I think you must be sick of seeing my peas already. But here it is! The last bit of my egg noodles with peas and corn and dumplings for lunch!
3 forms of carbohydrates. Tortilla, bread and potatoes all in a plate.
My favourite! Aglio olio with grated cheese! The last bit of my salad as well!
There was a sale for Kex, so I decided to buy some for souvenirs for the family. This resulted in the creation of the pyramid of Kex! Hahaha. Kex is really similar to Kit kat, but it is so much cheaper. I bought my Kex at 3 for 10sek. That is like 3 for $2!
In addition to the Kex, I went ahead to buy some different types of Swedish chocolates. I will talk about them as I eat them! Hahaha.
My stash of food in the room! 2 boxes of tea and some in the blue box, O'boy, instant soup(not very nice), Vitamin C, Ballerina, the chocolate collection and lemon juice! I keep this in the room because I use it for my salads, salmon and tom yum soup! I only put it in my food just before I eat them.
A lopsided picture of my snack. I finished up my avocado by putting it into my tortilla. Together with ham and cucumber and the hamburger sauce, the tortilla was so good, I am convinced that avocado makes everything taste good!
My aglio olio with salmon! Nom nom.
Train tickets to Stockholm and back! I was amazed at the machine which printed the tickets out. Haha. I think I will choose that option next time!
The train we took, I think. Hahaha.
Flen station. A really nice antique looking station.
The train we switched to was a small one and I sat opposite a man with his baby. OH HIS BABY! So cute! The baby is half Japanese and half Swedish. So adorable with black eyes and light brown hair!
I took picture of this train door because the feeling when you are in between the train cabins is quite......scary. Imagine if it breaks apart. Hahahaha. Die.
Finally, we reached Stockholm. It looked so different from the last time I have been here. There was no more snow, and to me, it looked less magical. :( I still like it though!
Statue of some man. I bet his name has a Carl/Gustav in it. Heh heh.
The church that I was attracted to! I am always attracted to churches. They fascinate me because they are so so pretty.
A picture of the map of the little island thingie that we were in. The group of buildings in this mini island thingie was mostly government buildings. The place was called Riddarholm.
The land plan in 1750....
The land plan in 1660. It is kinda cool how the people in the old days built and expand the land. New columns and areas were added onto the current ones and the architecture shows the style of more than one period. Really cool. I am so glad I did the History of European Identity module. It enabled me to appreciate the architecture of a lot of the buildings in Europe.
I took this picture because I thought it was cool. Hahaha.
The other side of Riddarholm. A lot of Renaissance influence (according to the board)
The name of the church. The church has the body of one of the dead kings. Good to know. Hahaha.
The floor of one of the palaces in the area. I thought that the cobblestones were cool.
Another church from afar? I forgot why I took this. I am such a lousy photographer. Sometimes, I just forget to take pictures. Or, I see my friends bringing out their cameras and I just do the same. Hahahaha.
The big pile of bags in the National Museum. On thing about Europe that I dislike, the lack of free toilets. I do not understand why toilets are not free! :( Or, why they are so expensive! Everyone needs to pee and poop! >:(
Outside the museum, there are some statues of Greek gods. I thought it was rather cool so I snapped a couple of pictures. I am not willing to pay to go in to see more statues though, so these will have to do.
Jaha! Another statue!
Finally, it was time for us to board the bus to start our very very long journey to Lapland. The first stop was here, by a beach (I think) The water was half frozen. But I bet the freezing line has receded by now. :( So sad. No more ice or snow.
Not a very clean water body.
First non-tub ice-cream in Sweden! This was DAMN GOOD! But it was tiny and it was expensive! :( 18 sek (~$3) It was toffee ice-cream with chocolate topping and crunchy(not nuts) bits. I super love it!
Picture of our excited faces!
I actually super like this picture of us, because Fion had a super cute face here. HAHAHA.
SNOWWWWW! <3 I have missed you! Nice sunrise in Kiruna. This was our first stop, the only meal provided in the trip. BREAKFAST! I was famished because I did not eat a lot. So, I compensated in this meal.
EGG WAS DAMN GOOD. Hahahha. I tried the Swedish pancakes (not impressed) and then the bread (I like) and then the bacon and sausages (too salty) and then the oat porridge (I prefer mine sweeter) and then I tried herrings again. The last time I tried herrings, I could not appreciate it. I guess my taste buds matured because I could accept the taste.
Boy, do I love my bread with a lot a lot of ingredients. Hahaha. This is how I eat my bread!
I reached the dog-sledding area. To be frank, I am really not a big fan of dogs. However, I was really excited for this activity because I watched Snow Dogs, and it seemed really cool to sit in a dog-sled. Also, one thing to note is that the movie featured scary looking huskies. These were more friendly looking, but I could not tell from the amount of barking when I was walking around. Hahaha.
