I was quite bemused earlier when I was browsing the Straits Times Interactive, and there was quite a lot of stuff on the forums about how school should start later than 7.30am. And it was quite amusing to read the rubbish comments that some parents have sent in. One parent wrote:

I HAVE a son who is in Primary 2 in a single-session school. School starts at 7.30am but he has to be in school by 7.10am. Consequently, the school bus picks him up at 6.35am.

This means he has no time to eat breakfast at home - he barely manages to drink a glass of milk before he gets ready and rushes to school.

Every morning, it is a struggle for the poor boy to wake up and get ready for school, although he goes to bed at 8.30pm.

I mean COME ON! seriously, if your son goes to bed at 8.30pm, surely he can get up by 6am, which gives 35 minutes for breakfast/shower/preparation for school? Surely that's enough time? And that's already 9.5 hours of sleep... Isn't the prescribed amount of sleep 8 hours? Anymore than 8 hours to me is LUXURY! And even if school starts early, he can still come home in time for an afternoon nap right? To me, that was just such a lame argument.

Besides, when the son goes to National Service, lights out at 10.30pm and rise & shine/wakey wakey at 5.30am, are you gonna write to the Minister for Defence and tell him that your son needs 8 hours of sleep or that they should get up later? I'm sure that is every soldier's dream, but welcome to the real world, that is NOT gonna happen!

Having gone through the education system myself, I seriously think starting at 7.30am is actually quite effective. On a practical note (haha), no one wants to stand at on the parade square for assembly at 9am when the sun is up right? And that'd mean that school ends later too? I can't imagine how it's gonna be if school ends later for JCs... That means ending at 6pm on some days? Then what will happen to all the post-school events, like heading to Siglap for Gelare? =)

Gee. Parents these days are so protective and kids are so pampered.... ;p

Task: To prepare a steamboat for 12
When? 28 Jan 06 (CNY's Eve)
Where? Room 47F (aka. Kenny's humble abode)
Who? You'll find out... ;p
What happened?

T minus 8 Hours
After lectures, Kenny rushes down to the infamous Chinese supermarket, Cho Mee, to get some of the ingredients for the steamboat : mushrooms, prawns, fishballs, crabsticks, vegetables, rice, etc

T - 7.5 hours
Arrives back in 47F. Realises he hasn't gotten all the meat he headed. Calls for special agent, Matt-the-dude who happens to be in town to go hunt down the meat.

T - 6 hours
Starts preparing for steamboat. Cutting up meat with a blunt knife can be quite messy. Awaits the return of Xilin-"Kelsey Kerridge", so that the almighty soul slayer sharp knife can be borrowed.

T - 5 hours
No one seems to be around in college for me to borrow anything. Has to rush off for Casino "school" to train for Spring Ball.

T - 2.5 hours
Casino school ends, panic begins. Begins deboning all the chicken legs, chopping up pork, garlic, chilli, preparing the soup, setting up the steamboat. Good thing trusty sidekick Jason-takes-the-piss-out-of-Xilin came to the rescue. What a relief to have a sharp knife. Cutting yourself can be painful.

T - 0.5 hours
Preparation is 50% complete and first guest arrives. More hands to get the job done. =) Starts clearing up the room in preparation. Special agent (read: tall lad) Matt-the-dude deceives the fire department by wrapping the smoke detector in the room with a plastic bag, so they had no clue about what we were doing.

T - 0.25 hours
Preparation is 80% complete. Just left with the rearrangement of my room and putting more chairs in. More guests arrive.

T - 0.1 hours
Preparation is 99% complete. Wonders where "Libraries-r-fun"-Daoyu is.

Time: 2000 hours
Preparation complete. The inauguration of the steamboat begins with the first chinese leaf entering the soup. Dinner begins!

it was a really yummy dinner which took us over 2 hours to finish.... it was good fun and really enjoyable... good company, good food makes a really good evening... =) Some photos from Operation Steamboat:

kenny the man, chris-eat-alot-of-rice, jason-takes-the-piss-out-of-xilin, gabriel-the-cutlery guy

gabriel-the-cutlery-guy again, matt-the-dude, kelsey-kerridge-xilin

"libraries-r-fun" daoyu, kunal-loves-mushrooms, ciara-scoop-alot-of-rice and mark-sets-off-the-fire-alarm...

the yummy yummy food consists of black pepper beef, chicken in oyster sauce & chilli, soy sauce chicken, mushrooms, crabsticks, fishballs, ABALONE, more mushrooms, prawns, etc etc etc etc... ;p it was alot of food... still got some soup and chicken left over though.. haha...

and i'm still really full from the dinner, but i reckon i'll catch some rest now.. it's been a really long day... =) gong xi fa cai everyone!

