autumn colours sanraku

hit the ground running upon landing in tokyo at 6am and had to navigate my way to shin nasu. the first part was easy, after all, any monkey can get themselves onto the narita express (OUCH SO EXPENSIVE!) into tokyo aeki but from tokyo aeki it was a shinkansen maze and i'm glad i asked the ticket vendor to write down the connecting platforms, train timings and final destination of each train i was to take, which made it easy peasy lemon squeezy in the end ;) the hard part was convincing the public bus driver to let me ride his bus though! when i reached nasu, the bus driver refused to let me board. telling me to wait, albeit three hours, for the free shuttle to the ryokan. because i was an impatient little thing, and the station was boring, i politely insisted on riding his bus. he politely insisted back, "FREE BUSU! FREE BUSU!" so i summoned my reserves of japanese and tried again. to my horror, i realised he was more familiar with a dialect i was unfamiliar with. but with sign language and one too many pouty-faces on my part (yes, i am ashamed) i boarded the bus and off we went! best part? he refused to let me pay for the ride when we reached my stop. saved me 1000yen, i must've looked so pathetic haha.

and the fall colours, were, as you can see, absolutely breath-taking. japan was off to a good start!

photos of the exquisite ryokan tomorrow :)

wise words

"There is no dignity quite so impressive
and no independence quite so important
as living within your means."
- Annise Parker

i hear you!

swedish supermarket woes

(angst courtesy of nick holmes)

my exchange friends have heard this one before. but just bear with me.

there's something about supermarkets that bring out the worst in people. similar to communal laundry rooms and the road (i.e. road rage). so there i was, minding my own business at a check-out lane in lidl (the cheap supermarket where the largely unsophisticated masses do their groceries) and after this lady in front of me had emptied her basket onto the conveyor belt, i left a respectable distance between her stuff and mine. 

apparently not waiting until she plonked down the divider sent her ballistic as she started berating me in svenska and violently threw my groceries off the belt. remember being half-asleep, as was the state i usually went to the store in and was too stunned to react. might've just rolled my eyes at her and might've growled 'you've gotta be kidding me...' with a  -_- face. point is, i didn't understand the overreaction. then again, swedish strangers are weird. maybe something about me annoyed her. maybe she yelled at me to go back to china (haha) but the happy ending to this diatribe is that the cashier told her off and made her pick up my stuff. 

what a crazy.

sarong party people

it's been awhile since the last party! usually have 101 excuses why not to entertain but this time my spontaneous inner-self (haha) got the better of me. plus i let myself go a little crazy with the planning and almost had a panic attack when sean suggested shot glasses.

the timing worked out just right, seeing how we've a brief break between deadlines. and for the working folk, it's friday night. so what better occasion to break out the drinking goggles and sarong? figured that a party in a peranakan house has to have a peranakan theme. so it was sarongs all the way, from kebayas to a brave SPG who came with her token guai lo in tow. +points for creativity!

(oh, and in case you haven't realised, this is why i went to mustafa, and did groceries with a backpack!)

jared was the first to score my pink punishment sarong for guests who came THEME-less! for some reason he doesn't look all that penitent though...

spot the SPG! gotta say, i appreciated the effort (almost -_-) everyone made

reginald was quite the charmer

if this was facebook, i would 'like' this photo 100 times

good times :)
i like my friends!
and now i'm so exhausted it will be awhile before the next party.

it's been awhile

since i went grocery shopping with a backpack

(and walked 15minutes to get home from the t-bana)

but it was de rigeur in stockholm where i'd make my weekly trek to lidl along radmansgatan in a valiant attempt to put the lidl children through college. or so went the joke A would crack. i'd load up for the week with many kilos of fruit and veg in a vain attempt to assuage my conscience about eating frozen chicken. i hate frozen chicken. but fresh chicken cost an arm and a leg and my prc flatmate taught me how to cook frozen chicken so it would taste like fresh chicken so i saved my kroner and went shopping instead. if you're curious, frozen chicken has its blood drained after electrocution (maybe he was making this up) so you're supposed to cook it differently to maintain the elasticity of meat. ok typing this out, i realise how silly it sounds and i was probably con-ed. oops. but the resident squatter from hyderabad taught me how to chop chicken and i soon got pretty darn handy with the chopper, minus the suggestive grunts they claimed i'd make. blush.

