Losing my coat tag, feeling the warmth and the cold.

Today, Alvis and I wanted to watch a movie initially, but scraped the idea when we saw the prices. Not paying 20 bucks for a movie. In the end, we walked around T-centralen and spent more of our time in this army shop. There were some nice ponchos for sale and I think they looked really nice. Unfortunately, I am not paying 100 Sing dollars for it, because the material doesn't look worth it. Alvis wants to buy an army jacket because he feels that his current jacket sucks. Alvis helps me take a 360 degree shot of me walking around in T-centralen, which he has not yet sent me. After that, we go to Taco Bar for some lunch and head back to Lappis to meet up with Kat and Stefan2, so that we can head over to the party at Flemingsberg.

At Flemingsberg, we have some chips, sandwiches and beer and have some chit chat. After that, we went to a club in Medborgarplatsen. I was having a pretty good time, till it was time to go home and I realised that I had dropped my coat tag. And of all days, I didn't bother to remember my number. I pointed out the shelf where I hung my coat, but the guy couldn't find it and since I had no number, he said that it was too bad, I had to wait till the club closed and everyone went home. And so, the rest of the exchange students went back, but Alvis and Kat stay behind with me. I go back to look for my tag on the dance floor, but it's near impossible to see anything. We wait around for some more and I can see that Kat and Alvis are tired. I feel very bad for making them wait for me, but I'm very grateful to them too.

Finally, at 3.30am, when almost everyone has gone and there are like 4 coats left hanging, I get my coat back. Turns out it was hanging at the right place after all. Argh!!! After that, we head to the train station and we are relieved that we make the last train. However, when we get to Central Station, we realised that there are no more trains to change to. So we are actually stuck at T-centralen till the first train at 6am. We then start walking around. We decide to walk back because Kat and Alvis say they might know the way. Along the way, it starts snowing big flakes of snow and it looks very pretty when you look into the sky. We walk from T-centralen and we manage to reach Ostermalmstorg rather quickly and we know we are on track. However, after a while we have no idea where we are and end up at Hotorget, further from Lappis than we started out. We continue walking somemore, and what do you know... we end up back at T-centralen after one hour of walking. By this time, we have no mood to watch the pretty snow flakes fall from the sky. Heavy snow starts falling and strong winds chill the bones.


Basically, we walked one round back to T-centralen.

We then decide to give up our idea and walk again to Ostermalmstorg where we saw a 24 hour fastfood restaurant. I feel so bad about getting Alvis and Kat into this. Alvis looks sick and he asks me to help get tea. I find no tea, only coffee at the machines at the side, but Alvis doesn't want coffee. I decide to try at the counter and buy some food for us at the same time. While waiting in line, I end up chatting with a pair of friendly Swedes who are pretty high from clubbing. One of them is actually pretty cute. They recommend me the bar that they just came from.

At the counter, I find out from the girl that they don't sell coffee. I ask her if she can just give me some hot water because my friend is sick and needs something hot. At first she asks me to try the shop opposite the street then she tells me that if I go to the coffee machine to get some cups, she'll get me the water. I squeeze to the machines to find that they are finished. I go back to the counter with no cups. And then, i tell you... Swedes are really nice people. She said she'll just have to get cups for me and of course replenish the ones there. Then she was gone for a long time and I tried to see what she was doing. She went to get cups for me and was microwaving the water for me. And it took pretty long and she kept opening and closing the micowave to check. Then she gave me three cups of hotwater with 3 bags of lipton Earl Gray. And when she rang up the price for everything on the register, I realised she was only charging me for the Fries and Onion Rings. So since they don't sell coffee, I guess she got the tea from their own private stash or her personal stash or something. I was pretty amazed cos I think that will never happen in Singapore. So basically, this girl is super nice and friendly, helps me microwave water, gives me teabags for free, all this time when there are loads of people in the fastfood shop trying to buy food and drinks after their night of clubbing. I told her Thank you so much for doing me this favour and she's like no problem, come again! Okay, so I make it back to the table with hot tea, fries and onion rings for us three and we pass time chatting and discussing some issues. Rather interesting really.

