Winter (Spain/Portugal) 2014

It's back to the travels, starting with winter.

I've left this too late and I regret it. When asked what I did in winter nowadays I can't rmb much, even though I know I definitely enjoyed (most of) it. Had no feel/mood to blog for quite a while now (due in part to the deadlines and in part to other negative stuff), but there are still photos and snippets worth sharing from my winter trip. So here's a "short" post on the highlights, captioned and elaborated to the best of my memory.

Getting there
On 21st Dec 2014 I flew alone into Barcelona to meet up with my grandma, gujie, and gujeong on the following day. And thus started my 13 day winter holiday in Spain + Portugal.

First time flying alone, so great that things went smoothly. I think the exceptionally high number of flights I took in 2014 really helped me ease into the procedure. The trouble came after that when I got a bit lost trying to find my hostel (there wasn't so much as a sign, just a small paper with the name written on it on the door frame). I'd reached earlier than what I indicated in the booking and... the reception was closed. I called the "emergency number" and got let in, but by then I was feeling quite unsafe. The look of the place didn't help one bit and I actually considered going back to the airport to stay that one night. But eventually, I settled my stuff and went out to explore Placa de Catalunya.

The place(s)!
The trip went like this: Barcelona - Valencia - Granada - Seville - Lisbon - Fatima - Porto - Segovia - Madrid - Toledo, as koped from the tour website [yes my parents paid for my travels, but before you start judging, I fully intend to return the favour and more when I'm capable]. Ain't gonna talk about everything coz I don't have the time/not everything was interesting/I couldn't get good photos in the first place HAHA.

For continuity's sake - I was in Placa de Catalunya i.e. Orchard Road, or maybe Orchard Square, where I did some window shopping. And the next day I finally met my family members again!

22/12 - Valencia. This was one of the places I distinctly rmb wishing I'd had more time and freedom to explore. The thing about being a student is that you tend to walk everywhere to see everything coz walking is free. Yea sure it's tiring, but the intimacy of this way of travel cannot be gotten from inside a moving bus, craning the neck for a crappy view of smth that would've been beautiful were it not viewed from behind slightly grimy glass. On the other hand, there's no way to run all of those places on foot/train in 12 days, so moving on.

City of Arts and Science, Valencia.

Palm trees everywhere~ When I first landed, I thought I could be in Malaysia. Aside from the mild cold, it was sunny and the land was wide open with fields of palm trees spread far and beyond.

Just the City of Arts and Sciences would've taken a whole day to explore! We didn't get to go in - more of just take photos from the outside and move on, except for the pathway through the mini garden. [I did get one of my best shots from the trip though.] Other than this, it would've been nice to simply walk along the river Turia. And... I unfortunately can't rmb much beyond this...

23/12 - Granada

Part of Alhambra, an Islamic palace in Granada.

View from the palace.

24/12 - Cordoba. On this day I retired my trusty S3. Welcome S5! Hello to more awesome-looking photos and Whatsapp grouses.

Tested my new phone camera at a random rest stop. Wider screen + noticeable improvement in reaction and quality. Who says iPhone camera better hahaha.

25/12 - Seville, where oranges are aplenty. I learnt how to tell a bitter orange from its leaves (there's a smaller segment at the stem so the leaf has a rough '8' shape) and that Seville oranges are too common to be a special thing - but foreigners who buy them outside of Spain don't know this xD.

The Gardens of Murillo, Seville.

Plaza de España (Seville), featuring random horse.

Plaza de España (Seville), featuring random rainbow!

26/12 - Lisbon. On Christmas evening we crossed over into Lisbon, one of the places I especially rmb. Where to start - the four pictures I've chosen to represent the 1.5 days there are drastically different in location and feel. But overall, Lisbon struck me as a beautiful place - the presence of open water and panoramic postcard views might have helped.

Eduardo VII Park, Lisbon.

