Stockholm

The capital city of Sweden. We thought we were going to get some taste of the city life we have been missing, but...well..its Sweden after all...you know what i mean. Nothing much interesting here really. Probably because of the tiring 7 hrs train ride we had that made the rest of the trip seem really tiring. Anyway, not much to say, not a lot of pictures to share as well but here's what's taken there.

The palace which the royalties visit once in a blue moon.

a little confusing but this is the Royal Palace somewhere in the city centre.



This is one of their Landmark Cathedral.



Check out the colour of the sea



The VERY NICE library Juliana said we have to visit....oh well..



The Subway station..same colour combi as the flag..



Sergels Torg, its somewhat like Pompidou centre where many people would gather and ..erm noise?



Check out what's in the river.. :P

Here's a sunset from Stockholm. I'll be heading for Germany, Munich and Berlin.Be back on Sunday evening. Till then ciaoz~！

Malmö

A couple of days after we set our foot on the Swedish soil, the emptiness of our new home called for a need to visit the country's most famous 'export' the world has come to know, IKEA. There are of course many IKEAs in Sweden but the nearest within our reach was the one in Malmö, which was slightly over half an hour of train or bus ride away from Lund. And more than a dozen of us walked around with the ugly blue IKEA bag full of our decors and necessities, walking the street like we owned it. hoho...more like we got own...

Though IKEA was our main objective, we did managed to scout around the 3rd largest city of Sweden. In fact, we actually went back for a few more times and managed to see some interesting things, and of course we bought our bike from Malmö as well. There are some nice buildings in this city by the baltic Ocean, of which is another world famous architecture, The Turning Torso by dear Santiago Calatrava. Slightly short of 50 storeys high, its the tallest building in Sweden...some say Scandinavia...can you believe that?? While being the tallest building, it also offers the most expensive meeting room in Sweden, which is located right at the top level of the building. Cost of renting the place for a day, 7.5k EUROS...hohoho...

Anyway, here's some pictures from Malmö

The train station

The skull followed.... :S and so it rained..

but somehow, this guy seemed to be enjoying the water. He gets dumped into the river whenever some kids hit the target in one of the games during the Malmö Festival. Yup, we thought we were lucky enough to be able to check out Malmö Fest just after we arrived shortly in Sweden. But oh well...not exactly so happening. Its some carnival which runs for a week with stage performances by their local artiste...mostly singing in the 'alien' language of Svenska. a couple more shots from the festival.

This is the Malmöhus Castle, which apparently was restored by my Professor-in-charge of the design module I'm taking in Sweden. That's a glimpse to how boring the module is..hoho. BTW the 2 pictures above was taken by my little Fujifilm A30 not my mega-sized D50...haha..of cos there's photoshopping to it..just the sky..cos it was raining on that day..haiz.

A new housing project near something famous...hoho.. guess what.



THE TURNING TORSO!

That's all from Malmö for now. Next Stockholm.

Lun4 (忍) in Lund.....

Lund is a wonderful place really...only when you've had enough of city life and maybe, you're in your retiring age. The place is peaceful, mellow, clean and ....UNDENIABLY BORING. What more can I say about a place where the most happening thing people do is to meet up and drink drink drink and nothing else. There's only one cinema which I didn't even bother to find out what's showing; a sports stadium which people there don't even play table tennis (yes, can forget about IVP next semester, not to mention the ticket to my stay in Temasek Hall); local students and lecturers who frequently saw you as transparent as they will always end up conversing in their beloved Svenska; a hostel bill that's being sent to you on the very day it states as the date due; and of course, my freaking expensive hostel with internet connection that doesn't permit and p2p activities in this wonderland of file sharing(dare you to try and you will get disconnected for 48 hours, tried and tested so its not a hoax..). Its a fact that I complain quite a bit, but come on, wouldn't you do the same thing if you are in similar plight as I am? Oh well, come experience it yourself and you will find out, hence I urge ANYONE interested in coming to Lund in the near future, GO FOR IT. You will get an EXPENSIVE experience of a life time. :P

Been in this retiree village for more than a month and I've yet to post any nice pictures of this supposedly serene and surreal land of Sweden. To be frank, there's really nothing much exciting or interesting to take, or maybe I've been blinded by the heaps of crappy experience that I've been getting. Well, I've been disconnected again over the weekend probably because I've sinned against the almighty 'anti-p2p' software when I watched the entire Liverpool vs. Newcastle match on sopcast. As such, I'm posting all the photos which I've planned for the past few days all in one shot. (that is IF I don't get disconnected out of the blue again).

