last day in this apartment....

ok, so its my last night in this apartment,the silly landlord screwed it up n rented it out to some friends of theirs n for 10days we gotta shift out. ok la, so she told us abt this right from the begining... it shte milan fair la, every where in milan is fully booked...

so anyway, lynn's staying with some friend in luxury, while jx n i got a room from some random dude whom we go the no from a lamp post jsut outside school... see, that random man... anyway, its the cheapest we can find so far, from whatever is available, the landlord found for us, fro 2 pple, its 450euro!! for 10 bloody days!! then mr random is charging us 200euro, but hte room a bit sad, jsut an empty rm with 2 beds, n we jsut found out we gotta bring our own pillows... but kitchen n living rm we can share with him n his friend... they making a quick buck outta us la... damn.. but oh well, its not too bad, not very far from sch, jsut a train stop or 2, n the station is jsut downstairs, n u know what else is jsut down stairs???? the SUPERMARKET!!! yay!!!

so ok, we started cleaning a lil, damn dirty la, here the floor all dark brown n all, cant see the dirt till u sweep man... eeeeks....
n gotta pack up everything which is sucha bitch i tell u... n for the 10days, im travelling damn light man, bring dman lil clothes n all... but no choice la...

ok, so last night here n we gotta clear the food, so jx n i whipped up a storm man! (lynn is alreadya t her friends place...) we had rice(real ones, not porriage, beginners luck man!) then we had some pasta, then we had stir fry chicken with onion,ginger, tomato n oyster suace, oh n carrots.. damn chapalang la.... but damn gd man... eat with rice... yumyum...
then we had the winning dish!breaded pork chops!! we cut into smaller pieces, then used crackers (getting bread crumps jsut too ma fan, plus we had to clear the crackers)... to coat with egg then fry! then we made a tomato n onion sauce to go with the pork chops.... gd stuff man...
oh n we had a huge pot of soup with tonnes of veggies cos we had to clear them too....
then we invited our neighbour dimi for dinner , cos we had to get eggs from her so pai seh ma, she knows we're cooking so must ask her along ma... but heng she came la! we had SOOOO much we seriously ate till we wanted to explode. jx cldnt sit anymore, n i had to do stretching. dimi brought potato n egg, n some cheese with pickles n tomato dip... all very yummy too... esp the cheese n tomato dip! gd stuff man..

well, u must be wondering how come got no pics! the thing is, i took pics in my nokia! but for some reason my nokia is not transfering the pics to my com... u see! always got somehting to screwed it up..!! argh... so till i can figure that out... no food pics?

ok, its 3am, n im getting sleepy, gotta get up early to clear n pack n leave man... sian o the max...
if i dont blog, it aintmy fault man, that new random place has no internet.... but got supermarket... so i guess we'll still be able to past time....

ok wan an friends... till somehting else happens...

waiting for food to disgest a lil so i can sleep...

ok, so, as mentioned, im waiting for food to digest just that lil bit so i can go nap... heh..
just went over to my neighbours to eat a lil.... he whipped up some pasta, thin sliced eggplant (which he taught us the right way to do it.. thats what we're gonna do for dinner...yay!), n a plate of cheese which he microwaved till all nice n melty (like racklets in marche... yum..) n together with some chilli powder n pinches of bread! here they eat many courses but tiny ones... but yea.... ok, so thats pasta....

then before he came over to invite us for food, i was boiling green beans to make , well of cos green bean soup... so came back, cont the fire n over boiled the damn thing again! oh heck, taste pretty much the same anyway... so green bean soup was done, n i was feeling cold (tho the sun's really shining today, thats milan spring for u man) so erm... i had a bowl of green bean soup! tho i was far from hungry... anywya, green bean soup here is basic, green beans,water, sugar... not like when i get from the food court man, with DURIAN...... ooooo.... so anywya, i wanted to try adding condense milk to try n make ti milky n see how it taste like, but i added sugar already!(so much for planing...) ok, so never mind, wanna add fresh milk, but my milk is COLD, then it'll defeat the purpose of eating green bean soup in the first place...so ok, no fresh milk either... then ... guess what i found in my fridge.... KAYA!!!! yay!!! no pls, milan no kaya... they got bee hoon very gd already.... i brought this from spore.... which probably adds to my lugguage over weightness at changi, yet needed to buy more thigns than lynn n jx here in milan....
anyway, so i got a spoonfull of kaya n into my green bean soup! yumyum! dont know y i was never this creative when i had green bean soup that was boiled right by aunty silo/aunty shuba n had kaya sitting in my fridge for the longest time... n my kaya is home made somemore! by my macpherson mama...
i miss kaya toast man.... with butter gao gao... n eggs.. oh i miss the half boiled eggs....
so anywya, now im dman full, n feel a lil guilty go straight to bed n nap... heh.. so blog lor...

