my "first day of lectures"

yea.. today was supposed to be our first day of lectures, and in the end we had none! We actually have 2 lectures, 2 hrs each. The first one was the course that we were planning to take.. Corporate Finance. In the end it was conducted in Finnish so we couldn't understand. The lecturer told us that we can still do the course by reading the slides that are in English, supplemented by text book. But the text books here are super expensive! So i think we are giving up the course. The text books here can be more than twice the price that we can buy in Singapore. The 2nd lecture was a mistake.. it is supposed to start next week and we all were too blur to realise... We even went to find the planning officer then she taught us to go to a website which had this annoucement that it starts next week. Felt so dumb after that...

Well, at least I stepped into lecture rooms today. Haha.. Ermm.. kind of boh liao.. cause i have to step into them anyway. But I found that the ergonomics of the seating arrangement is well designed! The seats are kept like those in movie theatres when it is not in use, and the tables are placed in front of the seat, and you can pull the table towards your seat. Well.. some pics may help to explain what im talking about...

U see.. u pull the table towards u.


TU 2 lecture hall


Let Meiqing do the demo.. haha


yesterday.. me n daryl went leppavaara to shop again. daryl at the wrong noodle bar...


Behind us is a gambling place.. its like open to everyone. No one guarding the entrance at all. Of cos we didnt step in. Haha... who would dare to throw euROS away!

We will be quite busy once all the lectures start. Cause each course has its assignments and some of them will be ending in March, so all the due dates are all together. And we have also joined a cruise trip to Stockholm with the other exchange students at the end of January!

GooDies frOm HoME

School started today... But i've got no lessons on a mondaY! 4 day week for the time being.. hehe. I went to collect my parcels that my mum sent today,cause i was not around when the post man came. Yea, me and daryl sweat like mad carrying the 2 boxes and walking back to my hostel. It was a 0.9km walk, according to the "journey planner".

My smashed like dunno-wad Pineapple Tarts


The goodies in the box


yeah there is chicken stock, kaya, chicken rice type of chilli (they dont sell them here).. my fav. and lots of other stuff.. amos cookies, biscuits...


yeah :)

mY sNowMan!

SHORTI


yeah.. it is still snowing! Daryl and I just built this snowman about an hour ago while it was snowing heavily! Its really fun... initially we didnt know how to start and tried to gather ice and we ended up with a lump of lousy ice. Then he started to make a small snow ball and roll it all over the ground. Gradually the snow ball became bigger and bigger. But it is still very out of shape and dirty because of all the grass and broken branches all over the ball. We had to hit to try and shape the ball to a proper one. The body of the snowman is my work and the head is daryl's. the scarf and the hat are mine..Yea.. wanted to build a very big one (like the one we saw yesterday) but i think its really too difficult. This snowman is really abit hard to make already! Im happy with the size lah. Ha.. We gave it a name "shorti"!


daryl being hit by the snowball i threw


there is a playground just below my apartment

Leppavaara - shopping day

This photo is the main building of Helsinki University of Technology. Nice right? The ground is all filled with sNOW! Cause it snowed today again~~



Today the 3 of us again, went to Lepavaara, where there is a shopping centre with 2 HUGE supermakets. The whole place is rather big, and the shops mostly sell winter wear, boots..yea and of course food. Not bad a place to shop! Oh ya, there is SUbwaY in it too... (my fav fast food in singapore.. the price? same as SG but in euros.. meaning twice as ex). We spent about 3 hours there... And i bought something I really think is quite worth! There was this shop having sales, and i bought a jacket that was on a 70% sale! So it only cost me 15 euros! And i realised that the jacket is 50% down and 50% feather, so i guess its quite a good buy. Then i dont have to look the same in every photo anymore. hahaha..

Inside the shopping centre

Outside


And there was a pet shop too. They sell pets like hamsters... and this:



.


Daryl and I made this small snowman in the morning b4 we went out, outside his house. And then when i came back to my house, i saw this BIG snowman that someone else made!! Its really BIG. oh man... bigger than me. I think i want to try make something like that tmr, since i've nothing to do on a sunday here. haha... we shall see!


