this should do it! (:



anyone wants to come over? :p

City of Bikes

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Its name is derived from "Amstel dam", pointing to the city's origin: a dam on the river Amstel. The city is known for its historic port, the Rijksmuseum, its red-light district (de Wallen), its liberal coffeeshops, and its many canals which have led to Amsterdam being called the "Venice of the North". During the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam was one of the most important ports in the world, with innovative developments in trade, and became the leading centre for finance and diamonds.

(wikipedia)

Amsterdam
27 – 29 Feb

Holland was never in the travel plans. The air tickets were booked on impulse because they were going for 0 dkk but taxes came up to about S$150. David wasn’t interested in drugs and all the rest of the liberties in Amsterdam, so I travelled with Debbie, Jiamin and our new South Koren friend, Jin Joo.

It was to be another traumatic flight experience. Deb and I had Danish lessons till 5pm, on Wed evening, and our flight was at 6.30pm. Jiamin kept exhorting us to leave class early so that we wouldn’t be late, and we had pre-arranged for him to be there earlier to check-in for all of us, since he didn’t have anything on that day. After carrying my third-full 60litre backpack to class, and 2 hours of dansk later, we rushed to the airport expecting to meet the other 2 there. Alas! Only Jinjoo was there when we arrived, and she had checked-in for us. We had 10 more minutes before the baggage drop closed, and jiamin was nowhere in sight. We got an sms from him saying he was about 15-20 mins away, and that something terrible had happened. Jinjoo and I went in first, cos she wanted to get some duty-free stuff for her friend in Amsterdam. I was smsing deb and she didn’t have any news either. Time passed quickly… 6.00 (the baggage drop closed)… 6:10 (all we could do was pray)… 6:20, Jinjoo and I start heading to the gate. it was a long long walk to the last gate at the furthest end of the terminal. And when we were there they were almost closing the gate. still no news. We asked the person at the counter whether the ‘last guy’ had checked-in, and she said yes, but did not know where was he. We quickly assured him that the last 2 pple were running as fast as they could to the gate, and to please wait for them. So jinjoo and I proceeded into the plane. We were assigned the last row of seats, and had to walk past every single person already on board. Anyhow, the whole plance waited, pple were getting impatient, and the pilot made an announcement that we were just waiting for 2 more passengers and then we were ready to shut the doors and take off. About 6.40pm, the 2 of them stepped into the plane, with plastic bags and laptops in their hands, and jiamin’s gigantic 40 to 50l backpack. Obviously they didn’t allow them to check in. but thank God for answering our desperate prayers and for allowing the passengers to wait.

So, his story: he put a set of clothes to wash when he discovered that he did not have enough while packing, at about 1pm. 1 hour later, he went to the basement of his house to retrieve his clothes, only to realise that he had forgotten to take his keys along, and he had locked himself out of his house. Thankfully, his bike was unlocked so he rode all the way to forum (which is near where we live and where his landlord works) to get keys from his landlord. In just t-shirt and track pants. That’s quite crazy and we actually live about 20 mins away. So to cut the long story short, by the time he got back, packed, showered and left, he was late. Enough said.

Back to the plane. Just when we could take off, while taxi-ing, the pilots discovere some ‘technical problems’, so they had to get the plane back to the gate to get it checked and repaired. We were delayed by almost 2 hours. By the time we took off, it was close to 8.30pm, and we landed at about 9.40pm, almost 2 hours late. The worst thing was that we had dinner waiting for us at Isaac’s place. And I was quite scared that they’d be waiting for too long. I didn’t even know his friends. Anyhow, we managed to get to his place by about 10.30, they were so kind as to heat up the food for us and chatted with us till almost midnight. They were all NUS students, mind you, and we were the enemy – SMU. Heh. It was great meeting Isaac again though, it’s odd how we only see each other outside of Singapore, the last time was when we were leaving Cedar Point about 1.5 years ago… how time flies!
Jiamin and I slept on the floor in Isaac’s room; while deb and jinjoo stayed at jinjoo’s friend’s place. The arrangement was complicated, I’ll explain if you ask. Poor jiamin was coughing all night through, and quite badly too, isaac’s pipakao and luohankuo helped to alleviate it, but not much. The next morning, I woke up with a cough too, but I thought I was tough enough. I borrowed Stephanie ‘s (Isaac’s friend) bike and we pushed it to Amsterdam Centraal where we met the 2 girls. After much deliberation, we decided to rent 3 more bikes and explore the city of bikes on… bikes.

sights along the way: the famous Amstel Hotel, nice colourful pipes, boat houses...