Looks like they've postponed the snow... When I last checked yesterday, it was forecasted to snow today... But it seems Mr Sunny guy has forced a takeover today... So i guess Mr Snowman's only gonna be around tomorrow then... ;p

Well, this to me seems deceptively like a scene from Harry Potter... can almost imagine Dumbledore taking the Put-outer from his pocket and then putting out the street lamps one-by-one... (You're a muggle if you don't know what I'm talking about... ;p) And you probably know that I'm a Harry Potter FAN (woohoo.. so windy! ;p), and I am of course part of the Cambridge University Harry Potter Society as well... muahaha... be afraid.. be very afraid... But well, it was actually just the streets of Cambridge yesterday evening when it was so foggy... Welcome to the real world.. =)

Woohoo! Got my photos from my travels up finally! (Or rather, whatever I have so far...) =) Tot the above frame looked quite nice with the photo.. haha.. It was one of the shots I took the other day when I went around Cambridge shooting.. beautiful eh?

Click HERE to check out the photos!

Who said that being overseas = missing all the goodies from home? If someone tells you something like that, give them the slap treatment.. it helps... =)

So anyway, i decided to bake my own pineapple tarts since it's Chinese New Year soon right? Yummy yummy... but here hor, everything must start from scratch one.. even the pineapple jam must cook it yourself... so me's have to goes to the supermarket to buys some canned pineapples, flour, butter, etc etc and thens come back and make lor...

here's what remains of FIVE cans of pineapples after being cooked... even my little bitch witch thinks it's little....

And then with some help from Santa's helpers, Jason & Xilin, the tarts were finally completed... Ok, i'm not responsible for the different sized tarts... i made the dough and jam, jason & xilin moulded the tarts.. ok here's how to identify who made what...



ok.. it's really yummy... hahaha... yummy yummy yummy.... i'm off to eat some MORE now.... ;p

Ok, so this is the supplement to my earlier post for France, cos I finally got the photos now! =)

Day Three - 5 Dec 05 - Nice/Eze/Monaco
Kenny @ Hobbitshire... (actually it's Eze village.. but it's soooo cool.. and medieval)

The very impressive shorelines at Monaco

Day Four - 6 Dec 05 - Nice/Paris
The fruit & flower market at Nice...

The Mediterranean sea! woohoo... so beautiful.....

Kenny @ the beach!

Alvin @ the Eiffel Tower

The view from the Eiffel tower was breathtaking! Check out the little moving dots... (yeah, as if they're moving in the photo... ;p)

The La Fayette (department store) window display! It's SOOOOOO cool i tell you.. the dolls are connected by strings to the ceiling and they move like puppets! Very ingenious and funny too!

Day Five - 7 Dec 05 - Paris/Versailles
The Hunchback of Alvin @ Notre Dame

The beautiful ceiling of Notre Dame

Robert Langdon @ the Louvre

One of my favourite photos of the whole trip.. At the Jardin (garden) at Vesailles. Soooo beautiful! Soooo green! Soooo nice!


Another of my favourite.. Also at the same garden... =)

Day Six - 8 Dec 05 - Paris/Disneyland
The Pantheon! Check out this Foucault Pendulum... see the blur in the middle? That's the bob of the pendulum.. And it's supposed to be able to tell the time from the angle it is swinging at! Damn cool!

Kenny @ Disney Studios Paris! woohoo! Finding Nemo! DUDE!

The famous castle at Disneyland...

THE Phonebooth.. MY phonebooth... ;p

Gee.. my title is so.. catchy.. haha... Anyway, the adventures are back after a long break....

Day Four - 12 Dec 05 - Rome/Vatican City
Well, after a disturbed night's rest, we awoke to a rainy morning and headed off to the Vatican Museum. And when we got there at 10am, we found a long queue formed up outside the museum already! It went all the way down the street from the entrance and round the corner! An unknowing Singaporean might wonder, "wah! got free stuff ah! okok, i must queue also.." ;p


So anyway, the Vatican museum was HUGE... it was quite similar to the Louvre in some ways... Although after a while, I got quite overwhelmed by all the exhibits, because there were halls after halls after halls of stuff... And when we finally got to the Sistine Chapel, which I think was the main draw of the museum anyway, I must say I had what was quite the opposite reaction as when I saw David... I think the management must have thought it was quite amusing to squeeze tourists into a chapel to stare at the ceiling...

After that overwhelming experience, we set off for St Peter's Basilica, which is of course the largest church in the world..

