Yahoo!

Yahoo has developed this yahoo news which is really trivial news, but tempts people like me to click on their links and see it. The news changes every hour or even shorter, so you get a stream of different news all the time.

There was this particular post called Ten New Etiquette Tips for the Workplace.. Coming to the workforce in a couple of months, I thought it might be useful for me to know. The fifth tip made me laugh..

"5. Invite your CEO to be a friend on Facebook.

That's right, Facebook is for everyone now. And although the youngest members of the workforce are a little worried that having the adults there will ruin things, adults are psyched to be there. No one wants to miss out on all the fun.

So there's a good chance that your CEO is registered, and it's likely that she'll really want to hear from you about what to do on Facebook, since she surely has no clue."

Yes, Facebook is becoming very popular. Most of my friends at bible study have it, and it's a growing social network tool. You can share photos, poke at your friends, tag people in photos, create a conversation going among as many people as you want, give gifts etc. There are many online tools being added, so there are infinite possibilities of stuff you can do. Apparently they are being sued for copyright infringement because another company claimed to have the same thing earlier, and now because Facebook is more popular than them, they want compensation.

Trust me, Facebook will never shut down.. too many people will complain!!

Stockhorn / Interlaken

I arrived in Spiez on Friday evening at about 10.30pm. It was a cold rainy day, even colder than Winterthur. I brought a jumper along just in case the next few days would also be rainy and cold.

Woke up on Saturday to bright warm weather. Took a train to Erlenberg, just about 20min away from Spiez and then the cable car up to Stockhorn. The view from Stockhorn is great!

View from Stockhorn


This thing I think was used to divert lightning away from the restaurant just a few meters below. Big and made of metal. Think there's a name for it but I can't remember it now. At least what I learnt in JC didn't go to waste.

Big metal lightning diverter


Another great view from Stockhorn


At the Bergstation Stockhorn


Switzerland's mountains are full of cable cars for the lazy and old or handicapped. I belong to the former group. My companion belonged to the senior citizen group. Well I would quite have preferred to walk up the mountain but I couldn't for 2 reasons. 1 was I didn't have and wasn't wearing trekking/hiking shoes. 2 was even if I had worn, I couldn't possibly leave my companion alone for 4 hours and hike up the mountain.

Halfway up the mountain: The cable cars

Luzern Trip

Luzern (or Lucerne in French) is a CHF14.50 train ride away from Winterthur. A very nice scenic city with lots of interesting sights to see. I had to change trains to reach it. Would have prefered if there weren't any trains to change so I can just sleep all the way through. To save money, I didn't leave my bag at the luggage deposit, somewhat regretted it afterwards but my bag wasn't that heavy. Walking with it for 5 hours was. So with my big green bag, I walked around the city.

First stop - Tourist Information. Surprisingly good. I mean well there was a map of the city and a list of free interesting sights to see. So within 15min, I had the sights all marked out on the map and on my way around the city. I did a little bit of homework on the internet before going to Luzern and remembered something about a stone lion. So I headed off to the Lion Monument or the Dying Lion of Lucerne. It was hewn out of natural rock in memory of the heroic death of Swiss mercenaries at the Tuileries in 1972. Mark Twan described the Lion of Lucerne as "the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world".

Me in front of the Dying Lion of Lucerne

Then I went to CoOp to settle my lunch. Bought a croissant, 2 carrots and 2 peaches for lunch. Talk about healthy food. Then it was the chapel bridge and water tower. The Chapel Bridge was constructed in the first half of the 14th century as part of the city's fortifications. It was named after nearby St. Peter's Chapel. As you walk on the bridge, you can see pictures and paintings illustrating scenes of Swiss and loacal history like biographies of the city's patron saints, Leodegar and Mauritius. By this time I could feel the strain on my shoulder caused by my bag. But army training has taught me to "tahan".

Chapel Bridge and Water Tower at the end

Jesuit Church has got to have one of the more beautiful interiors I've ever seen in all my visits to Cathedrals and churches in Europe. It was constructed in 1666 by Father Cristoph Vogler for the Jesuits. The vault was redecorated in the mid 18th century. Wanted to visit the Riterscher Palace too but couldn't find it. Apparently it's the Cantonal seat of government.

Jesuit Church

Another close up pic of Jesuit Church

Water spikes were lowered by hand into the water to regulate the water level. I think you need to know abit of Geography to appreciate it's usefulness.

