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

Holy Week

In Darmstadt, there is one main Catholic church called St Ludwig's and a subsidary Chapel called Josef's Kapelle. I started off attending sunday masses at St. Ludwig's at 10am. This was because St. Ludwig's church is hard to miss with its huge dome structure, standing high on a hill near the city centre. In fact it is one of the city's tourist attractions. Unfortunately, like most beautiful churches in Germany, more tourists pass through its doors than worshippers. Masses are all in German but after almost four months, following the mass became relatively easy (except maybe for the homily). Despite the few worshippers, the Catholic community here is really welcoming. On the first sunday I was there, I was browsing through the church bookstore for a German mass book so that I could follow the prayers during mass. Before long, I had a small crowd of 4 adults surrounding me, asking me questions and telling me about the catholic community here. One of the gentlemen even bought for me the German mass book and said it was a gift from the church.


St. Ludwig's Church

This was also when I found out about the Katholische Hochschulgemeinschaft (College Catholic Community) which consists of catholic students of both the university and the school of applied science, similiar to our CSS back in NUS. They have a separate sunday service at Josef's Kapelle (St. Joseph's Chapel) on sunday evenings, of which now I attend. Although I have not attended any of the other catholic activities organised by the KHG, attendance at mass was somewhat disappointing. Think of a weekday mass crowd back home in Singapore. Having a small community has its benefits too. I got to know the other catholic students and the priest-in-charge, Fr. Juergen Janik, takes the trouble to come talk to me after mass.

I attended the Palm sunday service at St. Josef and it was a really interesting experience. Firstly, the palms we used were not the regular ones we have back in Singapore but rather branches from what looked like grapevines. The service started off at the remnants of an old church about 500m away from the chapel. The old church was almost fully destroyed after the bombings and only three of its walls remained intact. It was not rebuilt after the war but serves as a reminder of the destruction that occured. After the opening reading and a short homily, we proceeded back to the chapel, holding the palms and singing hymns.

Maundy Thursday mass at St Josef was similar to the mass we have back in Singapore except for the washing of feet part. Laid behind the altar table was another long table with jugs of water and empty bowls. After the homily, the whole congregation lined up towards the altar and washed each other's hands. I guess this can only be done when the you have a small church community but I found this rather meaningful.

Good Friday service was held back at St. Ludwig's and this was the largest crowd for mass I have seen in Darmstadt so far. It was also the longest mass I have ever attended. The whole mass was sung in Latin by a choir in accapella. Even the whole Passion of Christ reading was sung in a 5-part harmony. This lasted almost half an hour. It was also interesting that all the crosses in the church were covered in purple cloths since Ash Wednesday and only revealed during the Veneration of the cross on Good Friday.

The Easter sunday service was wonderful. Joining the 30-member choir was the string quartet, a piano and the pipe organ. It really sounded like they spent months practising as the whole mass turned out to be somewhat like a mini-concert. All the pieces were again sung in Latin. This included Sanctus which I think lasted for 10mins, including a male soloist, female soloist and a piano solo! These pieces were so long such that each time they started, the older folks started to sit down.


The congregation on Easter Sunday at St. Ludwig's


The altar and the Easter candle at St. Ludwig's. If you look carefully at the main cross behind, you will notice there is no image of the crucified Christ. Usually, there is one and it looks like it has been ripped off for Easter.


The pipe organ at St. Ludwig's. After every sunday 10am mass, the organist plays a special piece to entertain the people.

chillaxing in Esslingen

Esslingen's a small town on the outskirts of Stuttgart situated within the Neckar Valley and surrounded by vineyards. Thus this area is especially famous for its wines and champaigns. A charming small town which still has most of its pre-war buildings intact; not destroyed by Allied bombings like most other German cities because it was occupied by the US soldiers.

Here was where I spent a relaxing weekend two weeks ago. No hardcore travelling or sightseeing, just chilling out with the guys. Gab studies at the FHS in Esslingen and was kind enough to accomodate me and 2 other friends, Derrick and Zhifeng, from London. Yibin interns at Mahle near Esslingen and lives down the road from Gab. Met up with Xinli who interns in Stuttgart and Siwei (who seems to be everywhere in Germany). Since it was my second time in Stuttgart, it wasn't necessary visiting the tourist sites all over again. But if you love cars, the DaimlerChrysler museum is a must see. Stuttgart is home to Mercedes Benz and Porshe but I wouldn't recommend the Porshe museum to anyone. Overall, I guess it was a pretty good time to recuperate after a really draining last week at work.


A view from on top the city wall, overlooking Esslingen; cathedral and vineyard slopes


Me and Gab with yet another typical bahnhof pict.


As you approach Esslingen by train, it's difficult to miss out this really obvious phallic symbol with an appropriate name to it! According to Gab, it's one of the chimneys coming out of a pub-district called 'Dick'; something like Chijmes in Singapore.


The long climb up to the city wall.


Zhifeng, Derrick and me with the view of the Altstadt (old part of the city) in the background


3am: Gab's kitchen - After a guy's night of poker and beer, we had a girly cookover! My beer-sausage recipe got the thumbs-up from the guys.