Thursday, August 31, 2006

My Room(s)

Some pics my family wants to see.. my room...

Before 1st Change:




Current Room:

See the difference in the furniture? The rents are the same for both rooms...





My mini-kitchen.



I cooked and eat maggienoodles for the 1st time in my room...

Monday, August 28, 2006

Picture Says a Thousand words...

Shall update s l o w l y... having no internet connection in my room like my other friends do, its really sad but i'll bear with it:)


1st Night Outing to Marina Bay

Picture taken while waiting for the bus at Oslo City to Marina Bay



A nice sceneric pic by the bay, a castle-like dunno-what on the opposite



Temporary mini-themepark at the Bay. And of course we challenged our guts!






1st Picnic on a sunny Sunday





Pringles that costs 7.50SGD!



1st Visit to the Toro Horse Club beside our hostel





Seeing the similarity(ies) between the horsey and me? Not very clear image but I bet it isn't difficult to point them out!

Monday, August 21, 2006

Eerie hostel

A brief description of the hostel that am staying in - Bjerke Studentby

The main door to the building is an automated sensor door which has all the room number buzzer. For visitors' convenience I guess. The next door will then require key for entering. Our lobby has letterboxes and phone booth and some what-nots that I have yet discover. Then key is needed again to enter the elevator lobby.

Now to the outdated elevator. It's on MANUAL, mind you! the 1st kinda elevator i've ever seen!! There aren't any open nor close buttons k! Amazing huh? The door is opened by our bare human hands and the door's heaviness will shut it in. AFterwhich, the door when sensing no one is too near the door, it'll start operating - moving to the desired storeys. WOW. How lame is that?

Then you'll enter into the door with your keys to the right 'apartment' that has all the different rooms and a kitchen. Each floor has 3 of such 'apartment's. Why 3? B'cos this old yet artistic hostel is a triangular building! Each of this 'apartment' has about 5 doors. 2 of which are single rooms, other 3 are individual rooms with shared bathroom between 2 persons. So your key will go to the right door and opens to your room and your neighbour. The last door is to own room, of course! Toilet can't be locked from outside, so dah! Oh yesh, the kitchen/pantry requires your key to open too!

One key to SO MANY doors! No wonder it causes 1000NOK for lost of key!

Below shows the common door shared by me and my African guy neighbor on the left, the right will of course be the bathroom.



Below shows the closeness of the 2 doors. Cant even take a pic of the corridor when I'm behind the common door! So small the space indeed! Mine is to the left, with my orange towel. Dare not use my toilet yet.



Sunday, August 20, 2006

Some pics taken in my sch lib using the comp, havent used my camera except to take my ugly room, will upload the room pics another time...






am going off for picnic now. Zhi's idea. DAH! sunday here is no no fun tt's why the idea of sitting on a patch of grass to have meals....

Life Can Never Be Any Tougher

Let’s narrate the hard life and maybe some sweet ones…

At Home – 14 Aug 11:00 onwards

Doing last minute packing and had to rush to buy stuffs
1. Vacuum Ziploc bag ‘cos I tore the ready-packed bag with all the clothing the night before *clumsy*
2. Buy conventional camera film ‘cos we cant hand-carry any THING to London and I had to pack the only digi-cam in my luggage *terrorists’ doing*

The airport hand-carry regulations certainly peeved my trip. ‘Cause I just bought my notebook and it had to suffer from the rough handling inside the luggage.

At the airport – 14 Aug 19:00 onwards


Relatives and SC friends came to send me off as a huge surprise. Touched yet feeling damn guilty especially towards my loved ones – mummy, daddy, sis, Kie, bro and Jen. Spent really little time with them at the airport. Come to think of it, it’s really saddening Misses them a lot now. Some more I didn’t bring any photos here! Shall ask them to post it to me. All those hugs are so valuable to me now.

To Shuff: My dad ate the gift!

At London Airport – 15 Aug 12:00

Had terrible airsickness on the plane and caused me weak and hungry when I reached Heathrow. It was all ‘cos of the indigestion and crazy turbulence, our worst ever. It lasted for 3-5min each time, occurring more than 5 times on air. Captain said it was due to the monsoon happening in Indian Ocean. For that, I kept rushing to the toilet and puked everything outta my stomach. I was puking since 4am till the plane landed – 11.45am, more than 10 times I believe. Transit at the unexpectedly old and un-fascinating airport just made my condition worst. Spending 2 pounds for Black Canyon biscotti - S$8. Sad I didn’t change more currencies in Singapore. Call back home and to Kie made me feel better.

At Oslo Airport – 15 Aug 18:00

Modern and new but inefficient airport design. Was in terrible shock to retrieve my luggage after waiting 30min for it. 1 of the wheels came off and the other was half-broken. How great was that. Do think I had the FRAGILE tag attached. Luckily Joseph was there to help me manipulate the luggage whilst I carried other smaller bags.

*Above are in Singapore timing. Here is exactly 6hrs behind home

At Bjerke (pronounced as be-yo-ke) Studentby – 15 Aug 13:00

Was totally disgusted with my room, old furniture and a lousy mattress that looks like it was decaying. Wanted to clean up my room and deem it as destiny, but later realized that I was sharing my bathroom with a Somalia guy! Though he looks decent and clean, but it’s truly uncomforting. Initially thought I can share it with Cindy. Sigh.

The design is individual room and shared bathroom, and up top of it, our rooms and bathrooms are enclosed behind a door. Kie was shocked to hear I that he felt that we are sharing a apartment. Worse than apartment man. ‘Cos the corridor that we share is extremely narrow so when we both leave our rooms, our standing space is less than 2m sq. The whole hostel is incorrigibly old and shabby, with MANUAL lifts! My goodness! Filed my application with other girls to move to a newer hostel. But there are1500people on waiting list! Bunking in Nic’s room at the moment. See how screwed our school management is!

Expected to rest in our rooms after the long flight of 16hrs, but to know of the situation, it really freaked the hella Cindy and me. We then went IKEA to buy essentials and made travel pass which costs 430NOK per month ($1=4NOK). Traveling every hour on bus or trains costs 30NOK. Daylight robbery!


Generally.. it's tough to go on an exchange to a far away land and high standard of living city. Luckily enough, I have a bunch of good friends who willing to take me in and even take care of my meals! thanks dearie, esp zhi,mel and xindy.

PS: EC Leong, you're so dead.