DONE!

school is finaly over for this semester. did the last exam today. now its only fun and games left.

we have already started the night with a pre-pre party. going to take a shower now, then going to the pre-party.

on monday im off to bali for one week. after that im going to cambodja, vietnam, laos and thailand.

later/martin

one down...

... three more to go.

did my first exam today. it didn't go great, but i think it went good enough.

now it's only three more i have to pass..

soon

it will all be over in a couple of weeks. only the exams needs to be written. i have my first tomorrow. service marketing. im looking at a old exam just now. i think i will pass this exam. no problems. after tomorrow it is three more. after that, holiday.

also next week my family, or some of it, is comeing to visit. i will be nice

by the way, it turned out that i was not a very good fisherman. too bad.

later/martin

gone fishing

i woke up today from a text message from a guy in my class. a local. he wondred if i wanted to come prawn fishing with him and his frends tonight... offcourse i want to. so im going fishing tonight.

i don't know if i have mentioned this before but last week i attended a sushi making course. and now prawn fishing... im gonna come home home with a bunch of new skills.. who knows, i might have my own sushi restaurant some time in the future or become a fisherman... problably not.

but its going to be fun tonight anyways, looking forward to it.

roger över, roger ut.

bad me

hmm, i see that my last post here was about how we had half time of the semester. i think that was some 5 weeks ago. since then i've been studying, wakeboarding, partying, in-line hockeying, eating at a 5 star restaurant and sleeping.

when i woke up this morning i realised how much i like sleeping. i think it should be my proffesion when i grow up. if i ever grow up.

today i have my 3 last presentation in school. im not sure how it is going to turn out. but it usualy go ok. after today i have a report due thursday, presentation and report due next monday, presentation tuesday and opposition on a report thursday. after that, no more... that is not all true. after that i have 4 exams. but thats ok. i have 3 weeks to study for them.

time flies here. i have mixed emotions about that. until now i've loved the fact that weeks pass like days. but now, when getting closer to the end i'm not sure if i like it that much. it all will be over in a couple of weeks. some of the people i have met here i'll probably never meet again. that is a bit sad. some of the people i've met here i will for sure meet again.

anyways, i need to prepare for my presentation now. until next time/martin

thailand and F1

here is the short version of my weeks break.

bangkok-pattaya-bangkok-singapore-formula 1. bangkok good. pattaya bad. formula 1 awsome.

ok, im gonna give you a little more then that. first stop of my trip was bangkok, where i met up with my old friend andreas. he is an exchange student there and he showed us around and gave us tips. thank you andreas. most of the time in bangkok were spend shopping. this is what i came over:

1 smoking (tailor made)

1 suit (tailor made)

7 shirts (tailor made)

2 pairs of sneakers

1 hat

6 t-shirts

1 pair of glasses

4 boxers

i'll problaby forgot something. it was a good shopping town. we also went to a skybar in bankok. it was on the 64th floor, had a outside bar and a jazz band. that was really nice. a little scary. but nice. oh and not to forget, massage and pedikure.

pattaya was... i don't know what to say... i guess its true what the t-shirts said: "good guys go to heaven, bad guys go to pattaya". however, we got to spend two days at the beach and shoot a 9 mm gun. so i won't complane to mutch.

when we got back to singapore it was time for the singapore grand prix. people here has been talking about it since i got here. the first f1 night race ever. and i was a part of it. it was cool hearing the cars and feeling it in the whole body as the past you in a speed of 300 km/h.

now it's back to school at full speed. presentation today, thursday. papper due thursday and so on... no woriies im hanging in there. it's just half a semester left.

Im back.

i got back to singapore last night. done some school today and now im of to the formula 1 race.

just heard the thunder. might be a wet race. better buy a umbrella.

i'll be back with more from my break and the race soon.