Living in London means being pretty inland, and same goes for many parts of large countries. Not like in Sg where you're never really far from the sea, esp for this Pasir Ris girl who simply has to take a 10 min cycle to reach the water. I rmb now how I felt this day going around Lisbon - this calm sense of freedom. First up was Belém, on the banks of the River Tagus. It was a windy day, and the sun was shining (as I'd come to love about the trip), and this was where I took a single, random selfie that would become my fb profile pic.

Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries), on the bank of the Tagus River in Lisbon.

Next we headed down/up winding roads to get to Cape Roca in Sintra, the westernmost point of Portugal and by extent, Europe. This time, there wasn't just a river, there was the Atlantic. I walked down this path on the cliff to take in the view, bearing the brunt of the winds and trying not to twist my ankle along the way. Sunset came really fast then, and we had to leave coz according to the tour guide, monsters swoop down after dark to catch unsuspecting tourists at the cliff.

Cape Roca, Sintra.

Just the sun melting away into the great divide.

27/12 - Fátima and Porto. Fátima is a really religious place. I'm not well-versed in these things, but apparitions of the Virgin Mary happened here, and the exact spot is marked by the Chapel of Apparitions. These are interesting stories to hear, but belief is up to the individual. I witnessed some devout followers kneeling their way across the sanctuary on the marble pathway that extends far far beyond the bottom right hand corner of the picture. Just wow. Outside the Sanctuary there were many (touristy) shops selling prayer candles shaped in whatever ailing body parts a person could have. So if one wants to buy boob-shaped candles, here's the place to go.

The Sanctuary of Fátima

Must be somewhere along the way to Porto. Using the photo dates and Wikipedia in trying to put a name to places.

In Porto, I mostly rmb nice views and the port wine cellar tour in Sandeman. Don't ask me to describe how the wine tastes coz I dunno how to other than it was sweet (both red and white). I just drink only lol.

On the banks of the Douro river, Porto.

28/12 - Segovia. Next up we were heading back to Spain for a student town high up and far inland. At 1000m above sea level it's definitely colder, even colder than London. In this place, old college walls would be vandalised with the names of top graduates (??) as a mark of victory. Haha, cool kids from the past.

30/12 - Madrid. Where I didn't manage to capture any good photos :(

31/12 - Barcelona. It was back to the starting point and where we welcomed the new year. I managed to eat 11 out of 12 grapes (one for each of stroke of midnight, a Spanish tradition), so hopefully my luck this year will be not bad HAHA. [Thus far it's been ok :)]

View of Barcelona.

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.

The Sagrada Familia was one of my favourite places from the entire trip. Designed by the amazing Antoni Gaudi, construction began in 1882 and... is still ongoing. Completion is projected for 2028, but looking at the scale and the design, it wasn't difficult to justify the crazy long construction time. We visited many many cathedrals throughout the trip and all were majestic, but this one was different. Not just good looking, but also so well thought out it seems out of its time (at that time). But then again, this is characteristic of many of Gaudi's buildings - that genius.

While the outside was spectacular, the interior was even more amazing. In conventional structures, straight, evenly-spaced columns may be way to go. But here, the columns bend in a manner calculated to support the massive load. They are also designed with a "double twist" to resist twisting moments in both directions. True engineering man. And note that this was done in a time where computers didn't exist. So much respect. Nerdy stuff aside, it was also so pretty! The stained glass is arranged by colour so that the light is projected in a colour-coordinated spectrum. In general, the place felt more welcoming instead of giving this dark and creepy feeling that ancient places of worship tend to exude.

My phone camera does not do the interior justice.

The final bit of the trip involved taking the bus up the winding slopes of Montserrat. I can never get tired of these views.

View from Montserrat.

The food!
We ate many many things throughout the way, and drank much alcohol too xP. Paella, suckling pig, tomato rice, seafood... In general, I ate lots more than I usually do and gained some significant weight. I think after all is said, I still have Chinese taste buds lol. So even though I was being Asian and let my camera taste most of my food before I started, I only want to make two special mentions, coz I have distinct biases hahaha. From the looks of it, I'm a dessert person ;) [Maybe coz I usually have to force myself to finish the mains >.<]

Portuguese egg tarts. I honestly dun rmb when the last time I had any of these was (or if I'd even had them before). Loved the custardy, flaky goodness so much that I whacked two at once, and wished I had more xD.

