eZcapaYdes in AngMoh land

Weekend escapade to Brugge!

2007-08-06T20:09:00.001+01:00

Brugge - my weekend getaway to neighbouring Belgium after the dreadful exams... THAT dreadful Membrane Tech exam (which I had no clue to what's happening for the entire time, yet i managed to pass, lol).

Just a short 3 plus hours train ride away is this beautiful little town, the most touristy destination in Belgium.

Battle of the Fries!

There are these two stalls right next to the town square that sell fries, in the Battle of the Fries, a scheme to allow friendly competition between fries vendors. Very unique, 'cos these vendors don't get to sell in those stands forever, they'll have to change with other fries vendors every 3 months so people can try the fries of different vendors as well! Pretty interesting concept this is..

Scenic townscape.. a great place to retire in, =)

Of course, how could we miss out the all-so-famous Belgian chocs while we were in Brugge? There is even this ChocoStory, a chocolate museum that tells the story of how chocolate came about, its history from the cocoa beans, the ancient people who started using cocoa, etc. A particularly interesting fact was how treasured were the cocoa beans in those ancient civilisations and what they were worth. For instance, 10 beans would've been enough for someone to exchange for a slave... 10 beans only! Of course there were more examples of what the beans could be traded for, but my memory didn't serve me well enough, lol.

That's it for my short trip to Brugge, a simple yet beautiful town.

Up next will be my eventful trip to Spain!!!

Last trip!!! In Berlin!!!

2007-07-24T19:59:00.000+01:00

Hmm, 2nd last day of my berlin trip, my LAST trip in Europe!!! OMG!!! sianz diao man... but here I am, writing this (must be thinking why am I suddenly so enthu about updating my blog), cos I don´t wanna waste the last 10 min of my internet usage at the internet cafe, LOL. Well, Berlin is really a wonderful city man (except the damn weather these couple of days), with tonnes & tonnes of history to learn. I getting kind of museum&history-overdose man... wished that I've more time here though, to slowly check out everything that I'm interested in. Sadly, time is running out for me, tomorrow evening I'll have to catch my 9-hr long bus ride back to Eindhoven to pack my luggage for the following day's flight back home man..

Yes.. I'm finally coming back, to all those out there who always complain I away for damn long and to some who're flying off soon after I come back. I'll make sure we meet up to grab a bite and do some catching up man.. And of course, I'll try to update my poor blog asap too, who kena neglected by me for so long.. K, time's up for my internet use! Till then!

Copenhagen and my 2nd ever marathon

2007-07-20T01:50:00.001+01:00

Here's another update of my exploits in the past months, my trip to the capital city of Denmark - Copenhagen, to join a marathon!!! Besides the marathon, this trip is also my first time trying out CouchSurfing! Fortunately for me, my hosts were really fantastic, making my couchsurfing experience an awesome first! She's so kind to actually give up her own room to let me stay, when I was initially prepared to sleep on a couch or the floor. See, zai right my host?

Room of my host where I stayed!!!

The marathon was great as weather is fantastic and supporters along the way were all very encouraging and friendly. Some people just take the chance to chill out along the streets and support the runners at the same time, nice... Heh, don't bother asking me about my timing though, too lousy to mention, lol. Too bad, the marathon wasn't as big as I thought, and the goodies-bag was really quite sucky compared to Standard Chartered's one (Stan Chart is still much cheaper somemore!). Well, but it's really a wonderful experience to complete a marathon in another country!

Marathon pics! Heh, only one, I wasn't zai enough to keep stopping and take fotos along the run!

Copenhagen was really a fantastic place, albeit extremely expensive (almost as expensive as the UK). I loved the harbours, they're so nice to chill out at! Here's a photo of one of the many harbour areas in Copenhagen:

Nice ship at the harbour area

at the Amalienborg Palace - Check out those cute heart-shaped holes in them!

In Copenhagen, there was this Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, where you get to see this weird collection of stuff and facts that this Ripley guy discovered while travelling around the world. There was also the museum of the Guiness World Records, but it really paled in comparison to Ripley's, and in fact, I think it really sucked (Guiness Museum), their book is probably better than their museum!

Interesting and strange stuff at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum!

My kind host, Anne-Marie, still brought me to the Royal Copenhagen Library, or more commonly known as the Black Diamond due to the black glass of the exterior of its new extension block. Beautiful design and good place for the hardworking students to go study (otherwise for those guys who wanna people-watch instead, =D ).

The Black Diamond, the other name of the Royal Copenhagen Library. Beautiful!

I also went to the free state in Copenhagen - Christiania. It is a really very different place, nothing anyone would be able to expect when seeing the rest of Copenhagen (nice buildings all around). It is a small area where a couple of hundred people live, where the government made it autonomous, the only place in Copenhagen where people have the equivalent of 'coffeeshops' in the Netherlands. Besides that, the community there have banned cars inside the area, allowing only a few of the residents' vehicles inside. More interesting stuff, this area was previously a military barracks which after being abandoned, was taken up by the pioneer residents who didn't want the typical Copenhagen life, eventually growing into the current 800 resident-strong Christiania. It is really a very nice place to hang out with friends and even get to know people there, albeit in a very different kind of environment. Too bad nowadays it's facing pressure from the Danish government's attempts to shut it down.

