A frozen, numb and bruised arse

Last night I went sledging. It was convenient as in the centre of our university campus is a park complete with hills, a lake and ducks. Initially we went with some make-shift sledges consisting of a piece of cardboard covered with garbage bag.

I was really bad at sledging!! Cassandra kept saying what a failure I was!! Indeed, I kept turning a quarter of the way down, and by the time I've turned 180+ degrees, my speed would have come to zero, and I would only half way down the hill. All the while everyone else has gone full speed to the bottom, without any turning!! WHY?!

There were these high school boys also sledging at our hill. We eyed their proper sledges enviously and asked them if we could borrow them. They told us they stole their sledges from a nearby school and would lend it to us if we paid them 50kr. So of course we were just like "whatever". But when they finished sledging, they just left their sledges on the ground!! One of them even threw theirs into the lake!!! So we quickly went downhill and picked up their stolen sledges. It was so much better sliding on proper sledges, less friction maybe? We didn't play long with our trophy sledges though, because Amy was afraid the deliquents may come back and reclaim their sledges. So after our second run down, we quite literally ran away with our double stolen sledges.

My arse was still frozen/numb when I got home (warning TMI: I realised this as I did not flinch - actually I didn't feel ANYTHING - as I normally do, when I sat on my frozen toilet seat), and this morning as I turned in bed, I noticed a peculiar pain on my behind/thigh, a sensation that is consistent only with bruising. I also could not t fall asleep for a long time because of the residue adrenaline in my body. But I went home with a big smile on my face' sledging was too much fun!

Posing with our trophies. Cass (girl on left) is holding our Gen 1 and Gen 2 sledges

Countdown - One Month Left

Ok, technically less than one month. One month til I leave Århus forever.

Oh how I wish I could go back to August, when the weather was warmer, and I was bubbly, content, euphoric all day, every day. I remember walking home at 9pm when the sky was still bright feeling so happy nothing could bring me down.

Winter Wonderland

The morning I left for Copenhagen, I woke up to find the ground covered in a thick white blanket of snow. It was 5am. When I looked out the window at 1am it was raining. It must have snowed very hard in the intervening 4 hour. I was going to take the bus to Copenhagen (I really want to write København), so I was very worried whether the buses will operate due to the snow. But to the credit of the prompt Danes, not only did the buses operate, it was also on time.

To be honest I was a bit disappointed I was going to leave Århus at the first heavy snow (and the disappointment wasn't completely unreasonable, as I later found out my friends had a snow fight whilst I was gone), particularly since it was raining when I got to CPH. It was raining and windy, until happily, when we were at Tivoli, it started to snow. By the time we were getting ready to sleep, there was already a collection of fluffy snow on the ground.

The day after I got back to Århus, it snowed hard. Giant flakes of snow, composed of smaller pieces of snowflakes congealed together, looked like cotton falling out of the sky, falling so heavily that the view looked greyish and white...

As it snowed...

A thick deposit of snow just waiting to be thrown at someone

Lagkaghuset - the only thing I need to remember from Copenhagen

I spent the whole of Wednesday 24th November 2010 eating bakery goods, mostly from Lagkaghuset. Yang was right, there IS a bakery at every corner in Copenhagen. It is kind of hard to find bakeries in Århus, I think, and most of them don't sell such a deletable range of snacks, at least they don't look this enticing. Anyhoos...I know of this place because of Yang too.

Berry tarts, eaten with JJ - really lovely. They fill their tart with a dense, almond tasting biscuit base thing, so it is like the tart crust is 1.5cm thick!


Morning tea of raisin bun with coffee while I waited for my visa. I enjoyed the spices and fruits in here. My actual breakfast was a chocolate croissant from a local bakery


Nut tart - this was really awesome, I think they put in orange zest which infused it with a fresh citrussy taste.


Cream pancake - I thought this looked really enticing, but it was filled with cream, too heavy, and a bit disgusting given this came after a big sandwich


Pastry display. I had a rhubarb croissant, it was too sweet >.<>


I had the blueberry muffin for dinner. I remember when Yang first came to Denmark, she remarked how the muffins here in Denmark are like...the entire muffin has the texture of muffin tops. This was indeed true of the muffin here, although I don't think the muffin she had at the time was from Lagkaghuset.

