Greetings from Wien (Vienna)

OK... so I'm leaving for Poland tonight... but I'm doing some research for my thesis topic in WU (pronounced vey-oo according to the German alphabet pronounciation) or Wien University while Yishan goes to run errands.

Well... 'living out of my suitcase' days have started. And my suitcase is heavier than I had imagined. But i'm hoping the weight will miraculously drop once I start using the toiletries and what not.


Just a random snail that I thought was pretty nice looking. (Pretty pretty sounds weird!)


And I leave you all with a picture of me picking strawberries from my garden.

Update Update!

I was asked for an update.. so here I am...



Heh.. as you all can see, I didn't grow much taller...



but I've been eating well... Jap food!





and ice cream...



and cake! This is a Sacher Torte, one of the specialties of Vienna.

Hahaha.. yeah.. these were the photos taken almost 2 months back when I visited dear Yishan in Vienna.



I have been drinking well... Nice cup right? This is a nice drink called Bellini. It's alcohol with peach syrup/flavouring.



And I went to a winehouse? called a heuringer... where they served wine in cups! instead of the wine glasses. Had something fruity and light!

And here is a picture with Yishan... :)



And now, two months down the road... I am busy with projects, and papers and studying for exams. Time flies... this whole exchange is going to be over way sooner than I expect... I know I will miss St Gallen, my cosy room up the hill...

In addition, have been planning for my end of semester trip... Made some last minute changes to the itinerary like removing Budapest, spending more time in Greece and making plans to head out to Milan and Venice after that.

The scale of this trip is slightly daunting as I would be travelling for close to a month... but I'm looking forward to it. To the many wonderful cities I know I am going to visit. To wonderful adventures, to learn new things. This is beyond my wildest dreams... Anyways.. looking forward to a safe trip...

And of course.. looking forward to going home after that. :) Although I can safely say I will definitely not welcome the heat. But it would be nice to be home. To not have to do laundry, or think of what I have to cook although I do enjoy cooking. To be home with family. To hang out with friends... especially after hearing about your new haunt and of course KTV! Will be home on 4th or 8th Aug depending on whether I can get on the 3rd August flight. Wah! See I so patriotic.. rush home before National Day! :)

So now.. more Vienna photos...


a random clock tower


remnants of the castle gates


heh.. a nice fountain. I always have a soft spot for water features. Likes how the pigeons seem to be part of the sculpture. But yeah.. the birds are pretty much alive.


A random zebra painted car which I thought was quite cute


Sunset in Vienna


St Stephan's Dome. It looked like a cardboard cutout when I first saw it.


I found a hanging traffic light quite amusing!


Horse Carriages


Dinner with Taina and Yvonne, Yishan's friends


The summer palace grounds. I want to go up the hill to that arch the next time I go to Vienna!


Took this train to Buchs for my connecting train to Vienna at night... The words look blur ya... I always thought my eyes were playing tricks on me... until...



I took a closer look and discovered that they painted the letters in varying shades of grey to produce that effect. Those sneaky designers!!!

Ok.. and that's all folks! Heh.. so this is one bumper post down.. many many more to go... There's still Berlin - with loads of photos and stories, my visit to Heidiland, Yishan's visit on my birthday, excursion to Engelberg and subsequent trip to Lucerne and of course my one week getaway to UK and Spain. and Cheryl's visit!

Think I can finish posting before I leave St Gallen?

Busy Busy Busy...

After all the travelling, chilling and fun for the past 3 months, it's time to take a break from all that and move back to work. Yep.. have been busy with writing papers and doing a presentation this week. Well, at least my brain gets kicked into gear before I go back to Singapore.

Speaking of which, I realise I'll be leaving my cosy home in St Gallen in less than a month's time. But I'll only be back in Singapore 2 months from now. Needless to say, I'll miss this place.

So.. that's the end of my quick update.. Cheryl's coming tomorrow! Yay!!!

Happy happy!

Gillian is a happy girl today. Despite having a class from 9 to 6!

Why? Birthday dinner at my place... hahaha

Look at the wonderful spread... We had... hmmm... chinese soup, fried glass noodles (tang hoon), fried rice, curry chicken, aglio olio, ham pastry and apple puff pastry and red bean soup. Yummilicious! Not to mention loads of fun...

It was also like a mini Asian gathering... from left to right, Yoo Jin from Korea, Yvonne from Singapore, Lei from China, Joy from Taiwan, Glenn from Singapore, Sea and Charlotte from Hongkong. Mel is missing from the picture... think she was checkign on her fish...

Heh... my cake! and it was a blackforest ice cream cake! me likes it - have been craving for blackforest cake for some time. Glad I got to eat it today. Thanks a lot everyone! Really appreciate everything!

Now... gotta *groan* do some case study reading for my class tmr. It's from 8 to 5! Help!!!

A visit, dinners and fun!

Dearie Yishan came over from Vienna on Tues, after a long 11 hours bus ride to spend a couple of days with me. :)

So far, it has been loads of home cooked food - yummy dinners... fun with shopping (I bought a bag and a jacket!) and just chatting. We invited a couple of my housemates to join us and they loved Aisan food! :) Hahaha... oh.. and we had fun just chatting, playing games, enjoying wine and dessert after dinner.