Christiania and its entrance!

More of Christiania. The building at the top left pic contains the indoor skating rink (bottom left)

Protest outside a bar against sexism and in particular, against a
homophobic artiste who's performing in the bar

The photo above is about this protest against a homophobic performer who in his song lyrics imply that 'it's OK for lesbians to be raped and die', thus angering this group of protesters who decided to stage a protest for his performance. Too bad nothing too happening occurred out of this, only the protesters shouting and singing songs of protests, hehe.

Finally, thanks to my gracious hosts, I've truly enjoyed the stay at Copenhagen man.. Here's a group photo of us together!

My hosts and I!!! Jakob, Ida and Anne-Marie!

Vienna

2007-07-15T21:06:00.001+01:00

Vienna, my last stop in the Central Europe trip. Sianz diao, the weather has been unkind the whole of this trip, especially when we were in Vienna, drizzling every single day. As a result, we ended up camping in the cafes or shopping districts most of the time, enjoying lovely Viennese coffee and checking out the lastest bargains in town. Nonetheless, we managed to see quite abit of this beautiful city - probably the most beautiful city in Central Europe.

Cafe Sacher - home of the famous Sachertorte

Our visits to the Viennese cafes of course included the most famous of them in the entire Vienna - Cafe Sacher, made famous by the Sachertorte, a specially-made chocolate cake. It was so famous that we had to queue for 20 minutes or so to be able to get a seat to try that. Coincidentally, we met two fellow Singaporeans in the queue - 2 working ladies on a holiday - what a small world it is man! Well, the cake was good, so was the coffee there, and everything wasn't exceptionally expensive.

Manner wafers!!! I swear they're the best wafer biscuits in the world man. Anyone going to Vienna in the future??? Help me buy some!!!

The Hofburg - one of the many palaces in Vienna

Kunsthistoriches Museum - Twin museums of art (It's real! I didn't use photoshop to mirror-image them ok!)

Hmm, when did Koreans start to specialise in sushi man?

OMG! Austrians watch such old sch shows too?!!? Unbelievable!

Of course, we didn't miss the operas too. They were pretty cheap, although they were standing tickets, but it was quite an experience to watch an opera. Haha, but we have to say that we were not really appreciative of it - being in Italian, long-winded, and us being shagged out after a long day's walk - we ended up dozing off even while standing!

Lovely decor in the Oper

The opera theater

That more or less concluded our Central European trip - a great one, in spite of the poor weather. I'd surely go back to these places to visit again the next time I come back to Europe!

Krakow

2007-07-09T00:55:00.000+01:00

Once again, a long overdue post... =) this time about the second segment of my Central Europe trip in March - the city of Krakow. A city which I absolutely loved - for its relaxing atmosphere. Of course, besides that, there's it rich history, though it is definitely not a city where one could get some fantastic sights and architecture like in Rome, but nonetheless, it possess a charm that makes people want to go back to it.

Our entry into Poland itself wasn't the most welcoming one one could wish for - a train ride that one could hardly fall asleep on; custom police check that took like 45 mins; not to mention the extremely cold weather and heavy snow. Fortunately, the weather took a slight turn for the better when we got off our train and into the city. Our hostel, the Mama's Hostel, was so well situated, just a minute's walk from the Rynek Glowny (the Old Town Square), the heart of Krakow. I have to make special mention of this wonderful hostel, whose staff are so extremely helpful and friendly, coupled with the good basic facilities it provided us, making it a 'world class' hostel man, =). Little wonder fellow travellers voted it to be the top few hostels in Hostelworld.com for 2005 or 2006.

Basilica of Virgin Mary (in Rynek Glowny) - A pretty 'different' kind of architecture from the typical Western European churches or cathedrals one often see

Rynek Glowny at night (with the Sukiennice - the Cloth Hall, in the centre of it)

Church with a grand entrance - the statues of the 12 Apostles. A pity I forgot to note down its name.

Wawel Castle - not exactly something very grand or huge like Prague's

Fabled dragon which King Krak slayed (well, one of the legends of Krakow, heh). An interesting note - this dragon really breathes fire, and one could apparently sms a certain number to make it breathe fire!

Dzok the Dog - this statue is a tribute to this dog who faithfully waited for his owner to fetch him home for an entire year, even though unfortunately its owner had already died, on that spot it was waiting. Poor fella..

Most people who come to Krakow wouldn't give its two other main attractions a miss - the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and the Wieliczka salt mine. Of course I didn't miss any of them, but I have to say that for Auschwitz, it was really a pretty depressing sight, which the heavy snow on my visit only made worse. The reality of the harshness of the war and the Holocaust really smacked right into me when I was visiting the camp. The poor living conditions, the freezing winters of Poland, the constant danger of being sent to the gas chambers and other extremities were really impossible. Such were the conditions that life expentancy in the camps were counted in months! Sigh...

