greece: the blue and white of it

as i type this, ive got a feeling that shuz, mel, sheena and ange have just arrived wearily back at athens after their 9hr boat ride from santorini. if you guys are reading this, hej hej! :)

so last friday saw sam, shuz and myself heading off to the ancient land of the gods to meet the other 3 uk girls, despite the impending exams for sam and myself. (exams? what exams?). but in retrospect, i would have been really daft if i didnt go. thank you to shuwen's powers of persuasion and pretty economical SAS return tickets to athens! i know im going to die and start complaining and whinge about how i havent done enough work and die lah i cannot remember all my wto cases and EC sued which country over which trade barrier in the next 2 very very stressful weeks, i'm definitely not regretting having seen greece on this exchange. especially when i dont think i need to 'save greece for my honeymoon' because i havent even found a husband for which a honeymoon is necessary. hurhur.

i mean, its greece ok! GREECE! the land of gods, demigods, trojan horses, medusa, hydras, sirens, muses, zeus, poseidon, hades, athena, aphrodite, the agean, the parthenon, the delphi, crete, corinth, thessalonia etc etc etc. i was such a greek mythology nerd in my pri/sec sch days (ok, still am), so actually being in the land where all the action took place was extremely exciting. its one of those places where you dream of going to all your life and and when you're actually there you really dont believe that you are there.

but i guess i played up the mystique 0f athens too much because when i got there, i was pretty disappointed at the city. its extremely dense, hot, stuffy, (comparison with singapore stops here) traffic is exceptionally hazardous, roads arent exactly well paved and the hostels are downright not good (i stayed 2 nights at 2 different places and both fell Below Expectation). and the ruins where not as mind-blowing and awesome that i would drop to my knees and feel insignificant at the power of ancient construction. the acropolis was crawling with tourists (japanese on the left, koreans behind you, the french at your right) and school children, there was no way you could take a picture of just yourself hugging the pillars of the parthenon.

on the other hand, i think i could get used to a life sitting onboard a yacht and sailing my life away on the agean, from pretty greek island to pretty greek island.

it is that beautiful.

now i know why the greek flag is painted only blue and white. blue for the azure sky and sea, and white for the gleaming greek houses that dot the top of the cliffs and their little blue domed roofs. actually, i think those blue domes are only reserved for old byzantine churches. ive been so many postcards with the exact same picture of these little houses perched precariously on the cliffs, it was hard to believe i was actually walking through through and around them. but they're no joke to get to. its up on a cliff remember? not only did we have to walk up a million stairs to get to the top, we had to navigate around donkey poo left by very hardworking donkeys who traverse up and down the staircase everyday carrying tourists who have money to pay them to. while we poor exchange students have to stick to the walking and avoid those donkey traps. and also convince ourselves that we're exercising and losing the lunch that we just ate.

it was a really short 4D3N trip, a pity, for a place as huge as greece. but im definitely fortunate enough to be able to have gone for it in the first place. wish my family could see this! SIA flies direct to athens anyway :) and of course, the company i had makes everything four times the better.

now let the pictures do the talking. dont say i make you jealous!

shuz and sheena do the spring-summer collection

spectacular

the characteristic blue and white of a typical byzantine church

the sunset landscape of oia (one of the islands in the santorini chain). stunning. its supposedly the (insert random superlative) sunset in the world (according to ange's blog).
everyone gathered to catch the sunset

a view from the midway to the top of oia (as we huffed and puffed our way up)

the cliff layers of oia


ange and i on board the boat

i had to soak my feet in the water!

not only do you have to navigate through treacherous donkey poo piles, you have to fend off rascally dogs too!

the long way down to the fira port

this is how crystal?

super troopers!

our tiger claws

almost all the islands have the same long and winding road feature. its not very romantic when you have to climb up and down it.

aw. so nice!

the nea kameni, an active volcano in santorini

sheena and me

mel and me

a view of santorini from the sea

and another similar view of santorini from the sea

another long and winding road up to fira

more sea-view houses

these people enjoy life only

a pilgrim's progress around the nea kameni

like i said, i could do this everyday. guess who's shoez?

i repeat. crystal CLEAR!

shuz, sam and me

boats docked at nea kameni, with fira at the background

the theatre of dionysous at the acropolis

soaring marbled pillars

the ceiling of the temple of erethetus (?)

ah. the symbol of ancient greece right before my eyes.

a view of the very densely populated athens from the acropolis

terri was here.

and here.

entrance facade of the acropolis

a shot of plaka, the ancient district surrounding the foot of the acropolis

ruins dot plaka

a view of mitropolis from the acropolis

more ruins around plaka

so here ends my sojourn to the greek side of the world. it was a damn good one.

the (wo)man on the clapham omnibus/ yishun mrt

its tough to be living in the same apartment without having some form of compulsion to say something or join in the fray, which has gotten even more exciting what with suyin (whom i also know personally) has written.