oh, abt my macpherson mama, i called her using skypeout the other day, she was so excited! of cos la, her granddaughter call from milan leh.... here i use skypeout to call my grandmamas whom i dont even call when i was in spore... skypeout is cheap man, e$10 can call anywhere n talk for abt 4-5hrs... a e$10 calling card lasted me only 30mins.... but the thing is, skypeout kinda depends on ur connection n heng-suay la, sometimes damn clearn no lag, sometimes(more oftern than not) its choppy n laggy... but still can talk, no prob... just need to open ur ears bigbig n listen more more...
n my mama was telling me very excitedly that she was going to phuket for a wk, so dont call her during that 1 wk, ( i now suspect i have to call her every 3 days...) but then i heard from my xing papa that she hurt her leg n now staying in jalan kayu with us... n in jalan kayu, this wkend my dad n i have booked a msn video conference date so my mama can see n hear me all the way from milan! think she's be so so so excited! n i am too! i mean, ive seen friends, mum n dad n family, aunty silo/shuba has seen me(but not the other way cos my family jsut got a webcam).. but this is hte grand mama man!
she's very cute la she... on the day i was flying off, we met her for lunch before flying at night... then after lunch she called me at home (i was still packing frantically of cos) to ask what time flight n where etc, but didnt say she was going... but i so suspected she was gonna go la...
then at the airport at 9plus pm, there she was with my aunty! n she said to me 'we were here in 6pm! we wanted to surprise u!' i was midly surprised of cos, but very very very touched... so sweet ah... think they went early to get dinner there.. so after my surprise, she asked if i wanted bengawan solo kueh, tho i wasnt craving for any, i said 'wah okok mama!!!' so she went to buy n got me somehting like 10 kuehs to bring! but i didnt get a chance to eat them till i got to milan which was somehting like 17hrs later? n its was too funky to be eaten already.. so i had to toss them... makes me sad to think of it man.... didnt get to eat the 10 kuehs my mama got me... haiya...
teach u fellas.... with grandmamas n gong-gongs, must ask them questions u sometimes already know answer to,so that they can 'hand down knowledge to u'..... they ask u whether wanna eat, u damn full also eat like its damn yummy.... the thing is, u must make them feel very impt in ur life n highly appreciated... they probably already have this mindset that they r too old n dont fit in our 'youngsters life' etc... so u must do these lil things like ask qns la, ask for food la etc.... understand not!
hello hia chaps who are reading this, dont tell mama i didnt eat the kueh ah!! she'll be very sad!

ok, i think, its time to go zzz... hheh... nice n warm under the blankey ma...
ok, till next blog.... wan an!

revenge... of blogging

finaly managed to upload pics! so im back with revenge man..n im so gonna save this blog before publishing... jsut hope it doesnt somehow die on me again...


ok, here's some 'SPRING' flowers on a tree... blooming... but im like, 'where's the bloomin spring!!!!' its still damn cold la! since ive been here for a month now, the temp increased by maybe 4deg??? n they say winter's ending... ya right
anywya, on this note, last sat was the 'white night' where we celebrated the "START" ( i insist on the brackets n caps) of spring.. so shops (nn train etc) were open n running late into the night! n at piazza duomo(the one with the square n the amazing cathedral) was packes with young punks cos there was the italian mtv awards going on...
sounds gd fun ah! but i barely watched the awards tho it was live... i mean, we listen to them n like 'who was that again???"
anywya, this white night was quite nice, all springy-spirity n all... had lil stages for performance down the shopping lanes etc... like they had a jazz one with live pianist n live singer of cos.. (above pic)(tho we had to try to ignore the singer n listne to the pianist....)
but the place was so damn packed we decided to leave n head back home....

this was a tram that had pple n they were having a party in it! had running lights n loud music n all!! dunno if its a private party or jsut some ramdom funky tram...

was at proj grp mates place for project... n just thot i share the lil wc with u fellas.. haha
its wood, u dont appreciate it, but i tell u, here in the 'ending' days of winter, i wish i had them, they're so much less cold to sit on! aiyo! i always get a lil twitch when i sit on the toilet bowl, esp in the mrng!
anyway, here(as in, in italy, ok milan n rome at least) the flush is like a tap, u turn, flush till al's gone, then u MUST turn back n off the flush.. so its self controlled... not like spore or whatever other wc ive used where u at best ahve 2 (small n big) flushes...

ok we were walking towards the station after the duomo shopping, n saw this leonardo da vinci tent so we went to see-see... n there, EVERY kind of 'da vince - the REAL code', da vinci this da vinci that... everyhting that cna possibly be da vinci-fied, was da vinci-fied n was sold there....from pens to unbrellas to books of cos... eveyrthing la... thik there is a exhibition or somehting.... i bet da vinci is stabbing himself so darn hard now high up in the sky cos pple r cashing in liek siao thanks to him... n i suspect he's prob plotting dan brown;s death now...

damn funny ah! 'who cna crack the da vinci code'... flipped a few pages, i tell u, its a scam to cheat parents of their money who think they can possibly intro da vinci to their kiddos... then again, if they did flip n still bought the damn book, they ought to be cheated... ahha u scheming italains!! no way u gonna cheat me again esp after the damn roman &*^*&;%&^%&^ idiot!!

ah yes! one more da vinci book...but this less cock la... see the next picture....erm, id say gd effort la huh... n clever to cash in on the da vinci crazy despite writing abt ducks only.... i mean like, its 'HOW' related... n we so saw it coming...