Here's some sights and scenaries from the land of Lund(lun4)..

Domkyrkan(pronounced as Dom-shir-kan), supposedly the most eminent church in Scandinavia (not to forget Lund University is the MOST COMPLETE university in Scandinavia..wonder how's the most incomplete's like..:P)

Some shots of the campus buildings



The AF Building - our arrival spot



The University building, probably one of the nicest around.





The ID's Design Centre. The nicest building in Lund, sponsored by a certain IKEA CEO and designed by some notable Swedish or Danish Architect.



How come no architect come and design for the aki building???
Can't believe they actually put the 'A' there.... :S



the bio-morphosized Biology Building.



Even the sky here is erm...well...wierd.

Yup, so far that's what I have for Lund. Shall post any nice pics I'll capture from Lund in the near future, but next up will be some pictures from Malmo, stockholm and Copenhagen.

Going back in time - Paris Day Six

After more than a month since I left Paris, I'm finally posting the very last day of my trip in this city of lights. Couldn't have asked for a better way to start my journey in europe than to begin this 'adventure' in Paris. On this last day, we tried our best to visit the remaining places we've planned for the trip. There's really so much to see in Paris that I think you'll need 2 weeks at least to comfortably see the most of this enchanting city.

We began Day 6 with an architecture student's pilgrimage to the legendary Villa Savoye. Yes, our dear Corbusier's master piece was where we headed to and it was really some pilgrimage. It's located at Poissy..yes we all know that..haha....just slightly outside Paris. We have to take a train and braved the hot sun..yes HOT sun..it was really hot, and a long walk before we could reach this overly read, studied and publicised villa. My initial intention to visit Villa Savoye was just to add on to the 'ya I've been there' list. Since to me, the Villa was really not that impressive according to the many books which praised it so much. However, it was really quite something when you really move around the spaces within the building. For something designed back in the 30s, dear Corbusier really did a good job and gave alot of thoughts into every minute turn and details. It was quite enjoyable to discover or rather interpret what went on in this thick ugly spectacled dude's mind. My photos probably didn't do much justice to the building. When we finally left the place, it was past lunchtime.

behold...VILLA SAVOYE!

From there, we moved back to the city and visited Paris' CBD, La Defense. This has definitely got to be the only place on earth where it defies all logic and rules you've learned about architecture. The buildings here are...crazy..really. From the photos I've shown previously, you've probably noticed the huge white arc which was trying to respond to Arc de Triomphe from the other end. This arc is known as the Grande Arche. Its not the only crazy piece of thing in this business centre of Paris, the other buildings are just as mad...just look at the pictures and see it for yourself.

It was almost 4pm when we finally reached another of the French's pride, the Chateau de Versailles. Dear Mr./Mrs. unhappy skull struck again...yes...it rained pretty bad and sky sux..remember about the hot weather in the morning? Didn't even manage to visit that Chateau's ultra sized backyard and its mega ponds. Quite disappointing I should say. Well, my advice to you is to NEVER EVER touch a skull...really..:S

Anyway, we headed back to Paris and passed by Eiffel to take some parting shots with this romantic steel thingy. We also went back to Musee de Louvre to take that unlit pyramid I've shown previously. It was almost 10pm when we, or rather I decided to go back to the hostel. Needed to do some packing before we head for Copenhagen and of course..Lund eventually the next morning. Back then, I was rather excited since its the start of another exciting journey..but..oh well...you know what I mean if you've been following my..erm...comprain for the past few weeks..haha..that's all for Paris. Next...haha..hopefully soon.... will be glimpses of Lund and the city of Malmo and Stockholm. Not forgetting Copenhagen I've just visited over the weekend. Until then, here's some pictures of interesting metro/train stations from Paris, where some were themed accordingly to the place itself.