Min Familj - My Family.

Det finns sex medlemar i min familj. Min farmor och pappas kusin tog hand om min bror och mig då vi var barn till nu. Min farmor blev sjuttinio förra veckan. Min pappas kusin lagar mat ofta. Min pappa heter Boon-Chai och han är rektor. Han är femttiått år. Min mamma är lärare och hon heter Hazel. Hon är femttisju år. Min bror är tjugofem år och han blev borjat arbetande. Jag är yngst i min familj och för första gången jag är bosatt långt hemmifrån.
[edited, with a little help from johan the legendary pancake maker of the nearby lägenhet.. :]

that was my swedish homework, and this is what i hope it means:

This are six members in my family. My grandmother (father's mother) and my father's cousin (auntie) looked after my brother and me from we were children till now. My grandmother just turned 79 last week. My father's cousin cooks often. My father's name is Boon-Chai and he is a school principal. He is 58 years old. My mother is a teacher and her name is Hazel. She is 57 years old. My brother is 25 and he just started working. I am the youngest in my family and for the first time, i am living faraway from home.


haha oke sorry if it sounds abit *kok after being translated..



*kok - ridiculous in singlish. kitchen in swedish. (kök)

homeawayfromhome

link to the photoset on flickr

a quick snaps walk through Sparta, the housing area i stay in in Lund.. as requested by the family.

it's actually a fantastic location, 5 mins bike to school at the design centrum, 1 min walk to supermarket, but 20-30mins(european-asian stride) walk to town.. 10 mins on bike TO town, but 15 mins bike FROM town cos uphill heh..

international dinner in the EF corridor!

we had an international potluck dinner on saturday night back at the corridor after the malmo trip, it was madness cooking but i manage to fry some pork in cornstarch and put together ku lou yok! sweet and sour pork! haha not bad hor.. when Duong snapped this shot of me it was 10 mins into dinner and half the dish gone liao..

malmotripping (again!)

heyas i've decided it takes too long to upload to flickr, then add the photos one by one in my blogger posts, then write abit about each picture and finally actually blog. no wonder i haven't had time to mop my floor!

so do click on the images above or go directly to my flickr page to see the rest of the pics..

it was a short and sweet saturday trip into malmo city in thomas' red volkswagen again. we saw the main sights and most importantly for me we finally found the sea! it was lovely. i realised i missed seeing the sea, cos living in Katong in Singapore means that i can pretty much walk to the beach at east coast park anytime i want, but i can't do the same here in Lund. the occasional sun and snow days perk me up though. i appreciate sunlight so much more now....

the minus something degrees days..

the days have been really cold.. from -1 to -8 degrees here in Lund.. and possibly getting even colder in the next few days..

the snow collector...


snow rooted walls...


first comfort food.. pork and cabbage porridge.. if i can't make good rice, i can certainly still make some decent porridge!


second comfort food...stirfried mushrooms, tomatoes and zucchini tossed in olive oil with pasta.. oke but zucchini tastes kinda weird when cooked so better to just put it in in the end i think..


marta and the risotto.. there's story behind this: i was cycling home today after swedish language class and on the way home in the cold i was just planning out what to cook for dinner and feeling sickish and tired already.. i arrived back at Sparta, parked and locked my bike, and headed straight into my room but soon after Marta was at my door and told me that she had made dinner and i had a share!! wow what a blessing i thought, that was exactly what i needed at that moment. warm, yummy, risotto!! best comfort food ever... thank God for Marta and her wonderful risotto!


satisfaction... mrmm!

school begins..with a cold.

hej hej,

school has started proper for me here in Lund.. and it is certainly not going to be easy. i was feeling quite apprehensive about the workload (cos it was recommended that we follow the year three track) which means that i am going to be as busy as a full time 3rd year ID student in Lund...and that was probably the original idea of going on exchange so hey, why not? i will definitely be learning alot for sure, and as for losing out on all the weekend trips everyone else seems to be taking here, i will have plenty of time to travel in june and july so no loss in the end i think!

someone said to me before i came over that "the first things all asian students catch when on exchange is a cold" ... and just as i was feeling happy that i managed to stay healthy for about 2 weeks....wham! here i am with a pretty bad cold. but i'm sure i will survive! got all the medication with me and i've decided to use my ricecooker as a boiler for my room too, to help heat it up a little more and add more moisture in the air too.

and today i realised that even though i utterly fail at making rice in my ricecooker, i am still a fairly decent porridge-maker with the ricecooker.. but then again if i manage to burn porridge then i really really win liaos..

more about school, i'm taking 5 modules here..
1) industrial project II which translates into the main studio module, for me it's probably going to be an accessory design project with sony ericsson.
2) electronics: possibilities and limitations. this has been quite tough for me cos it is reminiscent of junior college physics and chemistry...which to put it mildly, didn't quite work out for me.. but i think it is useful knowledge that ties in with the sony ericsson project so shall try to persevere on with it! had to borrow a scientific calculator from my kind neighbour thomas to do the online quizzes...
3) 3D Modelling.. i think this will be a short Alias rendering course, pray that i can pick it up quite efficiently..
4) Design Management I .. it feels like us going to business to take marketing modules... not been thrillingly exciting so far but i think the project will be quite interesting too.
5) Svenska for utlandska studenter : swedish for foreign students.. it's tough stuff but fun too. first time i am learning a language that i don't already know from young.

oke i need to get back to work and then get some rest now.
hope all of you are well, especially those back home, those going abroad, those already abroad, and all reading this. oke so that's everyone..

take care lah! pray for me! talk to me soon.. : ]


lund fun facts: did you know that sony ericsson's headquarters are based here in Lund?

det snöar!! it's snowing!!