After the camp visit, the Schindler's List-inspired me headed out to check out the remains of the famous factory of Oskar Schindler which he used to save a thousand Jews from the Nazi prosecution during the war. Too bad nothing much was left of it, only the building itself and apparently work is going on to turn it into a museum.

Oskar Schindler's factory - Emalia

The last visit in Krakow was to the Wieliczka salt mine - an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and rightly so. This place rocks man, with all the intricately-carved statues and chapels, all out from salt! Furthermore, most of the stuff in there were carved by the miners themselves, not some famous sculptors. Besides statues, there is also the world's largest underground chapel in here, as seen in the photos below. Damn cool man! The chapel is still used for weekly masses by the townspeople up till now!

One of the biblical wall carvings

Wall carvings of the Last Supper

Another lovely part of the trip in Krakow was this amazing book-cafe that was recommended by the tourist map - Massolit Books. It was really a good place to just chill and read a book, enjoy a cup of coffee or hot chocolate. Not only they offer good drinks and dessert, the books are great and cheap too! Haha, really a must for any book-lovers (well, some of you must be thinking 'wtf, I actually like to read too?'). I actually went to this cafe two out of the three days I was in Krakow man, =).

Krakow...wonderful place (did I mention wonderful food and beautiful babes as well? hehe)... I will definitely visit it again the next time I return to Europe!!!

A super outdated post... on my Central Europe travels!

2007-07-02T11:43:00.000+01:00

Hmm, let's see the date, it's 2 July today, whereas my Central Europe trip was done in mid-March... oops!! I guess the lazy worm in me is still as strong as always, hehe, thus, having posting about this trip only now.

Prague - my first stop in the Central Europe getaway!

Well, what can I say about this city, its simply beautiful!!! I love the castle and the cobbled streets of the city, not to mention, the famous Charles Bridge or Karluv Most (in Czech). We had a great time there, meeting some new friends as well, like this Australian-born chinese girl (ABC! Heh, we're ABCs too, Asian-born Chinese!) whom we met in the hostel and went to tour the Prague Castle together. There's another Brazillian guy whom we got to know and he was recommending to me some of the best beaches in Brazil (of cos... where all the hot babes are!)

Hmm, shucks, the trip's so long ago that I really kinda forgot about what I had in mind for this post that time... so here're the photos for the trip!!!

Super long escalator in the metro! Took us like 1 plus minute to get to the top!

Bata!!! 好有亲切感!!!

Most of you must be thinking Bata is some Malaysian brand right... but, believe it or not, it actually originates from the Czech Republic! And here's some proof for people who are still in disbelief - History of Bata

The astronomical clock in the old town square..

On Charles Bridge, at the most famous statue on it - St. John of Nepomuk. Legend has it that if one touches the base of the statue, one will definitely return to Prague... haha, seriously sound like some trick to get pple back to Prague again.

Magnificient Prague Castle

Cool gate with zodiac signs at the St. Vitus Cathedral

Various night scenes of Prague - splendid!

Check this out! The mother-of-hot-chocolate!!!! It's seriously melted chocolate man - not suited for anyone on diet, =)

one very spastic sign...

oopsss...really been a long time since my last update..

2007-06-16T01:23:00.000+01:00

oopps, I just realised I haven't even updated stuff on my Central Europe trip yet, haha... still can't get rid of that lazy bone in me I guess.. I've just uploaded some more photos on my Krakow trip (i.e. part of the Central Europe trip) and my recent Copenhagen trip! Heh, I'll be bz these few days, in fact till the end of the month, with term papers, exams and more travel! So sorry folks, probably gotta keep u all waiting till then for more updates...=)

Car Football!

2007-05-13T23:46:00.000+01:00

Here's something interesting to watch, click here to see! =)

Thx to jem who showed it to me, haha!

Enjoy!

... time to go back to studies... =(

Queen's Day Party at Amsterdam!!!

2007-05-03T21:31:00.000+01:00

30 April was Queen's Day, which equates to party day for the Dutch! Haha, like SH said, the Dutch people just converts every single holiday into a drinking and party day for all! It'd be nice to see Singapore something like this, where people just let loose and have fun all day long, instead of always working and getting stressed out from everything.
There we went, to join in the fun in the name of Queen Beatrix, =)! Just like what I have heard from my Dutch friends, the whole city was flooded with people, mostly dressed in orange! What a sight!

Crowds and performances along the streets. Check out that DJ along the street (left pic)!

The video of the old dude (circled in the above photo) performing

Parties abound the city, from pubs, along the streets, even in boats like those above! Pretty cool if you stay there and own a boat. They even have mobile DJs like the one in the photo on the top. Great stuff, and those DJs were good, even though I don't fully appreciate the techno music that the Dutch love so much, but from those DJs I can see why they produce some of the world's most famous DJs.

Some ass did this to the poor statue, haha!

