All the way to the final Man U!

It's been more than a month since I have updated this...mainly due to the Easter Holiday trip from 1st to 18th of April and the catching up of work after such a long break, especially Swedish, which exam is on the 16th of May, and the Computer Graphics project, which deadline latest is on the 26th of May...so chiong chiong chiong!

I have been watching more soccer than before, especially Champions League, because the significantly less time difference means I do not have to get up at ungodly hours to catch it. Most of the matches shown here feature Barcelona (>75% of matches, I do not know why) and this has helped turn me into a mini Barcelona fan as well (their free-flowing football is a delight to watch). This phenomenon is also helped by the fact that I have a Catalonia neighbour who is a Barcelona fan and who never fails to remind me when there is Barca on TV. But anyhow I am a Man U fan through and through and I believe they can be the first team to retain the new format Champions League. But of course, they will first have to close out the match against a currently resurgent Arsenal, and the result is anything but a foregone conclusion.

 All the way to the final tonight Manchester U!

Life fast forwarded one hour

Yesterday, my life was fast forwarded one hour. No, it is not some deep philosophical awakening, but just due to a human initiative which they called daylight saving. Apparently most Europeans have it, it is just Asians like us living in tropical countries who have never heard of such a thing.

It is a simple thing where the time is just fast forwarded by 1 hour. So if it was 2am now, it just suddenly becomes 3am and suddenly you are sleeping one hour less.

This phenomenon called Day Light Saving or DST for short, is the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight. It is also supposed to save street lighting power.

Well at least DST means that Spring is officially here. No more snow please!

Stockholm Recap 8/2 - 10/2 Part 2

Our first stop in Stockholm Central was to visit the famous Gamla Stan (Old Town) where the royal residences and the parade square resides. Just nice we made it at 12 to see the Change of Parade which takes place every Saturday...

Some Observations of the change of parade:

1) I think they do not demand a high level of marching. It was in sync, but the movements were not sharp.

2) Do they have different uniforms for different seasons?

3) They do not have to stand very still when on guard, unlike the British

Stockholm Recap 8/2 - 10/2 Part 1

This was our first trip out if Linköping in Sweden...And where better to go than to go to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden? We can't tell people we have been to Sweden without being to Stockholm!

We first went to the hostel to deposit our stuff...It was a simple hostel at S$35/night...one of the more affordable hostels in Stockholm...The bad thing was we had to take the Pendeltåg or underground train to and from Stockholm City Central...and each train ride was $4 (for a 10 minute ride)!! Sheesh...Next time we know to book hostels right in the city centre...

So after depositing our bags, we were off to Stockholm Central...

Continued in Part 2...

Off to Copenhagen 17/3-22/3

Now that exams are over, we will be visiting Copenhagen and Malmö and Göteborg until the weekend. I will do my best to post all photos that I haven posted when I am back (a lot...*sigh*).

Chinese New Year Dinner Part 2

After the dinner:

Soaking in New Year atmosphere by posing with the mascot of the Year (I don't know where the cow came from actually):

And well, after dinner, it was time to engage in some exercise to help digest the food...and what better exercise to do that than "干泳"! However, the stakes were pineapple tarts (brought by Yee Pei) instead of money. 1 "tai" = 1 pineapple tart. And those who "放炮" have to eat the remaining bak kut teh that we couldn't finish. It was super fun. A Great Chinese New Year outside of Singapore!

Chinese New Year Dinner Part 1

Here are photos from Chinese New Year Dinner...

And our uber-duper sumptuous dinner:

Yeah man, this was the best dinner I have had here! :)

End of Exams...Almost

Two exam papers have already past...including the extremely exhausting TSBB12 Computer Vision Theory...Just one more paper on 16th March and it is off to Copenhagen on the 17th!

Meanwhile, these are the really overdue upd

ates (all Computer Vision's fault)...This was on the THIRD day (Gosh, I am really lagging) when we went to school to do admin and went to town

 to buy a second-hand bike...

Busy, Busy, Busy

The last 2 weeks have been really busy...as a result I don't have time to blog...Will only be free in March. Gosh, Busy, Busy. Who said going on exchange was slack?

2nd day in Sweden - Going Downtown and IKEA - Part 2

Ok, I have to admit I am a little slow in uploading the pictures, but this half of the semester has been pretty hectic so I will try to upload bit by bit whenever possible. Anyway, the previous post "2nd day in Sweden - Going Downtown and IKEA - Part 1" has some new pictures added near the end of the post.

