along the coasts: malmö and dublin

dublin day 1 (22 apr 2006)
this is the last of my trips before my exams. and I was ‘nicely’ entertained by our ‘exciting’ flight on ryanair, the budget of the budget airlines. the pilot must be a signals engineer that favors the transmission of ‘step-wise functions’. our plane took off and landed that way.
upon arrival at dublin, we ‘cheonged’ to guinness brewery, trying to beat its closing time. well, as experienced travellers, of course we made it. in the evening we went to the temple bar area and met up with fred, edelene and huiting. temple bar is a place with many irish pubs, all with their own rich irish essence. we loitered around in the area, watching the people dressed in weird costumes as they visit the pubs as night set upon the city.

dublin day 2 (23 apr 2006)
we originally wanted to take a tour to wicklow, which is a county outside of dublin. but sadly the tour buses were all full. thus, we settled for visiting dublin city itself and dalkey, a rich-man residential area near the coast of ireland.
dublin has few attractions. one of which is trinity college. the trinity college library is where the book of kells (the most lavishly decorated book of the old testament) is. being fervant christians or catholics, we (abel, andrew and i) attended service at the trinity college church. after that, yh, sy and andrew decided to enter the library to take a look at the book so that they can gain ‘manna’, while abel, mervyn and i opted to go to the dublin castle and st. stephan’s greens. we ended up picnicking and sleeping on the grass among the flowers in the park just like the locals. it was too good a weather to be missed for sitting in the sun while enjoying the cool breeze of spring. and of course shopaholics like me was happy to stroll along the crowded grafon street. in the late evening, we had a photo-shoot session at the coast of dalkey, not forgetting the fun we had at rock climbing. we returned to dublin for a delicious irish stew in an authentic irish pub. they play great irish music that put the locals on the hopping onto the dancefloor!

dublin, malmö day 3 (24 apr 2006)
we took a ryanair back to malmö. i tried to do some shopping but ended up sightseeing. we visited a windmill in one of its parks, saw the turning torso (a twisted building), found the bridge linking denmark and sweden and saw sunset at the malmö beach. a swede told us that malmö is one of the best places in the world to see the sunset, because it has an untainted horison. he is absolutely right.

united scandinavia in oslo and bergen

oslo day 1 (12 apr 2006)
after one day of rest, i’m onto another trip this easter. i was heading for norway. this trip is interesting because of the people i was travelling with. we are all scandinavians. all of us met in our accomodation. and the people involved in this norway trip are as follows:
from denmark: songning, emmy and myself
from sweden: william, sharmaine, sharon and grace
from finland: mervyn, amy and jenny
after a brief get-to-know-each-other session, we headed in different ways. i joined sharmaine, sharon, amy and jenny to vigelandparken to see the monolith. it is an interesting display of nude sculptures in the park.
we also visited the national gallery to see edvard munch’s “the scream” and auguste rodin’s “the thinker”. we had a nice rest at night in our nicely furnished hostel. we had two connected rooms to ourselves, one fridge and two tv sets!

bergen day 2 (13 apr 2006)
we headed for bergen today. the whole day is spent on train rides among the beautiful fjords. our itinerary is: oslo > mydral > flåm > voss > bergen, train all the way except for flåm to voss.

bergen day 3 (14 apr 2006)
in bergen, we took the fløyen rail up to the top of a mountain and trekked down. we orginally wanted to visit the fish market to get fresh salmon, but alas it was closed due to the easter holidays.
in the late afternoon, we took a train back to oslo.

oslo day 4 (15 apr 2006)
with our spare time in oslo (it is a pretty boring city), we went to the folkmuseum on ygdøy island by bus and then back by ferry. we also visited the akershus slott, which is an old fortress. the olympic ski jump which we later visited was kind of abandoned. but we had fun entertaining ourselves by walking down the steep steps of the ski jump stadium.

oslo day 5 (16 apr 2006)
on our final day, we went to the slottet (palace) in the national theatre area and the bade farwell to norway in the afternoon.

once a refugee, always a refugee: exciting london

my trip to london started and ended pretty much the same way, reconfirming my refugee status. weariness, desperation and helplessness aptly describe those difficult days. listen to my toils and turmoils...

lyngby day 1 (7 apr 06)
we're leaving for london this evening. it was a very rushed trip for me, especially having done very little last minute research and packing. so today after class i headed to the databar to print out the london tube maps and city maps, and how to get from victoria train station to ys' fren's place who i'll be crashing at for one night. i returned to campus village after being pretty pleased with my research, only to find out that our dear ys wasn't flying with us tonight! he booked his flight wrongly and he'll fly the following day. and that reads: no place for me to stay tonight. at this moment, i have two alternatives. one is to crash at andrew's and abel's hostel and risk the possibility of being thrown out late at night. two is to stay in stansted airport for one night.
i chose the latter.

