After getting internet connection in my room, i listen to Mediacorp radio 99.3FM. two interesting things i heard over radio today that kinda tickled me.
no.1 4D results.
I came home and turned on the radio and they were reading out the results. the first thought that came to my mind was 'today is wednesday.' the second, 'did my mother have any luck today???' haha. suddenly reminded me of home. it felt so funny! to listen to singapore 4D results in Germany.
no.2 National Anthem
i was chatting with xiaowen on msn and was going to log off cos the clock on my table read 23.58. then i saw that the radio was going to play fan wei qi's song so i thought i shall listen to that as my last song then i will put my laptop to sleep. the song started playing.. den halfway, the national anthem went. first reacion: 'WHAT?!" second reaction: 'orh.. now singapore time is 6am. TV will also play national anthem at this time...' well, i didn't really feel anything listening to the anthem. i haven't heard it for a year. the last time i heard it was national day last year, and when PA8 sang it in cambodia. i am so un-patriotic....
kk. i just had to blog abt today's interesting stuff. gotta sleep now.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Food: of cooking and eating with friends...
it has been one week since i last blogged. i have not been taking many photos because there were not much to take.
in the past week, i started my september intensive language course. everything seemed to go back to square 1. people were new, awkward smiles, 'hallo, ich komme aus Singapur (i come from singapore)..' thankfully, my classmates are nice. but they are a rather quiet bunch. our teacher can go on talking for 2.5 hours our of the 3 hours class. it trains my listening and between my classmates and i, we insist on speaking german only. sometimes very tiring.. but when u got people who are willing to speak german with u, just be thankful and practice and learn together.
anyway, i have long wanted to blog about cooking and eating together. when i stayed in hostel in nus last time, the only thing i cooked was maggi mee when i was hungry at night or i was too lazy to have a proper dinner. meals were always simply settled in yih canteen or science canteen or dover market or wherever i could buy take aways.
In germany now, cos eating out is expensive, i cook almost every meal. breakfast consist of flakes with fruit cereals with milk cos i can't be bothered to wake up too early to make something elaborate. on sunday mornings, i will pamper myself and prepare american style breakfast (toast, ham, egg, coffee), sit at the balcony and read my book. take about 45 mins to 1 hour to enjoy my breakfast n the scenery. lunch will always be sandwiches which i prepare in the morning and bring to school. cos mensa (german word for canteen) food kinda sucks. at night, i will prepare good dinner for myself, or if we eat with friends, we will cook several dishes and try making anything fun.
so below, are some photos taken of friends cooking and of us eating together.
we had the party which i had blogged about. the pple from different countries had to prepare home-cooked food. so here u go..
the norwegians prepared this dish whereby u have bread (above), scrambled eggs and salmon. they fried 40 eggs!!!!
and of course, the chinese combined forces and made jiao zi! shioooook. most of us ate like 15 each before we left for the party... hahhaa. we made like 150 of them!
and where i stay, 12 people in a 'bungalow' share one kitchen and two toilets. most of us share utensils and cooking stuff cos it is just leftover equipments from previous exchange students. so, since pple share almost everything, u wash up what u've used!
some dishes i cooked... just like what i would cook back at home. with the wonders of oyster sauce i bought from the asian market... yum yum!
and of course, sweet and sour pork!!!! it rocks. i am very very proud that I can cook this dish. despite the tedious procedure required to prepare this dish, i love it. in one month, i cooked this dish 3 times. once in stuttgart, this one was for miriam, and once last week for wang tong and my housemate cos wang tong was leaving for st gallen, and my housemate happened to return home in time for dinner and there was more than enough for 3 to eat.
curry vege.. it was probably the healthiest dish i had... potato, carrot, celery in curry sauce with rice.
it was sunday so it was pajamas day. u can see that muhan and bianda are so messy cos they refused to clean up. bianda is from indonesia.
my investment. hahaha.... everytime i walk along the streets in the city, i am so tempted to buy ice cream lah!!!!! one cone is around 70 eurocents. i thought about it and decided that i can't go on forever and keep buying cones everytime i go to town. so, i went to Kaufland (German NTUC) and bought this. Movenpick ice cream!!! it ROCKS!
