Friday, September 21, 2007

OK a break from the photos and updating of travel tales.. Back to normal posting for once..

不知不觉, I'm already nearing the end of my 6th week in Europe. And like what they all say, the first week is always the most difficult. My first week in Europe was in Edinburgh, and I was having difficulty adjusting to the weather and the exchange rate. My first week in Rouen, and I was having difficulty adjusting to the weather, and to the food I eat.

To me, a meal is a meal, and I live on 2 or 3 proper meals a day. I don't snack, I seldom do supper and sandwich is not considered a meal (haha) other than for breakfast. Over here, sandwich is a perfectly normal meal. In fact, it's a staple. Which is quite jialat for me. I eat a sandwich (doesn't help that I'm not a very big fan of bread) and I get hungry after 2 or 3 hours but it's just not in me to snack, so I'm perpetually hungry. But now ok la, I'm used to it. Sandwiches are like my best friend.

In a way, the way I'm eating is changing. But I'm not sure if I want it to change. Some aspects of my lifestyle are changing, but I'm not sure if I want them to change either.

On a sidenote, today in Entrepreneurship class, we mentioned briefly about internal and external locus of control. Like, entrepreneurs generally have an internal locus of control. I used to think that I am rather easily influenced by my environment and the people around me. But maybe deep down, I'm not as easily influenced as I believed.


That said though, I'm adapting. For one, we are starting to cook more for dinner so the food aspect's improving =)))
Shall post pictures of what we've been cooking when I get them, but for now, besides pasta, and the sweet n sour pork and roasted chicken that Desmond very kindly cooked for us, we tried cooking curry chicken and today, fried beehoon with potato carrot onion soup. Yums! Today's one was totally cooked from scratch, so it was extra good!

I'm also adapting to the weather I think. Like now, it's 11.11pm and I'm sitting in my room in a tank top and shorts with the windows open, with the temperature at about 10-12 degrees celcius. I think previously, I would have closed the windows, worn long sleeves and long pants and still be shivering hahaha.


So.. 6 weeks in, and if someone asks me what's the 1 reason why he/she should go on an exchange, I think it would be this: to be independent for once (I am discounting the financial independence for now cos let's face it, we are still students after all haha).

Within your budget, u have to decide what you want to do, where u want to go, how u are going to get there, where u are going to stay, what do u want to do there. Travelling aside, u have to settle your 3 meals yourself, there's no home-cooked food to go home to, there's no one else to talk to after you part with your friends. U decide when u want to change your own bedsheets, to clean the floor, to clean your toilet, how often you want to wash your clothes. It sounds trivial, but when all the changes happen at the same time, it can be quite daunting.

I guess I had a softer way to adapt to all these changes in the sense that I don't have to face them all at once: travelling in the UK, I didn't have my own room so I didn't have to think about room cleanliness and of stocking enough food for a week; just the laundry and the meals.

And after 3 weeks of living in hostels, I was positively elated to get my own room so I have absolutely no complaints about keeping it clean and stuff like that. It's so great to have my own room!

hmmm I wonder what my response to the "reason to go on an exchange" be like another 6 weeks later. Then, I will be halfway into my exchange!


Anyway, I'm fully packed for the next few weekends, so pardon the sporadic updates. I'll try to write as much as I can, as often as I can take it.

Cos pardon me, lately I'm not in the best of moods. As in, I'm not unhappy nor in a bad mood, just not as happy as the first month I guess. Maybe this is the process of settling in, of getting used to a new lifestyle and establishing a new routine. The euphoria of being in a new country wears off I guess? I'm still fine, don't worry!
Though Jeremy commented that I sound moodless on msn. Haha! But then again, I don't have much moods or mood swings to begin with. Or maybe it's just that my moods don't surface much anyways.


To everyone back in SG, I miss u all a lot!! Really, I can be happy, having fun and enjoying my travels here, but I miss everyone all the same!

Dad, Mum and Bro, miss u all tons. I know you guys probably can't make it this December, and u all miss me tons too, but hey, I'm already 1/4 through my exchange, and I'll be back home before u know it. Till then, I'll be looking forward to my revamped room!

Bain, Yvonne, Kelvina, Hongyi, miss u all lots too. Actually, you all know you're always missed, I don't have to say too much right? Bainie, don't slog too hard at work. Yv, kel and hy, don't mug too hard (although I'm sure you will still mug hard)! Yv especially, have fun with AFA AA AT.. and rem to pass your notes to me next term heh heh!

