My Update (again!)

Yes friends, I am lazy.

I stay online all the time, yet I do not blog.

I should update, correct?

This I will do, in due course, of my various travails in more boring and less exotic parts of Europe, because, for once, I have to STAY in Belgium until at least the Christmas period due to the following 3, I think very valid reasons.

1. Precarious finances exacerbated by Excessive Spending. Exhibit 1 of Excessive Spending - Irish Bookmark of a sheep wearing a shamrock top hat and scarf, with books I lugged back from the Emerald Isle because good books in English are as easy to find in Belgium as err... ok it's hard ok?
2. A sudden realisation that I am doing far too many modules for my own good, but alas mandated by my University - hence I Need To Study for ALL 6 of my modules. Exhibit 2 of a Need To Study - An overcrowded bookshelf
3. Cold weather. I know, not as cold as 'ICE ON MY WINDSCREEN' St Louis or Sunny from 11am to 3pm Sweden but I cycle to school on my Red Riding Bike and the wind chill kills me, seriously. I can't imagine being on 'holiday' and stomping around in cold grey weather with a backpack. I'd rather plot in Belgium on how to make Penang Laksa from salmon and beehoon and ponderabout the what to do with my 8 boxes of now terribly useless belacan "Belacan with chicory? Belacan with aparagus?Belecan marinated with beef?"Anyway, Exhibit 3 - Room view, now a riot of red and a depressing, typical-Belgian-weather grey.

Updates to follow.

My Birthday Posts

On a whim, I tried to cook Chicken Curry(the real thing hor, not a mix) and Samosas. My Italian neighbours volunteered to help but it took a while to explain that he should grind the ginger, shallots and garlic to a paste (without a pestle and mortar, mind you) and even longer to placate him that it could be done, no sweat.

Me: (In Sicilian accented Singlish) : "Si Si it can be done! No no there is no other way! Trust me!" Giancarlo in Sicilian accented English: "You are crazy! But for you (makes Sicilian hand gesture which I presume to mean "No problem") ")

Eh I've been schooled in the ways of Italian handgesturing, don't play play hor.

Anyway, it was a blast and numerous dishy Spainish, Italians and Singaporeans attended sampling a devlishly hot curry(which I had to water down when during sampling, even I found it a tad hot) and samosas which my Belgian housemates identified later as the not so exotic dish of loempia. Special shout out to Yixuan who I think it the ultimate Iron Chef and whom-I-am-in-awe-of in the kitchen.

Yixuan/Iron Chef

Curry, pre-watering down with about 500g of curry powder to feed 15

Awful awful plonk from Spain. Lucky I didn't buy the Bulgarian version, even though it was cheaper.

Everybody!

Meet the 3 people dumb enough to move into an unfinished house. 2 Italians and a equally intelligent Singaporean

My Just Desserts from Giancarlo

Dutch guys and Mario from Madrid

Left to Right: Sara/Monica and Ladies and Gents, Lucia the Linguist, all from Spain, Far Right: Happy from Singapore

Thankfully I resisted the urge to indulge in the Belgian Birthday tradition of getting very drunk and wasted but instead chose the tradition of 3 kisses on the cheek of the Belgian women in my house. SWEEEEEEET. I also found out, slightly painfully, that the Italians and Spanish pull ears for every year of your birth thought they choose different sides to pull my ears. Ouch.

My Updated Posts

I realise that being an intensely lazy person, I am maintaining a blog with entries that are several weeks late. So, to make up for this, this combined entry will bring my viewing public up to speed on what on earth happened to me in the interim. Still this is not as fully updated as I would like it to be...because... I live too happening a life! Hurhur

First

1. Amsterdam

Following the aborted attempt to get to Amsterdam by bus, I decided to haul my butt to Amsterdam for the weekend to visit Alfian by train, which gave me a worry-free journey up to the City of Canels/Weed/Bicycles. Nick was up there as well, travelling with Paul and Dawn who were accompanied by a veritable horde of Bucerius Law students. Group tickets = 18 Bucerius students!

The Canals


The Bicycles

My eternal gratitude to Alfian for hosting me (on his floor), showing us around Amsterdam's numerous sights, sounds and 'sweet' smells. This being a rather unorthodox holiday, I somehow wound up taking part in an Anti-Bush rally (in Dutch sadly), attending a house party or 2 and navigating Amsterdam on bicycle at night WITHOUT A MAP, which resulted in a sore posterior and aching legs. However, I did manage to act like a tourist, getting into the Van Gogh museum, ambling down the meat-shop that is the Red-Light District (one too many times because I got lost), the startlingly sad Anne Frank House and the Heineken Experience before chugging back to Leuven on Sunday night.




