Settling down in maastricht..
Finally arrived in maastricht yesterday. 5 hours late for orientation. Quite deliberately actually. I've always hated orientations anw!
But well, this is REALLY a good experience of living on my own. Went to shop for groceries at the super market. And went to buy pillow case , quilt and quilt cover yesterday. Then we came back and cooked dinner consisting of salad, chicken, potatoes and omelette. Even had a bottle of rose wine! Then went to wash and dry clothes and hang them around hoping they'll dry. This morning i cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, bread and milk! I feel TOTALLY like a housewife! All these chores that ppl would do for me I now have to do myself. Including washing the dishes. Doesn't help that my room mate likes to leave her dishes unwashed at the sink and i can't stand it so i just wash it for her anw. Thank goodness there's jj now helping me to wash the dishes most of the time! Haha! :P But still, I used to wake up and like just open my mouth to ask for breakfast, open my wardrobe to get clothes, get into the car to get out. Now, I've to shop for groceries, cook, wash, take the bus/train all by myself!!!! Oh and not to mention that the toilet is shared as well. And I'm so anal about clean toilets!
We wheeled the shopping cart back from the supermarket yesterday cos they dun give bags here and we bought SO much stuff! It was so so so so so embarrassing. Thankfully, jj and andrew were the ones wheeling it. All the ang mohs were like staring at us like some crazy weird aliens. No wonder they hate us asians. Sometimes we really deserve it!
It feels good to settle down though. Being on the road for close to 4 weeks is so tiring. As shuyuan counted, we've moved i think 12 times. Lugging our heavy luggages around each time! I can't wait to go back to Singapore to the comfort of my home, family and friends!! I miss everyone and everything SOOOO much! I've been calling home SOOOO much i think my phone bill has exploded!
Ok.. JJ's back from shitting so I gotta return the laptop to him! Ciao for now!!
finally in holland
Finally arrived in holland. We decided last min today not to go to Maastricht but to stay at Jo's uncle's place for one night. Which is an excellent choice cos we got yummy hot chinese chicken porridge which we all really miss!
Travelling around was fun but so tiring. I can't wait to settle down and i'm really looking forward to my one week in Singapore. I already have a list of things i wanna do and a list of food i wanna eat!
Dos: Mj, clubbing and just slack
Eats: Chomps, Arburiya, Owen, Thomson Prata, Coffee Club prawn pasta, Ivins Peranakan and lots lots more...
I MISS HOME!!!
In Bratislava..
In bratislava now.. Survived almost 31 hours without proper sleep and almost missing a connecting ferry which would have cost our flights from athens to here and from here back to amsterdam again..
I finally understand what traveller's fatigue is. I just want to have a permanent place to go back to and nua now...
To the main point: Greece must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. Especially one of its islands, Santorini. Just imagine steep cliffs caused by a violent volcanic eruption 3000 years ago and quaint little settlements perched on top. In the middle of the island is the deep blue meditearrean sea and a dormant volcano. It's simply breathtaking! Then there's the sunset at the southern most part of the island where you can actaully watch the sun really set in 5 mins...
And well as usual life manages to be damn unlucky for me. Firstly, i dunno how i booked the wrong dates for the ferry tickets. Then we were riding the ATV in naxos island and i couldn't brake in time and the whole thing almost flipped and i caused shuyuan to get an ugly cut on her leg. It was tramautising for me but i think even more for her.. And i feel so extremely guilty.... :( But well, doesn't life always deals me its bad cards? And isn't this just one of those. Oh well, i'll get over it somehow. Just like how i can get over the various shit that happens to me.
But all in all, I think Greece is a fantastic holiday destination and I would love to go back again and spend more time!
More about greece when i get my laptop back in Singapore!
Greece!
Finally in greece now and i love it so much more than italy. I must say that italy has its own charm but it's definitely not a place to live in. It's too dirty and touristy.. Not my kind of thing i guess.. Greece is much cleaner and the ppl are much more friendly and "un-racist" as compared to when we were in italy. My first time feeling like a 2nd class....
There's the gondola story in venice that i must tell that some of you know by now.. It's the story of the forced french kisses. I feel so "raped"! So it started out when we were taking the gondola and the gondola rider told us that it's a venetian tradition to kiss under the bridge so he made joanna and i kiss. As in just a peck on the lips. So we did it just for fun. Then after that he got more bold and told us the kiss each other again or him. Jo and I thought it was the peck and the cheeks kind and cake edged us on so we said we would both kiss him - ON THE CHEEKS. Who knew when i stood up he just bloody stuck his tongue into my mouth.. LIKE EWWWWWW... I was alr so tramautised but who knows...... After the ride, he requested to take a picture with me. We all thought it was a very innocent thing so we obliged. Being touchy during the photo was not it, it freaking pulled me in and forced kissed me AGAIN.. OMG.. And he's so old and tastes like nicotine.... I feeeeeel so cheated!!!!!!! :'(
Even though it's been a feel days but i still feel horrible when i think of it.
Tonight's our first night in greece. We've got a studio apartment all to ourselves in athens backpacker which is fantastic!! There's a bar on the top of the main hostel which is kinda cool. Had so many drinks. Anyway wine is so cheap here we drink it everyday.. But anyway I had like 3 drinks and as usual almost conked out. Thing is nobody here wants to get high and dance with me. I miss our crazy clubbing outings!!!!!
