glacial detour

the gorgeous norwegian man who was summer job-ing at the guesthouse told us of this amazing glacier a mere ten minutes away. now, i'm intentionally digressing here, but what's up with handsome norwegian men? there must be something special in their fjord water, or whatever it is they drink, because oh my every single norwegian man we met was gorgeous. even the older ones! they seem to age very well indeed. chiseled good looks, well-landscaped facial hair and amazingly clear skin. crazy! but yes, back to the glacier. the stars aligned and we managed to miraculously hop out of the car during the tour bus lull. we saw a horde of buses leave as we arrived, and another horde arrive as we left. but for the half an hour we were there, the lake felt like it belonged to us :) yay!

fairyland

we took a slow, scenic drive to our first stop and despite the mister's reservations (he had warned me it was going to be hit or miss!) we fell head over heels for the guesthouse on the fjords. in fact, we went for a walk before dinner and were relieved that he picked ours over the one down the road. now that looked completely haunted, and dated, and apparently he'd picked ours on a whim. whew! our room opened right onto the fjord and i was torn between spending dusk on the terrace (also on the fjord) or in our room. happy problems :) went a'exploring the area before dinner and realised i could get a good view of the hotel from the houses across the road. small problem there - wasn't about to trespass in the name of inquisitiveness (and art!) but as luck would have it, i bumped into one of the residents on his way out for a fishing trip and he invited me to traipse around his land and "take as many photos as you like!". later sheepishly explained to another couple on their porch (as i was stepping off local #1's property) that i'd his express permission to walk around and they too were completely welcoming, telling me they'd a good view of the mountain from their backyard and to mosey over for a look-see if i'd wanted. and that's when i realised that unlike the common law notion of private property, them norwegians thought of the land / mountains / fjords as a common good, something meant for everyone to enjoy. suppose living across a small street from the guesthouse meant they'd no shortage of curious tourists, but to be so warm about it and open up their homes to a complete stranger - now that was something very special. really gives an insight into their psyche!

 

the unreal view from our room.

bergen

ok so this isn't really about bergen. having just been in january, we were sorta bergen-ed out and only saw the airport. it was a good entry point to start our roadtrip from and we passed some pretty nice views on the drive north. i mean, like this photo below... any how snap on iPhone also looks decent. (proper english translation: despite it being a careless iPhone snap, the photo turned out looking decent) oh yes. all the photos are taken on the iPhone and they haven't been edited / filtered. the sky was really that blue. the grass was really that green. if only every thing was like summer in norway :)

along the way, we passed what was hailed as continental europe's highest waterfall. i'm a little skeptical but hey, they need the tourist revenue, some how! and the drive north / wonderful thing about driving in norway is that we took car ferries to cross from one fjord to the next. it's almost like an extension of the road (funny!) but we'd drive until we run out of road, then onto the car ferry which would take us to the landing point on the next fjord. good fun, and how novel!

 

roadtripping the fjords!

when i was on exchange in stockholm in 2009, i pirated the 'norway in a nutshell' tour. the irony (pirates, vikings etc) wasn't lost on me and it was good fun traveling from bergen to flam by bus, ferry and train. when the mister was in belgium on exchange in 2008, he went to tromso and was lucky enough to see the northern lights. having had only a taster of norway, we were both excited to go back. so much so that we popped over to bergen for the weekend after my january exams earlier this year. when the summer bank holiday rolled round, we were tempted to do what (feels like) every other mobile brit / brit-based person does i.e. fly south and veg out on a beach. but the mister, as you might've guessed by now, is anything but conventional. plus the thought of fighting throngs of brit tourists in the mediterranean didn't appeal to us. the mister then turned his attention north, and planned an amazing route through the norwegian fjords*, and a surprise foray to sweden. because, i mean, i had been going on and on about how much i missed sweden and kicking myself for not venturing outside stockholm. suppose i shouldn't be surprised he actually listened, bless his heart, and sneakily detoured through are (pronounced "o:ra") to fan my swedish flame.

