Interesting videos.. 17 February, 2007
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Sorry haven’t had time to post up.. (yes yes I know it’s been a long long while since I’ve posted =)
But in the meantime, here are a few really cool videos about the future of the web =)
Digital Ethnography
EPIC 2014
Over here, we’re planning on organising a little conference centered around IT and Web2.0.. and these videos are part of our inspiration. Do enjoy =)
=( 7 November, 2006
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Presenting..the winter menu!
Presenting.. from left to right.. in no particular order…
Number…. ONE!
Barbequeued crispy skin, (not so) delicately roasted by an oven (who shall remain unnamed) in Lappis
Number…. TWO!
Dried crispy skin, brought to you courtesy of the fabulously dry air of winter-time Sweden!
Number… THREE!
Sliced and diced skin, specially prepared by the sharp nasty walls of Kungshamra. An excellent fusion of an icy, slippery floor, a hand and a rough wall.
Winter’s here! 29 October, 2006
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Sorry about the miserable lack of posts for the past few weeks.. Been kinda busy with assignments from school, parties meetings and simple laziness =)
Anyway,
WINTER IS HERE!
Here’s proof:
It’s finally dropping below zero degrees!
I see four negative signs in that forecast in the space of 3 days.. outstanding! Looking forward to seeing what the weather is like tomorrow =) (Yeah. Proabably the same but colder =)
In other news, spent about 1200SEK on a winter jacket (the heavy puffy make-me-look-like-a-dumpling types) and a lighter jacket while out shopping in Kista just now. Those two things are probably the best just-in-time purchases I’ve ever made. Yes, after a few weeks of “shopping for winter clothes”, I have finally stopped shopping and finally actually bought something. And now I won’t have to freeze tomorrow. Whoopee.
(PS. I’d post pics of the jackets but it’s almost 3am here. So there.)
Why Asian Guys Can’t Get White Girls 5 October, 2006
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We take a break from our usual posts to bring you this hilarious video.
Normal posts will resume shortly.
Thank you.
Taking on the tunnelbana 23 September, 2006
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Note: This post is predated
We had the idea this week to check out the stops along the red tunnelbana line. And so..
Heh well actually we only visited a few of the more interesting stops along the way.. namely, Liljeholmen, Midsommarkransen, Telefonplan and Fruängen.
Here we go =)
Liljeholmen
It looked like a quiet town when we first got out of the station.. but after consulting with the map, we found a lake in the vicinity and decided to head for it.
That’s the lake you see on the map above, Trekanten. Unfortunately, I only shot a video of the surrounding park and not still pictures =( But take my word for it.. it was beautiful.. So here’s how we found it
Long way around isn’t it?
Aside from the beauty though. something else struck me:
All right. Who can guess where this picture was taken? If I didn’t know better actually, at first glance I’d say it was taken at the Chinese Gardens. Those certainly look like HDB flats in the background don’t they? But.. yeah.. this was actually taken from the bank of Trekanten.
It was really nice and peaceful there.. pretty different from the parks you get back home. No mad kids running amok, no aunties screaming after them.. it was almost like a scene out of a movie.. lush grass (again I apologise for the lack of pics), big playground, laughing kids.. and oh, how can we leave out the old man feeding pigeons?
Now, being the ever-curious students on exchange, we asked him to share his secret of taming these feathered friends of his. So the master gave us some seed and asked us to wait.
After a short while, Alison had some luck
While I..
.. soon got sick of waiting.. =(
After a few fruitless minutes, we met this chap..
We had these 2 great white swans swim over to us to check out the commotion caused by the hungry pigeons. And they were very very elegant creatures in the water. The way they glided, the way their necks gently bent around.
