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Just got home last night... haha, yay!!! Home sweet home Singapore!

This is really my last post in Finland

Today I leave Finland for good… deep sense of sadness to leave this beautiful, peaceful, cold place.

But I’ll be having a long holiday traveling and then it will be home!

See all of you soon!!!

Goodbyes…

Today I’ll leave my nice big room with a lovely sea view – I’ll be staying over at my friend’s place tonight cos it’s nearer the airport. Already I’m so sad to leave the apartment and the school… what’s more Finland?

Anyway, this may be my last blog post until I get back from my Europe travel… so see everyone back home soon!!!

Dinner gathering

Last night we had one last dinner together in Finland at Fu Xiang’s place… it was so nice! Cos there were all of the Singaporeans and some of our flatmates!

From left: Tuomas, Adriano, Carlos, Alvaro, Ivan, FX, CK, me, Nancy, PH, Daryl, Yvonne, Morwenna

Fu Xiang and Chee Kiang cooked this yummy lasagna, Ping Hong and Ivan cooked Japanese curry potato and chicken, Yvonne and I baked an apple crumble =)

Then I had a car ride back home from Tuomas and Nancy… it was the first time since going to Changi Airport that I sat in a car! Haha… it was on the “opposite” side of the road… hehe =)

Savonlinna

I still don’t have all the photos yet… but I guess I can just write some stuff about it briefly (cos not enough time anymore!). The most major stuff that happened are:

1. We rented bikes and I cycled for the first time in my life across a distance of 40km!!! My butt totally died. Haha
   
2. At one point cos I was dreaming… I swerved and fell… result: 2 bruises on knees and 1 bruise on my thigh cos the metal keys pressed into my body when I fell.
   
3. At some point it was really hilly and I felt like we were just going up (which mean cycling like crazy) and then down (which is so fun. Haha)
   
4. At another point, the road was totally flat – but the wind was opposing us like crazy… so basically we were fighting against the wind.
   
5. There was a castle there, the Olavinlinna, which is my first castle that I’ve been inside to… It's very interesting... I will definitely put pictures of this when I get them.
   

one of my few pictures that I have with me now

Random Thoughts and Travel Itinerary

Thought No. 1: The sun is crazy here… haha! It is peeking out at 330am… and it disappears only at 1130pm. In other words I got sunlight almost all day long.

Thought No. 2: I was listening to the theme song of Da Chang Jin and climbing up a hill using a bunch of step-like rocks (it’s the short cut to my place from the bus stop) and carrying a lot of bags (from traveling, shopping, groceries etc) and I felt like I was in a Da Chang Jin moment. Haha.

Anyway, I’m leaving Finland on 20th May to start traveling more of Europe. Here’s the plan:

20 – 21 May :: London, UK
21 – 25 May :: Paris, France
25 – 27 May :: Lucerne, Switzerland
27 – 29 May :: Interlaken, Switzerland
29 – 31 May :: Milan, Italy
31 – 2 June :: Venice, Italy
2 – 6 June :: Florence, Italy
6 – 9 June :: Rome, Italy
9 – 12 June :: Barcelona, Spain
12 – 14 June :: Madrid, Spain
14 – 16 June :: Dublin, Ireland
16 – 17 June :: London, UK
17 – 18 June :: overnight plane to HOME SWEET HOME!

Last Saturday’s dinner at David’s/KS’s

I just got back from Savonlinna (which I will post on it after I get the pictures). Now is more of a belated post on a dinner hosted by KS and David – from Hong Kong and Germany respectively. So of course the dinner was a delicious fusion of the two cuisines! Haha.

the yummy food!

Left most is Edward Kim (from USA who's half Korean from his dad), right of him is David (from Germany) and bottom right is KS (from Hong Kong who studies in Tsing Hua Uni)

My last week in Finland

It is now officially my last week in Finland… exactly a week from now i.e. 20th May, I’ll be leaving Finland for good and saying sad goodbyes to this lovely place I’ve come to know and love… sigh. Bittersweet is exactly what I’m feeling right now… tick tock… precious moments left to use as fully as I can!

Travel Helsinki and Sauna!

Finally yesterday I traveled Helsinki, Finland with Marie… haha, so last minute right? Anyway, Finland is not really a touristy place to me… in a day you can cover the major places of attraction!

Here are just two pictures of what I feel are the nicer places…


The rock church which is very cool (in terms of “woah cool man” and not cool as in cold. Haha) cos it’s made of rock! Inside is very pretty too cos of the design.

This is the Sibelius Monument which again is distinctly special cos it looks like something out of this world… haha. It’s an art of pipes!