This was our dinner.. haha. 2 chicken drumstick and a plate of veggie with ham and meatball. i miss guo tiao!!

Suomenlinna

It snowed today! Finally.. I woke up and saw the ground filled with ice... So cooL!!! When I walked out of my hostel to meet daryl and meiqing in helsinki city, i had my very first experience with SNOW!!! It was really really pretty, and the feeling of ice falling on u.. its so fuN! Its so different from rain. It was snowing quite heavily... took a photo of my own scarf while walking.


And this is the place where I stay.. this building.


Oh and i wrote my name on the snow for fun! this is the train station (kannelmaki). My "hometown" in Helsinki!

Today the 3 of us went to Suomenlinen, the sea fortress that is built on islands just off the coast of Helsinki (national monument) and one of Finland's cultural treasures. (copied frm the brouchure). Its very pretty there.. we took alot of photos. It has museums, restaurants etc, but we didnt visit those places. We took photos outside and luckily because of the snow today, the photos we took were nice, i believe. :) The place can be reached by taking a ferry near the helsinki city.

can see me? im at the back...


this is the frozen "lake" that we found.

This is daryl trying to create fake snow from the sky for me.

Oh ya... we witnessed some weird rally. ha.. then got a few police cars surrounding it. Nothing interesting, but something that i dont get to see in singapore. Hmm.. and we also saw some marching. But dunno which country's one. Nvm if u dont understand me.. cause i dont know what i saw too. hahaha...

Btw, i will be wearing the same jacket all the time, so i would seem to be in the same clothes everyday... haha.

More pics?

My attempt to make ice kacang for my daddy.

me and the beautiful botak trees...

Just tried msn video call with my mum! abit laggy but its okie.. quite fun! think skype can do better but my mum never download skype.. can make do with msn. :)

Just went Prisma (a supermarket that is quite big, near my hostel) to shop today and that's all... Didnt do much the whole day... Oh ya..forgot to popst pictures of my room and apartment!

This is my bed.. and i purposely shift the table such that i can use my laptop from my bed.

Another view... daryl is playing his PSP.. On the wall is my audition game poster.

This is my cupboard and shelf beside the door behind my bed... and that poster is my lin jun jie!!

The little kitchen in my apartment.

The living room/ dining area of my apartment.

And this is the common corridor inside the apartment.. the opened door is my room. My room is numbered 1. The nearest to the toilet and the main door. (turn left)

Basically the whole apartment feels very white to me when i first stepped in. Imagine 2 opened doors and empty rooms and the stillness of the whole apartment? its quite eerie to be alone.. but now it feels better!

Orientation day... photos!

Today is the orientation day. The whole orientation is just sitting in the lecture room and hearing different people speak, informing us about the practical things and the life in Finland blah blah... Wanted to sleep halfway through. But it was useful, overall. Still in the midst of mapping modules. Sigh.. quite troublesome. Cos we have to beg for more Credits to map to our modules in SG.

Oh and I finally have room mates after 1 week! =) So happy to see them in the apartment when I came back, but I still don't know how to get closer to them. Cant force myself to talk to them and stuff. Maybe i should just wait for it (talk and become closer) to naturally happen. Anyway one of them is from Australia and the other is from France, and that's about all I know about them for now because I just met them tonight only. And they sleep so early! 9pm only they say goodnight le. Hehe..

Pictures...!!

This is my fav. snack i found in Finland. Doughnuts! Small ones.. quite cute. Hopefully I dun grow fat eating them.


And this is the cheapest brand for all types of things I can get from supermarket. X-tra is the brand! They sell pizzas, spagetti, hot choc powder .... to toilet paper. haha.


Oh and i saw this dog barking inside the car on my way to Tapiola yesterday. Poor dog locked inside the car!!


This is the city of Helsinki. The building on the left is the Central railway Station.


This is the cheapest food in school. 2 euros.


The only place where there are free toilets. Elsewhere in the city, have to pay!!

