English Service

Tonight at 7pm was my first English service here in Sweden. It was of course very different form what I was used to, but I was blessed by it. There were about 20 of us, all students at the university. Some were on exchange others here for the long haul to do their Masters or PhD. I got to sing a simple Swedish chorus, pray from the Psalms and have a very catholic style communion where we walk to the front, take a big wafer and all drink from the same imposing silver chalice. I thought it was really cool :) I made new friends from Iran, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Cameroon, plus I discovered that friends I knew all along from the exchange group are brothers and sisters in Christ too. I think there's only service once a month in English, but Samuel from Nigeria told me there's a church somewhere off town that he attends so perhaps they have English services there I can attend. I'll speak with him tomorrow and get the details. As for now, I'll just attend my Lukas group meetings on Thursday evenings :) I'm so thankful I'm still connected to THE Body in some way.

Singapore Dinner [complete with recipes and an onde onde istimewa tutorial]

Every week, someone from from my apartment will cook a dinner for the four of us and we will sit down for a 'family' dinner. Last week, Lucie prepared a wonderful baked fish, complete with starter, appetizer and dessert. I had told the girls, they will cook something Chinese, Indian and Malay this week so they get to taste food from 3 of our 4 different Singaporean cultures.

Like my table set up? Orchids cut out from a paper bag I found in a dollar store and Indian mango design napkins. Plus there were chopsticks for them to try out and bubble tea!
On the menu was: Black Bean Paste Stir-Fried Noodles
Indian style, Spicy Cabbage
Sweet Potato Onde Onde in Sweet Coconut Milk
Passion Fruit Bubble Tea

I was in the kitchen from 11:00am to 7:00pm. Incredible? Well maybe, but it was worth it because my house mates liked the meal!

The noodles were easy, I just sauteed the mushrooms and set them aside, then I stir fired the mock chicken bits in sesame oil and soy sauce and set it aside. Next I heated some oil, stir fried 1 chopped chili, 1 chopped onion and 4 tablespoons of black bean paste and then I dumped in the noodles, chicken and mushrooms. It was really good, not too salty and very authentic tasting.


The Indian style cabbage was probably my favourite because it reminded me of my grandmother's cooking. I stir fried 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped green chili and 1 chopped red chili until soft. Then I stirred in 1 tsp of grated ginger, 2 cloves of garlic chopped and 1.5 teaspoons of tumeric. Next I added in 4 cups of shredded cabbage, mixed well and left it covered on low heat to soften. After 10-15 mins, I added salt and a pinch of cinnamon, stired and served.

The Bubble Tea was quite fulfilling to make, becuase it is probably the one thing I miss more than anything else...I can have up to 2 cups a day in Singapore - not healthy I know, but I love it! I didn't manage to find black tapioca pearls but I found white ones, so I boiled them in water first and then boiled them again in a sugar syrup (water plus brown/white suagr) and let them soak in the syrup for hours after that.



Then I brewed green tea and chilled it. Right before serving I added a light passion fruit syrup into the tea and put in a couple of spoonfuls of 'pearls'. My room mates were quite fascinated by the 'pearls' and weirded out that I would put fruit syrup into tea, but they all liked it. And so did my singaporean friends who came over later to finish up what was left :)


The highlight for me was dessert! I made sweet potato onde onde. But mine had a twist because I could not find dry, grated coconut. Here's a step by step tutorial hehehe :)

1.Boil or steam the sweet potato to soften them. I used one large and one small sweet potato, but I did not measure anything so use however much you like.


2. Mash the sweet potato and mix it well it glutinous rice flour. Again I did not measure how much, I just kept adding flour until the paste stopped being very sticky.




3. The instant you can easily form a ball that does not stick to your fingers, stop adding the flour.



4. Mix one part white sugar, one part brown sugar and one part grated palm sugar and in a bowl for the filling.

5. Time to shape! Pinch small amounts of dough and shape it into a ball, using your thumb make a small well and fill it with the sugar mixture.
Pinch the opening in
the dough close and shape into a ball again. You will end with with orange spheres like so.



6. Bring to boil, a pot of water with 4-5 pandan/screwpine leaves tied in a knot. Drop in the orange balls and wait. Once they start floating up onto the surface, they are ready to be rescued.




7. Remember I said this was a different kind of onde onde because I would not find dessicated coconut? Well here's what I did, I heated up some coconut milk and stirred in some of the left over sugar mixture that was used as filling for the orange balls. This is the coconut sauce that the onde onde balls will swim in.


8. Voila! The finished product!

Not bad for a first attempt in my opinion. The Singaporean guys liked it too. The only mistake was that after boiling the balls I put them together so when I when I wanted to scoop them into the glass of coconut sauce they sometimes stuck together and tore, letting all the filling out. So you may want to put them on a sugared/floured surface and make sure they are not touching.

Otherwise, it was a really yummy treat and the room mates were pleasantly surprised.

Enjoy!