Recess week!

ok, so apperently half the semester has passed. hmm, thats fast. but anyways, to celebrate half time we get a one week break... or we are supposed to get it. but my professor decided to put in a extra lecture this week. im not gonna show up for that lecture. i'll be in thailand by then.

it is only the exchange students that see this week as a break, i've noticed. the locals sees it as a week to study. well, thats their choise. im gonna have a break.

i have just finished my part of a report we have to hand in right after the break and now i only have one lecture left before im free for a whole week. nice. my plan is to spend a couple of days in bangkok, where im gonna have some clothes made by a taylor. im also gonna meet up with a old friend of mine, from my days in the military, who studies there. that sounds cool. like i acctualy worked in the military. i might even wisit the dentist and fix a tooth. after bangkok im off to a beach somwhere. maybe kho samet... i don't know if that spelling was corect, but the important part was the BEACH!!!

so, you'll problaby won't hear from me on this blog for a while. when i come back i have crap loads of school to do. but i promise that i will eventualy post something about my trip.

...

so, another week without a single interesting post on this blog... i don't know what to say for my defence. i guess i'm just lazy.

what happed in singapore this week you might wonder? let me tell you. not mutch. sorry to dissapoint you. or, well, wednesday happed. the anual MRT pub crawl went down. basicly it was 520 students, all wearing orange t-shirts, going on the train getting of for beer at 4 stations and then going to a club. it seemed all singapore were wearing orange that night. people that saw us must have been wondering what prisson that all the convicts ascaped from. anyways, it was a good night. i had lots of fun.

now it's only a week left to the mid-term break. tickets are booked to bankok on friday night. from there we will go somewhere to lie on the beach and enjoy life. it'll be sooo good. i really need a break from school. one week without studying. nice. i'll come back on saturday, because on sunday it is the singapore gran prix. formula 1.

i'll try to post something fun for all you out there to read while im gone. i have five days to figure something out.

oh, by the way, i spent the weekend trying to study, but not being able to untill sunday afternoon. but i'm done now and ready to go to bed.

good night and take care/martin

Redang!

last thursday me and 6 of my homeboys set off on a trip to Redang, Malaysia. it was Daniel's birthday-trip. it started with a 9 hour bus trip to Merang, in the far north of malaysia. due to seat availibility we had to divide our group into two busses. me and one more went on a separate bus. the better bus it turned out. we arrived on time and started asking around for a ATM. we didn't have a singel ringgit from before. we found out that there was one 2 km up the street. fine. we'll just wait for our friends arriving on another bus we told the taxi driver.. he laughed at us. and told us that their bus had broken down on the way here. they are delayed for three hours.

so, we set of for the ATM without them. it turned out that it was out of service. the closest other ATM was 1 hour drive away. we had no choise but to ask him to drive us there. they drive like crazy in malaysia. and there are no seat belts in the backseat. i'm glad i came home in one pice. anyways, we knew that none of the others had any ringgits eather. so we emted our accounts.

when we came back from the car-ride from hell. we found a nice man that knew where our resarvation were and told us that the boat will depart as soon as our friends arrive. when we got on the boat it turned out to be dave chappel that was the driver. cool. maybe he has retired from being a comedian.

when we finnaly arrived at tha island we checked in to our hotel, then lunch, then the beach. in the eavning we found that there was a music festival for yooung, underground, tiwanese, hong kong and vietnam bands. pretty nice they set up a stage on the beach. to bad it rained in the eavning. but it was fun as long as it lasted.

saturday was spend by taking a snorkeling trip to some marine park. it was nice, lots of fishes. in the afternoon we wanted to try the real thing. so we did a descovery dive with scuba equipment. that was cool. really nice. the night pretty much rained away. beaten after a hard day in the water we called it a night around 1 o'clock.

sunday it was time to go home again. the 9 hour bus trip turned into a 12 hour bus trip. due to traffic jam at the boarder to singapore. after crossing the boarder of singapore a couple of times now, i realised that it takes time. nothing you want to do in a hurry.

that pretty much sums up my weekend. all and all it was a really good weekend. in between all our activities we just hung out on the beach.

going to redang

the reason why i don't post that often, during the weeks, is that it really doesn't happen that much on a regular day.

this week i'we had a couple group meetings. otherwise nothing special. i was supposed to go to the inline-hockey thing on tuesday. but it got canseled due to rain. too bad. maybe next week.