the mister's theme for the trip (he's poetic that way!) was "sleeping in unusual places". thank goodness i protested the original plan (camping and sleeping in a tent) because unusual as that might've been, comfort is something i take very seriously. the mister, however, is a guards captain and goodness knows them brown berets are completely at home in unhospitable environments. that said, the mister planner supreme then hand-picked an amazing bunch of places to stay. we spent the night at a quaint guesthouse that opened right onto the fjords, a functional but un-manned lighthouse (!!!), a military-inspired barrack room with killer views, a converted cloister garden and a beach house made from re-purposed materials. oh ya, the beach house used to be a concrete factory haha. for that surprise foray to sweden, we stayed at the best ski lodge for a steal (because it was summer!) and staying off-season at swish places has its benefits... like an amazing spa that was almost completely empty and great views of the ski valley.

but i get ahead of myself. will be posting on the various places we stayed for the next week or so. please do check back if you'd like to see :)

*right after our icelandic midsummer wedding, we went walking on the icelandic fjords and fell in love with their serene majesty. visiting their continental european cousins was, therefore, the next logical thing to do!

singers boleh

when we landed at heathrow a couple of days ago, i realised i don't know when i'll next be back in sg. the mister makes the odd foray to 'the far east' for work every now and again, but whenever i go, it's purely personal. i guess it's about time this endless summer draws to a close, seeing how it's my 6th (!!!) 3-4 month summer break. having spent at least 18 months on holiday (not counting the 8 month break before starting undergrad!) it's high time i start being more productive. i've heard from more than one acquaintance that i'm 'always on holiday' and have a hard time convincing them that i only travel during term breaks, or over the weekend. much as i wish i had thick-skin and wasn't affected by the subtext ("...and therefore you don't work hard enough") i am sometimes bothered by the presumption. 

medsch is something i take very seriously but don't see the point in making a big show about how much work i do, or not. if i was solely a childless housewife, dropping everything to care for my able-bodied spouse and twiddling my thumbs while he's at work, fine. go ahead and judge. in fact, i'd even join you! but who's to say i can't have my cake and eat it, doing all the housewifely things while being in medsch. i'm trying not to morph into a pinterest wife, taking photos of the dishes i cook and tidy state of our tiny flat, but it is something i take pride in. i want to be a great many things - interior designer, cook, handywoman, tailor, herb grower etc summer gives me the luxury of time to do all that. 

been going a little nuts with my herb garden (said tiny flat has a tinier window ledge where my pots reside) and been harvesting chillis for oil, jam, flakes and basil for pesto. i note with more than a hint of pride that my sister asked quite disbelievingly, "are you a doctor or a gardener?!" and while i'm neither, i find multi-faceted people interesting. being in london, with it's exorbitant labour costs has turned me into a handywoman out of necessity. shant bore you with the mundane details but the mister and i have basically had to do almost every fix-it thing around the flat, to save ourselves the GBP80 call out fee if we had called a plumber / electrician. lest you think we're naturally inclined, no. it's all trial and error and grace of God. alterations cost an arm and a leg (neighbourhood tailor quoted GBP25 to shorten my GBP10 h&m maxi!!!) and the plight of being 1.6m (don't laugh) is that i've been altering all my clothes myself. youtube is a godsend to the sartorially-challenged! singaporeans who complain don't know how lucky they are with domestic help a'plenty and cheap labour.

however, i miss the intellectual stimulation that uni provides and no number of books i read makes up for its lack. looking forward to clinicals (finally!) and enjoying the process. it's funny how people assume i'm in a hurry to graduate (different set of people from those who think i don't ever want to work) when the truth is, i'm blessed to be in a good place and taking things as them come. too often we rush through life, hurtling towards the next step and miss enjoying each stage for what it is. it's been a good summer, and we've been very lucky to travel as much as we had. from paris and barca in june, to bruges in july, and then singers, phuket and soon norway in august. 

and while i said i'm trying not to be a pinterest wife, here's the chilli oil from our first harvest!