Churros with chocolate. The chocolate is wayyy too gau to drink, so I made sure to fully utilise my churro in wiping it all up. Kinda like you tiao in chocolate sauce :P.

Ending off

Some people will have received one of these:

Physically writing essays after such a long time wasn't easy, I must say. Haha, as was the search for international stamps. I was told to go look for tobacco shops, but even after the entire trip, I have no idea what a Spanish tobacco shop looks like. In the end, I submitted these to the hotel front desk, and they helped me send them home.

Then, it was back to London to start a term that is now going to end.

Affinity

(20th March, Fri)

[I was in the midst of writing my winter post and it's taking too damn long.]

On this day we went for dim sum buffet at Bright Courtyard Club. Haha me and buffets don't normally go well together, but for the sake of har gows, which I haven't seen in over a year, I went for it. It was really good although I left feeling like I wouldn't have to eat over the next few days. [For the record, I had just fruits for dinner and am hungry at this time of writing.] So many legit large prawns! These are not easy to come by (and "king prawns" here are like what we know to be normal-sized prawns pfft). And I didn't expect how much I'd come to like the liu sha bao. I've eaten from a few places in sg but always disliked the overpowering salted egg yolk taste. This version (like I told the rest), felt more like a butter sugar pao xD. I had 5 of them. Totally worth the £16.50 total cost.

But that's not even the main point of this post. The main point was this:

Which was the mango dessert I had after I was beyond 100% full. The reason this is significant is because of this:

At probably the exact same time I was scarfing down the mango dessert to rush back to class, a certain group of girls was having (mostly) mango desserts back home. Coincidence? I think not. This kind is an affinity that somehow naturally develops over 10 years of sisterhood, a proof of bonds. The number of times a year we meet at full strength can be counted with one hand (plus minus a finger or 2), but every time it's like nothing has changed.

Haha, I've seen a few diff versions of the same pictures on insta, so I thought I'd do my own. This post is dedicated to you girls, my 姐妹们! Miss you all, but we'll be at full strength again soon, 等我回来! :)

CNY in London

(20th Feb, Fri)

I haven't been on a roller coaster in a while, but I imagine the past (this) week to be a pretty good representative. How else does one get multiple rapid turns of emotion. The heart plummeting in resignation. Then a nauseating turmoil of frustration and helplessness. And without warning, an exuberant, crazy high. Yes I think that covers the ground nicely - the REP gang will know.

It's simply amazing how much trouble a single person can cause. But the problem now is that trouble tends to leave a legacy. So who's/how to clean up the mess? "Ruining lives since (insert year here)" indeed. If we graduate as strong ppl it'll be because of all the nonsense we've had to endure.

But thank goodness unhappiness doesn't last, not during CNY anyway! I'm actually making do with less sleep nowadays, what with the endless meetups lately [this is the third consecutive week we've met for 3 times at least!]. Not to mention a constant nagging conscience to exercise after all the CNY goodies [YES! Credits to various sources of love back home], beer, and array of supper foods consumed. I think amidst the fun we had everything else went out the window hahaha. Morning lessons? Who needs them after a skype visit at 4am. We did our best to craft a little CNY atmosphere of our own, and although it really is nothing to shout about compared to back home, it was better than I could ask for :)

新年快乐 everyone! 恭喜发财!

Full strength +1 at Goldmine on 初一. Photo credits: Daniel Wang

There's just another 4 months to go :o

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.

Weekend of beautiful weather - LUBE & Cambridge

I was jio-ed to two different activities (incidentally by the same person) over the final weekend of November. Committing to these meant studying only the nights before for two tests on the following mon and tues, but by then I'd alr had one of my most enjoyable weekends since coming to London. Therefore, special thanks to Denise and also the UMC style of just go only - no regrets man!

I really like this picture hahaha.