Kenny at St Peter's Square, in front of St Peter's Basilica. It really was a huge church, with a really high ceiling and a beautiful dome in the middle designed by Michelangelo.

The body of Pope John Paul II was also on display in the Basilica. A great man, he was...

Thereafter, we tried to "enter" the Vatican City, I mean it's the smallest sovereign state in the world, with its own currency and post office! How cool! But, we were stopped by the Swiss guards who were guarding the entrances.. Apparently, it was a "private" city.... Hmmz... Passports?

So we decided to head to the Coloseum instead, but because it was winter, they had closed early, and we had just missed the last entry.... and we decided to roam the streets of Rome instead... visited the Trevi fountain, the famous Pantheon and the main shopping streets... Nothing much worth mentioning though...

To end off the day, I just thought I'd include this picture:
captioned: Gladiators are human too! ;p

Day Five - 13 Dec 05 - Rome
Let's just say we had a rough night with the Finnish boys. They came back at 11pm and started packing and make a hell lot of ruckus packing. After I told them to shut up, they kinda started speaking in hushed tones... But they being drunk, and I think most people can testify the ability of a drunk person to speak softly is quite the impossible. And worse, while 4 of them left the room, the remaining 4 were huddled on TWO beds, under the blankets, wearing ONLY their briefs/boxers! I honestly don't want to know what they were doing. After telling them off a couple more times to go off to the bar if they were not gonna sleep, they finally got the idea and went off... BUT only to return at 2+am to fetch their bags to head off to the airport, in the loudest voices and in the slowest fashion. Buggers.

Ok, so we awoke feeling quite tired, which warrants me having 3 shots of espresso for breakfast. Went off to the Coloseum again.

Kenny at the Coloseum. (As you can tell, by this stage of my travels, I am quite good at my self-portraits already... ;p) I thought it was quite interesting to know what the Coloseum was used for previously... all the bloody gladiator fights... to know that tens of thousands of people had fought to their deaths in the arena.

Kenny at the Palatine.

After the Coloseum, we visited the Palatine which is some remains of a very early settlement, beside the forums. Or something along those lines... ;p I enjoyed the Roman forum more though.. The grandeur of the Roman columns, the temples, the arches... I can hardly imagine how it was like at the zenith of the Roman empire...

Kenny and Gullnaz at the Roman Forum...

To end the day, I bought kebabs for dinner which I had while we took the train to Naples and ended our journey in Rome. And I am definitely beginning to love kebabs in the land of Pizza & Pasta.... haha..

Naples.. here we come!

Oh, such a happy and blissful day it is today.. =)

Bliss Event #1

Came back to college today after a productive study session at Starbucks, sipping on a blissful cup of Caramel Macchiato..(which i think should be considered a blissful event too!)
ah.. what pleasures coffee can give... so anyway, I came back to college, and I had a MAIL! like snail/owl-mail MAIL! wow.. in a nice little pink envelope too! (Churchill colour!) So happy just to receive a letter... =)

So anyway, letter in hand, I went back to my room to open it... And woo... got a red packet inside too! And such an enjoyable letter... And cannot say who the letter is from lah... Abit more scandalous that way right? haha... =)

Bliss Event #2

And then, after an filling dinner (Hainanese Chicken rice..) with Jason, I went for the Coxes talk/discussion... And I got my present from the Novice girl (rowing) team!The Novice Team in our bright pink race colours.. Kenny with his favourite fluffy pink cushion... ;p

It's a framed collage of photos taken during the term! It's really nice.. and there's a nice card to go along with it... It's really nice and I love it! (as well as all my fellow crew too!) It's being proudly displayed on my "Hall of Honour" right now.. =)
Ah, see that at the left corner?

Such a beautiful day... BUT, I shall be hitting the books now, progress tests tomorrow...

woohoo.. been watching lots of Naruto (anime) lately... ;p it is getting much better than the start I must say... but BLEACH still rocks... except that i've to wait for the next episode(s) to come out.. =( so in the meanwhile, I guess I'll just have to entertain myself with Naruto... =)

anyone else who's wanting to download the latest Bleach 63 episode can click here. But don't download it if you've never watched Bleach before... it'll be quite a spoiler!

Quick entry before I head for the showers...

Earlier this week when I was unpacking my room, and I was unpacking my kettle, I realised how much limescale had built up in my kettle, and that kinda disturbed me to think of the amount of eeeky stuff that I was drinking. Good thing I bought a water filter from London before I got back. So anyway, I was a little bored just now and decided to google on ways to remove limescale (i mean i'm from singapore right? like who the hell heard of limescale? fyi, it's hard water here in the UK..)

