London and Berline, two of my favourite cities in the world.

I'm sorry i haven't updated for so long, but I have been rather lazy after finishing the preparatory course.

London: Was even better than the first time. The artistic culture in London is just so amazing! I met up with old friends, had really good canto food at two of the most famous restaurants there, Gold mine and Four Seasons, had amazing company, good shopping..and I wonder why its my favourite city in the world.

Caught up with Calvin on the first day, since Luis said his kitchen was too small to cook chicken rice. So Fiona, Rach Fong and I headed off to tower hill to look up Calvin. Met his flatmates, one of whom was German. Jacob! So we had a great opportunity to practice our Deutsch as well.

Us! Three lovely ladies and a gentleman..













The next highlight was dinner with Luis and Roberto at Belgo's! Luis is my oboe senior studying oboe at the Royal Academy..really good stuff.


Two soon to be famous musicians..













Then we had four seasons duck. After a month in Germany without good chinese food, having the best duck in London was fantastic. Plus a pot of tie guan yin to wash it all down....

Breakfast(s): Asian and American!

Last Saturday, I cooked an Asian breakfast and had a mini party! It was quite fun, though i think my you tiao turned out to be quite a disaster! As you know, food is the most important for Singaporeans and we take great pleasure in planning and cooking our meals! We are going to have steam boat next week and invite jenny from Hongkong to join us..I am really looking forward to hot soup and rice!

My Asian Breakfast

Menu:
Luncheon meat and bread
Glutinous rice dumplings in ginger soup (tang yuan with sesame filling)
You Tiao (fried dough fritters)
Soya Bean milk
Pancakes (provided by shaomin)

Guests:
Singaporeans (Fiona, Rach Fong, Shaomin, and I)
Hadi (indonesian)
Kristina and sladja (Serbian)
Ryan (american)

The food! The youtiao does not look like youtiao..and does not taste like it either..












Shaomin making the pancakes..













Tangyuan! Fantastic with a bowl of hot ginger soup during winter
















The rest of us!













So today, Ryan invited us to HIS american breakfast..

Menu
Scrambled and sunny side up eggs
Orange juice and champagne (they have an alcohol problem, in the morning?!)
Bacon and sausages
Roasted Potatoes with butter and cheese
Pancakes with nutella
Bannana Bread
Toast.

Since Ryan and I live in the same wohnheim, I went up early to help him and I must say I am rather proud of my sunny side ups with their intact yolks. And I didn't know guys could cook this well. It was a great brunch..

My sunny side up!















Here are the rest of the eggs plus the scrambled eggs














Roasted potatoes..these are heavenly










Laying the table...and the pancakes!
















Everyone..and I was taking the picture of course.

Irene (spain)
Grant (US)
Lisa (Aus)
Alastair (US)
Amanda (US)
Ryan (US)




More pictures next time!

New Friends and Deutsch is so hard to master

Hello everyone,

Today let me introduce a few of my friends in my german class to you as well as tell you about how difficult my german class is.

This is Janjira, my class mate from thailand. She is very good in german and has been learning it intensively for one year plus. She speaks only thai and german so I am forced to practice german with her. She is very helpful and always explains complicated grammar structures to me.

This is Irene, from Spain, barcelona. She sits on my left in class and she always laughs at my rubbish. I always have my break with her and I have found out that she likes to play basketball and bake! She stays at neuenheimer feld which is near the Max Weber house. (Hey dan!! She play basket ball leh!) I think we will have a baking session soon!





This is Kristian from SERBIA. I guess many people wont know where serbia is. But serbia is an eastern european country bordering bulgaria and hungary. Its gone through a lot of upheaval and masscres and etc. But christina is very friendly and super nice. Google serbia, I'm sure you'll find it interesting!





This is what I do in class. In the first 1 and half hours , i practice grammar. The grammar structures are becoming increasingly difficult, for example the partizip 1 and conjunctive 1, and the relativesatzes, as well as not to mention, my personal dislike of the Plus Quam perfect conjunction 2. Gosh. Verben mit prapositionen too! So much to study!

for the next 1.5 hours we read a text, write something, or discuss a theme. So far we have discussed the medical ethics, music, youth internet delinquency, everything in german. I died in my first discussion!

Then we have a short presentation prepared by someone in the class. Next monday it is my turn and i am super kiasu singaporean. I wanted the weekend to prepare. But i have not thought of a theme yet..maybe my theme will be Travel, or History. So , more updates soon!

Faching !

