The end is only the start of something new

And in this case, a new blog among other things, or rather I've reset an old blog of mine and I'm going to start using it instead.

So ladies, gentleman and all of you in between, please update your feed-readers and bookmarks with http://quantumfluxuation.blogspot.com instead.

Peace out.

Going home

I've said my goodbyes now, the last weeks I've had a few farewell dinners and met with my non-Swedish friends a last time for what will probably be a pretty long time.

Today I spent the day enjoying Singapore. After checking in to a hostel for the last night I took a walk to Tekka Centre for some garlic naan, butter chicken and ice teh tarik. To be honest, the best thing about Singapore is probably the food; the diversity, the mixes and everything available everywhere (more or less and with varying quality of course).

I then went to National Museum of Singapore where I spent my afternoon, they some really good exhibitions, especially their permanent exhibition on the history of Singapore. Quite nice indeed!

They had a small exhibition on Singaporean food and different kinds of spices and ingredients commonly used here in Singapore.

They also had some cool semi-synchronized chandelier pendulums that drifted in and out of phase.

I then made my way down to Marina Bay where I hung out for a while and then caught the 20.00 showing of the Marina Bay water and light show.

The light show was really cool when you sat in the intended place and really saw the show up close.

I then finished off the day with some persian shawarma in the Arab quarters. 

And it's kind of hard to understand but tomorrow I'm leaving Singapore, indefinitely!

The first of the last

I've gotten to my "the last" period here in Singapore, okay, it's already been going on in some extent but you start to feel it more now with just under 2 weeks left. I had my last Xingyi training yesterday, it's been real fun to learn more internal martial arts, it feels like you are learning how the body works, both your own but also others and how you can use it even more effectively. In short, it's been great!

Last Sunday I had decided to have a study free day and I felt like getting out so I went walking around Bukit Timah Reserve and the MacRitchie Reservoir Park, I've been to MacRitchie before but I never walked around it.

Bukit Timah contains Singapores highest natural point at an impressive (like in impressively low) 163.63 m.

And in MacRitchie you have a lot of monkeys, unfortunately there is also a lot of other primates that doesn't seem to able to take care of their trash...

MacRitchie also contains a tree-top walk, I kind of hoped for a better view but it was a nice experience anyway. 

Oh yeah, maybe a month ago I injured my leg while training and after a deep tissue massage I got a rather impressive bruise. I took a picture of it but forgot to upload it earlier. I was limping for a week or something but I'm fine now and it's starting to become flexible again, feels a bit funny since I've been able to stretch the other leg it feels weirdly more flexible than the one which got the injury.

Cheers!

Procrastinate

Procrastinate: /prə(ʊ)ˈkrastɪneɪt/ v. Delay or postpone action; put off doing something.

Raisin: /ˈreɪz(ə)n/ n. A partially dried grape.

So I think I'm going to stop studying for today and go to Chinatown instead, tonight is probably my last Tuesday training here in Singapore!

India Part 2

Okay, probably too late but I feel that I should finish it anyway. Here is the conclusion of my trip to India, several months late.

So we went to Varanasi, Per was more or less sleeping the whole way and after first being 2 hours late to the station the train ended up around 9 hours late, compared to the trip which was supposed to take 8 hours...

Then we got to Varanasi, the holy city where everything is dirty, where are people selling drugs everywhere and people take care of their needs, spread ashes from the dead and clean in the same water; the Ganges. But Varanasi is a very emotional city with a lot of feeling.

Per managed to get well in Varanasi and after a few days in Varanasi we boarded the train to Mumbai; the largest city in India. The train took us from east India all the way to the west coast, a train ride that was supposed to take around 24 h, we got there 5 minutes late! I must say that the Indian railway company kind of impressed me there.

In short, downtown Mumbai is beautiful with almost everything being huge colonial buildings. Mumbai was a really nice break from Varanasi and the much more rural areas in the north.

Ice-cream!

Managed to pierce my pants trying to do cool aerial maneuvers...

Mumbai is one of the few places where cabs are the standard instead of tuk-tuks.

Per and I was jumped by some Indians that insisted on putting red dots on our foreheads and giving us bracelets, at first they didn't want any money for it but after putting it on they of course wanted money...

Dhobi Ghat, huge laundry area in Mumbai.

