Sweden Day 7: Back to Eindhoven

This is on 30th march, day 62:

Our night train left Stockholm pretty much on time. We were very well on our way to Malmo. I was on the uppermost berth. It had power points and all. Here:

Azri and I went to sleep after brushing our teeth. Here is a pic of the sunrise at 530am!! NICE RIGHT!!

We reached malmo on time to change to the next connecting train. We got down fast and managed to find and board the other train in time. I forgot my camera's charger and battery though. It was still on the night train, charging. It was too late to go and get it. And here is a beautiful pic along the journey, near copenhagen:

The train was crowded with office-goers. We finally reached copenhagen at 7:17am!! yipee!! Our connecting train was to leave at 7:45. So, we had some time to take pics of Copenhagen :D

And then.. our ICE train finally arrived. It was our first time on a ICE train. The seats were wonderful, like in some aeroplane. It was supposed to take us from Copenhagen to Hamburg. The conductor on board was smart enough to ask us to write the date. So, that's 2 days gone on our ticket.

And we had our breakfast of bread with honey and apples on board :D Roedby was one of the stations along the way. OUR ICE TRAIN WENT ONTO A SHIP!! We had to get out and stay outside of the train for about 45 mins. We went around to see the ship. We then figured out that there were 2 other trains on the ship as well!! And there were busses and cars on another floor. We had to go to the top few floors where there was a restaurant, supermarket and a place to view the sea. The video below shows the journey on a bridge from Vordingborg station to Nykoebing F station and a view of the ship that our train was in on the way to Puttgarden from Roedby:

I saw a lot of windmills as we were leaving Puttgarden. And it is really difficult to take a good picture from inside the train. It moves super fast, my camera takes forever to focus and there is the window reflection problem on top of that. Nevertheless, I managed to take this shot:

And we finally reached Hamburg. You'll see another copy of this picture soon :P

And we managed to again, switch to the connecting train at Hamburg since we had 30 mins in between the trains. We were both tired by this time. We reached Dusseldorf after a good sleep.

And later, reached Kalden Kirchen, which is the last station before getting into Netherlands!! We had to take a small and old train to Venlo which is on the border of Netherlands. We felt at home the moment we reached Venlo. Everything seemed to familiar and comfortable, unlike the places that we've been to.

We got off at Venlo and went to a sheltered place. I then realised that one of my gloves had dropped off somewhere. I last time I wore them was during the ship ride and I wasn't sure where they were. So, I asked Azri to take care of my stuff and ran back to the train to have a look at the place where we were sitting. I checked the place and glove was not there. That was when the door closed by itself! I tried to open it, but couldn't! And then.. the train started moving!! oppsie!! hahah, I went down the train and found 2 conductors chit-chatting. I told them what happened. They checked the train timings for me and told me to alight at Kalden Kirchen to take the next train back to Venlo in 45 mins. Well, I alighted at KK but didn't want to wait for 45 mins for the next train. So, I decided to walk back to Venlo, along the train tracks :D The walk took about 1 hr. I managed to take some good pics along the way though. It was sunset!:I had to crawl through some bushes for this pic of a house along the way:

I had to pass by a depot before entering the Venlo Station. There were some conductors there who approached me to ask me where I was coming from. I told them that I'm from Germany :P They didn't understand everything at that. So, I explained the whole story to them. They then told me that it is forbidden to walk near the tracks and asked me where I was heading to. I said I was heading to Eindhoven. That guy happened to be a conductor and so, he said ".. yea, get on the train! We'll pick up your friend and head on down to Eindhoven!" This will be one of the most unbelievable things that I had heard during my exchange term.

So, I boarded the train and it started rolling towards Venlo in about 10 minutes. I positioned myself at a door where Azri would be standing in front of. I was off by 1 door. I managed to re-position myself in time :D The door opened and he was about to board it! hahaha! He was thinking of getting everything down to Eindhoven first. We found a nice seat, got back to Eindhoven, bid farewell and reached home :D

This post marks the end of the Sweden trip!! yay!

Sweden Day 6: Hello to icy stockholm

This is on 29th march, day 61:

We had or last few sightings of snow for the winter as we got nearer to stockholm. The temperature at stockholm was about 3 to 4 degrees. So, no heavy snow there. Here is one of the main stations we passed by, Gavle Central. We passed by Umea too! That is calista's place! But I think i was asleep at that time. I saw it on the way there though:

And I have a better pic of the restaurant on board the train. I visited it to get the breakfast 'feel'. Azri and I had the bread we got from supermarket for breakfast :D

and here, you can see the snow starting to dwindle ald...

