IMAGE IS LOADING, PLS BE PATIENT.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Heavy Snow = Snowman opportunity!
Wow suddenly yesterday it snowed whole day! The snow was not heavy but it lasted for one whole day! Great contrast compared to the previous mild snow episodes we had come across in the past month. The winds were stronger and you can really feel the snow slapping your face as you walk to school. We could hardly walk back from classes yesterday! And today, the snow was so thick that we couldn't open the container door in the morning! Buses and trains were said to be suspended for today toO! Little wonder why I was one of the 5 students who attended the morning class today. Felt so like a conscientious student! They should just have cancelled the classes, since many people could not attend school. But according to my materials science lecturer: DTU never cancels classes in times of heavy snow... I wonder y...
Some images of DTU in 'heavy' snow (by my standards):
Look! our little containers are almost buried under the snow drift!
Pretty sugar icing on the trees :)
See the bicycle? looks like some cockster attempted to cycle down the 'snow slide', which was previously a staircase. I managed to walk down this 'slide' too!
Another sugar-icing on the stairs.. so pretty :)
But the snow was pretty. Like Chee Wei said, he is feeling the X'mas mood again such that he's humming xmas tunes! The snow prettified the campus pretty much! And I loved the snow drift aka 'ice' dunes that were formed cos of the wind... I loved the sight of snow swirling and dancing in the wind... I loved the fact that I'm leaving my footsteps all over on the pure white thick snow and I also loved it when I sank my feet into the deep snow! And we took the opportunity to build a snowman despite the strong winds and heavy snow!
Our first snowman!!
buttons: stones on the ground, scarf: my mum's (oops), hat: Leticia's, arms and mouth and cigar: twigs and branches, heart and nose: carrots...and it was made with love by us!
The snow is forecasted to continue to fall the next 2 days.. Wonder how DTU will look like with 2 more days of snow! And this is already considered mild snow.. really would like to see it for myself how heavy is heavy snow!
Add colours to your life!!
1:12 AM
Thursday, February 22, 2007
CNY away from home in Denmark!!
17-19 Feb 07
新年快乐！
This was my first time I spent CNY away from home. I didn't particularly feel very empty or homesick, probably its cos in the past recent years this festival has become more of a routine than a erm festival. But I do miss not being able to have a valid excuse to shop for many many new clothes and shoes! and I particularly miss not being in my family photos. I'm so used to seeing the full family photo and I seriously yearn to be with my folks! 4 more mths! Ironically, the rest of the Singapore gang felt the absence of the 'irritating' CNY festive songs. I guess being away from home in Singapore indeed made us realise many things that we take for granted! For example the reunion dinner. This is our first time preparing our own reunion dinner and we all felt a great sense of achievement!! We cooked sweet and sour chicken, curry chicken (curry sauce all the way from SG), potato wedges and wanton soup! We had reunion dinner together with the other HK and China students!
Everyone's busy preparing for reunion dinner!
Although it may not look like there's a spread like the reunion dinner we have back at home.. But it was our first attempt to cook something Singaporean. All the sauces we brought from Singapore are priceless, so we gotta conserve! Pk and I still have some chilli sauces, curry and bak kut teh spices! :) maybe we shall cook something nice again next month!
We went to a shop named "Chinatown" in Copenhagen on the eve of CNY. At first we thought it is a misnomer or We heard that we can get many asian ingredients there but alas, we did not manage to get any cos it closed early (cos it was CNY eve.. how can we forget that! Blame it on the lack of festive cheer in Copenhagen). But we managed to get the wanton skins, coconut milk from nearby asian shops! We'll be back in "Chinatown" to get the stuff again!
And while walking along downtown Copenhagen, we each bought a take-away lunch box at Beijing Lou for 30 Kr or slightly less than 10 SGD. It was just fried shrimps and chicken/fish with fried noodles/rice. But we were all delirious and happy like small kids who are eating their Happy Meals! Oh man.. little do we realise we miss Chinese/Singaporean food so much. But boy it was damn satisfying and we all gobbled it down while walking!