Da Pao please?

"Beek Met Bushhhhh"

As an aside, I thought cycling around in Belgium would train me well but riding around Amsterdam ate my bicycle in Belgium for breakfast. First, compared to Amsterdam, my bicycle is terribly insecure. 1 lock only, sure kena stolen in Amsterdam. A typical 'secure' bicycle has 2 chains which weigh as much as the damn bicycle itself securing both the front and rear wheel combined with a complicated locking mechanism (well, to me at least).

2. Opening of School

Now, I was curious about the Orientation Days here in Leuven. Turns out it is tradition that the professor amble out of the University Hall (no, a stone building, quite unlike the palace on the hill in a certain university) to the St Peter's church in procession, complete in full ceremonial dress and even with heralds to err... herald the arrival of the professors for an opening Mass. I saw film crews, so I figured it was a Big Deal and promptly squeezed inside to sit through a Mass in Dutch but thankfully a sermon in English. I found the passage selected by the speaker (I could not see who it was, got blocked by a massive pillar) meaningful as to the importance of education, the salt of the Earth although the context in the bible was the teaching of the disciples by Jesus.

Salt and Light

13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.





The Rector at the head of the procession. Coincidentally the name of a rocking bar I was partying at later.











Heralds!


















The Orientation Days were predictable events although my housemates were exercising the typically Italian style of 'making friends' -nudge nudge wink wink- with full gusto in the huddle that was opening week. Events of note included numerous partying at the pubs in the Oude Market(a sqaure littered with cafes/pubs/dance club/restaurants), watching Walk the Line on a freezing night in the Oude Market and taking part in a massive Euro-techno party in the said Oude Market.

Birthday Post up next!

My Moving In

My Moving In

Taking in the morning train into Leuven from Rotterdam, I rushed back to my overheated monastry room, checked out and took the World's Most Expensive Taxi ride to my new house, where I was to stay with 15 other people.

Now, when I viewed the place, it was under construction. They had just installed the cooker and the stove and the cheerful Belgian temp at the housing agency assured me that all would be in order by the time I moved in on the 15th.

When I came into the room, I discovered this.

The problem was, NOTHING WAS READY WHEN I MOVED IN.
The problems were

1. No hot water the first night
2. No internet for the first 5 days
3. Wonky electricity - EVEN TILL NOW
4. A wonky oven and cooker hob - EVEN TILL NOW
5. NO TELLY
6. NO FOOSEBALL TABLE
7. NO MICROWAVE OVEN
8. NO CHAIRS and TABLE
   
9. NO TOILET PAPER!! (even though they promised that in the contract)
10. A front door with a darn fancy system which was not installed yet and caused me to be locked IN the house on a Sunday night.
    
11. A malfunctioning room door - my stuff not secure
12. A mattress I had to retrieve from the garage. I chose the one that was least likely to disgust me, afterwhich i vacuumed it, inspected it for stains(thankfully nothing), scrubbed it a bit and bought a slip for it.

Rather bare, don't you think?
Somehow, I survived without all this for a few days (or until now, as the story with the missing toilet paper and the wonky electricity goes) due to an immediate friendship with the only 2 other people dumb enough to move into an uncompleted house - Marco and Giancarlo from Sicily.

That night, after the hard labour of cleaning and eating from a small coffee table, I toasted my Italian house-mates, the Polish builder Jan and his Lithaunian assistant Raimond in all the langauges present at the table on Italian coffee and bootleg Chivas Regal.

To my new home!

Up next, My Amsterdam Trip

My Pictures 1

Bruges, on initial approach from the station, Church of Our Lady, Venice of the North?, Michelangelo's Madonna and Child in the Church of Our Lady(it's REAL), A Sunny Day in Bruges, the stadhuis or Burg or Belfort(I get confused ok?) rising from the Burg, the Markt or square, Chocolate as an aphrodisiac, Chocolate Story because chocolate is Belgian and all over Bruges, A busy Markt on a Sunday, teeming with tourists! Ok pictures are repeated cos I am a newbie blogger. Sue me.

The War Memorial outside the train station in Leuven, The Town Hall which I pass by everyday on the way to class everyday, Law School, an old building which is WAY better than BTC, on the outside, anyway. A lovely Leuven summer day, Hedgerows of blackberries, the fields outside the monastery, Bemused cows, Monastery, Cornfield near said Monastery and the Train Station.

My saviour and Me (She wants nothing to do with me), The tallest building in the Nederlands?, The City Hall with my darkened face a product of my lousy camera, not Yixian’s photography, the Port and the Erasmus (Swan Bridge) especially the sunset, Sights on the way to Kinderdijk, The Windmills of Kinderdikj and Various Old Dutch men and women.

