Soundtrack to my Scandinavia Adventure

Disclaimer: The music I am about to put up here may not be very good, but I'm sharing these because they remind me of various portions of my trip to Scandinavia, and it's nice to keep the memories.

Alexander Rybak - Fairytale

Alexander Rybak from Oslo won the Eurovision 2009 with this folksy-pop song called Fairytale. Our prof showed us this video in class just before we left for the trip and it already left a bit of an impression on me. He's pretty huge in Scandinavia. I saw his posters everywhere in shopping malls and music stores...and heard the instantly recognisable Fairytale in many places. Personally, I prefer his other songs, like Kiss and Tell or Funny Little World.

Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love

Ciccy and I got a big kick out of singing and gesturing this song during our ride on the Flam railway. I went a bit ballistic when I heard this song on the radio while grocery shopping in the supermarket at Geilo (Yay-low), and then again while buying non-fat yoghurt ice-cream at a 7-11 store in Bergen.

The Rasmus - In the Shadows

This song is on the list because of Rifai's amazing story about how his friend went to a Rasmus concert in KL. (The Rasmus is Finnish). She had front row tickets...one thing led to the next...and somehow she managed to hook up with the lead guitarist. 6 months later, his friend got married to the band member and had a baby. This ALL happens while she's still in uni...It IS possible to marry a rockstar. Haha.

Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl

This song is here because the American guy, who we bumped into at the Stockholm hostel AND the Helsinki hostel kept humming this song. 3 days after returning home, the song is STILL stuck in my head. (One thing I've learnt thru staying at the hostels is that you can ALWAYS recognise an American just by the sheer amount of noise he/she makes. Americans are loud and obnoxious.)

Random Country Music

They played some good ol' American country music at the ultra-hip and funk Beyond Retro at Stockholm's Södermalm district (one of my favourite places for this trip). 

Village People - Y.M.C.A.

Karaoke Hour at Tallink Silja's Club Bali. It was painful.

LFO - Summer Girls

This song came up on my playlist during one of the long bus rides (i think it was the 3 hour ride from Heddal Stave Church to the mountain cabin on Geilo. Christine went into a fit when she heard this.

Edit: I was just wiki-ing the band LFO and saw this...

On June 3, 2009, LFO posted a blog entitled "LFO IS BACK" on their official MySpace page which announced that they have reunited and are going on tour starting on July 9, 2009, with Rookie of the Year, Go Crash Audio, and Kiernan McMullan.^[4] At the moment, they only have east-coast tour dates, but they are working on getting to the west-coast too. A new song was posted in a bulletin called Summer Of My Life.

Like wtf? 

HELLO FROM COPENHAGEN

HELLO WORLD!! I am typing this from a hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark! Managed to rig my laptop up to the internet using the LAN cable and decided to just say hi to all you guys in Singapore. It's currently pretty late, 12:43am...so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. After loading the pictures, I still have to go do my journal for the BSM. It's graded!!

Offshore wind turbines from Vestas that we saw from the window of our descending plane.

Little cities in Lego Land, built entirely out of lego bricks!

Beautiful bright flowers from Lego Land!

Open sandwiches at Lego's Headquarters. It's ALOT longer than it appears in this picture. There's fruits, veggies, eggs, caviar, shrimp, tomatoes and all kinds of interesting things on the sandwich.

We were also fed with these heavenly cinnamon rolls! 

Scandinavian home with a huuuuge lawn. They have a trampoline!!

My favourite picture from today. I took a photo of a huge dandelion I saw when our bus to Copenhagen stopped by a  roadside area for a toilet break.

This duck has a green head with a white stripe around his neck! Just like in the illustrated storybooks!

A hot air balloon built entirely out of lego bricks!

Anyway, just decided to blog a little since I have free wifi at this hotel. My roommates are all asleep already, but I'm staying up for another hour or so to catch Adam Lambert streaming live on the internet. I'm can't wait to visit hippie town Christiana tomorrow! Yay!

YOU'RE AWESOME!!!

