First Capital City in Europe: Copenhagen!

I bought this carpet for fun. :) It's about S$2+ from a second-hand store in Lund. It's pink on one side and purple on the other side. So pretty! Hope I can lug it back to Singapore. :)

The sinful Swedish chocolate balls! It's chocolate cream mashed with coconut inside and coated with more coconut outside.

Hillerod Station at 5.12pm local time. Thankfully, the sunset is getting later. :)

View from Frederiksborg Castle. It's so tempting to walk across the snow to reach the other side but I believe it's water beneath the large expanse of snow.

View from the castle: Ski-ers on the slope.

This is only a tiny part of the castle.

The front facade of Frederiksborg Castle.
Policemen patrolling on horses in Copenhagen.

Christianborg Palace.

Entrance to the National Museum of Denmark.

I love this picture in the museum!

A view of the canal in Copenhagen.

Storget: longest shopping street in Europe.

The Town Hall

Committed two sins today and yesterday: ate two Swedish chocolate balls. It's awesome!

I made two day trips to Copenhagen City yesterday and today on a two-day Oresund rundt aka around-the-sound pass.

Yesterday
I took the train to Copenhagen train station and walked along the Storget (longest pedestrian mall in Europe). It's such a lovely place! The number of shops and cafes are endless! Bought two tops from Zara. On sale. haha! I saw a pair of Timberland boots going for S$50. Unfortunately it was sold out when I returned since it was the last pair left. Sigh. Anyway I ate this caramel-coated nut which tastes really awesome! I was cheapskate lah: tried the free sample without buying. :) But it's pretty expensive, 100g costs about S$6+. I walked along the Nyhan (hope I got the spelling right) canal and enjoyed the view of the water. I love the city. It's lively and bustling!

Today
I made a trip back to Copenhagen city. This time, I visited the National Museum briefly before hopping over to Christianborg Palace - a palace of ruins.

The train system in Denmark is slightly more efficient than that in southern Sweden. Each platform serves a particular route and there are signboards that indicate the end station for individual platform. I took a train from Copenhagen to Hillerod to visit Frederickberg Castle. The 40-minute journey was great cos the seats are new and comfortable. There were also electronic signboards on-board the train that indicate each current stop. Moreover, there was an announcer for each stop as well. Halfway through the journey, my train broke down but I didn't understand the announcement. I just followed a lady to the next train on the other platform. :)

Hillerod is a small town in northern Zealand and is well-known for the Renaissance Frederiksborg Castle. The castle is stunning! I didn't have time to admire the entire castle cos I needed to catch the train to Helsingor. It was 5.20pm when I boarded my next train and the sky was dark already. It felt like 10pm. I took the train to Helsingor and train ride was horrible and bumpy. The seats are old and the carriages reek of cigarette smoke. Moreover there were no electronic signboards or announcer indicating the respective stops. I really had to concentrate and peer out of the window into the dimly lighted stations to look at the station names. I finally arrived at Helsingor at about 605pm. In Helsingor, the Kronborg Castle is famous because of Shakespeare's Hamlet. It's also listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. As the ferry was already at the dock, I decided to board it and forego exploring the town. The ferry from Helsingor to Helsingborg (twin city in Sweden) was HUGE since it's both a passenger and a car ferry. The journey lasted 20 minutes and you can see people carrying cartons of alcohol back to Sweden. Apparently, the Swedes go to Denmark to buy alcohol, the Danes go to Germany and the Germans go to the Middle East.

At Helsingborg, I took the train back to Lund. It was really an around-the-sound trip.

Point to Ponder:

Danish, Swedish and Norwegian: language or dialect?

Sunday and sunset

A view of the sunset.

I was walking to church at about 5 pm and managed to snap a few pictures of the sunset. Beautiful! Anyway I managed to locate the International Church of Lund by God's grace. I did not have any inkling about the exact location and decided to ask a passer-by for direction. I was truly delighted when his reply was "Follow me". :) The congregation is very small with about 20 people. It was a traditional service and we sang hymns. The sermon was a role-play of Peter by the pastor but it was really interesting. I think it was a special service by a visiting pastor who's a professional actor. I attended another church last week but it was a translated service. I find it rather hard to follow but the people are really really nice and warm in the church. Anyway before I left for service today, I was feeling hopeful. I prayed that the service will be suitable. I really want to attend service here cos I'm afraid that I will backslide easily if I don't have any feeding. I'm relatively young in faith and I do need support. Thank God for bringing me to the church with some farmiliar hymns and prayers. Felt much happier after the service. They are starting a bible study class next week. I took the initiative to find out more about it. I wonder how it will be like. Over here, I'm taking Cynthia's advice to ask for help if I need to and to mix around more with the locals. I still mix around more with Singaporeans but I'm definitely friendlier here than in Singapore. I make the effort to talk to my corridor mates when we meet in the kitchen and to say smile and say hi to people I meet in the laundry room or outside my corridor.

