they are long and busuk, but hopefully entertaining.
more photos and de blow up versions (with 6 sizes to choose!) can be found on my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/9223256@N02/.
and i stress that, i din pay anything for any of these trips~ enjoy :)
Journey to de west – it starts in Stockholm
I was a backpacker in stockholm, de capital of scandinavia, for 5hrs; and was totally amused by de amazing city. A picture’s worth a thousand words, so lets get it started.
De shadow of de Boeing 777 that brought me to Stockholm, painted on de clouds. De passanger that was sitting beside me is an old man with a pony tail. Funny? Yeah, funny… and I later found out that he must be an artist. He was drawing some dragons on a sketch book with an ink pen. Ink pen! That’s my first inspiration towards arts! This leads to another irrelevant story :P I watched shrek 2 and 3 on de plane, yes, I hadnt watch shrek 2 til then. had 3 homely meals, de steak was yum~ it comes with smoke salmon salad, and de artist uncle was treating me like a kid, making sure I eat and drink enough, passing me his orange juice and ice-cream… more weird old swedes appeared, they were stretching and jogging on de plane, cool~ and when we were on de air space of Estonia, Espoo came on to de flight info screen! I bet only my sis Mrs. Raikkonen understands wot is so special about that. Espoo, a finnish town not so far away from Helsinki, is my brother-in-law, kimi’s home town :)
Touch down. After 40mins of travelling on airport bus, welcome to stockholm.
Red eyed bunny, if you would believe, this was taken at one of de most happening part of de city.
One in every 3 swedish family owns a boat… that has to be a fact…
Ahem, ladies and gents, I introduce you to de City Hall of Stockholm! “Do what Nobel Prize winners, royalty and regular people do. Take a break and surround yourself with 18 million golden mosaic tiles, 8 million bricks and over 10,000 organ popes, plus a lot more, in one of the world’s most famous city halls.” That was how they describes it on de official tourist & event guide Aug 2007.
And this, is stockholm! It gave me goose bumps!
More of it. I wish I could do it in panaroma… the whole view along de river bank was simply stunning. De light brown coloured baroque style building on the left end is de Royal Palace! Err, since I was stalking aimlessly and on feet, I din go and hav a closer look at de palace. From de postcards sold in many news agencies, it seems that de best way to wander around stockholm is actually on water. Where we can get to see de palace and Gripsholm Castle and de best view of things. But I dun want to know about de prices. And just in case you are wondering, where were my 30kg luggages?!! Well, you don’t expect me to carry something 2/3 of my own weight everywhere do you? They were safely lying in a locker that cost 40kr or RM20 everytime you open it. That’s de living standard in stockholm… but RM20 is well worth wot I was able to see in these 5 hrs. Wished someone were here to share it with me. De best thing is that I hav a camera. De worst is I’m not doing de swedish tourism any favour with my camera skills :P
Me~ standing in between shadow and sunlight :) with many passageways leading to de dark side, woah… my path lies ahead! (this is wot you call “think too much” :P)
Under one of de many bridges in stockholm.
Something’s telling me that chinese are everywhere…
Dinner’s served, spidey has a prey, lol~ I like the city hall so much I put it in de background of everything :P my dinner that night, dining beside spidey, was a bun, as my dear friends, you might hav guessed it already! Wakaka… that’s 5hrs worth of Stockholm :)
Gothenburg – first impressions and money matters
Ah, pls dun remind me of all de heaving and shoving I had to do to get to this hostel… as you can see, it’s all de way up hill… luggages are pain in de a$$, my whole body is still aching...
To get to de hostel, I need to get off de tram just in front of Lloyd’s Register’s (yeah, one of favco’s 3rd party) office, any design submission to pass to them?