So anyway, after sight-seeing around downtown, we got our first taste of Swedish meal at a little alley restaurant called Von Duvfa- set us back 85 Kr (S$17) but the food was pretty good and well worth it imo. I am not sure if this is the European style of eating, but a meal almost always consists of free-flow salad, a wide selection of bread with butter/cookies (not necessarily free-flow), a main course (chicken/fish/meat) and coffee/tea/drink. And the ladies will be delighted to hear that there is a wide selection of salads and breads here (for those who want to diet).

Well, And we saw another smaller cathedral in Linköping as well, although I am not sure what is its exact name and history.

And below is the main Train Station in Linköping - Linköping Central Station













And I saw something pretty interesting inside...

You have to pay $1 to use the toilet!!! So stop complaining about the $0.10 the poor toilet auntie charges for certain toilets! Btw, most public toilets in Sweden charge a fee for usage and this ranges from 3-5Kr.

And finally, our destination for the day...

We have reached IKEA! Finally, the chance to see the furniture giant in its hometown. We did not take any pictures inside because it looks just like the IKEA in Singapore. When you are inside, you won't be able to tell the difference, except perhaps for the Swedish signs here. It was a little disappointing as I was expecting IKEA in its homeland to look well, different, but it is also good to know that they maintain their standards throughout the world. =)

That more or less concludes our second day!

2nd day in Sweden - Going Downtown and IKEA - Part 1

Our second day of Sweden started with lots of photo-taking from outside my accomodation (haha, typical Singapore tourists)...





















Well, and it is not only the outside that is nice. The insides of the room are really nice too. I feel like it looks like a typical IKEA room, not sure if you share my sentiments. (By the way you can click on the picture to enlarge it to its original size. I am not sure why Blogspot compresses the picture for a certain dimension)
























Anyway, our program for the second day was to go downtown and IKEA on the second day to get personal necessities and to get certain administration (like opening bank account) done. Bus ride costs a flat 10Kr (S$2) here whatever the distance...although it is free for subsequent rides in the first hour...means any buses u take within the hour is free. Downtown is just like 15 minutes bus ride away from the university. You could cycle there in less than double the time. Below are some pictures taken downtown...









































The Linköping Cathedral in downtown is one of the most impressive pieces of architecture here in Linköping. It has a history of 800 years and has been preserved remarkably such that the remnants of the very first church building built 800 years ago can still be seen in the current cathedral. Its story reminds one of the creativity and determination of man.

The cathedral began as a small wooden house which functioned as a church for the people in the vicinity. As more people attended church and the church became overcrowded, they decided that they needed to expand the church. However, they could not afford to rebuild a new building from scratch, and they did not want to stop church service for the people during the re-building as well. Hence they expanded by building expansions around the church. This was a cheaper alternative, and the people did not have to stop attending church. The church was expanded various times during its history and one can walk through time by observing the architecture in the cathedral, as the architecture style changes with each expansion in a different period. More pictures of the church can be found below as well as in Wikipedia.

First Impressions of Sweden

Before I came to Sweden, I read on the Internet that the cost of living in Sweden was very high, and that it was one of the most expensive countries to stay in in the world. However, this fact still did not stop me from being totally bewildered when I had to pay 18Kr (S$3.60) for a small bottle of sparkling mineral water. And it is only S$3.60 because the exchange rate has dropped considerably. Which means that half a year ago, you will probably be paying like close to S$4.50 for that same bottle of water! And having been here for more than 1 week, I have realised that there are certain things which I have grown to appreciate in Singapore which I did not appreciate before. But more on that later.

My first impression of Sweden (from the train journey) was that it was a very scenic country, with much vegetation preserved. I guess this is partly that despite it being the largest Nordic country, it has just twice the population of Singpore at 9 million +, hence there is plenty of space for everyone without having to develop built-up areas at the expense of Mother Nature

The school is pretty nice, mainly made up of 2-storey buildings, where each building houses a certain combination of faculties. The houses in Linköping (pronounced Lin-sho-pin) are designed mainly cottage style, which is very different from the numerous skyscrapers u see in Singapore, although this should not be accepted as a representation of Sweden, as Linköping is more of a little town off the main city centre (It is 3 hours away from Stockholm).




















The Swedes I have met so far are very warm people, and not inherently racist which is sometimes prevalent in certain places in Europe.They speak excellent English as well (at least for the post-war generation), which is really good. At least I know I can always count a little help effortlessly when needed.

Finally, My First Post about Sweden

Finally, in my room and having the time to upload my pictures...I will start from the first moments when we left Changi Airport :) More photos will be added from time to time as not all the photos are in my camera.






I don't know why, but I can't get rid of the white border on the picture at the moment. Anyone has any ideas?

Anyway here are the pictures for our journey from Singapore to Linköping University in Sweden