Mini amusement park in Dam Square

A mega monster-catcher within the mini amusement park

Going for this Queen's Day celebration has really made me learn to appreciate this lovely country more man... Haha! Albeit I am not someone who loves to party, but the atmosphere and the people are really good man! My only complaint is that certain things are really costly man (like my damn visa n residence permit... =( ..). Otherwise, I am beginning to think that this place rox big time man!

Nice act-spas pose, Kumar, haha!

Flowerfluff boys!!!

2007-04-22T18:00:00.000+01:00

Haven't posted anything for quite a long time already, so I've gathered some hard-to-find determination in me to sit down and update as much as possible in my posts. So here's something more recent, not the usual outdated stuff that I've been posting, =).

Keukenhof

Springtime has arrived! So its time for me to go to the biggest flower show ever - the Keukenhof! Held annually in spring in the town of Lisse, the Netherlands and attracts millions of visitors each year... pple like me! haha! Too bad there wasn't a pretty girl to accompany me to enjoy the beauty of spring, so in the end I had to be gay for a day, as I'll be going to see all these flowers with Shoong Hong, to be flowerfluff boys! Jokes aside.. heh, here're the photos for the day (dun pray pray, this time round my camera 'recover' liao... no need to use my lousy phone camera liao, so guaranteed good quality photos from now on!!) In addition, thanks to my gay buddy of the day - Shoong Hong, I've leveled up a little in my photography skills!

The Leiden train station and the bus terminal... Looks
so much better than Eindhoven's! Sigh... haha!

Check out the crowd man!!! I swear there
were at least thousands of tourists, if not
tens of thousands, in the park.

Below are some of the beauties!!! Enjoy!!!

Cute little girl playing with the chess pieces

that're almost as large as her =)

Flower farm situated right beside the Keukenhof... so beautiful!!! No wonder flowers are so cheap here in Holland, and all the ang mohs are always giving girls flowers! Heh!

Me at the flower farm

These are just some of the photos we took, see more of the beautiful blooms on my Photobucket! By the way, I've uploaded more recent photos into my Photobucket as well, so feel free to check it out!!!

City of London

2007-04-22T15:57:00.000+01:00

London is a huge and beautiful city, though a highly expensive one too, with its pounds... Had a great time there though, meeting up with my friends from all over Europe, doing their exchange as well, or studying at universities in England. People like Jing, Meng, Tong, Ng, Duan, Yong and HT. It was fun, we even met up to play cage near Jing's place, just like the good ol' days when we played cage back home. Jing being the most 'lao jiao' in London, brought us to eat some wonderful chinese food for two of the nights, the best one being the famous braised duck in Bayswater. It was fantastic man, it really matches up with Chinese restaurants in Singapore.

Sightseeing, though, was just Jeremy and I going on with our 2-men show. Visited quite a number of places, but due to the lack of funds, didn't manage to go into every place that we wished to, haha. So here goes...

The stage for the musical

We went to watch a musical in our first night - Wicked. Apparently a very famous musical, it was about the flip side of the tale, Wizard of Oz (which I didn't read b4...). Nevertheless, it was a fantastic musical, even for someone like me, who is quite a noob in these things... Inspires me to watch more of such musicals next time, haha.

Funny, this pub's name is "Balls Brothers".. LOL!

The Monument - for the Great Fire of London in 1666

Went walking around the London Bridge region (sadly London Bridge looks just like any other bridge in London...) the next day and came across The Monument (which had a tube station named after it). Happened to meet one old gentleman who kindly told me about the origins of this monument and what the picture carved onto it meant. On the left symbolises the destruction and chaos caused by the fire and on the right, it symbolises hope - from the reconstruction efforts. Not bad, made seeing the monument a whole lot more meaningful than just seeing it as a nice work of art.

St. Katharine Docks (the panaromic shot with my phone

looks decent yea? haha, one of the rare successes..)

Later on, we came across a dock - St. Katharine Docks - which was originally a very busy and important dock in the past. It is now being made to be like a recreational area, with some beautiful residences around it as well (It surely makes one wanna own a residence in a place like that, with your own yatch, =p). There is a pretty looking Starbucks in the harbour as well (the dome structure in the right-hand side photo). Nice place to relax, have a coffee and read a book or chill out with friends.

The London Eye, as everyone probably already knows...

The Tower Bridge, as seen from the London Bridge
(Damn, that stupid vessel is just in the way no matter

which angle I tried to take, so... too bad, this is e best)

The Prime Meridian in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

See, Singapore is on it too!!!

Besides Central London, we went to the town of Greenwich (the place of Greenwich Mean Time.. sounds familiar?) It's a nice little town, with a couple of museums such as the Maritime Museum and one for the British navy, and also its own university, the University of Greenwich, which had such a beautiful campus, right beside the Thames River! How great! In this town too, I found the best bookshop I've encountered so far, with every book (new ones) selling only at 2 pounds! Of course the collection was limited, but still it had a couple of good titles... Probably the cheapest things London has to offer me I guess.. haha. We also went up the Greenwich Park, up the hill and to the Royal Observatory, where the Prime Meridian of the world was located. It has quite a stupid system of entry though. Entrance was free, but one needs to queue up at the ticketing office to get a free ticket, which the guards at the gate will check. What a nice way of creating extra jobs for people. Haha... Pretty interesting stuff in the Observatory's museum and of course a great view on the top of the hill.

