F1 - Brazil

Final Battle ground for the winner of this season's F1? A 3 way championship battle.

Gonna be a super interesting race in Brazil now :)

Who will you root for?

80 million years without sex?

And here I wonder how many can last just a year without sex. Oops.

Note to all readers: This is a serious topic I'm discussing, not a topic from some bored guy who's doing his readings and just happened to click on "Latest Headlines" on the Firefox links.

From: BBC

"The mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex has been solved by UK scientists.

A Cambridge team says the creature owes its existence to a genetic quirk that offers some recompense for prolonged celibacy."

And please read on yea?

Basically...this asexual animal has managed to live for 80 million years without having SEX! Gosh. That's really interesting! I mean, it's like telling a couple not to have sex from marriage to death (o.O)

Ok that might be POSSIBLE but....

Being humans and therefore sexual creatures, sex is the way (or should I say, the ONLY? let's drop the subject of cloning yea?) to reproduce, and over time, allows us to adapt to changes in our environment and thus allowing us to evolve.

And here we see, a creature known as a bdelloid rotifer (a single-celled invertebrate) actually manages to evolve and survive through these 80 million years WITHOUT dying out because of its ability to make two separate proteins from two different copies of a key gene!

And that, my friends, is an interesting discovery for us. :)

When there was Me & You

Nice song, nice movie, nice musical... =)

Army Boot Camp?

Went for a course organised by the Students Sports Centre in Eindhoven, called Outdoors. Well, I thought since I was getting fat and having less of a workout (except on backpacking trips where I've to lug my whole bag with me the whole day), I should sign up for a (belated) student sports card and get some activities under my belt.

And being from Rovers Adventure Club, I thought it would be fun if the course was something similar to ours, or maybe it would be like Scouting? Who knows?

And I went with enthusiasm and in high spirits.

Apparently, it was totally different. Well, not quite TOTALLY, but it's a kind of surreal feeling which I get from the training. It seemed like an Army Boot Camp, or ABC for short.

Why do I say so?

The trainings were not just about the woods, it included obstacle courses, like climbing the rope and doing a roll-over above, as well as moving the logs from one place to another, and good 'ol all-terrain running in the woods.

Well terrain running for me would be good if I knew what surface to expect, had better shoes, and was dressed for it.

Apparently I should've gotten myself a pair of running tights, the ones which are full length and protect ur legs from scratches by the tall grass in the woods near TU/e. And it would serve to be useful whilst climbing the ropes, as I've now battle-scars to prove that I've gone through all that without any long pants. Damn.

And above all, it felt like Army because the obstacle clearing really seemed like SOC to me. Hurhur. Just that the obstacles are bigger, higher and wider. Not to mention, more interesting and innovative?!

But it was fun. Had a great work out and there was hardly sweat broken out. Might consider going for the course again...who knows?

But they do have similarities with Rovers...they do various outdoor stuff aside from the trainings, for example rafting, abseiling and hiking up mountains! Now that's cool! Would love to join people to go up mountains! *happy*

Current Mood: Sore

Supposed to sleep but...

...a f**ker is smoking outside my room.

WTF.

I'm blogging because I've nowhere else to vent my frustration.

And I hate my room mate more cos her boyfriend stays over, puts his stuff all around (that's still fine u know) and SMOKES.

F**king SMOKE.

And he SMOKES outside my room and at the window, thinking I would not get a whiff of it. That's plain absurd since I've a balcony and now my clothes are having a taste of his ciggy SMOKE.

Really...I can't stand people who smoke. And now I'm sorta confined in my room BECAUSE of the SMOKE and I cannot have fresh air from the balcony OR the doorway.

What a great day. And he's staying till Thursday.

I've a strong urge to go over and knock on her door to tell him to stop it...but I think I'll leave it till tomorrow. If the situation worsens, I'll have to take action.

And I really mean it.

Current Mood: Super freakin' PISSED

Quote of the day

“I can only conclude that, worse than hunger or thirst, worse than being unemployed, unhappy in love or defeated and in despair, far worse than any or all of those things, is feeling that no one, absolutely no one, cares about us.”

(Paulo Coelho, Like the Flowing River)

How true...

To all of my friends out there, I still care, despite the distance ;)

Life in Switzerland - Good yet expensive

On Timeline: 30 Sep - 07 Oct 2007

Why would one say that?

Probably because most of the time if you intend to grab a bite along the cafes, food costs from 16 sFr and up for just a simple meal, and it is hard to get a decent warm meal at a cheap price.

Gosh.

And I could not locate the supermarkets (which sucks) and therefore I'm down with the food (read: BREAD) which I had painstakingly brought from Eindhoven to Dusseldorf to Berlin and to Switzerland.