My Dutch Holiday

Rotterdam Rambling – Day 1

I awoke thinking how blessed I had been to have had friends who would go out on a limb for me and a fellow Christian sister who opened her home to me despite her apprehensions, in the face of my calamity. Indeed, I recalled a fellow passenger on my unfortunate bus ride to Amsterdam enquiring with another Dutch as to how to find a cheap place to stay for the night, which I had all but avoided thanks to Taryn and her landlady who would put me up for the next few nights.

In a chastised mood, I had no particular plans for the day and I meekly followed Taryn and Yixian to Erasmus, artfully dodging (but failing) to get a free ride on the tram ride in, carrying books and smiling through Yixian’s suan-ing like how a thoroughly indebted person should.

My observations of Rotterdam, as Taryn put it, is more like a ‘new urban ghetto’ where the economically aspirant immigrants, Surinamese, Ghanaian, Malian, Sikh, Chinese or otherwise seek to assert their identity in the midst of the Dutch-ness of the society they live in. Around Taryn’s neighbourhood, shops proclaim expertise in the reparation of Surinamese goods, a strange meld of Chinese-Surinamese shops and calling cards which offer cheap rates to the African continent. A veritable (overused word warning) melting pot indeed.

In the evening, Yixian, Rachel (her housemate from China), Taryn and myself got a bit of sightseeing in at the harbourfront and on the Eramus Bridge, which looks like a swan. Another thing about Rotterdam is the architecture, which is significant because it was practically razed by the Germans in WII.

Den Haag – Day 2

Sneaking into 1^st class on the train, I made my way to Den Haag/The Hague for a day trip. Upon Taryn’s recommendation, I headed towards the Madrodam, where apparently every single important Dutch landmark is recreated in miniature form. I was mildly amused and fascinated by the various landmarks but it didn’t bowl me over, although the entry fee nearly did.

Now, normally, I know nothing about art. Zip, zilch zero. Hence my apprehension going to the Mauritshuis, where there are a couple of famous Rembrandts and Jan Vermeer’s A Girl with a Pearl necklace is hung. I thought I would be thoroughly bored but the free audio tour in English provided the context, history, attention to detail of the paintings which made my experience there thoroughly educational and enjoyable. I highly recommend it. I spent so much time wandering Mauritshuis that I had only 1 hour to scramble to the Esher in the Palace, where the pieces of the famous Dutch graphic artist were on display.

Rotterdam Roving – Day 3

Musuem Boijmans opened at 11am and I was pleasantly surprised to find a special on the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte (which cost a heart-breaking 13 euro) along with a special on Jan Ader and other random exhibits. The cost of the museum (and a distinct lack of time) shelved my plans to visit the cubist houses and I went to take a boat to Kinderdijk, which was a scenic park some distance away from Rotterdam, where actual windmills still work and drain the polders (although now helpfully assisted by more modern water pumps).

I ambled onto the boat thinking I would be able to but a ticket on board. Boarding (albeit very very slowly) were a group of elderly Dutch people who were out on a day trip from Utrecht. Little did I know that I had boarded the boat at the wrong place to buy tickets!

Getting off at Kinderdikj, I tried to get into the only working windmill to get a look inside, only to discover to my dismay that I had to fork out 3 euro extra for it. Summoning my most doleful-lost-blur look, an elderly Dutch couple whipped out their tickets and I got in free! My luck ended when I tried to return onto the boat back and was asked for a ticket, to which I coolly asked how much it would cost for a return to Rotterdam, in total saving me 7.50 euro. Eh it’s a BIG DEAL to a poor student like me.

–summons doleful-lost-blur look-

Next! My Moving In and pictures !

My First Week

My apologies to all who have wondered which part of the earth I vanished to in the preceding week. I shall now attempt to recount the various misadventures that have befallen me on my way to Leuven in Belgium.

Day 1- Flight and a Hot Day in Belgium

As a sign of the misfortune to come, my Air France monitor refused to co-operate halfway through MI3, which was about 2 hours into the flight. Consequently, I spent a lot of time sleeping and jabbing repeatedly at the monitor in a vain attempt to make it work, but it didn’t. My French neighbour, a van Damme-lookalike, cursed it for my in fluent French but it didn’t work either. Upon landing in Paris at 0630, about half of Dakar and Shanghai appeared to descend upon Gate 13, leaving me emerging with my luggage 2 hours later. Because of the horde, I missed my Thalys train to Brussels and had to sit in the terminal bemoaning my fate on a tapped wireless while I waited 3 hours for the next one. Miraculously, made it into Leuven on what happened to be that hottest day of the year, dragging my luggage behind me around the cobblestones on Leuven Meeting up with my buddy Kim later, I gawped and gaped at the utterly beautiful town which happened to host a town fair, complete with rides, haunted houses, ponies and other attractions, not to mention fair-food of the typical Belgian variety. Read; Escargot, Frites lathered with mayonnaise and waffles and waffles and waffles!

