Black Forest, Germany


The holidays has begun and it´s been doing me lotsa good so far. I needed it as life in Uppsala is starting to feel like cabin-fever syndrome with the temperature plummeted down to -18 degrees and freak snowstorm runs wild.

The black forest is snowcapped too, but not the few feet thickness as in sweden, the one here is powdery and soft, nice to walk on, but perhaps not to build snowballs! Ive been fed well with homecooked german food and yesterday we had the german-french Raclett which was my first. It´s pretty much potato and cheese and with the toppings of your choice, and then u grill it over this special device for a few minutes and it´s ready for consumption. Absolutely ingenious, as preparation is easy and no heavy duty cooking is required.

This wine region is famous for their wine too, and the best part is, it doesnt cost u a bomb! think €2 for a bottle of good wine, and im already planning to smuggle a few bottles back to Uppsala!

will be spending Christmas with Dominik and his family and New Year with Kew and Ejia. Then it´s off to Berlin to look up Jian and for my flight back to Sweden. I dont particularly look forward to the flying back part as few written tests are awaiting. But you gotta enjoy the moment!

i bought a new camera and should get the pictures running in no time. It is nothing fancy and i fought not to go with my favorite Sony brand but opted for another touch screen from Nikon. Sleek and futuristic is the word.

They say the temperature should drop this week and the snow will melt, but White Christmas really doesnt matter to me anymore, i will be seeing lotsa snow in the next two months! more than i could bargain for even.

so here´s to more drinking and be merry for the next two weeks!

updating my blog once a month doesnt seem like a lot of effort, does it? well i really should write more bout my life here in Sweden, truth is, there aint much that is happening these days except assignments and group works and exams and the weekly parties.

It gets dark at 3pm so u can imagine we dont really hang around outdoor anymore, it's always in the cozy nation bar or someone's room. Halloween party that took place last monthend was a blast, the only tragedy that happened is i got my camera stolen!

i cant care less bout the camera, it is easily replaceable, but the pictures are not! and ive taken lots of it in the past month too! i guess that's just how life is, that's how it rolls! and if u think about it, it aint the worst thing that could happen, it's only a camera!

lotsa unnecessary expenditure this month, like when i had to pay 180sek just to fix a flat tyre, it aint cool! can u imagine earning 120sek (rm60) per hour working as a bicycle repairman? blue collar jobs are highly paid in this country!

on a brighter note, niva is coming all the way from KL to visit me this week and will spend two weeks with me! the papers are also coming to an end and the holidays shall begin real soon, and then it's off to germany for a whole month!

i love sweden but it's good to get outta here for a while...

busy busy busy indeed! My computer has been throwing tantrum and doesnt connect me to the internet, and im starting to think that's a blessing in disguise, at least i can study more in my room!

this week sees the beginning of a cold spell and it snowed briefly yesterday, cycling is no longer recreational and all activities are indoor-bound now. We finished our first course and i think i did pretty well in the exam on tuesday (we'll see), and all papers are highly praised (maybe this is just the swedish way).

new course started right after without so much of a break, but that didnt stop us from getting a few much deserved beer after such hard work!We are studying in a different University now, in the countryside of Uppsala, brilliant bike trail through the woods and especially now when the leaves are falling and the colors stunning.

i feel stronger and healthier now because of so much biking and fresh air, and it's free fitness too! so what's happening next? oh ive got the tickets to Germany for three weeks over Christmas, it'll be great to get out of the cold for a while tho i doubt it'll be less chilly. But Christmas in Germany is always good fun, afterall didnt they introduce the Christmas Tree? or did the brits? well who cares!

School's started and there are lotsa readings to be done, no more spoonfeeding of the yesteryears, you're pretty much on your own now. Projects and assignments are coming at us at full throttle, and there are weekly papers to be submitted. That however doesnt mean an end to the endless parties, and that's why im loving my classmates so much!

All work and no play doesnt work with the europeans...

Another good thing about this programme is the field trips, we've been to the woods and water treatment plants to look at how various operations are being handled, first hand glimpse at the potential environmental careers.

and then we have the major cooking sessions, often whipping up gourmet meals from our tiny kitchen, as we have Lise our Martha Stewart in our midst. Yesterday we had a mexican affair, having fajitas and nachos with guacamole and tequila, good times!

I dont think Malaysian affair is coming very soon as im completely clueless when it comes to cooking.