De nice little garden behind de reception area is as european as you can imagine. Very much like backpackers in australia, an access card gives you all de access to all de places they let you access in de building. First night, lucky me was sharing a 4 bed dorm with a young swedish girl who’s doing 1st yr engineering in chalmers; a german-borned-moved-to-england-at-17-then-moved-to-ireland-10-yrs-ago middle aged lady; and a smart looking lady who was quite quiet and I din know where she’s from. Happy not to see a big and hairry man in de room, wakaka…
And after an hr’s nap, I went to chalmers. Aim, look for accomodation and a free sim card given out by chalmers international reception committee (CIRC). And everything went smoothly. I’ve got my swedish phone number and my future room. I’m going to stay in a cellar! Wow~~ it’s about 15mins away from city centre, about 25mins away from chalmers. Mrs. Karin Gustafson my landlord with 4 great grand children, lives alone. Her husband passed away last yr. The room was his office. It’s quite roomy, has a small bed, a few cosy chairs, a small table, cupboards, a fridge, an electric stove that I can cook on and hav many lights. Mom would definitely lov it, lol~ it’s just about 100m away from de bus stop, and there’s a supermarket just across de stop, which are fantastic. I’ll be going into my room from de garden without going through de house and disturbing Karin. But that is a “stupid door”, that’s her original words which means “it is hard to open”. I’ll try to record a video and post it onto YouTube later ^^ Oh yeah, de rent, 2300kr per month, that’s quite close to melbourne’s lowest range :) and… Karin thought I’m 17… is that good or bad? “you are so young and you travel alone! How old are you? … I thought u were 17…”
I’m so happy after a fruitful day that I decide to giv myself a break. And to not waste my vasttrafik ticket, (something like melbourne’s metcard) I went to Salthomen. Coz there is a ferry picture beside it :P
It turns out to be a nice little port. With ferry ports and hundreds, or thousands of boats parking along de jetis. Did I mention that one in every 3 swedish family owns a boat? Lol~
Tonight, having dinner with bumblebee. Why am I always having dinner with hollywood big shots? Again dinner’s from de bakery, something with cinnamon but I cant name it. It’s yumm~ and cost about RM1 each. Now, who says sweden is expensive? A home grown peach sold beside de port as desert. Summer fruits are sweet~
To be honest, if I’ve not been in melbourne for 4 yrs, I must be dieing hard already. I probably wouldn’t even know wot to do with my linen and bedsheets. De swedish girl that is also going to chalmers I mentioned earlier is paying 3500kr for her room-to-be. Melbourne also taught me that, if you want food, buy them from Safeway or Coles, which translate into Willy’s or Hemkop in sweden :) They were selling de same cinnamon bread I had for about 4 times de price in de café. And tram/bus tickets… single trip cost 10kr for everyone, going from where ever you like in gothenburg to where ever you like in gothenburg. Daily ticket cost 50kr, travel as much as you like in 24hrs. 30days pass costs 515kr for an adult, 300kr for me as an under 26 (yes, fellow backpackers, de under 26 rates really apply!), work de maths out yourself. To me that's better than melbourne and i'm happy enough. Zone 1 metcards used to cost around AUD95 which is about 585kr and was killing me…
Finally, gothenburg city centre. Was going to leave it until later when I’m more familiar with de city but this scene made me change my mind, it’s simply beautiful.
Why am I still taking pictures of cranes?? These are quite close to de city centre too. Oh yeah, I saw a ram luffer with A frame near kl central the other day… borrow some space to post de pix here. it has mast sheaves but luff rope wasn't reeved. funny?
Some nice chats with ppl in de dorm at night bring de end to my first day in gothenburg. De chats also contains something like “you are so young and you travel alone! How old are you? … I thought u were 17…” echoes?? They thought wot I’m doing is amazing, but which I dun feel a single ounce of amazement myself… And each of them in return also had amazing stories to tell, that’s exactly why I love backpackers.
De phone and internet connectivity are a bit frustrating but de rest are quite ok :) and de weather, it’s meant for short sleeves!
Gothenburg - 2nd day
Not much’s been done today, coz I was so efficient yesterday and finished all de most important things, waka~ Just slaking around, trying out uni’s wifi, which wasn’t successful but at least found out wot should be done to get connected, and hav to wait patiently ~.~ it rainned a little today but nothing more than a drizzle. I read weather forecasts off a free paper called metro, something like melbourne’s mX, they are really not all that different! Except de language… oh yeah, talking about metro, I read or should I say browsed one in stockholm and sven-goran eriksson was on de front page, lol~ this was it
“Svensation! 1 Topp. Manchester Citys och Sven-Goran Erikssons segertag fortsatter I Premier League efter gardagens sensationella 1-0 segeri I derbyt mot Manchester Unite.”