On last monday, a few of us from the summer course who are still in konstanz cos we are exchange students are Uni Konstanz decided to have dinner together. So, we went to Europahaus and had an italian dinner. The difference in the hostels is such that mine is 12 single rooms sharing common toilets and kitchen. In Europahaus, students stay in apartments. It is the most common in Germany for students to stay in such apartments called Wohngemeinschaft (short form WG). around 3 to 4 bedrooms per unit, and the students will share toilets, kitchen and living area.
i was fooling around with the lemon that angela, from NZL, brought from her unit next door, while Max was preparing authentic italian food. Spaghetti with pesto sauce.. he plucked the basil leaves from the plant at his window, den started chopping up. the pasta was fantastic. and it is so easy to make!
and so, there's the four of us! max from italy, asami from osaka, me from singapore and angela from new zealand.
okey okey.. hope that u guys are not getting hungry reading this... hee hee.
in the past week, i started my september intensive language course. everything seemed to go back to square 1. people were new, awkward smiles, 'hallo, ich komme aus Singapur (i come from singapore)..' thankfully, my classmates are nice. but they are a rather quiet bunch. our teacher can go on talking for 2.5 hours our of the 3 hours class. it trains my listening and between my classmates and i, we insist on speaking german only. sometimes very tiring.. but when u got people who are willing to speak german with u, just be thankful and practice and learn together.
anyway, i have long wanted to blog about cooking and eating together. when i stayed in hostel in nus last time, the only thing i cooked was maggi mee when i was hungry at night or i was too lazy to have a proper dinner. meals were always simply settled in yih canteen or science canteen or dover market or wherever i could buy take aways.
In germany now, cos eating out is expensive, i cook almost every meal. breakfast consist of flakes with fruit cereals with milk cos i can't be bothered to wake up too early to make something elaborate. on sunday mornings, i will pamper myself and prepare american style breakfast (toast, ham, egg, coffee), sit at the balcony and read my book. take about 45 mins to 1 hour to enjoy my breakfast n the scenery. lunch will always be sandwiches which i prepare in the morning and bring to school. cos mensa (german word for canteen) food kinda sucks. at night, i will prepare good dinner for myself, or if we eat with friends, we will cook several dishes and try making anything fun.
so below, are some photos taken of friends cooking and of us eating together.
we had the party which i had blogged about. the pple from different countries had to prepare home-cooked food. so here u go..
the norwegians prepared this dish whereby u have bread (above), scrambled eggs and salmon. they fried 40 eggs!!!!
and of course, the chinese combined forces and made jiao zi! shioooook. most of us ate like 15 each before we left for the party... hahhaa. we made like 150 of them!
and where i stay, 12 people in a 'bungalow' share one kitchen and two toilets. most of us share utensils and cooking stuff cos it is just leftover equipments from previous exchange students. so, since pple share almost everything, u wash up what u've used!
some dishes i cooked... just like what i would cook back at home. with the wonders of oyster sauce i bought from the asian market... yum yum!
and of course, sweet and sour pork!!!! it rocks. i am very very proud that I can cook this dish. despite the tedious procedure required to prepare this dish, i love it. in one month, i cooked this dish 3 times. once in stuttgart, this one was for miriam, and once last week for wang tong and my housemate cos wang tong was leaving for st gallen, and my housemate happened to return home in time for dinner and there was more than enough for 3 to eat.
curry vege.. it was probably the healthiest dish i had... potato, carrot, celery in curry sauce with rice.
it was sunday so it was pajamas day. u can see that muhan and bianda are so messy cos they refused to clean up. bianda is from indonesia.
my investment. hahaha.... everytime i walk along the streets in the city, i am so tempted to buy ice cream lah!!!!! one cone is around 70 eurocents. i thought about it and decided that i can't go on forever and keep buying cones everytime i go to town. so, i went to Kaufland (German NTUC) and bought this. Movenpick ice cream!!! it ROCKS!
On last monday, a few of us from the summer course who are still in konstanz cos we are exchange students are Uni Konstanz decided to have dinner together. So, we went to Europahaus and had an italian dinner. The difference in the hostels is such that mine is 12 single rooms sharing common toilets and kitchen. In Europahaus, students stay in apartments. It is the most common in Germany for students to stay in such apartments called Wohngemeinschaft (short form WG). around 3 to 4 bedrooms per unit, and the students will share toilets, kitchen and living area.
i was fooling around with the lemon that angela, from NZL, brought from her unit next door, while Max was preparing authentic italian food. Spaghetti with pesto sauce.. he plucked the basil leaves from the plant at his window, den started chopping up. the pasta was fantastic. and it is so easy to make!
and so, there's the four of us! max from italy, asami from osaka, me from singapore and angela from new zealand.okey okey.. hope that u guys are not getting hungry reading this... hee hee.