right now im doing some reaserch for a group project. we're having a panel discussion on the subject of super thin models.

im leaving for radang later today. i don't know that much about what it is. all i know is that it is an island in the northen part of malaysia. i hope that we will have luck with the weather. i need to work on my tan. it's starting to fade after a couple of weeks with rain.

anyways we're leaving singapore at 10 pm (22). and it is first a 9 h bustrip then the ferry for i don't know how long.

i'll be back mondy. hopefully i can post some good pictures from my weekend then.

weekend

After a hard week of school, again came the weekend. like send from abowe. as stated in a privious post on this fine blog, this weekend would be spend by exloring tha island and the city of singapore.

to start off this expedition, me and my roomie magnus, decided to go and have malaysian food on fryday night. Malaysian satay. we took the train to clarke quay, wich is one of the most touristy areas in songapore. but it is really nice. here you can find food from all over the world and all the hippest clubs. our food was good. after dinner we went to seveneleven and got our self a beer. sat on a bridge and watched people walk by.

later we met up with acouple of other exchangestudents and went for a drink at a weard place caled the clinic. the name tells the theme of the place. it is decorated as a hospital. the tables was operating tables, the chairs was weel chairs and you could have your drink served in a IV-bag (dropp-påse). the waiters were wearing scrubs. it was kind of bizzare. but fun. after the drink at the clinic we went back to the bridge for another beer. then home to sleep.

today, saturday, we went to a technology fair . it was crazy. 6 floors of exhibiters and maybe a gezillion people trying to catch a glipse of the latest technology. they eaven had stages with models posing with a camera, like a cat-walk for gadjets. we didn't last long at the fair. so we went back home. but we did stop for some sushi on our way back. i think im learning to like it.

this eavning there was a whole bunch of us who went to the cinema. the americans was stoked on seeing Wall-e. an animated film about a little robot. usualy i don't like animated films. but this one was pretty good. it was cute. defenetly worth spending a couple of hours and ten S$ (50SEK).

so far its been a good weekend. tomorrow will eather be spend going to chinatown and little india, or with my head burried in my school books, we'll see.

Finally!

this morning i woke up to the sound of rain... nooo! not again! was my first thought. i managed too get out of bed and of to school. by the time i got home again it had stoped raining. but the sky was still gray. i went back to my room and did some reading. when i got out again to have something to eat it finally happened. i saw blue sky! for the first time, in at least a week. i ran up to my room to collect my swimming gear and headed of for the pool.

and that is pretty much what i've been doing the rest of the day. i took the oppurtunity to combine plesure with my schoolwork at the pool as i collected data for my consumer behaviour assignment.

yesterday i went to the try-outs for the schools inline-hockey team. it was great fun. alltough i haven't been inline skateing in, i don't know how meny years, i think i did pretty good. after the practice the coach asked me how long i was going to stay in singapore. because they apperently have a competitition coming up in the end of november. and i think he wanted me and pontus to play. we'll see how it works out. it was really funny anyways. so, i'll probably spend the coming thuesday and maybe wednesday nights playíng inline-hockey.

the weekend is getting close. again. time flys. this weekend we're hopefully gonna, if the weather alows, explore a little more of singapore. maybe go to chinatown and little india. i just hope that it does not rain. i'll go crazy if im gonna be stuck on campus the whole weekend.

crayfish praty!

finaly it has stoped raining. its been raining for about one and a half week now. almost every day. when i talked to one of my professors about the weather he told me that singapore has three different types of weather: wet, wet and wet. i guess thats true. atleast lately.

last saturday all the sweeds and a couple of other nationalitys gathered in a food court to have a traditional swedish crayfish party. we had all that is needed to have a sucsess ful party: the hats, the songs, the crayfish of course, the people and the drinks. and yeah it was raining. but it just make it more authentic.

it turned out to bee a realy nice eavning. just like a creyfish party at home. we eaven ended the night singing swedish songs with a couple of drunk people and a guitar. it was a good night.

...

...yep, still raining...