First Snow

Note how, strangely, there is a pair of boots sitting in the snow. They are still there. Different car parked in front though...

Had a rather big night on Thursday. Only slept 5 hours. Stay indoors the whole day on Friday. Slept 14 hours. Woke up with the ground covered in snow. Looking forward to the month to come.

The Woohoo Rollercoaster

This exchange has been much more of an emotional rollercoaster than I expected. All contributing to personal growth....I hope

Hopping Around

We went ice-skating yesterday. This was only my third time ever. At the beginning I held onto my friend's hands, but I felt a bit bad after doing a few laps with them., because I felt like I was keeping them from having fun, so I grabbed a hold of a penguin (see below) when I saw a free one so they can play piggy in the middle/tip.

Me leaning on a penguin for support. I'm unnaturally positioned for skating because the penguin is meant for kids. Still, I thought it was cute

After about an hour of holding onto the penguin, my friends were rather insistent I let go of it and upgrade to a more advanced mode of skating. So I held onto Gaby's hands as she skated backwards. She use to do figure skating, so she's very stable, and numerous times saved me from falling over. But at one pertinent time, when I started to slip and fall backwards, she hugged me to prevent me from falling backwards, as she usually does, but I was falling too fast that I also brought her down with me. She fell on my leg when it was at a rather awkward angle. The first thought that ran through my head when the gravity of the pain hit was, "OMG is it broken??"

I didn't break any bones, but it sure as hell hurt when I walk. I asked Oppa to help me home. He piggy-backed me to the bus stop and then from the bus stop to my apartment. There is something not right about the way he holds me or the way I hold onto him because I keep slipping and it is super tiring for him; he had to stop at multiple intervals to catch his breath and regain his strength.

When we finally got to my place, we realised Oppa also became injured as a result of the ordeal. His arms were already tired because he just started doing push-ups that morning, and after carrying the 'heavy load', could no longer lift his arms passed his shoulder. Still I'm very grateful to have a friend like Oppa, or maybe an Oppa like Oppa.

So that's how I injured my leg. It hasn't gotten better since yesterday, as I still can't stand on it without it hurting. So I'm hopping about my place, can't go anywhere! Had to ask Gaby to buy some groceries for me so I won't starve for next few days. I'm also a bit sad as now I won't be able to go to a sushi party that's on tomorrow. I'm worried about how serious this injury is, I really hope I will see better progress tomorrow!!

Update 14 Nov 17:51:
I can LIMP! WOOHOO!! The first step was the hardest because I was so scared it was going to hurt. But it doesn't if i walk a certain way. I can go to class tomorrow, I am so happy.

Culminating with a Very Fine Sunday

A normal day in Århus is grey with showers. It is so rare for the blue sky to be unblemished by clouds, but last Sunday is such a day. But I think the story should start somewhere on Wednesday. Amy wanted to make dumplings that night. Initially it was only going to be a small affair with the girls. But she didn't go downtown on time to buy the ingredients, and then we invited more guys as the day passed. I like how this spontaneous 'party' was borne. We cooked whatever we bought from the supermarket: unfallible Heeyul (hereafter Oppa) cooked some Korean meat with sweet potato noodles, Kengo in his debut performance, cooked meat with lettuce, I cooked brocolli and carrots (gotta hv the vegies!) and Gabrielle made her mother's famous apple crumble.

Our group (L-R): Kengo, me, Amy, Peter, Oppa, Hyeri and Gabrielle. Oppa says this photo captures how we normally behave so acurately (mostly directed at the three kids on the left).

It was a good night, I was drank to a perfect, happy level, scraped the apple crumble clean, danced and sang to 2NE1, wore Kengo's new boots even before him, then stole his other boots forcing him to walk thru gravel and wet grass in his socks (ahhh...teasing him gives such a perverse sense of happiness. He says I'm saddistic).

