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It was a short night at Rongxuan’s place.. considering that we only reached her place at 10+ and had to leave at 5+. It was the first time that we experienced the freezing cold of the UK mornings. So, we caught the 2nd bus in the pitch dark and made our way to the Oxford Gloucester Green Bus Station to make our way to Stansted airport. 
Yes, at the Stansted Airport we ate our first very expensive meal that cost me £7.70! (S$23!!!)And we arrived in Stockholm!
Fangxishenmedongxi and I were lucky to catch an airport bus immediately after we went out of the airport. But we could not sit together coz the bus was almost filled up. I even had to sit on the makeshift seat just beside the driver. But oh well.. the bus drove through the suburbs to the city and it was a great scenic ride. It was a refreshingly beautiful city. But of course the 1st thing on our minds was to meet up with Jilyn.. which we eventually did! (after 2 international phone calls)
Again, we were lucky to meet Sipei along the way to the student hostels so we just chucked our backpacks at her place and went to have dinner. Oh my gosh Eng Kheng brought us to this ‘cheap’ (nothing in Stockholm is cheap just that this place is cheaper than normal) place that served HUGE pizzas… check it outThere was nothing much to do at night… but it just so happened that there was a choinging session at a student pub nearby and Sipei highly recommended us to go.. which we did.. along with her flatmates.. a British lad, a Finnish gal, 2 German guys and of course.. 3 Singaporean kids. Whoa chionging there was really boring man.. just had to buy beer and stand around and talk. The rule was if you finished the drink in your hands you’d have to get yourself another one. And the guys all drink beer here.. no such things as Tequila Shots or Burbon Coke no no no… But a good thing is that beer is not expensive.
Of course there was the dancing part. The music was terrible. But of course the fun part was watching the drunkards make a full of themselves.
Strange thing was the whole party ended at… 1am! Haha that was ridiculously early to end a party. And all the drunkards were shouting and singing at the top of their voices as all made their way back to the hostels.way back to the hostels.
7th Sept - Foiled Plans
There were a few outdoor places we wanted to visit this day but was postponed because we woke up to a light drizzle. Hence, the more exciting indoor thing to do was to GO TO IKEA!!
One interesting thing was that while on the bus to IKEA, the 3 of us were just chatting and yakking away when suddenly this old man beside us tapped us and said
“Excuse me, are you from Singapore?”
Haha.. whoa the Singaporean slang is so recognisable! Turns out that this old couple were a retired businessman and businesswoman couple and had been traveling around Europe too. Took a photo with them =)
And ikea was HUGE!!! It was a 5-storey building that sold lost of Ikea stuff.. stuff found in Singapore and of course lots more stuff not found back home. I bought myself a nice orange umbrella (which is spoilt already but you still can catch it in the Stockholm photos) and a cheap pillow for myself.
The highlight of the day turned out to be… MEATBALLS!Whoa having authentic Swedish meatballs in Ikea was really shiok. The girls were absolutely sure that the meatballs here were much nicer than back in Singapore… well, I think they taste the same. If anything were nice it had to be the potatoes.. truly soft and buttery it could just melt in your mouth. Yummmmmmmmmm……
We went to the City Hall hoping to catch the guided tour but we missed it. We went to the Royal Palace but it was closing soon. So we ended up taking useless photos and shopped for groceries (which were freaking expensive)
Dinner was simple pasta with minced meat.
8th Sept - Skanson
Skansen is like a miniature Sweden. The old farmsteads and houses have been brought here from all over the country. They are seen surrounded by gardens and cultivated patches that are typical of the time and place. There are wild animals, mainly from Scandinavia, and rare breeds of farm animals. There are also trees and plants here from all parts of Sweden
Ok I copied the above paragraph from the Skansen info brochure. All in all Skansen is just this place build up to show what old Sweden was like… the buildings.. the roads.. they even had callafarres stationed in some buildings to explain to us what the building were for last time and took photos with us.
The only 2 regrets I had about this place was I didn’t go into this part of Skansen (had to pay) where they featured strange Scandinavian animals. Seriously they were animals that I never saw before!
And secondly was the horrible weather unsuitable for an outdoor excursion like this. Fangxi and I were just freezing in the cold winds and light drizzles such that by the afternoon we couldn’t wait to get out of the place to somewhere warm. The eateries had mostly outdoor seats so naturally they would be closed. Bleah.So here are the photos for Skansen.
Vasa Museum
Between four and five o’clock, the great new warship Vasa keeled over and sank. A few short lines about a major disaster were written in this book on August 10, 1628. For a magnificent ship that sank on her very first voyage, this could have been the end. Instead, it was the beginning of an adventure that is still in progress. The Vasa was found almost intact, standing on the seabed, after three centuries. The ship was salvaged and is now one of the foremost tourist attractions in the world.
Again that was excerpted from a book that was given at the museum haha. Yes the whole museum was built around this big ship but I think it’s an extremely well organized museum. Definitely one of the more interesting museums I visited in this whole trip.
Since it was our last night in Stockholm we decided to cook a great dinner for ourselves! It was really a good good homecooked meal. Satisfying…
9th Sept - Royal Palace
We started the day with a TEN SCOOP ICE CREAM!!! What a splurge… but it was really worth the money
Then off we headed to the Royal Palace. And it was just in time to catch the changing of guards ceremony. Or so we thought. The moment the band was heard everyone rushed to the parade square and we were squeezed all the way to the back. So all I did was randomly take some photos and raised my camera in the air hopefully to take a video of the Parade. Bleah it was nothing much at all. Quite boring actually. Thus we had our share of fun by stealing shots with the guards in charge of crowd control ha.We headed into the Royal Palace. Couldn’t visit the whole place though.. coz we had a cruise to catch after that. It was lucky we caught the guided tour in the main part of the palace so it didn’t reduce to wandering the palace aimlessly.
Surprisingly, the cruise after that was rather luxurious.. considering that it only cost S$50! Check out the ship
Just like all cruises there was absolutely nothing to do. Except to take photos, enjoy the sea breeze and take more photos. As we are all poor students, dinner was our usual unflattering Swedish crisp bread with spread in our little bunk.
We just spent the night by the live band playing Bridge. The band was cool. But didn’t last long.The ship was going to dock at Finland at 2.30am. Sunrise would be at 6am. We planned to sleep a bit and wake up for these 2 events.
Oh we didn’t. Haha.
10th Sept - And we were in Finland!
This was the first time we realized that we didn’t need to have our passports checked whenever we travel within the EU. We just stepped onto Finland soil without stamping our passports!It was a quiet Sunday morning and it was reeeaaallllly quiet. There were no cars on the street. There was not a single soul around. We walked to a little town centre and all the shops were closed. The air was refreshing but the walk was generally boring.
So hungry/greedy us headed back to the ship for BUFFET BREAKFAST!!
Gosh that was a great meal after scrimping and saving all these while!
When the ship docked at Sweden again, we said goodbye to EngKheng as the UK gang took the airport train to catch our plane to Oslo, Norway.
~oOo~chio rambled on [11:59 pm] Leeds Time~oOo~