Rain

it has been raining the whole day today. everything is wet and gray. really boring.

yesterday we hade the crayfish party. i will tell you more about that later. now i have to continue to watch the rain and do school work. boring

another week and KL

Dear blog, i know i've been a bad blogger lately. it's not that i dont like you anymore, its just that i've been keeping myself busy.

since the last time i posted i have been for a short trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL). it was a fun trip. me, magnus, daniel, big sal and ze german was the line up for this adventure. we left campus late frday afternoon in two cabs heading for the maylasian border. when we got to the checkpoint there was a couple more people the the five of us that wanted to go away from singapore.

after alot of waiting and confusion we were in malaysia. later that night we found a somewhat sckatchy bus that was going to take us the 5 hour trip to KL. upon arival in KL we had no plan. the time showed 3 p.m. the first hostel we found was full. the second wasn't. perfect we take it! it turned out to be a pretty good hostel and we stayed there both nights.

our room at the hostal. 12 ringgits per night (24 kronor)

in the morning we set of to find chinatown and hellala gucci... and we did. there was a lot of haggeling that day. i ended up with a couple of t-shirts. in the afternoon we headed downtown to see the twintowers. it was ok. nothing speciall. then some beers at a reggae bar close to our hostel. the next morning we had an hour to do some more haggeling. then a bus trip back to singapore. this time on a super vip bus. nice.

Petaling street, chinatown, kuala lumpur where haggeling is the game.

Our super vip seats on the bustrip back to singapore. there was no trubble to fit a big swedish guy in that seat.

so, there has been almost a whole week of school also since the last post. i did my first presentetion here in singapore. all business dressed and everything. it didn't really go as good as i hade hoped. but hey, i can only pass or fail all my courses. good incetive to study hard. not. i'll get a new chans next week, when im doing another presentation in that course.

we're planing on having a crayfish party this weekend. that will be fun. going to ikea and buying some "snaps" and cray fish. i'll be back with some pictures from that later.

all and all im having a really good time here. allthough somdays i feel like i wanna lock myself in my room and be alone. or go home to sweden. but these days passes and then its all good again. i had a day like that this tueseday. but now im ok again.

Mexican food!

yesterday me and parts of the team went on an adventurous trip, outside of campus, to find some mexican food. we went to holland village and found two mexican restaurant next to each other. we choose "cha cha cha".

Hungry team members waiting for food

the food there was good. i had a shreded beef enchilada and a strawberry margarita... yeah i know not verry manly... but i don't care. it was good.

so far today i've been to school for a tutorial, been to the pool and did 1 km. now i think im going to do some boring school work.

later im meeting with the guys to plan a trip to kuala lumpur this weekend. hope that we will pull something together.

till later/martin

Campus

today has been, what i belive will become, an ordinary day. i've been to school for a tutorial and a seminar. nothing special. due to the lack of adventures today, i will devote this post to show you guys around campus.

campus here at NTU is like nothing i have experienced before at a school. it is parks, fountains and palm trees wherever you turn your head. there is also alot of architectured houses.

this is the most spectacular building on campus, according to me. it is the school of art, design and media. this is where we usually end up after a couple of beers on staff club (the only pub on campus). we climb the roof and hang out on the grass on the top of the building. most of the time there are couples making out up there. i don't know why, but it dosen't take long before they leave when we arrive.

A fountain somewhere on campus

This is one of my favourite places. it is a oasis that i pass everyday when i walk to school. it is waterfalls and a pond with fishes. when i go home in the eavning it is cool lighting on the palms.

in the brochures for NTU it states that they have a garden campus. now i know why. i agree.

there are some not so nice-looking places on campus as well. this is one of them. but it is nice that they have it, when you get tired of the local food it is nice to have a taste that is fsmiliar.

i'm sure that i will keep finding nice places on campus, so don't be surprised if there are more posts like this in the future.

stay tuned/martin

Happy birthday...