There was a dog that kept circling round and round in the cage. His name was......"Psycho". I laughed out loud. Hahahaha. Then, Peiyi and I went to find the toilet and we accidentally walked into someone's home. In our defense, the person said," the white door to your left." However, he forgot that ALL the doors were white and his first white door was not the first one we saw. HAHAHA. We walked over super high snow (all the way to above our knees) and opened the door to find that we probably walked into someone's laundry room. Then the guy who told us the way hey-ed us and pointed us to the right white door. Hahahaha.
I am not too sure if you would be able to see the video from the blog, but this is a short snippet of the ride. Hahaha.
This was at the starting point and the dogs were all prepped and itching to rock and rollll!
A selfie before we zoom off!
Sledding into the sun. It was so beautiful was all the snow in its glory.
Look at the shadow of us! The tallest one was a Finnish guy. He has really red cheeks and it was quite funny. Like the baby rash on babies.
I love the snow. I have missed you!
For someone who is quite against dogs, I surprised myself!The dogs were all so quiet and nice, that I simply could not resist temptation and I kept stroking them! I was okay with them pawing over me because I was wearing the overalls they provided! Hahahaha. And my own ski gloves to touch them. I am glad I wore gloves because my gloves smelled like dogs afterwards. I washed it. Hahaha.
A picture on the snowmobile while Peiyi was driving!
She was not bad. I could hold on to her with one hand and take pictures with the other. Hahaha.
Then I turned around and took the snowmobile behind! The one with Fion and Han Jie.
I look like a kid here. Hahahaha.
The house that the King stays in when he visits Kiruna and our guide, Sigrid. Kiruna is pretty cool because it has the world's largest iron mine and due to the activity in the mine, the land is moving and the city centre will have to move. I think this is a very good example of how human activity can affect nature. Kind of sad and cool at the same time.
There were ice sculptures from Christmas time. This is a picture of a bench made of ice. Kinda cool because there was foam on it. Like cushion. And I tried sitting on it. It did not leave my ass feeling cold.
The town hall which has to be removed because they are moving the city centre. One of the initial plans was to transport the entire building by wheels, which would have been cool. However, the roads there were not considered wide enough, so the plan had to be scraped. The only thing that is going to be left would be the iron pillar looking thing with the clock.
The town plan!
Since we tried the super delicious moose meat previously, we wanted to try something else. So when we heard that the pizza place had reindeer meat, we headed straight for the place. I think it was not very very good, but it was very very salty. It was not cheap either. ~$24 at 119 sek.
Decided that I ought to drink some beer because I was heaty. Then I decided that I wanna try all the beers here. Hahaha. So here goes beer #1, Maristad. It is a little too diluted for my taste, more like Tiger beer. Hmmm.
In between this two pictures, we went out in the night to attempt to see the Northern Lights. We walked a really long way and then we thought we saw something in the sky. There were 2 guys who said hi and I thought they were in the same tour group. They were hanging around the playground. We went a little closer and realised that they were drunk. :/ It was quite funny. They scared us off. We were telling each other to hurry or they will follow us. Then we saw another group of girls who mentioned that the guys were in the same hostel as them and they were harmless. Hahaha. The girls looked sober enough, so we believed them. They did not really bother us after that. Hahaha. It was really cold though. I was also falling sick, so I was not feeling all that good. :/ I was so glad that we decided to go back because it was too cloudy to see the Northern Lights properly.
The next day, after we checked out from our room, we went to the Kiruna Church. It was inspired by the Sami's architecture, so I was really impressed when I heard that. It was really nice inside as well.
Look at how tall the organ pipes are! So so pretty.
The pews.
The church is beautiful, is it not? I love how the place is made out of wood, so it smelled like wood. I like it.
The door. Also very impressive with intricate designs.
The picture on the roof area. Apparently it has some meaning. But I must have missed it out when I was reading the information about the church. I have selective reading in addition to my selective hearing. Hahaha.
Trying ice cream #2! Geisha is this awesome chocolate with hazelnutty filling and caramel. I super love it! The best part was, it was on offer and it costed 10 sek! Actually now that I think of it, it is not that cheap. :( Still, cheaper than most of the ice creams they have there.
Some nuts on top. I am not a big fan of those. Hmm...
After we boarded the bus at Kiruna, we headed to the Ice hotel. Unfortunately, as much as I love the idea, it screamed CONSUMERISM to me. :( It was created for the purpose of consumerism and it take a lot of work and effort, which explains the high cost of living in there. On the other hand, if I look at the positive side of things, it allows us to expand on creativity. I have to say that the ice sculptures inside were very very creative.
This was in the first room I walked into. It had ice cranes in it. And the shine the light through. It was so very beautiful.
