Delft!

Haven't blogged in quite a while. I have just moved to Delft, the Netherlands, and I will be staying here for my exchange till mid-July. So I have been super busy settling down and stuff. Finally, after a month or so, I have the time to blog about my life thus far. Here are some pictures of my life in Delft:

My first day in Delft! Omg DAMN COLD! The weather forecasts are pretty much a fluke. Just a week before they reported that the temperature was 2-7 degC. But that very day, it was -10 degC! Crazily cold. Anyway it was really  first day to remember. The weather, the many 30kg+++ luggage, and the long arduous walk in the snowy place. One word describes it all - miserable! Haha. Oh well I guess that was part of the package. Lol.

Anyway, the weather remained awfully cold for the next 4 weeks, till 2 weeks ago, when some pretty nice happened. One evening, I look out of my window and this is what I saw...

The next morning, when I woke up I saw this!

It's amazing how fast the snow cleared up! Just one night and all the white is gone. Anyway, that's just one of the many amazing things that happened in Delft.

Alright, so what exactly does Delft look like?

These are perhaps the most prominent buildings in Delft. The one on the left is the Cityhall and the one on the right is the old church, and they're all situated in the central square. In winter, you can just imagine the place to be like an ulu street in Joo Chiat. Super quiet and lonely streets with barely any buzz. But just last weekend, winter sort of officially ended and suddenly, Delft central came to life!

There's a flea market in the central square every Thursday and Saturday. All the streets are filled with endless vendors selling everything from food to clothes and electronics! (Think Pasar Malam) Really cool! And there's this seafood stall that I loved! They sell lots of different seafood , raw or cooked (see below). But there is one thing that stands out - THE fried mussels! Omg just thinking about it make my mouth water. It's super fresh and pretty decently priced, at 3.50 Euros for a gigantic portion of it. I would definitely buy a portion of it whenever I pass by. A definite must-try when you come to Delft.

Oh and there is also something distinctively European - Raw Herring! This is what it looks like. I know, you can just imagine the raw fishy taste and smell. But trust me, it's not that bad. In fact, I kinda liked it. It tasted pretty good to me! =)

Anyway, yummy seafood aside, there are also other specialties that Delft have to offer. There is a cheese store (left) in town that's pretty good as well. The chilli cheese is damn shiok. Not that spicy, but has the nice chilli flavour - a nice consolation away from home.


Oh and not forgetting, there's the famous Delft Pottery (right) - the distinct blue and white porcelains that we commonly associate to the Chinese, is actually from here! That's something I learnt here too! Lol.

And there are a few funky buildings that I kinda liked:

The cinema on the left and public library on the right. Nothing really special about this town, but it's definitely very livable. A good place to retire actually! =)


Anyway, I'm done with Delft city centre. Now back home. This is my room!

Of course, this is the neater state of it at the start of my stay. Now it's much messier and too embarrassing to post so I shall give that a miss. Anyway, it's really nice - spacious, warm (good heater) and just plain comfortable. The only complains I have is that the shower is not in the room, and there's no white light - it's all warm light. =( It makes me sleepy.

Next up, school. TU Delft campus is beautiful! =)

The left is the entrance to my faculty - Applied Sciences. Actually it isn't really my school, coz Chem Eng is housed in another building. But most of my classes are here. And the right is the signboard for my school (which makes navigation so much easier) with the EE, Math and CS building in the backdrop. Anyway, school's not that near my place, so I have to cycle to school. Speaking of cycling, Delft is big on bicycles! Almost everyone has a bicycle and there are special lanes everywhere in Delft for bicycles! I bet there are more bicycles than cars around! And this is my trusty blue bike. Got it for 80 Euros, which was quite a bargain actually!

I can't cycle the Dutch bicycle. Yes you heard it right. There are Dutch bicycles. There are 2 main differences - they are awfully tall and there are no handbrakes! You have to back cycle to slow it down! It's really counter-intuitive, so I would give that a miss as well, lest I become a permanent road hazard. Lol.

Having stayed in Delft for exactly a month, thinking back, I really wondered where did I find the courage to do so many thing's I have done? It's actually pretty scary to move overseas for extended period of time, away from you family and friends that you're so familiar with. But it's really something that I have grown to accept and take it in my stride. Since entering  university, I traveled so much that I'm kinda getting numb to this kind of fear.

