Saturday Round-up [inspired by slugs]

(24th Jan, Sat)

Just thought I'd write something down to sum up this week's happenings, which might be continued if the weeks continue to be happening. Coz I meant from the start for this to be a general-purpose blog, my personal storybook. And I dun wanna keep it in limbo as I write them long travel posts. There are still all those small everyday things worth remembering, and I think I've given too many of them a miss. [The slug story is below, if you can't wait haha]

With Oslo 2014 cleared, there's still the Winter post, Bath+Bristol, and Cologne 2015 to write about. Haven't started on any of these even though the temptation is high for Cologne. Just know there was lots of beer, pork, and haribo involved.

Monday we had a good meal at Da Mario (again), as well as a great REP catchup. Other stuff and news to do with REP came in as well this week. Some were overwhelmingly positive, but others... I'm not quite so sure.

I've been climbing with sore wrists but it's not too bad. The right one keeps clicking away.

Made egg tarts ytd night! Been excited about this for quite a while, and I enjoyed it. I think it's not the baking that I enjoy, it's the baking with friends. I wouldn't bake alone. Interesting how the custard and the pastry bakes at the same rate - I'd nvr thought about that. There were a few drunk ppl in the kitchen we were in, so I was surreptitiously moving the tray of unbaked egg tarts around so that flailing hands wouldn't upset them. The tarts turned out awesome, prob coz we made them hahaha. After that we just talked and talked... just us 3/4 of Table 3. All the way until I realised I wouldn't be getting much sleep that night.

And this morning 5am (after just 2 hours of sleep), I was heading to Billingsgate fish market. The variety of seafood omg. You just ask for what you want and the sellers pick and pack them for you. No need to choose personally, but I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I'd intended to buy salmon and sotong, but came away with prawns and a seabass as well. Finally proper prawns! I have plans for them. xD And today I found out that my body can't tank 2 nights of severe sleep deprivation in 2 weeks. Took 2 naps today, which made up my sleep count to 4 hours, but was still pretty disoriented the whole time I was awake.

Just ended steamboat at Beit, had my first fishballs/tofu in 8 months! ^^ Skipped the post-dinner cards and drinks coz I dun think I can tank a 3rd night of too little sleep haha. Early start again tmr.

[I'd actually started thinking about writing this ytd night, when J and I were somehow discussing about slugs. Yep, slugs. They were a very real menace to us in the RR days. But I'd nvr blogged about this for some reason, even though it's an epic story we still love to tell. So here it is in its full glory!

Sometime in the summer, we came back and found what we first thought were a few (~4) mouldy pieces of pasta scattered around and in our pots, some of them slumped over the edges. Although we did recently cook pasta, to our horror, we saw that the "pasta" had antennas (or stalk-eyes whatever they are). And thus began a long-drawn battle with the slugs occasionally winning. Amusing on hindsight, but at that time...

This kind.

Due to the lack of proper racks/shelves, we kept our washed utensils on the counter top beside the sink. Not ideal, but it was fine until They started seeking shelter from the nighttime cold. Basically, we couldn't figure out where and how they were getting in and onto our pots. This was also the point I thought we were damn suay to have a superslug family in our backyard. Not just smart, but speedy too coz within an hour or so (while we were distracted by the TV), they could scale the 3m wall from the outside, squeeze through a non-existent gap in the window, and climb back down another 1.5m to the counter. It would be a long time before we figured out their way in - through a sink pipe leading directly to the ground outside, a shorter and more sensible route.

With this knowledge, we put up many defences, like salting around the sink hole, or covering it with a salt-soaked rag, and the ground outside, and leaving out plates of alcohol to attract them. Salting the sink happened every night (we had that much salt to burn). Even then, just a bit of lax (like when we went out for dinner) would give them an opening and they would invade our pots. I'm a squeamish person - just looking at the slugs made me want to bolt. But still, someone had to throw them outside. It is in such times where I feel most thankful to have at least one guy around haha! This went on for the rest of the internship period.

Turns out this is a common problem in the UK. Think it was esp bad for us coz we nvr groomed the overgrown grass at the back of our house. Nowadays, in face of trivial issues, we like to say "at least it's not slugs :)".

The End.] 

Oslo 2014 - Frozen Everything

When ppl ask me about my Oslo trip, I usually talk about (in this order) jumping on frozen puddles, the meteors, and the frozen grass. Not your typical city trip [honestly, there's not much in the city - it's a ghost town at times], but I learnt the value of self-entertainment on top of the importance of good travel company xD.

On the weekend of 13th-14th Dec, a few of us headed up North into frigid weather. The first day started v early - meeting time 0430. [I've since had an even crazier experience, wait for the post ;)] Cheap flights usually depart at weird hours, hence the need to get up at even weirder hours. At least there's chance to sleep on the plane/train/bus shuttling from place to place.