Seems like CNY so far in Copenhagen is all about good food. YES absolutely! On the first day of CNY, we had a container B dinner. Our container has an unusually skewed percentage of Chinese gals. 6 out of 9 are Chinese! So we had a container dinner cum CNY feast. We squeezed 18 pple in our little kitchen and we treated our ang moh friends some chinese dishes! Like Ba Bao Fan, Nian Gao, Spring rolls, Samosa, Tang Yuan, White fungus with red dates soup, steamed fish and Claudia even gave every guest a red packet, with CNY wishes written inside. It was great! :)
Yet on the 2nd day of CNY, I threw another party for my friends whom I've met from Intro week! The dishes I prepared were no different from those we prepared for reunion dinner, cos of limited ingredients and erm limited recipes and culinary experience. I overestimated myself and thought it was manageable to prepare dinner for 10 pple! In the end, rl, yip and pk helped me out in a huge way! I couldn't have made it without u all! :) Boy I was quite paisei, cos the dinner was for my friends but in the end they had to helped me out. Thanks!! I really owe u guys another treat! Thanks guys!!! :) Maybe the next time I can single-handedly prepare, since got few pple. But then again, I shan't overestimate myself! rahaha
In view of the large number of pple, I decided to prepare baked pasta as the staple, together with sweet and sour chicken and wanton soup (again! haha) My fears were unfounded, cos I seriously thought the food would not be enough. But the food was too much, according to my friends. But to my delight, they love the sweet and sour chicken and the gals wanted to learn the dish from me! They don't really like the wantons but they were fascinated with the dish and were curious of the wanton skins and what's inside. But the dinner was great and I'm really happy to let my friends try some Chinese food prepared by myself!
Love u gals (Edita, Marina, Emel) Became an unwritten rule that the rest of the gals will help wash the dishes whenever one of us host a dinner. I was the last one (from this group) to hold a dinner! Better late than never!
In the end, Marina started this Thank You card written on pages ripped off from her notebook. I was quite touched and felt so loved! Most of them wrote in their own language, like Spainish, Turkish and Bulgarian, I couldn't read but I'm sure they say good things! ha! Then ErKan started this acronym thing with my name. He intended to write good qualities/characteristics for my name, but he was stuck at the first letter 'Z'! And it became an acronym using animals cos according to him its easier. So my name stands for Zebra, Horse, Ape, Nutria, Giraffe, Elephant, Rabbit. They had no idea wad Nutria is, cos someone (I forgot who) claimed that its an animal in his own language. Albert (from Spain) followed suit but used country/city names instead. My name stands for.. Zimbawe, Helsinki, Ankara, New York, Geneva, Espania, Rio de Janerio. Thanks man... haha it was nonsense but hilarious!
This is not the end of our CNY feasts! When
pk's sister,
Minling comes from downtown Copenhagen to visit us Countryside folks, we shall have another round of Singapore food (hopefullY!) and we still gotta Lo Hei on the 7th day and make tang yuan on the 15th day which is Yuan Xiao! yeay! something to look foward to amidst all the project deadlines...
Add colours to your life!!
11:15 PM
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Paris in 2 days! 12-15 Feb
wah!! I've been swarmed with work and cny feasts ever since i get back from Paris. I've uploaded my Paris photos if anyone has noticed. Here's my link for my online photo album again: pinkozer.dotphoto.com
Pictures say a thousand words! :)
We arrived at our hostel at 9pm on the first day.. that essentially leaves us only 2 full days to tour all of Paris main attractions! Of course we wont waste whatever little time we have.. Saw the Sacre Coeur Basilica at night... It was on top of a hill and it was one of the tallest points in Paris! We had a preview of the night scenery from the Basilica, giving us a glimpse of what more was to come!
Too bad we didnt have enough time to visit Sacre Coeur in the day! But it's pretty enough at night! :)
One of my first attempts at B&W photography..
We stayed at Friend's Hostel. It is near Pigalle and Montmarte, which was near to the Basillica and the red-light district, which u can find Moulin Rouge along the street. Junquan strongly recommended the Moulin Rouge show but because formal wear is required, we had to drop the plan and whats more, the cabaret show is around 180 SGD!!
The guys' room in Friend's hostel. Haha guess the guys always air the room (despite the cold) to air their smelly feet + shoes + socks! And how could I miss this photo opportunity sitting on the parapet?
The ever famous wind-mill and Moulin Rouge landmark!
Haha the red-light district at Pigalle was an eye-opener for some of us.. the shop names are so obvious that u know what services they offer.. they even had a pedestrian street in the middle of the 2 roads.. which I guessed its for 'innocent' pple like who are just checking out the area.
Chocolate croissant and mint-flavoured tea that we have on EVERY morning before we leave our hostel to go touring.. 2 croissants and 1 tea for 2 Euros..At least it is a brief respite from our ham n cheese toast we eat daily in denmark. I think its one of the cheapest u can find in Paris!According to the weather forecast, it will rain in Paris during our 3rd day in Paris.. So we rushed to many places in Paris on the second day. It was great.. the weather was great.. the scenery was great and of course the pictures too!
The Arc de Triomphe! Supposedly its for Napolean's victories at war...
Next, we rushed to see the Eiffel Tower! :) We saw it both in the day and at night!
La Seine River.. this is so picturesque.. machiam like those u find on postcards..
haha i think one of the greatest fun is imitating the statues' pose.. check out for more pics on that! 
Eiffel tower at night is even more mind-blowing!!
