A magical weekend

Hello again finally found some time for myself in the hostel on a rainy sunday afternoon.

I just got back from a short weekend trip out to Rothenburg ob tauber, a pretty fairytale-like town in Germany. It almost felt like christmas was here. But the magic only happens in the night and early morning before the streets gets flooded with tourists. Really glad I chose to stay the night.

I went there alone this time cos the other exchange students were out to Amsterdam. It felt nice to be on the road alone again. I particularly love riding on trains alone and the german country side is so amazing.

Anyway, here are photos of the medieval walled town. (i've visited a number of medieval towns during this trip to europe but Rothenburg is the cutest imo). So so magical.

The youth hostel that I was staying in

Fall colors...

Rented a bike for a day to ride through the valley outside the walled town

Lovely christmas shop displays

Rothenburg specialty - schneeball! Didn't taste that good though.

On a sidenote, the chocolate/dairy products/desserts/cakes in germany are so much more affordable and look so much more appetizing than in Singapore that you just can't help but give into temptation all the time and we've been stocking up a lot on rittersport and ice cream and yogurt each time we go to the supermarket...  

Also, i'm so glad the intensive seminar is over. I don't know if I'll pass (I really hope I do) but I felt so liberated after the final exam that I decided to pamper myself with a 18.95 euros Japanese buffet with Sum on Friday night! (Because we were the only ones left in mannheim... the rest were in amsterdaaaam) Finally legit asian food! No pictures taken except this pathetic photo taken in the dark with my lousy phone camera.

And finally a picture of my campus! (p.s. photo taken by another friend on exchange) 

Post more next time!!! 

xoxo

Hsiaowoon 

From Luxembourg

Hello! It's been a long while since i last blogged.

I really wished I could be more consistent in doing this because there has been so many new experiences each day and so many new emotions and feelings felt that I wished there had been a machine to automatically transform my thoughts into words so I could record all of them down. 

But everyday I'm just so exhausted from all the day's activities that when I get back to my room, I just crash. Now I'm just squeezing time out in between train rides to update on my experience so far.  

So after 3 weeks of settling down in Mannheim, I'm starting to travel again. This time to the small country of Luxembourg! This country is so small and often overlooked by most travelers. Most people would think that a country as tiny as this wouldn't have much to offer. I wouldn't have thought of visiting this place either if not for some of the Singaporean exchange students who suggested that idea. But some things happened and they didn't choose to go ahead with the plan so I'm here with only one other guy. After being here for 3 days, I would say luxembourg may not have the grandest, most majestic scenery, but it has the friendliest locals, efficient and clean public transport system and just 5 minutes from the city you find yourself in the sweet countryside filled with green meadows, small rivers and quaint cottages. It's a lovely lovely sight to behold. My favorite parts are the bus rides, looking out the window and admiring the lovely scenery of the peaceful countryside. So so relaxing really. The reason I came to Luxembourg was just to get away from the city life to enjoy some quiet and relaxed time with nature and it certainly didn't let me down. 

Overall I would say it was a very pleasant and nice 2 days here in Luxembourg. 

Weather was perfect too! 

The town of vianden where we stayed for 2 nights

Hiking through the forest on the 2nd day

And I'm thankful I chose to travel together with someone. Initially I wasn't very receptive of the idea of traveling alone with a guy, let alone one whom I have known for only a short period of time. But I just agreed to let him come along since both of us wanted to do the same things. And I found out travelling is a different and interesting way to get to know another person. 

// There's so so soooo many things I wanna share with you guys, I swear. 

From meeting the group of Singaporean students and the international friends from Portugal, Greece, Sweden, New York, Korea during orientation to the BBQ that Gary organized at Ulmenweg where we met even more international friends from Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Lithuania, to the day trips out to Frankfurt and nearby towns like schwetzingen and Heidelberg on random days to celebrate birthdays/catch fireworks at night, to the partying and drinking culture in Germany (they have parties in schools almost every other alternate day it's crazy) to the dinner cooking sessions almost every other night at sum's place (almost everyday after lessons we are out in the city centre shopping for ingredients for our next meal), to meeting a girl I can clique with while on exchange and having her bunk in with me almost every other night to the 1 euro bowling game on Wednesday nights at the bowling centre just 15 minutes walk away from our residence with the international gang. 

School is never like school here. And this experience has been so refreshing and fulfilling and... I just don't want this carefree life to end.

I'm really enjoying the fact that you are surrounded by people from all over the world and you have the opportunity to meet new people everyday; at the supermarket, in the laundry room, etc. 

And it's interesting living in a country where the culture is so different. While I'm adjusting well to the life here (from remembering to bring my grocery bag every time I go out to the supermarket, to memorizing the bus timings so I wouldn't have to wait another half an hour or sometimes an hour for the next bus, to getting all my groceries on Saturdays cos all shops are closed on Sundays, to expecting bad service everywhere I go) I'm also beginning to appreciate Singapore for its efficiency and convenience. The locals here are generally more concerned for themselves and service standard is way worse than in Singapore. I will never forget that night when I met a really terrible bus driver that I couldn't help but curse and swear at him (inside). Oh and one thing that is so inconvenient here is that all the signs, instructions, packagings and labels are all in German you spend 3 times the amount of time shopping, searching high and low for something you need and translating the words on the packaging on your translator app to make sure it is what you are looking for. 

I won't be able to elaborate more or post more photos about the life in Mannheim cos' i'm actually supposed to be preparing for my intensive seminar class which starts tomorrow. It's gonna be a 6 hour seminar that will last for the whole week from Monday to Friday and it is graded by 50% class participation and 50% final exam which i would be taking on Friday afternoon. 

It's the first time I'll be actually be using my brain since may and I'm just hoping and praying badly that I can get through this week and that I won't fail my first exam on exchange. 