ok, went back to the ferarri shop to look see look see again.. heh, brought wenfong n mum to see the shopping district of milan ma... they also asked,'simi fashion capital, more like war-torn country la...' so peps, this is the 4th n 5th person saying it, so when n if u ever come to milan n ure reading this, know what to expect ah....
anyway, this vespa, wah... damn beautiful la... the red... so nice n bright!! n the helmut! bright bright red too with leather.... really very beautiful


this one, banana n chocolate 'chips'... the fold n flip the liao into the yoghurt kind, like ski-double up in spore! (oh, speaking of which, i dont see ski here... maybe cannot make it here... ahha) but this kind, no way can beat my breakfast for champions la.... that one still the king...
anyway, think in spore 1 o such yoghurt is like 3plus bucks? here this one was E$0.39! seems a lil dubious to be this cheap (plus the lil supermarket 'pennymarket' seems a lil dodgey too) but heck it la! eat first then lao sai then see how....
anyway, i had it, n it was ok only la, muller better... this one the yoghurt not as nice... wont really get it again i guess....

this one is muller, less dubious, havent had it yet....but cant go wrong one la! muller leh! oh but less cheap, e$0.79!! but still freakin cheap compared to spore! bet my sis mel must be damn jealous, know she loves ski double up n always sneakily buy n hope my dad wont scold.. aiya dad, let her get 1 this sat at ntuc k, since she did so well for her exams... tonnes of As! well done mel!!! if pa dont buy the yoghurt for u tell me k! i ask mama to scold him... hehehhe

ok, this is chantily(feeling nostellgic gilly?haha) n banana yoghurt, obviously u knew cos u can read with ur 2 eyes...chantily's some cream for cakes i think, from what i can gather form the pics on the container... banana was not bad, banana stuff usually has a stronger flavour n usually not bad.... hee
but these 2 r small indiv portion cups, so not so economical, so doubt ill be having too much of it...
ok, its BANANA yoghurt again! but with apple this time...see hte text? i know 'mele' is apple in italian, so i guess 'mela' will do too... oh n the 'gusto!' above the banana n apple text.. like so gung-ho sounding ah, 'GUSTO!!'... but itd 'flavour' in italian la... hahah....anyway, this one, not nice one... a lil funky, the apple taste damn fako la... had one htis mrng, damn, still got another one to work thru...


ok this aint yoghurt ... finally... heh.. its white wine! on a carton box! cheapest i cld find in the supermarket la, 1plus euro... just made some yummy drink with it cos we had to clear .... just cut some fresh oranges, pour in the wine, add some sugar n refridgerate till nice n cold n siok! gd stuff man..... u shld throw in the orange peel too, so u get the pang-ness of the orange... hee

my monday

this is so annoying! this si the 2nd itme im doing this same blog! i did till sui-sui n when i hit 'publish blog' i got bumped out n kana the 'erroe pg'.... n lsot hte entire thing! argh... so sickening....so pls ah, appreciate this blog more...

ok now i cant upload pics... its the error pg again!
ok heck it, im jsut gonna tell u fellas abt my day or somehting... maybe ill try to re-do this blog later or something..

anyway, its wk2 of sch, monday... for 1, the time here has just shifted forward by an hr cos 'spring' is apparently here, there is actually a day for spring to jump out n 'ta-daa!' so time was moved forward n essentially i lost an hr... anywya, 'spring'... im like simi spring, another fako stunt i say... today tis even colder lor! apparently here we dont quite get spring n autumn, what we have is lovely long long winters n summer... global warming is screwing the world...

so here in milan, at 137am, with socks still on my feet, n still in my adidas jacket at home...
oh ya, suppose to talk abt my day,... ok so went to sch, timetable says class starts at 915am, we were there at 915-920, guess what? half the sch is still absent... mr scarry tutor mr dagger eyes(i decided to name him as such after staring hard at me (n banging the table) last wk for dozing off n leaving highly scarred...) strolled in at 945 n class started at 10 with say... 2/3 of the students? its like that here... i know i walked the entire floor trying to find my class at 915 cos i went to the right class but there was hardly anyone n i thot i went to the wrong class...
anyway, in dagger eye;s class... had grand plans to sit farfarfar away from him cos, well, i cant say for sure i wont zzz again... but my grp mate ws seated in 2nd row, near teh centre somemore, hai, so i sat with her in case she needs to tell me anything, afterall, my italian is how gd....
so right infront i sat, with dagger eyes... but i was DAMN ATTENTIVE la!! took out my notebook n all, copy italian slides which says god-knows-what... then eyes open big big n look so damn in interested in the words coming out of dagger eye;s mouth tho its really is jsut sound to me ... then armed with my lil digital translator i was HOW BUSY keying in words to translate n all... wah, i never felt this nerdy since what.... jc?(jc i was sucha nerd till now im amazed) . so like, try to look damn interested in dagger eye;s class la, then finally after almot 2hrs it was break time! so yay! went to get lavazza coffee form the vending machine! here, coffee has its own entire machine, (okok, n 1 hot chocolate n 1 lemon tea) n it aint simi nescafe k, its lavazza... beat that! so got my does of kopi, then the other 2, or 1 of the 2 i cant rem who, prob jx la... cant be lynn... who suggested leaving since its pointless to sit in (it really is, made me so damn it tired jsut acting for dagger eyes) so jsut when dagger eyes started his lecture again, 3 of us chopchop grab our bags n zao! i didnt dare to look at him when i walked out sia, JUST WALK....heh
then went to grab some groceries, came back, used net n slept a lil before going BACK TO SCH for italian lessons(im how proud of myself)...