And Larsson was on de same paper too, he scored twice in Helsingborg’s 5:0 trashing of some other club. Today on another paper, Zlatan (Ibrahimovic, his face was there) is transfering to somewhere? I dun understand de language… and Kim (must be Kallstrom) is doing something that’s worth mentioning on de paper also, haha… and I think sweden is in de same group with spain in de euro qualifier? I’ll definitely go if there’s a game between them in gothenburg!! :) (day dreaming again)
Gothenburg- I’ve become a real tourist in day 3
Ok, I know I’m being lazy… had a little chat with my german-brithish dorm mate and she was saying she spent most of these days on islands! Omg~ swedish islands~~ and where can I find them? Take a ferry from Salthomen. Salthomen, that sounds familiar? That’s de place with a ferry icon beside it on de map that I went on my first day here. And de ferry costs? Nothing! If you hav a vasttrafik ticket :) cool~~~ and she’s off to de islands again…
Now de quiet girl came in, and suddenly, when there’s no one else around, she’s talking… damn… no wonder she’s quiet… she’s having a hard time in life… $h!t… backpackers are really…. Full of stories... not always nice stories but that’s de best way I think I can put it… “Aurelie Simonet from Geneva”, that’s wot she wrote on de paper when we exchanged contact, coz she doesn’t hav a number or permanent address yet… de story starts from de first day, when she first came into this room, de rest of us were wondering wot’s a woman with smart clothings like hers doing in a shared room hostel??? And I finally got de answer to this… she was a lawyer back in geneva, that was until about 4 yrs ago. Then she divorced, and suddenly de whole life changed and she went to liv in india for 3 yrs… crazy? Then she went back and hated working in de office. So, at 35 (although she looks like twenty something… she said that’s bcoz of yoga, and I saw her doing yoga on her bed 7something this morning), she’s trying to start all over again to hav a new life. Going to stockholm to meet two families and hopefully to work for them. And she doesn’t know how much does a ticket cost… and, she’s running out of money… not even bothered to rent sheets for her bed… And, she’s been walking up and down de city with her 15kg luggage to safe money! And she said it’s becoz she’s had excessive money to use all life, now that she’s short of money she doesn’t know how to plan to use her money properly. There, you hav your lady who’s wearing a lawyer’s jacket but had to stay in a backpacker’s. good thing she didn’t hav any kid... good luck Aurelie, hope you get a job in stockholm and hav a good life ahead.
Ok, working towards my own good life ahead. A trip to hemkop for food… ah, right, de cinnamon backed thing that costs RM1 each is called Kanelsnakor. They sell it everywhere here in Gothenburg, and some comes in different flavors :) so, wot’s on de menu? Grilled chicken for 15kr… geez, after 2 days without good meat I’m definitely going to hav that! I finished half of wot they put in de food bag and de rest’s for dinner :)
To prevent from slumping into further laziness, I thought I’d better go and walk around. Which I did and was totally enjoying wot de city had to offer :) again, pictures speak.
So I was walking along de water front for half an hr, and took more pictures of cranes, lol. Ok, I get de msg, dun stray too far from de sidewalk, right? Yea yea, I get it, I get it… de scene ahead is still breathtaking but I decided to go to de varldskulturmuseet, which sounds pretty much like WorldCultureMuseum, and that’s wot it is. But before that, when I’m still full of grilled chicken and hav a lot of energy, I better hav a stroll in chalmers first.
Chalmers Studentkar. You see Swedish can sound very much like English sometimes… and I finally covered de whole Johanneberg campus this time.
Now, de exciting excursion! De universeum is a science museum that’s located just beside varldskulturmuseet. But de admission fees are eye-bulging, 245kr for kids and 345kr for adults… so I din bother to get in. but it seems to be heaven for kids like xuan :)
De hard rain project, just outside varldskulturmuseet. Yet another some sort of protest song from Bob Dylan. De pictures fit in quite well with de lyrics and they are a bit disturbing but worth a look. My romanticism mates, pls visit http://www.stillpictures.com/.
There are two themes on exhibit in de varldskulturmuseet. And this is de first.
Sister of Dream. Which equals to death in de language of native south American troops. Coz they think deaths, just like dreams, are something in between sleeping and being awake.
How many of you actually knew that I have weakness over ancient accessories? Lol~ this is one of de hundreds of shaman neckles on display. It’s made of bones, beads, seeds, and something else I cant remember.
Poison darts and mini spears, colourful feather crowns, potteries, pls find them in my flickr account if you like. I duan to bore de ppl who are not interested :P
This looks horrendous? De other exhibition is about de cruelty of our world as well. Human trafficking.
