The Norsk Adventure - Week 1 & 2

It's been abt 2 weeks since i arrived in norway.

the weather is a little cold but enjoyable.
food is not too bad. been surviving on kebabs, pizza and salads.
i get to walk ALOT but dat's juz to counter the fat foods i'm eating.

was quite an adventure juz trying to get to norway.
my flight on tues nite (18may) on KLM got cancelled so was supposed to be back again the next day.
but a call to my boss, another to the company's travel agent and a 2 1/2hr wait, i was booked to fly at 9am to london on SQ den on BA to oslo
so i dun end up arriving in kongsberg too late for my training.

kongsberg is abt a 1.5hr drive from the oslo airport. the sun sets ard 1030pm and i heard dat the sun rises ard 430.
if i'm not wrong, there is not complete darkness at night. so there's always a tinge of blue in the sky at nite.

the place is a small quiet town where e shops close ard 5pm and on thurs the shops open longer til 7pm.
sunday is damn killer coz NOTHING is open. not even the supermarkets.
the place is SO small, u can pretty much walk all over town in an hour tops.
the weather here when i first arrive was great. 18-22deg with the sun. loved it.
but last sunday marked the beginning of a cold week. it was kinda raining almost everyday, esp the weekends.
left the hotel at prolly 19degs at 1pm only to return ard 11pm at 4.5deg.
and it kinda snowed in kongsberg too.

everything here is expensive from food to taxis to the movies.
cheapest food u can find here in kongsberg is kebabs. a meal w a drink will set u back abt 125NOK (nowegian kronors) which is abt $30.
the exchange rate is s$1 approx = 4.2NOK. a movie ticket is 85NOK = $21.
but the seat in front of u has a table thingy which u can open up so u can put ur popcorn n drinks.
i din know until the movie was abt to start and i saw these 2 guys open their tables.
din wana look like a suaku trying to figure out how it opens while the movie was going on.
caught the movie 'daybreakers' - a movie abt vampires being the dominate race in the world n humans are being harvested for their blood.
stary built up v nicely. but the ending was juz sooooo bad. it was like in 30mins and the world was saved.

back to the adventures.
on the first sunday here, i went to the silvermines kongsberg is famous for.
kongsberg only became famous coz of the large quantities of silver discovered here in the early 1600s.
only 1 mine is open to the public and u gota take a mine train into the mountain to get into the mines.
this mine, the biggest of the all the mines in the area and the first to be opened, is called the king's mine.
it alone accounted for half of kongsberg's silver output.
from the surface, the mine was abt 1km deep and was abt 3 times taller or deeper than the eiffel tower.

went to oslo yesterday w 2 fellow trainees from brazil.
walked ard for quite a bit. we visited the vigeland park, otherwise known as the statue park, which showcased abt 200 statues by gustav vigeland.
also walked to the new opera house built in 2007. din walk in tho coz it was closed but walked to the roof n checked out the view.
also dropped by the royal palace ard 1.30pm to watch the changing of the guard. toko a foto w one of the guards.
but they can talk to ppl who ask questions and tell ppl to move away from the barrier and if they're tired from standing stil, they can march abt their post. quite unlike the british guards we see on the telly.

most unfortunately, my camera batt died after the changing of the guards.
stupid me forgot to make sure the batt was fully charged the nite b4. dang.

took a ferry to cross the fjord to visit the viking museum where they had 2 whole viking ships on display.
a third was also on display but it was not intact any longer. it also displayed the artifacts which were discovered w the ships.
after dat, it was another quick walk to the FRAM museum which shows the history of norway's polar explorers.
the main exhibit is the ship, FRAM, which sailed further north and south than any other surface vessel.
it is preserved in it's original condition and it's open for visitors to enter and explore its walkways n rooms.

after dat, we took the ferry back to the main city centre and went to the nowegian musuem of science n technology.
it was kinda like the science center. but they have a full sized plane in there.
think it was one of the first jet engine planes operated by SAS.
u could walk underneath the landing gear and check out the hydraulic pistons and hydraulic lines and mechanical linkages
and figure out how exactly the landing is retracted into the body and how the door will close after dat.
okie... engineering geek stuff. mayb only aerospace geek stuff. lol.

after dat stop, it was almost the end of the day. most museums close at 5pm, 6pm latest.
one of the guys from the start of the trip wanted to visit the icebar by the ice hotel.
if some of us might remember, the ice hotel was featured on discoery channel showing how they built the hotel from scratch.
so the icebar is basically a replica of the actual bar in the hotel which has now melted.
so temperture inside is fixed at -5degs so we had to wear a thermal cape to keep warm. cover charges included a drink.
so it wasn't all dat bad. i had a drink which was a mix of aquavit and apple juice.
aquavit is a local spirit which i think is local to scandinavia.
so gona bring a bottle home from this trip.

and after dat, my 2 colleagues were gona visit one of their nowegian colleague.
so i left them to get my own dinner. walked past a chinese restaurant and tot i'll have chinese for dinner.
a mixed meat stirfry of beef, pork, chicken and 2 prawns, chicken soup (which is more western than chinese) and rice n tea came up to 240NOK which is abt $60. $60 dollars leh! can go owen seafood n eat seafood at half price lor.

i think i've gota stop converting prices here to sing dollars. i will go crazy thinking abt how expensive things are here. REALLY.

today is juz a relaxing day at home. juz gona watch some tv series, get on fb (wad's new?) and cook dinner later.
still havent decided wad's gona b on the menu.

i'm gona try to get my lappie to detect my sd card so i can copy my fotos and upload them to fb.
next week, i'm thinking of taking a train to bergen, a city on the west coast of norway. this route is in the wor;d's top 25 trains.
so till next week! take care y'all! miss u!

5 Years On...

It juz dawned on me while in the shower dat i've been single for almost 5yrs now.
time sure has passed real quickly.

i'm not complaining. in fact i'm happy w my life.
and i'm thankful for frens who have been w me thru these amazing 5yrs.

so thank u again dear frens. u are most definitely loved coz u shared ur love w me.

Almost Missed

Was off to philippines for work on sunday morning.
so left the chalet early at 7.30am to go to changi airport.
everything went well until i got to the domestic airport.

my flight was scheduled for 1605 takeoff. but my boarding pass said boarding time was 1625.
but there was no display or notification to say dat the flight was delayed until prolly like 1600.
so i heard dat the flight is delayed due to a late departure from singapore.
so i continued listening to my music... while waiting for the gate to open.

it was almost 5pm when i heard the announcement calling for me to proceed to the gate.
i had only heard my name and not the gate number so i quickly looked for one of the gate staff to enquire.
got the gate number and run like the wind. wasn't sure if i was the last one or among the last ones at dat time.
upon reaching the gate, den i realized i was the last pax.
so i had the whole plane waiting for me. oops :P sorry folks. and thanx for waiting.

when i sat down and was preparing to turn off my iphone, i couldn't find my iphone pouch.
i figured i must have dropped it when i jumped up to run to the gate.
and in the pouch was my airplane earphone adapter. looks like i'll b using SIA's not-dat-fantastic earphones for the flight back.

so here i am now at the hotel lobby, blogging and FB-ing and msn-ing coz there's no internet service in the rm. only free wifi in the lobby or poolside.
think i shd adjorn to the poolside later after lunch.

but waiting for something to happen, not knowing when it'll happen sux.
sux to the max.
coz i'm now waiting for the agent to tell me wad time he'll pick me up to send me to the heliport.

but meantime lunch is here.
so this entry ends now coz feeding a hungry stomach is impt.