parallel universe

it's no secret that i left my heart in stockholm in 2009. had the most glorious time on exchange, met an amazing group of friends whom i'm still in touch with and in a strange way, stockholm is my happy place. thinking about my huge room in kungshamra and taking the bus to uni never fails to cheer me up. of course thoughts of the endless corridor parties and white nights on the yellow house roof terrace don't hurt either. just got off the phone with J, a dear friend who was just back in sweden over summer, and we were musing about how life would've been so different if we'd stayed on and worked for swedish firms. we'd probably be enjoying 10am starts, 6 weeks annual leave, summers in our country homes and incredible benefits. what leaves an even bigger pang is how i did have a good relationship with the firms, and attended one too many recruitment lunches ;) still in touch with the industry contacts i made, and they, too, have become friends over the years. in fact, just got a couple of emails from their summer homes!

if i'd been white, single, and without close family, i'd have moved in a heartbeat. but that's a big if. perceived or otherwise, the bamboo ceiling was not something i felt confident of breaking. and there was my wonderful family in singers. london isn't much closer than stockholm but it's easier to assimilate into, and it's with the view to get my GMC qualifications and then get outta here. i complain enough, but when 30% of the mister's modest salary goes to 'national insurance' and tax every month, it's all i can do to stop from screaming. i mean, if it were a personal stash (like CPF!) that we eventually get back, fine. but it's not. it disappears into a common pool and i'm not about to wish a serious illness on either of us to see a return on his investment. 

in that respect, sweden is no better (income tax was 68%, or so i learnt during swedish law course) and i wouldn't be any happier to pay taxes should i have stayed on to work in stockholm. which is why i'm genuinely worried by this year's national day rally and the increasingly populist slant. having lived in sweden and the uk, and enduring the pain that is uk tax, populist measures are really not the way to go! but what to do, singaporeans can be demanding, unappreciative and entitled. bo pians.

so on to happier things, like memories of cider nights at the law house in stockholm uni. the bartender who used to sneak us free drinks now works for one of the top swedish law firms, and J's swedish fling is now a mother. sodermalm has a ton of new indie shops and apparently the rest of sweden is pretty darn scenic too. silly me for being too comfortable to venture beyond stockholm. 

i read an article recently where the writer lamented how the older she gets, the more scandinavian she becomes. and i find the same slowly happening to me. increasingly minimalist, i'm happy with tiny spaces and a capsule wardrobe. might be a by-product of this constant moving / lack of permanence. displacement is too strong a word but for the first time ever, when i was last back in singers, i felt out of place. the moment we touched down at changi (still my all-time favourite airport!) i wanted to turn around and go back to london. singers was too hot. which is a really stupid reason not to want to go home. but it's where my family is, where i want to raise my eventual family. and let's just hope populist measures will not be reason enough to never return.

granny

phuket was a treat but i was also itching to be home to hang with my granny. as a product of two working parents, granny retired early to look after me. she's my hero and constant inspiration. granny was suddenly widowed in her early 30s and literally left carrying the baby. they didn't have very much and she never remarried, scraping by on her meagre teacher's salary. fifty years on, my parents, siblings and i are still her only family. i cannot even begin to imagine how absolutely horrific it must've been to be in her unenviable position all those years ago. how does one ever recover from such trauma? but she's one of the strongest ladies i know, picked herself up and just got on with it. i've much to be grateful for (one can do worse than be raised by a retired schoolteacher!) and credit granny for teaching me english and good manners, one more successfully than the other it seems! 

much as i enjoy being a newlywed in london, a part of me misses my granny with a horrific pang. i'm glad she's happy and healthy, ageing as gracefully as possible (doesn't she look amazing for an octogenarian who had a tough life?!) and wish i could spend more time with her. but there's skype, and summers back home and i'm constantly reminded of how fortunate i am that she's supportive  of my dreams.