Well, according to a few household tips sites, the best way it seems was to boil 1 part water with 1 part vinegar in the kettle... so that's what i did.. and finally i got to use my bottle of vinegar, which i've only used, like twice? and then i set the kettle boiling... when the storm in the kettle died down, i opened the kettle to discover that the limescale was ALL gone.. and what i had left was a sparkling heating element:

wow.. it sparkles! ok.. i forgot to take a "before" shot...

and now my room reeks of vinegar.. hmmz

(ps: the song playing in the background is corrinne may's journey... nice right?)

I love my Powerbook! =) (although a MacBook, [which i think sounds quite cute when you pronounce it... haha] is definitely way cooler... ;p)

The latest addition to my table... Stitch!
I'm L-O-S-T!rubbish.. you're Stitch, you're not lost... ;p

back to studying... =(

I'm addicted ....
to train rides... been taking so much train rides over the last month, that I am actually quite addicted to it.. I think I must have totalled at least 12 rides in the last 30 days... It definitely beats bus rides, cos it's so much faster and it's much more comfortable... =) And it's so relaxing.. Just plug into your iPod and watch the scene come by........ ah... what bliss...

My last train trip was yesterday, to King's Lynn again to vist Fraser and send my belated X'mas greetings... It's really nice to meet up with Fraser, Bob and Bonzo the dog... They're the closest to family I get over here apart from my college pals.. I was showing photos of my trip, we were chatting, we made mulled wine, we had a good, yummy English dinner, had more wine.. and then somehow time went by so quickly because it was time to catch the train already... oh well.. it was an enjoyable nonetheless.. =) Thanks Fraser, Bob & Bonzo!

Day Two - 10 Dec 05 - Milan/Florence

Damn it.. Woke up late 'cos I was just so tired I stopped responding to my alarm... ;p After breakfast at Ostello Pieto Rotta, we set off for the Duomo (Cathedral) in Milan. Remember I said Notre Dame was beautiful? This one was even better...

How I wish to attend a mass in one of these cathedrals.. I can imagine how grand it actually is... Some of my friends actually went for Christmas mass at Notre Dame!!! Now I can understand why the church had so much power in the past...

Took the train to Firenze (Florence) thereafter, checked into Ostello Archi Rossi. This was another hostel recommended to me by one of the backpackers I met in France. And now I know why this hostel was recommended - It has a character of its own... Upon entering the front doors, you're greeted by walls of graffiti, some beautiful crafted & painted, others left behind by residents in the hostel. There was a quote which I liked:

"People who think they know everything, annoy us who do."

So anyway, the day was spent walking around the town of Firenze, which I must say was a lot more lively, lots of street markets and night life, and not to mention walking into a cinema (because it said "Cinema") and realising it was an adult cinema! *gasp!*

The highlight of the day was the visit to Galeria dell'Academia where Michelangelo's David was housed.

Well, initially I though, aiya, it's just another sculpture.... But I was wrong... I was awestruck when I turned into the "David gallery". Perhaps it was the positioning of the sculpture in the middle of the room, or perhaps I just hadn't David to be so huge (in more ways than one.. *wink*) or perhaps it was just the detail/proportion/features of David that was so... vivid... and suave... It was also amusing to have the curator in the gallery going "NO FOTO" to the people taking photos but people still continued to take more shots... ;p

Returned to the hostel at night where I got some dinner for myself cos Gullnaz was beat and went off to bed early. And hanging out in the dining/common room, I bumped into this asian looking guy again whom I bumped into earlier when I was using the internet. We started talking and I found out that he was a Japanese who was travelling around on his bicycle and he started his trip in Singapore and took him 10 months to get to where he was.... His name is KUROSAWA Takehiro.

A photo of me with Takehiro and his bicycle. I've only known of one other person who's done such a trip.. One of my council seniors in college who took a year off to travel on his bicycle. He managed to get to Iraq where he had to return because of the war. Hmmz. How exciting. I should try that too. The Adventures of Kenny... on a Bicycle.. =)

Day Three - 11 Dec 05 - Florence/Pisa/Rome
Woke up to a hot bacon & eggs breakfast at the hostel. =) Took the train to Pisa thereafter - to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa of course.... it is one of the seven wonders of the world afterall... After a 20 minute walk from the train station, we caught the first glimpse of the tower, which I must say was... rather disappointing.. Having gotten used to seeing colossal structures like the Eiffel Tower, mega-cathedrals like Notre-Dame, the Leaning Tower was quite a midget.. but well, to see it was still interesting...

One of the reasons why the tower is not gonna topple over anytime soon... =)

Can see from this picture how the tower really is dwarfed by the buildings around it.

