Fire Alarm!!!

When the smoke detector is in your room, and you produce too much smoke from your cooking. The firemen will be here in less than 5 mins, the whole building is going to be awakened by the very irritating alarm.

Unfortunately, we have fallen prey TWICE in the short few months we are here, in fact twice in the first 2 months to be exact. BUT today! Finally, we heard the alarm for the first time... that is not triggered by us! Not that i am happy tt the civil servants got to work again, but.. this proves that we are not the only ones who cook and caused smoke in this poorly designed studio apartment!

Here goes the irritating level of the noise! (don bother watching the entire video.. its e same.)

Scandinavia - the less glamorous side.

You've seen the smiles and nice pictures on facebook. (Click here just in case you have not..). Here's to more insights as well as the really depressing parts of the trip.

Our hotel room in Lulea, Sweden. We didnt act poor, becoz we were really poor. We bargained for a lower price. Told her that we are leaving early morning for 5am, whether it can be cheaper. Told her that we didnt want breakfast, whether it can be cheaper. And last resort, told her if we can have a single room becoz we are really poor. Final result: cheaper by 20 euros! The first time i ever bargained at a hotel.

Not to mention the Flat screen plasma TV with champions league game going on, she even made us very delicious breakfast despite saying breakfast will not be included during the bargaining process!

Here's how we thank her for her help to these 2 poor asians...

Next, you might not have known, but many border crossings in Europe does not require passport. So you wudnt have known if u have actually stepped into another country! Here's Ang's guide to 3 tips knowing that you have crossed Finland into Sweden.

Tell tale sign 1: You see alphabet A with a big round circle above it. In Finnish, we call this the Ruotsalainen O. In English, its the Swedish A.

Tell tale sign 2: The first line reads: Valkommen till IKEA. While the smaller second line reads Tervetuloa (means welcome in Finnish).... Since Finnish is placed on the Second line, we are no longer in Finland.

Tell tale sign 3(and the most obvious one): You spotted a REALLY HUGE IKEA.

You should have seen on FB the following 2 Lapland cuisines. A lappish starter plate that is extremely small but delicious, and reindeer meat with Mashed potatoes.

Here is what u haven seen on FB.

Both plates cost a total of 27 Euros, 54 SGD. And this is just some random cafe..... not even high class.

Skiiing? Looks fun? I bet none of you noticed that we were in jeans. No idiot will wear jeans to ski. We were ill prepared and not ready to buy ski pants. Tested and proven that it works. Not ready to spend on instructors, we fell on the slopes and relied on guidance from kind Finns to teach us. End of the day, we had fun and grasped basic skiing!

If you had noticed, one of my FB pics says on the way to Norway... Any of you wondered why there were no pictures of Norway? Here's one.

A glimpse of Narvik, Norway. Beautiful settlements by the sea. Beautiful snow.

But why werent there more pictures? Heres the reason why..

We rented a car. Nice and ready. Set off for Norway. Unfortunately.. the weather was bad..

Our car skid off snowy slippery road on a left turn into a carpark, and bumped into another Norwegian car. A crash in Norway is no joke since it is one of the most expensive countries in the world....... Ranked 1st in the Big Mac index.....

And now you truly understand their slogan.

Europcar: You rent a lot more than a car.

New recipes!

Its been long since this blog was last updated. Pics of the trip are on facebook but in short, we failed in our mission for the Northern light quest. Here are 2 new recipes that we came up with in the recent weeks..

I don think any explanation is required to what these food are! Due to the unhealthiness of use pre-packed sauces, the above were all made from scratch! (Of coz not the pork floss, who in the world will make their own pork floss???)

Lapland, Finland

No wish to provide constant grandmother old story updates. Will update once there is sufficient interesting stories to share! Unfortunately, the chances of Northern lights in lapland is very low, despite being above the artic circle already. I will be here for 3 days.. what a waste. My hope lies in Sweden and Norway after these 3 days, and i really hope to see it!

For now, check out my new profile pic on FB! Make sure u laugh or else its money back gurantee!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4842902&id=744201912

2.5 modules down!

Just completed 2 Final exams today. 1 more module pending a home written essay and im done with it too! Basically just left with 2 more modules in the next half of the Sem.

The statistics exam we had today. We only registered for the exam and didnt go to any lectures if you still dont know. Its the few times im doing a statistics paper without a calculator, not even a pencil to do working. Not because im over-confident, but because i forgot to bring my calculator and pencil to Finland! Its just not worth it to buy one here. But the paper was quite a joke. First time since primary school PSLE exam, my maths exam has MCQ questions! With only 5 mcq and 5 normal calculations questions, the time given was a luxurious 3 HOURS! Both of us were the first to leave after about 1.5 hours. And those around us must be thinking.. these 2 idiots were not seen throughout the semester and yet are the first to submit! Its not because we are going to score full marks, its because we felt we have done enough to secure a pass! You don always have the opportunity to attempt an exam with the intention of just passing isnt it? Savour the moment!

History exam was relatively simple despite the pre-exam scares. We studied only 4 out of the 8 pre-given essay questions. However our fears were put off when we saw the paper, because he gave 5 questions for you to choose 2 to write! And so of course, there were 2 questions in there which we had fiercely memorised over the last 24 hours. Time given was 2 hours.. and many people started leaving after an hour! Talk about exams being easy. Oh by the way, that One finland , 2 finland many finland question was one of the questions we attempted.

The dessert today at unicafe was something new, Pancake with berry sauce at 1 Euro.