(and this is the same girl i had tea with like a mere 6hrs ago and we were both gushing over english tearooms and buttered scones.) o_o

i felt the force of her rhetoric. more correctly, i felt flattened by the sheer strength of her words. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE?!

everyone's put in their own two cents worth on the matter, and i will say mine. and i will say mine like the woman on the clapham omnibus says it.

but then, very very honestly, i dont know what to say about the gum. like i seriously dont know. its not because i am indifferent, therefore i am reticient. obviously not. but even trying to come up with up with a coherent comment not easy. so many arguments have crossed back and forth and i feel like history is being made. i feel like im part of some very small but very significant change in my life as a singaporean as i know it. the change which is actual debate over Things That Actually Matter. seriously, i wonder if this happens in parliament. we all know what goes on in parliament, we can read the parliament reports and honestly, is it that exciting? do the parliamentarians feel that they're actually fighting for something that they believe in and then sit back a while later with the fuzzy feeling in their heart that they've made progress in the maturation of our society? i dont know for sure. but if everyone who's been commenting and defending their arguments and taking up sides was actually in parliament, ive this very sure feeling that we wouldnt be needing this debate in the first place.

along the way, ive forgotten exactly how gum features in the debate. and whats the link with it being a symbol of free expression and the individual over the community. i dont follow word for word all the argument, so i cant pinpoint who said what and how and when and why.

(i've been typing at this post for a i think a good 3 hrs how and my flight to athens at 9.25am, and its actually 4.28am. crap! but i'd doggedly write it because like i said, i feel like im involved in some kind of whirlwind of change. i've written a whole lot thats been deleted because my words are in an incoherent jumble. shoot! its actually bright! and birds are singing!)

i have to sleep. i will be back to write this.

you are as anal-retentive as me about itunes when:

1. you ensure that all entries on itunes are properly typed

2. you do not accept things like "KAISER CHIEFS", "kaiser chiefs" or (even worse) "KAIser chEIFS"; it must be "Kaiser Chiefs".

3. entries like "%31!@i wish you£2love" (this happens when you illegally download or rip tracks) are downright disgusting; it must be "I Wish You Love".

4. entries must at least come with a proper song title and artist, BOTH properly typed. (i used to be so anal that i had to get the album and genre of the music correct and the same for the same artist. if you are like so, you are my best friend!)

5. you download the corresponding album art for each and every album you have on your list so that you can tap on the itunes7 coverflow to its max!

6. you flinch when, on the coverflow, 2 songs on the from the same album appear as if they were from 2 separate albums with the same cover (this happens when you do not click the 'part of a compliation' option on your song info). then you rush to correct the ugly blemish.

7. you DO NOT HAVE DUPLICATES on your itunes, unless they are different covers by the same artist or different artists

8. you die die die die (x infinity) must categorise the entry "publish my love-rogue wave-theocmix5" into, its separate category, Name, Album, Artist.

9. sometimes if its too much of a hassle to find the exact album which your song comes from, esp if you are listening to a single, the most convenient thing to do is to subsume it under one "Greatest Hits/ The Best Of" album that you conjured up yourself. sometimes you dont even have to conjure because you know that there's a collection of that artist's greatest hits lying somewhere already. the album art widget proves mighty useful for this purpose. and especially for very old artists.

10. you ensure that if the artist is 'The Fray', it stays "The Fray" throughout. Other variations like "Fray" do not pass the culling. same goes for albums. if the album is "The Prince of Egypt - Original Soundtrack", it cannot be entitlesd "OST Prince of Egypt" for one track, then "prince of egypt" for another track. (honestly, i thank itunes for its predictive text for the album and artist input)

so who's just like me?

i have to start sleeping earlier!

you have to adore the swedish music scene, especially with gems like peter bjorn and john and the concretes. and the creativity of their music videos! i absolutely am impressed with the old-school cartoony thing from 'young folks'.



young folks, peter bjorn and john (feat. victoria bergsman from the concretes)



you can't hurry love, the concretes (and NO, its not a cover of phil collins!)

