Aalborg, Denmark

Remember, life is short,
break the rules, forgive quickly,
kiss slowly, love truly,
laugh uncontrollably & never regret
that made you smile

I guess i've been having several love-hate relationships, with Aalborg for instance and also with my status as an international student. It is amazing how cultural differences can be such a wonderful yet vexing thing simultaneously.

This page has been gathering cobwebs....guess that might be the case for a while....

hej hej!

my bike! its 2nd hand but its serving me well so far!



my room!



my "cloakroom"



my kitchen!


my personal bathroom! no sharing required! yoohoo!

still trying to settle in, but its been pretty good living alone so far... =)

have the courage to change the things you can,

and the wisdom to accept the things you can't change.

Use water wisely. Don't let this advice fall on deaf ears.

Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from
the sun than humankind consumes within a year.

Dr. Gerhard Knies
Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the DESERTEC Foundation
Member of the German Association CLUB OF ROME
(Deutsche Gesellschaft CLUB OF ROME)

Yes its a lame excuse not to update the blog, but things here in Hamburg have been keeping me really busy. I took a short break yesterday morning and headed out to a bazaar. Many interesting discoveries during the visit, and i'm amazed at the things that they sell at the bazaar...

hopefully i find time to upload some photos here...but it takes such a long time to upload the photos...ha...i'm lazy...

What i learnt from Sustinable Human Development Readings today:

"We will never fix our governments just by getting "better" people, because good people cannot make bad systems work unless they change those systems."

Goerlitz is located on the border between Poland and Germany. I'm so glad i made a trip there. Apparently the recent Oscar nominee "The Reader" had some of the filming done there. By the way, its a great movie and i thought that Kate Winslet was quite good with her acting in the movie!



Goerlitz has many nice and colourful buildings. I was just admiring the architecture there.



This was a posh cafe place which was too expensive for me (poor student) to visit! :)



Beautiful view from Goerlitz of Poland. =)


Just crossing a bridge brought us over to Poland!


Polish strudel! It was really cheap. For a gigantic huge chunk it cost me only 1.50euros!


My travel companions for the day: Juliana, Christoph and Angst!!! haa....


We finished off our trip to Goerlitz with a sumptuous dinner at Kartoffeln Haus which literally means potato haus. Its really delicious traditional german food!

Wittenberg (Martin Luther)



My travel mates to Wittenberg, from left Monica 1, Monica 2 and Jean (my neighbour) and of cos Juliana was there with me as well!



The beautiful city centre of Wittenberg! with some construction work going on of course...ha


the schlosskirche where Martin Luther was buried and his 95 thesis was engraved onto the doors as seen here.



Wooden figurine of an angel in a church. Quite nicely carved out. Wittenberg was nice, but the company i had on this trip made the trip even more memorable. :)

i thought really hard about who could have sent me a package...to my work address to add....


It was a pleasant surprise! thanks Mandy for baking me the wonderful and delicious presents!!!


thanks olaf...

weather in Leipzig is unbelievable...it snows often!

Chemnitz
Thanks to Helge who brought me to Chemnitz, i wouldn't have found the motivation to travel there alone with the terrible weather...


Karl Max...



near the Marktplatz in Chemnitz...like the architecture?


Das Siegertsche Haus am Markt


Petrikirche...

Halle...it was great to finally visit Alex in Halle!



Leipziger Turm in Halle...



Streets of Halle...somehow i got the feeling of being in Stockholm! =)


Beautiful Marktplatz!



Moritzburg! great museum!



Friedrich (4months), Uncle Alex (ancient) and Uncle Alex's twin sister Juliana (Friedrich's mum)!






movie night at Alex's parent's house....here's Alex and his sister-in-law..



Halle at a glance....



the coolest car i saw in Halle!!

I hope to be back in Halle for another visit!!!

My housemate Jean is from Switzerland. Young and talented, and also a pretty good cook as well! Yes, HE was going to cook ASIAN food for me on this night!



"Asian Food"! Swiss-style of course! It tasted good! And i must say, i'm surprised Jean eats rice once almost every other week. As for me, i'd be happy with my pasta! have had too much rice while in sg already...ha



Jean also invited 2 other french friends. They were both really friendly. one travelled to Malta, and the other travelled to Turkey recently! I would really like to go to Turkey one of these days! Malta is also a small little interesting island! hopefully i get to drop by Malta as well!



Jean is also musically talented! he serenade us with a few of his favourite musical pieces....well and here, he's trying to let his french friends have a go on his violin...i was hoping they wouldn't spoil the little violin..it costs 5000euros..

Yes, this is my current love.




wonder what's the price in SG??? can anyone check it out? =p

yes, i used this photo in my blog before.

Questions:
1) Why am i doing this? Is it worth the effort?
2) Are the germans innately similar to Singaporeans or perhaps its the other way around?

finally, german bread again! one of my first few breakfasts in Leipzig.



more proper pasta, and less of my strange east-west fusion pasta....



i didn't need any pushing to stock up on all my favourite snacks (i.e. junk). Of course, how could i not get the Halloren chocolate? Thanks for introducing that to me Alex!



my room...



my kitchen...



my toilet...


How Halloren chocolates look like!


a parting photo of my room again. =0)

Throbbing headache for the past 2 days. Symptoms of unwillingness to leave Barcelona?

so what did i do for my last few days in Barcelona?


had the privilege of eating Josep's crepes which were much much better than the last time he made them...


of cos, i had to go and have Josep's fav kebap at Sant cugat...good recommendation although some veggies would help!!



the unforgettable, juicy, delicious and caipirinhna filled buffet!!!!!!!! Thanks Juliana for taking us there! although i was just that tiny wheeny bit late! =) Incidentally, all 3 beautiful brazilian gals are in the photo!!



and how can i miss eating my favourite churros con xocolate negro again? this time i went for 150g!!! don't be jealous jeannice and eunice!!! haa....

oh well, hope to do some more stuff today for the last time, perhaps i'll head to the beach later to see it for the last time though it must be freezing cold....more updates later on....

Perhaps it exists in a place like this when it shouldn't. I guess its only human nature to be a little racist. Only reminds me that humans are humans, and are falliable.

Getting things out of one's system is important, otherwise it could have dire consequences both psychologicall and physically, which my Egyptian friend would testament to.

Should we take things so hard, and compare everthing against our prinicples and values? Afterall, weren't they created by ourselves as benchmarks, rather than achievements to be made in actuality? If things don't materialize, then seek comfort in the learning process, for nothing is lost, if we can only learn to appreciate the process rather than just the end product.

End products - the pluralism of values in everything seems to be conveniently ignored too often, when we mercilessly allow ourselves to be subjected to social norms that only teaches us to value ourselves by the sheer (perhaps meaningless) number of successful conquest of "End products". 

rambling, rambling...