22nd january 2007

i woke up this morning feeling particularly cold in my overly big and underheated room and also with a funny feeling that i couldn't quite identify. and then i was a little late heading out to our swedish language class the the folk universitet but in my slowness i looked up at the sky when i was unlocking my bike and wow, snow siah!! happiness and joy. this is more like winter!! it was wonderful, couldn't stop staring at the falling snowflakes. kept looking out the window during swedish class as the snow started really falling.


first signs of snow...


and the bushes fluffed up with white..


my magical tree outside the AF building in a different light.. snow covered.


snowtracks..


more snowtracks..


my snowtrackmaker..


my bike *kenah frozen after i got out from IKDC (Ingvar Kamprad Design Centrum) today and i had to push, drag, carry it all the way back to Sparta. it was quite *jialats.. i hope it will work oke tomorrow..


*kenah - got (usually in a bad sense)
*jialats - describes a really bad situation, it's actually just [jialat] but we sometimes pluralify everything for fun.

magical

a tree we often arrange to meet at or use as a landmark when navigating around on my bike at night.. this is my magical tree, outside the AF building. i really love it. trees and lights are really quite my kind of magic.

quick catchup post 3: mini roadtrip to IKEA..

not waking up in time to go with my mentorgroup to go to ikea on saturday turned out to be a blessing in disguise cos we ended up going on a pretty adhoc mini roadtrip with my corridormates in my neighbour thomas' red power volkswagen to malmo in search of ikea...quite exciting, occasionally ridiculous, and always fun!








and then there was yummy dinner mostly cooked by peiching with *sayur lodeh and stirfried chicken and green peppers..haha and my usual burnt rice.. dunno what's wrong with me and the ricecooker *siah.. heh.




and our dear corridormates johannes and thomas seemed to quite enjoy the food too! haha or so they say and so we hope..




*sayur lodeh - a vegetable curry dish
*siah - used at the end of a remark sort of sentence..quite a randomly and generously used word.

quick catchup post 2 : parties.

parties happen almost everyday in lund at what they call nations.. which are sort of like our halls of residences, except their main focus seems to be clubbing and throwing parties. quite a contrast with the otherwise peaceful quietness of lund.





mad fun and all but really quite tiring! i think once school really starts i will have to rest instead of party already..

and post party kitchen conversations..

"so....when do you want to marry?"


" .... ??!!!" haha. :]

quick catchup post 1

oke i really should be writing more so i'm trying to bring blog time closer to present time here in my lundlife. so here goes a quick pictorial look at things that have been speeding up my first week here in Sweden.


*chuanshuozong de scary laundry room


cosy little international church of lund.


swedish class


singaporean dinners where the food takes 2 hours to cook and 5 minutes to eat heh. : ]


swedish pancakes at johan's nearby apartment.


bowling with my mentorgroup (sort of like an orientation group but alot more casual..)



and amidst all this, classes begin..



*chuanshuozong - the legendary ..blablah.

desktop friends.

my desktop picture at the moment from the P for Pyjamas studio party.. will keep changing desktop picture lah.. haha to be fair to all friends, and family of course. i didn't print any pictures of people to bring cos just didn't have the mind to sit down and get it done in the days before i left. but feel free to send me stuff and pictures to put up in my very Sparta(n) room. it will be much appreciated. : ] food like *bak hoo is also most welcome!!!


Chia Yan Wei
[address taken off at parental request. ask me directly if you want to send me anything!]


*bak hoo - pork floss, power good stuff, i only brought bak kwa (barbequed pork) with me cos had absolutely no more spacce in luggage.

shooting presents.

thanks for all the presents at the airport.. as i said before, they were received with initial horror but eventual joy. haha initial horror cos my baggage was already way past the 20kg limit at 35kg and all the stuff you guys brought were big stuff man! but i managed to bring them all, much to the protest of my mother who wanted to keep them in Singapore for me..

remains of the teochew muay.

i had *teochew muay at peiching's last weekend!!



goodstuffneverbluffmans!!

my favourite comfort food. haha but i think we used up all the **liaos ***liao. dunno when can eat again..


*teochew muay - rice porridge eaten with many small dishes like preserved vegetables, meat, fish, etc. dishes lah.
**liaos - ingredients
***liao - already

excursion excursion.. last saturday

and last saturday 13th jan we went for an excursion we signed up for amidst the blurness of the arrival day..
it was oke. but as with all tours, you never really quite get into it lah. must travel on your own and explore then is a proper trip.

anyways we went to Glimmingehus, one of the best kept medieval castles in scandinavia.




and went on a brief walking tour of Ystad, a sort of medieval town i think, two hours from Lund. i noticed these louis poulsen-esque street lamps again.. i remember seeing them in Copenhagen at the Gammel Strand area and thinking wah even street lamp also got history but that should be the way man.




and paused a bit to wonder at some happy ducks.





i had to resist *kopeing this lump of plant and lights we saw outside an office or some shop in Ystad.




and happy valentine's, in advance, everyone - singlepringles and smugattacheds as well.




pink pink.




and yes, the rare picture where i vaguely appear. this is me and peiching getting reflected off the windows opposite a kebab place in Ystad.




i am kind of posting in retrospect so feels weird to write much. will try to catch up and write more currently soon!!



*kopeing - to take discretly without much permission.

girls cook and boys eat weird stuff

and so, tis stereotypically true... for our 3rd night and first real dinner...

the girls cooked..




....while the boys ate weird stuff..





haha oke but i'm a fine one to say lah... check out the thing my ricecooker made!! embarrassingly managed to burn rice in a ricecooker.. wins.