... singapore and fredrik... i know it hads been a while since i updated and that i ended the last post with our plans of leaving the country oveer the weekend. well, it didn't go as planed. apparently this weekend was a national holiday due to singapores independence from malaysia. so it wasn't only exchange students who had monday off and wanted to go away. everything was fully booked.

we had no choise but to go out on fridaynight to forget our sorrows. Dbl O was the place once again. we had another magical night at that place. saturday was singapores birthday. we celebrated it by sleeping in and then we went in to the citycenter to watch a airshow and fireworks. it became a looong waiting. but when it finaly started it was good. here are som pictures from national day parade 2008:

sunday was planed to go to the beach for a killer beachparty... that didn't happen. when we got on the train and looked out the window, this is what we saw':

so we spent the day at a huge mall instead. when we woke up on monday god had blessed us with sunshine... off to the beach for a second try. this time the weather was on our side the whole day. this has been my view for most of the day:

after the beach i had to head home to do some reading for tomorrows seminars and tutorials... still has some reading left.. better do it now.. and fradrik, if you read this: happy 24th birthday.

Ministry of Sound

last night "the team" (that's what we call ourselfes nowdays) went to ministry of sound. it became a BIG night out. MoS is the sickest discotheque ï've ever been to. they had like six different clubs in the same place, there was; the big danceflor with techo and house music and the spinning dancefloor; the studio 54 room, with disco music; the RnB room, wich i never found; and a couple of other dancefloors and lounges.

as usual i decided to rock the dancefloor all by my self for awhile. all and all i had a really good time last night, and i think all the team members did. here is some pics from yesterday:

Parts of "the team"

Studio 54 dance floor

main dancefloor. crazy big.a really cool guy, right?

This weekend there is a couple of us are gonna try to get away from campus.. we'll see how that goes. now it is sleeaping time, i have my first group meeting tomorrow morning, no slow start here.

another day

i don't know if i told you guys about my "new" healthy life. a couple of days ago i went to town an bought myself a pair of runningshoes. they are still to be used for the first time. maybe tomorrow. but anywaays. today i started out the the with a trip to the campus pool. me and my roomie, magnus, did 20 laps. that equals 1000 meters (for the americans thats about 1093 yards). i know it has only gone one day... but it's a start...

the rest of the day i had class. services marketing was it today. same as yesterday, im the only exchangestudent. and it is alot work to be done in this course as well.

moving on. i'm getting pretty used to the food here... or frankly im getting tired of it.. it is cheap and i guess it is kind of healthy... but it all tastes the same. it doesen't matter if you get the pork or the chicken or eaven the dog... no im just kidding.. no dogs so far. but i'd kill for something that tastes like something that is not chinese. i know we got mc donalds on campus but i can't eat that all the time. im trying to stay away from them. only been once since i came here. i'll just have to get over it...

tomorrow i've got class in the afternoon and then it is gonna go of with a bang! we're going to ministry of sound. hope that it will be great fun. i'll be back with an update on that.

for all you at home, i hope that you will survive the storm, and that everything is good otherwise. untill next time/martin

First day of school...

... and my first encounter with the rain here in singapore.

so, i gave you guys heads-up that i might take my blog interational. i guess its happening. we´ll see how long it lasts but im going to try it at least.

yeah, today was the first day of school. i was all nervous when i woke up this morning. the day started out with a visit to the students center to make some minor changes in my schedule. iit seems it worked out fine, but you never know over here... it might turn out that the lady missunderstood me. it´ll show in a couple of days.

anyways, tourism and hospitality marketing was my first class. i turned out to be the only exchange student in class. but it went well. they were nice to me. the course seems pretty interesting but it seems i will have put in some work to pass it. im sure it´ll work out just fine. here's a photo of how the school part of campus looks like. there are like eight of these buildings:

since i arrived here at campus i have been wondering why all the sidewalks has roof over them. at first i thought it was to cast shade on the pedestrians. today i found out the real reason and let me put it like this, im glad it has roof. when it rains in singapore it RAINS! but today it was all over in 15 minutes.

i don't know if it shows in the picture. bur it's raining really much.

i know there is problably a whole lot of spelling misstakes. but hey, its my first blogpost all in english. so give me some time. i promise it'll be better as time goes on.