I wanna go back to the comforts of my home, family, friends, car and mj of cos.. It's not that I dun like it here. But i think ultimately i'm still a true blue Singaporean. I'm missing the things about Singapore that I never thought I would.. The ppl, the weather, the cleanliness, the prices and the FOOOD!! Even chinese food!! I guess cher's right - I'm just very dependent on the comfort of my family and friends.
I hope this exchange will make me even more stronger and independent!!
in florence...
In florence now.. Last night here. GOing to venice tmr morning. Sitting beside 2 drunks who are talking nonsense! Haha! Now I know how i sound like when i'm in their position. It's HILARIOUS!!!!!!!
Just got cheated at a restaurant! They showed a pic of a plate of rice and wine and put the price as 9 euros! But it's actually only for the rice!!!!!!! So shuyuan, jo and i went ahead to order the wine on the picture which is another 9 euros!!!!! WTH! It's DAMN expensive lah! 40sgd for crappy wine and super small portion of food! ARRRGGGHHH.. I feel so cheated! And shuyuan asks me to add that she's only drunk cos she had to finish my wine for me. I feel like i JUST got ripped off!
Today was such a sucky day... Queued for almost 5 hours for the ufizzi art gallery.. Only to be disappointed after paying 10 euros to go in. Most of the paintings were just of madonna and her child. That i'm not exactly interested in.. There's this same creepy feeling about them that catholic churches give me.. Went to the academia after that and loved the original david sculpture and the sculpted musical instruments. Apart from those, the paintings were like almost similar to those in ufizzi. Feel so bloody cheated today!!!!!!!!! ARRRGGGHHH
Not to mention that everything's so expensive here! Can barely eat properly without burning a hole in my pocket. The sights in rome were fantastic but this whole trip is so tiring.. Walk around everytday from 8am to 8pm almost non stop. My whole body feels like it's gonna fall apart...
Can't wait for Singapore again. Family, friends, food, car, bed, mj. EVERYTHING!
Pardon me if i sound disorganised... After all I had wine too!
Ciao ciao!!!
In Netherlands..
After a gruelling 23hours, we finally reached our destination - Nijmegen in Holland. Travelling is no fun. It was hard to sleep on the plane and the trains were so confusing. Not to mention we couldn't understand dutch.
Having a splitting headache now. Guess it's the time difference.. It's only close to 4pm here and it's close to 10 back home.. Starting to feel the effect of the jet lag.
The journey here was tough... Less than 2 hours into the plane ride i puked. Couldn't find the air sick bag and ended up puking on the way to the toilet. On the floor.. How pai seh! Thank goodness the air stewardess was very nice about it and cleaned it up and was very nice about it.. Finally reached amsterdam at 9am in the morning here. 2pm Singapore time. Then instead of a less than 2 hour train rides, we got directed wrongly by the train station staff and took 3 hours!!
I'm beginning to feel home sick... Sigh...
Less than 5 hours left...
I'll be leaving Singapore in 5 hours. And honestly.. I'm really afraid. For someone who's so dependent on her family and friends this will be a huge challenge for me.. I know I'm supposed to be feeling excited but I can't help feeling this way.. All the visa shit i'm facing makes it all worse..
I was prepared to buy another air ticket to come home to get my visa but the ind says i'm not supposed to even be in netherlands during the process but.. I'm flying there today.. They say it's at my own risk. So heck it.. I'm just gonna take the risk.. If anything goes wrong i'll be back tmr.. Haha!
That's it for now.. I hope it all works out!!!
Taiwan and Exchange
The past week has been both good and bad..
The good: Taiwan was really fun albeit tiring and not have enough shopping time. But it was good to be able to cover all the important sights that would have taken us a much much longer time to cover if we went on a tour.
The amusement park was fantastic! Scariest rides i've taken in my life. The rollercoaster looked mild. But omg! I screamt the whole way through and it really got my adrenaline pumping!! It turned in every direction till i honestly didn't know if i was right side up or overturned! I was so scared i was gonna fall off! It was so fast I could hardly keep my eyes open cos of the wind! At the end of the ride, my eyes were like wet!! The other ride the UFO was a tower than brought you up 85m, pause for 10s and drop you suddenly at like a super fast speed. We all initially refused to go on the ride. For me cos i'm afraid of heights and i hate the anticipation of waiting for the thing to fall! So julia went on it on her own very unwillingly. Later on, she managed to coax us into taking it by offering to buy us ice cream and tau huay. Such is the lure of free food! ;) On the right i was like screaming the whole way up cos i was honestly freaked out.. I was practically crying.. but the part where it came down was so fast that i couldn't even scream! But well, it was a good experience...
Shopping in taiwan was just ok cos we didn't have much chance to shop and things were really expensive. Bought a pair of earrings for like 30 sgd.. and it's not even like silver or anything! Just costume jewellery! Food was good though. The dim sum lunch at 点水楼 and the 五角船板 dinner were absolutely fantastic. Even the toilet at 五角船板 was so nice. Will post pictures up following this. Fulfilled my long time wish of eating the 超大鸡排 at shilin 夜市 as well!
The bad: My visa can't come on time so chances are I can't go for exchange or i'll have to spend a lot of money to buy another air ticket to fly back to singapore to get the sticker on my passport.. This whole visa thing is seriously frustrating me and it's not even my fault. The stupid visa department made a mistake and only realised that the bank statement i sent to them couldn't be used on july 15!! ARGH..
Someone save me from this!