we learnt to count all the way to 100 today.... n some dialog liek, what is my name, where do i come from etc... so thats that.

im sorry my blog's jsut s chunk of words n no pictures, i can imagine how boring it is to read.. so ill make up by using coloured text k.... haha
ok, i tried again, still cannot....idiot

ok so now, its 152am, still with my socks n adidas jacket, n i gotta go START doing my work liao... been procrastinating... heh... before i do that, ill go make kopi first... hee...

more food....

kinder small cake. i dunno what it says la, ripped the pack...told u fellas there were tonnes of kinder stuff right, ok not tonnes but more than in spore at least... had the hippo one in rome, now this cake thing, i wldnt buy it but lynn wanted to try so oh well..only only like kinder stuff with hazelnut... heh

verdict: nothing worth buying again... its coffee flavour cake with coffee cream... n its DRY... sporeans peps, nothing to lose on this....

just a lil close up... wanted to show its dryness... but using nokia la, i mean, its damn early in the mrng, my 2 friends r sleeping, (jx is sleeping 3feet from the kitchen) so i didnt wanna wake jx n bring my camera n take pics......ok, not that i didnt already since i was taking things out of the cupboard n cutting fruit n boiling water n doing dishes... haiya, SOMEHOW i thot nokia ws more silent... tho now, i dont think theres much of a diff...heh


its MALT yoghurt now... im currently having breakfast for champions as i type away.. 1 banana, 1 small pear,corn flakes,raisins, 2 'hazelnut' snaps (only cos i took it out to take pics for u peps), n malt yoghurt ! im eaitng alot more fruit here.... n shit alot more too... i just had an orange earlier on...
malt yoghurt : if i concentrate, there a tiny lil but of holicks n a tiny lil bit of coffee... if i dont think, n chapalang in my breakfast for champions, cant taste malt...
will i buy again? i think neh... ill still go back to my dependable vanilla n hazelnut.
tho now i try to get LOW FAT, but it sucks la, only got berry n plain flavour. so i get plain, n drizzle some maple syrup over it! yay... then i get maple yoghurt... so clever ah!


cong! as in, thats our home grown cong... we've been wanting to get them so we can cook... like dark-sauce,ginger n cong with some meat.. but italians dont eat cong... then one day while i had to prepare onions, i asked jx whether still can be eaten cos it was sprouting... then he was like 'CONG!' i was like OHMAN! ure right! so we decided to TRY n grow it, n guess what, its growing! yay.... but cong is expensive man.... i takes 1 damn onion to get 1 freakin sprout!
(Qn : can we still eating sprouting potatoes n onions? advice!)



ah! the cadbury hazelnut snaps! we got it of cos...esp since anna n tracy had a hard time figuring out whether they were chocolate coated potato chips or jsut chocolate.
now i tell u....
just chocolate... n about the hazelnut... when i ate.. i went 'simi hazelnut...' i thot very hard abt it while eating, to see if there were even tiny traces of hazelnut... but neh....those specks on the chocolate, were crunchy, like coco pops crunchy... not nut-bits crunchy..... gimmicks i tell u!! damn it...

this is our sundried tomato spread! u see 'coop' that the commmunist brand ive been talking about...this one, very yummy too... very


ok this is our packed food for 1st day of sch! potato salad, pan fried eggplant(my new fav...) n pasta.. i tell u, cos we knew we were gonna have a damn long day, from 9am to 8pm....n didnt wanna spend money on sad n expensive italian food so we packed like no tmr! pasta jsut suck when it cold la... oh, didnt add, but there was a sandwich to go too... n a orange... n....
just so u know, we never packed food lke that ANYMORE... jsut a sandwich n a fruit..
it was damn paiseh to carrya rd la (i carried so i know,but we later split it up n carried out own), esp when we put all into 1 plastic bag(tho not the market kind) but man.... the only thing could 'qie' (beat) our bag of food was if i carried the metal tins that cld stack up n held together nicely with handle n all..if i EVER do that, pls slap me

we went to the greek girls place for traditional greek food..a first for me.. there were 2 spanish girls living there too. (ps : they said camper aint THAT cheap there, abt 90-120euro? at least la... wah, in spore its like what 200-300plus?)

ok abt the food, its was good! lotsa feta cheese, since i like cheese, how wrong can it get... there were dips n all, n u eat with bread or this bagel looking hard biscuit... man it was HARD...