When it's 5.45am, we head out to Ostermalmstorg. At Universitetet, we take a 10 minutes walk back to Lappis. By this time, the wind is really blowing strong and there is heavy snow. I duno if this can be called a snow storm, but it sure feels like it. Heaviest snow since I've been in Sweden and it must be when I'm stuck outside. The wind is blowing snow into your face, pricking it and you try to walk backwards to save your face. Halfway back, I take a big fall and land on my bum on the floor winded. Finally, we are back in Lappis all wet, cold and tired. Time for bed... Zzzzzz...

Life is like a box of chocolates

Kat, Alvis and I check out the supermarket in morby centrum today. We intend to make another dinner and movie night. However, Kat realises she has a kitchen party at the last minute, which leaves just me and Alvis. So great, I learn how to make another easy dish.


Tomato and Paprika Omelette


Here, I make Alvis take a photo with the box of chocolates.


Words of wisdom from Alvis. In Latvian.

Here we have the translation

Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get.

Be Egoistic - take from people what you see.
But remember: Love means giving.

Sauna and Spices

Today, I try out the sauna in Lappis with Kat and Julia. Turns out that you have to pay 150 kronors in order to use the gym and sauna in the mornings and afternoons for 6 months. I have other plans for my money, heard horrible things about the gym from the gals anyway.


Check out my cupboard. Looks very pro suddenly right... Kat gives me Oregano and Paprika spices as a little something for my birthday. Hehhh

Asian Party

Last night, Julia offers to make me lunch for my birthday today. At about 2 pm today, Julia cooks chicken and mushrooms in cream sauce for Mark, Kat, Julia, Erkka and me. She also makes a nice salad and prepares some cocktail fruit.

Later on at night, some of us go to a Taiwanese girl, Aiyi's place for an Asian party. Turns out that the host stays in the same building as me, which is Armanuensvägen 05. I think the main idea is to celebrate Chinese New Year, but basically it was a party with people from Hongkong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Japan and Sweden. Anyway, I think I can click pretty much with Aiyi and we agree to have dinner together again some day and watch wo cai cai cai on her laptop.

My birthday!

Well well, what do you know... Today is My Birthday! Luckily I have no lessons today, and I skipped project discussion to go out. The day didn't start out too well, because DHL was late in delivering my parcel. I have already waited 6 days for my parcel and phoned them a few times, so there was no way I was not going to get my parcel today, esp since it was my birthday. I was getting extremely pissed off because DHL just put me on hold again, whilst my phone credit was depleting by the second. By the way, it costs S$1 for one minute on the mobile. They were supposed to come by 12pm, and I called them at 12.15 they told me another half an hour and they finally came about 1pm. However, once the guy came with my parcel, I was so happy and excited over the parcel, I forgot about being angry with DHL.


Thank you Mom and Hui! Hahaha!! I love a boxful of goodies.

Haha... Dom and I decided that my birthday was a good reason to treat ourselves to some good food since we've been here. Dom started talking about eating at the Opera Restaurant, which he heard was THE place to eat at when you're in Stockholm. Unfortunately, the prices are too exorbitant for us to handle, and we decided on another restarant BEHIND Opera Restaurant. This restaurant was less fancy, but still a great traditional Swedish restaurant if I say so myself.


Place doesn't look too fancy, but the place serves traditional Swedish food. Something I haven't tried except at IKEA.


Black Pudding with Bacon and Ligonberry sauce.

Black Pudding also known as blood sausage is also eaten in many other European countries. Blood sausage or black pudding or blood pudding is a food made by cooking down the blood of an animal meat, fat or filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. In Sweden, ligonberry sauce is often served with meat.