Anyway, just to carry on with the entire trip outline, it was a fun trip to Switzerland, famous for its part of the Alps (which are split between 4 countries). I would say that it was nature at its best, and Switzerland is indeed a good place for trekking/hiking, whether in the forest, on rock trails, on steep slopes, or on snow along the mountain ridges. More on that, later.

Went down from Berlin to Zürich via night train (12hrs OMG) by CNL and I think the train ride was simply amazing. Met up with a couple, Tino and D, and they were telling me how nice Freisburg was, with the Black Forest and everything.
When I exited the train station, it was all peaceful and quiet, with little pedestrians, being a Sunday morning. And in that peace and quiet morning, I managed to take in the sights of Zürich in the morning. A walk around the Lake Zürich showed many interesting sights and sounds, for example the wonderful (but smaller version of the one in Genevé) water fountain, the amazing churches and the huge mountain range in the backdrop of Lake Zürich.

As I’ve reached Zürich pretty early, I covered the main town area on foot (and it was easy to cover on foot with just a day pack as I had stored my Tatonka in the lockers), and went up to the nearby Uetliberg, which is south-west of Zürich and is reached in 15 mins. The best part of this trip up the mountain is that the railway brings you up to 840m and you climb about 10 mins to the summit, following which you can climb this tower of 170 steps and have a 360° unobstructed view of Zürich, the Alps and even the Black Forest! Moreover, the place was quite popular with the locals and even the tourists. Many, with children in tow, scale the peak gamely, and it was quite a sight! The best part was, there was a restaurant up there, so one could get food and beer up there!

After the short trip to Uetliberg, I made my way to Luzern, which is a nice city near all the mountains like Pilatus and Rigi. With the intention to stay for 2 nights, I walked covered the sights in the city in the evening, and having nothing to eat for dinner and no luck in locating the supermarkets, I had to depend on the dinner from the hostel, which sucked. Ugh. The Luzern youth hostel was only so-so and the Internet terminal must have been the worst I've used! The keyboard was all metal, which made typing very very difficult, and I had to use a very funny setup for the keyboard too! The Internet was also expensive - 1 sFr for 10 mins!!!

However, the stay was more than made up for by the fact that I had some nice guys to talk to in the dorm which I was in, with people like Gabriel (Brazil), Rickey (Germany), and Alexander (Germany). Nice people to talk to and share some trip information too!

Luzern was a nice city, with the Transport Museum as one of the most interesting museums around, and the various bridges along the entire river in Luzern city. On top of that, I found time for a hike up Burgenstock (and all the hotels, except 1, were closed!) and took the world's steepest cog railway up to Pilatus (48% at some stretches!). I was hesitant to pay money for the train ride, but I was thinking, since I'm already here in Switzerland, what makes me so sure that I'll return again to try the rides? Besides, it would be an experience to go up the mountain too!

And sure it did.

Me at the foot of Pilatus


Up the steep slope and into the tunnel!


I'm above the resthouse! Woohoo!


View from Mt Pilatus


I lurve the mountains! =)


Bottoms up view of Pilatus


It's super steep...and it felt so easy to go down :S


Another view from the top!

Meanwhile, I've not uploaded other photos...so possibly it'll take some time.

Moving on for this fast update, I went off from Luzern to Grindelwald, where I managed to find the hostel without any directions (save for 1 sign which just pointed where to head...THAT'S ALL OMG) and climbing a 20% slope, with my bags and all, in the middle of the night. Gosh. I was so hungry that I gratefully accepted the leftover chocolate cream (dunno wad that is) the reception had.

Jungfraujoch mountain was next to come, and I can truly say that I'm at the Top of Europe! It is above the clouds, so the glare from the sun is truly amazing, and the sunburn u get is almost 100% (save for the ozone layer...that is) On top of that, there is snow everywhere - more like permafrost. And it's nice to play in that type of terrain (well different from snow I guess, this you could just grab it, it's not wet, and mould it into the shapes you want). View from up there, truly unbelievable. Even Mt KK and Mt Rinjani pale in comparison.

After a day at Jungfraujoch, I missed the train to Geneva, so I had to stay on another night at Grindelwald (which is super expensive compared to the ones in Geneva and Berlin. Geez). It rained the whole night, which allowed me to move on to Geneva without much contemplation as I could not hike anymore trails in the Grindelwald region. Got a lift out of the hostel by an Australian family who had rented a car, and I was really grateful as it meant that I could get on the train on time, as well as not walk in the rain!!!