Where de victims of human trafficking are often women and children, I thought this curtain of babushka and de shadow they made that resembles the cold iron of a prison were enough to make ppl start thinking… there were more light in this hall, so de pix I took are of better quality. Again, pls visit my flickr account :)
Last but not least, this one is for Mr… :P Gender blender? And yes, all five of them were girls!
Walking a little way up town, you see Liseberg, Sweden most attractive tourist destination in 2006 by a great margin. That was from de tourist guide again. Valkommen = welcome.
And on de same street, you get de magnificent Nya Ullevi! The home ground of de top 4 Gothenburg football clubs! Are they playing euro qualifiers here??? I’m now super curious to find out!
De doors are shut tight, just a peep of de inside~ I got as excited as de first time I was in Telstra dome and Bukit Jalil :)
And yes, I’ll consider it as another fruitful day!
Gothenburg- tourist again in day 4 :)
De day din start well. An old lady took Aurelie’s bed and she was really tired and was snoring like a train :P it’s not very nice by saying that but… I cant help :P So de other 3 of us were in for a restless night. It’s really bad for Hanna coz she needs to go to uni before 8… anyway, I woke up at 8 and feeling super dizzy… remembering that I din hav any carbohydrate last night, I went to my last 4 Kanelsnakor (oh, I din mention that they come in pack of 9) and swallowed two, and felt better. and went back to bed. And slept til 11am :P and decided that it’s time to get some real food.
Walking down de little hill that I was heaving my luggages up, there’s a little kebab stall that sells, well, kebabs. I went in and everything was in Swedish. So I ordered meny 1, which is menu 1, I guess. And got 3 generous scoups full of smashed potatoes, a sausage, salads and a can of coke. Price 35kr, pretty Melbourne like. De guy behind de counter, Bewar, is actually a Kurdish who was living in Iraq. He said his name means no country, becoz Kurdish ppl hav no country of their own. Sweden is really a mega culture melting pot… coz to him I’m a Chinese who were living in Malaysia… he was looking at my name and said “hey, are you really a Malaysian? Coz your name sounds very chinese…” and at this point, I got a cup of free coffee ^^ and his contact number… you think ppl who comes alone to Sweden are funny? They just exchange contacts whenever they like… looking out for each other? and further chats promises more free coffee whenever I would like to visit his little kebab stall ^^ (I know dad, bring eyes when meeting ppl!) and this decent lunch really kicked my day off :)
De aim was Rosarium, which implies intoxicating aroma of roses in full bloom! But a casual turn of head drew me off course to Gothenburg’s own operah house, which is also at de waterfront! And on my short walk there, I finally found this place!
This restaurant was mentioned in one of de only two post dedicated to malaysian in Sweden and Finland on Cari (in case u din know Cari, it’s de biggest Chinese forum in msia. de link is on de right hand column of this blog). And I vowed to check it out in one of de reply in de forum and was so happy to see it after 4 days of drifting around :)
Yes, Gothenburg claims that it is a football mad city! Ronnie number 7 rocks~ but suspended…. These kids are pretty cool, especially de keeper boy, he wasn’t letting anything through.
There, de unique building of de Gothenburg operah house.
But this was wot I couldn’t resist at de casual turn of head ^^ I’m a borned docker!
Correct me if I’m wrong… Scandinavia contains… 3 countries?? Wot de hell is de Danish flag doing there??? Danish flags are doing very well everywhere in Sweden actually. Building in de background is de biggest shopping mall in Gothenburg.
Missing your Chinese groceries? They sell everything here~ dumplings, fish balls, Bao, soya sauce, even durians, and all kind of instant noodles, but no Indomie… I’m missing soup noodles!! Ok, I’ll hav just that for dinner tomorrow after I move into my new studio room :)
Liebherr tower crane load chart, lol~ it’s de first time I look at de load chart of a tower crane properly. Fortunately I can read it, 11 months working for favco din go waste ^^
Wot does this glassy building do? 10 science pts for getting it right :) hint, it has something to do with de crystal palace in England.
Future larssons, ljungbergs and Kallstroms playing at Heden, a big sporting ground with 4 football fields and some other courts. Nya Ullevi is just down de road to inspire them!