This room had a Greek theme. The benches in the room were made of ice. But then again, EVERYTHING was made of ice!
Sculpture of a lion. I tried touching it. I am still very amazed that the ice does not melt when you touch it with your gloves because it is cold enough. I find that so so cool.
The room which had a huge number of people in it. I was not very impressed with this room as much it was beautiful.
The other side of the room.
A panorama of the place!
Another room.
This one was quite cool. I quite like it.
My favourite room was this one. It hit me with some awareness of how narcissistic people are these days. I have to admit I am probably one of them.
And it was no surprise that the room is called Narcissus.
A room with bent pillars. Apparently, the pillars were built straight. As the temperature increases, the ice somewhat melts and become bent. Cool huh.
This reminded me of Astroboy. God knows why. Hahaha.
A flight of stairs to nowhere. I tried stepping on it. It is very sturdy.
Cool concept!
I liked this one as well. Especially the leafy parts. As much as I like the designs, I do not think I will ever want to stay in the Ice Hotel. They lay reindeer skins on the bed. This makes the bed really comfy to sleep in, but it makes the whole room reek of reindeer. I am not a big fan of the smell. Hmmm.
Ice benches and tables which did not melt when I sat on it. Hahaha.
The corridor. I find it cool that the roof never sinks in. It will simply melt and one day reveal a hole and melt downwards from the hole. Cool.
The Ice Bar with a huge fish in it. Like the one eating up all the money in your pocket. Hahaha.
I do not say that for no reason. This glass of drink(when filled) costs ~$20 for the most basic drink. Granted, the cup is cool because it is made of ice, but stilllll!
Decided to take a picture with this because everyone did so! The ice is from the nearest lake and it is so clear because the water flows just right when freezing. Too fast and the water cannot freeze, too slow and it will have a lot of bubbles.
The ice church.
The entrance to the Ice Hotel, which was not very impressive.
In order to go in, you would need a mini sticker. My sticker dropped off somewhere. I bet it dropped while I was playing with the sled. Hahaha. So I asked someone to let me take a picture of theirs.
Previously on the trip to Jamtlands, I mentioned about the Sami's "Kota". This is a more spacious, permanent one. This trip to the Samis felt more commercialised and we kind of learnt different things, meant for tourists. I have some mixed feelings about this. In my essay, I did mentioned about the Sami's culture becoming more commercialised and things like that. But I can imagine how it can really happen in real life now. It was not commercialised as in they did not try push us to purchase things like the tribes in Taiwan, but it felt that they were talking from a script and that they have repeated it for a number of times already.
That being said, I think it is cool that there is a hook hanging from the ceiling.
When they said they were going to give us a piece of reindeer meat on bread, I was so excited. It turned out to be sooo small. Hahaha. And it tasted like ham. No wonder my pizza was sooo salty with the parma ham, reindeer and bearnaise sauce!
A picture of me with the reindeer broth and the bread. Hahaha.
The Sami guy showed us the remains of two male reindeers which fought. It is very rare and sad, but they fought and their antlers got stuck on each other. So they died like that. Awwww.
We went back to the hostel to cook and look! So many people wanted to cook too. By the time we waited for our turns, we were late to go for the mini campfire they prepared for us. When we reached there, there were still food for us, so it was not too bad. After we settled in, someone shouted outside and the tent was cleared within the next minute. Everyone rushed out to see the Northern Lights. I stayed out there for a while, and I realised that my phone was missing. So I started panicking. Now that I think back, I really felt quite sad that I had to go back to the hostel because the rest of the people said that the lights when I went to the hostel to look for my phone was amazing. Oh well.
The next day, we went to Narvik. It is somewhere in Norway, so I was really excited to cross borders for the first time since I arrived in Sweden. It was quite interesting that we went through the customs and no one checked us at all. I cannot imagine having such open borders in Singapore. Imagine if the border between Singapore and Malaysia was open!
We had a photo stop, so I decided to take a selfie!
Second photo stop was at a beach/coast. Really really beautiful here.
After a while, people started going down to skip stones. Since I have no experience in that, I just stood by and watch them. It was quite impressive. They must have practiced while they could! Haha.
Seaweed or something. It was really spongy to walk on!
Woohoo. Another selfie! It is not that I do not ask people to help me take photos, but I think that selfies turn out better. Haha.
Pretty pretty skyline.
Took a picture of the floor because it was completely iced up! I was careful to walk on the grassy areas to prevent myself from slipping. Hahaha.
Reached the final destination in Narvik. The mountain! We took a cable car ride up and down for 100 Norwegian Kroners. It was really worth the money because we paid for a 2 way trip for the price of a 1 way trip. I thought that the cable car was really inefficient though. We waited so long for our chance to board the cable car.
Spy the ski lifts?