ok, this is ouzo.. 38% greek traditional booze... has a liqourice taste to it... dont fancy it...oh, but what was interesting was that i realised that it turned a lil 'chalky' when we added ice/water. - like co2 in limewater, damn primary sch ah!) im gonna assume its the drink, n not chalky h2o

i found a splendid way to cook corn! it anyhow pom n now, i can eat 3 times a wk!
i got corn from a can, not cream corn! its corn like 'cup corn'..
chop tomaotes
big onion
mushrooms (optional)
butter
white wine(its cheap here la, $2euro can get a bot)
butter ( i like tonnes... very well with the white wine i say!)
pinch of salt
anyway, i teach u ah... damn simple....
jsut throw in butter,onion n mushrooms, n fry fry...till mushrooms look rather cooked...
then wine,tomato n corn,salt... n stir stir stir...till its warm n hot n nice to eat!
ta-daa!
dont cook the wine too long tho, it more siok when its hot n a lil 'alcoholy'... heh
as to howmuch of everything, jsut wack la.. u like mroe corn then more corn lor... u hate butter then dont use... (tho i must add, if u dont like butter, something is wrong... n no butter comes from milk! not cow fat! wont say this is for who... )

hello

ok, i cant upload pics for some reason... it just doesnt happen... dunno why, plus connection is wonky man...damn annoying... when connection is down, all 3 of us here have the same wall paper on our screens...the rather common one la...the one with a lil 'i' on a piece of paper n says 'The page cannot be displayed"...

anyway, ill blog what i can, sometimes its so cock, i actually thot of doing in word doc then when it finally works ill copy-paste... so i wont have to bother re-typing...

anyway, here sch ahs started for abt a wk now... we pack food of cos... saves me hell lotsa money man...speaking of which i have '$0 expenditure' today!! we pack sandwich which is dman yummy... here we buy the cheapest bread possible, its the usualy square ones we get but its half the thickness n abt 3/4 the size... tiny n thin man... but heck its 0.30euro per pack of 20slices... so we have stuff like formaggio(cheese) n its real stuff lor, not kraft slices.. we got the 1 big triangle piece... 'asiago' eat to eat, not very strong... then we have rocket.. or rucola veggies in our sandwich too... n of cos, i have some ham or something...

then we get cheapest crackers n spread nutella-gao... yummy...
n i just found out my 2 friends here, lynn has NEVER HAD nutella n goober ever...!!!!!!(ok she says she thinks she probably had it without knowing or bluffed her mum to get when she was young or something la)...then jx a lil better, had nutella before but NOT GOOBER! aiyo... im almost died laughing wheni found out... i mean, 'u fellas not childhood ah?!?!?!!?'...i mean, these things r like....'bovril'! the childhood kinda thing...
we of cos went on n on abt childhood food... thing slike 'san-ja' or 'hawflakes', n the chocolate wafer in the pink/purple wrapper...sometimes in orange n dark brown too... n erm, rabbit sweets, barley sweets... etc...
but alls good now, they have been liberater... esp lynn of cos.. they dont have goober here so too bad for her... but she embraced the nutella world with wide wide arms man! new love...
then again, i rem during wll session where i brought goober n bread to eat n dance... n kim was liberated n introduced to the goober world too...

okok, lets do a POLL!!
if ure reading this far, pls cont n leave a comment abt GOOBER! (im jsut gonna assume that lynn is the only one who didnt have nutella since young...)
whether is totally "DUH" to have goober, or like 'simi goober.....'
(goober : the peanut butter n grape jam swirl in a glass jar...with 2 grapes infront with smiloey faces n all... (now with strawberry! n chocolate? too)...
aiyo! so fun!! leave comment k!!

a lil more interesting stuff...

FINALLY!!! stupid pic on these 2 finally got loaded... kept having problems with it... jeese.... dont ask me what the article is abt... my italian classes started already tho..., had 2 sessions so far, skipped 1 already, later got 1 more BUT IM GOING...
its ok, the lessons, just that its 615pm so if i dont have anything in the afternn n decide to come home, its jsut sucha bitch to go all the way back to sch! (well, i just dont go... so not that annoying ..heh... but ill TRY..)



ok, realised that u cnat see very much, but anywya,its a sign i got form a construction site... i cant rem how the spore one is like, but this one ah, oncd again quite amusing to see the way they put in so much effort to make the 'sign-man's really like dman chia lat... kana smashed by loads la, things drop on them la etcetc...heh

sinks in italy.... without a tap....

BUT! very cleverly(pls be more clever from now...) they have step padles for u! so u wont need to turn on the tap etc... just step!!!! makes the sink area cleaner n less wet... GD JOB ITALIANOS!
ripped this off some website abt florence.... was searching for infor etc... n the website which didnt look too pok, had this pic to tell us where the tourist office is....ok so, u tell me where la... jx n i were really quite amused by it! i mean, no map ah!

first day in school....