Friday, was J-Day, for when the Christmas Beer (Juleøl) is released. It's a brew made especially for Xmas, and we were told there will be hot girls handing out free beers on trucks. Actually I did see lots of them in skimpy Santa Claus dresses and a truck near the university prior to going, so I was very excited. But when we got to downtown, we couldn't find any hot girls on trucks handing out free beer as promised by the Danes. We walked everywhere we could think of and all we found were OLD MEN dressed as Santa Clauses playing Xmas carols. Such a disappointment! In the end we just bought some Xmas beer from 7/11 and went to Peter's place for a quieter, more restrained night in. But the night didn't end there, for we missed our last bus home, so we had to walk. home. It was nevertheless a good walk because we sang on the way in French, Korean, Chinese and English.

People dancing with Musical Santas

Hyeri imitating the Santa on the Xmas Beer. I know I will likely be arsewhooped by her if she ever finds out I put such a photo of her in the public domain, but she's such a cutie-pie here I'll take the risk

On Saturday night, we went to Oppa's place for his Bibimbab party. Bibimbab is my favourite Korean food, enough said!

And on Sunday...yes it was a really fine day. In the morning, Peter took Oppa, Naho and I to an chocolate fair [for Christmas chocolate (Julens chokolade)? The Danes have Xmas everything!]near his place. We sample fine chocolate from many makers, so much I felt really quite sick after just the 2nd or 3rd table. Then, we went to deer park, a place I've been wanting to go to for a long time. It looked so different from the photos I had seen because the ground was covered by amber leaves. Afterwards, we walked the chocolates off by the beach.

Maybe I should be a make up artist?

There were 3 parties organised for Halloween. Kengo seemed really excited about it, because it was going to be his first and only Halloween EVER. So he made the most of it, going as a Japanese theatre character. I drew his face :) Then Mahiro must have thought I wasn't too bad, so he allowed me to unleash my creativity on his face too :)

My work: Kengo as a Japanese kabuki and Mahiro as Joker. Ayaka made up herself as cat woman - her hair was done so to resemble cat ears.

We couldn't stay long for the party in order to make the last bus. We left just as the party was getting started!! Why do Danish parties have to start at 1am?

Getting colder

On Tuesday, I walked outside and saw a man cleaning the ice off of his car window. Then as I walked a bit further, I noticed how the grass and leaves on the side walks had a peculiar grey coat on. It was the dew turning into ice. It was very cold that day, it felt like we had skipped Autumn and delved straight into Winter.

- Edit -

2 Nov: It's winter already!

Shopping in Berlin (or not)

We were met by our friend Marcin in Berlin. After a week in each other's shoes, we were glad to have some new company and we were all a bit more bubbly than what we were in the proceeding days. Marcin's girlfriend is on exchange in Berlin, so lucky for us he was there to visit her. He took us to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. He seemed like a local, knowing how it was free to go inside Germany's parliamentary building and go up to the glass dome. We had a traditionally German dinner, I had pork knuckles and tasted some German beer.

Group pic in front of Brandenburger Tor

Glass Dome on the Reichstag

German meal!

The next day we met an American couple on their honeymoon. They had been on the same walking tour as us and we bumped into them at the cheap German restaurant the tour guide had recommended. So we had lunch together and then walked to the East Side Gallery, which is where the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall now stands.

And randomly, we found this store Pylones in Amsterdam and Berlin. It sells the cutest homewares, I love these graters. If only they weren't €14 for a small one!!

Mussels in Brussels

Brussels is the capital city of Europe, it is also a place of great food. I had 3 waffles in 2 days, twice-fried pomme frites with mayonnaise, mussels, truffles and pralines. Happiness. It was voted the boringest city in Europe, but I only spent half a day looking at the most important sites, so I didn't find it too bad. The food certainly made it quite interesting

Truffles :)

Waffles with strawberries and chocolate sauce near the Mannequin Pis statue (obviously the thing behind us is the statue)

Mussels and pomme frites

Pomme frites with mayonnaise in a cone - how the Europeans eat chips

In Bruges, we went up the Tower, looked at the canals (not a lot because it was raining) and then to the Town Hall Museum where we spent half an hour playing Lego. There were times when young kids would come over to us, silently expecting us to vacate the seats for them (there were only 3 seats) but that didn't happen. Their parents thought this was strange and pulled their reluctant children away from the Lego.

