Gothenburg

Hmmm.....most of the travelling was done by tram.

We went ot the city park and went in the glass house....which was lame but warm and humid.

Then, we went to the supermarket to buy swedish meatballs and made our own dinner., watched tv...and chill

Next day, We went to the maritime museum....well actually there were a lot of ships....submarines....gun boats....

it was pretty cool to get into those chlostrophobic places......for a while.

We also went ot the city museum to see everything there was about viking history.....never realised that I took the time to appreciate these things

Then, we went window shopping.

In the hostel, I met this norwegian guy who had come all the way cos he was in search of this seed of this plant which grew most northen in Gothenburg...as he wanted to bring back to norway, cross-breed them and use them in city planning...which i think is pretty cool.

We had pizza for dinner. oh and I must mention of No.2 pastry shop which looks really posh just to drink hot chocolate...haha...

On our last day, we went to the Universeum to see the souvenir shop.....

blah blah...last night in stockholm....

yawn

Malmo

So Malmo was nice.

We went to this one and only castle...which has 4 museums, tons of children, an aquarium and some reptiles. Funny how we spent most of our time watching ducks standing on frozen thin ice only to fall and struggle...but it was fun.

It took so much of our time considering we slept half the day ...so that most of the time was spent walking through the shopping...stationary, etc. Saw St. Peter's church and an all american shop.

then took the train back...the train ride was nice cos it's over the sea and to both sides are just vast expanses of sea with the sun shining down on it.

The night as usual was spent with buffet dinner and television.

Next morning we had to get up early to catch our 3 hr + train to Gothenburg, the 2nd most busy city in sweden by the coast on the west. We all slept.

Stepping out of the train station, we headed to the tourist info as usual only to take tons of pamphlets that we hardly look at. It was located in this big department store. Weather was crappy and misty.

We had to take a tram to our hostel which is on a hill.

To be continued.....cos my internet time is up....

will try to learn how to add pics on my blog...but some gd news...I got an interview with the Sanger Institute for my summer attachment next week...

Now am in Stockholm....

hahaha

Copenhagen

Left london on SUn morning only to find that tube hadn't start so early, so caught a taxi.

changed our money there...had BK for breakfast

then our SAS plane was pretty small and it took us an hour to reach copenhagen.

we took a train to the city centre and it was a short walk to our hotel ...SAGA hotel.
dumped our stuff and headed out.

tivoli an amusement park was closed and so was most of denamrk on sunday. had lunch at scwama... then walked around...to the Uni library then to C.H. anderson's statue and his museum as well as Ripley's belive it or not museum.

had tea at BK and listened to a really funky and plain stupid busker.

Hotel had T.v. in english so cool and deprived....so watched tons of tv.. and had chinese take away.

Day 2 : we had breakfast...pate, hams, breads etc....went to see the little mermaid, the castlelet, Amelidona??...the Marble church, the canal where we had hot chocoloate, the round tower to have a paranomic view, and the cool crepery and sweets etc.

Had Macs for dinner

just came back from Malmo but will write abt it tmr...

Bye!!

Isle of Wight

End of term = yipee

A for Molecular Biology II = yeay

5 weeks to exams = boo

Came back from Isle of Wight = yeay

Isle of Wight was a nice get away...it's an island south of UK, took a fastcat from Portsmouth although if we were more adventurous, we could have taken the hovercraft. The island is just slightly smaller than Singapore, more like sentosa.

Sunny was the day, cool was the night. We rented a car for a day and raymond the only guy who has 2 yrs of driving experience. We drove east to Bembridge, then to Sandown then to Shanklin. Bembridge had a had a bay which had this rustic feeling to it. how lovely.

Sandown and shanklin had nice golden snady beaches. The sun was so bright that we were regreting that we did not bring our sunglasses. There was also a white-faced cliff.

From shanklin we headed south to Ventor and whitley and made a detour inland to Godshill. It was a thatch-roofed village, selling hand-made fudge, cider, fruit wines etc. Really nice. Thatch is young stems piled parallel like sapu lidi on the roof, many times over. Newly thatched roof is light brown while older ones are brownish-black...i.e. english atap housing.

We then went to Newport, their 'city', had m&s and safeway etc. However, as the day was still young and the city not, we headed west to needles bay to catch the sunset.

However, the more westward we headed, the more mistier it got. this was due to the sudden heat by the sun causing a sea mist to form and blown inland. Visibility really got bad and blocked out the sun. But we persisted. We were only greeted with fog at the most western tip with orange hue. still pretty though.

As it was getting dark, we made our way to Cowes, north. We passed through Yarmouth along the coast. There, we had our dinner. We dined at the Fountain, I had vegatarian quessadillas while raymond had irish stew and sharon had seafood paella. good stuff.

Then we headed back to Ryde. where we watched the tele, GOldfinger was showing and a jean claude van damme show after. Sleep

Full english breakfast followed by a ride to Cowbrookes castle, too ex to enter so went to Osbourne mansion, closed.

As a last attempt and seeing the sky clearing, we travelled to needles bay so that we could hike to freshwater bay. WE climbed and walked along the ridge towards the coast. The mist had cleared some what although it was as though the clouds had descended upon us like soft cotton, the moist air enveloping us with the sun beating down our backs.

After toying around with the crows we headed back to Ryde to top up fuel and return the car.

Without the car, we walked to high street and then decided to go to rosemary vineyard. it was a long walk cos we missed a shotcut. it was very educational. leanred that green grapes are called must or mast? and are processed differently compared to red grapes. They're harvested in Autumn and apples to make cider. After harvest, the grapes are placed in shallow trays so the bottom grapes are not crushed. then green are passed through a de-stemmer which does what it says. then green grapes crushed and pressed at 4 bars for 2 weeks, and the juice fermented for 3-4 months. Red grapes are fermented with stems cos the red comes from the skin and u want it there, before pressing.

Apples are pressed at 400 bars to make juice and fermented to get cider.

Came, back, packed and had dinner at J.D. Weatherspoons. A famous pub, though i've never eaten in it. had slamon and prawn coctail while we shared a western platter.

had milkshake at Joe Dalfo's cafe/bar. nice ambiance.

rushed up the pier to catch fastcat back to home.

Just unpacked, chit chat...now have to pack for my 7 day trip to copenhagen, Gothenburg and stockholm...it's gonna be -8 degrees celsius.

this goes out to tonsil boy.

''Some of us need to be the pillar for others to lean on''

oh and my GOldman sachs went o.k... Mr lo's letter did not arrive but the one my mom sent by Fed Ex did...and so all is good...it's just the wait.

I love to love.