Tapiola

Yup.. today we went to Tapiola, which is rather near school to shop. We found out that the things there at "S Market" (a supermarket) is a little cheaper than the supermarket (Alepa) that we always go to. There is also Stockmann there, and other departmental stores... and a few supermarkets. We realised that our favouritest activity is still shopping for food... haha. We were the most awake doing that. --Photos will be uploaded later.

Yeah thanks mel for telling me that youtube has project superstar... haha. Im so blur, should have suspected that they should have. Well all my favourites have been kicked out already, only left Nat to support! hehe... But dont really like him as much also... Darren is improving alot! =)

nose bleed again

sigh.. this is the 3rd time le.. and it happened when i was sleeping. I have really been drinking alot of water already. dunno why still like that. Very scared that it will be often.. then there is really something wrong with me.

Its bad on weekends, shops are closed!! Luckily the school's supermarket is still opened. So unlike singapore... on sundays, people are on a shopping spree.. I miss singapore. papa, mama. I miss them so badly. And i miss the local channel 8, 9 pm shows. I miss project superstar. I miss the food in singapore already too.

helsinki...

Been walking around helsinki central and familiarising myself with the place. One shocking thing I found out was, only one departmental store has free toilets, and the rest have to pay to get in... and it cost 1 euro just to pee! oh manzz... yup, and we didnt know that today is a holiday in finland and happily went to helsinki central. Stockmann ( the departmental store) was not opened! But we sort of cheated to get into the toilet... there is no one collecting the money, we have to insert the money into the door then the door can be opened. So we just waited outside the door for the person inside to open the door so that we can enter for free. haha...

The weather is slowly starting to get colder... just now there was ice formed on the ground already... so its abt 0 deg cel now. I suffered a terrible nose bleeding experience 1 or 2 days ago. it was really scary cos i dunno when it will stop and it really did take quite a long time to stop. And when i lift up my nose abit, i started to cough out the blood through my mouth with "tan". very scary. luckily daryl was with me.. =)

Daryl has been cooking for us... cooking is so much cheaper than eating out. But we are always almost cooking the same stuff... meatballs, FROzen veg (not frozen one very ex), ham and spagetti in tomato sauce.. ewwW... missing singapore food already..

some photos...

the four of us, at matti's house on the 1st day

taken near matti's hse

admin stuff to do

jan 03, went to do all the admin stuff. went to sch to register and see the school, then to the registrar office to register as citizens so that i can buy the travel card etc etc. Couldnt have done all of these in 1 day without the help of my tutor. But still, i wanna complain him!! cos he always answer out of point when we ask him questions. Not onli that, i thnk he is weird too. He helped me and fuxiang buy burger for lunch and didnt even ask us which one we wanted. In the end I bite one mouth... oops, beef. sigh. had to change to burger. its like he just went straight to buy n never tell us that he is buying for us too. And he did alot of other weird things. And i cannot really understand his english... argh.

After a whole day, i asked daryl to come over my place. It was a really tedious trip for him. he spent alot of $ calling for help =( and had alot of difficulties finding. And his hands were so cold because he had to use one hand to press the hp buttons and call. Yea, we cant survive without a pair of gloves. exposed to the air for maybe 1 min, we will feel our whole hand numb. It will be worse when its -20 deg cel.

still trying to get use to the life here, and getting to know how to travel to places... =) more upcoming~~

first few days in finland

saying goodbye
thank you everyone who came to send me off. i really appreciate it. thank you mum and dad and bro. muacksz. thank you aunt bel for all the winter clothings. thank you mummy and daddy for ur love always. =)

the plane
i couldnt slp throughout, so after the entire flight, i felt like a zombie. Transitting at london gave me troubles, we were only allowed one hand luggage and i had to squeeze 1 bag into the other.. and wear all the winter clothings so that the things in my 2nd bag and the 2nd bag can fit into my 1st bag. sigh. but in the end, we got a good officer who closed one eye on my cannot close luggage. ha...