Edwin the bo xim, miss u too. We are friends for too long for me not to miss you la. I'm most prob taking Spanish here too so haha, maybe next time we can converse in some basic Spanish. And stop bragging about Arsenal being top of the table now, it won't last for long.

My fave ppl in school, my gang of 5 - Edmund, Ray, LN, Anna.. Life's will be just swell if u guys (and girl) are here! I can always picture us chilling together, and the 3 ah peks hitting the clubs once again hahaha.

Pearlyn, glad to know that u're adapting much better to life at Emory. I'm actually damn proud you, and of the fact that you are roughing it out alone there.

Jeremy Soh, yes u're in this list too. I told u I miss the familiarity of our y3t2 live, and the one good thing about you being on exchange in Copenhagen is that we are still in the same time zone. Which means we can still chat on msn (unlike Edmund who complains that I msg him at weird hours).

Leonard, u're part of the familiarity of our y3t2 life too, and u are missed too. Hopefully, can meet up and travel with you (and of cos keith, john and junqi) in December!


OK i actually spent quite some time writing that list of misses, so you all better appreciate it ah hahaa!


So ya, I'll be away to Lyon, Burgundy and back to Paris (bo bian, it's difficult to resist a stop in Paris) this weekend. I'll update with a list of places I'll be going over the next few weekends soon hopefully.
Ahh well in the words of Darly Daryl, I'm becoming the exchange student that we all hate - I'm never in during the weekends haha!


Anyway, I have my pfingo account to make free outgoing calls using my laptop, so if you have free incoming calls (starhub confirm have), drop me a note, and we can talk!


Till the next time!


------ Monday, September 17, 2007

Edinburgh 16 Aug - 21 Aug



We went to Edinburgh just in time for the Edinburgh Festival. Poor students as we are, we targeted more of the fringe events. And anyway, it's the fringe events that attract a more partisan crowd.


professional street performers dancing to african music


We only watched a couple of shows, our first one being this theatre piece called "Dearly Deported", about a 4th-generation citizen who finds himself about to be deported due to (supposedly) a mistake on the govt's part. It was interesting enough, just about worth the 4.25pounds (thats around S$13) we paid for it at the half-price hut. The play started out interestingly enough, criticising the government and all the bureaucratic red tape, though it eventually did end with a too-often said message of "follow your heart, you don't have to please the 95% of people who don't like u, just the 5% who do".

The venue of the play was at this place called the Underbelly, a series of venues located beneath bridges.

Ours was at Baby Belly 1.

The half price hut is one place we visit repeatedly cos it sells half-price tickets for selected shows on different shows. U can really get a good deal there.

Next up was this satire called "Jeremy Boutsakis - Thought Leader: A Conference for Sole Traders". Personally, I found it rather funny! It's a satire on conferences, and it makes fun of corporate seminars and comes complete with silly ice-breakers, endless (and needless) powerpoints and plenty of graphs. I thought it was pretty wicked, but the meaning of the satire was lost to at least 2 people around me who apparently, didn't realise that this was a satire.

In between checking out the half price hut and going for shows, we mainly hung out at High Street, where the whole area was closed to traffic to accommodate the plethora of buskers. From juggling with fire and knives, balancing on ladders, magic tricks, escaping from strait jackets and even scottish music, you name it, it's on show. It's entertaining, the crowd is usually pretty good and best of all, it's free!


american performers juggling knives


celtic music being played to an appreciative crowd


this acrobatic dance was very good actually, very gracefully done.


Actually, before flying to UK, we couldn't manage to get accommodation in Edinburgh for all the nights. On our 3rd night there, we actually only had accommodation for 1 person. So what we did was we hung out till late on the streets, then at 3am, went back to our hostel and camped out in the TV room. The security back at the hostel wasn't exactly the best then heh.

That 3rd night, it had been raining the whole day and night and it was positively freezing.


u can vaguely see Edinburgh castle in the background


the assembly halls.. it's too cold to even take a picture properly without shivering!


but despite the cold and rain, look at the vast number of people waiting to go for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo festival! It's a yearly event where the military bands of a lot of countries come together to perform..