But of course, out of the water, they were just a pair of hungry birds:) There was this lady who bought bread to feed the swans as the lake. And it wasn’t just any bread too.. from the looks of it, the buns were the sugar coated variety you can find at Delifrance or Breadtalk at home. What lucky swans. We were joking afterwards that had it been in Singapore, the swans would have been feeding on bread crusts, old and maybe mouldy bread. (Just look at the sad state of the swans at the Botanic Gardens. At least the last time I was there they didn’t look too happy. So visitors to the Botanic Gardens, please, make the swans happy and get them something from Delifrance instead. Save your breadcrumbs for some other charitable cause.)
We managed to feed the swans ourselves, after getting a few pointers from the same guy who was feeding the pigeons earlier on. He was pretty cool, since he seemed familiar with all the animals in the area, telling us that the pigeons and sparrows liked to eat seed while the ducks and swans preferred bread instead.
So.. Swan Feeding 1101
So.. if you ever get to feed swans.. Do it the right way! Remember, you heard it here first. =)
Telefonplan
This place had an interesting enough name for us to want to stop to take a look. Translated, it means “telephone square“. And why? Because the famous Ericsson’s first headquarters was first established here.
I’ve set foot on Ericsson’s headquarters!
..And body too! I’m a part of history now.
And unfortunately so is this building’s role as the headquarters of the communications giant. The heart and soul has moved off to somewhere else now, but the history remains standing here.
As we walked down the street in Telefonplan, we came across these bunch of kids bashing these fruits from a tree and then collecting them very enthusiastically. We thought they were green apples on the tree at first, but none of the kids seemed to be eating much of the fruit. After asking one of the adults in the area, we found out that these fruits were actually chestnuts. Not like the type we have back in Singapore though (even gao lak don’t grow on trees.. well, not here anyway =) I’m not sure exactly what they are, except for chestnuts, so for convenience’s sake, they’ll be known as (Swedish) chestnuts 
And so, I proudly present to you, the Swedish Chestnut Collecting Guide!
1. First, get yourself one of these fruits (which look like obese rambutans on a bad hair day.. or retarded durians.. whichever you like)
2. Then give them the old one-two.
3. Taa Daa! Swedish Chestnut! This little beauty lies hidden inside the hard green shell and needs a little coaxing, as shown in Step 2, to invite her out. Now you can put her somewhere nice and safe and admire her when you’re bored.
Fruängen
Fruängen was the last stop on the red line as you can see from the map above. The highlight for this stop was the lake called Långsjön (say: long-shurn or, if you want to sound like you’re from southern Sweden, long-hyun). We had to take a bus (No. 403) from the subway station though. We’d noted the road at which we were supposed to stop, and so we alighted when we saw the appropriate street name. But unfortunately for us, Uncle Murphy didn’t tell us he was coming along too (bad murphy!). We ended up about one stop and a few hundred meters too early, and with construction works in the middle of the walkway towards the lake. We did ask for directions before this though, before we got ourselves hopelessly lost.
Then again, the natives were perplexed when we started asking them how to get to long-john or.. er.. long-yon?
The nice, friendly people they were though, the old couple we asked, quickly set us young whippersnappers on the right path and set off towards Långsjön. It wasn’t easy to get to the lake though, as it was tucked pretty safely deep within a residential area. When we got there, we realised, that, while the waters weren’t seemingly as inviting as Trekanten, it was beautiful to have houses that sat right at the water’s edge.
A few I-think-I-take-great-photos-and-must-therefore-gratituously-share-them photos of Långsjön :
Personally prefer the second picture though. The balloon in the background adds a very nice touch to the picture. =)
Gamla Stan (The Old Town)
The Old Town in Stockholm is one of the nicer places for sightseeing and such. The architecture there is, to me at least, very reminiscent of the 1920s era, with granite set streets, old brick buildings, old churches that chime the time.
One of the newer-looking buildings though (at least just the doorway), is the Nobel Museum.
