something decent-looking i whipped up, with some help of instant tomato soup, topped with toasted bread and broccoli, one of my least favourite vegetables back in singapore but is probably the only vegetable available here next to salad which i've grown to like fortunately.
i'm rather easygoing with food, especially when i'm cooking it myself (i prob wouldn't say the same if i'm back home and my mom was cooking), so normally i'll fix myself pasta (aglio olio style with lots of garlic and onions or simply tossed with cheese), instant food such as rice/soups/noodles or just cereal but i really enjoy what i eat even though they're nothing fantabulous. i hardly eat meat at home because one, i don't like ham that much and that's the easiest meat to cook; two, bacon expires fast and i don't like eating the same food for the whole week; three, bratwurst and chicken seems a real hassle to cook, especially if you're eating on your own so i usually get my protein from eggs (sunnysides!), lots of milk and yoghurt.
you would think that with the kind of food i'm eating i should have no prob shedding some weight over here, but accompanying the fuss-free diet are the after-meal snacks like biscuits, chips and chocolates which i have perpetually stocked in my room :)

proof i'm not just here for all play and no work, this is my information technology class celebrating the end of the examination; even the professor joins in with a bottle of beer!
the fhj education system is pretty similar to smu's, with active participation and project work. i'm glad i came two weeks before the exchange semester to attend the class (which was only 0.5 smu credit btw) where i got to work with the local students who also made an effort to involve us in their activities (i.e. partying, that's what they do best lol!) it was real coincidental that four of them are coming to smu for exchange next semester; i'm thrilled to be able to play host to them then!

this is bad radkersberg where we went for our first thermal bath, a typical austrian activity in winter. it was a great day to walk the suburbs cos the weather was great, there was the sun and the sky was clear. the highlight of the day had to be the shock we received when we entered the sauna. people, both man and woman and mostly old, were walking around stark naked. of course, we weren't comfortable enough to do what the romans did so we went in with towels wrapped around our swimwear and tried not to stare lol. what an experience!

you can see these old school candies vending machines at almost all the tram/bus stops in graz. however, it seems like no one ever buys from them?
maybe one day i'll give it a try.

another paradise just an hour away from bled. you never thought slovenia would be this beautiful; every photo we took was postcard worthy.
enough of words for now, let the photo do the talking :)

this is one of my favourite shots taken in bled. i LOVE the contrast of the medieval castle atop the cliff against the alphine mountains in the background, with the tranquil lake beneath it's totally beautiful!
bled has got to be the most beautiful place i've been to in europe thus far! it's a quaint and peaceful town with lots of greens and a huge lake. it feels really surreal to be walking by the lake at any time of the day (wei, it's a great dating spot too!) spring would be a great time to visit the place because the weather's warmer and the vegetation will start flourishing it'll only get more beautiful!

presented this commercial during marketing class today as part of a project on the advertising scene in singapore. it's one of my favourite advertisements on the singapore tv; never fails to give me a good laugh each time i hear THE line come up LOL! yeah i do cringe when i hear it but i think it's also quite real, no? that's not to say i'll do it too of course!

this had to be the most interesting thing i saw in ljubljana (though i later learnt from my flatmate that horse meat is available in italy, and probably other parts of europe, too). i'm not so adventurous when it comes to food and i thought it cruel to eat horses (but not chickens and pigs, i know) so i stuck to having my normal chicken kebap. anyhow a friend tried the horse burger and said there was not much taste to it so not much of a loss there.
as a capital which claims itself as the place "kjer se srecuje vsa euvropa" (where all of europe meets), ljubljana was really boring. it rained when we got there on the first day so we had to seek shelter before continuing our tour. even then, we managed to cover the main sights in the city centre within a few hours and then there was nothing much to do at night.

this is one of the stalls at the weekend portobello market in london. it was a really huge market an hour was barely sufficient for speed window shopping. real vintage accessories, antiques as well as woman's clothings are sold at the market but the prices weren't that cheap by singapore terms. an interesting sight along the way was this stall selling really, really cheap food products such as biscuits and chocolates only that i found out later the foods were either expired or expiring the next day! in case anyone was wondering, no portobello and cheese sandwich was found along the way.

"no visit to bath is complete without a trip to the oldest house in bath", so they say.
after visiting the traditional roman baths, we had tea at sally lunns's refreshment house which is home to the world famous sally lunn buns (charles dickenson was a huge fan). fluffy sweet bread which was not all that exceptional, but the house special clotted cream (forget about the fats for a moment!) and quaint setting made it a great experience.
while most people think of bath as a really lovely place, i regret that i dint have enough time to explore the area to share the same sentiment.

i gotta confess that i used to mix up stonehenge and the moai statues of easter island for the fact that they are all stones lol!
one wld think that given the technology we have today, buildings can be made even more extravagant and magnificent-looking than before but i think what's mesmerizing about these sites is more than just the architecture but the story and mystery behind them.
i took a whole load of photos of the same stones while freezing against the strong gusts of chilling wind. thought this photo has quite a nice polariod touch to it :)

to be honest, i knew nothing about the building before i came but being a typical singaporean tourist, camwhoring is a must!
there were many places to tour around in london five days was hardly enough. however i must say that the capital fell short of my expectations. big city no doubt, with a cosmopolitan mix of people from all around the world, i found it a tad complicated and too gloomy (probably cos it's winter) for my liking. it's worth going back though for the shopping is awesome!

little boy dressed up as pikachu during fasching (germans' version of madi gras) in graz. hundreds of people, both the young as well as the old, gathered at the city centre in the afternoon, dressed up as fanciful characters, for the costume parade, which is akin to singapore's chingay. the carnival continued into the night on the streets with lots of booze and music. it was quite an experience participating in a carnival for a first time, what's more in the cold winter!