my busted fingers

its been such a long time since i ever tried to learn something new.

i can count a whole lot of classes which ive taken as a kid, like piano, tennis, french... but because of my famously lazy nature, i ended up being pretty half-past-six in them. its a pity. especially my piano. i wished i could have been little more attentive and committed to my lessons and not deliberately do piano theory an hour before my piano teacher came a-knocking. perhaps if i did, i wouldnt be resigned to jamming only in the major key on my piano at home. my poor yamaha is totally under-used and under appreciated. plus, i usually jam loudly when i need to destress from mugging or to irritate my neighbours by playing medley after medley of church music.

now when i watch live gigs or listen to jazz piano (like chok kerong) and watch amazed at the potential of those ivory keys, i really kick myself. im obviously no musical prodigy (what a funny thought) but had i been more teachable, i'd probably do so much more music in my life than just listen to itunes every day.

oh the regrets in life.

hence, after 7months of procrastination, and alot of nagging by my housemate (with whom i share 50% of the guitar with), ive decided to embark on learning the guitar and killing my left index, middle and ring finger in the process. i've always wanted to learn the guitar, but ive always been SO lazy. worship team people from church like jae, josh and ian have all had their turn in trying to teach me but to no avail. josh's guitar was actually left in my place for one year and i didnt even touch it! :P

and now that im going back home soon, i need to prove to myself, more than anything i guess, that i can learn something new, if i really really want to. and i will try try try even if it means i have to watch less house, CSI and uglybetty. hur. its so typical of me to start on something only when i realise ive got no time left. if i dont learn the guitar now, i'll never do it back in singapore! (ironically, my sister has been attending jamming sessions in church and SHE can play the guitar now. HMMPH!)

flesh on steel string seriously hurts. but as someone famous said, no pain no gain. wish me luck! i intend to nail 'when you say nothing at all' and the 'hammer' by midweek.

and then maybe when i really think i should, go back to learning the piano again.

retro-ga-ga

im this close (presses fingers close together) to finishing up my international labour law essay. very very close. then when i plug into my headphones and play cher's "strong enough", im too hyped up to finish it. ive always been a fan of all things retro, count the 1960s upwards. 90's retro is very in now too, after i watched music and lyrics. i think hugh grant's "pop! goes my heart" mtv is my most watched you-tube video lah. and then i managed to get the starsky and hutch OST too! happiness! aaaaaaah. i love owen wilson and ben stiller! especially when they fall out and owen wilson sings 'don't give up on us baby' while ben stiller karates alone below the boardwalk.

oh i love retro!

oh im pissed!

because:

1. my feist gig got cancelled. YES. FEIST. GOT. CANCELLED. LIKE ARCADE FIRE.

worse still, the concert organisers arent saying why.

2. my plane ticket from paris to prague also got cancelled. i knew i shldnt have booked with some czat-czat budget carrier. sheesh.

what's the next thing that's going to cancel on me?

bliss

its been a really really busy weekend, 'cos good old rouen roshni is in town and ive been playing hostess for the last few days till weds when she heads off to her next scandinavian destination. but it has been nothing but lots of fun (duh.), esp the part on eating copious amounts of food and then trying hard to slough off the flab and fat (and the guilt of course) by playing frisbee in the park. it has been such a weekend of excess! plus, with suyin's and ade's gastronomic creativity, our tummies have totally expanded by a gazillion inches.

(did i mention that its ben and jerry's free cone day tmr?! in the words of my sister: omgashhh!)

we did helsingor today, and all we actually did was to perch ourselves atop a mound with the imposing hamlet castle behind us and stare into the oresund sea and wave at passing scandlines ferries ferrying between helsingor (denmark) and helsingborg (sweden). that was precisely what i told sheryl when i called her to wish her happy birthday and then she called me crazy. which is pretty true anyway. how surreal it is to hear your friend telling you she's looking across the sea into another country right?

the sea was so so so beautiful. it was crystal clear and you could see the pebbles, sandy coloured, black, grey, terracotta, white, all beneath it. i attempted to walk into the sea and had to skip out of it 10 second later because the water was so cold! plus i carelessly got my shoes wet. and we just ate strawberrries dipped in yoghurt, chips, chocolate milk and cheese all day long, talking, gossiping and musing about the future.

i just want to encapsulate everything now, the sun, the breeze, the sea and the peace and bring it all home to serangoon gardens.

either that, or i need to figure out how to teleport my whole family to denmark.

anyhow, ive made headway into my guitar learning! my fingers have grown unsightly corns and it hurts even to be typing this post, but i am so proud! its amazing just to hear music emanate from the strings in different combinations, painful as they may be.

ouch.

off the top of my head

• i dont know what i did or didnt do, but now my blogger dashboard is in DANISH.
  
