This is WHY.

Hello there!

Guess who's back?

And my poor jeans after 5 weeks of travel ):

Back in the lovely home of Filder Good Morning!

Had a nice BBQ with H.P. & D in the garden
Before it all began, just started making pics of adorable Balou. :D

Such a happy life he has i must say!

Busy grilling the meat..

And heres how its done y'all!

The next morning, we had "The Usual".

Fresh german bread. Lecker lecker!

All the ham you can eat

D's awesome fruit salad with yoghurt! :D

The must have, but we forgot about Basil :/ oops

And this wonder machine wasn't here the last time, but it makes the best eggs ever! None can compare! This is what you get from this wonder machine!

And i was so lucky, to even have such condiments for the egg

I just can't express how much i love salt!

I'm sure everyones hungry by now, like how Balou is when we were preparing it!

But first, a photo! Zoom it all out and this is what we get. "The Usual" :P

Gonna miss all of you, heading to Ulm now, finally!

So, initially i was supposed to head to Lofoten alone, but guess who came along? Jinquan, Chengying and Matthew!

We picked up the car in Narvik, and took the most scenic drive towards the end of the world! We were in luck, originally we ordered a Polo, but guess what guys, we ended up getting a Subaru Forester, 4x4!

MWAHAHAHAHA!

So, LET THE ROAD TRIP BEGIN!

It was the best drive i had in my life, the mountains the fjords, i can't describe them here to you all, you have to go and see it for yourself! :X Sorry guys.

We stopped countless times, just to take pictures of the AMAZING scenery and for toilet breaks of course! This was pretty much what we got most of the time!

Mirror lakes, mirror lakes EVERYWHERE!

We even got a chance to see a waterfall, and definitely (of course) drank from it! The best water yeah, you know? :D

We were driving along the coast, facing the atlantic ocean! The waves were just crashing on the rocks! Experienced some crazy winds of 15m/s if i am correct, and a storm was approaching this night. ZOMGD:

Then, the roads started getting narrower, a 1 lane road for 2 way traffic, and we had to be really careful with such a big car xD
And we are here! FINALLY! Eliassen Rorbuer!

This was how it looked like inside, perfect family get away!

Had dinner and probably the best norwegian beer ever!

Oh yeah, we had a boat too, haahha! but weren't able to use it due to weather :'(

Tried to head out later at night in the hunt for NLs, but we didn't manage to get a glimpse due to the weather ):

Next day we headed out, till the end of the world! Arrived at Reine first, the most raved about place of Lofoten!

And my best photo IMO!

Insane weather, the storm hit again and the rain felt like bullets! Had our fun here and moved on further! It was pretty sad, that we came during the down time, the whole place was pretty much dead, and fishing season just started, so there was pretty much nothing we could do :/

Saw many Skrei along the way and other beautiful scenery!

Went to the supermarket and got supplies, hee hee hee.


My drug

Had the mandatory meal of Cod and even bought postcards at the restaurant hahaha -.- i know right!

COD COD COD!

And soon, we were where we came for.

Å.

The edge of the world! The storm really started hitting and we were pounded. But, bad weather, BEST TIME FOR PHOTOGRAPHY! Seized the chance and got shots that i never would have!

After awhile, we decided we couldn't do this anymore, and started to head back, then the weather improved slightly -.-

And then it got better! :D

Sat around here for awhile and talked for a bit, before we headed back to our lovely Rorbuer.

Guess what? We left the door open for a few seconds and a stranger greeted us!

Must have been too cold for him outside and came in! Gave him BA KWA ok, and he devoured it, and pretty much whatever we gave him. Well, you can tell how much JQ loves cats hahaha!

Then, we headed out again that night in search for NLs, but were disappointed yet again, cause of the storm. ):

Well, this is the end of my 5 week trip, next stop, Filderstadt! To see my lovely host family and Balou

What other better way to end it, with Smørbrød of course! :D

So, after our enjoyable stay in Narvik, we took a train to.... ABISKO NATIONAL PARK!

It was a really scenic ride, with all the fjords and SNOW! Really amazing, you could see people skiing and stuff, wish i had their skills. Like the children could even ski backwards, do jumps and all. WOW

Fjords!