Santosa mm.

ja, då var det dags att uppdatera igen.. det har hänt en hel del galna grejjer sen sist jag skrev. vi har blivit ett ganska stort gäng som hänger här nere. mestadels bestående av svenskar och amerikaner. men ibland smygger det sig in en norbagge, tysk, fransos eller italienare (nästan som i en bellman histora). anyways i fredags begav vi oss ut för att nattsudda. Dbl o (läs dubble o) var stället för kvällen.. .efter många fel svängar och dåliga vägbeskrivningar kom vi 20 utbytesstudenter fram... mycket törstiga. 3 dollar (läs 15 kr) drinken var temat för kvällen så det var väl bara att ta seden dit man kommer och låta bli att klaga på att det var så himmla billigt. här kommer några bilder från kvällen:

På MRT:n (mass rapid train, eller nått) på väg till dbl o

15 kronor drinken. jag tror jag tar två... eller varför inte fyra...

Att vi ägde dansgolvet var det inget snack om.

I taxin på väg hem från kalasandet så bestämdes det att vi skulle åka till stranden följande dag. sammling vid bushållsplatsden kl 11. stranden i singapore ligger på en konstgjord ö utanför singapore. på denna ön finns det ett undervattensland mm. jag återkommer nog till det när jag varit där... iallafall så är det en paradis strand bara det att utanför passerar alla container fartygen. så det blir en ganska stor kontrast. jag slänger upp lite bilder därifrån också:

Santosa beach. som paradiset, fast på jorden

Men har dom ett containerfartyg i paradiset?...

...nej, inte ett. massor.

oh, and one more thing before i´m done. i´m thinking about taking my blog international. we´ll just have to wait and see. peace out.

update

ok, nu har det gått några dagar sen sist. jag har inte gjort så mycket annat än att kollat runt lite i omgivningarna. igår så hade vi något slags orientation meeting på skolan för alla utbytesstudenter.. kan ju säga att sverige helt klart hade flest representanter här.

min rumskamrat har anlänt nu också. magnus, svenskkille från KTH. mycket trevligt. detta ska nog funka bra. jag har hjälpt honnam lite med det praktiska och att hitta runt.

tänkte att jag kan lämmna min kontaktuppgifter här:

• mobil nr: +6584209691
• e-mail: margid-6@student.ltu.se alternativt: 20084428d@ntu.edu.sg
• postadress: Nanyang technological university hall of residance 16, room 16d-02-08, 50 nanyang walk, singapore 639929
• Sype: mitt användar namn är gidlund.martin

ja, jag vet. jävligt lång och krånglig adress. men det var inte jag som bestämde den. nu vet ni alal fall hur jag kan bli kontaktad. får ni inte tag på mig genom nått av dom sätten så får ni skicka röksignaler... eller så får ni komma hit och hitta mig..

ett bekant ansikte

ok, dagen börjar med att jag ska avsluta vad jag påbörjade igår... jag måste ta mig till imigation office för att fixa mitt student visum, så att jag kan åka in och ut ur landet hur jag vill... efter tre timmars väntan igår, och kanske 10000 nummer som inte va mitt nummer, och en och en halv timme idag så är det äntligen gjort. finito.

på eftermiddan tänkte jag att jag ska fixa en uppsättning lakan till och lite handdukar.. insåg ganska fort att lakana kommer bli nersvettade ganska fort. typ i princip första natten.

så jag begav mig ut på äventyr igen... och gissa vem jag stätte på?

jajjemen, gamla Ingvar har varit här och härjat också.. som en skänk från ovan... så nu är det mesta praktiska med mitt liv härnere uppstyrt. det enda lakan-settet de hade i min storlek var dock med hjärtan och ett rosa underlakan. får väl fortsätta mitt tema med tjejjiga lakan... nu är det bara skolgrejjerna som måste fixas. men det får bli en annnan dag. nu är det ferre på gång. utbytesstudents fest på andra sidan stan. ska bli kul. åker dit med Daniel och Dakota två amerikanare som jag träffade på ett tåg igår.

bye bye for now