Water Spikes

I still had a bit of time left before meeting Kimmy at the train station so I decided to visit the Musegg Wall. Built in 1386 I suppose to keep out rebels and enemies and function as a high vantage point for an observation post.

Musegg Wall

Met Kimmy and Xiangxin at the Chapel Bridge and we went to see the Lion Monument again.

Another Lion

This time we went to the Gletschergarten too. Well there were stuff like gigantic glacial potholes from the Ice age and 20 million yr old fossils. There was also a museu showcasing the oldes reliefs of Switzerland, historical model of the city of Lucerne and a Hall of Mirrors! haha it's my first time in a hall of mirrors and it was pretty cool.

Hall of Mirrors

Then it started to rain. We had originally intended to take a ferry ride down Luzern Lake but it was pouring and the tour leader said it would be pointless to take a ferry ride. So we hopped onto the tour bus and headed for Engelberg directly.

Bellevue, our hotel

Dinner cost me CHF20 but it was not too bad. Pork steak with salad and a light ice cream cake dessert. They are really good at these marketing ploys where they were just giving out 2 for 1 drink coupons to entice us to buy the drinks. And the Americans and Australians happily just used them to buy drink after drink at the bar.

Kimmy and me

Hurting Ass

I've got an ass problem. It still hurts really bad. I can't ride my bicycle properly and makes me very tired. The ride to and fro work is not exactly a very smooth ride because there are so many slopes. Didn't go for bible study today because I can't even walk properly. It's all the way in Zurich.

Made use of the chilli paste WeeMing gave me yesterday. He also gave me a packet of Myojo instant noodles. Nice guy. Yeah I mixed the chilli with raw minced beef and fried it with a whole other bunch of stuff and this was the result:

My lunch for tomorrow

So that was my dinner today too. Really not bad. Why? Because it's not European food, and I cooked it myself. Don't get the wrong idea, I don't dislike European food, it's just that I don't want to have too much of it. Well the French dinner yesterday was good! Tabao-ing lunch for the next day helps me save money because the meals at the canteen are way too expensive for me. CHF11.50 for a normal meal, thats about S$14.40 and I can't always finish the food because it's just too much, unless I'm really hungry but that's not always the case. Moreover, it doesn't come with a drink, just a soup and salad. So when I eat there I'll usually tabao the salad and eat at home together with dinner.

Having said that, I still eat at the canteen once a week. I want to rest on one of the nights and don't want to miss out on the local food they cook. Cooking food is quite ok here. I have plenty of rice. The only problem is the meat and vegetables, which is about everything. Managed to find a relatively cheaper supermarket compared to the rest of the supermarkets. Apparently it's from Germany, (just like how Carrefour in Singapore comes from France) and the food is produced by the famous brands, just that the packaging is not. Think what goes on is that this supermarket engages these branded companies to supply their food, but do not put the brand on the packaging, so it's less expensive. Of course the suppliers profit from it as well. Just in case you come to Switzerland, here is the general order of decreasing prices. True at time of publication and subject to my perception.

SparMarkt > CoOp > Migros > Denners > Aldi

SparMarkt is kind of a 7-11, just that it's not 24 hours. So it's not entirely fair to call it a supermarket. My friends say that although the price of the food at Aldi is cheaper, the quality is also poorer. Well it makes no difference to me. As long as I don't keep the food for too long, it still tastes the same with some spices and seasoning. The variety is better too! Hmm.. think that last comment came because I'm more willing to spend and buy other stuff because of the cheaper prices.. =P

It comes with abit of planning. Everytime I'm at the supermarket I try to think of what to cook for the week, and whether I'll be visiting the supermarket again so that I don't buy too much. Been trying new things. I used to make ham and bread for breakfast. This week I tried salmon. Next week will either be sardines or tuna with mayonaise.

Ass still hurts.

My ass hurts

I don't know what I ate last night, or yesterday to give me a very bad diarrhea. It's so bad I can hardly walk around properly.

Had a French dinner today. Laurent (my French neighbour) cooked today and we had French food. Everyone (or rather the 4 of us who are closer) will take turns to cook every week. The 4 of us refers to the 2 Germans, Claudia and Daniel, the French dude, Laurent and me the Singaporean. There's another Swiss guy, Andre, who stays on the same floor as us but he's not exactly very friendly and whizzes past you when you see him. I think because he's working as a fulltime employee and not an intern, so I suppose our frequencies don't really see eye to eye. Anyway he's not exactly very conversational so even our conversations don't last very long.