Abisko was like barren land, the moment we got in, there was only 1 building. HAHA. Dropped our bags, did some souvenir shopping and we were off for Husky sledding! Woohoo! :D

Didn't have the moolah to do the tour where you learn to mush the dogs yourself, so we took the easier tour, the dogs were just so cute and adorable! We were taken around the national park to see the scenery and all and it was a roller coaster!

After sometime, they paused, ate ice, pee and pooped..

and continued!

they were always roaring to go! It was really nice, we shared the sled with a couple from australia and their commentary on it was totally hilarious! It was definitely a unique experience for us :D

We stopped at a "Sami" tent and had the best blueberry juice ever, with warm fires, while the dogs rested!

They had pretty cool names! If i remember correctly, these 2 were called aragon and legolas? There was Gimli too. HAHAHA!
Well in the tent we got to learn more about the life of a musher, and how they have dog hotels. Things you would never have heard/thought of! Then we headed back!

On the way, people out camping in the open would take snaps of us haha and yeah, they were out to chase the NLs too! But they had all the gear, Paul and i had NOTHING.

Headed back to a beautiful sunset!

Cooked and prepared ourselves for what is to come, the make or break moment of our whole Scandi trip.

We were so ill equipped, we didn't have proper jackets, shoes and clothing. We took the comforter out to keep ourselves warm, ha! Well, so we walked from the lodging into the open, under starlight! We didn't even need torches and all, it was just amazing, words can't describe it. After walking for probably an hour in the snow, we decided we have found our spot, some what a valley, so we had a nice angle to capture the sky and the foreground, but guess what geniuses we were, the amount of wind we got was killing us!

So, no NLs, and this is what we did to occupy ourselves. Star trails!

Even got a picture of the moon!

It was so cold, probably around -15 °C - 17 °C, that we were jogging on the spot, as we were fiddling with our cameras and gear with our bear hands. We even took off our shoes in the snow, to put our heat packs into our soles, just to keep them warm. The toes were the worst. Well, fingers we just had to bear with it, for the sake of pictures.

Then, it all started, a hint of green in the sky! Here there left right, we started pointing our cameras in every direction!

Sadly, i didn't put on my fast lens, as i wanted a wider angle. So the shots are kinda blurry, as the lights were moving so fast as well!
Then, everything died down, it was probably 11ish. We were out in the cold for probably 4 hours and kind of rejected. Tried to drink my water, but guess what, it was frozen -.- Stupid me. hahaha thats how ill prepared we were guys, all i had was a PET bottle. HA! Something i'll remember my whole life! Then, yeah we decided to head back to the lodging to get some warmth.

So we started walking back again, in the darkness of stars, after walking a good 5 minutes or so, IT BEGAN AGAIN. This time, it was the strongest. We were fumbling, dropping our stuff setting up our gear and all, pointing in all directions just to get the shots! And yeah, of course enjoying the moment as well. Our jaws dropped. We saw red.

RED NLs guys! Holy crap!

The pictures doesn't do justice to what we saw. You have to be there to see it! We were directly under the NLs and it was just breathtaking. Yeah after this display, there wasn't pretty much anything again. So we headed back near the lodging to try our luck after getting some warmth and rest!

Then we headed out out to the tent nearby and it was just mild, compared to what we got earlier.



And this was how i was dressed the whole time, Ninja Andrew!

So, decided to try another star trail again! This time, it turned out green with all the NLs in the background!

Finally, too exhausted from being in the cold for approximately 9 hours, headed back inside, with my frozen tripod and camera, that was so cold i couldn't even carry it! :/

The next day, before we left, we walked 2km to the nearest town, just to get to a supermarket, and we found a secret! S$3 dollars only man!

Well, we had the most eventful night! :D Moving on to somewhere in Norway next!

So, after getting a glimpse of NLs, we were hungry, filled with insatiable hunger! We proceeded next to Narvik, in hopes of better chances!

Took a bus and this was the view we had!

