This is a very beautiful open air museum. It show-cased many Swedish culture. I felt I walked into a traditional Swedish town in the rural. It has different thing to offer for winter and summer. Thus, I’ll come back again during summer.
This is the iconic Orange horse in Sweden.
Cutes kids playing on a huge pile of snow.
They preserved this 17 century house and relocated it into Skansen.
3 special visitors (maybe residents) in Skansen. 
A traditional Swedish cafeteria in Skansen.
The first stop for today was City Hall of Stockholm, where a grand feast after Nobel Prize presentation will occur.
Its blue hall, the venue of banquet, is not blue at all. It was intended to be painted blue, but the architect changed his mind after felling in love with the warm red of the bricks used in the building. It was mentioned that the hall will house about 1200 guests during that banquet and their food was to be served within 3 minutes. Amazing thing to happen within this limited space. It was said that the waiters had to rehearse several times before the actual day to minimize errors. The steps in the hall were designed to allow ladies to stride down them on heels with ease. On top of that, there is a faint star marked on the wall opposite the steps. The people coming down from the steps are to look at the star so that they will appear elegant and poised when they come down. Interesting design.
The Prince Gallery: The art work on the wall mirrors the scenery outside the window across the gallery.
The blacks pillars come in pairs. There’s round and cornered pillars in each pair. According to the guide, one represents man, and the other represents woman.
The next stop was the Royal Palace. Sadly no pictures as photography is forbidden there.
The style of architecture is very different from modern designs. The chambers are linked up into a long stretch of hall way. The building has 600 chambers in total. It’s claimed to be the largest palace in Scandinavia.
Most of the exhibits are elegant paintings, posh silverwares and elaborated furniture. The main color theme is maroon and gold.
Today I skipped class to go to Skavsta to pick up a friend from Edinburgh. I don’t know why I should do that, but I did it upon her request. Supposedly, that was a gesture to show welcome to her. Weird theory.
Travelled 1 hour 20 minutes to Skavsta at 79 SEK, then back again. Maybe I’m too rich.
Anyway, she’s my lab partner back in NUS 2 semesters back. At the moment, she’s doing exchange study at Edinburgh.
The first stop of Stockholm I took her to is Slussen, where there’s one tall escalator that we can take a good view of Gamla Stan and city hall bay.
It was quite windy.
After that, we headed to St. Erik’s Wok for a hearty meal.
It’s a break that I yearned for over the entire hectic week. I need a breather, an escape from the labs and projects.
We had pizza for dinner. Sam made a pot of beverage that I believed contain ginger and red wine. This drink had very unique and ‘spicy’ after-taste. Maybe I don’t really like warm beverage, thus I just tried one cup of it. According to Sam, this is a Swedish drink and people take it with biscuits. Anyway, his biscuit was very inviting, so were his chips.
The pool session was the first session I had in Sweden. Though the rules are same, it felt different playing it on foreign soil. Maybe it’s just me.
We took a picture with poses similar to a painting on the wall in the pool room.
I’m beginning to feel tremendous pressure. My academic works are lagging behind due to lack of revision. (Projects, labs and online video watching took away much of my time)
Lord, please guide me through this.
It’s been a terrible day. Every public transport I took was delayed in one way or another. I’ve lost a lot of time on the road. Sigh…
I’ve met my Swedish buddy today. She’s Antonia. She was with her friend Susanna and Charletta. Later, Andreas came too.
I had a great time chatting with them.
To my horror, the failure rate in KTH can be as high as 90%. Now, I’m a little worried.
Anyway, Antonia, Susanna and Andreas are taking Japanese classes. Susanna is going to Japan to study her Master programme next year. Cool.
Seems like many people in KTH are taking up one Asian language. Interesting.
After days of toiling and thinking… I’ve gotten a B for DD2423 lab 2!!
Thank God for that!
Anyway, the evening was spent at Kista, trash bag sleighing down a slope!
I spent the first day of CNY at Flemingsberg, eating steamboat with 8 other Singaporeans.
I don’’t really like to eat prawn, but the prawns were very fresh and sweet. They simply taste very good after boiling in the soup for a few minutes.
The rest were busy helping themselves to the food in the spicy pot. I believe they prefer that flavour. Well, I just like the original taste of the food. To me, it’s more satisfying to enjoy the taste that comes from the food and not the soup/sauce.
It very kind for the PhD students to welcome us to the steamboat dinner. Also many thanks to KC and Hui Zhen for sponsoring meat. KC did a great job in slicing the meat. Very professional.