and when i got home, i'd gleefully unload my backpack, pleased that i was saving the earth one unnecessary plastic bag at time ;) although when the parentals visited i did request that they bring me 20 ntuc plastic bags for me to use as bin liners when it was my turn to be the kitchen slave.

the point to this is - i brought my backpack to the grocery store today and the mere action catapulted me back to the tunnelbana and stockholm. and exactly why i did groceries with a backpack will be revealed this weekend.

no raining on my parade

mama to me

show details 12:30 PM (9 minutes ago)

Marissa said that your Australian Embassy record shows you entered australia in 2001 and there was no record of your leaving since.

Ideally, you should have a copy your old passport showing the exit stamp in 2001 to show you left Australia

Anyway you can cross the bridge if you come to it ( if the authorities ask you)and I know you will use your lawyerly skills to talk your way through:)

mama has too much faith in me.

(almost) annual pilgrimage to HK

was in HK in the beginning of 2006 and because it was a social visit, we stayed in what was, to me, the fanciest hotel ever. met with friends, wine and dined and it was a very comfortable trip.

returned in the middle of 2007 with 15 college friends. this time, the planner sourced us an apartment in hai fong mansion, off nathan road and just opposite tsim sha tsui station. we squeezed into 4 rooms in this misnomer of a building that was anything but a mansion. we'd the dubious honour of sharing a floor with massage parlours, syed baba worship centre, kumon, a karaoke bar and music school. remember sleeping like sardines, sharing a single bed with a girlfriend for 5 nights. shudder. but this particular trip to HK was special to me for two reasons. on our last night, as we sat by victoria harbour looking across the bay, i saw the hotel i stayed at the previous year and i felt a sense of pride surge within me, because i was back in HK on my terms and at my own expense, having ceased to receive parental support soon after high school. i'd brought myself to HK on hard-earned tuition money and the satisfaction was priceless. also, while i'd just 'roughed out' 5 days in less than luxurious conditions, looking across the water, i knew that one day i'd be back at the first hotel, on my own. the second reason is a little more personal, because while i was in my tiny room at hai fong mansion, i sprung awake one night certain that something was amiss and 30 seconds later, my mobile rang. and all it took was one X life-altering phone call and we've not looked back since :)

in summer 2008, we went to HKwith our favourite couple to celebrate his birthday, approximately a year after that significant phone call. this trip was different again, although i did get to revisit some of the haunts i liked from the previous year. this was especially special because we'd just gotten home after 10weeks together in europe. we travelled highlands and iceland (from london to belgium to scotland, drove around the whole of iceland), back to leuven, the it was off on a sand and sea leg (nice, monte carlo, cannes, road trip around corsica, toulon, avignon, marseille, lyon before heading to morocco - casablanca and marrakech). after that we met up with my folks for a mediterranean cruise (athens, kusadasi, ephesus, santorini, sarande, split, venice). he went back to leuven for exams and i solo-tripped to dublin and then amsterdam. when he was done with exams, we flew to prague then his parents came over and we met them in athens (our second time in a month!) and sailed to mykonos, revisited santorini in a more leisurely fashion then explored crete. surprisingly, after 10 weeks of non-stop travel (which concluded his year away), we weren't vacationed out and still made it to HK! being the sentimental sap i am, HK a year on and with him was a poignant reminder of how good the year had been.