Janice, Grace, Jerald and I tried to plan for a Kiruna trip, albeit unsuccessfully. We were desperate to make use of our break on the 2nd Feb and do some travelling. We searched skyscanner.net for all the available cheap flights from Malmo, Goteburg and all the Denmark airports. We almost ended up going to Frankfurt cos that was the cheapest flight out! It was so hard to find a cheap and available flight out on the 2nd or 3rd Feb and we were willing to go anywhere just to get out! haha! Imagine our excitment when when we found a cheap flight to Frankfurt. It was quite hilarious! However, upon finding out that there's really nothing much to do there, we decided to give it a miss and go to London instead. haha! I should be going to Manchester to visit Millie if she's available. Cross my fingers and wait for her mail.

Lessons are starting tomorrow.

The dear snowman!

A group photo outside a Turkish restaurant. We are always patroning that place.
from left (top): Turkish restaurant cook, jerald, me, janice, grace, charlotte (from SMU).
from left(bottom): alec, waiter, william, don.
The picture looks a little distorted cos it was ripped off from william's blog. :) willywilliam@blogspot.com. Waiting for him to get internet connection so that he can send us all his professional pictures.

The founders of the dear snowman: me and Jerald

A picture with the snowman. It's still snowing. My gloves were throughly wet after building the snowman. It's wearing my scarve and beanie. :)

















The decapitated snowman. We were supposed to move in to the entrance of the building but the task proved to be impossible.

some thoughts

Singapore-London-Copenhagen-Lund. I stepped on the soil of two countries even before I came for exchange. =)

Recently, a friend asked if I missed home. I told him not really. I don't miss anything back in Singapore i guess. It has always been my dream to come for exchange. I'm trying to relish every moment. I dun really miss my family since they are coming over for the new year. Perhaps I do miss the long hours of sunshine. I decided to title this blog sunshineinsweden to be optimistic. =)

I miss

Lihui's silly crazy laughter and her THUNDEROUS yawn in that public finance lecture!

abundant supply of fruits!


I appreciate (no particular order)

all the farewell smses from well-wishers fr cool_heads, church and all others!

martha who met up with me before i left and her letter to me. touched by the gesture of friendship. hope i have said what i wanted to say in the sms reply.

Kelly who turned up to send me off and her letter to me to be closer friend. of cos i would love to! Let't spend more time in and out of church when i'm back.

Yt, mich and ahhoi for taking the time to send me off. yt i think the UK keychain bear was too cold and it dropped off from the chain on my bag. I managed to salvage it and it's going to be my paperweight now. miss mahjonging with u guys.

Aunty Cynthia, Auntie Leeluang and Aunty Siewfong for taking the time to send me off and for that prayer at the airport.

Shixin for his tips and information about Lund. and for all his brochures! My table is flooded with them now!

It was a complexed feeling when i checked in on Jan 10th. It was my dream to go for exchange and I should be happy. Yet I was all alone suddenly. I really didn't expect myself to cry but I did. I was fine on the flight. Except that Daniel's letter made me cry again. bish

Day trip to Malmo

This organisation of the pictures in this blog is a little messy. I'm still playing around with the picture function.
the kitchen in my corridor!

dining area with the fridge.

one of the malmo's streets

It's -3deg and the wind is blowing pretty strongly.

lunch - chicken kebah

A view of a Swedish cemetery in winter.
The white building is apparently an engineering feat.

first glimpse of the Malmo Museum

Sunset, snow and windmill. Lovely. =)

The Malmo museum from afar.

The Malmo museum. It's a very small castle surrounded by a snowy moat.

Finally at IKEA.

Exactly the same as the one in Singapore.

An instant flowers dispenser. It's so cool. =)

This is Malmo train station.

A glimpse of the sunset.

frozen hands! =)


We took a bus to the neighbouring city- Malmo. Having been accustomed to the small and cosy town of Lund, it feels wierd in Malmo. I feel unknown in the big city. Somehow or other Malmo reminds me of Subic Bay city in Phillipines but the most conspicious difference is probably the absence of slums in Malmo. Anyway, there are many more streets and shops to explore in Malmo. Sadly, we didn't get a chance to do so but I will definitely make a trip back in Spring. We went to an Asian provision shop where we saw Lee Kum Kee sauces, Yeo's drinks and other Asian imports. Something farmiliar at last! The temperature was about -3 deg cel as indicated on a display board. My hands really hurt when I removed my gloves to operate my camera. =(

We had lunch at a local cafe since the chinese restaurant was really expensive. I ate chicken kebah that costs 35SEK. I have never had so much Turkish cuisine in my life until I came to Sweden. Sad but true, the cheapest food in Lund are not Swedish food but kebah, pizza and falafel.



