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Travelling February 29, 2012
I'm travelling. When I say I'm travelling, I mean I'm spending a lot of time in traffic. Well, given that, as mentioned in the last entry, we're going to nine places, it's normal that we have to spend a great amount of time on traffic. After leaving Stockholm, we were on a three-hour train to Gothenburg, spent a day there. Gothenburg isn't particularly impressive, despite being the second largest city in Sweden. Every place was dull and old. Well, perhaps if we had spent more time there, we would have found the beauty of that city, just like I'm kind of sad when I had to leave Stockholm after staying there for two days.
So, that concluded our trip to Sweden. To draw a conclusion to Sweden, I'd say it's really a serene country. (You will know why when you read what I say about Oslo). Everyone in Sweden was, in general, polite, cultural and, well, Scandinavian. That was especially true when you look at people in Umeå and Stockholm, where most people were blonde, pearl white and Swedish. Yes, I think I love Sweden.
And from Gothenburg I took a 4-hour train to Oslo, Norway. It was kind of sad when you have stayed in a place (Sweden) for 10 days, starting to get accustomed to its culture and language. (e.g. we know "Vasagatan" means main street", and you say Hej or Hej Hej when you meet someone, say Tack for thank you, …) And now we're in Norway, we have to familiarize ourselves with another culture again. In Sweden central station is with a "C" (e.g. Stockholm C); in Norway they have a big "S" after the station name (e.g. Oslo S). Why? Because they have "sentralstation" rather than "central".. It's a bigger issue in terms of the people we interact with. In Umeå everyone was very Swedish; in Stockholm most of them were. I doubt that in Oslo, because we see lots of blacks and South East Asians. People were not friendly, and indeed many people looked at us with a strange eye on the streets. And then we also encountered some danger -- Ketchup Gang (salad sauce gang to be exact) -- as we nearly arrived at the hotel. I even saw one guy try to pick our things inside the hotel lobby when we were trying to clean up. Luckily we didn't lose anything, but that was already a horrible experience.
We only stayed at Oslo for a day, and now I'm on a train to Bergen, where we'll see the fjords. Let's hope that as we head for the countryside we'll have a purer Scandinavian experience again.
Elective (Umea, Stockholm), 9th anniversary February 27, 2012
As most of you should know, I'm on a three-week elective. I'm going to Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. One week has passed, and I feel guilty that I haven't been updating for a while. So it's time to give a brief update.
Umea
To be exact, our first stop wasn't Umeå. Our transfer flight got cancelled so we stayed in Helsinki for a weekend. Things in Helsinki wasn't particularly impressive, making me feel gloomy about the trip.
But this feeling was gone as soon as we arrived at Umeå. In short, the town is above expectation. At first we expected a small town of country style, and we must be so bored staying there for a week. Instead we had great fun. Despite being small, Umeå is a city of culture and taste. Every street was so clean and neat, and there were even chain stores like H&M. Its restaurants serve great (though expensive) food, and when we look into people's houses, they're well furnished. People there were very polite. Every time we cross the road the cars stop to let us cross. In short, Umeå is the most impressive city we've visited so far.
Our visit to the dental school there was also a good experience. We observed their clinic, and felt jealous about how relaxing their environment is. They call their tutors' first name, and their tutors were also friendly to them. And in the middle of their clinical session their tutors would go for a 30-minute coffee break. This is in stark contrast to what we experience in Hong Kong. We met some students there, who were very kind to us and we spent some quality time with them.
Stockholm
And then we took a 10-hour train to Stockholm. We took an overnight train and we chose the first class where we can lie flat, so the train journey itself wasn't so bad.
Stockholm is an interesting city. It was beautiful, and indeed I took lots of beautiful photos. However, just like any other large cities, Stockholm has lots of different people. In this way, it doesn't feel the same as when we were in Umeå, where we experienced a pure Scandinavian lifestyle, where everyone was polite, everywhere was serene, neat and elegant.
And after the two-day visit we're leaving once again, this time for Gothenburg. One problem: there're six more places to go to. Altogether we're going to nine places in this trip: Umeå, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo, Bergan, Copenhagen, Arhus, Rovaniemi, Helsinki. Isn't this a demanding trip? I think it is, especially when you have to switch hotel every one or two days.
So, I've decided that if I were to go on long trips again some time in the future, I'll
1) confine that trip to less than 10 days, so that I don't have to leave HK for so long (yes, I admit I'm a hometown boy. Steve Jobs was also one; he never left California.);
2) confine the maximum number of cities to visit to three, so that I don't have to rush;
3) confine my travelmate to one person only, so that expectations are more easily met.
Despite my complaints, I'm having a good time here in Scandinavia. Meantime I miss home as well.
* * *
9th anniversary
The next thing to talk about is this site's 9th anniversary. Yes, time really flies. I started this site one day before V Day in 2003, and it's been nearly a decade now. That's huge. Day by day I talk about my life here, piece by piece. Despite its diminished use nowadays due to the rise of other social networking sites, Anzyme still serves as my favourite way to express my thoughts in plain text. Thoughts in plain text. Yes, this was the initial goal of my site, and it always will. I'm late this year for writing a piece on the anniversary, but I have to stress that I love this site, and its readers, so much that I'll continue to motivate myself to update my site, to let you know how I feel, and to interact with you regarding our ways of life.
Busy February February 4, 2012
This February is going to be busy. In its first part I need to prepare for my last key skills -- RPD next Wed and crown next Thurs. And one week after completing key skills, I'm leaving for Sweden. One worrying fact is that I haven't really prepared well for my trip, in terms of both hardware and software. Well, let's not care about that until I've passed key skills.
And we also have an important upcoming event -- 9th anniversary of this site! And from Feb 13 onwards, we'll be counting down for the tenth anniversary. Isn't that exciting?
PS There were (85088-83337) 1751 visits in January, or 51.5 visits per day. Thank you.