skip 2009 and i was back in HK mid-2010, back at the first (fancy) hotel. sadly, it wasn't as fancy this time as i remembered it. semi-concerned that i've grown increasingly discerning (he says spoilt) but it was good to be back in my old stomping ground yet at a different stage all together :)

day 38

tuesday 15 june aix-en-provence to paris

took the afternoon flight to paris and ended where i began 38 days before. it was good to be back with the Bs. at this point, i was incredibly grateful to have had 38 delightful days in europe without any mishap that well-meaning friends had cautioned me. i'd travelled alone for the most part and made it through spain without being pickpocketed, just flashed. haha. i hadn't misplaced anything along the way, i hadn't missed any connections, i'd made friends, and i'd eaten way better than anticipated. did i tell you that i was defensive eating before my solo leg? just in case i wasted away. absolutely unnecessary in retrospect, seeing as to how well-fed i was, but a girl can't be too careful, can she?

a recurring theme this holiday was impeccable, european hospitality. from the Bs in paris, to my friends in stockholm who let me invade their space, to C, grandfatherly lawyer supreme who introduced me to too many contacts to list, to J in valencia - who'd have thought our chance meeting at the nam hai in hoi ann in april would amount to a wonderful visit, and of course, J and her family were top class hosts in aix. 

i was ready to come home, and just in time for my grandfather's 88th.

thanks for reading, and for reliving my graduation trip with me. it's been fun!

p/s stay tuned for the saigon series. while in aix, i'd already planned my next getaway. had gramp's birthday on the 17th of june, and my grandmother's on the 27th. which gave me a 10 day window to play with and i skipped to saigon for a week. 

sneaks

a range of cheese from hard to soft, iberico sausage from madrid, grapes, crackers and moscato!

had the girls over for the first time last week*. he's entertained a few times in my absence (grrr...) and i'm making up for lost time with my ladies. so i picked a day where he'll be at his action mama best i.e. out of my hair and while he plays tennis / soccer / gyms, my girls are taking over :) so they came last week bearing beard papa and popiah (my two loves) and this time we've decided to go all pretentious and do a simple wine and cheese tea party. yes, sacrilegious as ritz may be (cheese goes with bread, and bread alone, according to my friends) i happen to like salty crackers and abhor white bread. so there. also, i've stocked the wine fridge with moscato and am making a special trip to my parents' later to pick up the plonk my father refuses to serve his guests. haha. more for us uncultured wine swilling philistines! yay!

ohmyword i sound like such an underaged alkie.

*nothing like having your girlfriends over and the first thing they did was mark out all the spots they'd get busy on. oh the horror! and somehow there was a gathering in my bathroom and it felt like we were schoolgirls on a toilet trip all over again :) good times!

day 28

saturday 5 june 2010 barcelona

i climbed a mountain!

Day 3
Montjuic (1 metro ticket gets you to the metro and the adjacent funicular to montjuic) not to be confused with the cable car up to the castle €9. if you save € and walk up instead, it's only 15min and gradual incline.

Nice views from castle. Worth a visit.

well, not quite. but you get the drift. and when i reached the top, this is what i saw! i couldn't believe my eyes. it's no secret that i'm a big crystal cruise fan, and have been blessed to have gone on a baltic cruise in summer '06 (just before starting freshman year) and a mediterranean cruise in summer '08 (half-way through college). so technically, the timing would've been perfect for a summer 2010 graduation cruise but noooo, the parentals chose to go on a riverboat up the seine instead :( ok, really shouldn't complain. the seine cruise was awesome in its own right. but being the big fat softie i am, i sat on my little perch and watched the ship the entire afternoon, thinking about happy memories spent on board her perfectly polished decks. have countless memories of time with my family, and subsequently time with my family and with him on the crystal serenity that it was nice walking down memory lane at this particular juncture of being done with school. plus my friends were on board (also most coincidentally) and i was waiting for them to wave at me. haha. the things we do!