That kinda sums up my London trip already I guess. Too bad I didn't manage to go to the Emirates Stadium to check it out, due to a lack of time and just plain bad luck. Till next time!

Aachen - Town of Printens

2007-04-16T23:51:00.000+01:00

First, gonna thank all my friends who were there for me when that fateful incident happened last week. I am grateful for all the support you peepz have shown, thanks!!!

So here I am again, clearing my backlog on my previous trips... This one was the last day of my Germany trip No. 1 (I hope there's still a No. 2 soon) - to the city of Aachen!

Aachen, though most of us have probably never heard of this city before, is a place with a long long history, for those interested, haha, pls go find out more on here.

The remains of the old city gate

The City Hall (Rathaus)

There are quite a few such pretty old buildings around Aachen. Check out the City Hall, look closer, at the roof, wonder what are those numerous little windows for? Perhaps for shooting the enemies?

Shown above are some of the photos taken of the Kaiserdom (Imperial Cathedral), the oldest cathedral in Northern Europe. This is one church worth mentioning, cos it's the place which held the coronations of 30 German kings in the course of 600 years!!! Not only that, the great Charlemagne was buried here as well. Fascinating stuff!

After all the visit to the beautiful sights, we went to look for this apparently famous cafe in town, as recommended by many netizens. This cafe is famed for its wonderful hot chocolate, and since winter has not really subsided yet, it was the perfect weather to enjoy some hot chocolate down our throats! Check out those lovely hot chocolates we had! The cafe had a very good ambience and decor as well, making the teabreak session of ours all the more enjoyable. The owner was running the whole cafe on his own, cool! Waiter, boss, bartender, dishwasher all in one! To top it up, both Jeremy and I thought he was quite a hunk man, haha (don't think we're two gay dudes eyeing some hot guys k!!!)! So girls, if you ever visit this city, go check this cafe and it's yandao boss out man!

In the printen shop

This city is also famous for this snack called printens, something like gingerbread. It's pretty nice, though not exactly something I really like, not a big fan of gingerbread anyway... heh..

OMG, how great would it be if Singapore has

more of such pastry shops?!!

Cool bookshop with such shiok chairs for customers

to relax, read and listen to audio books

So that's it for the trip to Germany, really enjoyed the two day trips we made, to Drachenburg Schloss and to Aachen. Though these places aren't really well-known, they had another kinda charm that makes one love it. Hopefully I'll be able to find more of such nice lil' cities to travel to in my future 'excursions'.

Memories of a lost friend...

2007-04-11T02:59:00.000+01:00

Memories of a lost friend...

11 plus years ago.. on my first day of Sec 1, in Dunman High School... I was still a boy... there inside the class i sat with him in the front row in class. He was this friendly-looking kid... wearing a pair of black framed spectacles... He initiated contact and introduced himself... so we became friends...

As luck would have it, we happened to live a few blocks away from each other in the East.. so we began to go to school and back home together everyday, chit-chatting about everything under the sun... becoming best friends very soon... We played football at our voiddecks... at neighbourhood basketball courts, did most things together... Went each other's home to play games... Went supper together... I still remembered that we were still playing Warcraft 2 modem game with each other the day before our exams when we were in lower sec...

As the years went by, we still remained close... playing football, playing mahjong every weekend, going to the arcades, still having suppers and meals outside together most of the times... Even though we went different classes, we were still close...

Then came JC. Different class, same subject combi, even same Chemistry class... So there we were again, always sitting together during lectures and our Chemistry classes, talking cok... Very soon came NS... though we were in different units in the end, our weekly mahjong sessions, 'cage' sessions still continued... Not to mention all those countless supper sessions we had... Life was well, he was doing well, found himself a career, full of aspiration and ambition..

You know, I've learnt much from him... much indeed...

Then came university... Three and a half years past pretty quickly, and time we spent together became lesser, in fact the time the four of us - the knights of the square (mahjong) table as we called ourselves - spent together became lesser... Cos of school, hall, and other commitments, even our weekly mahjong sessions were reduced... But at least... we still had our weekly Sunday 'cage' sessions... we still tried to meet up for dinner or supper whenever possible during the weekends...

Suddenly, he left us... without a single reason or whatsoever...

It is hard to accept this... you know... really hard...

The worse thing is that I wouldn't be able to see him for the very last time... n to send him off on his final journey... I already had one big regret 8 years ago... now i'll have another...

Forgive me, my dear friend, for not being able to accompany you on your last journey. I pray that you'll be able to get the release you were seeking for...

Farewell...

With Regrets,
Zhen Yuan

why...