Monday, September 3, 2007
stuttgart & burg hohenzollern
i am too lazy to blog about my trip to stuttgart and burg hohenzollern with siwei and ziming. so, u guys can go to their blog and read about it! hee hee... makes things easier also. =)
siwei: http://www.siweianderunika.blogspot.com/
ziming: http://www.herrtong.blogspot.com/
siwei: http://www.siweianderunika.blogspot.com/
ziming: http://www.herrtong.blogspot.com/
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Strasbourg
After the end of the summer course, Wang Tong (China) and I decided to go to Strasbourg after a fellow coursemate, Jeff told us how much fun he had there the weekend before. We got the BW ticket and set off early Thursday morning taking the 6.38am train. then at 8, we got kicked out of the train at Immendingen. (note the timing on the clock) BW ticket can ONLY be used from 0900 onwards!!!!! argh... so, Wang Tong and i strayed around Immendingen for 2 hours in the rain and cold, before we caught the next train at 0927, heading to Offenburg.
At Immendingen, clock reads 0810.
this girl is typical of stasbourg. not sure about the history tho.. but it is all over the streets in postcards and stuff.
and we saw a very ugly dog. it was SOOOO wrinkled!!!!
and a ginormous dog. i was so scared i was standing so far!
and then, we went to take the boat ride..
some views during the ride..
urm.. can't remember the name of this church. i am such a lousy tourist...
we took the open air boat. this is the aircon one..
ARTE office. from wiki, Arte (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne) is a Franco-German TV network, which aims to promote quality programming related to the world of arts and culture.
the EU Parliament..
the Cathedral.. we climbed up to the platform above.. 392 steps i think. i was shaking with fear... but it was nice. 
and yes! i sent my second mail. to who??? don't tell u. 
and finally, we were heading home.
At Immendingen, clock reads 0810.
Wang Tong and i at Offenburg. Had to wait 1 hour for the train to Strasbourg.
and finally, we arrived. It was supposed to be a 3.5 hour journey. i think we took about 5 hours? but it is ok! company was good. Please don't be fooled by her size. This little girl is 25. She is a little big sister to me.. 
streets of strasbour. so different from germany streets.
we needed to fill our water bottles. so we asked someone where we could find water... he told us to get it from this tap.
streets of strasbour. so different from germany streets.we needed to fill our water bottles. so we asked someone where we could find water... he told us to get it from this tap. 
this girl is typical of stasbourg. not sure about the history tho.. but it is all over the streets in postcards and stuff.
and we saw a very ugly dog. it was SOOOO wrinkled!!!! and a ginormous dog. i was so scared i was standing so far!
and then, we went to take the boat ride..
some views during the ride..
urm.. can't remember the name of this church. i am such a lousy tourist...
we took the open air boat. this is the aircon one..
ARTE office. from wiki, Arte (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne) is a Franco-German TV network, which aims to promote quality programming related to the world of arts and culture. 
the EU Parliament..
the Cathedral.. we climbed up to the platform above.. 392 steps i think. i was shaking with fear... but it was nice. 
and yes! i sent my second mail. to who??? don't tell u. and finally, we were heading home. it was so funny.. we were hanging around outside the train cos we were like trying to predict which carriage the conductor will go on. there were to carriages which were not connected. we were really worried, cos we didn't get a ticket for the portion of our ride from germany to france. the bw ticket could only bring us to kehl, the last stop before the train heads for france. we were to get a 7€ ticket for the one stop. Heng Heng, we never get caught... the conductor boarded the train after we entered germany. =)
yup yup.. that is all for Strasbourg. got alot more pics.. but too many to upload lah. wat to do?? u put two girls together for one whole day, got camera, sure start taking photos like siao. the rest of u in sgp, do take care!
Saturday, September 1, 2007
it is weird to do several posts a day.. but if not, i am gg to start lagging.