And then... welccome to stockholm central station! We reached the station at about 10:30 am. We were planning to tour around till evening and take the night train to Copenhagen and go home through germany.

We had to get the tics for the following night train at stockholm first, before going out to tour. So, we took a queue number at the conter and waited. We met this plump guy while waiting opposite the counter. He claimed to be a lawyer and seemed nice. He was excited to meet us, asians. But then, our Q number came up fast and we had to go to the counter. He said he'll look after our bags and we left our bags with him. I kept looking behind to check as Azri entertained the counter lady. I then noted that his Q number is gonna come up soon too! So, I went back to take all our bags over to the counter. The man said that it was okay and that he had cancelled his Q number via sms to look after our bags! haha! I totally don't believe him lor! There didn't seem to be any such number on display or anything! He then understood that I was adamant in bringing over the bags and say goodbye to him. He then started welcoming me to his home if I were to come back to stockholm again. And he even said, "... you don't need to bring your friend over. Just come alone and we can have a good time! I can help you with stuff like money, if you need help..." haha! I gave a humble acknowledgement, picked up as many bags as i can and brought them over to the counter! hahah he was gone by the time he finished getting our night train tickets.

We helped ourselves to some maps at the tourist info center at the station and started going around. We could see the big river as we got away from the station:

We then crossed the river to reach the other side, took some pics along some palace and went over to this Vasa museum that the man suggested to us. It was a museum with a big ancient war ship that was recovered and museumised. The museum had a show during which I had a great sleep, and some history of the time of the ship, info about its occupants and so on.

We then walked on to this palace on the other side of the river. There was a small guard changing ceremony when we were there! the guard just started shouting when we were taking our pics. And this bunch of soldiers starte marching in from the corner. Here is a clip of the entire parade:

We walked over to this place called Gamla Stan. It's supposed to be a small island with narrow streets and old buildings and a big palace. The shops are cute too! So, here are some of the more interesting pics:

And then.. I had a ASIAN meal!! how wonderful!!! here: I think it costed 6 euros. But very nice and spicy and vegetarian =D

After this, we walked back to the stockholm central station and looked around for a supermarket. We then found Azri's s'pore friend who was living there for a while. He directed us to a supermarket which was so out of the way. The nearest supermarket was a 20 min walk from the central station! can you believe that??!! We met up with a backpacker from holland on our way. He was also looking for a supermarket. We bought our things and got back to the station in time. The train we were travelling on was full. So, we had to get our tics checked before boarding and the conductor didn't look at our calendar again. lucky us :D

It was so full that we didn't even get to stay in the same cabin! That's all for today!

Sweden Day 5: Goodbye to Kiruna!

This is on 28th march, day 60:

After all the adventures that we had been through for the past few days, it was time to wave goodbye to Kiruna and get on a long train ride back home with a stopover at stockholm. The video below shows my feet walking in snow:

We got to the train station real early since we had to check out of our hostel in the morning. I had a great sleep. There were lots of other backpackers coming into the station to take our train. The station was super crowded. Our train was delayed for some time. We went outside to freeze ourselves in sub-zero temperature for the last time. I took this video of a train stopping at the station. It really shows how cold it was and the view of the station.:

and no blog post is complete without a pic of me. So here:

And we boarded the direct night train to Stockholm. It was a great train to sleep in. It had a little restaurant on board too:

The sleeper train has several rooms. 1 room has 6 beds, 3 on each side. The bottom 2 beds can be converted to seats for daylight hours. Anyway, there were no other people sleeping in our cabin. So, It wasn't so cramped. The cabin has several power points too! Really worth the money.

We managed find the hidden ladder and convert the seat into beds. And before I forget, here is me having my dinner :D

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Sweden day 4: Ice Hotel and the long snowy walk

This is on 27th march, day 59:

Azri and I woke up early in the morning to finish our breakfast and catch the 10 am bus to the Ice-Hotel. We had booked the hostel for 3 nights. but we cancelled the following night since we were planning to stay at Abisko. We met this Singaporean girl, Calista at the corridor the day before and she told us where to take the bus. It was great to find a singaporean so far away from any signs of singaporean civilisation! We had a long talk till early morning the night before! So, we woke up kinda tired and all that and eventually ended up running like retarded sled dogs to the bus station to catch the bus!