From Grindelwald, I travelled to Geneva, making stops at Interlaken, Interlaken West and Bern. Basically I just took my time, spent a couple of hours at each location, before arriving in Geneva.

And of course, this update is from Geneva...land of peace? It's super near the French border, with Mt Saleve (climbable!) in the French territory as well as some parks, the UN HQ and much more. The people here speak French instead of German (in Zurich, Luzern etc). Somehow, I'd prefer the Germans. Dun ask me why. lol.

Updating more later...Internet's expensive here too!


I love the mountains, I don't know why.
A sense of peace and calm just flows by.

Current Mood: Happy

What a day!!!

Everything which could not have happened, happened today. Gosh. What an adventure it was.

But luckily, it turned out all alright.

Managed to reach Berlin after the crazy 3 hour wait between Venlo and Dusseldorf. On top of that, I missed the ICE link between Dusseldorf and Berlin when I arrived at Dusseldorf, because I had not validated my Eurail.

Bah.

But it was kinda fun. Travelling alone...on high speed trains...snoozing whilst the environment gets boring, or gaping in awe of the wonderful structures which you pass by, either the city or the countryside.

The ICE train journey was kinda interesting. Because I used the Eurail pass, I did not need to pay €94 for the train ride (that's the price in Germany train station, but in the Netherlands the journey from Eindhoven to Berlin was €81?! What a difference!)

I did not know whether I could eat in the train, even though there were drop-down tables (like airlines) in front of me, and recycle bins just behind my seat. In the end, I just took out my box of grapes, because they were practically odourless and it would be much easier to eat them without others realising I was eating (except the person next to me, of course!)

I've not said why I was delayed a pathetic 3 hours on the railways of Europe right?? It's like the first time I'm spending 3 hours on a train platform! OMG. Apparently the heavy rain overnight caused some problems for the railway between Venlo and Dusseldorf, so we had to take a bus from the Venlo train station to the nearest German train station to get to Dusseldorf.

And the most irritating thing was that I mistakenly thought that I had to get off the bus at one of the stops, and this Brit dude (with his group of friends) had to take over my seat. And looked at me nonchanlantly even though my bag was bigger than half his size. Gosh. In the end I was sitting in his original seat, the one in the middle, right at the back.

(On normal travels in SG I would think that's a pretty good seat actually. Haha. But just not with a huge bag la.)

The rest of the trip on the bus was spent in agony because I could not sit back and relax. Geez. And his group of friends were so noisy. But I guess that's the thing about big groups travelling together! U talk more and there's a lot of chatter going about.

After reaching this ulu place called Vernin (dunno where it is), the whole bus group realised that we had missed the ride of Dusseldorf by 3 minutes, and therefore, some of us opted to go to Dilsburg whereas the rest stayed to wait for the next train.

I was in the latter group, and what "wise" choice. We were forced to wait for almost 2 hours because the train kept getting postponed. Met 2 Indian travellers, both working in Netherlands, and an Indonesian retiree living in the Netherlands. Had a good chat, which was great! Some asian people at least, haha.

In the end, we left the dilapidated train station and were soon on the way to Dusseldorf, which I slept. Haha.

And of course, back to the ICE train...it was really a nice train! Damn. Fell in love with it. But expensive also. It's interior was splendid! Shall upload pictures when I reach Luzern instead. lol.

Met this PhD student from Austria, and she's really pretty, but we exchanged a couple of words on the train, and later when we were in the Berlin tourist information counter. Too bad, never got her contact.

So I was in Berlin, it was raining, and I was all geared up for the wet-weather. Was apprehensive about going over to the Berlin Internationl Youth Hostel in the first place as I did not have a booking, but I went ahead with it anyway, and got myself lost in the transportation network of buses! Geez. Luckily there were a couple of nice German guys who showed me the correct way and I was soon in the hostel, safe and sound.

And food! Who can forget about it! (shall upload later. haha) Was so hungry, and despite still having bread in my bag, I was really tempted for some warm food on a cold, windy day. So I made my way to the nearby restaurants/cafes and settled at the Kebab stall, which served me a plate of Kebab meat and rice, with salad. Went ahead to get a 0.33l coke and it cost me €6.20. OMG. But I was really satisfied after the warm meal, and the free soccer match showing there was a real deal.

Ok...time to rest and plan for the next few days...might update from Luzern! :)

Current Mood: Full

Cold front in Eindhoven

Damn cold today in Eindhoven la...it was cold in the early morning at 7am, then it became bright and sunny, then all of a sudden...it rained -___-"

But the good thing is, I received my Fedex postages! Just nice, I was at home, and the guy just came in the rain. "We Live to Deliver", indeed.