matti's hse
yeah we stayed over at meiqing's tutor's house on the first nite cos the offices onli opens on the 2nd of jan. his bed is damn shiok.. very soft and i finally got some good slp! he is very shuai to me btw. haha.. will upload pics another time. too sian and tired now... anyway, he made us tea, cut fruits for us, and cooked lunch for us! (spag with chicken and tomato sauce) yummy. not bad. =)

separated from meiqing and daryl
because my hostel is in helsinki and their hostel is in espoo(which is in school) , so we had to go separate ways to get our keys and stuff. haha.. i cannot really understand my tutor cos he speaks with a weird slang... but i just laugh and nod. haha... now in my room now, very lonely, abit scared. think i will ask fuxiang over to accompany me. its really quite quiet. Non of my room mates have arrived yet... sob..

the elevator
very old fashioned! its like those with doors, then you close the doors then the lift will move. hehe... interesting.

the weather
its not very cold yet. only 2 to 5 deg now... but its gonna get colder..

price of things
very very ex loh. travelling cost 2 to 4 euros (so far for the trains i've taken). which is 4 to 8 sing dollars! haizz... food is ex too, but heard that can get cheaper food in campus.

finland itself is cool. When i first stepped into the airport, it felt homely. (unlike london)

upsetting

stupid hairdresser.. tell her not to cut my hair she still cut. cut until so short. super upsetting. N she rebonded my hair until so messy!! im really upset. sigh. *scream*

singapore turf club

Went out for dinner with my jc friends, then I went back to the spec shop to collect my specs but the uncle closed shop for 3 days. Don't know why. Anyway after that I decided to follow my dad to the Singapore Turf Club to see see... Cos my mum is working there. Wah, the horses are really beautiful!! So shiny and pretty. It was fun to see them race... and all the uncles and gamblers are shouting for their horse numbers. Me and my dad tried to predict and played for 3 races too. But all the tickets got "eaten away". Its really hard to guess which horse is going to win... Though it was interesting to look at the horses and stuff, its a place which I think I would not step in again because the air is really bad. I think 99.999999% of the pple there smoke, and I could hardly breathe. The 0.000001% is me lah. It was really quite terrible cos i was trying to find a single spot that i can breathe good air and there wasnt any. ha...

more pics!! yumyum

my prince!!!!

oh man.... i think im too old to get crazy over an idol.. but Im really crazy!!! im just halfway watching the "gong" vcd. N im going mad over li lu.. the prince in the show! His korean name is kim jeong hoon. He is super super prince! cannot take it, saliva all over the mouth le. hahahah... Here is a pic of him. Guess he is every girl's dream bai ma wang zi.... when he is upset:
isnt he cute? super cute? super duper lovely? hehe

congrats me!!

i wonder if im still dreaming?? I got the SEP award!!! yeahyeah... just when I least expected it, it came!! still don't know how much I am awarded, but being awarded is already enough! =) yeah... didn't put my beautiful photograph to waste. That was my last passport size photo that I liked the most. When i took it i didnt have so many pimples as compared to now. Now i really look terrible.

yeah... im happy!!

A good break, finally

It has been 2 months since I last posted. Such a long time. Been really busy completing projects in school and studying for exams. Alot of Ups and dOwns these few months, quite tiring. I was very affected by my mid term tests and stuff that I sort of went really crazy for a few days. Think I affected the people around me alot that time, especially my parents and daryl. Well everything is over now, finally I can have a good break after exams.

Quite happy, but at the same time, I am also preparing my stuff to bring over to finland for half a yr. Don't know how much clothes I should bring also. And my mum has been spending alot of money on me, buying me the thermal wear, gloves, the BIG jacket... I have already spent near 2000 including insurance and stuff, eXcluding the air ticket. that's why i really hope to get the NUS sep award, but my hope is gone. The supposedly week that they should release the results is over, and i didnt receive any email. Sigh. My poor parents, spending so much on their little girl.

Alot of things to talk about, but dont really wanna put them down le... too tired. haha. But i will update my blog quite often (i hope) when i m in finland. To leave memories for myself and to update my friends and parents whom I will surely MiSS like crazy....