• the chocolates and back-dated episodes of ugly betty and house have come out again because its mugging time.
  
• my WTO teacher made carrot cakes for us today, sort of to make up for missing one of the classes and forgetting to tell us.
• snickers is really my most favourite all-in-one chocolate in this world.
  
• and i like to buy loose m&ms from the m&m gumball machine in my library. my sister thinks its cool because its very old-school Archie Comics-ish. i like it because it only has the peanut m&ms.
• i love betty suarez and gregory house!
  

ugh. its that time of the year again, when the study schedules, textbooks, notes, rough paper, coloured pens, highlighters come out because exams are round the corner. and then i live for moments when they release new episodes of my favourite tv shows, so that i can take legitimate i-deserved-it breaks to watch them. that being said, i have to emphasize that i really enjoy watching ugly betty. its outright funny, light, entertaining and also open, perceptive and honest at the same time. although one does get tired of seeing betty solve every episodes problem and is the voice of reason and conscience for almost, if not all, characters in the show, because you know in real life, its absolute bollocks, i persist in watching it because you just got to love her. and you've got to love the scriptwriters too, for tackling issues like insecurity, sexuality, superficiality, family dysfunctionality etc. at least the show isnt senseless and insipid. one of the reasons why i usually can't stand reality tv.

and when i want to get my daily dose of sharp and searing wit and sarcasm, i turn to house md. its also daft that he's always the one to solve the puzzle and save the dying person, when he does have a team of 3. but even so, for all his intelligence and capability, there's always something new that house learns about humanity and we learn about his insecurities and inadequacies most of the time. plus the english accent always helps. always.

berlin revisited, poland conquered.

now that i got my grievances with the people at flybussenvarna (swedish airport bus company) and DSB (danish national rail) out of my system, i can nicely get on with my trip update. this time around, i was travelling with sam (until krakow) and 2 of our jap friends, hidetoshi and akane. and then we got stalked by the uk bunch aka sheena, ange and mel. the world is honestly shrinking before my very eyes.

berlin:
technically, it was my third time in berlin, so we didnt have much to 'cover' in terms of sightseeing. although this time we finally made it to the reichstag and a museum on the museum island. bode museum to be exact. ive never seen so many sculptures in one museum ever. the reichstag was definitely amazing, the architecture and the symbolism, and we listened to ange's/mel's/sheena's advice to go in at dusk, so the transition from day to night was cool. but i think we spent the most of it like actually waiting OUTSIDE the reichstag, which is probably the longest queue ive ever been in (minus mtc europe awards). unfortunately, my ambition of going mega shopping in berlin was never really quite realised because i forgot that for all its great shops, berlin is still a european city, read: everything closes on sunday. oh well. save here, means more money for later! anyhow, i sort of feel a special connection to berlin, because it was the first city i visited out of denmark since coming on exchange. i'm very sentimental if you dont already know. so coming back to it and revisiting the complicated-as-hell s/u-bahn lines and going back to zoologischer garden, unter den linden, alexanderplatz, brandenburg tor and my dunkin donut shops was sort of like memory lane. dont roll your eyes! see:

akane looking at the statue and the statute's looking back at her (bode museum).

the infamous reichstag queue. when i took this picture, i was told i had to wait for another 1.5hrs. -____-"

and the queue snakes longer as it gets darker.

and it gets even longer.

a coffee and the s/u-bahn map. im ready to conquer berlin.

a mini for me!

sam and akane walking through tiergarten.

the exterior of the pergamon on museum island.

inside the reichstag

the other side of the reichstag

akane and i lying at the top of the cupola in the reichstag.

my wishing and hoping shot

hide's nostrils are damn big. taken on the train from berlin to poznan.

poznan:
honestly, before i met my polish friend, kamila, i never knew poznan existed. then again, my geography has improved by leaps and bounds because of exchange. so our happy travelling group went to poznan for the sole purpose of paying kamila a visit in her hometown. poznan, like most cities, has an old town and thats pretty much it. we did find a great quaint chocolate cafe though. it is not unusual that my trips are marked by eateries and cafes. i must say we (the asians) did get stared at quite bit in poznan.

akane and kamila and i with a huge psychedelic eggs in the background.