Yesterday Heidelberg celebrated a festival called Fasching, just before ash Wednesday. In Singapore we would hardly ever get a chance to have an all our parade, but that was exactly what that was. From the Bismarck Platz to the Hauptstrasse was many many vehicles and floats throwing out beer, alcohol, bread, sweets and all kinds of stuff! One german man even drew a heart in pink lipstick on my cheek. My friend has the picture and I will upload it when i have it.

You can wikipedia Karneval if u are interested. It is the same as Fasching. At first i wanted to go home as quick as possible because I was anticipating many drunk people on the street, but I realised that I could not go home! So i just stayed and joined in the festive atmosphere. It was really fun.

Today I wan out of groceries so I headed to Rewe, something like our NTUC. Now I have food for the week. Its quite fun planning my weekly menu! For lunch today I was at Marstalhof mensa and i had quite a lot for lunch so dinner is often not a very significant activity for me.

I had my first look at a violin shop since I came to Heidelberg. I got to try 2 violins. One cost 900 Euros and I like it very much.. but I will continue to look around before I decided which one I want to buy.

The German preparatory course is getting harder and harder. Fortunately I only need to pass to transfer the credits to NUS. But I have to put in a lot of effort, which I did not expect! So I try to do my homework as much as possible. I have made many friends here from different countries. For examples, Spain, Greece, USA, Brazil, Thailand..Its really cool.

This friday, i will attend a concert at the Max Weber house in the evening. Its a piano trio from the Freiburg musichochschule I think and i'm looking forward to it very much. till the next update!

Heidelberg- everything u need to know

In order: Rachel tan and rachel fong, on the way to school (the coldest part of the walk), school (also called max weber haus), typical lunch












I arrived in Frankfurt on the 16 of Feburary and took a lufthansa shuttle bus with Rachel Fong, Fiona and Shao min to Heidelberg. Then I realised that all of us were separated (because they wanted us to be independent and mix around) and i got my keys to Rohrbacher Strasse 110. This is where i live, you can google map it.

I then took a cab to the hostel and unpacked. I must say, the room looks a lot better now than before! Its a little suburban and pretty quiet, and i like the hostel very much. Well so i settled all the admin stuff like paying for the hostel, settling the deposit, setting up the bank account, getting a german telephone number, buying health insurance ecetera.

The next day, we sat for an entrance exam to determine how good our german was. Thankfully i got into the mittlestufe, which is something i think i can map back to in Singapore. Its like an intermediate level of german. So we have had classes from 830 to 130 everyday before we break for lunch. This week has been filled with matriculation and other random levels of beauracracy which i hate but is a necessary evil , so, as the germans say, na ja! (oh wells!)

We met Hadi who is almost singapoean, holds an indonesian passport, and who is a medicine student in germany. And finally I have internet access , thanks to HADI! U rock..

I've been supermarket shopping on friday and saturday because I realised I couldn't survive on cereal and chocolate forever, so I decided to attempt cooking. Today is sunday night, and I might attempt some pasta..

I've been diligently drinking my vitamin C, and dressing warmly. It is really cold here, and I typically put on about 3-4 layers of clothing. The view of Heidelberg and the old buildings are spectacular, but its often so cold I have no time to appreciate the view and can think of nothing better than to go into a cafe and have a cup of warm tea or chocolate.

Today is sunday, and I had to find a church. So out i went with Rachel (Fong)and Fiona to search for bernie's church. Bernie is an MOE scholar studying Germanistik in Heidelberg and she recommended me a church. But she's off to barcelona for the weekend for a break so armed with just the address we searched for calvary chapel heidelberg. I found the church service very refreshing, the sermon was good, well organised and sound and the people were friendly, and best of all there was english translation!

so here are some pictures..please comment or keep in touch.i miss all of u!

disappointment

Well I think today I really learned a lesson about internalising the lessons learnt during sunday school myself first. Every day it seems to me like a discover my heart is just that little but more deceitful it was yesterday...oh man.

Its time to live for the things that truly matter...

project yunnan

I met up with a good friend of mine today, a youth worker turned missionary in Yunnan. We had porridge and had a talk..

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing with my life. How can I live a life that counts? Will the things I think make me happy truly make me happy? Or is my happiness found in simple things that contribute to God's kingdom?

I went for another PSD recruitment thing the other day. i've been to so many it feels somewhat routine, and i ask myself, is this what I really want in life?

It looks like I haven't really found the answer yet. Maybe its time to make another trip to Yunnan...

Meanwhile, i'm thankful God has given me friends that i really look up to for their sacrifice and love for God's word, work and people and I only pray that if God should ask me to do the same, I will submit with joy.