Short advertisement for Sentio - a charity dance concert...It's on 8th and 9th June, 7pm. At republic poly. All kinds of dances performed by highly accredited SYF dance groups, danceworkz champions, LADC, NUS BLAST! (and me!) This is for thee bone marrow donor programme ( www.bmdp.org)

Personally, I'd like to see the first student-organised FOR-profit dance concert. Are those not fashionable or something?

Tickets are going for

$50, $30, $15 for the Opening Night (8th June)

$100 (priority ticket holders), $50, $25 for the Gala Night (9th June) with guest-of-honour and a private reception for priority ticket holders

Anyways, dance aside, I'm back from my 'business trip' to KL. Haven't been to KL since primary school, and I didn't happen to miss it much either. It's really just a replica of singapore, except a couple of years behind. Since we went with mommy, the main agenda was shopping. We explored KLCC and Midvalley. Whatever you can find in Singapore, you can also find there, at the same price too. KL DOES have a couple more things that I haven't seen around here, like lots of juicebars (funky branded juicebars like MIX in Singapore, except less expensive) (not the FoodJunction-type of juice bar, lol). They also have more branded stalls selling kuehs. Nice kuehs :)

My mom and Jas spent a fortune at Lillian Too's World of Feng Shui, haha. I swear, we spent nearly 3 hours in there. So while they were picking out their fengshui jewelry for abundance and goodluck and whatnot, I watched a hilarious video of Lillian Too trying to explain what someone with a weak Metal should do in the South-east corner of his house to enhance his lovelife. And there was this Q&A part in the video where the audience could ask questions. This guy stood up and asked, "So what happens if you figure out that fengshui elements-wise you're married to the absolute wrong woman?" I can't remember how they replied but they were pretty tactful. I usually quite okay with Fengshui, I just don't like the way Lillian Too conducts her business. Too focussed on generating wealth, and telling them that everything in the lives is horribly misaligned. And whoever makes money by writing books to tell people to buy her own things (eg. fengshui figurines), is a very cunning person. After the video, I browsed the instore library reading books about Qi Gong, I Ching, and Buddhism. I think the Lillian Too's version of Fengshui contradicts the basic philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism, but whatever, I'm talking too much.

Mommy met up with a couple of old colleagues, and I managed to practise my Malaysian chinese :D. Nice. Overall, it was a nice trip. I even got to watch Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, Spiderman, So you think you can dance (KL), a lost episode of The OC Season 3, and relentless re-runs of Cho Seung Hui's 'manifesto'. oooooo DRAMA! My only grouse is that I couldn't have internet access for 3 whole days. NO MINERVA!! Minerva has become my weed these days:p Also, I had to put up with auntie-chatter about stuff like how it's great to buy bread at Rotiboy in KL. Because some sausage bun thing is only 1.50 RM in KL. But in Singapore it's S$1+. And the worst is JB, coz the buns there are even more expensive than in Singapore, in their attempt to trick Singaporeans, who think that everything in JB is cheaper than in Singapore. But of course, my aunties will never be fooled, and I have been graciously enlightened.

Here are some pictures of the KL cityscape.

A random thing that happened during the trip include, my celebrity sighting of mtv vj denise keller and colby...forgot his last name. Also, there was a car that overturned while driving right next to us. I also saw A&W, and Saint Cinnamon, which are now extinct in Singapore. I didn't really manage to shop much. Got a couple of shirts, pants, and a book. LOL. I couldn't have bought these in Singapore huh!

At the end of the trip I had to put up, yet again, with auntie-chatter about the KL airport. They were pretty furious that KL's was named the best airport in the world and were pretty sure that Singapore's is way better than KL's. Started complaining about how the KL airport was too big, and that there's too much walking to do. About how 'un-happening' the departure hall was (meaning, not much shopping to do). Even though, I nodded in agreement, I secretly preferred KL's airport. Haha. I love the high ceilings and glass walls, and the whole open-concept, airport-in-a-forest aspect of it. Singapore's seems quite claustrophobic in comparison, with its low ceilings, dark walls and never-ending rows of stores.