This "Ota 3 maksa 2!" sign got us pondering for a very long time! They were fazer's donuts, with blueberry fillings in it. We thought that it was such a good deal for buy 3 get 2 free at 1.70 euros! This is the consequence of attending less than half of the Finnish course.

Anyway, after some clarification we realised it was buy 3 at the price of 2. The price is still amazing because 3 donuts for 1.70 is dirt cheap in Finland! One regular donut is sold at the price of 1.50 to 2 euros in a regular cafe...

And thats why we bought 3 of them to enjoy after our exams! The building on the right of the picture is where we stay by the way.

"Attention. This man broke the noticeboard."

The poster at our building.

Joke of the day must go to Kelvin. We went downstairs to get some spaghetti from the mart, since it was so near, at 0 degrees today, Kel went in his mat-style sandals with sweater and jeans. Another customer in the mart mistook Kel for being the shopkeeper and started asking him questions in Finnish! I think its probably because no ordinary man will be wearing sandals in such a weather!

Next week is recess week. We are off to Lapland on friday night on a roughly 10 day trip up North from Helsinki. The search for Northern Lights begins!

Hate history

How would you describe the notion “Finland” during 1500-1800? Elaborate on the notion of "There was no Finland, there was a finland, there were 2 Finlands and there were many Finlands" in the book of Lavery.

Awesome!

Laskiaisrieha

This is an annual sledging event for university students in Helsinki and Espoo. Besides casual sledding, there is a traditional creative sledge competition where teams make their own sledge to go down the Hill....!

From the official website.

"The most daring and ambitious take part in the legendary downhill race, where teams pilot their home-made sleds down the Ullanlinnanmäki hillside in hopes of winning the grand prize! They are judged not only on their run's distance, but creativity and showmanship as well... "

Proof that we made the sledge ourselves!

When its done!

Waiting for the tram to the hill. Could u imagine how many pple were watching us as we brought this huge poker out?

Laskianen is also known as pancake day. So there are quite a bit of food on the event itself where u can eat.. and its all for free!

Chinese and Malaysians who helped us by pushing us down the slope! See the video and u will understand!

During the competition, photos courtesy of Miia Jumpponen.

And here goes the video for those who missed it on facebook!

The whole event was in finnish, if im not wrong, we were the only non-finn in the competition!

Hitting the library for the first time

Studying is tough.

Studying is tiring.

The ice is really melting. It went up to a new high of 0 degrees today. We went out of the library and the RAIN started to fall on us. ITS WATER. Goodbye snow!

Its time to MUG

But just before we get to the exams, some workout is needed to keep the brain working!

Fine weather today! Daylight is beginning to get longer. No winds, relatively high temperature at -6 deg, no snow, perfect day for an outdoor run! Weather forecast says that the temperature is going to go positive to 1 deg on saturday.. it seems like the snow is all going to melt soon!

And after a run, you get so lazy and with the thoughts of thick notes that u have not read even once in your life, and the exam is just next week, you just want to cook a simple meal like this.

The buns are part of the Goodie bag from Fazer. But i must say they are really tasty buns! Soft and nice. With a little cheese, pepperoni, hotdog, egg and cabbage, its a simple dinner, though not too healthy. But this cant beat the previous BIGANGMAC that we made!

2 huge beef patties, thin slices of egg and cheese, topped up with bacon, at just less than 2 euros! U cant get any cheaper burger than this in Finland!

I have 3 exams and 1 presentation next week. The most amazing thing is for one of the exam, i didnt register for the module at all. So in the midst of the history lecture, i thought i really needed a backup module in case i fail history.

I emailed the lecturer for that statistics module, ask her if i could just go for the exam next week, even though i did not attend any lectures and did not even register for the course. I thought i had nothing to lose by doing this, even though the chances of my success is very low.

BUT ITS A LUCKY DAY! She said that as long as i could clear the examination next week, i can get the credits for the course! ITS A GOOD DEAL! On top of that, the nice lecturer even offered to send me all lecture notes, tutorials and solutions via email! Really appreciate that. The contents of the course are rather familiar as i have studied them sometime back, just that my memory shud have failed me. So its going to be an intense next few days, trying to study as much as possible and cramp all the history facts into my head.

Oh btw I already have the questions for the history exam. The lecturer gave 9 essay questions and says that the exam will be taken from these questions. It seems like a free gift, but trust me, none of the question seems easy.

GOOD LUCK!

Best meal in UniCafe

A really nice unicafe meal! The mushroom sauce was really tasty!

A typical unicafe meal at 2.60 Eur. Main course, in this case is pork cutlet that is covered by the mushroom sauce. Free flow of bread, rice, potatoes. Bread comes with many different spreads like margarine, garlic, vege etc etc. Free flow of salad, dependent on the day, this day we had cabbage and coleslaw. Free flow of drinks, everyday there is milk and of course water. On lucky days like this day, orange juice are also available!

Something extra today was the dessert at 1.40 eur, really cheap by Finland's standard. Delicious blueberry and nuts tart!

Karl Fazer Chocolate factory visit

Kids who just arrived at the place dashed to the Chocolate factory!

There was a talk regarding Fazer's business... zzz...

Now wash your hands and get ready to eat free chocolates! As much as you want!

Easter eggs. Real egg shells but the inside is filled with chocolate! Heard its good!

Really HUGE Karl Fazer chocolate bar!

1 FREE goodie bag and a bag of chocolates bought from the factory!

Whatever is in the goodie bag!