after some much-needed decompressing and me-time down-time on montjuic, i met up with some high school friends who happened to be passing through barca. like i said, so much for solo trippin'. being the text fanatic that i am, i'd sent out a mass text updating my nearest and dearest of my whereabouts and little did i know that Y would overlap with me in barca! along with S and 2 of their friends. again, the big softie in me was mega nostalgic because the first ever trip i did without 'adults' was with Y, S and some of our high school friends when we were fresh out of high school and applying to college. we took the overnight train to KL and it was such an adventure. we later met up in bangkok the night of the new years eve bomb blasts (new year '07) and saw the new year in together, after making sure we'd all our limbs with us. 7 months later, we went to phuket with more high school friends. so to meet up with Y and S in barca on my grad trip, unplanned as it was, felt as if we'd gone full circle. from clueless 18year olds, to slightly savvier 23year olds. i'm done with college, they'll be doctors next year. gee :)

oh yes so we crossed the bridge for some tapas then had the best sangria back at their hostel bar :)

day 26

thursday 3 june 2010 barcelona

first full day in barca and it was full of surprises!

this is excerpted from my barca list.

Day 1

Walk south along passeig de gracia (sort of like champs élysées) and you'll reach la rambla (flower stalls, wet market called la boquaria, people in costume for you to take photo with). Nice to stop for al fresco lunch along the sidewalk. Most restaurants have a semi-decent set menu at lunch time, watch out for pricey sangria. Only order if you don't mind paying €9/mug. After lunch, continue southward along la rambla until you reach the old port. Face the sea and turn left, it's a nice walk. If you want to hit the beach, it's across the bridge at the old port.

When you run out of coast, turn left and head north inland through the barri gothic, historical part of Barcelona. Old roman buildings and quaint feel overall.

la bocateria off la rambla (random tourists)

life imitating art along the promenade

and this was the best part of barca! of all the zara outlets in the city, i bumped into some dear family friends at the zara off my street. didn't know they'd be in town, neither did they know i'd be around. but thanks to divine providence and their generosity, they invited me to join them for dinner at roig robi and i had one of my best meals on the trip :) enjoyed the balance of alone time and great dinner company.

i'm not a fan of processed food, or nitrate, but here's something i can't say no to.

iberico ham - the best or nothing!

thoughts

i graduate tomorrow.

yes, i've gotten used to the idea, having first finished my final paper in early may, and then i got my results by text while in stockholm (sitting in my kitchen surrounded by my housemates from last year - whoops all round, thank you very much. and then they tried to get me drunk on my own pear cider. not happening.) and then again when i began the post-grad course yesterday.

so why oh why am i suddenly immensely humbled and increasingly overwhelmed at the thought of traipsing down a stage in my cap and gown? even if for some reason i oversleep and skip commencement all together, i'll still have my qualifications... so it's not about the ceremony, really. but how it signifies completion, coming-of-age and unceremonious release to the big bad world. gulp.

that said, i'm determined to wear my booties with the gown. hehe.

and, on a more sober note, thank you god for opportunity.

atypically personal interjection

we interrupt this travelogue with a slice of real life, unfolding in real time.

met my grandmother this morning and her sharp eyes spotted the crumpled famos amos cookie bag i'd valiantly tried to stuff into my clutch.

'what did you have for breakfast?'

'um, a banana?'

'don't lie to me.'

'ok ok, so i had a famos amos cookie.'

'just one cookie?'

'uh, no, five but they're, like, tiny.'

and then she insisted that i'd lunch at her's, whisking me out of my self-imposed single girl bachelorette pad livin'.

after a wholesome lunch of fish soup with more vegetables than fish, she instructs her help to pack me a huge ass pack of lobster keropok. for, get this, tomorrow's breakfast. and then she sends me on my way back to afore-mentioned bachelorette pad. oh the joys of having indulgent grandparents :)

plus, in addition to fish soup, my wedding was on the lunch table as well. she was appalled that i refuse to have a church wedding. when i pointed out that she didn't have one, she reminded me that she and my gramps are the antichrist. no kidding. hahahahaha. but my grandmother's deadpan and had me in stitches. as it turns out, they got married outside the fullerton when it was still the general post office, and a musty one at that. apparently, 61 years on, she still regrets not having a church wedding and is of the opinion that i will as well.