For now, I'll just check Minerva one last time...

catching up

You guys must must must try this! It's Godiva's Chocolate-dipped Pirouettes and it's really very nice. Although it's looks thin and crumbly, the biscuit is actually harder and crisper than it looks. And sweeter. Yet it still retains that buttery goodness. It's really fantastic because I actually can't decide which is nicer, the chocolate or the biscuit, which is a very rare occurence indeed, haha.

Anyway, we have a new fridge upstairs, and it's terrible. Snacking is so much easier now! Before we got this, it was alright because I'm always too lazy to go downstairs to look for food. But now, the chocolate pirouettes are just a corridor away >.<

Okay, now for the very overdue updates. First up, food from patty's birthday dinner at equinox. Food wasn't too bad, had a funny waiter and loud comments from Maddy about the food/place/service just as the waiter walked by. Food was a very Asian though, wasn't expecting it. My brother said it's always been like that. Well, was my first time there.


Okay, let's see if I remember what's in this: Rockmelon, honey figs, asparagus, rocket leaves and parma ham with orange conserve. This was pretty good, other than the conserve which tasted alright but really looked like soy sauce.


Some tomyam tasting (but without the spiciness) soup. Was alright I guess.


Foie gras with honey cake and kumquats(?). The foie gras tasted alright, just that I couldn't stop thinking about how it was liver and bloody. I'm probably never ever going to eat one again =/ the honey cake was nice too, as were the orange peel/kumquats.


Main course! Wagyu beef with mushrooms and choy sum. And they had thin slices of fried lotus on top, quite pretty. This dish was good, I liked it a lot =) Although it mostly tasted like the mushrooms, choy sum plus gravy dish that you get at chinese dinners, haha. Think the other alternative main course was some fish dish, can't really remember.


Next is dessert, which I don't have a good picture of. Chocolate bar with mint ice cream. Chocolate cake was really good and rich, the sort I like, but cannot always finish, haha. Loved the crunchy biscuit layer at the bottom and the absence of sponge cake, it was so sad that I couldn't finish it, not after all the food before =(


Okay, next, Hainan Island! Not gonna show much pictures, just the more interesting things. Cos well, there weren't many pretty things at all =p


We stopped at a restaurant for lunch on the first day. This is how they serve their rice! Cute right? It's lor mai kai-sized, so quite small. You need about two bowls each, maybe more for guys. But it's cool, because they cook the rice in those individual claypots, not scoop it over when it's cooked. Not sure if it actually tastes better, but it was cute, haha.


A sign in the hotel bathroom. 'Natural spring water please don't be drunk usefulness'. This is the hotel we stayed in in the city.


This is called a san jiao mao (3 legged cat), because it has 3 wheels, which makes for dangerous driving. Our transport from the hotel to the village. It's usually used to transport goods, not people, but that doesn't stop anybody. It's terribly bumpy, and apparently it used to be worse cos there weren't those wooden benches to sit on, but metal poles. Talk about numb butt O_O Okay, but what's truly special about this vehicle is not it's red-blue-white-auntie-plastic-bag roof, but the fact that it runs on a lawnmower engine! And believe me, it feels and sounds exactly like you're riding on a lawnmower! Fancy that! These chinese are pretty ingenious, I'm impressed. Oh, and because the road to the village is mostly clay (we can't take the highway cos the lawnmower's too slow), the dust cloud is incredible! It's about 2 storeys high, and blurs the road so much I'm surprised the motorists don't all die of suffocation. Didn't get a good picture, but it actually is quite pretty, in the stark way.


Elena's horrifying angkukueh-turtle thing. She actually ate it.


One of the estates in the city. Looks like how I imagine hongkong to look like, haha. The photo on the left reminded me of Kungfu Hustle! Most of the city is like this though. The village is even more rundown, haha, but looks more like china.


Oh yeah, had tea at Royal Copenhagen in Takashimaya with Maddy recently, think she has the pictures. The cakes are alright, scones not so much. Overpriced though, so I wouldn't particularly recommend it. Maybe the food is good, but as far as tea goes, there are better places.

Okay that's it for now, time for another biscuit =D