We did not spend a lot of time in Mumbai and our next destination was Goa, where we would finally have a few days off and just relax.

Don't have much pictures from there, we hung out on the beach, I did some shopping in huge flea market and we just relaxed in general. I think this pictures describes Goa pretty well, it's the place where even the cows go to hang out on the beach.

After Goa we where going to fly to Bangalore, our last stop in India, unfortunately I had managed to book a flight that instead of taking us directly to Bangalore from Goa went to Puna and Hyderabad in between (it was cheaper at the time I booked it and I didn't see the extra landings). So our 1 hour flight ended up as a 4 hours flight, but I did manage to book with the better airline Air India which gave us a complimentary meal/snack between each landing. 

But we eventually got to Bangalore, and the chock coming to and going from the airport, had we gone to Europe? Everything was so new and well-maintained, it didn't last completely though. The Indian standard started showing more and more when we came into the city but Bangalore turned out to be a much more modern (and richer) city than the one's we've visited before (okay, maybe Mumbai is nicer ). This is mainly due to Bangalore being the IT-capitol of India with a ton of companies being located there.

But Bangalore didn't have much to do except shopping and hanging out, we met up with Per's sister and her family which we spent some time with but one day we dedicated for going to Mysore.

Mysore is the home of the Maharajah of one of the southern provinces and they have a huge palace there that we wanted to see! 

Also visited a train museum.

And the summer palace, located just outside of Mysore. There was a lot of curious school kids there! 

And last, before going back to Bangalore, we went to Brindavan Gardens. A beautiful garden located just below a dam, it is allegedly one of the favorite spots for recording Bollywood-movie dance scenes. 

And after everything the last weeks, this was very nice.

The day after, Hallvard and I went to airport and flew back home to Scandinavia, Per stayed a few more days with his sister. This concludes my journey in India, I've skipped a lot of details but I must say that India is a wonderful country, the food is amazing, the people (who are not trying to make money out of you) are really friendly and the general feeling is really incredible. India is another world, go there!

The end is near!

Starting to feel that the semester is coming to an end, I'm starting to get that feeling of a summer calm that you usually comes over you at the end of the spring semester. A bit weird though since it's summer all year around here but I guess it might be my internal clock as well.

Had my last official Wushu-training in NTU last week and got some pictures. Thanks to Lim Jiahe for taking the pictures and editing and thank you NTU Wushu for this academic year, I've learned a ton of things and I've had lots fun doing it!

The brave men (and woman) who showed up for the last official training.

Next week is the last week of classes and after that it's just exam period left, I'm also starting to plan for the future, applying for the next semesters courses, eagerly waiting for replies regarding summer jobs and also making some plans for what to do when I'm free this summer. Exciting times!

Live long and prosper!

ONE FC

Last night I went to the MMA event ONE FC here in Singapore together with Hampus, Elsa and Lina. I watch UFC sometimes but nothing compares to seeing MMA live! The people, the music and the fights creates an incredible atmosphere. Cheering and screaming we had an awesome night!

And because I feel like it, here are some complimentary pictures totally unrelated to the title of the blog post.

Tornado potato!

And here is for you sis', ION Orchard, dad accidentally got semi-covered and I believe mom is behind him. But they were there anyway :)

Visitors from far, far away

Last week my beloved parents flew around the globe to come visit me here in Singapore. A week with a lot sights, relaxing and eating, not to mention a lot of walking. This also gave me the opportunity of doing some of the more touristy things that I hadn't done yet.

Botanic Gardens, National Orchid Garden, Singapore flyer, Raffles Hotel (and a really overpriced Singapore Sling at the Long bar), Jurong Birdpark, Sentosa, and of course touring through the different districts like Chinatown, Little India (which kind of chocked mom and dad due to all the people), Orchard, Marina Bay, Arab District and of course my neighborhood in Chinese Garden and NTU.

One of the funny things I noticed was that the food they appreciated more seemed to be the food that I am beginning to consider dull and bland, but they had an open mind and tried a lot of new things, kudos! I also got to try some new things a for example chili crab, but I can't say that it's worth it, it's good but compared to all the other good food you can get in Singapore it's no way near being worth the money.

Haven't you heard about the word?

Outside the Lee Wee Nam library on campus, the covered walkway and tables under left was actually a pretty common Skype-location for me last semester.

