you got me.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
today is Monday and its a public holiday here in Germany, otherwise known as Pfingstmontag. public holiday is a day for them to rest at home, spend time with their families and as such, all shops are closed on public holidays. on sundays too. dont ever think of going to the mall, or purchase groceries, or even step out of your house since they reduce bus frequencies to one per hour (on sundays and public holidays).
imagine a Sunday when all your NTUCs, shopping malls in town are all closed; your MRTs and buses only arrive only once every hour. yeah.
thank goodness i managed to find activities to do in this long weekend.
on Saturday i went back to Köln again! 2-hour train ride to the 4th largest city in Germany. all i remembered was that the crowd was crazy (imagine the whole shopping street is as packed as bugis street) nonetheless it was a pleasant shopping experience as the things i wanted were all cheaper than in Singapore heh heh
we were delighted to find Chinese food! you can actually spot many PRCs in Köln. i sincerely hope the locals dont think we are part of them. by the way, i have been asked 3 times if i come from Japan. errr, no.
yesterday was a trip to the Zoo! there were only two or three of each species of animals. kinda feel sad for the lonely animals. they appear to be either sleeping or lazing around, rather inactive, due to the hot weather i suppose.
show you a giraffe. if you havent seen one, here it is.
when i got home last evening, i was delighted with a pleasant view at the balcony! hot air balloons flying around!this is something that we can never see on top of our HDB flats.
today was a short strawberry picking trip! being sua kus, we were actually quite excited.
fresh, organic, and yours to pick!
they also grow their own potatoes and asparagus. i never knew i love asparagus until today. the lunch was awesome. asparagus cream soup, boiled asparagus and potatoes with hollandaise sauce, and a slice chicken cutlet (Hanchenschnitzel). amazing chicken cutlet too, juicy and succulent. the asparagus tastes so fresh, you feel like they harvested them just this morning for you.
fresh strawberry cake and prune tart. heavenly. let the pictures do the talking.
best strawberry milk that i've had. no preservatives, no colorings nor strawberry essence. just pure strawberry goodness. every drop of it.
then it was paddle-boating at Aasee! Muenster is surrounded by land so this is the only place where they can carry out water activities, picnic along the river or just suntan! while us asians are busy avoiding the sun, they cant get more of it. the place was packed, as if the whole of Muenster gathered there to spend family time together.
its 8.45pm now and the sun is still shining brightly. definitely gonna miss the long days in summer!
on a happy note, i am very pleased with my results :D
this is my last week in Germany! just as when i get used to the pace of life here, i am scheduled to leave. this time next week, i'll be in Paris! living like a pauper cause everything is so expensive lol.
Hope all your weekend was great too!
imagine a Sunday when all your NTUCs, shopping malls in town are all closed; your MRTs and buses only arrive only once every hour. yeah.
thank goodness i managed to find activities to do in this long weekend.
on Saturday i went back to Köln again! 2-hour train ride to the 4th largest city in Germany. all i remembered was that the crowd was crazy (imagine the whole shopping street is as packed as bugis street) nonetheless it was a pleasant shopping experience as the things i wanted were all cheaper than in Singapore heh heh
famous Köln Cathedral. more pictures on Facebook.
camwhoring in front of the cathedral. judged.
we were delighted to find Chinese food! you can actually spot many PRCs in Köln. i sincerely hope the locals dont think we are part of them. by the way, i have been asked 3 times if i come from Japan. errr, no.
yesterday was a trip to the Zoo! there were only two or three of each species of animals. kinda feel sad for the lonely animals. they appear to be either sleeping or lazing around, rather inactive, due to the hot weather i suppose.
show you a giraffe. if you havent seen one, here it is.
when i got home last evening, i was delighted with a pleasant view at the balcony! hot air balloons flying around!this is something that we can never see on top of our HDB flats.
today was a short strawberry picking trip! being sua kus, we were actually quite excited.
fresh, organic, and yours to pick!
they also grow their own potatoes and asparagus. i never knew i love asparagus until today. the lunch was awesome. asparagus cream soup, boiled asparagus and potatoes with hollandaise sauce, and a slice chicken cutlet (Hanchenschnitzel). amazing chicken cutlet too, juicy and succulent. the asparagus tastes so fresh, you feel like they harvested them just this morning for you.
best strawberry milk that i've had. no preservatives, no colorings nor strawberry essence. just pure strawberry goodness. every drop of it.
then it was paddle-boating at Aasee! Muenster is surrounded by land so this is the only place where they can carry out water activities, picnic along the river or just suntan! while us asians are busy avoiding the sun, they cant get more of it. the place was packed, as if the whole of Muenster gathered there to spend family time together.
its 8.45pm now and the sun is still shining brightly. definitely gonna miss the long days in summer!
on a happy note, i am very pleased with my results :D
this is my last week in Germany! just as when i get used to the pace of life here, i am scheduled to leave. this time next week, i'll be in Paris! living like a pauper cause everything is so expensive lol.