It was kinda dissappointing since the first stop was the kiruna train station which was nearer to our hostel. The driver waited for a long time in order for a tour group to board the bus. Anyway, we got a fantastic view of kiruna and the surrounding place during the bus journey:

and lo and behold! We finally arrived at the Ice-Hotel!!

Here's first went to get our entrance tics from the shop at the entrance. Then, we went into the rooms and stuff to take pics.

I didn't want to have pics of rooms after rooms. So, I took a video to show the beauty of the place:

After walking for some time, we got tired and rested at the ice-bar for a while. After that, we went to a supermarket to get sth to eat for lunch. It seemed near on the map but it was super far away! Some locals along the way told us to go on. We enjoyed our meal at 3 different places: at the entrance of the store at first (With the warmth), and then in front of a barking dog. It was barking continuously at us for about 5 minutes!! hahaha!

and then at a busstop, where we rested for a while. We then continued to the sami museum and stuff at the end of the road. The Sami are the indigenous people of northern europe.

I was glad to enter into the warmth of the Sami tent. It was about -10 degrees outside throughout our stay there! A warm shelter once in a while is much appreciated! We then went over to see the outside of the famous Jukkasjarvi church. We decided to return to the ice-hotel from behind after that. That means via lake Torne, the very lake from which the ice-hotel was made! But wait! you'll have to check out the playground nearby:

and now for a video of snowy wilderness. Just imagine being lost in such a place!

This was the part of the lake that they were digging at that time. I read that the ice is of a superb quality!

and then, we got back to the ice-hotel to have fun with the sledges and to visit the church.

And then, there weren't any other place to visit. So, we decided to go off to the bus stop to wait for the return bus to Kiruna.

We were supposed to go down to Abisko that day to try to see the northern lights. But, we found out that we missed the trains to that place for that day. So, we decided to go back to our hostel and ask the grumpy owner if we can have back our rooms for that night :P Azri had to pay for another set of linens and yes, he got even grumpier :P anyway, we plotted a route on our map and set off towards snowy forests for that night, with a bit of hope to catch the northern lights. We walked on till we found this:

and then, we walked on for about an hour. It was dark, foresty, although there was some kind of a path ahead of us. There was a faint ski-track by the side but that disappeared as we got into the foresty parts. So, these parts were not very good for photo taking. But there are a few things worth writing about. Firstly, it was so cold that Azri and I started wearing heatpacks. We came across few campers. I didn't really see them cos it was too dark, but Azri said he saw them. I could hear sounds though. And.. we heard some wolves howling in the distance :D super exciting!! And there was this time when we heard snow mobiles!! We knew we weren't supposed to be there, walking on foot. So, we decided to hide. But where to hide??!! In the snow of course!! We ran out of the track, into the wilderness and thick snow, upto our knees and just ducked into the snow!! The snowmobiles passed by, but on a track at a distance. We then got up and continued our way back to the hostel.

I somehow wanted to sleep outside for that night. So, I stopped when we were passing by the giant telescope-like structure. There was a bench beside it. I decided to stop there while Azri went back to the hostel to sleep in warm comfort :D I tried to lay out my sleeping bag, but the bench was too narrow. I tried to just lay there and sleep but it was snowing and the snow started getting heavier. The snow on my was melting and making my jacket wet. I was starting to feel cold despite my heatpacks. So, I concluded that sleeping outside was a crazy idea and decided to go back. I found this campsite place that was open on the way back and decided to drop in to warm myself.

I should have stayed there for about half an hour. I was very glad that no one chased me out! And then.. I got chased by a couple of dogs along the way back to my hostel. haha, but yeah.. I eventually reached my hostel and found calista and gang looking over the photos of their trip to a neighbouring Nowegian city. I was too tired to join them, but I had too, since Azri was bathing at that time. He had the keys to the room. We then met and went to sleep :D Home sweet home!

Back to s'pore

haha, I'm back to s'pore now, but i really have to catch up on posts. I'm gonna just do up posts for the photo albums that i have. It's a lot simpler than doing up a post for each day! =D Posts coming up soon!