just before this picture was taken, we'd gone to the hair salon and stopped for pulot hitam ice cream on the way home. naturally this completely spoilt our appetites for lunch (nasi lemak!) but when you're 83, i guess you call the shots ;)

phuket food snapshots

we'd a couple of friends in phuket at the same time and they kept our insta-feeds, well, fed, with amazing photos of delicious looking phuket food trails and all the best local food the island had to offer. despite the crazy temptation at hand and mega lure of our friends' discerning palates (they're foodies not to be messed with!) we just couldn't muster up the energy to leave the villa. didn't hurt that the chef was beyond amazing and we had four of each main meal with nary a repeat. if you think that's impressive (i sure do, with my relatively limited repertoire!) our hosts told us they once stayed for two weeks without a repeat. thai culinary prowess and legendary hospitality at its finest :) tried not to do the azn thing so unforch these are the only two 'food' photos i have. because, anyway, food photos. love-hate relationship, yes?

phuket

the stars aligned and we were very lucky to have a four day weekend last week. even more fortunate was to have gracious friends who invited us to stay at their home. it's a beautiful villa perched just above the andaman sea and the mister and i were last there during our minimoon. we were staying somewhere else but the friends, who were guests at our wedding, insisted we cancel our booking and stay at theirs as their guests. we'd have done that in a heartbeat but because the mister had already paid in full, our friends invited us to spend an afternoon (lunch, massage, more massage!) at theirs instead.

 

it was such a treat to return a year later and spend four full days in the most beautiful surroundings. usually so itchy feet but had absolutely no desire to leave the villa for the duration of our stay. 

monochrome

 

we're lucky to have a particular family friend who gifts us with books! might stem from how my folks didn't believe in toys and for the birthdays they did celebrate (there weren't many!) they'd insist on books. having spent most of my formal education reading under the desk, i'm not complaining. in retrospect, such behaviour seems almost like a chicken-egg question ;) so you can imagine my joy when said family friend very kindly passed me not one but three eggcellent reads just before we left for phuket :) and i promptly spent the next few days sprawled out on a deck chair reading to my heart's content. such a nerd, i know. such a bibliophile i even attempted to dress according to the book covers.

petersham nursery

a lovely sydneysider we met in ecuador told us about petersham nursery. she's a horticulturalist and was going to be in london for the chelsea flower show. embarrassing as it was, we'd to admit that despite living in london (she was jetting back from sydney!) the show wasn't on our to-do list. we did meet up over l'atelier when she was in town, and heard even more good things about petersham nursery. so my ever-organised husband booked us in for the one weekend (!!!) this summer when we didn't have guests in town. 

apart from being next-to-impossible to find (poor directions, obscure signage) it was worth the hike. and as if to soothe our bruised egos, the affable waiter conspiratorially shared that getting lost is a rite of passage. there was a long table set up next to us for a wedding and the gorgeous settings made me want to have a wedding lunch too! maybe for our next anniversary...

after lunch we moseyed around the nursery and miraculously left laden with a sweetpea, basil and chilli plant. now to just keep them alive! and i'm half sure that even if they were to shrivel and die in my absence, the mister will replace 'em without my knowledge.

 

richmond is a beautiful area and i can't believe it took us  a year to finally venture out of london. we try to spend every weekend in a different park to make the most of summer and it was surprisingly empty for a saturday evening. doesn't it look almost like the serengeti in this photo? then again, i've never been and wouldn't know!

hutong

while i often lament that the london dining scene is too faddy for its own good, once in a while i succumb (more often that not, when there are friends in town!) and make an exception. our ever-resourceful friend M booked hutong way in advance for when S was in town and despite my initial reservations about it being overrated and overhyped, i was pleasantly surprised by how authentic the food was. and the view? beats duck*waffle and their consistently abysmal service hands down. easily my new go-to for when we've guests in london :) didn't hurt that i was a little ignorant at the beginning and only later realised that we know the owner! who was so kind as to share an insider's tip (and photo teaser) below. careful as we try to be with our spending (the less we spend in london, the more we can spend on holidays!) meeting up with my london-based cousin, and S my visiting cousin was a special occasion indeed. i've three first cousins who are wonderfully dear to me, but with so few first cousins, we grew up close to our extended family. JW is a second cousin (our grannies are sisters) and we're third cousins with S (her granny is JW & my grannies' first cousins). have i lost you yet? uninteresting family tree aside, i did try to explain all this to poor JM who had the misfortune of being our house guest that night. and he very gamely bought an entire outfit (shirt, belt, trousers, dress shoes!) for the occasion. guess i'd forgotten that someone cycling through europe for three months would not be toting around fancy clothes... views are breath-taking, food excellent and company even better. so grateful for family and friends, and for people to enjoy treats like this with :)

according to the mister (although photo credits to JM), this is the world's most scenic little boys' room. despite having never been to one, i have to agree.

and here are my gorgeous cousins!