So anyway, we had to catch a train back to Florence to get our backpacks afterwards, and we rushed to get on the train which we thought was supposed to head back to Florence, but in the end, it was the WRONG way! =( so we ended up getting off and taking the next train....

When we got back to Florence, we found out that the next train to Rome was not gonna arrive till 2 hours later, so we decided to visit the Duomo (Cathedral) at Firenze, which we didn't get to do yet cos we were always late and it closed before we got there...

This duomo wasn't as impressive on the interior I thought.. But I guess it's hard to compare...

When we got back to the train station, we found that our train had been delayed by 30 45 minutes! Darn... So we waited.. and we waited... and we waited.. and the train finally arrived 90 minutes later.... By then, there were hordes of people waiting on the platform, and if you thought Singaporeans were kiasu, you were wrong. These Italians were trying to get onto the train even before it came to a complete stop! But of course, Singaporeans must have back-up plan one.. so we walk to the other end of the train where not many people seemed to bother to walk to...

While on the train, I kinda finished up a whole bag of clementines (the european equivalent of mandarin oranges..)... Some had seeds in them and some didn't... But I must have eaten so many clementines that there were enough seeds for a whole orchard of clementines.. =)

We arrived in Rome FINALLY around 10+pm, tired from a whole day of travelling and waiting. Checked into our dorms, which was a 10-man dorm, but the other 8 beds were occupied by this group of 8 Finnish dudes... And because it was their supposed last night, they went out and got drunk, came back at 4am, made a hell lot of noise before settling into bed some 45 minutes later. Idiots.

Italy
Day One - 9 Dec 05 - Milan/Stresa/Milan

So this is the day that I begin the Italy leg of my holiday in Europe...

I arrive in a dreamy state, having just been roused by the bumpy landing, at Milan-Bergamo airport... It's quite beautiful.. Early sun with its gentle rays, glistening the alps in the background... And it is to be that I begin this Italian adventure with Gullnaz...

Upon arrival and meeting up, we head for the city of Milan by bus.. Discussing our plans for the day over a cup of Italian coffee with our Lonely Planet : Italy "BIBLE" in hand, we decide to head down to the town of Stresa which is supposed to be by "The Lakes" near the Alps.

We arrive in the small town of Stresa around 3pm in the afternoon and went in search of the cable car ride to the peaks of the mountains. The view along the way was spectacular. Snowy-peaks with beautiful lakes and islands... And after a 20 minute walk, we arrive at the Stresa Cable Car station which was to take us up to Alpino (803m) & Montarone (1385m)..

Off we went on the cable car...

We arrive near the peak of Montarone which was still a 30 mins trek away to begin our icy adventure. We were both so totally not prepared for the snow but we decided to go ahead anyway. We only get to live once eh?

And so the journey begins.. The fellowship braves the harsh cold environment in search for the... peak.. *LOTR Soundtrack playing in the background*

It was a pretty tiring ascent for the untrained souls like us. And here is a picture of Gullnaz scaling the mountain, and as I quote Gullnaz "Damn it, i'm walking like a penguin!"

Finally, we arrive at the peak of Montarone! *pops champagne!* It's so OMG gorgeous.... The lakes that we saw a while ago was now a mere speck at the foot of the mountain and you could see as far as the Swiss Alps supposedly... (not that we knew which one it was... ;p)

I'm on the, top of the world looking...

I think it's just amusing to put these two shots together... ;p

Anyway, after taking like a million shots at the peak, we decide that it's time to head down.. Reaching the peak is only half the journey.... So we begin our descend... We went back to the Montarone cable car station and take the cable car down to Alpino station, and we decide to be adventurous and take this journey down by foot (~14km) with our backpacks (i think mine weighed ~20kg in total).. It sure was a long journey.. Winding roads, icy paths, barking dogs... And FINALLY, after 2 hours of anticipation, we arrive at the town of Stresa again.. And I swear my shoulders were numb from carrying the backpacks...

And by then, it was 8pm, and because Stresa is such a TINY town, it seemed that most shops were closed already... And because we were so hungry, we popped by the first restaurant we saw (and possibly the only one open) and ordered food for our poor starving souls..

The food was great & so was the waitors.. they were so funny & really nice too... Will be sure to head back to the restaurant if I ever do go back to Stresa... which I think is a high possibility...

And as I mentioned how a midget town Stresa was, there was only ONE hotel open, cos it was off-season, and it was charging €60 for a room for a night, and we decided it was too much for our shoestring budget, so we decide to take a train back to Milan, where we managed to get 2 beds at the youth hostel: Ostello Pieto Rotta for the night.. And by the time we got there, it was already almost midnight, and after a quick shower, I hurried off to dreamland...