Hope all your weekend was great too!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
its been about..10 days since i'm in Europe? it feels like a month though. going to new places, trying local food, living a different lifestyle, it has been a good trip thus far!
tonight was International Buffet! dont be fooled by the name of this activity, it wasnt one where you go with an empty stomach and expect caterers to set up the food. we had to cook! fortunately cooking isnt a Herculean's task. we supplied Chicken Rice, Scrambled eggs with Tomato and Green Bean Soup!
Green Bean Soup was exceptionally new to the Germans who expected it to be 1. a soup, 2. salty. fyi, food here is damn salty, certainly not so good for your taste buds.
i'm so proud of myself.
last weekend was an excursion to Bremen, Bremerhaven and Norderney Island. my facebook album says it all, but i guess not every is so free to look through every single photo. okay so quick summary. we went to a Museum in Bremerhaven which depicted lives of German immigrants / emigrants. it said no photography but us, being Asian tourists, were still snapping happily away.
anways, i'm pretty amused by this photo. spot the real person.
then we headed to Bremen to visit the city hall. i have this tendency to 'localise' everything i see in foreign land. its amusing how i make connections with things in Singapore. for example, i call the student hostel behind my apartment 'PGP', i call the supermarket near my place 'NTUC' and i name one of the shopping streets 'Paragon' cause things were pretty expensive there haha.
Norderney Island next! this island is windy almost all year round so a windbreaker/ jacket is a must. its a small town, mostly filled with sea-view holiday apartments for people to spend their weekend over.
All of us were supposed to meet at 3pm for the ferry will leave at 315pm. my 2 friends and i, unfortunately, were too engrossed with shopping and lost our way in that small island! (my good sense of direction only applies in Singapore lol) we got anxious as the next ferry will only leave at 415pm; that means being stuck in the island for 1hr30min, and worse still, dragging everyone else down too cause they cant leave without us. we back-tracked and ran like bulls towards the jetty. it was that crucial moment when we saw a cab going in our way and we got into it. reached the jetty at 1515hours sharp - thank goodness. we felt so bad.
still, that was a fun experience.
tomorrow there's going to be another excursion, not sure to where yet haha. plus lessons in the afternoon. i dread the latter. but after all, aint that what i came to Muenster for?
its 19degrees now in Muenster and i'm sweating in my room. what is this man. either i feel too cold (4 degrees) or too warm, like now. okay stop being a typical singaporean who keeps complaining about the weather.
something worth sharing.
tonight was International Buffet! dont be fooled by the name of this activity, it wasnt one where you go with an empty stomach and expect caterers to set up the food. we had to cook! fortunately cooking isnt a Herculean's task. we supplied Chicken Rice, Scrambled eggs with Tomato and Green Bean Soup!
Green Bean Soup was exceptionally new to the Germans who expected it to be 1. a soup, 2. salty. fyi, food here is damn salty, certainly not so good for your taste buds.
i'm so proud of myself.
last weekend was an excursion to Bremen, Bremerhaven and Norderney Island. my facebook album says it all, but i guess not every is so free to look through every single photo. okay so quick summary. we went to a Museum in Bremerhaven which depicted lives of German immigrants / emigrants. it said no photography but us, being Asian tourists, were still snapping happily away.
anways, i'm pretty amused by this photo. spot the real person.
then we headed to Bremen to visit the city hall. i have this tendency to 'localise' everything i see in foreign land. its amusing how i make connections with things in Singapore. for example, i call the student hostel behind my apartment 'PGP', i call the supermarket near my place 'NTUC' and i name one of the shopping streets 'Paragon' cause things were pretty expensive there haha.
Norderney Island next! this island is windy almost all year round so a windbreaker/ jacket is a must. its a small town, mostly filled with sea-view holiday apartments for people to spend their weekend over.
All of us were supposed to meet at 3pm for the ferry will leave at 315pm. my 2 friends and i, unfortunately, were too engrossed with shopping and lost our way in that small island! (my good sense of direction only applies in Singapore lol) we got anxious as the next ferry will only leave at 415pm; that means being stuck in the island for 1hr30min, and worse still, dragging everyone else down too cause they cant leave without us. we back-tracked and ran like bulls towards the jetty. it was that crucial moment when we saw a cab going in our way and we got into it. reached the jetty at 1515hours sharp - thank goodness. we felt so bad.
still, that was a fun experience.
tomorrow there's going to be another excursion, not sure to where yet haha. plus lessons in the afternoon. i dread the latter. but after all, aint that what i came to Muenster for?
its 19degrees now in Muenster and i'm sweating in my room. what is this man. either i feel too cold (4 degrees) or too warm, like now. okay stop being a typical singaporean who keeps complaining about the weather.
something worth sharing.