The city of Amsterdam is truly amazing. It was not what I had imagined it to be – messy, dangerous, dirty. Au contraire, it was rather orderly, and I felt very safe. There are so many bikes in the city, more than in Copenhagen, and the bike rack at central is 3 storeys high and can hold up to 2500 bikes, imagine that! On top of all the bikes that are already parked everywhere you can imagine!

you can really see the B1 storey here cos it's lower on the water... and the picture doesn't really do justice to the sight

But the traffic wasn’t the most bike-friendly. Despite the designated bike lanes, things can get quite dangerous when motorcyclists use them as well, drivers in cars are rather fierce and reckless, and add in the trams that run through the city and cut across many pedestrian streets. It was insane. Nonetheless, we tried to follow a bicycle trail we had printed off the internet, except we never got to see most of the places cos we couldn’t find them. Yet, it was through these moments of being lost that we experienced firsthand the friendliness and helpfulness of the locals. And yes, that helped to change my impression of a mafia-filled; drug-taking city…) People just stopped in their tracks to ask if we needed help when they saw us studying the maps. And they did more than point us in the right way, this man even took the effort to tell us how the entire city is organised and what is good to see, and he even asked us where we were from and spent a few minutes reminiscing about Bugis Street and Clifford Pier in Singapore (I didn’t even know those places were that famous!).

cycling around

Anyhow, we wanted to end up at the Van Gogh Museum, which was south of the city centre. So we followed the Amstel River south, but soon enough, we found ourselves cycling in the countryside, completely out of the navigation guidance of the map! After a big detour and a minor accident involving the bikes, we arrived at Museumplein (the place of Museums) to meet Isaac, who was kind enough to bring us around after his classes ended that morning.

at museumplein, which kinda resembles Washington DC

Using the NUS people’s museum passes, we managed to get in for free, and spent some time appreciating Van Gogh’s art and learn about his tragic life. I quite like his paintings, mainly because I like the impressionist/ pointillism style which was made famous by people like himself and Monet, but his life was so sad. At a high point, he had wanted to become an evangelist, as his father was preacher, but he gave up after a while and became an artist at 27, only to fall into melancholy and illness, and then shoot himself in the chest when he was barely 40 years old because of a lack of popularity, decline in skill due to illness and fears of becoming a burden to others.
Our next stop was the market. That was really nice and exciting for us, cos it meant eating. We had discovered that the cost of living was significantly lower than that in Copenhagen, and suddenly, we could afford lots of things again. So we decided to go on an eating spree. At the market, we bought homemade chocolate, nuts, dutch stroop waffles, fried mussles, and even cheap toiletries.

the chocolate shop, really 'creatively' shaped chocolates, chocolates dipped in chocolate and huge chunks of chocolate

getting our stroop waffles, really really sweet syrup between 2 pieces of biscuit

deep fried mussles... look at jin joo's expression! classic!

We were rather tempted to buy Birkenstocks too, but there was limited stock (pun not intended) left in the right sizes and designs, but they generally cost between 30 and 45 euros. Cheap right? Wasted. Haha. Anyway, after that, we weren’t done eating yet! Isaac brought us to this pancake place to have Dutch pancakes, which were really good and kinda different from our regular pancakes. Well, they actually look and taste more like those crepes you can get at Marche, but it was very nice nonetheless!

ham and cheese pancake (?!?), fruit pancake

And then, it was Thursday night so we took the opportunity for late night shopping, and headed down to the shopping street while Isaac went home. There wasn’t that much to buy though, cos it was Europe afterall and it wasn’t the sale season. The only special shops are those that specialise in selling cigars and drugs, or sex shops. The drug shops were really interesting tho, the way they sell stuff like Spanish fly (a drug used in spiking a girl’s drink) and canibbis lollipops, and coffee shops in Amsterdam don’t sell coffee, rather they are drug houses serving space cakes and i dunno what else. We didn’t dare to step into one.

a huge variety of drugs... cannabis lollipop, anyone?

interesting shops...

some shop which sells all kinds of junk food you can imagine...