And oh ya, while walking about, we came across this place!!! Singapore! It’s under renovation so we weren’t sure what it was… possibly a restaurant, which is weird. Haha.

This is the sauna place Yvonne and I went to yesterday evening… it’s super shuang to do sauna in Finland!!! The sauna was super hot and when we want to cool down, all we have to do is go outside to the open. I feel so relaxed at that up to now I still feel mushy. Haha. Had a lovely evening of sauna here... =)

Seurasaari

It’s an open air museum/ park in Finland… I went with Marie yesterday, and when we got there the wind was so strong! And we were laughing over these “seagulls” (not sure what they are but I think should be similar to seagulls)… cos they are the type of birds that glide rather than flap their wings. This means that they rely partly on the wind… and it was so funny because we saw them struggling against the direction of the wind and then suddenly they will give up and “wooosh” get swept away in the direction of the wind! It’s such a funny sight.

One of those birds

Another interesting thing is the squirrels – they are quite used to people feeding them, so they will come to you if you squat down and hold out your hand, even if you have nothing in your hand! Haha… anyway the squirrels are soooooo cute. Haha.

Squirrel!

We were able to get so close that Yvonne could take this picture using my camera… that means without her Canon power zoom! Haha.

Other than these, the park is mainly trees (the speciality of Finland) and the sea and some wooden houses which are what the people stayed in/worked in long ago. Just a sweet simple park – sorta like the nature of Finland (minus the beer drinking) haha.

At the park

First restaurant dinner in Finland

I’m leaving Finland soon… haha so must at least try something more grand in Finland rather than just my own boring cooking!

Anyway on Saturday I went with (from left) Marie, Anna and Johanna (pronounced as “Yohanna”). They are all so pretty right?

It was such a lovely place… can’t really describe it, but it was so nice to just eat and chat there! We all had a great time I think =)

From left: Marie, Anna, Johanna, me

And I also learnt how to make Tiramisu from Marie! It's super duper yummy!

Yvonne and I also tried for the first time to make an apple crumble… haha it was quite nice except that we didn’t put enough sugar on the apples! But never mind… cos now we know!

Hot Sauna and then… woo hoo! Cold sea!

Yups… I’m not lying… the title says exactly what I did! Ok, let’s start from the top. In Finland, sauna is a super tradition – apparently the no. of saunas is such that there is one sauna per 3 Finns! Anyway other than the sauna being a tradition, taking a dip in the sea after the sauna is also a tradition! And it doesn’t matter even if it’s winter – they will just dig a hole in the ice and then get into the water… talk about wooooah.

Anyway, I didn’t have the courage to do it in winter. Haha, but I did it last night… which was almost as cold as winter (it was 1degree last night). Muahaha – so I can now proudly say that I’ve gone into a freezing sea in Finland. Hehe. It was quite fun actually… cos at first I only put my feet in… and I was like “Alamak! Damn cold!” then after that I got my whole body in… for only less than a minute lah (I said dip… haha not swim). Then I just stood by the sea for a while, and that’s when a nice feeling will come cos the 1deg environment felt tingly “warm” in comparison to the sea. Haha.

And oh ya, did I mention that in Finland, you do sauna naked? Hahaha! But I was not brave enough… so I still had my towel wrapped around me. And I got to see a lot of naked girls… which felt weird at first... but then after a while I got used to it... haha.

I walked down this platform to get to the sea... (but it was darker when I got into the sea cos I went in after sun set)

Vappu/Wappu

On May 1 is this big event Vappu in Helsinki… but festivals are celebrated on the eve, so the stuff actually happens on 31 April. So anyway, on this day Helsinki get really crowded with students as they prepare for this significant event of “capping” the statue Manta at Esplanadi Park.

They are washing the statue

Then she is capped

Once she is capped, then everyone will put on their caps

Anyway, on this day, many students from universities will wear their overalls – different departments have different coloured overalls. And their overalls will have different “badges” on them, cos it’s up to you to decide how you want to decorate your overalls. Here are some examples of the colours:

Purple

Pink

Yellow

This guy has a lot of badges!

Haha I bought one so I wore one too! My department's colour is white with rainbow stripes. It was really fun being part of the amazing student culture that they have here! And actually on this day, many people will drink like crazy… so a lot of people were holding wine glasses and beer cans/bottles.

Helsinki Zoo

Today the Singapore gang went to the Helsinki Zoo! It’s not fancy and beautiful like Singapore’s zoo… it’s more like a park. I shall put up some pictures and tell you about the lion story!