Day 2-3 – House-hunting

I had underestimated the housing situation upon arriving. I thought that by coming in 2 weeks early, I would be able to secure a nice place, at reasonable rent, near to my campus. I eventually, I failed to get all 3, well except the former, until I found a room at a private agency, slightly outside the main area, for a slightly expensive but not cutthroat rate. It was then I realised that finding a place to stay was all-important. No housing contract, violate visa and get booted out of the EU because you can’t register at the Town Hall. No registration at Town Hall and housing contract, no bank account for you. No bank account, no money. No money, dead.

Day 4 – A monastery

Initially, I was told to go the monastery to get accommodation temporarily until my contract for a room started. Now a monastery conjures up images of monks, spartan living conditions and isolation, which hardly appealed to me. However, a financial analysis prompted a reassessment of my priorities and I lugged my person to the beautiful Paters Obalaten just outside Leuven. Some pictures below of cornfields, raspberry and blackberry-lined hedges, goats, cows and horses. Idyllic and peaceful, perfect for saintly reconsideration, not to mention cheap!

Day 5 – Bruges!

Stumbling into breakfast, I chanced upon the other Singaporeans from SMU studying in Leuven for 1 semester. I thought there were 4 but 2 were just on holiday and they invited me to Bruges for a day trip. For the uninitiated, Bruges is a touristy, typically Flemish town with historic buildings and squares, canals with tree-lined banks and cobblestone streets resounding with the smell of horses and the sounds of cash registers of tourist money. For my lovely fiends friends who want to come to Belgium and visit, it is a must!

Day 6 – Providence and Amsterdam Rotterdam-bound

I decided to take a bus up to Amsterdam and crash at Alfian’s place Amsterdam for a few days before heading to Rotterdam to visit later on in the week, in lieu of staying in Leuven staring at my own feet. Everything was going according to plan until my bus got delayed for 2.5 hours outside Antwerp where all 4 lanes where closed, forcing my Eurolines bus through a single lane and through many a small town. This meant a 1.30 am arrival in Amsterdam, when all public transport would have stopped running and I would be thoroughly marooned because I had forgotten to bring/lost my paper with my essential contacts on it. Help in the form of the bravest TARYN MARINA YAP came when my bus stopped in Rotterdam. I had fortuitously been contacted her about staying at a later date but when she heard about my plight and she came bounding out of her apartment despite it being the first time she ventured out beyond 10.30pm in her rather dubious neighbourhood and waited for me at Rotterdam Centraal Station! Actually it took till 11.10pm for her to find me because I was given terrible instructions by a fellow passenger who left me running around Rotterdam at night with my backpack, without a map and getting looks from bemused Surinamese at street corners. Taryn has reminded me to mention my eternal gratitude to her for finding me, feeding me and housing me, which I will return in kind when she visits Leuven in the near future.

Dutch Adventures and pictures to come!

Terms and Conditions

Whereas the owner, Chan Kin Yew ("Bob") is desirous of creating a web-based log ("blog") to chronicle his year on student exchange in Catholic University Leuven ("Leuven"), the following terms and conditions will attempt to govern the initial content and subsequent photographic reproductions ("posts") on the blog ;

1. There will be no profanity, pornography, lewd descriptions of sexual acts on this blog unless expressly done unto the owner of this blog. Yeah right.
2. There will be an abundance of bad photography, Bob's face, Bob' face with other foreign faces and other grotesque sights, for which Bob makes no attempt to apologise for the mental anguish, distress or other emotional and physical trauma it may induce readers of such posts.
3. There will be posts made by Bob will attempt to describe in graphic detail how much fun, academic trauma, culture shock, madcap adventures and other envy-inducing events undertaken by Bob so as to achieve the desired effect of encouraging more people Bob knows to come visit him, or in the alternative, to write disparaging emails of envy to his email address ("chankinyew@gmail.com").
   
4. There will be an outpouring of various emotions vacillating from fear, anger, elation, nervousness, sadness and aloofness manifest in the overall tone of the posts made in the coming months, which are expressly reserved by the owner.

Subject to these terms and conditions, this blog will henceforth commence operations from 6 September 2006 until such a time when the owner returns to the National University of Singapore to resume his 'proper' education or declares ends his Odyssey in Leuven over through a final post of reckoning.