D's insider tip, as promised: The best view is from 9.30pm so don't go too early or if you have an early dinner then stay around for desserts and cocktails in aqua shard on level 31 and watch the night view suddenly materialize.  It is quite breathtaking.  We operate aqua shard as well.   Here is a little taster of things to come:

sound of music

one of my happiest childhood memories is of watching the sound of music repeatedly. you could even track technology's development through the means with which i watched it. from video cassettes (gosh! does anyone else remember those?!) to laser disks (sigh, now i'm giving away my age) to VCD and then DVD. the only constant was my choice of musical, which should probably have clued my indulgent parents in on my OCD. actually, they thought i'd aspergers and i'm adamant that everyone no matter how normal on the surface, does fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. hah. lengthy preamble aside, you cannot imagine how absolutely psyched i was to watch the sound of music in the open air theatre at regents park. quite embarrassingly, i can almost recite the lines of the movie verbatim, and it took every ounce of self-restraint not to do just that during the performance. wish i could have said the same for husband dearest. who was bopping along and singing under his breath :) cute like anything but goodness me i don't think the fabulous couple next to him were too amused.

and because theatre times always conflict with dinner time, the mister has been with me long enough to know how hangry (hungry-angry) i get. so he made sure i was well fed and watered at brgr&co before we took a slow walk to the park.

here's our incredibly good value tea. three sliders (lobster, chicken, beef!), the yummiest fries, a dessert selection with milkshake, brownie, apple crumble and trifle, a glass of bubbly and home made iced tea! my tummy was singing before the hills were alive with the sound of music ;)

scenic route home

i should've known that the mister would want to maximise every minute of our very brief weekend trip to bruges. he'd booked the very last eurotunnel passage back to ol' blighty and that gave us a good few hours to mosey around the north of france. thankfully got a late check out from our cute little hotel and took the scenic, coastal road back to and through france. we passed the sweetest little towns like wissant, audinghen, audresselles and ambleteuse. we even did the touristy thing and stopped at cap blanco to see where the germans had place their cannons during WWII, because captain husband is a closet military history buff. admiring german guns aside, we took a long walk along the beach and stumbled upon a quaint little seafood shack. the boss lady's husband takes their tiny fishing boat out every morning, and they sell what he catches the rest of the day. she didn't speak a word of english, so thank goodness for the month of french i took before going to stockholm (yeah, that doesn't make sense to me either...) and voila! dinner was served :)

 

oh and a photo of the M4(?) at dusk, for good measure and to show our ancient set of third hand wheels were roadworthy. phew!

exploring bruges

now the mister took one look at the breakfast spread before we went to bed (bless him, always two meals ahead of me!) and decided it was not worth EUR25. we're also not morning people, and good grief, was it hard to tear ourselves away from the window the next morning.

in fact, it was as if we'd grown roots to the window sill and i'd a whale of a time watching the canal boats go by. easily pleased, i am. better yet was being able to eavesdrop on the canal boat commentary and after a morning of vicarious touring, i was almost able to recite the spiel and rehearsed jokes.  awesome windows though so once they were closed and the air-conditioning switched on, you forget you're truly at the heart of this picturesque town. 

and here's the hotel from the canal! how's that for a change of perspective? we stayed in the three-windowed room on the top right, with the sloping roof. thank you mr. manager sir for the complimentary upgrade. my inner el cheapo was well pleased :)

bruges is a very historic, UNESCO heritage town and what i liked was the accessibility of all these cultural events. on our first night, there was a huge concert in the square and on the second day there was this full orchestra casually performing in the sunshine.