2007-04-11T00:21:00.000+01:00

why did such a thing happen???

i'm so lost now...

i wish i could be back to pay my last respects...

pls let me find a flight back, pls.....

Check this blog out!!!

2007-04-09T00:51:00.000+01:00

Oh my god, seeing this blog makes me feel like teleporting back to Singapore right away man... damn it! Look at all the food!!!!!!!! C'mon people, I'm officially jio-ing anyone who's interested in a food hunt when I go back in late July, who's game for it????

Click here to see the blog!

Oh... 3 months half more to eating all these food!!! Help!!!

1st Attempt at Curry Cooking!

2007-04-08T23:18:00.000+01:00

Decided that from now on I shall keep you guys more updated with the happenings recently while I try to clear up the backlog of posts on what has happened a longer time back. So here it is, some recent updates!

So this long Easter weekend the three of us have decided to take a break from travelling... ya rite, more like we've no $$ to travel during this period when prices are jacked up.. haha. Spent our days studying most of the time actually (haha, this doesn't really applies to me, more like Zhi Yi and Jeremy) and we've invited our dear friend Kumar to come over to our house on Saturday to teach us how to make curry!!! My favourite dish sial! Shiok!

Well, turned out that something went a lil' wrong along the way and our curry turned out to be more like a curry soup, haha! Well, at least it tasted nice still, just too thin. We also tried making some briyani rice, but as with the curry, it's not up to Singapore standards. After all, first attempts are always like that, just like zeroing one's rifle for range! Subsequent attempts will surely be better, =). We still had some papadum (crackers, a lil' like keropok for those who don't know what that is) to go with our curry, all thanks to Kumar!

The finished curry!!!

Look at the spread! Still got papadum sial and briyani rice!!!

Till next time!!!

Drachenburg Schloss

2007-04-06T22:15:00.000+01:00

The next day was a trip to this small town near the city of Bonn - recommended by Dave. It is a small hiking trip to visit a castle named Drachenburg Schloss. This name literally means Dragonrock Castle and it is a very small castle located on top of a small hill.

It was a nice getaway from the cities and all the crowds at the Karnevel for the past few days, to get some fresh air and see some beautiful sceneries. Unfortunately for us, the castle grounds are only open in the summer season, and the worse thing is it is currently under renovation. But despite its small size and the renovation works going on, the view of it from the hill was quite pretty.

From the hill, we could see the part of the great River Rhine that runs through the region, nice ya? Sure beats our good ol' Singapore River, haha. It's real great to stay in such places where escape from the frantic urban life is possible, to see how beautiful the natural environment can be.

Nice view of the River Rhine from the top of the hill

We came across this lush pasture of greenery as we descended from the hill, it was really superb man. How nice would it be if you can stay in such a beautiful place when you retire ya?

Lush greenery at the foot of the hill

Germany Trip - Part 1 - Karnevel in Cologne

2007-04-03T10:36:00.000+01:00

Hey hey, I know updates have been rather slow lately, heh, chill ok? This block of the semester is much busier than my last, I have a 5-day week instead of a 2-day one like last block, =p. Well anyway, this post is part of the series of posts coming up which is related to my trip to Cologne and London. So sit back, relax and get ready your fingers to scroll thru all the photos and posts I am going to put up!

Karnevel in Cologne

This is the start of my week-long trip, also my first trip outside Eindhoven. I'll be going to Cologne to check out the Karnevel held there, which is going to be much larger than that of Eindhoven's. After Cologne we'll be flying over to London where I'll meet up with some of my friends, Duan, Tong, RW, Yong and Jing.

Cologne is quite a big city, of course, that's in comparison to my "fifth largest city of Holland" - Eindhoven. Well that's what I feel, don't know for sure which is the bigger one, haha. But at least Cologne is definitely much more happening than Eindhoven, that I'm definitely sure of. When I stepped out of the Hauptbahnhof (train station), I got rooted to the ground by what I saw man.. There's this HUGE and very beautiful cathedral standing right beside the station. It's real big man, probably like the combined size of 3 cathedrals you can find in Eindhoven, and taller, haha.
It's called the Kölner Dom and it's a real great display of Gothic architecture (except that I'll be seeing hell lots of Gothic-style cathedrals later on in other places till I got a lil' sick of them).

Check out how big it is!!!

We met up with Dave, our kind classmate who kindly put us up for two nights in Cologne and brought us around the city for the main parade. Happened that a few other friends of his also came over to Cologne for the Karnevel and will be staying together in Dave's room as well - meaning we'll have like 5 people squeezed in his room! Haha!

The 3 of us, and the other friends we met

Check this out, all the more high-class shops have set up barriers

to prevent the rowdy crowds from breaking in at night!

Check out the Smurfs Family! and the Smurf gummy sweet too! Yummy!