To escape the rain, we went into this warm-looking pub called "The Scotman's Lounge", with no idea what it's going to be like inside. Turns out we made a pretty good choice to enter, cos it was a locals' pub, and it had a 2-person live band playing to traditional Scottish and Celtic tunes. It was excellent, the beer was at an ok price, and the people were warm and friendly.


the violin is not the traditional classical violin, it's the traditional Celtic one i suppose (celtic is the collective word for scottish and irish).the violinist is very very good, his fingers move so quickly that it was a blur watching him man.


Happy from the high we had at the Scotman's Lounge, we headed to the 2nd part of our night - this late night fringe event called "The Midnight Carousel". It's supposed to be cabaret-style, but it bombed totally. It was weak and not entertaining at all. The 2 crowds of people who found it funny were drunk. Seriously. Cos I saw some people dozing off.

We headed for our hostel after that and camped out at the TV room. 1 hit and 1 miss for the day - not too bad I suppose.


We went to climb Calton Hill next, and the view from the top is Fantastic.


We can see the town below, and the famous Arthur's Seat opposite us (but not captured in this photo).


a tiny part of Arthur's Seat here in this photo..


another stunning view..


and an unknown structure!

We also visited Mary King's Close, which was an old street below modern day Edinburgh's Chamber Street.


In olden times, the structure of Edinburgh was like a fish: the castle is at the top of the hill, and there is a main street down the hill and there are many tiny streets branching out from the main street. These tiny streets are called "closes". Over time as Edinburgh developed, some of the closes were flattened to give way to the new Edinburgh, but some were simply built over, and Mary King's Close was 1 of those built-overs well-preserved enough to be open to the public. So we went undergound and took a tour of how Edinburgh was like for the poor in the 13th to 15th century. Life was tough, human waste flowed freely and openly down the streets and people were always dying of plagues. Mary King's Close is supposedly rather haunted, thou I'm sure u can see my friend sitting beside me in the picture. Overall, it was n unique experience, and 1 that I will recommend if you do go to Edinburgh.

We also managed to other Edinburgh attractions although (a pity for me), we didn't have time for the Edinburgh castle. Oh well, it was expensive to enter anyways. haha. We did manage to go for a free walking tour.


The guy in white tshirt was our tour guide.

It was a free tour by Sandemans, and we were lucky to get a really good guide. He told us a lot on Edinburgh's history and interesting stories, and it was an extremely enjoyable 3-hour walk.


This is now carpark lot number 23, but the small wooden plate is evidence of the burial site for John Knox, the Scottish religious reformer who took the lead in reforming the Church in Scotland. The actual plague and elaborate tribute is locked inside the church next to this carpark and the only reason why they did not build an elaborate monument to him in public is for fear of vandalism!


look at this fake entrance, it was part of a deterrence to thieves. In the olden times, bootmakers were rich people, and the thieves and burglars always targeted them for their wealth. So sick were the bootmakers of being robbed that they employed stonemasons to build fake entrances and also, modify the staircases to their house. The steps became uneven and the burglars would trip over the steps, thus alerting the bootmakers to their presence. Ingenious! Out with CCTVs!


Edinburgh Castle behind me. Which we didn't go cos we didn't really have the time, and the entrance to the castle is apparently quite x. If I do get the chance to go back to Edinburgh though, I will want to visit the castle. After all, it was the center of the Old Edinburgh.


This plague is near the Edinburgh castle, and it marks the remembrance of Edinburgh's history of inequality of the sexes. Women were often accused of practising witchcraft, and these women were burnt at the stake, or drowned in the river. The signs that mark them as witches can range from odd behaviour, to owning black cats. When brought to the river, they will be asked if they are witches. If they say "no", they will be accused of going against the church and drowned. If they say "yes", they will be given a chance: thrown into the river and if they did not die after a period of time, they can be saved. But Edinburgh river in the olden days was extremely polluted (all the human waste and other undesirable stuffs that flowed thru the streets eventually ended up there). It was purely an act of discrimination against women in the olden society.

The plague read:
"This fountain designed by John Duncan, R.S.A., is near the site on which many witches were burned at the stake. The wicked head and serene head signify that some used their exceptional knowledge for evil purposes while others were misunderstood and wished their kind nothing but good. The serpent has the dual significance of evil and of wisdom. The foxglove spray further emphasises the dual purpose of many common objects".

Note that it was never said that witch burning was wrong and discriminatory!