Stayed with Du Yuan and damn, we forgot to take a photo together Sorry du yuan, but thanks for everything! We went skiing for the first time in our lives, tried snowboarding and fell on my head so bad that i changed to skiing. We fell twice on the ski lift up and choked the whole line, so embarrassing. While we were just sitting on the ice, dumbfounded, 2 cute little girls on the ski went by us, asking us if we were alright. <3

Love the Scandi love and people!

So yeah back to the story, we were stuck, we crawled across, and we ended up at the advanced slope, tumbled our way down!
Defeated, but yet we tried again hahaha! Had videos of us but it was just so embarrassing :/

Photos of 2 noobs trying to ski for the first time with no lessons!

Next we shifted to Robin's!

He was really nice to drive us around and cook us an awesome norwegian dinner! Thanks mate!

We had really nice cheese and Tørrfisk!

Really had a great evening with him, his brother and his friend! We helped him set up his place and heated tiles are the most amazing things ever! Has one of the sickest houses amongst the rest, and this was the view we had.

So, we took a flight next to Tromsø! The moment we got to cruising altitude, the captain announced that there were NLs on our right. That instant, everyone just plastered their face out of the window. Haha, can you imagine, everyone leaning to the right of the plane, gives you the perception that the plane is flying right heavy. haha ok just a thought, but yeah, unbelievable! It was that strong!!!!

We were only like at Oslo and below the arctic circle, but we caught a glimpse!

And guys, norwegianair is unbelievable, they had wifi on the plane! Like what right? haha and i was blown away by Smørbrød at the airport (Paul i still blame you for it) Too busy eating it that i forgot to take a picture hahaha omg wait i did take a picture, and this is how it looks like!

The best sandwich in the world guys, lobster, shrimp and salmon.

Landed and when we got out, we saw the coolest barriers ever, long exposure photography time!

This was taken handheld, as i was just too lazy to take out my tripod. We were just carrying so much stuff, a kanken full of food from Krakow

We then proceeded into Tromsø, route march style :D
This was the view we got, when we were arriving!

Pretty bad picture, due to the immense light pollution here in the city! There was so much ice, we were typically crawling and trying not to slip! The hotel we stayed was awesome! AMI hotel! I highly recommend this y'all! Breakfast was good! We had such a nice view out of our window into the city, but just unlucky that it was cloudy all nights, that we couldn't see the NLs ):

But anyways, got some nice pictures of the place!

Midway along the bridge, crazy winds i must say!

The view of Tromsø from the other side.

The church.

We had a nice dinner or reindeer and cod too as well!

Reindeer with lingonberry

Cod with shrimps

Then, we decided to go out for a walk in hopes of seeing the lights. Guess what, even with the amount of light pollution in Tromsø, WE SAW IT

The picture is orangey due to the light pollution in the city. But yeah, it was for a good 15 minutes of so. Took my breath away.

And when it finally ended, i got a photo of the Tromsø :D

Brace yourselves. Winter is coming!

Left the central/east Europe, and I'm here now, in NORGE. Never thought that i would make it here so soon but, I'm living the dream! Never dreamt so big in my life, first stop, Oslo!

Technically, we didn't really see and do much in Oslo, we were across the bay of Oslo, in a summer house :D It was in my opinion, so much more worth it than the city, since we are from the concrete jungle (Singapore). You have to take a ferry across, just to enjoy this amazing place!

Sadly, we could only spend a day here Wish we had a longer time, to explore Nessodtangen! Joanita was so nice, to pick us up in the freezing cold at midnight. I still can't express my gratitude to you! You have the nicest house along the shore IMO!

We were really unlucky to not see the coast of Oslo, it was a misty morning we woke up too, but the pictures that Joanita showed us were just stunning! And i love the lithuanian pancakes she made for us! It was so amazing! And for the first time in my life, i saw a fireplace! hahah

And this is somewhat the view of the place!

We walked around, but it started raining so we couldn't get any good photos, but managed to find some Rorbuer! :D

And the mandatory shot with our lovely host, before we headed on to our next destination! I promise to come back Joanita! And spend more time in getting to know you, I'm so sorry! But it was a really lovely day :D

Moving on! Took a 6 hour bus across Slovakia, haha well I could say I’ve been to Slovakia, but only took a bus and did a cross country trip from the South to the North. Pretty amazing scenery, wish I could have stayed here in this beautiful country as well for a few days!