Well… Someone told me that I’m too childish. Maybe I never really grow up. Being in a 25 (goin 26) year old shell, my mind is still considered to be 16, maybe 15.
I never grow up. Maybe I’m suppose to be Peter Pan, and remain single.
Dear Lord, please guide me.
I will be attending the CNY dinner cum gathering at St. Erik’s Wok. I’m looking forward the food and the cozy ambience!
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Just to update. The CNY dinner at St. Erik’s Wok is good. In fact, brilliant. Although the weather was cold and chilly, the food and the crowd was inviting. Very nice indeed.
The menu was very good for the humble 100Kr cost. Spring rolls, fried mee, kuay teow, prawns and desserts. I had my cravings satisfied.
While DQ and ZJ were away with their friend to the arctic circle, KH and I decided not to stay indoors and live like a caveman over the weekend. Ideas like high tea, pub and museums surfaced. In the end, we decided to go to Gamla Stan to have some coffee and snacks, and discuss a little bit on a potential trip to Oslo, Norway. Haha…
Hmm… I decided to spam the people on my phone contact list with invitation to join us as we were sure that it would be more fun to have a larger group of people joining us. However, the invitations were sent out quite late. Many could not come.
Fortunately, 2 people responded. Vaggos was probably feeling very bored in his room that he decided to get out of it. Really appreciate Michelle for being so sporting despite that she had to go back to lab for work on Saturday.
Our original coffee house destination was full and filled with people. I guess we were too late (1430hour). So we decided to walk a little and find another coffee place.
Along the way, we came across a German church (Catholic, I suppose). We went in and took some pictures. The furnishing was old but well maintained. The tainted windows were depicting life-like pictures of Lord and saints. From an artist’s perspective, these artifacts are of great values. I guess the picture taking was boring for Michelle (since she has been here for 2 years). She sat on and bench and looked worn out (she claimed it was hangover from previous night). LOL…
We came across a coffee shop not far away… I had cheese cake to go along with my coffee. I must say that the cheesecake here is superb. LOL… Although I should go for some Swedish dessert. LOL… Poor Vaggos who did not have his lunch at 1430. He ordered pasta salad.
We dropped by St. Erik’s Wok to meet Carolyne. I guess Michelle will help her bring back some stuff to Singapore relatives. Yep… Back to the cosy restaurant again for a good chit chat (mostly on Carolyne’s potential plan to move back to Singapore).
Next stop, to have curry chicken and sweet and sour meatballs at Michelle’s apartment. She does cook decent looking meal. And it really taste great. Hmm… Why people like to tease me as ‘chef’ when I don’t really know much about cooking (I just like to talk about food and try new recipes). Maybe I should stop posting my meal pictures on facebook. There’s a hamster in her apartment. He’s quite shy and refuse to eat the carrot when I tried to feed him. But I must say the high pitched sound he makes reminds me of some electrical gadget’s alarm (oops… LOL).
It’s only until today that we found out Joanne will be leaving for Singapore for 2 months. Her husband will join her in a month’s time. Michelle bought a tiramisu for her and we dropped by Joanne’s apartment to bid her farewell. The original ten minute farewell extended to hours of chit chat and coffee/liquor tasting. LOL… I must admit they really like liquor as there are a lot of bottles around Joanne’s and Michelle’s. Hmm… Interesting.
Anyway, must thank the Singapore Club (especially Michelle) for helping us to orientate ourselves in Stockholm. Else it would be very tough for us to settle down within such a short time. Have a pleasant and safe trip back to Singapore!
Thanks to Michelle, we finally get to eat Singapore food, in Stockholm.
It’s a cosy shop called St. Erik’s Wok, located at St. Eriksplan. I had an enormous plate of fried kuay teow with beef. I can’t imaging myself finishing the food in that kind of plate size… It’s HUGE. That plate is normally used to serve steamed grouper in Singapore restaurants. This is really amazing.
I guess I was too hungry and mesmerised with the food that I forgot to take a picture of it before I start to gobble down the food. LOL… The dark sauce is sweet. I hope I can improvise something like that so that my cooking can have stronger flavour. For now, it’s kind of tasteless.
And…
I booked the flight to UK. I shall be spending 20 March to 27 March in UK. Looking forward to it.
Next thing… Further planning to tour EU during weekends. LOL… I must do it fast.
Hmm… ok… This is just a trial… Shall get some onions and garlic to boost flavoring.
The lunch box…
Wow! I’ve passed my first lab assignment! It’s a ‘D’!
Considering this is a master course (DD2423) and needing to implement histogram equalisation with matlab, this is a good starting point. I’ll figure out on improvements.
LOL