也许我现在更了解自己，了解自己的思维，了解自己的心情。壶里买的是什么药，只有自己最清楚。
宁为玉碎，不为瓦全
Sunday, May 13, 2012
its 4.6 degrees now in Münster and i am freezing brrrrr, not that i am complaining, in fact i love the weather here! how i wish they can build a dome covering the whole Singapore and then air-con the whole island - that'd be perfect too.
this is the first night in my host's place. to be honest, i held my expectations too high. okay, i was expecting a german family waiting for my at home, welcoming my arrival. instead, i find myself in an empty room with no bedsheets, my host happens to be a guy staying alone in the apartment. from the host-student relationship, it became more of a landlord-tenant relationship, it feels like i'm just renting the room from him. after dinner, i went back to my room, switched on my com, did my own stuff, while he continued reading his books in the living room. i dont even know what we're going to do tomorrow, maybe i should explore the city alone.
But that aside, he's quite a nice guy and offered to let me choose what i want to buy in the Supermarkt. (of course lah, i paid 1.6k to stay at your place). that was also the time when i realise that he's quite a cheapo when he wanted me to buy this mousse instead of that cause its *cough 10cents cheaper. okay if saying this redeems anything its 10 euro cents not 10 sing cents haha.
we cooked our pasta for dinner! time to save and scrimp after spending close to a hundred bucks only after 2 days.
it's Mother's Day! time to call home tomorrow. thank goodness there's wifi.
this is the first night in my host's place. to be honest, i held my expectations too high. okay, i was expecting a german family waiting for my at home, welcoming my arrival. instead, i find myself in an empty room with no bedsheets, my host happens to be a guy staying alone in the apartment. from the host-student relationship, it became more of a landlord-tenant relationship, it feels like i'm just renting the room from him. after dinner, i went back to my room, switched on my com, did my own stuff, while he continued reading his books in the living room. i dont even know what we're going to do tomorrow, maybe i should explore the city alone.
the 'minimalistic' state of my room as compared to..
my friend's place. got rose somemore.
we cooked our pasta for dinner! time to save and scrimp after spending close to a hundred bucks only after 2 days.
it's Mother's Day! time to call home tomorrow. thank goodness there's wifi.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
the last night in singapore before my trip! mixed feelings. on one hand i feel excited, yet i feel uncertain about living in foreign land (albeit only a month), and on the other other hand i feel like there is still so much to do in less than 24 hours.
take a deep breath. peace. calm. serenity.
also, i wanna thank my friends for offering/having offered to lend me travel stuff when i merely commented that i needed this or that! your thought is well-appreciated! the little things that make me happy (:
3 weeks in Deutschland, 1 week in Paris. i will enjoy the latter part of this trip more if i have more money. i'm just gonna feel like a pauper when i cant afford the things i want haha :(
please let me know if you want to get anything from these 2 places! i will bring them back, to the best of my
hopefully my host family subscribes to internet connection, so that my blog can still be kept active in the next month! but if they really dont have internet connection, fret not, i have stocked up enough shows in my laptop to last me through the nights hahaha
if that is what you want to hear, it will be what i shall say
Friday, May 04, 2012
its scary when i get 20 over page views in a day and when i count the number of possible readers to this blog, it never exceeds my 10 fingers. i should be careful of what i write, next time. this should be the last not-so-safe post.
i woke up at Sharon's place, and felt quite refreshed even though i only slept at 4am. its going to be a good day right! had a mountain of pratas for brunch at the shop when i was cheated the previous time i patronized them. (if you followed my previous post, there was once when i paid $9.60 for 3 pieces of prata, it turned out that i had to pay for the curry that came with the prata, wth)
then i headed to school for a final briefing before i fly next thur. i saved a friend who thought she had to be at the airport on friday night instead of thur night, so job well done. i'm glad that i finally found a third person whom i can clique with throughout this trip! the rest...hurhur. then people started talking about travel insurance then it dawned upon me that its time i bought it just in case there isnt enough time to process my application.
i contacted my mom and she had an agent who has been handling our insurance policies for the past decade. well he seemed helpful and friendly, everything went well just until the moment when we discussed about payment. he gave me two options, either to pay by credit card or by bank transfer. well obviously i chose to pay via credit card since it was more hassle free, until he asked me for my credit card number over the phone. hell no, i definitely do not want to reveal my credit card number. so now i opted for bank transfer. i made transactions with AIA before, and it was one of the payees in my iBanking list, so i was happy that i didnt have to go through the whole verification process with my iBanking again. a text came with the payment instructions. he told me to transfer the money to a POSB savings account! erm, excuse me? shouldnt i be transferring money to your company's account instead of this dubious account which i've never seen before?
