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..