It's getting real cold coming into Fall, the leaves are turning red and yellow and everyone's feeling mellow. I should get prepared for the darkness too, but i dont think it will be much worse than London.

We'll see what happens...



Lasagne!

Things have been quite wild lately, Orientation week started and i made a bunch of close friends on my first day, gosh im loving all my new classmates already! Kehoe, Lise, Norran and I bonded almost immediately and we have been inseparable ever since, hanging out from morning till night, cooking and drinking together, it's been great fun!

the rest of the class seem like a cool bunch too, ive got my eyes set on a few that i know will definitely strike the same chord as me.

Summer is coming to an end and we have been busy soaking up the last of sunshine like a sponge, trying to get as tanned as possible for winter. Ive found myself a room in town and will move in come 1st of September, it's 1.5km to the campus and ive got myself a bike too!

will sign up for a swedish course when i can and hopefully i will be fluent in a new language when im done here. Here's to more cheerful days to come!

Uppsala, Sweden



So i got on the train and traveled along the Oresund Bridge connecting Copenhagen to Malmo. Things were pretty happening in Malmo, the sun's up high and everyone was in the mood for parties and sunbathing. August and i joined the festival in support of the Gaza plight and there were awesome musicians performing various gigs which lasted for hours!

we baked some bread (people do that alot in europe) with olives and sundried tomatoes and had some vegan food for dinner. I seem to be hanging out with lotsa vegans these days and havent eaten meat in days! No not even dairy products! And studying a course of Sustainable Development doesnt help, because people who do this program are very Environmental conscious, well one has to practise what one preaches right? And eating meat isnt very sustainable! We all know how much CO2 is released in farming. We'll talk more of that when i know more...

At night Janus suggested we should head to the ocean for a quick dip, and i was like: isnt it freazing in the water? and he went: well that's the whole point! apparently it helps him sleep better. So we got on the bike and rode to the coast, stripped and jumped into the dark water from the platform. The water was deep and icy cold and you have to get up quickly lest you develop hypothermia. We did few more jumps and it got better with each dip, you dont really feel the cold as much when your body temperature adjusts accordingly.

From Malmo i got a ride from three swedish girls headed to Goteborg to attend Madonna's Sticky and Sweet tour. It was a lucky day for me as i waited no more than 10 minutes, whereas the couple who were hitchhiking ahead of me had been there for more than an hour! The girls were awesome, we stopped midway for some fresh air and sunshine and food. And quite obviously money comes easy for them too, a ticket for the concert cost them €100 and they just attended AC/DC the month before where a ticket fetched around €130.

I stayed with Nick for two nights in Goteborg in which time the weather changed for the worse. I followed him on the job the next day where i experienced 'a day of trucker's life', from goods collection at the warehouse to deliveries all about town. He cooked an awesome pasta meal and also a big fan of Japanese food, that's why we went to the same jap restaurant two days in a row for lunch.

and then things didnt turn out so well but more of a series of unfortunate events. I was supposed to be headed for Mariestad where a friend was expecting me. Turned out i got on some wrong rides, headed for the wrong direction in the wrong motorway than ive intended. Well to sum it up, i got to Stockholm some 500km from Goteborg and spent the night there.

And then yesterday i took a train from Stockholm to my final destination here in Uppsala where my University is, a mere 60km away. I take it as a blessing in disguise that i get here one week in advance, even though i missed out visiting my friends in Mariestad, Orebro and Vasteras. I can always visit them some other time but my early arrival here means that i can sort out my housing in Uppsala quicker before the term commences.

Thing is, finding housing here is a tricky business. Hopefully i can find a place of my own before long and get settled down comfortably, afterall this is where i call home for the next 2 years at least. And thank goodness for having friends here too, which means i dont have to spend a fortune on hostels like some other international students do, and some for weeks! oh how could i live without them?



Visa större karta

Copenhagen, Denmark


So i left London in a haste and didnt have time to meet up with everybody, but that's ok, it's only a stone's throw away from the Scandinavia and a return ticket cost you next to nothing.

Got in to Aarhus before noon and quickly realised how expensive it is to live in Denmark, in recent years it has become one of the most expensive countries in Europe, on par with the UK and Russia.

I jumped on the bus headed to the city to meet with Joe and Louisa, and their new born cute as a pie baby Marius. When i got there, they have already prepared a nice little room up in the attic for me, with a million dollar view and an en suite bathroom. What more can u ask for?

for the next couple of days we were just cycling around town doing what a dane does best, having danish pastry in the park, went to the woods and the beach, having dinner parties, and getting to know people.