london day 2 (8 apr 06)
it was already about 2am when yh, sy, lc and their two female companions on their car trip left. the whole airport was filled with people sleeping on chairs and the floor. so i stationed myself in a cafe in stansted airport with one cup of tea which costs £1.40. i didn't really quite feel a pinch in my pocket, coz i had £100 with me. i sat there until 4am, and took the 4.40am national express bus to victoria station. the whole bus had only two passengers, so the £10 i paid was pretty worth it.
and so, i didn't sleep on my first night in london.
the day really began not from waking up to the chirping birds but from the boarding of the bus of the stonehenge tour. we were going to visit sarisburia. the first destination of sarisburia is old sarum castle. the castle was left only as ruins, but the surrounding scenery was so serene that i wanted so much to start rolling on the grass. haha. it was first occupied over 5000 years ago, and it has been occupied and defended by the romans, saxons and normans. but due to conflict, lack of water and overcrowding, salisbury was formed as an alternative to the city of old sarum.

after that, we visited the cathedral of old salisbury.
our lunch was splendidly provided as part of the tour in a traditional country pub. there were many lunch menus to choose from, and i took the buffet lunch. i had beef, potatoes, vege, etc. nice and filling.
we embarked on our journey to the highlight of our tour, the stonehenge. the famous heel stone was erected back in 3100b.c. and almost 6 centuries later people were still building it. on the mystical side, one can imagine the ancient order of druids performing their sacred rities at the megalithic ruin.
then at the countryside of avebury, we explored the stone circle constructed by the neolithic man.

the stonehenge tour was good for its peaceful greenery and i enjoyed it particularly after the long white winter in denmark.
after the tour, we decided to visit more attractions while we're still energetic. making good use of our london tube day pass, we went to the trafalgar square, 10 downing street and the westminister abbey. 10 downing street the official residence of the prime minister. from what i saw, it is just a normal street between two buildings, and at the end of the street there is a gate that 'encages' the residents who walk down the street. and tourists stand outside this cage, watching the prominent people of the state parade towards them.
i especially like the westminister abbey coz it looks enchantic and harry-potterish.
we later visited the big ben, which is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. the name 'big ben' actually refers not to the clock tower itself, but to the bell hung within it. thus, we manage to not only see the big ben but hear its chimes.
and before the sky dusked, we caught the london eye 'looking' right in front of us! the spokes of the famous ferris wheel is really quite an architecture beauty.
then at night, we met up with siew shin and he took us to his hall. very nice of him to offer us free accomodation for our nights in london and even nicer to meet up and gossip with him! haha. we had nice bedtime catch-up sessions to conclude the night...

london day 3 (9 apr 06)
the shopping enthusiasts shortly found themselves along oxford street. so many things to look at, so many things to buy, but so little money and time. sigh. we however decided to invest part of our pounds in the musical les misérables. the tickets were bought at the the booths in leicester square, the centre of cinema and entertainment in london. we got the £15.75 tickets for the lousiest seats.
we later went to hyde park and st. james park. the famous hyde park speaker's corner was quite a sight. we had a few speakers for the day, the most interesting being this black guy preaching christianity. he seem to be a church pastor and is talking avidly about the truths of christianity. the exciting part was that his audience had a muslim crowd and there is one particular muslim who was extremely vocal in the christian-muslim diatribe. they were shooting questions at each other but generally none of them were answering to anything. the audience were also discussing among themselves. there was also this young boy in the crowd speaking fervently about christianity.
we moved on from one scenic park to another. at st. james park we visited the buckingham palace, the official residence of the queen. it is pretty dull looking as compared to the colorful surrounding park. hmm maybe the queen should come out to wave more often.
in the evening we had another kfc dinner at piccadilly circus. monopoly anyone?

london day 4 (10 apr 06)
there were many highlights for today. two of them were the london bridge and tower bridge. both bridges cross over river thames, but the tower bridge is the prettier one although the london bridge is more famous due to the nursery rhyme. other attractions along river thames are shakespeare globe theatre, tate modern, city hall and the tower of london.
we then went to harrods in knightsbridge, the acclaimed world's most famous department store. siew shin told me that the brunei prince called them up to buy an elephant and they actually managed to get him one! harrods has over 300 departments and a celebrated food section. i got my harrods english breakfast tea there.
afterwhich, we visited the british museum and chinatown. in the evening, we arrived at queen’s theatre for les misérables. the play was fantastic. the cast had great voices, the storyline was touching and the play was very well directed. it was a grand performance indeed!
after the play, we returned to siew shin’s place to collect our luggages so that we can stay over at victoria train station and leave on the early morning’s bus towards stansted airport. our nightmare began when we reached victoria train station. we first went to the coach station to check out the coach timings and then tried to find a place in victoria train station to sleep at. BUT it was really too cold to sleep there. thus we moved back to victoria coach station, only to find it closed for cleaning for the night. we carried all our luggages back to the train station, sat around for a while, until we were chased out by the security because they were also going to close the train station! what a tragedy! *sobz*
finally i decided that we should just pay an additional £10 to take the next coach straight to stansted airport. it was a relief to see the brightly lit airport crowded with ‘fellow refugees’ sleeping over. the night was short and i took a flight back to copenhagen by myself.
next trip: norway, coming up in one day.