IKEA is quite a big thing in Sweden, like ABBA. But traces of ABBA is still not so obvious, probably just a can of tuna fish named ABBA. IKEA is indeed everywhere, my entire apartment seemed to be furnished with IKEA products. So big that my Swedish textbook has a paragraph talking about it and it’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad. Then I realised that… IKEA stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. The first 2 is of course the name of the founder, the next 2 is a place in Sweden where he grew up, south of where I am now in Jönköping. IKEA is founded somewhere in SmÃ¥land, near my place which is located in SmÃ¥land. My teacher said the head office of IKEA seemed to be in my town, a little south of my apartment. HAHAHA I didn’t know I was sooo close to it. However the biggest IKEA in the world is not in my town, but south of Stockholm. I haven’t been there though.

Another thing that set me thinking is mÃ¥nga (many) and mycket (much). Difference is countable and non countable of course. What I don’t understand is… we count money everyday, or almost. But why is it how much money? And we ask that, expecting someone to count it and tell us…. weird. To err is human and so is irony.

Gordon arrived in Stockholm now. Tomorrow he will reach Jönköping. Looking forward to it. HAHAHA WHERE ARE U OLD FRIENDS???? blardy hell get your asses to Jönköping now! hahahaha
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temperature: 7 deg C

Always the question to ask…

Cooking to me now is…. throwing in food and hope it doesn’t get burnt… again. I had to scrub the pot twice this week. The entire bottom is black. Of course the food is thrown away… and I got bread for dinner… crap.

another weekend getaway, now to Bergen in Norway. New character in photos: Andrew (ntu)
basically the main attraction is the fjords, but the fjord trip we were on was raining heavily, so didn’t turn out to be nice. But the fish market there saved the day somewhat. The seafood sold there are really nice. We bought salmon and shrimps. Andrew ate a crab pincer, which I wanted to eat on Sunday but the fish market was closed. Met some Singaporeans along the way too, from Lund,Sweden.
On the way to Bergen, we encountered snow, which totally froze the whole train platform. Super nice. I realized that I really like snow and ice a lot.

Will post some videos at a later date, rushing homeworks now….

Pictures of my exchange university is included in the aroundHJ. Hogskolan i Jonkoping.

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Pictures: around HJ

Pictures: bergen

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temperature: 10 deg C

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bYsxaMyFV2Y

I am very impressed.

been travelling around for some time, so for this weekend, I stayed at home, trying to finish up the videos I’ve downloaded, bleach movie, kang xi lai le…

temperature has been steadily declining and rain increasingly pouring… oh.. and ya.. they have.. THUNDERS and lightnings.. shit.

been asking people… how’s winter? what do you all do?

David, an asian born here in sweden says… this winter is going to be cold (DUHZ! that’s what I came for…), -15 deg C thereabout… okiez… probably I din come for this much cold.. but hell there’s snow rite? Yes, he says… Should be fun I thought. So what you do for winter? “wanna go somewhere warm…” yeah I should do that, rome should be fine.

Fast forward… having dinner back at the apartment with my viet flatmate… So what you do for winter? “oh… trying to survive…”

Me: “……………………………..”

Enuff said. I’m getting extra clothes, wind proof lighters, boots and a flight ticket to Rome…

No wonder they said I might take the dog sledge to the Ice Hotel…. fark.. it’s eskimo style… I am not trained for this in army….

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temperature: 10 deg C

washing clothes sucks… cooking sucks even more.

Sometimes I can cook well…. most of the time I can’t…

recipes don’t show you step by step pictures, which would help tremendously…

having your own room rocks… having your own apartment is HEAVENLY GOOD….

I should drink more Vitamin C supplements since I eat so little fruits…

and grass is INDEED greener on this side… literally…

there are actually places where ants do not exists for some period… right here!…

girls really should not smoke… and a bunch of girls smoking is horrendous and wrong…

and chio girls that ask you for cigarettes is….. still chio…

if your every meal has tomatoes since birth, your skin will be quite fair and smooth… but you still get freckles…

black hair plus golden hair will give you……. black, golden or white hair…. and every shade in between with no guarantee which it will be…

that’s about all I’ve observed thus far… yawns… I’m experiencing hibernation symptoms…

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Pictures: around Jonkoping

took some pictures of the city I’m staying a while back… probably more soon…

Just a side note, Jonkoping is the place where the matchsticks we use today, safety matches, are invented and first made and is still making them. Matchsticks have a lot of meaning to me, if some of you faintly remembers my previous website attempt has the name match|stick…. this is what they call… FATE.

Going Norway next weekend, so expect more pics of that place…

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temperature: 12 deg C

just read andrea fonseka’s blog… after a looong time of not reading blogs or listening to podcasts.. there’s this entry about rain making her not feel like doing anything except sleep…

Well, then I started recalling the weather right here in Jonkoping, Sweden. For those not so close friends who didn’t know I’m not in Singapore right now, I am in Sweden. Climate is weird. You can’t really say it sucks, but it does suck at times. Firstly… the rain part.

It rains here now, not snowing yet. But intermittent rain. Rain stop, rain stop.. rain.. stop. Drizzle.. stop… u get the idea. But some days are so nice and sunny, and the cold wind blows.. nice. Sun warming the back of your neck and wind cooling your face, brushing my gel-hardened hair. It’s so good. Then I realised, they don’t have lightning or thunder here! Weird… it’s just rain.. cold…

Temperatures fluctuate like mad.. it can be 17 now, then 10 in the evening, 5 at night and 0 when I wake up and check the temperature off my laptop. Weird. It’s back to 15 deg C right now… when it was just 7 or 5 last night. Weird…. and if the weather report is right…. 0 is cold….. but not freezingly cold….. weird.. but I’m all dressed up and stuff coz I can’t even stand 18… It isn’t cold until the cold wind blows… Oh.. and I can see my breath when it’s really cold… uber fun. oh well.. tropical bumpkin.

Swedish lesson today was good, got a bit of history background of Scandinavia… Let me take out the book and see…

so… What is Scandinavia? or what countries are in Scandinavia rather…

Teacher says… culturally, Scandinavia consists of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and maybe Iceland.

Geographically, Scandinavia consists of Sweden, Norway, and northern part of Finland. No denmark…. weird eh?

coz Denmark is linked to Germany by land, and not really linked to Sweden… They built a bridges across though. Think of Johor and Singapore, it’s similar.

And I’ve been taking swedish language lessons…. Difficult to pronounce the words… Spanish is easier, much easier, except for the double R .. erre… which I still can’t do the vibrating thing…

wooot~~~

I managed to compile some pics for the stockholm trip.

oh btw I realised for the paris pictures, I left out a lot of pictures from lourve, mainly because of blur shots and too many paintings…. over 900 for paris… so ya.. big place, I walk from 9 to 5pm, until my leg nearly broke… break for lunch.. 15 mins only and occasional rests of 5 mins or so.
Pictures: Stockholm

starring: ahru (sg), richard (sg), gigi (hk) and cherry (hk)