Barcelona

A Day with Antoni Gaudi - Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia


With the best travel buddies - Mel & Char: Back facing the entrance of Park Guell with interesting gingerbread-like buildings designed by Gaudi.


Picnic at Park Guell with Chris and Anika, friends from the hostel. It was a lovely day and wonderful location overlooking Barcelona and a 3 piece band to entertain us.


The unfinished masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi - La Sagrada Familia. This cathedral is still undergoing construction and since 1886, it remains only 50% completed. However it was announced in 2000 that it should be completed by 2022. Now, that would defininitely we a sight to behold and maybe a good time to return to Barcelona.


One of the 4 facades of the cathedral. This being the oldest- The Nativity Facade. 4 bell towers rise highly above this. Altogether, the entire cathedral would boast 12 bell towers symbolising the 12 apostles, the Mary tower and the grand Jesus tower.


In front of the Hospital De La Santa Crue - A UNESCO monument consisting of yet again ginger-bread like buildings.

International Museum Day in Barcelona

We were extremely lucky to visit Barcelona during the international Museum day. This meant that all the museums throughout Barcelona were free for the day. Thus, we spent a day visiting around 6-7 museums all around Barcelona - from history to modern contemporary art.


Here with Nam in front of the Picasso Museum - This is definitely worth visiting even if its not free! See Picasso's works from his early days right through to cubism.


Having a picnic break during Museum day with Nam, Anna and Chris.


View of the musical fountains taken from the MNAC museum. The sunset over Barcelona that evening was awesome.

Las Ramblas


The most famous street in Barcelona - Las Ramblas. Here, we watched a Tango performance which was really not very good.


Even at night, Las Ramblas is bustling with activities with street artist and performances. Same paintings were really nice. If I had the money, I would definitely support these local artists.

Waterfront


After a typical Spanish dinner, we headed for nice walk along the waterfront.... followed by drinking.. as usual.. and latin dancing with some french friends we made at the hostel.

Barceloneta Beach

Our last day was spent lazying at Barceloneta Beach. This is definitely why I would like to return to the Med coast!





I would definitely recommend the Mambo Tango hostel to anyone visiting Barcelona. The owners are friendly, its cheap, clean and has a lovely lounge to meet people over dinner. Here with our self-cooked dinner with Nam and Mohammed.

Bamberg Weekend

Last weekend was spent travelling with the Catholic Students group from Darmstadt to Bamberg. Situated in North Bayern, this city is nicknamed little Rome because of its long catholic history and cathedrals and also Little Venice because of the canals.


Probably the most famous site in Bamberg: The Altesrathaus, (Old Government building) which sites directly on the canal. The reason for this is that this building served both the town of Bamberg on one side of the canal and the episcopal town on the other side of the canal.


The paintings on the side of the Rathaus illuminated at night.


A restaurant also sitting on the canal itself.


We spent our night at the Camelite Sisters' Cloister. This beautiful building with well furnished rooms was surrounded by well-tamed gardens. Breakfast was excellent!


The door of the cloister. Notice the chalk writings on top. This can be seen on almost every household in Bamberg. To celebrate the feast of the Three Kings, children go around town dressed as the Kings asking for treats. The inscriptions state the year 2007 and C+M+B are the names of the 3 Kings.


Our very entertaining and intellectual tourguide of Bamberg. I had so much difficulty understanding his strong Franken-accented German.


With Fr. Janik who is the chaplain of the group. Here at the Rose Garden at Michaelsburg.


With Hendrik on Michaelburg. In the backgroud stands the famous 4-steepled cathdral of Bamberg.


With Jan on a sunday morning hike up to the castle on Alteburg. A good view of Bamberg lay in the background.


The castle on the top of Alteberg (old hill).


With Tobias at the castle.