midnight churros

i hear that the churros bar is often the site of last-ditch attempts to hook-up after an unsuccessful night out. which's why i went at midnight, instead of 4am. there's something about eating at the witching hour that makes it more fun, even though there's nothing so surreptitious about staying out late. must be a throw-back to enid blyton's mallory towers and st. claires series, where midnight feasts were cause for celebration. like they say, forbidden fruit is always sweeter, especially when it's deep fried and drowned in gooey chocolatey goodness. ooh :)

btw, hola from madrid. have tons to post about barcelona and valencia. stay tuned!

ps bumped into high school friend at the hostel, and a bunch of college friends on the free walking tour. the world is too small and i've company again :)

hola from barca

(feeding the birds outside the notre dam in paris)

it's been a whirlwind (almost) 3 weeks and every day has been a brand new adventure. not so ambitious as to attempt to recount the trip from day 0, but in a nutshell...

paris 1: boulangerie breakfast with family B in their beautiful penthouse, followed by tour of isle st louis and cites, concluding with steak tartare lunch at my favourite brasserie and berthillion glace for dessert. can't ask for more!

seine cruise: lovely time cruising the seine on the barge, good food, great company. apart from the normandy beaches, which were so very sad, the rest of the trip was all culture and scenery. a highlight was monet's gardens in giverny. it felt like stepping right into one of his masterpieces.

paris 2: tea avec mon petit amis at fauchon, followed in quick succession by the absolute yummiest seafood platter (it was like a regular platter on crack - oh so gigantic!) at la lorraine, courtesy of family B.

tuscany: dream week roadtrippin' and winding through the vineyards big and small. fell in love with brunello wine in montalcino and ate so much fresh, home-made pasta that i don't think i can stomach anything else now. completely spoilt my palate, which is such a bad thing to happen so early on. stayed in agriturismos and one of them even had an infinity pool facing the rolling tuscan hills. talk about unforgetable! we also ended up buying 18kg of wine, olive oil (OHSOFRESH it left a subtle spicy aftertaste) and honey. which also meant that we'd to buy check-in allowance, but it was more than worth it when we saw monsieur et madame B relish the vin.

paris 3: 3 days in paris as family B's guests. good mix of my paris rituals (like breakfast at laduree, more steak tartare) and new parisien adventures courtesy of my resourceful and ever-hungry copain. he brought me to chartier and it fast became a favourite. gotta love belle epoch at its casual best.

stockholm: crazy week of nonstop catching up and revisiting my old haunts. felt surreal to be back in my stomping ground, and to have it all green! it was as if i'd blinked and suddenly it was summer. when i was back in stockholm, it felt like i'd never returned home, and the 6 months i'd spent away did not happen. everything was as i'd remembered, just sorely missing a few of the usual suspects, namely the three musketeers from down under, and mi bellas from italy. had the privilege of staying with the perfect hostesses, A (3 nights), A-san (1 night) and J.Mak (2 nights). nothing like girly h2hs just before the zz monster attacks. was so so good to hang out with them again. and then there was the inevitable goodbye, but i've J.Mak's southern french hospitality to look forward to in a week so that goodbye is still on hold.

barca: so far so good! even though i was planning on being in barca alone, a familly friend hooked me up with his abogado friend in barca, whom i met for tea and am pleased to rely on as a 'responsible adult' while i'm here. coincidentally, two of my high school girlfriends will be in barca tomorrow and we're planning to meet up. i'm a big softie at heart and having gone on my first ever friends-only trip with them (overnight train to KL right after A levels) in january 2006, and then again to bangkok in tandem with the bomb blasts (new years 2007) and another time to phuket in july 2007, to meet them on the great grad trip is going full circle. how far we have come and it's nice to have dear old friends to share the celebration with.