the way to the stary rynek (old town) in poznan. i like polish sunsets.

sam, akane, hide and myself finally in poznan.

kamila taking us through the cytadel.

headless and limbless humans.

krakow:
it took us a good 7.5hrs to make it to krakow from poznan. krakow is charming, oldey, quaint. seriously, the old town thing gets quite boring after a while. but i liked the huge-ness of its old town. it is seriously big. krakow is also famous, or shld i say infamous for auschwitz (will blog separately bt that) and the salt mines. oh! and thanks to the hostel's recommendation, we found a super cheap polish diner that served HUGE portions of super food too! after 2 meals there, ive sworn off polish food (for now) because its so jelat! i think the fact that the poles use alot of lard has something to do with it.

subsistence for the 7.5hr train ride from poznan to krakow. you're looking at alot of rubbish food. but it was pretty fun when we ended up playing hangman.

pierogi- polish dumplings and the quintessential polish eat.

krakow's old town. its the biggest open air square in europe. plus they had an easter market too! not as exciting as the christmas ones, but ive never seen an easter market in my life, so it was pretty nice.

the vistula river

i dont know what it means. but the brass plate contrasted nicely with the blue sky, so i took a picture.

its only level 3 below the surface of the earth, and im already at 135m below ground level. and the mines have 9 levels!

pretty much amazed that we're standing in a chapel in carved out of salt.

walking along the walls of the barbican, separating the old town from the new one.

the barbican

a shot of the chapel of st kinga (once princess of krakow, now patron saint of salt miners.)

underwater salt lake. with the density as low as the dead sea, you cant drown in this 9m deep pool.

hehe. i couldnt resist taking a photo of this class of old folks.

well now, it looks like some singaporeans have also been to the mines.

looking down from the largest caverns in the mine. its 36m high and people have bungee-d off the top of the cavern before.

salt encrusted walls of the salt mine. lick'em!

a labyrinth of wooden staircases and bad lighting. you dont want to get lost in the mines.

on wawel hill

a very hi-tech dragon statue, which bellows fire if you sms 'SMOK' to a number.

warsaw:
we were warned that warsaw wasnt as nice as krakow, or had anything to see because its just another big capital city. plus with easter around the corner, even the malls would be closed. indeed that was what happened. but i was impressed with the size of the city (it really is HUGE) and the transport system. you name it, they have it. old trams, new trams, bendy buses, metro, rail, everything also have. and although we didnt see much, akane, hide and i ended up having long conversations with each other over meals, and i ended up getting to know them better and learning a decent amount of nihon-go from them. plus, we had a great hostel and we hung out with the hostel people. honestly, i was quite sad to leave warsaw, because i wouldnt be seeing the new found friends ever again. unless bec and erin (from australia) come to singapore and colin (from vancouver) comes to copenhagen. also, because we were in warsaw right on the saturday before easter sunday, we witnessed the poles going to church in full force, carrying pretty baskets decorated with eggs, chicks and rabbits. and i think warsaw has like the most no. of churches per square metre lah. its choc-a-block with churches and they're all crowded with people headed for the confessional. one of the churches i visited on good friday actually preserved frederic chopin's heart in it. o_O and no, ange, we didnt bother to find the soviet escalator :)

nowy swiat. its supposedly one of the more happening districts, but everywhere in poland is like "shhhh quiet".

a statue of copernicus

akane and i at a mock up radio station, where we both played dee-jay for a good 5 minutes.

strange polish cake which we had in a polish cafe. dim overhanging lamps, rattan chairs, grumpy old women, brown lace curtains, you get the idea.

me playing weather girl at the mock up tv station. i think if i was weather girl, no one would want to know the weather. ever.

a memorial statue in front of yet another church.

warsaw has many circles. a view from the huge palac something.

pretty polish flowers!

the huge and imposing palac something. apparently it took only 3 yrs to build this monstrosity. personally, i think its rather ugly. but its like a warsaw icon.

most of my pics have hide opening his mouth. wonder why.

btw, happy easter everyone!

i hope u guys managed to eat your easter eggs like i did! milka eggs are the best :) we hunted all over krakow for them coz akane and i couldnt find them in berlin. and a good thing that we did too. too bad i dont have a photo of it. it comes in a pack of 4 in an adorable purple egg box (you know, the recycled cardboard kind you find normal eggs in), wrapped in purple alu foil. and they give you 2 purple spoons to eat the cream inside the chocolate egg with. super milky, super creamy...

heaven.