Parties

When studying hard it is important to take a break every once in a while. For exchange students this usually means to go partying even though we do not really study that hard. When going to Insomnia last week I ran into my second cousin, Erik (in the picture to the left), who studies at NUS for this semester.

For the weekend we heard a rumour about someone throwing a house party. Since we are all tired of going to the same places over and over again we decided to see if this was true... and yes, there was a house party going on. And we were not the only ones who had heard about it. The house was filled up with hundreds of people (mostly foreigners, but also some Singaporeans). It was going on fine for a few hours, before the police decided to show up and ... the party was over.

Mosaic Music Festival

There is not much going on at the campus these days. Fortunately Singapore is a big city with plenty of events going on. Therefore I and Mark, an PhD student from England, decided to go down to the Esplanade to see the grand finale of the Mosaic Music Festival. The festival had been going on for the past ten days with performances of famous artists from all over the world. We could enjoy over four hours of various free music performances during the night before heading back for another week at the campus.

X-Physique 2007

Me and some other exchange students from NTU decided to join what is called "the most exciting urban adventure race" or X-Physique 2007. An urban adventure race that included running, swimming, cycling, kayaking and abseiling taking place in the city of Singapore for about half a day. There were two teams of exchange students that participated, my team - Team Adrenaline, consisting of me, Perrine, Jörg and Timo, and the other team - Team O. Unfortunately non of us succeeded in winning the race, but what was more important was that Team Adrenaline ended up before Team O and we all had lots of fun.

Erik's Visa Run

Once I got back to Singapore my old friend, Erik who now works in Thailand during the winter, decided to go to Singapore for a visa run. Since I was getting back from Borneo the very same day he could stay with me for some days.

We took a typical one day city tour (pictures here) and had time to try out some really nice food, like Swedish meat balls at IKEA.

The Jungles of Borneo and Semporna again

After a jungle trip for three days, watching crocodiles, mosquitoes, birds etc. At this place, Uncle Tan's, I met two other swedes out travelling the world.
After the safari I decided to go climb Mt Kinabalou, but ended up with Eric and Patric on a bus in the wrong direction. Therefore I decided to go back to Semporna for some more diving at Sipadan.
I'm expecting to get back to Singapore for the weekend.

Life Update

Well, I haven't updated for a while now... but don't worry, I'll let you know what's going on.

After spending the Chinese New Year in Singapore I got off to Gunung Stong, Malaysia for some caving and of course climbing the mountain and exploring the waterfall together with the NTU ODAC group. Then again back to Singapore to participate in a floorball tournament, doing laundry and pack the bag for the next trip - Borneo.
After spending the first day in Kuta Kinabalou I met up with some friends to go diving at Sipadan and Mabul for three days. (I have to add that we are living on an oil rig platform). This far I've been doing three dives at Sipadan island, and we are heading for a few more today after lunch.
Hope you enjoy your time as much as I do.

Gunung Stong, Malaysia

Spring Break in Singapore means time to catch up for local students and plenty of traveling for us on exchange. I started off by going to Gunung Stong Waterfalls trek together with a large group of Singaporeans organized by NTU ODAC.

They all turned out to be nice people and I got to know some more Singaporeans that can show me what life in this part of the world is about.
Well, off we were to Gunung Stong, by taking the train from Johor Bahru to Dabong.

Prepared for some three-four days of more or less intense activities as climbing the mountain, caving in one of Malaysia's caves, and sliding down natural slides in the waterfall I packed for what I was told cold weather - unfortunately this was not the same definition as I mine so 75% of what I brought was never used.

Of course some of us also made it up to the summit.

On the way to the caves

One of the waterfalls

A photo of my expedition group. Selamat Datang - as they say in Malaysi.

Gunung Stong

Click here to get to the photo album.

You can also read Yijie's reflections about the trip here.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in Singapore, almost all families gathers together for some traditional celebrations with friends and families.
This means that for us foreigners there is not that much to do, it is actually quite hard finding anything to do. Almost every store shuts down, we even had problems finding places to go eat.
Of course we had to go downtown to see what kind of celebration they have down in the city, so me, Miguel, Izabella, Marlena, together with Mark and his flatmate, decided to go check it out.

For once we could walk around in an almost empty MRT station and walking the streets off the business quarters without running into people.
We went to see both Chinatown and the Esplanade.

A few days later Me and Timo were invited to Ruo's family to celebrate the New Year in a traditional way. This included of course giving parcels (containing money, even we got some), eating and drinking, just like our Christmas. But then came the big differences - gambling, which is a big part of the gathering. Of course we did it too. Spending hours learning new card games and loosing money at the same time.
This was a really appreciated night. Thanks Ruo!
(more pictures are found here)

Costume Party

Last weekend the Norwegians hosted their first party this year - a costume party!
It started up at in hall 10 and around midnight the party people went on to MOS, of course wearing our special attires. My idea was to dress up in traditional Chinese style with a silk costume, but since this was not enough I decided to add some extra bling bling ala Chinese pimp to match the entire outfit. Finally I was going to mix up with all the locals down at Ministry of Sound.
I have to admit that it was an interesting experiece to go clubbing in a traditional chinese super kung fu dress combined with a wall ornament (almost made me feel invinsible).

Matfest och kameraletande

Jodå, jag kan skriva på Svenska också.
Äntligen har det ordnat upp sig med mina kurser, så nu har jag lite mer saker att göra på dagarna. Jag läser nu Java, Databaser, Professional Communication och Digital Video Processing. Det är väl synd att kalla det heltidsstudier med tanke på tempot, men det skadar ju inte med lite extra tid att hänga vid poolen och ut och resa.
Helgen tillbringades i Singapore, utan att gå ut en enda gång, istället satsade vi på temat MAT. Efter att sprungit runt på Sim Lim Square för att skapa mig en uppfattning om vilken kamera det är jag ska ha blev det dags att varva ner lite. Det gjordes genom att äta sushi i fredags kväll kombinerat med bowling då vi missade biljetter till bion.
Ungefär samma sak var det på lördagen förutom att vi bytte ut sushin mot en gigantisk brasiliansk buffé - åååh vad gott att äta kött på riktigt. På detta ställe, Carnivore på Vivo City, spenderade vi flertalet timmar med att spänna ut buken. Efter att proppat magen full med mat var det ingen som var särskilt pigg på att springa över till St James för att svänga de lurviga i Sambatakter.
Söndagen avslutades med att äntligen se den där filmen som vi missade. För att sedan ta igen allt slappande tog jag upp tennisen igen för den här terminen, det gav mig rejält med träningsverk och mersmak.
Nu återstår bara den stora frågan; vilken kamera ska det bli som dokumenterar kommande äventyr?