Munich Day 2 - Out with a random Japanese hostel room mate

On the night before the second day in Munich, I found out that this dude was also travelling alone. So I asked him if he wanted to join me for the next day and he agreed.

His name is Kuniaki and he's from Japan. And the huge fan of Japan and all stuff Japanese, Chunhan, started becoming jelly heh.

We went to the BMW Museum and Olympiapark, which were around the same area.

Saw a random guy on a motorcycle, and I asked if I could take a picture with him. He seemed like a high level management dude because he and his friends were all suited up. His friend even said "someday I'll use this photo against you" hahaha.

Customary picture with a convertible

Dear MC (one of my fav cars), I'll pick you up (or your descendants) someday...

BMW Welt/Museum was just looking at millions of dollars (okay maybe just thousands without COE) of metal around the room, and realising that I honestly don't know what makes a good car because I've never been in the driver's seat hahaha. Swantje even wondered why I wanted to go look at the cars because she has friends who own BMW, Mini Coopers and the shenanigans. Oh well, COE woes.

We proceeded to have lunch over inside the Stadium of Olympiapark! Really chill, and enjoying so much space and quietness.

Weather was ridiculously good, it was like that of summer (~18deg). Clear skies and a strong sun made selfies irresistable :P. Warmth of the sun felt so good after the months of cold in Stockholm. Subsequently ran around without wearing my outer jacket and it felt so light haha!

Spring is already in Germany!! When will you come to Stockholm??

We had a few hours till the sun set, so I decided to bring him to the English Gardens since he hadn't been there. The place was surprisingly crowded, I think there may have been a university gathering or some sorts then.

I like how the guy in the bottom left corner is just... staring hahaha.
Pretentious models ruining the mood a little

Soaking my feet in a random stream. It was pretty cold, but quite shiok after walking so much.

Having a new friend as to run around with was pretty interesting. On one hand, it's nice to have company, and he helped me to take a lot of pictures. On the other, it was quite difficult to talk to him at times because English was not his first language. That... pretty much happens with most people who aren't native English speakers...

That being said, he was a very nice guy. Initially I had planned to swim in the Olympiapark swimming pool, so he bought swimwear so that he could join me. Unfortunately, female stuff happened later that morning and I told him he could swim first, and we would meet later. He was unexpectedly nice about it, and said that he wouldn't want to swim if I wasn't going to go. Felt terrible about him having spent the money like that.

Munich Day 1 - Gardens & Beer Houses

Birthdays are always meant to be special, and I've been looking forward to celebrating with a party for donkey ages (because my dad said that I can only have a party when I turn 21). But when you're continents away from your loved ones, a party would be, well, not on the agenda anymore :(

BUT I made it special with a week in Germany!! :D

I had originally wanted to take a photo with the planes, but this man said "How about with me. And I was like "sure". Somehow, due to the lighting, there's not a single plane in this photo hahaha.
(note: Interphotopol)

The day started out great. Air Berlin had changed my flight which originally required a transit to a direct flight to Munich, without any extra costs!

Munich's a lovely city to solo travel in. It's easy to understand, people speak English and are helpful, and it's posh and safe.

Because my flight was changed, I arrived in my hostel in mid-afternoon. So I decided to run over to the English Garden since the sun was still up.

English Garden was a place that put Bishan Park to shame haha. It was a carefree time of running around trees and the waters, lying on the grass, playing with peoples' dogs. Also, perfect evening weather of gentle cool breezes and a mildly warm evening sun.

Managed to run to the Pantheon in the English Garden to catch the sunset in time. All my favourite pastel colours in the sky

After which, I was starving. So I ran over to Hofbrauhaus, a famous beer hall in Munich. The place was really crowded (mostly tourists), and a little too loud with talking and a band playing. So I decided to go to another beer hall that the receptionist recommended. He felt that Hofbrauhaus has now become too touristic, and this other one would be not so noisy and more true to the Bavarian style.

Ran over to Augustiner Brewery and it was really a lot more traditional. It was crowded too, but the waiter was nice enough to let me jump the queue since it was just me. Sat in a table with a few groups of Germans who were very kind to help me order my food and beer.

German beer the size of my head! I don't really like beer, but german beer is nicer. It also accompanies Bavarian cuisine well!

Roast pork with some funky potato + starch made into a ball. Fat + sauce = shiok stuff. I finished all of the pork, which surprised the Germans at the table, because they judged my appetite from my size.

The Germans who were nice enough to help me with my orders, and talk to me during my meal.

The person who helped us take the photo turned to take a photo of his friend heh.

And that's the end of Day 1/ my birthday :)

Cruisin' on a Bruisin'

The past 3 days at with siying, nigel and chunhan on a cruise to Riga, Latvia, on a cruise ship called Romantika.

We only spent 6 hours in Riga, and the remaining time was spent in the ship. Honestly I had thought that the company and times on the ship were more fun than our time in Riga. Even though it was hours of cars games, watching Family Guy (that's a first), and HTHT in the nights (now im vulnerable hehe). Chilling with friends heh

The most notable part of Riga was the ridiculous weather in Riga. It was a cloudy day and poured later on. But when we were walking back, it was like the hardest walk in the rain EVA because the winds were crazy strong. At one point, I literally could not take a step forward because it felt like if I did I would get blown away literally. Hahaha as much as people use itto use that phrase in reference to my size, this was the first time I had seen truth jn that statement.  But then again, everyone also said that they felt it too so HAH that statement is invalid in reference to my size.