what was nice was no longer being a student (ok, so i still am!) in belgium. when we were last there five years ago, EUR5 for a pizza/pasta and drink was a splurge. we ate in most days, and i credit the summer in the mister's tiny student flat as the trigger of my culinary aspirations. hey, he was in the thick of exams and after i tired of twiddling my thumbs, i do remember cooking for him. little did we know then how that division of labour would foretell our roles after marriage ;) and speaking of the mister's flat, it was an incomplete walk down memory lane because it's since been condemned and demolished. about time, if you ask me! we were reminiscing about how some things change (he no longer balks at paying more than EUR2 for beer) while others remain the same (we're still not at the level where we'd eat a poor value hotel breakfast). and it's nice that half a decade on, he's still the only person i travel with. i'm so antisocial, if i wasn't going to be with the mister, i rather be on my own. grateful he gets that, grateful how i don't need 'space' when i'm with him.

oh and we'd dinner at den huzaar, a sweet little belgian restaurant with flaming desserts (just missing the lambo...) and we didn't mind being stranded by the rain because we'd all the time in the world.

roadtrip to bruges

the mister doesn't ask for much, and when i suggested visiting bruges over the summer bank holiday,  he wasn't the most interested. "why waste a good day off", he reasoned but was game to visit over a weekend. and boy was he right! now belgium holds a special place in our hearts. the mister spent a year in leuven (home of stella artois) on exchange, and during that year he traveled all over europe. i'm surprised he even managed to explore belgium, seeing how he was using it merely as a base. actually, i'm more surprised he won best speaker at the european round of the space moot. but that's another story for another time. and the mister, he hates when i brag about him so i really shouldn't. but i am so proud of him (even a couple of years on) and it was particularly poignant because on the very same day he won, i was miles away in singers receiving a D (not distinction but A, B, C, D... also an achievement!) for constitutional law. yay me. undergrad throwback aside, was fortunate to visit the mister in leuven during winter and summer holidays and the small university town grew on me. 

so you can imagine how excited i was to return to belgium after five years. and to finally visit bruges because we didn't get round to when he was on exchange. little did i know that in the years passed, bruges has gained infamy as the boring town from the colin farrell movie! and being the total ignoramus i am, i booked us into the same hotel as in the movie. took me a couple of days to realise why there was a constant stream of tourists on our otherwise quiet side street, and why they taking photo after photo of that darn bridge! 

and because the mister isn't a big fan of birthdays, i'm not really allowed to say that we went to bruges for his birthday (it fell mid-week and we were away over the weekend). to which he's quick to point out that if we were to celebrate his birthday, i didn't do a very good job because he ended up driving us to bruges, around bruges, and back. but the hotel was lovely and they very kindly gave us a free upgrade to a canal suite, which was superlative. in fact, it was just so darn beautes that leaving the room felt like a waste. and to me, that's the essence of a destination hotel. 

but a little more about the drive before i leave you with some photos. now we've driven all over europe (iceland, corsica, south of france, tuscany, mykonos, santorini, crete) and it's always been a rental car. now i've nothing against rental cars, but luxury isn't a priority and we usually get the cheapest manual car available. so to be able to drive our car (nevermind it is ancient and third-hand, it's ours!) over to europe was a real treat. the euro tunnel has got to be the most amazing engineering feat ever and it's so organised! absolutely seamless, pain-free commute. after this i'm not sure if i can take the eurostar any more. it's quite unreal how in the span of an hour, we'd gone from folkestone, UK to calais, france before driving to bruges, belgium. and the check-in onto the train was a breeze, the crossing took all of 25 minutes and before we knew it, hellooo continent!

easy peasy drive, minus the mister having to switch his mind around. he's driven right-hand car in right-hand drive (singers, UK, australia), left-hand car in left-hand drive (europe, US) but never right-hand car in left-hand drive. we pulled up at the hotel around 11 and the lovely night manager poured us beers and nibbles on the terrace.

(view from our room!)