I then moved on to Odense, a city where Hans Christian Andersen was born. Deniz and Lars hosted me, and we also have visitors Emilia and Andrew from France and Canada respectively. They say the more the merrier, we cooked, we dined, we drank, we had long walks in the countriside and we slept in. Isnt summer just great?

Today i hitched two rides to Copenhagen and im staying with Jan. He's a vegan so we had lotsa vegetables and tofu, and we talked about sustainability, a subject in which he's really passionate about. It suits me since i'll soon be taking up that discipline but i doubt i'll be able to live without heating and to reuse my shower water. Again, thank God it's Summer!

Will be getting to Sweden this weekend.

Golders Green, London


We know how time flies but surely im not back in London already? It's sad but true, my seven-week recuperation period back home is up and it's time to move on again. Except i dont think im ready for what's ahead of me.

I tire easily these days and havent exactly been in the pink of health, was having a tough time with my nose during my 13-hour flight here and i think i must have caught a bug or something, not the swine variety i dont think.

I suppose i wont be doing much for my one week here in the city other than catching up with a few close friends and enjoy the last of summer. As much as i loath the heat back home i cant help wishing the sun would linger just a bit longer here.

you want what you cant get.

And isnt that true, im starting to miss the local food back home already, the food that i have taken granted of and wasnt the least excited about when it was offered before me.

I take comfort in knowing that the minute ive had enough of this oversea experience, i can just purchase the next ticket outta here and be back home in the same day, talk about the convenience of traveling these days.

but as for now, i can still handle the uncertainties that i see before me, i live for that! i just hope i can settle down sooner rather than later before it wears me out.

i'm a survivor and i know it.

And God bless the highspeed WIFI here!

Hackney, London



Let's start over. Travel's over, and im not about to recap every single moment in details, in a nut shell - flew out of bremen - survived a faulty aircraft - got back to gloomy (and much colder) London - Edinburgh - London - ready to head home

not that im suffering from writer's block, just that sometimes things happen so quickly and when you do find time to write about it, the thrill's gone, vanished into thin air, no more excitement whatsoever...

what im still excited about tho, it's that im gonna become a student again! the blog will then be renamed Marcus' back-to-school journal, and u know what, i should have more time to do more updates then, if the swedish weather is as bitter as advertised.

Receiving the notification few days back that i've been accepted into this world ranked #71 University was delightful, and that's an understatement! and the fact that ive made the selection despite presenting such a bleak CV totally made my day.

I graduated in year 2005 and have since done nothing even remotely productive (when it comes to career advancement). When i made the decision to go backpacking in NZ, i knew i was putting my career on the chopping block. Everyone was busy getting employed and climbing up the corporate ladder while i was soaking up the sun in a serene vineyard in Marlborough.

and after a one-year stint, i came over to europe to embark on my european experience and further reducing my bachelor's to digital papers. Have i once regretted doing what i did? No. This experience is invaluable, if anything, ive learned more than i ever will simply just jump into the ratrace upon graduation.

this is an experience of a lifetime, the surrogate gap-year i never had when i finished high school, and dont i wish for the millionth time that ive had a gapyear, things would be so much different then, i would never have gone for engineering, and instead pursued something my heart desires. Talk about mainstream career choice...

thankfully, i am able to make use of my bachelor's to pursue a Master's! and in this time of global economy crisis, pray tell if there is ever a better time to study such as now!

Im grateful of God's blessing that my dissertation struck a chord with the examiner, and God I AM ready to study again.

the countdown to fall 2009 has officially begun...

Stuttgart, Germany


So where was i? Right, i spent some quality days in offenburg in which time i've played farmer in Dominik's farm, played an enthusiastic soccer fan in three matches, and pretty much just partied hard for the benefit of my host.

time flies when you're having a fab time, and as much as i hate it, i gotta carry on my journey and Dom has gotta go back to the military, i know i'll always be welcomed back here as gran and grandpa love me to bits! he couldnt stop telling me bout the war stories of yesteryear...

Dom gave me a ride to Speyer where his camp is based, and i spent the day visiting Unesco heritage sites of the famous Dom and the surrounding churches and cathedrals, well what's new?