Queen's Day in Amsterdam

The capital city of Holland was my first trip out of Germany during this exchange semester. A beautiful, small, city with an endless network of canals and charming houses aligning it. The most amazing thing is the fact that everyone rides a bicycle in Amsterdam. Since it is almost flat, the easiest way to navigate the small streets beside the canals is by bike. That was how I got around during my 4 days there. I really appreciate Karen for accomodating me and being a great host during the 4 days.


This is probably my favourite picture of Amsterdam. Capturing the essence of the city - The canal, the bike, the boat houses and the houses aligning it. This was taken on the first morning there after an overnight bus ride from Frankfurt. The city was still asleep as me and Olga walking from Amstel station to Centraal.


After an afternoon of wandering Albert Cuystr. Market which was a massive steet market, selling almost everything. Here with my fellow Singaporeans Karen and Alfi and Chris from UK; all exchange students in Amsterdam


The old sheep in front of the Nemo museum at the harbour. Minutes walk from Karen's apartment.


Tranquil gardens of Begijnhof. This is one of the places where catholism was secretly practiced in the past.


At the Heineken Museum with Gabriel and Amy


Lovely Korean dinner prepared by Karen's korean friends


The Rijks Museum with famous Rambrandts paintings. Other must-see Museums in Amsterdam are the Van Gogh Museum, the History Museum and Anne Frank's House.

Queen's Night
The night before the 31st of April.


Amsterdam was filled with street parties the whole night long. Thats us dancing at a street party. Dutch DJs are pretty awesome with their House stuff.


With Alice, Harry and Jae at one of the street parties

Queen's Day - 31st April

According my Dutch friends, the best time to be in Amsterdam is during Queen's Day! This is when the whole city goes wild with partying and wearing orange. Queen's Day celebrates the birthday of the current Queen's mother. (They did not change the date for the new queen)


The boat parties were the best! Every barge along the canal had a DJ spinning and people dancing.. surprisingly not falling off.


The best dressed group in Amsterdam - really!


With Alfi - He's awesomely shameless!

If you every head down to Amsterdam, don't forget to take a night trip along the Red-Light District. It is almost a tourist destination. You may even find families and hordes of Japanese tourist along the streets. Oh yeah... and of course try some space cakes - their harmless.

TUD Orientations

The first 3 weeks of the summer semester was a blast! Thanks to the various activities organised by the TUD Exchange Alumni and the almost daily parties. Below are some photos of some of the events:

Darmstadt Tour

The mini tour of Darmstadt ended at a Bier garden, naturally. Here's me with all the English-speaking guys from US and Aussie plus Mamoro from Japan.

Landesabend

Landesabend was an evening about getting to Germany. It was held at Brasil, a usual hang-out pub for exchange students. It was an interesting evening with German quizes and learning a bit of Hessisch (the German dialect of this region). Here's me with Adam from Sydey and Maureen from the states.

Blind Dinner

We were all supposed to cook something from our homeland and I bravely attempted pineapple rice, in a pineapple. It looked much better than it tasted! We were hosted by 2 Spanish guys Ignacio and Jesus which spent lovely Sangrias the whole night long.

KneipeRally

Unfortunately I accidently deleted all the photos from this event. Nonetheless, it was a crazy evening where the whole exchange community were devided into 5 big groups of about 20 students each... and we went around Darmstadt for a massive pub crawl, competing which group could drink the most. By the time we were at our 3rd pub, the judges at the pubs were already too drunk to keep count.. so eventually there was no winning group. The night ended at An Sibin.. the local Irish pub where all the groups gathered for a night of singing and dancing...

Heidelberg Tour

This was my 4th time in Heidelberg. This time with someone who actually knows its history and he explained the sites well. Heidelberg still one of my favourite cities in Germany and I would recommend any visitor to Germany to stop by there.


The Darmstadt group at Heidelberg train station


On the Altebrueke with the European guys: Juha from Finland, Sarios from Lithuania and Jonny from Hungary.


Drinking the strongest beer in the world (33%) with Ilse and Adam