FINALLY... we had class...
we started out by poppin by from class to class asking th tutor what they're gonna teach then see if we wanted to take that, or if we can ... i mean, we odnt speak a word of italian!
so anyway, went for masters yr 1 lab (studio)... here they teach in italian of cos... so we were clueless to the max, jsut pretend to look interested when in fact, we're spacing out like siao. they also dman cock la, asked 'who dont understand italian??" in ITALIAN!! of cos we didnt respond, if we cld, we wouldnt have to answer it anyway... (we found out the tutor asked fr our class mates during the break...)

anyway, so we sat in class, stoning... n well,naturally i dosed off (my ID friends must be like... 'ah yes, very naturally for jane....) dose off never mind leh, but this tutor ah, damn niao man, cannot talk, cannot have bags n jackets on the table top, n of cos, cannot sleep! so he caught me dosing off n bang the table at me... wah lau... damn embarassing la... i was the FIRST N ONLY to zzz..... n i got dman scared after that la! he very fierce... :(
so thats part one....

then next was to get into groups for our design project... they made it such that 1 erasmus(exchange student) with 2 italians.... so we, the erasmus, who knows NO ONE.... n cant utter a single word of italian... well, we felt kinda unwanted! we were like 'i bet the italians r going 'wah lau... must have erasmus ah... this sem sure die liao... hope i dont have to get the sporeans who can speak negative italian man....''... im serious, we felt like we were cooked chicken-rice chicken, waiting for pple to come eat chicken rice so the chicken rice man will jsut finally take us off the damn hook....
oh well, so finally we were 'taken'... well not too bad la, 3 in a grp, im with 2 girls who took pity on me... n 1 from rome, can speak not bad english(relative to the rest,rome is so full of tourist, most of them r used to spekaing english), tho the other girl, already quite quiet kind, n english not very gd, so lets say i cld count the no of words she spoke to me today....

so basically, sch for us now will be essentially 15mins/lesson? ( translated lesson from our grp mates)

day trip to como...

we went to como, its a place somewhere above milan...just took our regular train n was there in an hr...went with my neighbours... 2 bulgarians, 1 dutch,1 polish ( correct right? but its like polishing shoes kinda of polish.. someone check!) 1 slovenian,1 colombian, n 2 sporeans(jx n lynn la)....

oh! como is famous for the lake... called... well, none too surprising... lake como... it was like that only lor... if u ask me... lake is lake la, apparently according to the guide bk, it has turquoise colour water... to me, ok la, a lil bluebluegreengreen... turquoise? ure pushing it la...saw some duckies, exactly like the one i have at home, but mine's dead n from wood. the day was rather cloudy, not the best of days to go, but heck la, got time n neighbours wanna go so... go lor...

(i tried since last night to upload this pic of the como tabliod abt jolie n brad but i just cant!! ill cont to try but for now.... ops!)

so we went there... n my friend read that angelina jolie n brad pitt was getting married in como this very day!!! so we were like, wow! such coincidence man!!! apparently george cloony (or rather giogio cloony the italian way) has a villa here so there so borrowed i guess.. heh.. anyway, we also saw tabloids on the streets in como reporting on it... but the million dollar qn.... DID WE SEE THEM? OR THE WEDDING? OR ANYTHING FOR THAT MATTER? ............... bo la.... simi also dont have... cheh.. maybe como was a lil more crowded but i wldnt know cos i dont know what a normal day is anyway...



fr left to right : slovenian (laia), columbian(camella),polish(armebella),dutch(rick), sporean(jane, lynn),bulgarian (shasho, dimi)
we went for coffee cos it was cold after the boat ride....


we walked up those housing area for a bit... walk like mad man, like freakin great wall of china...
but nice place... my friend walk till needed to stop for stretching... heh

tiny lil walkways, europe got alot i think... rome also had... but very nice n cosy... quaint la...(oh i made a discovery, i realise they(italians ,ive yet to see other european ctries) seem to like green windows/shutters...somehow or rather, they r green... n really quite common... i hvae no idea y... anyone knows?

abit of the lake n some como buildings? apparently the fella who discovered some electricity thing called something-volt was from como... n thus, we have volts, n voltage etcetcetc...

then we were hungry, naturally... n managed to find some place where they STILL serve food at 1plus pm(told u they were lazy, all closed form 1-4pm)... so we sat down n got pizza which were well, bloomin expensive!!! bloody $7.50euro for a pizzs with hardly any liao... i shared with the slovenian girl, wasnt much to eat but oh well, then had a tiny beer, $3euro.... damn.... n had to pay$2e for service charge!!! so my minimalistic meal cos me $9,50euro!!!! idiot... but it was gd la.... heh...

(same problem with the uploading of pics man....so annoying...)

this pic of a bar, lynn n i... on the overhead canvas thing, it says 'barry's bar' at least thats what i read first time.. then i saw the windows n other wordings... then realsied it was 'harry's bar'... i say... bad font or spelling error! once again damn cock la these pple....

what my dad said for the stuff in rome...

below is what my sweetheart daddy mailed me reagarding my rome trip... thot u fellas can learn a lil more since i cant remember all the history n what not...u might wanna refer to the previous entries i did on my rome trip...

Hello Xing Pek Pek,

Some additional info re your pics of Rome....

1. Trevi Fountain (pic # 1 and # 2). This is so called after the term ' trivio ' or cross-roads or exactly the place where 3 roads intersect. This was built during the time of Pope Clement XII and completed in 1762. The centre figure is a mythical figure of Ocean on a chariot driven by two marine horses. The building behind is a palace.

2. Roman Forum (pic # 3 and # 4). This is actually the monument to Victor Emmanuel II. Pic # 4 looks like the side view of Victor Emmanuel II monument.