Got in to Heidelberg and that's when the weather took a bad turn on me, rain, snow, hail and whathaveyou started falling on me and despite the city being a popular tourist destination with a backdrop of a charming castle and mountains and valleys and the beautiful river Neckar, i was pretty much inbound for most of the time.

went to a good bday party and some hippie gathering and some wine and dine and that is pretty much it.

arrived in stuttgart yesterday and came here to Esslingen to see Ben. We met in a church in Hasting, NZ and have been friends since, traveled together for a while and were involved in lotsa church activities back then. Reunion is always good fun.

Will head to Fulda tomorrow and see what happens.

Spring09 travel

one interesting fact about Basel Airport, it has three different checkpoints for access to three different countries, namely Switzerland, France and Germany, and i quickly took advantage and checked them off my list one by one.

first stop was obviously Basel, followed by Mulhouse, and Freiburg - the infamous tri-city of tri-countries. En route to the blackforest, which was clearly the highlight of my trip, i spent some time in the town of Colmar.

Now that might remind you of this replica town we have in bukit tinggi back home, and may i commend that the developer did indeed do not such a bad job in the imitation, well at least the facade of it.

entering blackforest from Freiburg, met up with Sebastian and he wasted no time in introducing me the beers of the region, and we had a great nightout with his friends on an all-night bender. Woke up next afternoon and took a hike around the world-renowned blackforest for some fresh air, i really needed it!

and we know the blackforest is responsible for its cake and the cuccoo clock, so i did the obligatory task of savoring them as well.

Moving on, i proceeded deeper into the forest and spent some nights in the village of Waldkirch, Elzach, Haslach and Gengenbach, enjoying german hospitality to the fullest, the people here in the forest are just too nice! and that's an understatement.

Well, it's not just the german hospitality im enjoying, but the asians too! Stayed in the household of two families where the wifes are south-korean and Indonesian respectively. So yeah, fusion food is definitely on the table! and gosh, it's nice to taste real chilli again! and to practise my bahasa too, in the case of the german-indonesian household. Sascha is just too lucky to have an asian wife!

will be meeting dominik here in Offenburg later, it's definitely been a while! last saw him about a year and a half ago, and he's promised a party tomorrow, so we'll see!

maybe i should consider moving to germany eh?



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Pete and I





chinatown


wow, it's definitely been a while since my last post, it's not that nothing much has happened, it's just that im spending more time on facebook and updating my status there that i felt not so incline to do it here all over again.

it was a low-key celebration on my birthday, had a few to drink with my housemates and we talked till the wee hours. Pete came visiting and crashed in my room before flying back to Halifax, Nova Scotia and we had a good night out.

CNY was/is more of a somber affair, there wasn't any reunion dinner or any sorta celebration to begin with (lack of chinese friends is the key), and i truly missed the festivities happening all over town back home. Went to chinatown to get some of that spirit but somehow it's just not the same, it's way too cold to hangout too long in the open air...

and then it snowed. And the worst thing is, London was totally unprepared for it. The city has not seen a blizzard in over two decades and when it happened, it crippled the whole place in a blink of an eye. All transportation came to a halt and we became the laughing stock all over europe and the world. Things like that dont happen in Moscow or NY or Vancouver.

but how joyful everyone became! the snow was much welcomed in the midst of global economy breakdown, people took the day off to go sledging and to build frosty in the park with their kids, and i had my first snowball fight in london!

my spanish trip has been canceled, i am supposed to leave for santiago like TODAY, but the airline let me down and they refunded my money. and guess what, it's actually a blessing in disguise! most airports are grounded because of the icy runways and some poor people are still stranded in heathrow as we speak.

im scheduled to fly to Switzerland next month and i will just cross the border to france and thereon germany and make my way back to london from there.

till you hear from me again...

Phew, time certainly waits for nobody, the festive seasons came and went in a thrice, but not without some fun elements in the process.

the days running up to Christmas see a celebration of two of my roomates' birthday, and on Christmas eve the folks threw a house party at our place and we had a ball of a time. On boxing day we went shopping because of the post-christmas price slashed of everything, and followed by more parties, everyone's on hols so there simply any reasons why not to.

on new year eve, we went on the boat at the Victoria Embankment, at subzero temperature, hand clutching a flute of champagne, and witnessed the firework display at the Eye and also at Canary Wharf.

and dont ask me bout my new year resolution, what is it about people that they only resolves to do something good for themselves once a year? i dont buy into that concept at all...

Looking forward to travel next month and then i guess it's time to go back home. What with the pounds plummeting to parity with the euros, traveling in europe isnt that economical anymore, i think i shall stick back to exploring asia for now...

it's all good.