Flight/train ride was uneventful. Fast forward to Oslo city centre, where our first stop was the Viking Museum. While not v large, the museum still had pretty cool exhibits. All those huge ancient viking ships were feats of engineering in their own right, esp since they didn't have machines and such to help out back in the day. Really takes hand-made to a whole new level. Even the smaller tools, though rusted and crude, looked functional and sensible.

[Side note: Norwegians can speak English well and are damn good looking (based on the nice bus driver who let us know where to get off!)]

The real adventure came after that. Heading back to the city centre, we deviated from the pavements (a good 6km walk) in favour of a short cut. This short cut set us on a direct line to the city centre through a massive field of frozen grass (and some trees). My cheap boots were no match for the slippery terrain and it was quite scary - small slopes (~0.5m high) = potential ankle sprains. Lucky I brought gloves man, coz I had to brace myself a few times. At points in time we met fences, and though these were easy enough to cross (heng ah if not need to turn back!), it meant we were trespassing. So we shut off the assistive lights and carried on under the moonlight. We got out ok in the end, but somewhere in this frozen field, I lost my oyster card T.T which I'd just topped up that same morning (with £10!!!!) T.T What to do, let it go~ At least we got a nice view of the city along the way, and the shimmering grass was pretty, although I really wanted to thaw my feet after that.

You don't realise how numb your feet are getting as you admire the view.

After that, we walked around looking for good affordable food and ended up in macs coz we were too hungry or just didn't care anymore. [Singaporeans dun complain, overseas macs are damn ex and you have to pay for extra sauces.] Although it'd been dark for quite some time, the night was actually still young and we went hunting for a good spot to view the Geminid meteors. There was time to spare, so we went to some sculpture park (Europeans really like their nude sculptures) and took some cool long exposure shots.

Photo credits: Bingjie

Then, we decided that that park was too bright and went somewhere else. Then, we discovered a trip highlight - a frozen water feature. From testing our weights on the ice we proceeded to stamping on it and got some kind of childish joy from seeing water seep/burst through the broken surface. Never see before of course excited la. No judgments k, it was fun :) 

Funny reflection = frozen surface = throw sticks and stones to confirm

And finally, the best moment of the night - the meteors! Well, they weren't showering like rain (yet), and so we entertained ourselves for quite a while finding constellations. Funny enough, coz I'd never been interested in astronomical stuff. Must've been the post-Interstellar craze haha. When I caught my first meteor, it was magical... But not all of us caught it - I just happened to be staring at the correct portion of sky. It was gone in a second and the sky extends past the peripheral vision, so we stayed for more! I managed to catch about 6 in the end, which I was quite happy with. Another friend told me she caught over 15 from 1-2am at a darker place :O We retired at around 11pm, prying our frozen selves from the park benches with necks aching from staring directly upwards. No pictures although I did try - coz I possess neither a super camera or lightning reflexes. Just contented to watch. It's amazing how exciting those fleeting moments were, and how pieces of rock hurtling through space could make one feel happy.

I swear there were stars.

Next day we struggled to wake. The plan was to catch the sunrise (at a v "worth-it" time of 9am). While we made the time in the end at the harbour, that plan fell through thanks to the clouds. Wondered around a war exhibit and stuffed a member of our group into a canon xD. I don't really rmb what happened from there... except that we were pretty excited to see ppl again. Oh yea and we found more frozen puddles! One of them had mud inside and it's not difficult to imagine the consequence of jumping on it hahaha.

Immense grey view in place of sunrise.

Our favourite pastime - the dirty version.

That was also the day we got really good food. Our targeted eating place had actually closed down months before (and the tourist website wasn't updated -.-) so we diverted to a nearby pub. I don't really know how to do justice to the awesomeness of the food, but I know that even without the cold and tiredness, it would've been a fantastic meal. It wasn't cheap (worked out to be over S$40 per person D:), but at least we managed to have one v good meal in Oslo, if not we'd have eaten macs for nothing lol.

Being Asian, although this wasn't all the food.

Back in the city, we stumbled into an xmas market, where we finished half a plate of lefse samples (we did buy some in the end), sampled a large variety of jams which prob had a thousand servings of saliva in them, and ran afoul of some cheese. I unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) didn't get to try the super weird cheese. My friends had to douse the flavour with chocolate.

Running out of time by then, we took a quick stop at the Royal Palace before fast-marching back to the train station to catch the train back to the airport. And that's it.

While editing the photos for this post, I was playing around with the colour saturation. In the end I decided not to be overhanded, coz the true colour of Oslo (at least when I was there) was grey. The city is really not the most lively of places, but self-entertainment can save the day. I still can't forget the frozen ponds/puddles. See, being a suaku isn't all too bad - there's some innocent fun to be had :)

Been busy writing my internship report which I kinda should've done ages ago. So the many things I've been bursting to share (Oslo, Spain & Portugal) will have to wait. Now, this is not ideal coz you lose the enthusiasm to write about things long past, no matter how exhilarating they were in their time. Which explains why I'm struggling to write a report about the internship I enjoyed so much.

I just thought I'd put a little note out.