Anyway, fears aside, I'm really enjoying the lifestyle here. It's really miles away from back home (in every sense of it). It's pretty hard to describe it, but I feel that life here is more balanced. In Singapore, we just study all day and yeps, that's about it. Over here, I have to learn to be independent - wash my own clothes, cook my own food, etc. These are things that my mum and maid do on a daily basis and I really salute them for that. It's no easy feat at all! Speaking of cooking, this is my first attempt at cooking a meal for 4!

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that the meal turned out fine! I guess all the nights watching the Asian Food Channel did help somehow. Haha. But yea, this is something that I would never have to do or even learn how to do back home. And I'm proud that I did it. =)

Anyway, cooking is definitely essential here, coz having a meal outside will easily set you back by 20 Euros at least! Cooking will cost only 3-4 Euros for a good and sumptuous meal. So you do the math and decide which is better if you're gonna stay for half a year. But that's not to say I cook every single meal. Some days are plain lazy days and I just simply prefer to have someone prepare the meal for me. For such days, there's IKEA! Haha.

IKEA provides perhaps, the cheapest and most tasty meal out! Really yummy and awfully filling food for under 10 Euros =O. So yeps, I have pretty much covered most aspects of my life here in Delft. So that's about it for this post! I have travelled quite a bit during this month in Delft - Den Haag, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Tromso, Stockholm. I shall post more when I find more time for it! =D

Last Week

Ok, so it's confirmed. Will be leaving Singapore in exactly a week. It's gonna be a long way from home and yea, it's gonna be a pretty long period of time. It's not the first time I'm leaving home for extended periods of time, so yea, the excitement's not as overwhelming as my first time abroad myself. It's more of thinking about adapting to a new environment all over again. Haha. It really takes effort and yea, hope it goes smoothly. But at least it's Europe that I'm pretty familiar with. So it's not as scary. Haha.

Anyway, amid all the festivities and stuff, I found some time to meet my regular khakis for k and dinner before I fly off.

They're probably the easiest and most fun bunch of people to hang around with. Haha. =D

Chinese New Year '12

It's the time of the year again! A time to eat, visit, eat, visit, ... , eat visit. Not too much of the CNY buzz this year. I guess it's probably due to the shorter CNY holidays. Anyway, this CNY is really just about eating. Ate reunion dinner on Sunday. Visited most of relatives on Monday, which meant snacking (impossible amounts of CNY goodies) all the way. So much so that I sort of skipped breakfast and lunch all together. Haha. Great-grandpa's anniversary today. So coincidental coz my great grandpa passed away then. But it's good in the sense that everyone will remember and will have the time to gather together to pray and munch on good food. So it was family gathering as usual at my house. Home-cooked buffet for breakfast and lunch. Really remarkable effort by my mum and maid to whip up all the food for like 30 people.. and they're all damn AWESOMELY YUMMY! Bet I gained at least a pound or more from just that meal. Haha.

Anyway, food aside, today's the first time I got to see my nephew since he was born 2 months ago! DAMN CUTE OMG. Haha.

The innocence of a child. All he need to worry about is eating and sleeping. Damn envious of him. Haha. Oh another boy to the family. My entire generation were all boys, and it looks like the next one's gonna be all boys again. Haha.

Anyway more food coming up. Tomorrow's gonna be another home-cooked, buffet-styled family dinner with all my maternal relatives. After which, a short break, before more food on Saturday and Sunday! Looks like I have to exercise a lot harder once all the festivities are over. =P

New Year Resolutions.