We also had lunch together with Shifu, Dim Sum in Chinatown!

All in all, a lot of the things you're "supposed" to do as a tourist in Singapore isn't really worth the money but having your parents come visit you is great and I also realized when they where here that I'm going home pretty soon, it's only 37 days left now actually!

Thank you mom and dad for visiting me and I hope you had as great of a time as I did!

Hong Kong

So last week was recess week, took  the first few days to finish up on some school assignments (read electrodynamics) and other things that had to be done before taking a break.

But on Wednesday it was time for a well earned break and I went to Hong Kong to spend the remaining week! So I think the picture that most people have of Hong Kong is this intense crowded, billboard filled city with illegal copies everywhere. The whole city isn't really like that but our hostel was located in the middle of the area that I believe gives Hong Kong its image; Mong Kok. Streets filled with electronics shops, a big market full (called Ladies Market) filled with trinkets, accessories and tons of things (and everything is of course knock-offs).

My travelling companion was Lingling, a Chinese girl that studies at NTU. She has lived in Hong Kong so she was kind of my local guide, I did however have to do most of the planning myself but it was good to have someone with you who spoke Cantonese. Almost everyone became a lot more happy and friendly when they could speak Cantonese instead of English. I didn't practice that much Mandarin either since it is considered just as "bad" as English.

The first day we actually went outside of the city to a monastery located on an island outside of town (Hong Kong more or less consists of a bunch of islands). There they have a huge sitting Buddha that I had heard was worth going to. So we got there and it was pretty cool place. Me and Lingling below.

The monastery is surrounded by by green mountains with clouds rolling over them creating a really beautiful scenery.

In the evening we went to Victoria Peak which is supposed to have a really amazing view over Hong Kong's skyline, when we got there was so much fog that you could barely see 30 m so we stood in line for half an hour to get on a tram to take us down again. Up there I did however find this rather peculiar sign...

Once down we took a walk in the more central city which has some really cool buildings.

 The next day we went to Ocean Park, Lingling top priority place to visit. Ocean Park is like a mix of a zoo and a theme park, I'm personally not that big of a fan when it comes to roller coasters and it's likes so it was actually a really nice experience.

View from the cable car, the park was divided into two parts on two sides of a mountain and to travel between the two you either took the cable car or a train through the mountain.

We went to see a dolphin show and found this kid who had found the most awesome use for the plastic cover of the water bottles.

They also have two pandas at the park, it was my first time seeing pandas in real life, really cool animals.

This one was all like "If I put these leaves in front of me maybe they won't see me". (Okay actually he was just sitting in a big pile of leaves eating, kind of like sitting in the middle of a plate filled with food and eating it).

But most amazing of all was probably the two firefoxes they had (aka red pandas). It was probably the cutest animal I've ever seen, it's like a cat and a bear at the same time and bears are awesome and I really love cats so these are like the perfect combination.

They also had a huge aquarium, the kind you can walk through and there was a lot of extraordinary fishes and creatures there like octopuses, sharks, stingrays, seahorses, lionfish and a lot more. It was a bit dark so it was hard to get good pictures but just to give you a taste:

In the evening Lingling ditched me at Hong Kong central to go meet her cousin and I went to Soho, where they have (except like a ton of chic bars, restaurants, shops and galleries) the worlds longest "system of outdoor covered escalators". So basically in the middle of the city you have like a one kilometer of escalators tracing its way up the mountain and kind of in the middle is Soho. It was a bit late so there wasn't that many shops open but a lot of bars and restaurants and I found a place with really nice kebab (don't worry, I had a lot of different Chinese food as well). I then walked around the area which has a really nice atmosphere.

The next day we decided to focus more on the city and we started out by going to Times Square, where we had conveyor belt sushi (it's really hard to choose what to pick when sitting there) and then from there we walked around the central city which was more or less packed with people.

I was forced into IKEA..

We took a walk along the "Avenue of Stars" which is a promenade along Victoria Harbour which is filled with the hand imprints of famous Chinese actors.

And of course, there is one who even gets a statue.

In the evening we had hot pot together with Linglings cousin, hot pot is lika a big bowl of bullion/water that you cook your food in directly at the table, like vegetables, thin slices of meat, seafood, noodles etc...

Early the next day we left for the airport and went back to Singapore to get ready for a new week in school!