Apparently, and I didn’t know this before I came to here, Stockholm is the city in which Nobel Prizes are handed out annually. [Edit: I feel like an idiot. Not long after posting this, I found out that Alfred Nobel himself was Swedish. That kinda explains things doesn't it?] So I guess this is the place that keeps the records? We didn’t get a chance to step inside to take a look though since it was already closed. But it was nice enough to admire it from the outside. Such an esteemed building, housing the great achievements of our race, sitting in the middle of an old town that looked like a page out of a story set in the 1920s. How nice..=)
Check out the buildings right beside the museum
Quaint, no?
Then again, quaintness and oldness must add value to Gamla Stan, since the restaurants there have the highest prices I’ve seen in Sweden so far.
And yet, seems like someone had some problems with paying for his windows
Note: Drop me a comment if you don’t understand what’s going on in this pic =)
Some things are nicely kept old though. We found this funky looking phone booth still standing, slightly before coming to the Nobel Museum
Not much privacy for Superman if he ever decides to put on his red underwear in here, but hey, it’s a nice booth!
We found this pasted on the inside of the door of the phone booth.. looks like someone was spoofing the royal Three Crowns crest.
There might a deeper meaning to the three monkeys on the crest than just being three monkeys, but you’d probably have to be a local to catch the joke. It’s quite interesting to see “official” symbols being spoofed here though. Back home, most satire artists tend to stay clear of circles and lightning bolts for some reason.
Nästa (next, that is), Bergshamra.
About prices 19 September, 2006
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Just some thoughts I have about the prices of things here in Sweden..
Generally, of course, stuff is more expensive here than in Singapore. Numbers aside, I’ve tried to equate 10 SEK with the “worth” of 1 SGD and that seems to put things in perspective somewhat..
Anyway, something interesting we noticed during dinner today. We were eating at this little Kebab House in the T Centralen area. Being the poor students we are 
, most of us went for the cheap items. I decided on a beef kebab set which was listed as 41 SEK on the menu that came with a kebab (duh) and a Coke. Didn’t feel like having Coke today though, so went for Sprite instead.. and guess what?
The bill dropped by 4 SEK!
I ended up paying only 37 SEK. When I first got my change I thought I had counted wrongly at first, my math skills not being exactly the best in the world.. but nope.. the guy behind the counter really did charge me only 37 SEK, and it said so right there on the till..
Oh well. I’m not complaining. Looks like Coke is worth a premium here =)
And another thing that we are so used to in Singapore that we take for granted is the provision of plastic carrier bags whenever we go to supermarkets. Back home plastic bags are given out like nobody’s business, Even when buying something as measly as a newspaper, the nice lady at the counter would sometimes want to give you a plastic bag for it. Or a canned drink even. Free plastic bag!
Over here? No way. Shoppers are expected to bring their own bags, or otherwise pay for the bags. True, it isn’t much, only about 1 or 2 crowns, but it really does make one think twice about using plastic bags. It’s better for the environment anyway. Beats seeing the streets strewn with stray plastic bags anyway. Heh come to think of it, it also prevents you from going on a shopping spree at the supermart..
Time flies 18 September, 2006
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Oh wow, would you look at that? It’s been another week since I’ve been in Sweden. Actually, have pretty much gotten used to the life here, waking up every morning, taking the train to work, quick marching up that long slope to work because I’m late.. It’s become so routine it’s almost boring
My week here usually goes like this:
Monday to Friday :
(or in Swedish: Måndag till fredag)
Work, work
Saturday (lördag)
Exploring! This is usually the day we roam around, sight seeing, shopping and stuff
Sunday (söndag)
This is usually the stay-at-home-do-work-and-laundry day. =) As it turns out, it’s also blog-writing day =)
Anyway, this weekend, we decided to explore the lake around Kungshamra and the beach at Lappis. It’s nice to have such “nature spots” around where you live. It’s really a great place to hang out… weather permitting of course.
Here’s a shot of the lake
I really wish I’d taken a panorama shot of the lake though. This shot just doesn’t do its beauty justice. There were people kayaking on the lake, families hanging out and having fun.. heard people come here to suntan too..