Despite the strong and cold winds, we were super trigger happy when we were at the top of eiffel tower... our fingers were all numb and noses red... but it was all worth it!
La Seine at night!!
Can u spot Arc de Triomphe?
We posted some postcards for our loved ones on the eve of Valentines Day direct from Eiffel Tower in Paris! :)
Tadaaaa!! Yip was able to take nice night scenery pics cos of my minitripod! haha
Musee D' Orsay-- the only art museum I visited in Paris. How about Musee Du Louvre? Haha I chose to explore Champs Elysees instead of entering Louvre. Very Bimbo u might say but there simply wasn't enough time to see everyth!
Champs Elysees.. the main shopping district. Rl and I were a little disappointed, cos it didnt turn out to be WOW. There were indeed many international brands along the street and an LV Plaza! Haha think those flea markets suit me more! :)
There is a lovely park just outside the Louvre: Jardin de Tuileries:
Feed the birds.. I wanna feed the birds too! and all the birds will come flying around me in a flock.. Think it will be great!
Ok now for more funny statue poses...
Outside Musee D Orsay.. Yip and I wanted to climb up to pose with the statues.. but kena shooed down!
Which of us look more like the real one? Definitely not the one in the centre!! haha
Yip sacrificed his coat for this shot...
...and his nose for this!
There were supposed to be more such photo opportunities at Chateau de Versailles, but it was raining the day we visited it. So gloomy and our spirits were a little low. Renovation was on at the entrance of the main building. What's more, most of the statues were covered up! It will definitely be more pretty in the summer!
Think I'll definitely visit Paris again within this lifetime of mine... to relax, take a coffee in one of the roadside cafe.. go shopping for LV when I'm more brand conscious (heard that there's LV sales in September).. haha.. go up to Eiffel Tower again with my loved ones.. go shopping in the flea market.. go and see Versailles and its gardens in summer... So many things yet to do!!
Add colours to your life!!
10:53 PM
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Oh man!
I seriously thought I would be able to do some decent shopping in the flea markets in Paris. But to my dismay, the major ones at Clignancourt Flea Market, which is arguably Europe's or the world's largest are only open on Sat-Mon, morn to evening. After reading so many great reviews about the Les Puces, I was already thinking of what to buy!
And guess what, we'll reach Paris on Monday only in the evening..
Nooooo this is too evil to me!!
But thinking that we are only spending 2 and a half day in Paris, we might not even have time to shop at the Les Puces. Hopefully the beautiful sights and architecture of Paris will keep me occupied for the 2 and a half days we spend in Paris.
Let's always be optimistic and hope that I'll have another chance to tour Paris again :)
Back to my design project assignment, due a day after I return from Paris. Aye.
Add colours to your life!!
9:25 AM
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Ice skating at Kongens Nytorv!
Claudia from
HK, my neighbour who had been here for 1 sem already jioed
rl and me to go ice-skating at Copenhagen. She had just bought a new pair of skates, so she wanted to fully utilise it before the skating rink closes in end Feb. Back in Singapore, I wasn't particulary keen on the activity, cos I was so scared of falling on the hard ice! Keep having an image flashing in my mind that my legs will be too fast for my body such that I hit my head on the ice. Ouch.
But still I went in the end, despite my worsening cold that I developed before the ski trip. The skating rink (according to rl is called Kongens Nytorv) is an outdoor one, in the middle of a traffic circle. Yes! It is literally a skating rinG right smack in the city centre. Can't imagine huh? Guess people who likes to ice-skate really ought to visit this skating ring during winter time! It was such a fantastic feeling, skating around and you can see the people on the streets, nicely-architectured buildings with an old feel and breathing in the cold fresh air!
Back to harsh reality... Despite 2 earlier skating 'experiences, I was still very reluctant to step onto the ice. Claudia's friends Ken and Wayne were there too. After a about half an hour of fumbling around and some help from Ken and gathering of courage, I could finally walk and skate awkwardly at times. I had problems gliding on the ice, which explained why I was so slow in my skates. My friends had already skated for around 2-3 rounds before I completed my first! Without Jie around, I was probably more independent and I dare say braver cos I didnt make use of the hand railings while skating (only when I rested). I fell down twice while skating and one while walking across the ice (on my normal shoes). Got 2 big bruises on my knees!!! But nobody ever sees them cos we are all so covered up in our winter clothing here..
Silly me remembered the time wrongly and we were 15min late in returning the skates. This cost us another 40 kr!!! How unfeeling the people are. Told myself to save $$ for the rest of the week to recover back the 40kr. Heart pain.