Amazing panorama on the mountain top! This is a fjord. You can click on the link to see the definition for a fjord. Haha. It seems that glaciers play a very big role in shaping the landscape in the North. It seem so far-fetched to me, from the perspective of someone living just above the equator.
Pretty view #314 Hahaha.
Hahaha. Enjoying the cold breeze.
I miss the snow. :(
I love it when it is sunny and there is snow. It is like having fire and ice in the same place. Really cool.
Me and the fjord behind!
Picture of someone(peiyi) taking a picture of a nice view.
Prettty.
The sky was so beautiful in this one, I am a little sad that my phone is not able to capture how beautiful it was.
In this picture as well. After Narvik, we went back for dinner. It was sauna night! I was really excited even though I was not feeling very well at that time. Sore throat and drowsiness are not the best symtoms to have. Because I was not feeling well, and went to nap and when I woke up, dinner was already served. I ate, changed into my swimsuit and off we went to find the sauna place.
It was dark, but I really like walking in the dark so it was okay. We walked a pretty long distance before we reached the sauna place. I was quite excited for the dip, so I "volunteered" to be the last group to dip in. It was amazing. I loved it. Even though I could not find the steps in the ladder and I hit my chin very very hard on the ladder. I can still feel the bump in my chin. I say in, because it never bruised(thank god). It just swelled up and then the inside of my mouth bled and then it was really swollen and it recovered. Thankfully.
We did not sign up for the ice-climbing nor the cross-country skiing activity, choosing to explore the place on our own instead. I think I made the right choice. Look at how beautiful it was! In the middle, lays a tepee that is similar to the one we went to the night before.
Here's a crazy picture of me doing the jump shot.
Took a picture of the mountain.
Here's the mini canyon and Vanessa on the waterfall doing her ice-climbing. Really cool.
Everyone took a picture here so I decided to jump into the bandwagon. Not very flattering. Hahaha. The red thing is the pulka. We used it to slide down slopes. It was very fun.
I kinda like this picture. Hahaha. I was never one to take selfies, but hey! Ain't nobody got time to help you take pictures! And I am a bit paiseh to ask people to keep helping me take too. Haha.
Nice crunchy snow beneath your feet when you walk. I like that, and I miss it.
The sauna place!
The place I dipped into 4 degrees water. With 0 degrees on the surface. Heh heh.
I was on a frozen lake when I took this. Cool. I really like this picture.
Me! On the frozen lake. Hahaha.
I really like this panorama.
A crack in the frozen lake? I jumped and nothing happened. Hahaha. I jumped again. Sooo...the scenes in the movies where the ice cracks and start separating is not all that true. Hahaha
The steps toward the hole in the frozen lake. You cannot even see it in this picture.
Towards the last leg of the trip, we made a stop where I ate moose meatballs. Hahaha.
Stockholm Central Station. We decided to deposit our bags in the large box for 90 sek for 24 hours. Since the three of us shared one box, I guess it was worth it. Hehe.
Because I have never been to Gamla Stan in Stockholm, and the palace is in there, we decided to walk over and explore the place.
I like how narrow their alleys are. This was not the most narrow one.
Nice architecture. :)
Really really beautiful buildings.
Inside the cathedral. It was all golden and shiny inside, but somehow I prefer the one in Linkoping or Kiruna more. It was still cool to read about how they expanded the church through the years. :)
I love how the pip organ looks. Pretty.
This was the nobel prize museum. We did not go in, but I thought I would just snap a picture.
Some mournument. I forgot what it was about. Hahah. Does it not look like the one in Esplanade? The one for the different races? But this is one pillar. We have four.
We were talking about finding a good looking guard to snap a picture of. And we decided to go to this one. Well guess what. It was a she. Hahahaha. It crashed our hopes of finding a handsome guard. Haha. On a side note, I have to say that the Swedish guards seemed more relaxed. They can turn their heads. Hahaha. Just saying.
The harbour.
Another perspective on the palace.
The shopping street! Yayyy. Somehow, whenever we have shopping streets, it feels a little like home. Hahaha. Consumerism to the maximum.
The Asian Buffet we went to. It was a pity we could not stay there for longer than an hour because they had a big group of people coming in. It was quite annoying actually. Because we paid for a buffet but we only got one hour to eat. Prior notice would have been nice. Then again, my friends went there a second time and they got to eat for the full duration. So I do not feel too bad.
The Stockholm Central Station.
First meal after I reached back to the hostel. The hostel is starting to feel like my 2nd home. I am going to miss it when I go back to Singapore. Hurray to having my own toilet. Hahaha.
Second can of beer I decided to try. There are so many brands here I am confused. There are also different levels of alcohol, and alcohol free beer! Like....what is the point. Hahaha.
Okay. This post is so terribly backdated, but I shall back date it okay! Hahaha. I will start on the week after immediately. :)
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