I haven't really taught about them since eons ago. But recently, time was on my side, and I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. Reflecting on my life thus far, there are definitely things that I want to change in my life. And I've sort of set certain goals that I hope I can achieve by the end of the year. Let's see how it goes from here. =D

Satisfaction

Ok exams are long over and even the results are out. All I can say is that I'm satisfied. And that's all that matter in life. Be satisfied with anything that comes your way and believe that it happens for a reason. To be honest, life has been really kind to me all these while. I whine and complain at things, but come'on, I'm still alive and kicking. =P

Anyway have been stuck in camp for the past 2 weeks for my reservist. It wasn't as bad as I thought I would be. Everyone's so familiar, and I see many of them in school as well. So yea, turned out pretty well. But was down with fever for the 2nd week, but I still didn't take MC to finish my course. So now I'm suffering the after effects of the bug. Haha. Oh and did I mention that the army's such a pain. Just completed my 1st in-camp, and they already booked us for the next! And I have to shorten my SEP slightly for it. DAMN. And I don't wanna defer lest I change my unit and not know anyone for the rest of my reservist life. Haha. Oh well. Be a Singaporean and suck it up. Haha.

Anyway my SEP stuff is finally more or less settled. Hope the embassies won't give me more trouble and work anytime soon. Really want to relax for once this holidays. Spent quite a bit on all the documentation and stuff already. Hope I've seen the end of it. Really excited to head to the Netherlands soon! I really don't mind spending my time in a slower environment. All the hustle and bustle of Singapore city life is really not ideal. =X

Anyway being in a good mood recently, I rewarded myself for hard work well done 2011. Haha. Bought myself a Sony NEX 5N camera!

Have been eyeing this for a really long time. Didn't have a reason to buy the NEX 5 earlier, but now that my whole family is constantly travelling thanks to my parents retiring, I need another camera. Haha. Read lots of reviews and stuff before settling on this. Now I've gotta play around with it and figure out how to use it. Haha.

On a random note, my family and I are officially Sony fans! I think almost everything at home is made by Sony. =P

Mid-Exams Distraction

Alright I'm supposed to be studying but I'm not. Instead, I started watching lectures/talks on Asian vs. Western development by Prof Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of NUS. It's really interesting how he's so persuasive and a really interesting speaker. He's very pro-Asian, so westerners would definitely not take his words without feeling awfully disgruntled. His speeches and debates are very provocative, which makes them seemingly full of judgments and propaganda. But if you look up the facts, they are all indeed truly objective and as such, would come as quite a shock to westerners. Truly inspiring. I really recommend people to take some time of mugging (ony applicable for those who are still drowning in pyps and lecture notes) and watch some of them. Oh and on a side note, he was just voted one of the world's top 100 thinkers. He really deserve it. =D

Anyway I suddenly thought of Operation Orion 2010. I really miss that trip and the people there.

I really miss the kids! Omg the kids are damn adorable (ok I sound like an absolute pedophile, but I love kids! =D)! And I'm feeling really sore that I will be slogging out in camp instead (after all the studying that made me put on quite some spare tires -.-zZZ). Oh well.

Aww.. It's the exams season again.

This semester, I just so much more relaxed than the last 2. Am I confident? I wouldn't say I'm really confident, but I kinda changed my mentality towards studies this semester. And it's really making learning so much more interesting.

The university shouldn't be like the A levels. All the mugging and frantically doing all the possible PYP ain't studying. It's memorizing. That's why I kinda question Singapore's engineering education. We are just producing students who can study very well. But that doesn't make an engineer. That's why I'm so persistent to study in Europe. In Europe, the universities train engineers, not educate one. And this one word makes all the difference. Engineering is a discipline, and the way it's taught should not be like science and math. So far in the university, I feel that only a couple of modules I've taken have sort of met this expectation - Process Safety, Health and Environment and Separation Processes. All in this semester. It really trains an engineers intuition - it's not always about getting the correct answer (although it would be good to). It's more of understanding what you learn and applying them to new situations. That's something I really enjoy. So exams aside, I really feel that this semester has been really fulfilling.. in every way.

Alright studies aside, I have been listening to Adele's songs these couple of weeks. Here are 2 songs that I really like.

Rolling in the deep

Somebody like you

These songs really grow on you. The more you listen, the more meaningful it gets. And every time I listen to it, I get this new experience. It's really good. The 2 songs are exact opposites. Rolling in the deep is more about a strong individual living her life to the fullest despite all the adversities that come her way, while someone like you really describes how people sometimes lose themselves in relationships. Really meaningful. It really shows the different sides of relationships. Go ahead and listen to them - I'm sure everyone who listens will get something meaningful out of them. =D