Arrived and our host – Jagoda aka Blueberry muffin picked us up at the bus station with her friends! They were such a lovely bunch! All 5 of us squeezed into a really small Ford. Haha! She made us a welcome soup Zalewajka!

It was so amazing! Next they brought us to Plozov and Schindler’s factory!

It was a nice walk. Her friend was like some pro driver, and he showed us his secret parking spot, in between 2 pillars, whereby only his Ford could fit, and the car waiting beside just had his jaws dropped. Ha!

We even got a personal city tour. I LOVE Krakow. Everything is open on Sunday! I just lose myself in the Supermarket, as always!
Tried all the amazing food Krakow has to offer as well!

Just look at Mat's face, you sure know its good!

The best kebab here in Krakow IMO!

It was so huge, I had to struggle to finish it, but Kinga just devoured it before me. :D
Places we visited include Schindler’s museum, Auschwitz and the best of it all, the salt mine! Here are some of the pictures I took! :D

We drank like the polish, look at all the Vodka we had! Michl was pushing us to drink all the time and thought us this really ridiculous phrase!

Our poison~

Went to some club, but first a selfie in the toilet!

no idea how we got there and how we got back haha.
Well, the best part of this trip was that we got to try homemade food from all of their parents, for example, bigos, pierogi and wine! The funniest thing was that Jagoda went to the bus station, and collected the pierogi from the bus, which her mom had left on the bus! Totally ridiculous but funny! :D Thanks Jagoda’s mom for it :D And Jagoda, thanks for showing us Amaretto!

And this crazy soccer gathering, where the fans of krakow gathered, which in turned attracted people like this!

Tried so many Vodka, and all were so good, except the Bison Grass, which I always wanted to try hahaha. But Wyborowa, you will always be my love!

So, to the next destination! Budapest! Well, I took a train from Zagreb into Budapest, and I arrived late at night, without any forints! No stores were opened, so I didn’t eat, FOR 24HOURS!, checked in to a hostel. Sadly, no CS host from Budapest, and waited for King Matthias!

And how can we end a starvation? A feast! S$15 Steak @ Sir Williams, it was so good! I couldn’t even finish it!

Furthermore, we even has this Hungarian dessert, but I can’t recall the name!

We also went to the church of Matthias, it was amazing!

Did a self walking tour with matty and here are some of the pictures I took!

Weather was pretty shitty though, raining and all. Even tried a long exposure shot!

The next day, we went for the free walking tour and we met Arielle and Gosha! :D

Really fun bunch! Gosha, the funniest Russian ever, he doesn’t even has to try to be funny, anything that he said, was just funny! Arielle was the most chilled traveller that we met, and not a tourist!

And here was our tour guide for the day :D

We became such good friends, that we even went to Szechenyi together! And here is a photo of me, with Matty’s GoPro!

It was a whirlpool! :D hahaha Fun times man! Tried all the pools (almost all) and it was amazing! Felt so revitalized after! And Szechenyi is one of the better ones I guess, and the one that is worth the price! :D

And we thought we never meet someone from CS here in Budapest, Katalin offered us to show us around! Like what? Hahah, she showed us this amazing café. It was such a nice place, it was our little alice in wonderland!

The owner was such a cool dude, he has no menu. He just comes and sits besides you, and asks you what would you like, what fruits blah blah… and tadah!

And the place is at..

But take note, he doesn’t lie when he says this.

Katalin even invited us to have dinner with her family! :D One thing I found out, Hungarians eat everything with sour cream! No sure how true that is, but lesson learnt – never do a shot of palinka on an empty stomach before dinner. I died. Passed out for probably an hour on her floor. Haha.

The dinner we had, and her mom even made us breadsticks for our journey to Krakow. So touched! Really thankful and grateful for their kindness, something that we can never repay back for! Even now, I can recall the smell of it and the taste of it.

Thank you so much for the lovely evening guys!

The trip i've been looking forward to, since the beginning! Finally i am here and my "host" picks me up on a rainy day from the bus terminal! I was here in Zagreb before, and i didn't like it. But here i am again, and never have i been so wrong!