But we did eat out that night at this Asian place called ‘Wok to Walk’, which is basically Chinese takeaway la. We just hung around a bit and cycled to Dam Square, the city square where the royal Palace stands.

debbie and i @ dam square, in front of the royal palace

There we met up with Isaac again, who brought us to visit the famous Red Light District. That area was also surprisingly orderly and safe, even late at night. In fact, it is probably more touristy than anything. The sex trade there seems pretty well controlled. And the girls actually have to rent a window space on a per night basis for about 50euros, and all they can do is stand behind the door/window and wait for someone to negotiate with them through the door. They are not allowed to come out at all, and people along the streets are not allowed to be impolite towards them. There are red light district police all around. However it was interesting to see rows and rows of such windows, with a tube of red light above it. It the curtains to the windows are drawn, the girl was in business. Sometimes, almost immediately after seeing a man walk out of the door, the girl draws the curtain again. She’s ready for the next customer. It’s quite scary. Heh. And well, some of them are just chatting on their mobile phones or surfing the internet (or maybe they’re juggling a side business) while waiting for patrons. And the girls come in all shapes and sizes and origins- the more exotic ones are usually on some small side street. Generally, it seems like these people regard themselves as professionals, and won’t resort to harassing people desperately like those prostitutes you see in Chinese shows. Or at least, they’re not really allowed since they’re stuck in those little windows. Another interesting thing is the public male toilets around. They are basically just a round frame of metal that probably covers jiamin from his head to his calves. And then you have to pee onto the floor. And people around can actually see the floor. So it’s quite gross but well, functional? Jiamin wanted to try, but he changed his mind. The last interesting thing is that there is a HUGE church right next to the district, almost in the district, and has been for hundreds of years. The idea is that sailors, after coming to the area for their fun, can go to the church right after to see forgiveness. Some warped kind of logic, but it seems to have been accepted for centuries. Of course, there are lots of sex shops around where you can rent dvds and watch them in specially provided cubicles and I dunno what else. About 12 plus, we decided that it was time to go home.

porn shops galore, red lights above the windows (the curtains are drawn here), isaac & jiams scouting around... :p

____________________________________________________________
The next day, Isaac was too tired to bring us around, poor thing, his school work is a lot more voluminous than ours in Copenhagen, and he’s been having late nights, so we asked him to stay home while we went around by ourselves. Jinjoo was too tired from all the cycling the day before, so she decided to sleep in as well (oh no, maybe she’ll never travel with us again!)

we bumped into esmond and daphne, who are headed for paris but travelling a lot before school starts...

First up, we tried to locate Anne Frank’s house. It is arguable the most popular tourist attraction in Amsterdam, but it’s tiny, so the line for tickets are usually very long. So all we managed to do was to take a look on the outside. But inside, you can supposedly see where her family and 4 others hid out during the Nazi years of WW2. In the little room whose entrance is concealed by a bookshelf. It would have been cool to go in, and see her original diary as well, but we weren’t prepared to stand 3 hours in line.

Besides, we had a very important next stop – the Mariott Hotel. Mummy had just told me on Tues night after prayer meeting that Uncle Kah Poh was flying into Amsterdam on 29th Feb, so in the space of 2 days, I asked for some things to be brought over, and they had to scramble to get all those things. The most important of all was a portable hard disk, since the one I have was full to the brim. Jiamin also desperately needed one, so his dad had to go get one and then drive to CCK to pass to us and daddy had to go to uncle kp’s house etc. all the rush, but I love my family for that. They so willingly did all that for me and went to such great lengths and inconveniences. J anyway, so I had to go collect my package from home! For some strange reason, my Singapore phone couldn’t work, so I couldn’t really contact him. But we just went to the hotel anyway after giving him sufficient time to rest. We chatted for a while and I found out that he’s coming to Copenhagen in March! (yay!) I promised to cook for him then and then he can go home and tell mummy if I pass. Haha. But sigh if I knew he was coming in march maybe we didn’t have to rush so much huh. Anyway, I gave him a head scratch-er since it was his birthday the day before. Haha. Thank mummy for warning me through Isaac. I think it looked quite pok tho, especially against a setting like the mariott. Haha. I tried to see a picture of Ian to see how he’s progressing, but the photo got deleted from his iphone. Heh. Maybe someone from home can tell me how the babies are growing! So yay, I got my package, and that added quite a bit of weight to my bag as well, cos mummy gave me 4 bottles of contact lens solution instead of 2!

Our next stop was the rijksmuseum, the biggest museum in Amsterdam. It was really good, but deb and I didn’t have much time to appreciate Rembrandt and other significant Dutch artists who helped record Holland’s history in pictures. Jiamin hates art, so he went shopping by himself.