The famous canals of Bruges

Playing Lego at the Gruthusemuseum

Michaelangelo's "Madonna and Child" one of the few Michaelangelos outside of Italy

Sex, Drugs and Romance

The journey to Amsterdam was stressful from the beginning. We decided to walk to Hamburg train station, but we underestimated how long it would take. We thought it would take about 30-45mins but it was 1hr of power-walking, bright and early on a crisp Saturday morning after only a few hours of sleep. We got to the station in the nick of time, and luckily the train was slightly delayed, otherwise, we definitely would have missed it. I was so glad for this failure of German efficiency.

A visit to Amsterdam cannot be devoid of sex and marijuana. Of course we visited the Red Light District, it was OK, not too dirty, just ladies standing behind red windows. We only saw one guy walk into a window, and he got jeered by the other bystanders. When we were walking out of the district, we saw this Asian grandfather walking in the opposite direction, speaking to some policeman, we overheard the policeman giving him instructions on how to properly buy a prostitute. Gabby and I kept staring at the grandfather, when he noticed our turned heads, he called out to us, "Would you like to show us the way?" Ugh

Amsterdam Red Light District

I've been longing to have a hash brownie ever since JJ told me about Monica/Lucy/Amani's experience last year. I was a bit worried about the effects since it was my first time taking any drugs, so I halved with Gabby at the coffee shop opposite our hostel. It was quite yummy, like mint-choc cake. Then we went back to our hostel and waited for the effects to kick in. We waited and waited. An hour later I still didn't feel any different. It was 11pm by then, I was tired so I went to bed. Quite disappointing that my first weed experience happened in my sleep.

And romance? Unexpectedly, Amsterdam was so with its many canals, bridges and bikes. It looks like Venice! I think it would be romantic to take boat ride on the canals on a sunny day.

Amanda disliked Amsterdam from the beginning, "It's the most touristy place I've been to!" she complained. She also complained about how the smell of marijuana pervaded the city. She abhorred at how this city is famous for its sex industry and lenient drugs policy. During my time there, I liked Amsterdam: it was refreshing to be out of bland and quiet Århus, Amsterdam was bustling, vibrant and exciting. But once I reached Brussels, I came to appreciate her opinion - the crass commercialism of Amsterdam was rather overwhelming.

I think everyone has a photo in this giant clog outside a souvenir store in central Amsterdam

Having a staring match with a (real) cat sitting on a teddy bed in a shop window

I never knew pancakes were a Dutch speciality

Couch-Surfing in Hamburg

And before I knew it, it is the mid-sem break. Where did the time go?? For this break, I spent the 10 days on a whirlwind trip through Germany, Netherlands and Belgium

We didn't know the accommodation in Hamburg would be so limited and demand so high. So as every first year economics student would know, lack of supply with excessive demand will move the price upwards. To unacceptable values for us. Especially considering how expensive Amsterdam and Brussels already were. So we decided to try out a new and unfamiliar concept (for me at least...although we were all virgins when it came to it): Couch-Surfing.

We arrived in Hamburg sans one third of our travelling group: Amanda had not received her Eurail ticket on time because the delivery guy came to her dorm during the two hours of the day when she was in class. She arrived in the evening when she arranged for her ticket to be delivered again. Unfortunately, then she realised that she had been sent the wrong ticket for the region of Austria instead of Benelux which is where we were going. You could tell she was very stressed about it all, but she put on a brave face and forced a laugh at her misfortunes. That's such an admirable quality of her.

As mentioned above, we were all virgins when it came to couch-surfing, so the fact that the host took us out for the two nights we stayed over was quite a shock to me. Especially the first night when he took us to trivia at an Irish Pub (the topic was on the most famous German movie made, The Boat). You can smoke inside pubs in Germany. The smoke was so strong that my chest hurt from breathing all that carcinogenic air. I really felt like I lost a few years of my life that day.

There isn't such a thing as a free lunch, but if I'm putting my comfort and health at risk in exchange for free accommodation, then I'd rather pay a grossly inflated price for a hostel. Not to mention, after sightseeing the whole day, I'd rather have an early night in, especially if I have to get up early the next day to catch an early train. So yes, couch-surfing was an interesting experience, and I don't particularly regret having done it, but it's not terrain I'm eager to explore again any time soon.

Hamburger scenery: a bench in the Inner Alster; funky building; funny advertisement

Hamburger food: potato pancakes with apple sauce and currywurst

Århus' First Crimson Blush