This graveyard was a memorial to the many prisoners who were locked up there throughout Edinburgh's history, during the various uprisings, fights for freedom and things like that. The exact story, I can't really remember, but I just thought that this picture is very nice. I guess with such an open picture, u are free to interpret the picture as u like it, but I like to think that the young man in the photo is sitting by a loved one's grave (maybe his parents, or family) and reading to them. Absolutely lovely picture.


We then caught a music performance, which turned out to be the best show we got to watch in Edinburgh. It was called "Binari - The Spirit of the Beat" and it was performed by a group of South Koreans, and they were Excellent with the capital E. The beats were awesome and extremely well-executed, and they interacted with the crowd really well. Every single person in the crowd enjoyed themselves, I really can't see anyone who didn't!


the performance


a group picture with the performers!


On our last day in Edinburgh, we took a day trip to one of Scotland's many highlands - Loch Lomond. The bus driver-guide kinda sucked and bombed with many of his exceedingly lame jokes and his thick accent, but the view of the Loch (lake in Gaellic) was pretty nice.


a nice view of Scotland's Midlands from the Loch.


on board the cruise (which has nice views but wasn't too interesting actually)

On board the cruise of Loch Lomond, there were even some pipers who performed at the Edinburgh Tattoo Festival and they put up an impromptu performance with their bagpipes. Way cool.


the bagpipers

On our way, we also passed by Stirling castle. And yes, u are finding it familiar because of a certain William Wallace. The very same one from the movie "Braveheart". If you remember the gist of Braveheart (though expectedly, some parts of the movie are inaccurate), William Wallace is the patriot who led Scotland's fight against England's during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 13th century.

And this is a view of the meandering Loch, which I thought will be a nice picture if not for the fact that it was taken through a bus window.




6 days in Edinburgh passed by really really quickly, and there are still a lot of things we didn't get to do. I'd definitely go back to Edinburgh sometime in the future if I get the chance again. Though I suspect my parents won't like it too much cos the streets are uneven and very slopy (a lot of slopes), and the weather is very cold, even in the end of summer. I couldn't adjust to the weather initially, constantly freezing my ass off just walking on the streets. I couldn't get used to the exchange rate too, keep multiplying all the prices by 3 and lamenting on how expensive everything is. But towards the end of the week, I'd slowly adjusted to the weather, the cost of living, having to share a room with 4 other strangers, and seeing people walk around naked in the showers. It was quite an eye-opener actually.

From Edinburgh, we caught a budget air flight to Dublin, where we'd spend the next 4 days...

But before I go, 3 more things I'd like to share!


People in Edinburgh are really friendly. For example, when u ask someone to help u take a photo, it is likely that they will stop and chat with you. OK granted, it is the older people who tend to do that more. like the old man who helped us take this photo. He's Scot but turns out that he has worked in Singapore (oil rig engineering if I never remember wrongly) and he usually stayed at the Orchard Parade Hotel. What a small world eh.

And if you are as big a Harry Potter fan as I am, you will surely know that JK Rowling wrote the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in a cafe in Edinburgh...


Voila! Elephant House, where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series!!!

And finally, we know that the kilt is like the national Scottish costume, but little do I realise that Scottish people wear the kilt like it's perfectly normal wear.. check this out!

youngsters wearing the kilt out on the streets..


Alright that's it for now, the Dublin trip next hopefully!


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finally blogging again!

went to paris over the weekend, and it was pretty fun! We were rather touristy the first few days, went to do some shopping, went to the louvre, eiffel tower and even out to versailles..



the famous glass pyramids of the louvre!


the inverted pyramid where the holy grail is supposedly hidden in dan brown's "the da vinci code"


MONA LISA!
look how tiny the portrait is! there were just throngs and throngs of people hanging around the portrait, all waiting to take a picture of the mona lisa (called la joconde at the louvre)!


the gardens at versailles palace. this is only 1 side of the palace man.


look how huge the gardens are..

wooohoooo eiffel tower up close!!


huiting and i jumping at the eiffel tower!


the beautiful notre dame cathedral..



and heh heh, jumping in front of the notre dame cathedral.

we also met up with charles and crashed at his place for 2 nights. i never knew he was such a great cook!

here he is, making the cake mix..


and here's the cake! flourless chocolate cake yummy!!