This dog is really huge in real life.

We walked to the Malmo museum which was formerly a castle. It was 15 minutes to the closing time and we were allowed to go in for free. It was my first time in a castle! =) The castle was small but the artefacts in the museum were more interesting than those in the Shanghai museum. :)

Another attraction in Malmo was IKEA! The interior of Ikea looks just like our local Ikea and it was nothing new. Unlike Singaporeans who generally pay for delivery of their furniture, the Swedes usually transport their own items. I saw people trying to fit in the single beds and armchairs into their small cars. I was really amused. :)

We took the train back to Lund. I love sitting in trains. It's comfortable and you get to enjoy the lovely scenery. It was dark on the way back but I could still catch little glimpses of the exterior. I want to travel to simply enjoy the scenery but Daniel travels to see scenery and for historical exposure. I know I won't understand as much as him when we go to Berlin but I still want to go Berlin. Just to see Berlin! =)

One of my corridor mates is having a party again. I want to go to church tomorrow but I'm not inclined to go for the translated service. I will try to go for the afternoon service in another church. It says English in the brochure but it might be a translated service as well. I hope there's a sermon too. It's so easy to skip church and stay in my room. It's so cold out there and the snow on the gound can be really thick in those uncleared paths. Planning for a trip to Kiruna to see the northern lights. It's going to be even colder. I'm already frozen here in Lund. Perhaps it's time to get the pair of snow boots that I have been eyeing.

snow and snowman!

It was snowing lightly but continuously. The ground was covered with inches of snow. I regretted wearing my trenchcoat since it's not water-proof. We had some time to spare at the AF and Jerald started to build a snowman. I decided to chip in and we constructed a pretty decent-looking snowman. It was the first snowman in my life. =) It was fun but tiring to walk in the snow. My boots finally serve their purpose. =)

We went to the party which was held inside an empty room in LTH. It was the size of about 3 to 4 classrooms. There were only 3 tables for sitting down and a make-shift bar counter. People were mainly dancing. Despite my boredness, it was nonetheless interesting to observe the people around. There were a few drunkards and one tried to grab my hand to dance with him. I pulled away and ignored him. The Hongkong exchange students and us went to the dance floor but I was only partially enjoying it. Luckily there was Cyrus, one of the Hongkong exchange students, who suggested leaving early. I was glad to head back to our hostel. I don't hate clubbing but I just find it aimless to get high or drunk and then get a hangover the next day. Momentarily happiness.

Hope that we can go to Malmo tomorrow. Snowing can be irritating after a while since it impedes mobility. I suddenly miss the fine weather last week.

Started praying for a friend who left church for some time. It's quite a pity that disillusion has set in.

The first ten days

It has been 10 days since I arrived in Lund. It's a cosy little town in the Southern part of Sweden. Since it's a small little town, there is nothing much to do in the town centre other than shop at H & M and dincho. I stay in Sparta in a Swedish corridor, meaning that most of my corridor mates are Swedish. This gives me ample opportunity to interact with the locals. Although the wavelength is quite different, it's still interesting to talk to them. My corridor mates are very helpful and nice and assisted me in settling down. I have finally began to settle down in my room. I rearranged my furniture and stuck some photos on the wall. I love my room. It's big and I have my own private bathroom. Moreover, it's just two doors away from the kitchen. The furnishings in my room and the kitchen are pretty decent and naturally from Ikea. Although my hostel looks pretty dreary from the exterior, I still love it since it's only 2 minutes from my school and 30 seconds from the supermarket. I take about 15 to 20 minutes to walk to the town centre.

It started to snow a couple of days ago. We went out for dinner yesterday and had some fun playing with the snow. =) The snow is quite thick today and the scenery lovely. =) I'm busy planning for a family trip to Helsingborg，Helsingor and Copenhagen as well as my summer trip with Daniel to London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and Scotland. Planning is a headache. I do need to plan for my semester trips too.

Need to collect my laundry now. Will be going for a welcome party for international students tonight. Honestly I think parties are boring since I don't drink or dance. I'm just going to take a look for one time.

The irritating thing here is that fresh green vegetables and fruits are expensive. The cheap food here are processed and frozen food i.e. ham, sausages, frozen fish, frozen vegetables etc which are all stripped off their vitamins and loaded with lots of chemicals. I miss water-melon and pineapple!

God answers prayers.