Sunday, January 17

home alone

parent's out of town
bf's out w frens
im home all alone :(
wat a way to spend sat nite. sigh.

at least had great dinner w bf's fam b4 bf went out for his guys nite out.
yay to hilton hotel's jap buffet.
great tat everyone turned up tho' it's just a no function, last min, v normal dinner.
love seeing e kids! they say e funniest tings!

its great tat i have v encouraging n caring colleagues.
makes working late n on sat (2wkends tis yr alr!!) feel tat much better.

Saturday, January 2

The adventure continues - Happy land

[wrote e following some time back but didnt complete hence didn't post but since i've alr done up e pics.. might as well.. may i just add tis is my best trip so far :)]

Amsterdam aka Happy Land is debs' fav city for our trip for obvious reasons. In comparison to Stockholm and Copenhagen, Amsterdam was much cheaper (tho' it's still expensive compared to Spore). Also lotsa bikes arnd, but we didnt bike this time. We stayed in our first bed and breakfast. The rm was beautiful, huge and clean. There was a lounge area w sofa and we had our own sink and a dining area, all in the rm. The toilet and shower was shared with tis other tenant which we nv saw. The hosts were super friendly and accomodating. They had lk maps of the area arnd their place marked with eateries/shops they recommend etc. We could also help ourselves to anyting in the fully equiped kitchen. They also left a bottle of Jenever (Holland gin) in e rm for us to enjoy. I've nv heard of this before but it taste really gd! v sweet for liquor. and keeps us warm. It was really cheap too. only 50eur per nite. They have hired help to clean our rooms daily too.


From our b&b, we had to walk thru Vondelpark to get to the 'action zone'. So tat's wat we did. It was a really nice walk thru e park. I love the silhouettes of wilted trees. I find them really beautiful. and they were all arnd e park. There were also alot of good looking pple jogging, walking their dogs etc. I wonder y they dun need to work man. or was it a wkend? i cant rem. Anw i got a shock when a HUGE dog came jumping on me. the funniest ting was, ah koh was walking in front of me and when the dog came charging, he siam to the side haha. so the dog jumped on me! luckily i didnt fall back. the owner was really apologetic. hahas.

The city is really pretty. I find houses at the sides of canel a beautiful sight. esp w the wilted trees. On our first nite in amsterdam we also witness a bridge being raised so tat a vessel can pass thru the canel. That was really interesting for us. hahas. tried to tk photo but was really dark didnt capture anyting nice.

had lotsa beer, and tried their local cuisine and of coz 'ahem'..

ok.. from here on it'll just b short captions..


back in stockholm. we went ice skating. at a real ice-skating ring! open air style. way cool man.

walked arnd museum. weather was fantastic.

went to e old town - gamla stan. place where i experience falling snow for e first time in my entire life. gonna rem tis place :)


our anni dinner.
skansen. v cool musuem where everything is lk olden days. pple working there role play (sort of). there's also a zoo in there. but tis was a really cold day. met my bro n jaime to explore.

on our way to finland!

on board e cruise ship. it's v much lk star cruise. less entertainment tho. they have a HUGE duty free shop (tink alcohol.. real cheap)


finland.. snow everywhere. had a snow fight 2 v 2. nearly died there. hahas.
snacking at e xmas market.

back in stockholm. bunked at bro's hostel. looked so diff fr e first nite we bunked there.

kiruna!! my fav part of e trip. us at ice hotel. e overall suit that they loaned us really saved me. if not i would not have returned alive. for sure. how can we not have a drink at e all famous absolute bar. but e drink was really nice. coz there's no need to add ice to e drink.. hence it's not diluted at all. drinking out of e ice glass is really nice experience :) e bartender was kinda cute too :)

every rm had a diff theme. was amazing wat these pple can make out of ice/snow.

there was still a wing under construction (thru e tunnel in e centre pic).

tis was e airport (sorry e sequence is not right but too lazy to arrange)

us on snow mobile. on e night tat i v nearly froze to death. -25 degrees? cant quite rem exactly. just imagine e coldest ever ever ever! n imagine we were on e snow mobile.. e wind was brutal! our eyelashes were all frosted!! n to make tings worse. our guides were lost!! we were in e middle of Thorne river waiting while 1 of e guides went out to look for our cabin. to keep ourselves warm, we jogged arnd. it was really cool actually, we were just cruising on e frozen river. could really drive pretty fast since there is nothin arnd.

our v friendly n interesting guides cooking us dinner. how i envy their lifestyle. btw, tat meal was god damn gd.


outside of our cabin. we were opted for a wilderness package. so it was really just us n noone else. our cabin was stocked w lotsa food n drinks. we were v kiasu.. we actually brought lk 6packs of instant noodle n 6packs of beer.. hahas... tinkin there's nothin to buy arnd.. n we were not sure wat they'll feed us (i dont tink i can eat reindeer meat every meal). turned out.. we left all those there for e nxt occupants. they gave us beer/wine/chips/pre-mixed food (which we basically only need to heat n they taste YUM)
activities we did there. it was so freaking cold out there. we couldnt last more than half hr outside everytime.

food tat we cooked ourselves. really enjoyed e 3 relaxing days we had at e cabin. we tot there'll b no electricity in e cabin hence we didnt bring any gadgets. so we were really cut off for 3 days. BLISS i tell u. but anything more we'll prob b bored. but i really loved cooking n napping n lazing by e fire n goin out for walks.

us making snow angels. bottom left is tis ting tat freaked me. haha. it was outside our bedrm window. hahas. looks lk a skeleton crawling out of e snow rt!!

arnd e hse.

look at all e gear we had to put on everytime we went out. loved e fireplace!

different parts of e hse. it was huge for e 2 of us though. 3 bedrms. we slpt in e same rm all e 3 nites. we saw northern lights all 3 nites. we were lucky lucky! but to tell e truth. i was more blown away by e starry stars. i mean it really just left me speechless n breathless. it was tat beautiful. we would just lay on e snow n look up in e sky. it's just so dark arnd. e stars r so near i felt lk they were within my reach!! e only star constellation i know is e orian belt. n it was not directly up, it was abt 45 degrees n it was so near!! LOVED it. really. best part of e trip!

back in stockholm stayed at a different b&b tis time. we stayed in e sodermalm area. it was a more artsy area. v interesting

end of trip! all in all, we reallly had a great time. didnt buy anyting for ourselves coz it was really not worth it. but i wouldnt say tat we scrimped on e trip lar in terms of food. we drank alot when we were there too. oks. i dont tink i'll b back. at least not soon. (mayb norway tho) loved e vibe there. n everyone speaks real gd eng. n they all damn gd looking! oks. everyone shd go! gogogo!