From the moment i got in till i left, Ivan brought me around and everywhere! I've seen so much of Zagreb, but i don't know what each and everything was named -.- OH yeah, ivan was my buddy, when he came to NUS, and i picked him up from the airport! :D

So basically, the first day, we toured the inner city (so much better now, when i was here the last time in summer, it was way hotter than the weather in Singapore). And yeah, what else.. We ate, like 4x in less than half a day :P

1. Sarma by his lovely mom! Really traditional croatian winter dish

2. This awesome brownie, that everyone in the shop was eating!

3. It aint over, LEGENDARY cheesecake next! Torte i to :P

THEN, the moment i've been waiting for...

Ćevapi

Pljeskavica

Vješalica

Uštipak

4. All these were so delicious! We tried it before in Singapore with Zan and the rest, but at a hefty price and this was reasonable! And croatian beer as well! :D

We did so many things in Zagreb, went to Medvedgrad, Ivan even brought me to a flea market!

And this was what they sold -.- haha and many other stuff that i really didn't need!

Kind of disappointed with this one, but it was really cool, people selling cars and every car part! It was so crowded. We went back to Ivans, and I'm always happy to see this

Thats when we talked to his dad, and he brought us to British Square! :D And what a coincidence, we met Ivan's aunt there as well! :P

and they even sold such stuff! Pricey though, saw many things i would have wanted, but i couldn't get, as i was still gonna be travelling!

Well, what else, yeah we even rode horses! :D hahaha pretty lame but yeah :D And saw really friendly dogs!

And these are some of the artworks from Ivan's sister, simply stunning!

Even took a really lovely stroll with Ivana, such a funny girl! And her cute dog Casper!

and a lovely evening with friends of Ivan from high school!

I really miss the food i ate back here, especially the Ajavar sauce at Urnebes haha!

Brace yourselves, Food pictures are coming!

Let the eating begin!


Bobići!

Marenda, how i miss you so!

Pašticada! I must say, its the best meat i've had so far! :D

And all good things must come to an end..

Missing everyone everyday!

Thank you for the lovely time, company and hospitality!

So, our next destination! We got the cardboard from Felix, ha! We were so hopeful of us getting a ride to Wien! Did our research on hitchwiki, and here was how enthusiastic we were!

But guess what, no one, NO ONE stops and picks up 2 asians, especially asian dudes. So after trying for 4 hours, we gave up and took a train to Wien. Mehhh.

Arrived on a sunday and met our host, Matthias! Really cool guy and stayed near the parking station for the trams, so it was pretty cool! He even cooked for us, tadah! Käsespätzle!

Told us about all we need to know about Wien and about his cool job and youtube videos, Insane!
haha, and i'll always remember that night Leon and i slept, and he forgot to turn on the heater or something, and leon went to wake him up at 3 in the morning, he got such a fright! haha memorable!

Some pictures from Wien~

Don't ask me why, but i just love taking photos of street lamps x)

Naschmarkt was pretty amazing, but yet funny and annoying at the same time, when they kept trying to get our attention with all the asian languages!

And, the best Sachartorte and Apfelstrudel i had in my life, thanks to stephanily! thanks for all the other recommendations as well, pity they were not open :/

And we came by some kind of fair and Leon got this, so good! I was so tempted to buy it as well, but...

i had no idea, how i managed to say no to flammlachs -.-

Oh yeah, and we saw this super cool old dude, whistling to the animals, and the birds, squirrels and ducks came to him, Geil! And when the pigeons came, he just really in a way, gave them the F off sign. hahaha!

And guys, i splurged on something, i never thought i would have, and would have come across. Thanks Leon, for being so patient, while i was being wishy washy, deciding if i should buy it. Never regretted since!

My first SLR!

What a beauty this camera is!

And on a spontaneous note, we met another CS host with her friend!

Elena and Clara were really a cool duo, had a lovely viennese evening at a Café! Before we went to take a glimpse at the Prater.
Nothing really that interesting though! Well, that was our experience in Wien, and we parted, and i was pretty sure i wouldn't be travelling with Leon again for the whole time here in Europe..