Salted Herring with Onion sauce and Potatoes

Herring is probably the most common fish in Sweden and often served with dill and potatoes. Dom's herring was too salty. It was one of the specials of the day. We should have ordered the herring plate, sillbricka, which has 5 different types of herring and I've just read in a book to be the best thing to do if you want to try everything. One of the most famous herrings within Sweden is called surströmming, which is rotten herring. It is mostly even for traditional sake, although I heard that not many people can appreciate it.

After lunch, I went back to KTH and Alvis gives me a box of chocolates. Later on at night, Julia, Kat, Mark and Stefan2 come over to my place for a little gathering. They bring some pizza to eat and a little cake from ICA. Dom cooks some new Swedish recipe his friend teaches him. Think they were very nice to think of getting together on my birthday.



Birthday cake from ICA supermarket!

Ironically, David seems to know more about Chinese Tea than us Singaporeans. Check out his special tea collection. It's this tea where you drop in this seed like looking package into hotwater and it opens up into a nice flower. COol!


Okay, why is it that my entries always seem to have something to do with food.. Ahhaha.. Anyway, while checking up on black pudding, I found this rather beautiful article about Swedish Cuisine. To be posted up next time...

The past few days, I check my mailbox excitedly for news from back home. Haha.. typical of me. Thanks to all those who remembered me back home.

1. Zhixu 2 . Shaopeng 3. Lizhen, Yuqi, Elsen, Lixian, Weilun and the rest of Eldorn and Felore. 4. Hui

Modern Art Museum

Today, a few of us, Yanish, Kat, Julia, Erkka, Stefan1, Stefan2 and I went to the modern art museum



Posing with the guard


Kat, me and Yanish. I hear Yanish loves singing and playing the guitar for hours at parties, but I've never had a chance to see it.


Typical Blonde Swede? Nah... This is Erkka from Finland. Likes ice-hockey and orienteering, which I think makes him 100% scandinavian to me. Supposed to go jogging together, but somehow I have no time... I need to get fit!

There is a section with a lot of architectural models. I like the models and see which part of Sweden the building is in, so that I know where to visit next time. Fortunately, most of them were in Stockholm, so I made the right choice of studying here. After that, we spent a large part of our time in this section called Queen of Mud, which totally makes no sense. We watched a short film on Queen of Mud, some other footage of her. I have no idea what’s the whole deal. It’s basically this naked woman who walks around with mud all covered over her, probably in the name of art. After that, we went to check out the paintings, the most famous ones in the museum would probably be some work from Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch. After the museum, we went to this café in T-Centralen called the Rainbow Café. According to Yanish, it’s a gay café. The waiter told Yanish all the waiters are gay and a lot of their customers are gay. So the guys were behaving rather apprehensive about going. However, there was really nothing interesting to see, and there were no apparent gays around. CHEY! We sat around for coffee. I was in the mood for splurging, so I bought myself a cappuccino and chocolate cake for 65 kronors. I wasn’t in the best of moods suddenly and I think I was trying to give myself a mini-celebration for my birthday. After that, everyone somehow started taking turns in telling jokes. I think there is some cross-cultural differences and probably some problem with joke translation, cos many of the times we wouldn’t catch each others jokes. The ones told by the Yanish and Stefanio were the worst! Hahaha!

After that, I go back home. I’m not expecting much. But at 10.40pm, Dom comes over to celebrate my birthday for me. Thank you for helping me to celebrate. I think I would probably have lapsed into some lonely or homesickness mode, if not for everything… Dom takes me to the kitchen and presents me with an apple pie.



After I heat the apple pie, and return to my room, Dom has pulled some hat trick on me, and prepared some surprise in my supposedly locked room. Later, I learn he climbs in through the window and prepares the entire setup. I find some roses, tealights and a card.


I am very amazed at everything. I like the apple pie the most! Because Apple pie is one of my top desserts, and I think baking an apple pie is actually the sweetest thing someone has ever done for me yet.