It wasn’t easy getting down to the lake though
We first had to climb down a trail in the woods, then slide down a rock face. As Sriram demonstrates, it wasn’t too easy (This pic was posed though).
We met some inhabitants of the lake..
There was a family of 4 of these ducks happily swimming where we were seated on the rocks by the bank. There was a Swedish family there as well, a mom and her two daughters, feeding the ducks as well. (Well, actually we crashed their quiet little spot with our noisiness)
Here’s a we-were-here shot
We sat on the rocks by the lake for about 45 mins or so.. disturbing nature and nature-lovers with our racket.. From there, we headed over to the Lappis beach. The idea was for us to take a dip in the water.. but I was lazy to bring towels and stuff, so I opted not to.. which turned out to be a good idea in the end coz the water turned out to be freezing.
Here’s (from left) Tharoun (did I spell it right?), Dilip, Sriram, Loc and Akshay preparing to take a dip in the waters of Lappis…
…then discovering that the waters are less than inviting.
Leon and I are happy we decided to stay dry.
Next was the pizza party in Tian Yao’s kitchen!
Honestly, it was kinda messy at first, since I think we were all pretty new at making pizza.. Jiafang had a recipe that we tried to follow, but…
.. we end up with waaay too much oil in the dough. You can just see the oil dripping into the bowl here.. but we straightened ourselves out in the end.. later pizzas turned out pretty ok.. save for some pizza bases that were a little undercooked..
We had 2 vegetarians in our group, so the vege pizzas went in first.. and of course they were the “pioneers” from which we could learn And above are the 3 happy creators of our first non-vegetarian pizza. (From left, Jeff, Guang Huang and Sipei)
.. and here’s an example of how things turned out after learning from our earlier mistakes..
And of course, when you put have dough and students with too much time on their hands.. you get..
.. Jeff with a baked dough knife.
It was a pretty fabulous gathering.. with everyone talking, laughing (a lot!), or just sitting around… Might have been chaotic and messy, but it sure beat sitting around at home..
Well.. work again tomorrow..
… lather, rinse, repeat ..
Food, food, food! 15 September, 2006
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Sorry.. haven’t had much time to post during the week..
Not all’s gloom though.. here’s some pictures of food to cheer you up!
Apples! We can get apples growing on trees here.. In the University (Stockholm, that is, not KTH.. at least not that I’ve seen), outside Universitetet station, at Uppsala University.. So.. we just plucked a few.. Nice!
Anyone like ice cream (“glass” in Swedish) ? We found this cone near T-Centralen for 25 SEK.. And boy was it huge.. It doesn’t look too big in the picture, but it weighed an estimated 1kg (?) and took us around 20 to 30 mins each to finish our cones. No more dinner after that!
And you really, really have to love the size of their food portions here. Check out the size of this lasagne we had at a grill bar at Kungshamra (i Bergshamra!). For only 40 SEK, you get a choice of pizza, salad or pasta. Being the greedy, meat loving people we are, we didn’t go for the salad, and ended up with pizza and lasagne instead. The pic shows the pasta, but the pizza..oh man.. it was the smallest they had, but it was still about the size of a large pizza from California 2-4-1 back in Singapore. For only 40 SEK! That’s a little less than 10 SGD! (Well, from 2-4-1 you get 2 pizzas, but that’s another issue altogether =)
Eating out everyday is gonna burn a huge hole in my wallet.. so since I love my wallet, I have to bring lunch with me to work each day (provided I wake early enough that is =) Here’s a few pics of what I’ve been bringing with me.. Can you guess what I had on the day I woke late? The pasta dish in the second pic is a simple little one.. with fried garlic, sliced mushrooms, ham and sliced tomatoes, drizzled with some light salad dressing.. Nice! After the fried garlic had time to mingle with the salad oil, they formed a seriously heavenly flavour.. Try it some time!