and speaking of celebration, while in stockholm i received a text notifying me that i have, indeed, completed my degree. plus not too shabbily at that, bragbrag, so it's great to finish on a high note, despite it taking me 7 semesters to figure out what works. this 8th semester has been my best (even better than exchange grades!) and i am very very happy. shout out to the kind seniors who sent their fantabulous notes my way. much appreciated!
so there's a not-so-short summary and maybe i'll post more later.

oh! one thing i forgot to add is that i bumped into the lovely L family in zara this morning (of all places! what are the chances? there are SO MANY in barca!) and they have invited me to join them for dinner. yay! grown up food will be a welcomed change. and who ever said i'd get lonely on my own here :)

baby steps

i spent the night sleeping at the bus stop outside cityterminalen (main bus terminal) last november. was taking the first flight out of skavsta (airport for budget air carrier) and so planned to take the first bus out of stockholm (to skavsta). wrongly assumed that cityterminalen would remain open through the night so i took the last train into the city, only to find myself locked out and without a place to go till my 0430h bus. way to go! so i sought refuge at maccas until it, too, closed at 0100h and then huddled at the bus stop trying to keep warm and stay awake till it was time to board the bus. needless to say, it was one of my more memorable nights to date and a pertinent reminder of how blessed i am - to be homeless by choice and not by circumstance.

believe me, i'd tried almost everything to get indoors but there was no where to go. all the hotels in the vicinity were accessed by keycard only. fair enough i suppose, why would they want vagrants in their lobby? later learnt of the all-night kebab shop a few blocks away but having witnessed gang fights with crowbars at medborgaplatsen* in broad daylight, i wasn't about to wander around at night.

so the whole point to this is that i have a 7am flight out of skavsta this summer. however, i counted my pennies and booked myself into the skavsta hotel instead. yes, it's not going to be cold, yes, having survived a night at the bus stop it wasn't half bad, yes, i much rather eat than sleep my SEK505 but i told myself never again. money is meant to be spent, and earned back, anyway.

yay to progress!

*whoever said stockholm is a safe city lied. where i was staying, there were drug-induced fights and convicts hiding in the neighbouring forest. an acquaintance's smoke break at night was once rudely interrupted by a bloodied, battered man begging for help. patrol cars and dogs fanning out across the residence were a common sight. dead bodies in the lake, and we even had a ho killing her pimp in the very next block. not to mention the 'harmless' nonsense like blood poured into the washing machines at night. all true.

p/s oh i feel my love-hate relationship bubbling to the surface now.

chicken run

i did something incredibly stupid today.

a dear friend had gifted me with a box of chicken rice mix when i left for stockholm.

realising that i'd 10 days to go, i thought i better use it up. nevermind that it was enough mix to flavour 1kg of rice. i spent the afternoon measuring out the right amount (no mean feat converting weight to volume to metric to pint, you get the picture) and having to guesstimate the entire time because we don't have measuring cups in our kitchen. we've a fancy schmancy mixer but nope, no measuring cups. and then i'd to wash the rice, like, seven times. because i'm too cheap to buy good rice. hence my rice is always so very dirty i get the heebie jeebies and i have to wash it until the water runs clear (usually six times). and then i cooked the rice in the cooker, which took forever because it was enough for an army. and i stirred the rice halfway through as instructed. then i portioned the rice onto plates to cool, had some, shared some with the frenchies (which they promptly rolled into their burritos - ???!) and then once the rice had cooled (after half an hour on my windowsill), i packed it all into my one litre ziplock and heaved a sigh of relief, thinking i was so smart and so capable and so domestic.

then i called him.

and he just said, 'but sweetie, you don't even like rice. why didn't you use the paste to cook the 2kg of frozen chicken you've got sitting in your freezer?'

now is it just me or did you hear that bubble burst too?