The parade is real big-scale man, everything is bigger compared to Eindhoven's parade - crowds, floats.. The best part of the parade is that there is gonna be loads of free gifts (chocs, sweets, small soft toys, etc) and they'll be distributed by the participants of the parade, mostly from those huge floats they're on. It's real crazy man, cos according to Dave, there are going to be millions of euros (or near a million?) worth of chocs n sweets to be distributed!!! Haha, Singapore should have a festival like that man, where everyone can really enjoy and take a break! While you may think that we'll definitely display classic Singaporean spirit and prepare ourselves well with bags and stuff to collect the freebies (you're right about that, haha), but you'll be surprised that the ang mohs are even more kiasu than us man! Unbelievable!!! Haha, there're actually people who used baskets and umbrellas hung down from the buildings by the streets to collect the goodies thrown by the parade participants!

People of Cologne seems to dislike those from Dusseldorf ya?

Look closely and you'll know why!

Anyway, after standing around watching the parade and collecting freebies for like 4 hours, we got real tired and adjourned back to Dave's place, for a good ol' German restaurant near there for a sumptous dinner! I shared this meat platter with Jeremy, wow, shiok sial - all kinds of meat, fried mushrooms and wonderful garlic sauce to go together with the meat, =p. Real good stuff man, though I didn't suppose what I ate was traditional German stuff, but heck, it was superb man.

The Kölner Dom at night - from across the River Rhine.

What a beautiful sight!

Next up - Day Trips to Bonn and Aachen!

Carnaval cum Chinese New Year in Eindhoven

2007-03-30T13:30:00.000+01:00

Feb 18..

Chinese New Year's Eve... also the start of the Carnaval Week in Eindhoven, a week-long break filled with celebrations in the whole city - massive parades, non-stop partying by the citizens. We were very onz ok... we actually went to buy some costumes ourselves to get into the mood of the festivities here and the next few days when we go to Cologne in Germany to join in the Karnevel over there.

Check out our costumes! OK... not damn fantastic, but just to make ourselves

look spas enuff so it'll be fun joining in the crowd! Haha!

This Carnaval is great man, the whole city comes to celebrate it, you can see thousands of people on the streets, all dressed up in their costumes to impress. They will be going around town - whole families, including children, parents and grandparents - to party and have fun.

Check out the costumes of these people! S.W.A.T - Seriously Wasted Alcoholic Team --> this dudes, I'm sure they partied from the afternoon till the night, cos I saw them in the afternoon and at night after our reunion dinner when we went out again, I saw the same dudes again! These Dutch are really hardcore party-goers man!

Remember the mobile toilet which I showed in my earlier posts??? See how useful it is during

times like this, when people party all day and need to relieve themselves, haha!

These mobile bars can fill a couple of dozens people in it man, pretty cool stuff.

Gathering of the clowns!

After going around the city following the parade and joining in the fun with the crowds, we made our way back to our apartment to prepare for our Chinese New Year reunion dinner! Reunion of the fellow Singaporeans! OK, I'm sure our reunion dinner can't be compared to what you people have back home, so don't come and hao lian to me... this was good enough for a place like Holland man, haha.

Went back to town to party for a while at the clubs, but we had to go back early, cos

we're going to make our way to Germany tomorrow!

New site for my photos!

2007-03-29T17:37:00.000+01:00

Hey people, sorry for the change, but I've now uploaded my photos at another site, Photobucket.
Click here to go to the site!

¿Habla Español?

2007-03-29T15:21:00.000+01:00

Week 3

School has just started for a week, so far so slack (good for me!) and I have took up a Spanish language course for beginners. Pretty fun man, though I never knew learning a new language at this age can be that troublesome. The teacher just started bombarding us with Spanish at the first lesson, making Jeremy and I always giving each other the "WTF-look". Haha, it is difficult, but it is definitely more fun than taking my core modules. Too bad NUS doesn't have Spanish courses, else I could continue when I go back to Singapore.

A Visit to the PSV Stadion

2007-03-29T13:43:00.000+01:00

Philips Sport Vereeniging!!! Finally a visit to the stadium after being in Eindhoven for 2 weeks. Well, we initially thought that the stadium was opened for free cos of a poster we saw the week b4. But it turned out to be some travel fair instead - what happens when you don't understand their language.. haha! Nonetheless, we went to the travel fair and accessed the lounge and the seats at the viewing gallery! Great view from there, and very comfortable seats as well!

The main gate

A picture with the famous Guus Hiddink (e dude on the left for those who don't know how he looks like - he

was previously the coach for the South Korean team for two World Cups ago)

3 of us at the nice and comfy seats

Pretty wasted that we were not able to go to the stadium grounds itself, to visit the tunnel, the changing room n stuff. Maybe if I go to Spain I'll spend the money to go visit the grounds of Camp Nou, it'll definitely be much more beautiful! Till then!

Holland Ice Sculpture Exhibition!