Then we went to hunt for lunch around the shopping district, thinking that a kebab might do it for the afternoon after all that eating we did the day before. We bumped into uncle kah poh and his co-pilot(s) at some random small kebab shop, heh. But it was too expensive for poor students for us so we decided to continue our hunt. We then headed to the flower market, where they sell tulips of all colours, and well as the bulbs for you to grow some yourself. There were other flowers too la, but predominately tulips. I was so tempted to buy a bouquet of tulips for mummy for her birthday, but I don’t think it’s very possible for uncle kp to bring it back, and then I thought of buying 1 for myself, because no one else would ever give me, right? But then, I didn’t want to carry it to Belgium and then back to Copenhagen. So Debbie decided that we should buy some bulbs instead. We’ll plant them when we reach back, with all 20 of our blue fingers, and keep you updated on their progress. Haha.

Anyway, by this time, we were totally starving. I told myself that I’d just get a burger from the next burger king I saw, and so I ended up having a whopper for lunch, cost me all of 3.95 euros. Grrr. But that’s a whole lot cheaper than any burger you’ll get in Copenhagen anyway. We then zipped off to Chinatown, cos we wanted to buy some sauces that we heard were much cheaper here. We were not disappointed. The Chinese supermarkets there treated us to an eye-feast of the largest array of lee kum kee sauces we’d ever seen in Europe, and other types of Asian sauces as well. They were all like 1.++ euros, as opposed to 6.++ sing in Copenhagen. So we bought vinegar, dark soy sauce, a large carton of coconut milk, ma la chilli for soup, and I can’t remember what else. I bought a packet of sago and another packet of mung beans too (yay, I smell tau suan coming up!) we didn’t care that we had to lug all these stuff around Belgium. But cycling back with all these sauces is different.

After much trouble, and dropping + breaking our cheap imitation nutella bottle, we arrived back at Isaac’s place.

isaac's place - containers (some students live on the boat too), and the awards we presented him with...

We quickly packed and presented him with our little token of appreciation for his great hospitality and use of lovely abode (a row of short glasses and a bottle of stroop sauce which he said goes well with pancakes) and then had to cycle back to centraal to return the bikes and then head to Belgium. The problem was that we only had 2 bikes, so one of us had to walk. The other problem was that we also had 2 huge backpacks with us, and I couldn’t ride the higher bike while carrying that 60litre thing. So jiamin and Debbie took the bikes, and jiamin took the other big bag of course, and I was left to walk to the station. It was about 10-15 mins away if you cycle. I think if you walk it’d take 20-30 mins just walking normally. But I had that 10-20kg weight on me and I nearly died after like 7 mins, so i decided to take a bus there instead, haha. Ok, my other excuse was that it was pouring (in the gu niang European sense of the word la). Deb and jm got the central rather drenched, and jm’s leather gloves got destroyed by the rainwater. Btw, that was about when I started to feel like I was about to lose my voice. And from that point, my voice became sexier and sexier, and threatened to disappear altogether. But thank God he has preserved it thus far, despite all the injustice I’ve been doing to my throat. We left Amsterdam via the inter-city train, that was to take us to Leuvan, Belgium, a journey of about 2hrs 50 mins.

winter's finally here!

just as we thought that spring was coming, with the days getting longer and warmer... temperatures dipped suddenly over the past few days and this evening, after i got back to the warm comfort of my home, it started to snow.... like really snow. for the first time since we stepped foot on copenhagen. and it was quite heavy too. visibility was supposedly quite low, according to jm, who appeared at our doorstep covered in snow, and the snow actually settled and formed white roofs and white bicycles. haha. debbie has a video but i haven't taken it from her.

in another first, today was also the first time i actually cycled in copenhagen. borrowed deb's bike to go to school this morning, and i didn't really know the way, so i was like 10 mins late for class. haha. (what's new, i would have been late even if i took the metro instead) it was quite ok, albeit a bit tiring, and slightly scary to be on the road. just when i thought that perhaps the weather might be warming up and it wouldn't be too cold to cycle. tomorrow i'll ride my landlord's bike. it's way too high for me but i'm gonna try anyway. cannot afford to spend 310dkk on the monthly concession anymore :(

the weather must feel really confused. feb was supposed to be the coldest month, but everyone thought that spring was coming early this year because it wasn't as cold as it was supposed to be.

to put everything in perspective, in jianfeng's words: "the flowers must feel damn du lan. open already then have to close again."