Now then, the gorgeous buildings at Haga, where de working class in Gothenburg lives. There are just too many great sculptures and architectures I couldn’t possibly squeeze them all in :)
When Carlsberg and Torres come together, it doesn’t always mean that we are in Liverpool ^^
More name-sakes~ LL!
And ooah, how about this? my transport company~ and that’s my reflection on de window~
That’s me and Devi sitting on my shoulder. I really dun like flashes coz they change de colour of everything and make me look pale… :P
So I like to do it with mirror~ there, this is more like it~ flip it over digitally if you like. and yes, tonight is de last night I’ll sleep on bed no 4. More heaving and shoving to be done tmr… need to find a way to move that stupid luggage or my biceps and triceps and woteverceps are all going to complain like hell…
No! I’m going to miss tomorrow’s Turkish GP qualy! And football!!! Argh… and no tv in 2 yrs!!! In desparate need to find a way to watch Sunday’s race!!! Go kimi!!
Permanent accom beckons!
It’s massa, lewis, kimi again, magny-cour revisit?? all kimi fans will hope so, coz he went on to win ^^
I was restraining myself to take photos coz I know I’ll write non-stop when there are lots of them. This morning is pretty much the case of checking out of de backpacker’s and looking at de clouds that float by while waiting for time to pass. Coz my land lady is 84 (no kidding!) and she cant walk in de morning as her knee hurts. And so she calls herself a night owl, which I wonder if she’s as night-owl-ly as I am :P nice 3 hrs of time wasting brings 2pm, and I happily hopped onto (those who plans to giv me a surprise by dully appearing at my front door pls pay attention…) bus #17 going to de Ostra Shjukhuset direction. Got off at Studiegangen and walk a few steps back and went into an ally on de right. Taking de first right turn again, brings us to a few nice little houses. It’s de only red house around. Number 9 of Splintvedsgatan, there’s where I now live :)
I’ve been omitting Swedish vocals as I still dunno how to type them without a Swedish keyboard…
Anyway, back to de story… I couldn’t believe how much she’s done for me to live here comfortably… when I came and had a look here on Tuesday, there were no sheets on de bed, no dishes, no cutleries, no cooking appliances, were only a coffee table, de bed was right under de vents to de garden. Anyway, my point is, all de “no”s I mentioned up there became “yes”. coz she asked and I said I don’t have those stuffs, lovely! and de bed is moved to de other side, and she was really up set coz she couldn’t find a carpet that would match de colour of de sheets and curtains, which is again lovely! Plus an extra table which has a flower in de middle, which is mega lovely! :)
So I unpacked all my stuffs and done all de required grocery shopping and started to fulfill de dream that I had yesterday, which is to hav soup noodle for dinner tonight, lol~
Definitely de most filling meal I’ve had thus far~ de soup was yum and I dried it~~ coz I was using mom’s secret magic powder, lol~ couldn’t finish de noodles so I just chucked de pot into de giant fridge and plan to hav stir fry sausage noodles tomorrow :P who thinks I’ll pull it off?
Now now, le tour de asa’s room. Not inside de cupboards tho :P which is obviously where I keep my personal stuffs ^^
This is de flower on de table that I mentioned. de drink… I think she’s been offering me food and drink every single time we talk (at 4pm, 5pm and 8pm, logic?)… I must look like some starving refugee by European standard… and so I finally took this drink, and she looked like she was going to hav a heart attack when I said, yes, I can open de lid with my teeth… wakaka, so I got de opener. Europeans are cute~
My bed. de coffee table bcomes my bed side table. That’s thoughtful ^^ Cupboards and book shelves.
De green door leads to de garden and de white one into de house. There is a thermometer hanging just beside de white door, and indoor temp is always at de mid twenties. Outdoor is max 18deg today. $h!t, I din bring my leather shoes!!!! Argh…. Hopefully they don’t require it to go into de labs… how can a picture reminds me of that… nO, then you can hav my shoes if you like. And I know you like them :)
Err... My kitchen? De fridge is really huge…
And I get a microwave~ and a machine blocked in this view, some sort of an air dryer, I was told that since this room is partially underground, it tends to be humid and needs this thing.
Two more of me. as usual, one off mirror, one off real :)
This carpet is so soft I’m liking it already. Btw, it’s de one that colour doesn’t match, waka~
Hang loose! ^^
and wot did you call this? Flying high on de swedish sky like a paper bird? picasso style ^^