2007-03-26T16:53:00.000+01:00

K, too excited about the snow that I forgot about the ice sculptures. This visit was quite sometime back actually, back in the first week, oops, forgot to post it up. It’s an exhibition with ice sculptures of the theme on fairy tale characters like Three Little Pigs, Beauty and the Beast, etc. There are some really beautiful sculptures in there. But our visit was brief, cos of the insane low temperatures inside- -8 deg !!! (OK, I’m weak, to those dudes in Scandanavia or the US or Canada, I know you dudes are in colder places, haha). Our fingers were freezing from e overexposure to the cold cos we are trying to take pictures non-stop.

So here are the photos!!!

Logo of the exhibition

Check out my imitation! Good right?

Spot Mr. Big Bad Wolf with his fork n knife!

A magical day of snow

2007-03-12T13:40:00.000+01:00

It finally snowed!!! Woke up one morning to see outside my window finding everything is covered in snow. What a lovely sight!!! Really quite cool to see it live man, rather than on TV screens everytime back in home, haha. I decided to walk to school that day instead, so I could slowly enjoy the sensation of walking in the snow and taking pictures of the beautiful scenery that lay around me.

So here we go!

K, this pic is no snow, but a few days b4 it when the night's

temperature probably went sub-zero, creating this

lovely pattern of frost on this car.

K, now we really begin, haha...

Photos of the street I live in, and my footprints in the snow!

Beautiful scene of the church covered in snow

The most beautiful scenery shot I took in this amazing day

of snow!

It was pretty hard to walk properly in the snow, cos it's damn slippery, but it was really fun! Too bad it only lasted till the afternoon then it stopped, if it carried on for another day or two, I could have built a snowman of my own! How fun would that be man, but it's good enough to at least see a day of snow in my trip here, after hearing so much about this winter being so 'warm' from all the Europeans. Seeing the snow makes me wanna go try skiing man, but seems that it ain't possible for me, unless I got some Barney magic and get a free ski trip in Italy, haha!

Even more photos!!!

2007-03-09T15:10:00.000+01:00

Here's more photos of places and things in Eindhoven, including some of our home-made delicacies!!!

Zhi Yi and Jeremy hard at work here...

Now, you people must be wondering where the hell am I right?

If anyone guessed it is the last picture, the fried rice, you are right!!! Haha, that is the proud "masterpiece" of Jeremy and I. Well well, it seems that we don't have enough XP for our cooking yet... Lucky there was the fried nuts (nasi lemak style) that we added, else we would probably have wasted the meal, haha! But don't worry, the next time you see another pic of our cooking, it will definitely be much much better!!!

A small little pot of flowers I bought from the weekly market to try to grow. Grew pretty quickly, blooming in a week. Look, quite pretty isn't it? Haha... At least there's something to beautify my apartment!!!

Quite a beautiful church, the Catharina. There're really plenty of churches around in Europe man. But so far in Eindhoven, almost all the churches' design look the same man, which gets a little boring after some time, haha.

Next up - Snow in Eindhoven!!!

Photos in Eindhoven

2007-03-08T13:58:00.000+01:00

Hey hey, as promised, here are some pics I have taken during my first week in Eindhoven, mostly of things and buildings around town...

Funny name of a street near the cafeteria I had my first lunch

Touch-sensitive traffic light, cool!

Haha, if only NUS has such pretty buildings as well.

Heh, so far this is all I have, gotta wait for awhile more for my other pics! Meanwhile the rest of the random shots I have taken will soon be uploaded online to some image hosting site to let you people enjoy!

Till next time!

First days in Eindhoven

2007-03-07T13:53:00.000+01:00

These first few days were a nightmarish start to my exchange man, we thought we could settle our apartment in a day, but after lugging all our luggage around town to the stupid rental agency, we realised we have to wait for a few days before we can get the apartment. Then through the agency people we found some relatively cheap place to stay for the night (25 euros a night), but it was on the other side of town. Damn! Imagine we have to drag our 30kg or more worth of luggage plus our backpack around town! That place was pretty crappy to stay too, but at least we have some place to put our luggage finally.

Well, seems that luck was not on our side, cos after the agency found an apartment for us after 2 days, that agent screwed things up for us by telling us last minute that we need some documents from our parents! WTF!!! So we ended up having to stay at another hotel for the night cos the initial place was already fully booked. To celebrate our "getting our apartment finally", we ate at this Chinese fastfood restaurant called WokAway. Apparently many Chinese dishes in Holland are called Wok-something, maybe cos only the Chinese people uses woks to cook.

It was until Thursday afternoon that we managed to get our apartment, which is at the edge of the city. It was a beautiful and quite a spacious apartment for the three of us, though costing us a bomb, at around 766 SGD per person per month. Cui!!! At least we finally have a place to call as home for the next 6 months!

More photos of Eindhoven city and our cosy apartment in the next post!!!

Yeah, finally my first post after a month!!!

2007-03-02T15:37:00.000+01:00

Hey peepz, finally, after a month-long worth of slacking and procastination, I've managed to put up this blog to record my exploits in Europe!!! It's the long awaited "Chronicles of Zhen Yuan" !!! Haha!

Kk, enough of crapping, lets move on to my exploits so far for the past one month that I've been here!