mundane

you've been warned.

just realised that i've 10 days to finish:

2 big green limes

3 big yellow onions

9 eggs

1 aubergine

1.5 bottles of pasta sauce

250g button mushrooms

2 stalks of spring onions

1kg of frozen chicken thigh

2 frozen chicken breasts

2 pieces of frozen salmon

1 frozen spring roll

200g frozen prawns

250g frozen wox mix vegetables

600g penne

1kg rice

1 serving of mee pok

a handful of dried scallops

a handful of dried mushrooms

500g coffee powder

1 roll of chocolate-covered digestives

2 avocadoes

7 teabags of indian chai

10 teabags of assorted tea

berlin calling

spent four days in berlin on a whim. ry*nair had free tickets (literallY!) and i jumped at the chance to skip the country yet again. was fortunate that a family friend invited me to stay at his (empty) holiday home and i thoroughly enjoyed the sprawling apartment. can you imagine 1 x me in 300 square metres of space? i was rattling around the place :D

it's the longest time i've travelled alone and i managed to get myself all the way to berlin and back without incident, save the potential conman at the s-bahn, but more about him later. was initially a little apprehensive about solo trippin', especially to a brand new city. was in osaka on my own earlier this year but i'd been before and was familiar enough with the city. my thimble of japanese came in handy, too. berlin was a completely different story! hardly anyone spoke english and i couldn't read the menu :( obviously my biggest concern was not being able to communicate effectively in case of emergency but filling my tummy.

that said, i went on an alternative berlin tour my first morning there to orientate myself with the different neighbourhoods and public transport and save talking to some american tourists on the same tour, i didn't talk to anyone else the rest of my stay. before you think i'm a hermit-in-the-making, i did talk to the girl in the bakery where i bought breakfast in the mornings but all very practical interaction, nothing voluntary or social, if you get what i mean.

but, solo travel's an underrated concept. i really enjoyed being alone and the time out i got in berlin. haha, as if my time in stockholm's in such great demand when really, it isn't. yet it was great to be footloose and fancy free, exploring a vibrant city without a care in the world. plus, i'm glad that i'm secure enough to enjoy my own company. or maybe it's not security but an inherent misanthropy cultivated over years of being an only child ;) my mother was unamused when i suggested that maybe i was like those wolf-children, abandoned at birth and raised by wolves without any human interaction though. oops.

was pleasantly surprised by how affordable berlin was. even in the christmas markets where one would expect a blatant mark-up of the prices, capitalising on yuletide spirit and good cheer, the gluehwine / fries / currywursts /crepes were inexpensive and i ended up grazing my way through the city every day without a 'proper' meal because there just wasn't a need for one, although i probably ate more without realising it because a kebab / bratwurst mit brotchen / crepe every hour probably adds up to more than three square meals.

found authentic chinese food too and very happily ordered enough for four people. the waiter was horrified. and even more so when he cleared my empty plates. oops again.

so that was berlin! safely back in stocks and i'm thrilled that it's the last i've seen of skavsta in a long while. yay!

oh! i was telling you about the conman. so this random guy approached me when i was at the ticket machine (EVEN THOUGH THE ARE NO BARRIERS ON THE METRO, I STILL BOUGHT A TICKET *shoots meaningful look at my less scrupled friends*) and asked if i wanted to buy a ticket. well, duh. and he tried to sell me a ticket that had already been validated but he'd sneakily validated it upside down so the timestamp was semi-obscured by the print. couldn't fool my perfect eyesight though and i returned the ticket with a dirty look. the would-be conman then started exclaiming in mock embarrassment and repeatedly berated himself for being 'stupid'. needless to say, i ignored him and he continued to bang his head against my ticket machine. weirdo.

solo trippin'

off to berlin for:

1. strawberry yoghurt ritter sport

2. authentic chinese food

3. sleeping like a starfish

not your typical berlin finds, but we'll see.

photos and stories when i'm back!