Luggage was heavy and i was only limited to 30kg check in by thai airlines. so, my nice father said he will send me the stuff.. n on 27th, TA DARH! i got the package!!! speedpost by singpost is pretty good. an almost 10kg package costing almost S$150. and it arrived in 5-7 days!
the package, all wrapped up.
so funny.. after tearing the wrappers, i saw that the box was from kelloggs corn flakes..
stuff from home!!! 
and with the photos my dear brother printed out for me, my walls are no longer bare white!
the package, all wrapped up.
so funny.. after tearing the wrappers, i saw that the box was from kelloggs corn flakes..
stuff from home!!! and with the photos my dear brother printed out for me, my walls are no longer bare white!
and who says things in europe are expensive?? remember i mentioned i got a pullover at a flea market in st gallen for 2 frcs?? here it is! and it is a very nice colour!!!
and yesterday when i was walking alot the streets, i saw this pair of shoes. now it is mine!!!! cos my ballet flats are ripping thanks to the trekking at hohenzollern. hee hee... usual price of 39.95€. i got it at 10€. and it is very very comfy!!!!
and yesterday when i was walking alot the streets, i saw this pair of shoes. now it is mine!!!! cos my ballet flats are ripping thanks to the trekking at hohenzollern. hee hee... usual price of 39.95€. i got it at 10€. and it is very very comfy!!!!Internationale Bodensee Hochschule Sommerkurs 2007
my summer school programme has officially ended three days ago on 29th august. it also means that i have been in germany for 1 month. Most of my friends are now either back home, or have gone to St gallen, zurich or leichtenstein for their exchange. it has been an amazing experience to meet people from all over the world. looking back, i am glad i took up this course. it is like, although not everyone mixes with everyone, we can still sit down together and chat in a party. the door is open and as long as one person recognises u, u are welcomed. the last week was party after party every single night. u don't need the booze. u just need the people.. it was very fun n it feels good to know that now, i have friends in Poland, Norway, Mexico, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark, etc... and the best thing is, everyone welcomes everyone to their home country! below are some pics of the whole group and the friends i am closer to..
taken at meersburg. we are a total of about 81 students. it was so difficult to take the pic due to limited space..
taken at voralsburg during our break. not everyone went cos some had visa problems.
Classmates, Bruno (Brazil) and Chen Ye(China) 
it was the last day and most pple were gone. so our teacher came up with some skit thing... louis(Brazil) and ursula(Ukraine) in the foreground.
Pal (Norway) and Roberto (Brazil). 
my norwegian buddies: pal and jostein. Jostein stays super north in norway and apparently, the auroras to him is a normal sight. urgh...... he had a pic on his laptop of someone snowboarding in the air. i asked him if he took the picture. he said.. no. it was a picture of him. DANG. -_-'''
taken at meersburg. we are a total of about 81 students. it was so difficult to take the pic due to limited space..
taken at voralsburg during our break. not everyone went cos some had visa problems.And of course, i had classes during the programme. it is not all that slack ok?? my teacher, dorothee.
Classmates, Bruno (Brazil) and Chen Ye(China) it was the last day and most pple were gone. so our teacher came up with some skit thing... louis(Brazil) and ursula(Ukraine) in the foreground. Pal (Norway) and Roberto (Brazil). my norwegian buddies: pal and jostein. Jostein stays super north in norway and apparently, the auroras to him is a normal sight. urgh...... he had a pic on his laptop of someone snowboarding in the air. i asked him if he took the picture. he said.. no. it was a picture of him. DANG. -_-'''
Aja, from Poland. there was another girl Isa too, but she left already.. 
Andrew, from england. it is very difficult to talk to him cos he is so tall!
Andrew, from england. it is very difficult to talk to him cos he is so tall!
Eduardo, from Mexico
he is a self-confessed spoilt brat. but i think coming to germany has done him some good. at least, he attempted using the washing machine and can speak a few german words. he came with No knowledge of german. and yes. he has NEVER washed his clothes before.. at the age of 21, he had problems figuring out how to operate the washing machine in the hostel cos he has never done it at home before. it was his first time taking public bus also. simply a small boy, altho he is older than me. he attempted to cook some instant soup that had such a lovely pic in front but didn't managed to do achieve the same standard. he insisted that the packet was a fake. it was funny.. yup yup... there are so many things to blog about but i only have time on weekends to blog cos i am so free!!! i still got a list of stuff to show all of u.. my bicycle, the disgusting slugs, the university, bla bla bla.. shall do it slowly, section by section.
yup yup!!! and so, this is IBH summer course. it was fun.. and if anyone is going to germany for exchange, do go for it too!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)