The entrance to the Zoo…

Monkey, duh. Haha but quite a cute one

An eeeky anaconda!! Haha this picture is to make my mom get goose bumps Haha!!


A really disgusting duno-what



This is a mongoose… and guess what? Haha one zoo “tour guide” took some rose beetles (which was an exhibit opposite from the mongoose) and fed the mongoose!!! Hahaha it was quite a funny scene… an exhibit feeding another exhibit. *faintz*

This is a real crocodile… riiiight

Camels!

Brown bears

3 owls in a row! Haha so cute

Ok, there are more animals but nothing fantastically different; these are the slightly more blog-worthy ones.

Now for my lion story!!! Ok see this lion? It’s less than a meter away from me… security is not very high you see. Anyway, stood there for quite a while talking and making noise to see if he would “wake up” and face us… and we were all joking about grabbing a long stick (which so happened to be one the ground in front of us) to poke it.

I forgot to mention that animal rights people please dun get offended.

Anyway, ya, so I was saying that in Singapore you’ll never get this close to a lion! So close that you can actually put your finger in there and touch its fur (which of course you would probably not get your finger back, haha). Anyway we lingered there and then I got tempted to try getting its attention.

See this little stick? I threw one at him… and then *jaws music*. The little twig brushed the lion’s mane and wow, he’s reflexes are amazing!

In a split second he practically jumped up into this position with a growl. And xia4 si3 (stunned) the guys who didn’t know that I just did that. Haha.

So then he turned around to face us… which was totally fun cos we got to take so many close up pictures with him!

And then… he stretched and gave a huge yawn!

close up of the yawn!

And then after a while… he returned to his backside position… haha.

That’s all! But it was really cool to have a chance to be so close to a lion!

“Overview”

HAha… I’ve just flooded my blog with 5 new long posts about each country which I visited… so this is a warning and an overview! Haha!

Berlin – fantastic for all it’s history stuff
Prague – food fest cos of the Easter market
Vienna – picture taking and I find that it’s a beautiful place
Brussels – ASAP, chop chop see stuff
Amsterdam – fun fun fun
Stockholm – only a short while there but it seriously feels like 3rd home (cos it’s similar to Finland, except that they have more people living there. Haha.)

Anyway, just to sum it all up, I enjoyed my Easter trip and it was great that everything went pretty smoothly on the trip!

Germany - Berlin

Okays… I’ll start with three things which are completely irrelevant but cute/interesting… haha, firstly their traffic light!

See the green man?

Now the red man!

The second thing is that while we were in Berlin, the sun was super strong and it was actually hot! I didn’t have to wear my jacket! For the first time in Europe I walked out of my room (in this case hostel room) like as if it was Singapore. And guess what? I got sunburn! So fun! But even though it was “hot”, it’s still not like Singapore hot. Haha.

And the third thing is… guess what? The world is getting small, seriously. Cos I crossed paths with Michelle in Berlin! Goodness! Haha, again nice to see a familiar face!

Ok back to serious stuff. Berlin is a very historical place… and I totally loved learning about the history! Gosh… I think I’m still a history bug at heart. Haha. I’ll love to share all about the stuff I learnt… but that will make my blog too wordy. Haha, so sadly I’ll have to skip that… anyway, here are some of the many pics!

Holocaust Memorial – this design for the memorial has a lot of symbolism… and it was inspired by the Jewish Cemetery (which was the one I visited in Prague! – this is why I said to take note of that picture)

Brandenburg Gate*

Berliner Dom

A lovely rainbow which was in the garden (Lustgarten) in front of the Berliner Dom

A memorial to the books Hitler burnt… it’s a room of empty shelves build underground at the spot where the books the burnt. Again, it has a lot of symbolism involved.

Gendarmenmarkt – there are two identical churches here facing each other (again for historical reasons)

Close up of one of the churches

The Berlin Wall - with Yvonne and I doing a wu liao pose. Haha.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church*



Siegessaule

Reichstag*

On top of the Reichstag

Inside the observatory… can you find mini me? Haha I doubt it.

Ok! Serious stuff over. Here are some pictures of a chocolate version of some of the above places!!! Amazing right?

Brandenburg Gate

Reichstag

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

And of course… food!

My third ice cream in Europe! This one is the cheapest and really nice to eat! Again, it’s Italian ice cream… =)

This is a famous currywurst store (the hostel people told us)… currywurst is a sausage (Germany’s famous for that) with curry ketchup and curry powder on it.

This is a super yummy kebab! It’s very very nice to eat lo! As a side note, Germany is the one which started the doner kebab (bread with the meat)!