Danderyds Sjukhus, Nobel Museum and Hemköp

“What is the sweetest thing a guy has ever done for you?...” “He ***** ** ** *****-***”
I see this line somewhere and it makes me wonder if I’ll have the same answer to this question a few years down the road. If we are not meant to be, I’ll make sure I never say this to you ever again.

Today, I head down to Danderyds Sjukhus. Danderyds Sjukhus is a hospital which my course, Radiation Detectors and Medical Imaging Systems is visiting as a field trip. We are there for 2 hours as the guy shows us around the hospital and introduces a lot of high-technology equipment. However, after a while, all the equipment looks similar and he starts to lose me. In the most impressed by the CT reconstruction. The only thing I learn from the field trip is that I have to start reading up for this module like real soon!


Danderyds Sjukhus Building


Within Danderyds Sjukhus


The tunnelbana station

After the field trip, we rush off to another excursion at the Nobel Museum in Gamla Stan organized by our Swedish Cultral and Society course.



In the train we pretend to be reading the tidning (newspaper). It's actually all in Swedish and we hardly understand a thing. I can appreciate the pictures though. Front page features a picture of 2 Swedish blonde-haired(of cos =P), female ski champions, complete in their yellow and blue ski outfits. The picture hits me as being very cheery and very very swedish. I turn to their story in the tidning for this picture, but Qiang doesn't manage to shoot the whole page!

At the Nobel Museum, we spend most of our time watching films instead of walking around the museum like I expected to. However, there is not really much to see and maybe their films tell more about the Nobel Prize Winners anyway. The curator seems to know absolutely everything about the Nobel Prize winners and he goes on and on enthusiastically. We watch films about creating environments for creativity and about some Nobel Prize winners, like Marie Curie and the 3 guy who discovered super fluidity in helium. Finally after one and a half hours of films and talk, we are given half an hour to explore the Museum.

Works by Harry Martinson, Nobel Prize winner for Literature.



It says:
If you own two coppers, said Li-Ti on a journey,
Buy one loaf of bread and one blossom.
The bread is there to fill you.
The blossom you buy to tell you
that life is worth the living.

The first time I read it, I think its a beautiful poem. Then the more sensible me shows. Why do you need to buy a blossom anyway? You pick it from the road side or something. Just buy 2 loaves of bread. Qiang says buy fishing rod, which I think is even more sensible. It's like that other saying that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish, or something like that. I'm sure I haven't gotten it completely right.


This one is kind of hard to read, but check it out.


Nobel Prize for the discovery of Plastic


Some other Nobel Prize works over the century.

After the Nobel Museum, I have an urge to eat and take photos of Semla. It suddenly came to mind and it occurred to me that the season for Semla is ending soon. I ate it once in Uppsala, but not during the season and I haven’t even written about it yet! I convince poor Qiang and Eric to accompany me to Hemköp in T-centralen to look for my beloved Semla. Things in Hemköp aren’t exactly cheap, but it has a wide product range and a good place to go if you are in the mood for some grocery adventure. If you are looking for something different or fresh fruit and vegetables of good quality go to Hemköp, else you can just shop in Netto, which is like a no-frills supermarket with limited products.

Along the way, we pass by John Chris café and I decide to take a photo of the café. I’ve been to this café twice with my exchange friends. Nice place to accommodate a big group and have some coffee and dessert.


John Chris cafe

Finally, we reach Hemköp and I discover there is no more Semla. I hope it’s only sold out for today. I will come back when I’m free, hopefully in the week. We decide to take some photos.


I'm a sucker for bread. That's why I'm so happy in Sweden. Si gu calls me lo di mui (bread girl). You'll never get such a selection back home.


Check out Hemkop

Let me intro you to the most common Swedish products!



A whole selection of crispbread.

Swedish crispbread, or knäckebröd comes from the middle region of Sweden, where the flour could only be ground in the spring and autumn, when there was enough water to drive the mills. It was normal to do a huge baking once or twice a year in connection with the grain harvest. It required bread with a long shelf-life and which allowed the grain to be stored over a long period of time. This type of hard and dry bread was known as crisp bread and was baked in large round cakes. The hole in the middle was added to make storage easier, with the bread being threaded onto long rods and suspended below the ceiling. The northerners ate tunnbröd, or thinbread, because the only crop which would grow there was barley and it could not rise. The everyday loaf, or limpa was only eaten in the south, where crops were better.

Wasa is the world's largest producer of crispbread. Every year the company sells around 60,000 tons of crispbread in 40 countries. The Swedes eat more crispbread than any other people in the world, almost 4 kilograms per capita.


Roslagsbröd is traditional hand-baked Swedish rye crispbread from Gimo. They retain the original shape.



Yoggi is a very popular brand for yoghurt-based products in Sweden. I tried it on the second day I was in Sweden cos I observed that both Alvis and Erkka were drinking it.


Arla is the company understudy for one of the project groups in my business course. Therefore, I know a bit about Arla. Basically, Arla is the leading dairy brand in Sweden. It’s market share for dairy products is incomparable. They basically have milk or 3%, 1,5%, 0,3%, 0,01% fat, butter milk, cream, vanilla yoghurt and loads more. In fact, Yoggi is a sub-brand of Arla. As discussed in my class, Arla tries to portray itself as a product of simplicity and well-being, and its sub-brand Yoggi tries to portray a youthful and modern image. You can seek a stark contrast in their packaging.

Recycling is a big thing in Sweden. They don’t use plastic bags freely like in Singapore. In fact, they only provide these flimsy plastic bags for free. You have to pay for the bigger and more durable plastic bags. Here is a glass bottle returning machine. Whenever you return a bottle, you get some money as an incentive. You can check out the rates at the bottom of this machine. There's a machine for plastic bottles next to this machine.


Environmental friendliness in Sweden.

There’s a pretty different system for buying your condoms, cigarettes and tobacco. I think it saves the trouble of trying to point out what you want at the counter. Basically, you pick up the card showing what you want and pay for it. Then you proceed to the vending machine, insert your card and pick up your buy.

Choose the card for what you want and pay.

Collect your buy.

After Hemköp, we head home. I fry rice and use up the remaining eggs for dinner. I then edit our third group assignment for Design and Innovation.