Tomorrow, going for a walk around my place... going to places I have never been to... sounds great! loads of nature stuff I think... Going to bed soon... and yes.. I will update on SuUnday. :) where I plan to stay home and enjoy the special day!!!

A lazy Thursday...

I was supposed to leave home like half an hour ago to go to school and print my notes and slides and readings and what nots. Been procrastinating the print jobs for some time. But ya.. I really need those print outs to well.. start reading and stuff. It's just difficult reading from my laptop. Especially with a million and one distractions. I miss having my own printer...

Anyway, it's been pretty quiet these few days. Stay at home, cook my meals... Go to school, revise my work. (I studied ok!) But that's also mainly because I'll be away *again* this weekend. Should really find some time to chill around Switz.. Maybe next weekend. (or so I always say).

Ok.. if I leave now, I have 25 mins before my class starts to go to the com lab and do my printing. and I should do just that! Toodles!

Off to Vienna tonight... be back on Sunday night!

Eiffel Tower!!!

Hmmm... realised I have procrastinated blogging about my France trip... Shall skip Versailles first... so here's the Eiffel Tower...

Majestic looking ya?

There are beautiful flowers and nice grass patches where people can have picnics around the Eiffel Tower.

Look! They have policemen on horses patrolling the area. Heard that they were actually chasing a thief the weekend before I was there.

Me at the top of the tower... The view from the top is great! The are even signs to tell you how to spot other attractions/monuments.

I had to climb up a gazillion flights if steps to reach the top. 700+ I think... I could have taken the lift... but it's always better to say 'I climbed the Eiffel Tower'.

Look at the number of people who wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower that day! We took almost 3 hours from the time we started queuing till we came down - we queued for 1.5 hours I think.. which was quite long. According to Wanling, she only queued for less than half an hour when she climbed up the last time!

The good thing is that sun sets late.. so even at 8pm, it was still rather bright...

The Eiffel Tower being lit up at night. It was close to 9pm I think... and look at the sky!!!

Climbed the tower with Susi, Wanling's friend from Germany.

Hah! A angled shot of the Eiffel Tower! Does it look artistic?

For more pictures, check out my album at http://picasaweb.google.com/jillkjh?pli=1

Updated with Versailles and Eiffel Tower photos... was just too lazy to blog about them.

Anyway, I'm off to school soon... Will be in Munich this weekend... but only leaving on Sat. There's an international dinner tomorrow night. Still thinking of some 'Singaporean' dish to cook for the event...

Updates!!!

Ok.. I think I've fixed the links to the missing pictures... I think I've uploaded the pictures like 3 or 4 times. *hope it works this time*

Anyway, life's almost back to normal after my trip. Going for classes, and well, planning my next trip.

Went to this spring fair held in St Gallen yesterday and there was also a funfair near it! :) Nice... Like those pasar malams in Singapore. After that, went to Zurich... and I realised that I miss being in a big city!!! Like just walking along the bustling streets or walking into shops and browsing through what they have. Not that they don't have those in St Gallen, but the range of things available is much smaller. Kinda miss the big city life.

Anyway, went to this supermarket and we actually found Yeo's can drink. Except it's like 2.20 Fr per can. and we found a Movenpick ice cream parlour.. so I had Movenpick icecream!!! Yummy!!! Hahaha.. will get the picture of it later!

Although it's Spring, but it's rather warm in the day. And the sun's quite strong... It's about 22 ~ 25 deg cel in the day I guess... but at night, it's still chilly. But doing fine.. Looks like the turtlenecks I brought will be relegated to the back of the cupboard soon. :)

Life in Schweiz

Heh... Let's intro a bit about Switz (or Schweiz as it is known in German).

Standard of living here is high! Hahaha.. a chicken here costs 8 Fr. Then we have to pay tax for throwing rubbish. So we have to purchase special bags for rubbish. The bags costs 2 to 5 Fr each depending on the size. Don't try cheating them cause they will not collect rubbush in any other bags. And they only collect rubbish from your place/neighbourhood on a certain day...

But they are really very environmentally friendly. Maybe cause they have to pay for the rubbish bag, so they recycle items like plastic and glass bottles. And at supermarkets, they encourage you to bring your own bags when shopping by only giving lousy plastic bags. Hahaha...

Then short shopping hours. Shops are closed by 6 on weekdays except for Thursday when it opens till about 8 I think. And Sunday, shops are closed. 'MarktPlatz' (Marketplace), the main town area is super quiet on Sunday. According to my landlord, Sunday is the time they would spend time with their families.

The busy streets of MarktPlatz on a weekday

It's a rather slow pace of life.. So i just take things easy. But now with school everyday, I just go to school, attend some orientation activities and before I know it, it's like evening liao. Then with the snow, there is also a tendency to go home earlier. But when I walked back today, it didn't feel as cold. Either I got used ot it already, or maybe it will turn warm soon.