long post ahead but with many pictures! with me in them! hahaha

Back from Florence and Pisa for almost a week. Have been trying to catch up on my work. Sch and travelling certainly doesn't come together. Had a surprise test on cadding yesterday and we spent half the time translating the questions into english and looking for the correct commands which are also in italian. Didn't complete the test in the end. I hope i can pass... but unlikely. cos here u need 18/30 to pass, and i barely finished half. In singapore i think i wld have been very sad. But somehow after the test, we went for a walk and gelato in town w a new Indian girl who just arrived in Turin and I forgot about it.

As promised, some photos from my recent trip.

Playing cards while we waited for 24hrs for the next Stockholm-bound flight.


But it was worth the wait cos Stockholm is BEAUTIFUL!


It's really different from the Southern part of Europe, where I am.

A tourist snapshot

Hej! I�m in Stockholm!


Uppsala

There was spring welcoming celebrations everywhere in Sweden.Wee Keong from NJ was exchanging in Uppsala and he invited us to see this raft competition he�s participating in. It�s quite similar to SP�s River Raft Race. Uppsala is a small college town 40 mins away from Stockholm. It was rainy and cold but it was a good day trip to get acquainted with kailing�s friends.

(L-R, clockwise) Me, Daisuke from Tokyo, John from Cebu trying to find out who the statue is. / The crowd cheering the rafts. / Here you can see a typical street in Uppsala with the beautiful church spires in the background. / Me,John,Winnie,Kazu from Tokyo, Daisuke, Kailing, Elle from Singapore. Eric from Singapore is taking the photo. (Note tt the Japs don�t look like Japs�heh)

Swedish Angels

The children are beautiful. Most have blonde hair with blue eyes. And they are not shy! Haha� we had fun playing peek-a-boo and taking photos with them! You can imagine how chio they are when they grow up!

Skansen

It is a open air museum, where they try to simulate the environment of Sweden from the 1800s onwards. There are pharmacies, bakeries, houses of middle-class, merchants, etc. Inside the scenes, there are people dressed in the appropriate costumes who know their very well. E.g. there is a pharmacist who can tell you all about what it�s like to buy medicine in the 19th century. In the bakery there are real bakers baking the sweet Swedish confectionary which you can buy at a low price. There is also this part with Nordic animals like algs, wolverines, bears etc. We were there to investigate the mystery of the missing antlers of the algs. Unlike the time Kailing was there in the autumn, they didn�t have antlers! We asked the cashier at the gift shop, she said it�s due to the different genders. But Kailing�s Swedish friend Johan said the antlers dropped. Can somebody explain this to me? Well maybe it�s due to the season, the animals are still very sleepy. They ain�t too active. So yah it wasn�t too exciting.

My favourite part is the HORSE! The symbol of Sweden is ergonomically challenging. I tried so many times to mount the horse! And I had to queue with all the children who had their parents to carry them onto the horse! I eventually succeeded with the help of 2 rocks stacked together and also with the encouragement of an onlooking daddy. YAY!

Kailing�s favourite person in Skansen is the Baker! He is so so nice! He looks so much like Santa Clause and he is like a santa claus! He offered me a free flour roll! I am so easy to bribe�And he gladly took pictures with each of us, complete with the baker�s hat.

Others

Introducing, the largest IKEA in the world! I think it�s about 3 times bigger than the branch in Singapore. And the cafes have much more selection of food! Ok, also the furniture and accessories. EVERYTHING! Ingang means entrance. Kailing says I must take a picture with it.

On the last day we had a crash day tour to the remaining places I haven�t seen.

See the horse in the City Hall? They made me climb onto it again! There are no rocks this time round. Notice I look very tired beside Kailing in the picture? It�s due to the numerous times I tried to run and jump onto it. Fat and clumsy me had to lend Eric�s lap as a chair to get onto it.

Old Town is a preserved part of Stockholm with many quaint little shops, mostly souvenir shops or cafes. Eric and Ian were the photographers of the day. Thanks to them and Kailing I took many photos! Throughout the trip I felt like a model! They are always telling me to take photos here and there� felt so pampered!


HISS! At the beginning I always saw the sign HISS on top of some door in the train stations. And the doors are always some wooden door with a small opening at the side, and a handle. What I�m trying to say is, it looks like an ordinary door you find in public places. And HISS doesn�t look like a very friendly word so I thought it meant NO ENTRY! You noe, like the snake hisses and it's a dangerous animal? Such connotations led me to tt thought. Until I saw it again in Kailing�s apt and then I realised it meant the LIFT! Hai.. you learn everywhere you go. Now I also know Hej means hi! And Hej Tag means bye? Dunno if I got the spelling correct though.


A parting shot taken before leaving. Eric looks like Dragon King (Hai Long Wang) rite?