3. Vatican. The present basilica is actually the 3rd church built on top of two others. The first and earliest one, which mummy and I went down with Fr Arro, has walkways that are so close together that they are about 3-4m apart. That is the ancient Roman design. It is actually a security measure. The inhabitants can use their spears to poke at the enemies from both sides of the passageway. The entrance to this, if I remember correctly, is behind St Peter's Chair.

4. St Peter's Chair. This is a masterpiece from Bernini.

5. Mosaic art. This is one of the main attractions in the Vatican. A lot of the 'paintings' were made from small colourful mosaic chips.

6. Dead pope. This guy is Pope Innocence XI.

7. Pieta. This creation of Michelangelo was almost damaged by some @#$%!&%$ mad guy! Understand he threw a hammer at it. This was in the mid '80s I believe. When we were there in 1987, it was protected (shielded) by a bulletproof glass. Mikey's (he and I are on first name basis!) style of sculpture was always to start from a lump of marble. He visualise the figures 'bursting' out of the marble block. Then he would sculpture it. If you go to Florence, there is a museum where it shows the uncompleted works of Mikey. You can see how he crafted his works. Some pieces you can see had an arm sticking out of the marble etc..

How's that for memory ??!!! Not bad for an oldie yahh.....???

take care,
Xing Pa Pa

i learn new things abt italians everyday...

yesterday went over to my neighbours, met 2 czech girls, 2 finlands girls, 1 american teacher who teaches english to italian companies,1 italian chap learning to be a teacher, 1 dutch, 1 colombo-ian, 1 texas-american, n erm... 2 more i dunno fr where, oh n yes my 2 bulgarian immediate neighbours of cos....
it was (the learning-to-be-teacher) davidae's bday, we went over for drinks n cheese n some of them baked him a cake! all was gd, the cheese, the cake... drinks were ok, cep for the rosse wine which tasted like exttremely watered wine n it was in a 5L bottle?
no i didnt get drunk, i just cldnt stop eating the cheese... it was smoked cheese or somehting cos it tasted like bacon!all niec n smokey man...

anyway, so ive learn from the american teacher, that italian here change important pple's name....
here we see these as street names....
1)ALBERTO einstein
2)GIOGIO washington (this is my favourite)
n thomas edison which i cant rem his italian name...

n then these italians ask y do americans change the name of 'christopher columbus'when his real name is christoph c.. ( i anyhow spell la, but phonitically abt there)...
interesting ay... giogio washington.. hahahha

my day...

we went to sch in the mrng to hopefully find out more abt our modules etc... sch is starting next wk, n basically, we still gotta jsut sit in n see if we wana take that class etc... cos we cant find the right pple, web cant excess, if not info in italian... so thats that.
here, where we live, there r a few other students mostly studying in the same uni as we r, n quite a bit of ID yr 3 too! so ya, our immediate neighbours, 2 bulgarians, together we went to sch to find out more... then the bulgarians met 2 greek girls whom they got to know jsut a few days ago, so anyway, all of us, the sporeans, bulgarians n greeks, decided to go to chinatown n eat chinese food.
i tell u la, the food not very gd leh... but oh well, they enjoyed it quite a bit... order some sad looking tofu, n frogs legs (which were TINY) jsut so amuse the 4 of them.... n not very gd either, think my aunty silo can ANYTIME do a more decent job...they also had quite a ball of a time using chopsticks...we went to a lil store n got a 10pairs of chopsticks(in a pack kind for 1plus euro) after lunch n gave them a pair each!
(for those who dont know, aunty silo n anuty suba are my familys' sri lankan helpers, i dont like calling them maids.... so demeaning...they are mother-daughter r/s so quite interesting ah! been with us for many yrs, esp aunty silo, the mummy who first came when i was 6!)....

here, my capacity for sweet things has gone up definately... esp for chocolates! in spore, its so hot, eating chocolate can be so gao wei sometimes... but here, WOOHOO.. kinder bueno i can eat 1 after another!(but i dont la... but i know i can....)
so its bad bad bad.... i seriously CRAVE for chocolates here.... dunno why...

oh! n i invested 2euro in a metal spatula today! im like how gian to by a damn wok la... we r currently doing stir fry chicken, meat, etc.. n veggies in a damn pan... the meat stuff n all.... ok, i can tahan to some extent... but the veggies... wah lau... falling all over the place! n i had to use 2 forks to fry the veggies... (n pick them up too of cos) here we use forks n spoons n a wooden spatula to cook so far... n we have successfully meted jsut about all the spoons n forks here... (its has a plastic body la...) but form now on, we have a metal spatula! now i can flip pancakes n french toast la... cook ommelette properly... n fry a lil more like a chinese! i mean there is a reason y a wok is used for chinese cooking.... cos u stir fry alot! n whenu do that on a pan, tonnes of stuff piak-piak-piak everywhere!!! but the wok not very cheap leh, went to chinatown to see... think abt 10plus 15bucks a wok maybe? my aman spatula 2bucks liao... wok u tell me how much... hai.....anyone coming soon n willing to get me a wok??

post a comment

hello fellow readers of the pok blog...
i forgot to tell u fellas who had problems posting a comment earlier on, that my blog's techie(annabellie...gd job neighbour!) has fixed the problem!
so now EVERYONE can post a comment, whether u have a blog or not etc...
pls note that everyone else can read ur comments...

random stuff...