So here are some photos of Riga, which we had only spent 6 hours in. LOL

Pretty blue church on the right called "Lady of our Sorrows"

Someone decided to paint ththeir house instead of having a lame cement block facing one of the city squares

Paranomic view of Riga, from 7 stories up maybe? From the viewing tower of St PetPeter's church

Buildings in Riga in Latvia. Somehow they dont appear to be very straight, somewhat leaning?

They honestly taste better than they look heehee. And they were better and cheaper than the ones from ntuc haha. Was quite surprised because I dont really believe in cheap and legit asian food but this proved me wrong.

The view from where we sat while eating breakfasr

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Ice Hockey

In Sweden, ice hockey is HUGE, especially now given that the Winter Olympics had just passed. Sweden had also just lost to Canada, coming in 2nd place.

In fact, when we were in Lapland the Canadians on the trip made sure that the Swedes knew that Canada beat them.

Swede tour guide: "There are many great Swedish hockey players that come from this town. So if you see a little boy playing hockey, he might become famous someday."

Canadian: "Oh" -smugly- "We have them in Canada"

-While playing some card game-

Swede: 2nd again! Why am I always 2nd?!

Canadian: Oh it's just like hockey

(Nice but low haha)

So what is exchange in Sweden without an ice hockey match?

On Saturday, we (Nigel CH Xixi Leehe Kenelm) headed to Ericsson Globe to catch an ice hockey match in the Swedish Hockey League

Before the game

"Power Play"

Ice hockey is a cooler, faster, rougher and yet more graceful version of hockey. They would break out in fights occasionally too. During the game, 2 players were from both teams were fighting. The referee broke them up. A few seconds later, a player from AIK goes over to punch the opposing player. He subsequently got thrown in the penalty box (duh), but the crowd (mostly home team supporters) went absolutely MADDD.

Something interesting happened during the game too, and I wished that I had caught it on video. A youth with down syndrome started wandering around the front of the stadium. He was obviously an AIK supporter, clad with the jersey and scarf around his head. Out of the blue, he started cheering and the crowd actually followed him!! It led to him leading the crowd in a cheer for a good half a minute! Amazing stuff.

Lapland Day 6 - Going Back

Well it was a 17 hour bus ride back, and there were a couple of funny incidents along the way.

I sat in front of a group of Canadians, and seriously, their conversations can be SO FUNNY

'What would you do if you found out that the bus had been driving in the wrong direction for 17 hours'
'I would lay down in a foetal position and cry'

One of the Canadian's grandma found her underwear on a tree
"Give them back, they're Victoria's Secret"

The tour guide was giving us a quiz on Lapland and the question was "When is the reindeer mating season?"
-with confidence- "SUMMER. Everyone's sex drive is higher in summer."

By the way, when the bus had dropped some students off at Uppsala, I went to the toilet. When I returned, THE BUS WAS GONE. Which was crazy because I was actually sitting next to Xixi so Idk how that happened. So I was stranded with no money, no phone, and no outer jacket. #win. Thankfully the bus drove back a couple of minutes later.

Northern Lights - Indescribable

So this is the kind of post to make people jealous: NORTHERN LIGHTTTSSSS

We had managed to catch them on our first night in Kiruna on 4th March. The sky was clear, the moon was only a crescent, and the lights were supposedly on moderate intensity.

On a not so good note, it was freakdunkulously cold. In fact, I actually got a mild case of frost bite and I couldn't walk properly on the way back to the hostel because my heels were swollen. So, one night's enough for me heh.

I didn't have a camera good enough for this, so I'm just going to post the ones that Kenelm spent hours in the bitter cold taking.

Let me also disclaim that the northern lights look a lot better on camera than the naked eye, because it basically captures the intensity of any light and overlaps it for 30 seconds. So take the colours that you see and divide it by like 3000 or something.

 The nicest and most intense photo that Kenelm took

This best captures what I remember of what I saw, and reminds me of the term 'City on a Hill'. Basically, imagine that there's a black mountain in front of you, and there's a city on the other side of the town. From where you are, you can see a small stream of light emanating from the city. And the lights would move up and down and around. That's how I would describe seeing the Northern Lights.

Sometimes, we would get to see the lights sway around.

Sometimes dance around. 'Spots' of light appearing and different times.

Green and red hues. Though, we couldn't really see the red parts.

The Northern Lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common auroral color, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth. Rare, all-red auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora

http://www.northernlightscentre.ca/northernlights.html

On top of the lights, what was more amazing was the starry starry night sky. You can actually see it in the background of the photos above. The sky was dark and filled with TONS and TONS of stars like glitter on a (talented) little girl's art piece.

                         

Taken from Google, but close enough

Couldn't help it, but 'Indescribable' was playing in my head so much that night.
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God

At some point, I was thinking "Wow, God has really created such wonderful things to enjoy". And the 'City on the Hill' thing got me thinking that heaven must be a wonderful place, beyond what I can imagine.

Lapland Day 5

Oh well, this was the last day of our trip, and we had a few hours of free time for us to walk around. We decided to backtrack to the places we had gone at night.

The tipii where we had a campfire while waiting for the Northern Lights

Panaroma of where we took pictures of the Northern Lights

Random chair in the middle of nowhere

Sauna used in Arctic-dipping

The hole in the lake we climbed into the evening before

Jump shot on the frozen lake :) And no, I did not fall in subsequently 

  

"The Gates of Lapland"

Destroying the lake