Vegetable Soup with Tomato and Jam and Whipped Cream, whipped partially by me!!

Laurent is very detailed. I was in the kitchen helping him whip the cream, and he was cooking the vegetable soup. I turned to ask him about the cream and he suddenly commented to himself, this is not the way I want it. Then he threw away the whole pot of vegetable soup and opened another packet to cook again. So there went the whole packet of vegetable soup. I felt sorry for the wasted soup. Anyway we had the main course of baked pork and some couscous (a French thing I think) and tomato sauce. Not bad. Then came the desert, whipped cream (this time it came from a can) and mashed cookies with chocolate in a glass cup. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a picture of it but here is the main course. The white stuff is the couscous and the pork is quite obviously obvious, with the tomato sauce on top.

Main Course

Met up with WeeMing, a friend from Mt Hebron church who goes to Switzerland quite often on business trips. Yeah he's here on business trip and met him for a drink. He gave me some homemade chilli.. maybe his maid made it. 2 bottles full of red hot chilli man.. haha well hope to have some really good chilli meals in future.

Ass still hurts.

My first post since coming to Switzerland

What took me so long? I created this blog like a super long time ago but I didn't post anything cos I didn't have the time (same old lame excuse).. I told myself to start blogging again esp when I came to Switzerland but then.. when I logged into this account, all the German words started appearing and apparently Google took over blogger and was revamping the whole system. Everything became very slow, and because I'm an impatient guy and cannot bear to wait, I gave up trying to access the website. The whole thing being in German made things worse and me more frustrated because I couldn't understand a single thing except maybe for login and password. Google must do something about this. They haven't considered travellers who would like to blog in their own native language. And they don't even have an option on the blogger home website to change the language. What's more, I just discovered that you need to have a Gmail email in order to keep your account. What the??!? Fortunately I have a Gmail account if not I don't think I'll continue to use blogger. It's just too troublesome to get it set up. Google what on earth happened to your marketing tactics? You're scaring people away rather than drawing them. Anyway I think if Google wants to take over something, they need to do it well and seamless.

Just returned from Dimensione - the bar downstairs. My people in my hostel here like to go out pretty often, and especially to the bar downstairs. It's convenient and easy, sometimes there'll be a band playing live music. Today I wanted to hear the band.. they were playing jazz but by the time I reached the bar they had already stopped.. sian. But the only problem I have with the bar is that the prices are super expensive. Well in general Switzerland is expensive place to live in. One glass of coke with a slice of lemon in it and one measly ice cube cost me CHF3.60 which is equivalent toe S$4.50. Cool huh.. High class cocacola. Oh they call it cola here. If you say coke, they won't understand at all and look at you with bewildered eyes.

Hope I can keep up this blogging. If the website doesn't put me off again.

Post Corrosion of Materials

Today is particularly bad. I reached school an hour early for my exam and I took out my notes to do some last minute revision. Although I've travelled all the way to school, my brain hasn't really woken up yet. I was reading but stuff wasn't getting in. I sat down on a bench to read my notes. The sun was rising, slowly but surely and the sunglight was getting into the place where I was. Yeah the sun was warming me up. Not just me, my brain as well. Flipping through the past exam papers and notes, I tried to recollect what I've learn the previous day and the many days before.

The paper wasn't tough, neither was it easy. Well it asked for lots of conceptual questions. I was a little prepared for it, but I'm not sure if I'll do well. Well = A. Pass I think can lah, but well.. haha

After coming back, I basically did nothing for 3-4 hours. I thought sleep would do me some good and give me more energy to concentrate and study later. After sleeping for an hour, I headed to my desk to do some studying for the paper tomorrow. Didn't work. I slept for another hour again.. and then headed to my desk to do work. Nope didnt work either. I logged on to msn and started chatting up my friends to warm my brain up again. Yeah it was warming up alright. I even resorted to playing this msn sudoku with my tuition kid! man i was bored. And of course I won him everytime we had a new game. cannot lose to him mah, no where to put my face sia haha.. but he doesnt play sudoku often so naturally he'll be a bit slow. Just like how slow I was when i first started out doing the sudoku puzzles.

Finally I took a bath and sat down at my desk with the table lamp on. I'm starting to see equations in my head. Yeah! my brain is working at last. Study study.. Tomorrow is last paper for the semester. And many of my friends don't finish their papers til next week.. haha