Quite aptly, the first event was the LUBE (London University Bouldering Event) round on Saturday, 29th November. [Skip down to Cambridge if you've got no interest in a climbing waffle :)]

There were last minute calls for 2 girls to join ICMC's teams, which was how I ended up half-pulled-half-jumping in. I'd never have considered joining alone coz (cui-ness aside) it's a lot less fun and more scary. And I rmb being genuinely excited - this comp join for free and for fun, so no pressure (or so I thought xD).

[Before the comp itself, there was this obstacle called London's Transport System to get past. I swear, Singaporeans have ALMOST NOTHING to complain about regarding public transport. We have it DAMN good alr please, but sadly we've been spoiled by our own high standards. And don't get me started on cost - a single tube journey within zone 1 in peak period costs more than getting from Pasir Ris to Boon Lay station and back. So anyway I've forgotten the details, but there were disruptions to train lines (planned/unplanned I forgot) that made route planning so difficult we spent an hour trying to figure it out. It got to the point where I felt like some divine power was trying to prevent us from getting to our destination.]

About a third of the total boulder area.

Early that morning we found ourselves at the White Spider climbing centre - an ulu but awesome looking place. The comp had a foreign format - carnival style, 25 routes, flash-10pts, 2nd attempt top-7pts, 3rd attempt top-4pts, following attempts no points, self-scored (no route judges). K la, I got 50 points meaning the routes I could top I flashed, and others I couldn't top within 3 tries and just stopped attempting after that. Good: really forces you to flash and attempt wisely. Bad: no points after 3 attempts = no point trying again. Downer... there were quite a few routes that I knew I could do (after some 10 more tries...).

So yea, I didn't know what to expect, but even then, I felt like I didn't do fantastically well. Hahaha nvm, it was still enjoyable, plus we got to play in the cave after the comp! That kind of huge cave is rare, and it was damn fun to heel hook all along this super long roof route. But by then I was tired and sloppy and kept coming off D: In the end, fingers and wrists were sore and I was aching mildly the next day => proof of effort and price of experience? :) Really glad I went for it, it was meaningful. And the skies were so awesome after we left the gym.

[Bonus mention: I thought I'd be the only one with the Bouldermania 2013 shirt in London. Hoho, the moment we stepped out of the changing room, standing right there was another guy wearing the exact same shirt. An awkward, shocked second later, a "Nice shirt." was exchanged and I went away.]

Sunday, 30th November saw me up early again, this time off to King's Cross station. Where this sticks out of a wall:

Hahaha maybe it was the early morning or the lack of crowds and despite the magic of my childhood, all it looked like was a sad trolley half stuck out of wall...

The hearsay was true: Cambridge is like a prettier Oxford. I don't belong to the level where I have friends to visit in Cambridge so I was just there for the place haha. The day was spent like that: wander around (it's not big), go to the town centre, the bridges and into any college open to visitors. Also got to go watch a trampoline competition, which (though small) was interesting since I'd never seen it live before.

The first college we walked into - first impression set the bar v high.

Back to the place. It's so nice... Really peaceful atmosphere, perfect for... studying and strolling around to destress after that. The weather was once again awesome - sun was out for most of the day and it wasn't v cold. Cambridge is like one of those places that has a walk-into-a-painting kind of feel, and I think the pictures do a better descriptive job than I can with words.

Soap.

Imagine this in the spring/summer!

When I think about it, most of my traveling involves walking and more walking around places. And that turns out to be one of the best parts of student travel. Sometimes tiring, but only on foot do you get the most immersive experience. Every turn and corner can bring smth unexpectedly worth exploring. Rather than looking at a picture, you feel part of the picture. Smth like that.

Of course, the other best part of student travel is going around with friends. There is this well-known fact that not everyone can travel with everyone, and even close friends may not be exempt from that "rule". But I think I've been mostly spared from that thus far. So I count myself extremely lucky really, to have friends whose company I enjoy, and the added bonus of going around all these beautiful places with them. [Hopefully they like traveling with me too xD]

Dun think I've ever seen ducks so orderly.

I like how the purple bits showed up after autocorrect.

Those two sunny days really lifted my mood. And for the record, those two tests were easy and I scored well :)