There was a party/gathering at my workplace on Tuesday.. the occasion being the grand opening of the incubator that my company was in.. So there was food (including something that looked remarkably like satay), wine.. and this bottle above. It looked kinda cool.. and the people there seemed to enjoy drinking it.. quite a few of them were popping of the caps and pouring nice huge glasses of it. I found out that it wasn’t alcoholic, so decided to try a bottle. Guess what?
URGH!
It turned out to be carbonated water. Plain carbonated water. URGH.
Well there was a lime flavoured one, I found out at the end, but I seriously doubt it could be any better.
Oh, and here’s a pic that was supposed to be in my first post but somehow got missed out. Remember the dinner we had on our first day in Sweden? The one with fried fish, mashed potatoes and salad in a wrap? Well, here it is, fiskrulle!
That’s about all for now.. Stay tuned!
Hej dåg!
Welcome to Sweden! 12 September, 2006
Posted by ruiwen in rambles.1 comment so far
Well actually no.. there was a post I saved before this.. but it seems to have disappeared now.. so here’s a new one to take its place =)
As you might know, I’m in Sweden now.. on a program to work and study here. Gonna be here about a year.. Hopefully this blog will be a journal of my life in Stockholm for the next year =)
We left Singapore and home on 31 Aug 2006 840pm and touched down on 1 Sept 2006, 630am.
Time Of Arrival in Sweden
We touched down at Arlanda Airport outside Stockholm and took a cab (445 SEK!) to our hostel in Kungshamra. Kungshamra is one of the group of student hostels in Sweden.. There are only 3 of us in the group staying in Kungshamra though.. the rest are staying in Lappis. And so, with the arrival of 5 of us, the third batch in Stockholm is complete.
And here we are
Clockwise from top: Sriram (left), Alison, me, Dilip, Ramkumar
Here’s what our lovely accommodation looks like =)
Welcome to Kungshamra!
The weather here is superb really.. Clear blue skies, little white clouds.. Nice sun and a cold (notice I didn’t say “cool”) breeze. The sight is really breathtaking.. I know, we *do* get sights like this in Singapore from time to time, but other than that, the Singapore skyline may be home, but it’s nothing like this.
First day was pretty busy for us actually.. We met our manager (she’s the one taking care of us while we’re in Stockholm) at Kungshamra, then hopped on the train over to Lappis to catch up with the other 2 who arrived with us.
It was a whirlwind (almost) after that.. First we headed to KTH to meet up with the professor in charge of the program, followed by our international coordinators, and all sorts of other people about campus.
By the time that was done, it was almost 4pm. Then we headed into town. The idea was that we could take a train (over here: tunnelbana) from KTH into another island district (Sweden’s full of islands) called Södermalm. From there, we were to take a walk north into the Old Town, or Gamla Stan.
On reaching Södermalm we went up to this look out place where we could oversee the city of Stockholm (I think).. It was beautiful.. with the clear skies and all..
And of couse the mandatory “we-were-here” shot
We headed for Gamla Stan after taking a look around the top here.. BUT… we unfortunately took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of Södermalm, away from Gamla Stan. This is what happened:
We went the wrong way.
Well, it was a nice walk along the waterfront anyways =)
We saw lots of boats moored along the waterside.. boat houses, boat restaurants.. all sorts of boats.. It’s actually pretty nice to be able to stay on a boat along the waterfront actually.. Nice and calm.. =)
After a lot of walking, we finally ended near T-Centralen, which is like Raffles City in Singapore, where all the train line merge and you can change lines. Dinner was at a little kebab place. I had something called “fiskrulle” which was fried fish (think fish’n'chips), in a taco wrap with mashed potatoes and salad inside.. shiok!
We ended off the day by heading to the nearby Netto, which is one of the more popular supermarket chains in the area (ICA and Coop being the other 2 I’m familiar with) to do some grocery shopping.
Heh. And that was our first day in Sweden. Moved into my room now.. and it’s pretty nice.. Big, comfy, well-furnished and I’ve got a private bath!.. Which also means I have to clean it too anyway =) Oh well.
And yeah. Welcome to Sweden.