Miss you guys!  

Xoxo

Hsiaowoon 

A post about Belgium

Sorry i'm lazy to think of a more interesting title for this post hence the one above.

Anyway, i'm back in the warm and sunny (relatively) city of mannheim!
Ah, it feels so nice to be back! To a spacious room with strong wifi signal and a space to call my own.
It's a luxury really, after experiencing 2 weeks of nomadic life.

Since coming back, i've been settling a lot of living issues; buying groceries, home-ware, etc.
And since getting bitten by the couch bugs on my last night in Brugge, i've been very careful about what I sit and sleep on and have been extremely paranoid about hygiene and cleanliness.
I'm skeptical about the cleanliness about almost everything. Even the bed linen in my room.
I have the urge to send everything in my room to the laundry - pillow sheets, bed sheets, blanket cover, towels and all my clothes. I even mopped my room 2 days ago. Over the past 2 semesters I stayed in NTU hall, NOT ONCE have I mopped my room. But I can still feel dust under my feet... And i've stopped wearing fbts in the night, not because it is cold, but because I'm afraid of having any sort of body contact with the bed sheets; traumatized and scarred for life because of the nasty couch bug incident in Brugge. :(

Well back to the main topic of this post.

So I spent a total of 4 days and 5 nights in Belgium and visited 4 cities - Antwerp, Brussels, Brugge and Ghent. I had a good time overall, much because the Belgians are extremely friendly and helpful. I think I got approached more than 10 times by the locals to ask if I needed help with directions just because they saw me holding a map. They may not know how to speak english, but they would try their best to help. On several occasions they would even walk me to the destination that I was looking for even if it was out of their way. How not to love the Belgians already??? I realized, people really do make a lot of difference in determining how pleasant your stay will be.

My first stop was Antwerp - a less-visited city in Belgium, but no less interesting.
My first impressions of Antwerp upon first glance of its streets and people were - backward, disorderly. And was shocked to notice that there were very few Caucasians. At least less than what I had expected. Being in a European country, you would expect the streets to be flooded with white-skinned angmohs. However, as I was walking for 20-30 minutes from the main train station to the backpackers hostel, I passed by Jews with their uncut sideburns, Africans, and a lot a lot of Arab-looking people. Later I found out that the Arab-looking people were mostly Moroccans. And that there were incredibly large Jewish, Tibetan, Portuguese, African and Moroccan communities living in Antwerp. Well in fact, Antwerp is actually the 2nd most international city in the whole world with 174 nationalities. I had further observed this myself when I went on an "around the world in 2 hours" tour the next day.

Well, Antwerp's city centre was full of gothic cathedrals and what nots but I was more interested in taking a look at the local culture so was happy to visit 2 local weekday markets when I was there! One was more of a farmer's market with a lot of food stalls while the other was a flea market outside the city centre where families set up stalls to sell their stuff from home!  

Passed by a local weekday market. This was just one out of the many stalls selling food. 

But there were heaps of people outside the Moroccan food stall and you should know why; everyone loves free food. 

My first Belgian waffle!

I came across a skatepark on my walk outside the main city centre. 

Maybe because I've never really been to one in Singapore before but it was quite an eye opening experience for me. I've never seen with my own eyes children playing in a skatepark. 

Just like any other playground in Singapore. Kids and teenagers will come here with their scooters, skateboards, bicycles and take turns to ride back and forth up and down the curved walls. 

It was quite cool really. 

Exploring outside the main city centre 

After 2 nights in Antwerp, I was off to Brugge.
On my way, I stopped over at Brussels for 6 hours to take a brief look around the city center. Unlike Antwerp, Brussels was extremely crowded with tourists. And it was in Brussels which I heard the Singaporean accent for the first time in 2 weeks!

Crowded streets.

I was puzzled by the long queue of people queuing up just for friesssss. Later I found out that this was actually a very famous fries shop in Brussels and while walking on the streets with the cone of fries in my hand, other tourists came up to me to ask me for directions to the fries shop!

Queued up 30 minutes for this cone of fries, but worth it.

Really great busking.

I was expecting a 1000x taller and larger statue and was severely underwhelmed when I found the "Manneken Pis" - the famous iconic bronze "statue" in Brussels. Found it amusing that it was crowded with tourists fighting to take a shot with a puny little boy peeing. But I guess it's somewhat like a mandatory thing if you're in Brussels? It's like how you have to take a shot with the Eiffel tower if you're in paris... or not.

Either way, it was fun finding my way to this tiny little man. :-)

1 euro waffles beside the Manneken Pis!

Photos of Brugge - a perfectly preserved and incredibly beautiful medieval city/town.
Sorry I'm just gonna spam photos because I can't make up my mind which is nicer haha.
Everyone who comes to Belgium MUST VISIT THIS CITY.
Though it was here in the hostel bar where I got bitten by nasty couch bugs all over my body and it still itches (6 days later) while i'm typing this.

Been wanting to spend a day cycling through farmlands and exploring the countryside since I was in netherlands, so I was really delighted when I saw a "brugge to damme" cycling route on the brochure.

But the weather wasn't too cooperative that morning and I was caught in the rain shortly after taking this photo. :(

City view taken from the Belfry.

I made a day trip (or rather 4 hour trip) out to the city of Ghent which was a 15-minute train ride away from Brugge. Ghent is like a mix of Brugge and Antwerp. Less touristy. One of the more memorable parts was getting a 1 euro sandwich (yes, 1 freakin euro) and sitting on one of the cobblestones by the riverside under the warm afternoon sun, people-watching. It was such a relaxed atmosphere; locals strolling and sitting by the river, chatting, laughing, drinking their coffee, walking their dogs.

Ok this concludes my time in Belgium!

Post again soon!

xoxo,
Hsiao Woon