then it occured to me that he didnt ask me to sign any documents for the insurance purchase! hello! no signature, no proof?
i'm basically stuck now. my mom obviously has trust in him, given that he has handed all our policies for so long. but i'm skeptical at how he's handling this transaction. okay i dont really care about the money that much, the more important thing is to get myself insured! there is a history of theft/stolen luggage from previous batch that went over, so that i need to make sure i get insured for the damn journey!
what to do. what to do.
i had no mood to teach tuition just now. all my mind was filled with stuff about the trip. i havent bought a luggage, needless to say pack anything, i havent settled the insurance, i have no accommodation in Paris, i have yet to email my host family, i have no idea what to bring for them....
damnit.
amidst all the frustrations, i had to find out about certain things. shall i say that knowing the truth turned out to be more of a disappointment, bewilderment, than anything else. hey, i dont see whats there to hide, and whats there not to reveal. i'm not being a busybody but i just feel like i have the permission to know certain things?
then again, who am i to you?
like always, i feel like an idiot when the whole world knows about something in which i have no idea. call myself an insensitive bitch; its feels like history repeating itself, in the span of just 2 months? once again, i can forsee myself withdrawing from..whatever it is.
that led me to talking about a lot of other things and the more i went on, the more i felt angry with myself. (accumulated anger) when i talked everything out, gosh its either i havent grown up or i lacked the EQ. holding the age of 22 but always acting and thinking like a 2-year-old.
the show should have ended long ago, but it just started...again? its too tiring to watch.
如果每一天都这样‘多姿多彩’，我宁愿平平淡淡的度过。
fuck this shit.
i woke up at Sharon's place, and felt quite refreshed even though i only slept at 4am. its going to be a good day right! had a mountain of pratas for brunch at the shop when i was cheated the previous time i patronized them. (if you followed my previous post, there was once when i paid $9.60 for 3 pieces of prata, it turned out that i had to pay for the curry that came with the prata, wth)
then i headed to school for a final briefing before i fly next thur. i saved a friend who thought she had to be at the airport on friday night instead of thur night, so job well done. i'm glad that i finally found a third person whom i can clique with throughout this trip! the rest...hurhur. then people started talking about travel insurance then it dawned upon me that its time i bought it just in case there isnt enough time to process my application.
i contacted my mom and she had an agent who has been handling our insurance policies for the past decade. well he seemed helpful and friendly, everything went well just until the moment when we discussed about payment. he gave me two options, either to pay by credit card or by bank transfer. well obviously i chose to pay via credit card since it was more hassle free, until he asked me for my credit card number over the phone. hell no, i definitely do not want to reveal my credit card number. so now i opted for bank transfer. i made transactions with AIA before, and it was one of the payees in my iBanking list, so i was happy that i didnt have to go through the whole verification process with my iBanking again. a text came with the payment instructions. he told me to transfer the money to a POSB savings account! erm, excuse me? shouldnt i be transferring money to your company's account instead of this dubious account which i've never seen before?
then it occured to me that he didnt ask me to sign any documents for the insurance purchase! hello! no signature, no proof?
i'm basically stuck now. my mom obviously has trust in him, given that he has handed all our policies for so long. but i'm skeptical at how he's handling this transaction. okay i dont really care about the money that much, the more important thing is to get myself insured! there is a history of theft/stolen luggage from previous batch that went over, so that i need to make sure i get insured for the damn journey!
what to do. what to do.
i had no mood to teach tuition just now. all my mind was filled with stuff about the trip. i havent bought a luggage, needless to say pack anything, i havent settled the insurance, i have no accommodation in Paris, i have yet to email my host family, i have no idea what to bring for them....
damnit.
amidst all the frustrations, i had to find out about certain things. shall i say that knowing the truth turned out to be more of a disappointment, bewilderment, than anything else. hey, i dont see whats there to hide, and whats there not to reveal. i'm not being a busybody but i just feel like i have the permission to know certain things?
then again, who am i to you?
like always, i feel like an idiot when the whole world knows about something in which i have no idea. call myself an insensitive bitch; its feels like history repeating itself, in the span of just 2 months? once again, i can forsee myself withdrawing from..whatever it is.
that led me to talking about a lot of other things and the more i went on, the more i felt angry with myself. (accumulated anger) when i talked everything out, gosh its either i havent grown up or i lacked the EQ. holding the age of 22 but always acting and thinking like a 2-year-old.
the show should have ended long ago, but it just started...again? its too tiring to watch.
如果每一天都这样‘多姿多彩’，我宁愿平平淡淡的度过。
fuck this shit.