we also met up with desmond (the singaporean fren studying full time in rouen) and 3 other friends in paris and on saturday night, all 7 of us plus charles and his friend went back to charles' place and had a huge cook in.. we had penne with homemade pasta sauce (we really made it from scratch), quiche and choc cake, and we cleared abt 4 bottles of wine i think?
the pictures are with huiting, who's still in paris. i'll put up pictures when she gets back to rouen tmr..



and now, a little slice of life in rouen..


we had a welcome buffet lunch on our 3rd or 4th day in rouen, and after lunch, we were in a good mood to jump. heh heh! so that's huiying, huiting, yingwen and me jumping on the school grounds. so we got the marcus and chris to take a shot of us.
and yeps, the abundance of trees and greenery is part of my school grounds. in front of us is the building called "castle", and it sort of does resemble a mini castle.


this winding path through the forest is a shortcut from the school grounds to my hostel. there are lots of flies but they don't bother u, they just buzz away. it just gets a bit scary at night cos it's totally dark and very much colder cos it's forested. and if you stray from the correct main path, who knows where u'll end up oooh.


i'm staying on the 4ème étage of my hostel, which is actually level 5 cos here, they start with level 0. and my level has a good mix of nationalities, from british, polish, morrocan, mexican, chinese and of cos, singaporean. on nites when the internet access is down, we will gather in the corridor, someone will eventually produce a guitar and start singing. quite a nice atmosphere usually. i've only joined them once thou, cos i'm mostly not around haha.


we had a cross cultural seminar last monday to wednesday, and my group's topic was "should UNESCO implement a worldwide cultural policy?" it was pretty alright i guess, but i really can't be bothered to do the essay on cross cultural issues cos it's totally not graded for me at all. i'm at the seminar out of interest and i'm not gonna take the cross cultural issues module so ya, needless to say, i didn't hand in the essay at all.

nonetheless, i joined in the project process, and here is my class, preparing for the final presentation in the auditorium.


and here is yoann, my partner during the project. my group had 8 people: 5 french, 1 singaporean, 1 american and 1 mexican.

and happy hour at the foyer (basement of a building in our school)!

the beer is at 50cents euro per bottle only. small bottle la, but still, it's decent for drinks with friends. here in the photo are the argentinian and brazilian girls..


and lastly, a nice view of downtown rouen at night. my school is on mont saint aignan (or in english, mount st. aignan) so we get good views of downtown from certain areas on mt st aignan.


alrights that's it for now... just thought i'd update the most recent ones soon, will put up posts from the edinburgh, dublin and london trip soon i hope.


------ Wednesday, September 05, 2007

finally settled in to my hostel at rouen and got the hostel internet access. it costs me 18euros per month and has a limit of 8gb of downloads and uploads. guess i'll be downloading my drama fix in class then heh.

anyway it's 2.20am now and i have an early morning briefing session later at 9.30am but i'm still waiting for my hair to dry before i go to sleep. yeps no hairdryer here (and don't intend to buy 1).

and yeps, i just showered. cos i just got back from a "party" thingy not too long ago. mainly international students there, at this pub called "Underground". named after the london tube, and all the names of the cocktails are names of stations on the london tube. i had a "westminster", which was a concoction of whiskey, vodka, and 2 other alcohols that i can't remember. quite strong actually.

after yingwen, huiting, marcus and chris left, huiying and i bumped into this girl who happened to be staying a few doors down from me. we went downstairs (hence, underground) and there was actually karaoke down there. the ang moh version i suppose. got to talk to this spanish guy, who introduced us to a whole bunch of other people, including this very nice group of girls from Argentina and Mexico. we hung around till about 1am, it was quite nice. we even talked abt going to paris together over a weekend. ooh can't wait.

proudest achievement today: went carrefour to shop for food, toiletries and necessities in the morning (mad rush buying everything in 1 hour, like amazing race like that) and i talked to the cashier in french (or rather, broken french). not bad, we understood each other!

it's kinda disconcerting actually, still adjusting to the fact that EVERYTHING is in french, with no english translation. things like buying a sandwich becomes tougher cos u have no idea what's in the sandwich. and most people really don't speak english at all. i dunoe abt paris itself, but at least here in rouen, u gotta know at least some french to get around easier. ah well it's good for learning french at least.

alrite it's 2.30am and i will go to sleep now. will post photos and blog more abt our 3-week tour of UK when i have more time!


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