well, im here, in front of my com the whole day... school hasnt started, next wk... the damn italian admin la, anyhow bom some random date which sch suppose to start then make us come so early... ok la, we went to rome n got the admin sorted... but still! alot of moeny spent leh! we've been here say 3wks? n no sch... u must be like, 'what the hell is jane doing at home when she's in milan!?!?!??!' i tell u, im at home cos its the cheapest... its depressing i know but we havent found out much to go to.. 'orchard rd' went liao... window shop n be depressed also did liao...

jx n i was counting how much we spend so far... n where on earth did all th money go to! i tell u, its food.... ALL FOOD... not so much on outside food, but groceries... then we looked at the stuff we bought, then jx said, since when exchange students drink espresso, eat sun-dried tomato spread(extremely yummy), buy asiago cheese, eat hazelnut yogurt.... but ah, we check the price,all like $1plus... not so bad ma.... so we concluded, everything 1plus 1plus mounts to ALOT! hai... but we count n count n count, eat home anytime cheaper n alot more satisfying... i mean, i had chicken curry with fako mee pok!(egg pasta that looks like mee pok so we call it such to make ourselves happy). plus we only buy the cheapest n mainly 'ipercoop' brand so.... oh well...

OH!!!! we found PRAWNS!!! thats rather affordable....ok, prob still a lil more than what exchange student shld eat but its frozen n way cheaper than what we've see so far. (i ahvent had fish since i got here, not even fish fingers,seafood is FREAKIN EX). n this prawns have SHELLS....!!!! but no head... so we fried the shells the other day to make some stock for our beehoon! n this is real prawns man, some how it was really tasty... n not much more expensive compared to the mini shrimps (n alot more in qty) which shrink to pi-sai size(okok, hae-bee (dried shrimp) size) after u cook.



ok this was taken in the ferrari store... think i mentioned it some time back... did i? i cant rem... anywya, ill tell u abt it now...here ferrari store is 5 storeys. it AMAZING... tey have appareals n stuff, for kids men, ladies... n they get brands like puma, tods - oh goodness, the shoes n bags r so so so beautiful, i stood for quite some time....its the bright red i tell u, the ferrari red that when put together with tods.... excellent stuff i say! but of cos the price also one kind la,the kind u sigh n walk away........ they even ahve bathrobes, candles where u can see ur euros being burnt away bit by bit... stationary, books on ferrari... everything...

in rome having our bloody expensive coffee... cos we wanted a place to sit n chill.. so we made sure we sat long enough... not that i had alot of espresso to keep me company n no way i was gonna get another one for that price... oh goodness, just realised the waiter posed for the pic too! im jsut gonna assume he thot we were 'how touristy' to take pics with coffee n so he's laughing...

btw, i actually try NOT to openly display my che guevara shirt... i mean, its elections soon n this shirt actually means somehting here...


post box in vatican city... there;s only 1 slot for all letters... obviously it indirectly means its 'overseas'... there they cornered off an area for pple to write postcards, buy stamps etc...no wonder the vatican city is so well maintained....


this is a pic of my bfast some time ago... (i told u random stuff didnt i...) its strawberries, soft pears n yoghurt! i jsut had yoghurt for bfast again...heh... but it was strawberries,muslie,raisins n vanilla yoghurt...its DAMN easy to make la! n taste ever so gd... i dunno y i always seem to see pics with yoghurt n fruit but i just never tried till lynn did it 1 fine mrng... now, its a MUST! i can awake n 1st thing in my head is fruit n yoghurt... :) peps, go find 'muller' yoghurt, yumyum.. but of cos here i got more to choose la...


ok, i got these 3 lil roman metal soldiers (as big as my thumb?) from the colloseo(or in english, colloseum).... they only had 2 designs, i got all 3 the ssame cos the other one, looked weird... anyway, paid $1.5euro each! not exactly TTTHHHHHAAAATTTTTTTT expensive la... but very nice i thot! so i got 3... then ANNABELLE (r u reading this?) can make a brooch for me!! so its $3sing for a brooch! now THAT doesnt sound so bad anymore ay! for that anna, u get 1 tiny soldier too!!

other attraction in rome

jsut a lil bit on other attractions... i dont have pics on the pantheon cos my cranky camera died on me... the cold weather makes the lens cranky, so i switch on, switch off, on n off.. till ALWAYS no batt... which explains some nokia pics... i obviously not too interested in these stuff la, its really the kind u jsut come see for urself...


this is the trevi fountain. we didnt think it was very much till we got there... heh.. i mean, after naked white men displaying their manhood EVERYWHERE in the city, another one barely makes a difference... jaded man... but whats interesting is the entire thing is connected to the building behind it. guess thats y pple go see it...

this structure is huge! cant remember its name...but its some attraction la....imperial forum? which is where JC(julius cesare, for the benefit of those who didnt read the earlier entry) had board meetings...

maybe THIS is called the imperial forum... dunno....

MAYBE THIS! the imperial forum! beats me man... but u see! rumbles!!! n its a huge ass historical site i tell u!!!

some pic i took, maybe at the imperial forum? ahaha... anyway, the dude is resting in tis egytian statue thing, im thinking, cleopatra's power man...