But I guess very quickly, rl and I forgot abt the extra 40kr we paid and we each bought something from New Yorker! haha this is my second 'splurge' ever since I arrived 3 weeks ago. First splurge was a chain from Glitter during half-price sale. I bought a striped long sleeve top while rl bought a pretty white-pink-purple scarf! We vowed to return to the store the next wkend as the store was closing after we paid for our purchases. We were so deprived of shopping in Denmark and its hardly harldy we see clothes and accessories going for low prices. We were happy and smiling for the rest of the day. :)
Claudia will be going again this Sunday, but I don't think I will join her cos I want to be in tiptop condition when I visit Paris!! Don't want to get more bruises or worse break a leg or two while skating. WhoooHoo! I'll be in Paris on Monday to Thursday. Will be missing 3 lessons though.
Add colours to your life!!
7:41 AM
My first try at SKIING!
wah this shall be the start of my
week-long backdating... Usually I don't bother backdating my posts, but I really must record my feelings and experiences for the past few days! and of course, show u all the pictures I've taken! Oh and in case u havent noticed, I've changed my blog look! :) Got really sick of the rich purple page I had. I'm not really a purple person so I guess it's really time that page should go!
I have just set up an
online photo album. In case u can't see the link on my blog, here it is -->
http://pinkozer.dotphoto.com At least this time round I didnt forget my account login+password so I'm still able to use my 'pinkozer' domain... (unlike my blog add, haha)
ok, back to my SKI trip! We signed up for a ski package with
NetSki at
Isaberg Ski resort in
Sweden. It is quite close to Denmark but still the trip to and fro took about 8hrs in all. My second time in Sweden so far!! But we were ferried to the resort and back right after the ski, so we didnt have free time to go explore. The ski and exploring the ski resort was an experience itself!
Great weather, great place!
On the bus nearing the ski resort, it was obvious that it hasn't been snowing for there were no traces of snow. So we guessed the ski slopes were all made from 'artificial snow' since there were many snow machines around the slopes. But at least it is not in an artificial surroundings (like in Singapore snow city..)
We tried the beginner slopes where there are mostly children and the only (other) adults present were their parents! haha but we just went ahead and skiied down the slope! Wheeee!!! rl and I were told that we were the only ones who screamed while skiing down the slope. But I guess the screams serve as an alarm to those in our way, cos I couldn't stop nor turn to avoid people. But in the end, after a danish girl (about 9 yr-old) taught and showed me the method to brake effectively, I could brake for a while. But in the middle of the slope, all hell broke loose and I went free-wheeling down the slope again. The same girl came to my rescue 3 times when I fell to offer a hand to pull me up. She was so small but she insisted on pulling me up. I was so touched by her kindness!!! I only knew 1 danish greeting, which is "Where are you from" and she could understand what I meant! I wanted to ask for her name, but I forgot how to say in Danish. Too bad I can't take up Danish language course with Marina, since I'll probably miss many lessons because of my travelling. With determination, I can self-learn... but well usually I have none. haha
Me taking the ski 'lift' up the beginner slope!
Getting tired from screaming down the slopes and lugging the skis up the slopes and coming down again, we explored the ski resort and we found to our delight, a picturesque view of the coniferous forests and lakes in front of us. To all of us, the breathtaking view looked too surreal as it was a scene of a movie!! We were so stunned and started taking many shots of that. The photos definitely didnt capture the scenery as well and how I hope Jie was there with me to take the pics with his DSLR...
I wanted to take the chair-lift up the "professional" slope simply to see more of the scenery at the top and to just experience it. But the catch is that the chairlift was meant for skiiers to get up the slope and ski down. With our few hours of ski experience, it was definitely out of the question for us. So pk and yip, the 2 'pro' photographers among us tried to take the chairlift up to take more photos. It indeed appeared daunting as the slopes (for the walk/slide down the ski slope) looked damn steep and as much as I wanted to go up with them, decided not to at first. It was only after they came back from the 'challenge' that tempted me to go again, for they assured me its possible to make their way down the slope. Thanks to pk that I got a second chance at it!!! He sacrificed his skiing time to accompany up the slope! But he got a free meal from me in return, cos he was my photographer cum chaperone cum guide. I was shaking when we made our way down the slope, cos it simply looked impossible for pple to go down! It didnt help when the ground was slippery cos of the ice and snow and that I wanted to take photos and pick acorns on my way down. =P Thanks pk!!
Me on the chairlift!
Finally I reached the top!
Rewarded by the view from the top...
Oh man, I can't imagine I walked down this slope!
How can I forget to post pics of acorns that I painstakingly photograph n collect them..To be able to ski is a great thing! (you don't have to slide/roll down the steep slopes after seeing the scenery at the top) We were full of envy of skiiers zipping past us as we were exploring the ski resort. Especially little kids who can already ski like experts. Nevertheless, we were already enjoying ourselves so much when all we could do was to put on the skis and ski down slopes and fall in all sorts of unglam positions (at least for me!). Given another chance, I guess we'll all want to learn skiing and master it!
Add colours to your life!!
6:27 AM