Behold the beauty that is Lofoten

It's been 3 hours since I got back. I'm tired but still reeling from the trip's excitement. It's one of those "I don't know where or how to begin because there is so much to say" moments. Know whadda mean? But, I shall start at the very beginning, a very good place to start - as taught to us by The Sound of music. That reminds me...during the entire trip I kept singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music...dooo dooo dooo dooo"!

So on Friday, 25th Sept we set out in two rental cars at about 11:30 am after a whole lot of grocery shopping to sustain us for the drive and the weekend. We had 9 travelers and 8 of us could drive, so we took shifts. The entire drive took about 12 hours and each person drove an average of 3 hours. The Swedish roads were straight with slight bends, which were easy peasy. But the roads of Norway were another monster altogether. Very sexy with many many curves and narrow roads that spiraled up and around rocky mountains. It didn't help that 5 of the 8 drivers were Singaporeans who had never driven on the left side of the car and right side of the road. I drove the evening shift from Kiruna, Sweden to slightly further up from Narvik, Norway. It went pretty okay, as there was still light. But there was one time that I thought I saw a huge truck coming directly towards me so I swung out onto the left lane for vehicles coming in the opposite direction. Then as the truck got nearer I relaised that he was on the right lane, and that because of the curves in the road I thought he was coming right at me, so I swung back into my lane, much to the shock and horror of my passengers. I was overcome with nausea for the next 10mins but kept driving anyway. The sharp bends, and curves of the mountainous countryside and the darkening sky didn't help much either. Soon after, the next driver took over and brought us safely to Lofoten, where we found a nice grassy campsite and slept in our cars next to caravans. It was freezing to say the least, and uncomfortable, but it was an experience.

The next day we drove around sightseeing and looking for accommodation. Everywhere you turned in Lofoten, you'd want to stop and take a picture. There is nothing there that is not worthy of a picture or a "wah so nice one!". There were rocky cliffs, lush green fields, looming and majestic mountains- some of which were capped with snow and the waters were a hundered different hues of blue all at once. Spectacular. When we stopped by the coast on a highway to take pictures, Bryan, Katalin and I discovered a (albiet dangerous) path and took it down to the coast and up the steep rocks to make it to the top most point. The guys back at the car went on about how crazy we were and were shouting to get our attention to come back down. Going up was hard, coming down was harder. Then we drove past a sandy beach, and made it all the way to the furthest town in Lofoten. I just love the houses that line the coast and dot the landscape, sometimes I wonder how they got there and how safe they are in their precarious positions.

Then we found a nice place to stay called Mila's house. It was about $26 to stay there and we all had rooms with different themes, a kitchen and 2 bathrooms. We technically had the whole lower portion of the house to ourselves. After putting our things down, Melissa, Katalin, Bryan and I decided to take a hike - literally. We followed a trail that started from in front of Mila's house and lead us right up to a mountain / hill (you decide) behind the house. It started off easy and it got steeper, wetter and scarier as we went on but we climbed it anyway. And I was getting hungry so I was picking and eating blueberries as I went along. The ground was covered in a beautiful moss that sprung back like a cushion and it was littered with pretty red flowers. When we finally go to what we thought was the top we discovered that we could go so much higher...so we did...and the view was awesome. We could see all of Lofoten stretched out beneath us. The wind was so strong at the top that I had to crouch to take photos because standing up almost blew me off the top. We even experienced a mini hailstorm on the way up. The whole thing was so worthwhile. On our way down we took a different unmarked route and ended up trashing our way through a very painful and dense pine forest -something I NEVER want to do again - nuff said. And the guys back in the house were wondering where the 4 gundus had gone, so they were driving around in hopes to find and rescue us, thankfully they spotted us and Vishnu drove us home from the main road where the blasted pine forest ended.The evening was spent playing card games and polar bear, but we were all sleepy so we all hit the sack relatively early so we could leave by 11am the next morning for the long commute home.

Bright and early on the 26th of September, Sunday morning we headed off stopping only for pictures at especially scenic locations. The weather was even colder so we never stayed outside of the car for long. We had become a bit more familiar with the road so the drive home took shorter. This time I drove after nightfall. Starting from Kiruna, Sweden I drove 230km in the dark with my high beam headlights on, turning them off every few seconds because there was a vehicle approaching. There were hardly any streetlights, only reflectors, and the boys in the car reminding me to keep left. Sometimes on narrow roads, the white marking for the center divider would be non-existent leaving me really, really on edge. But hey, I made it with God's grace and the a lot of guidance from the guys in my car. I'm flattered that people actually fell asleep while I was driving, it's a sign that I'm capable of being steady :) *Note to parents: I can drive to Cameron Highlands, no problem liao.
Most of the pictures are on Facebook, as usual so go have a look see and tell me what you think! And if you ever want to travel to Norway, my tip would be to use Sweden as your base because it is a whole lot cheaper to buy food and rent a car here than it is in Norway. Oh and it's the countryside, not the cities that you should see there :)

Down Time

Things have been really slow here since my lecturer is teaching in another campus and he is unable to deliver lessons regularly. So I just spend most of my time reading novels and trying to practice my Swedish. I guess a lot of my time has also been dedicated to trip planning and cycling around all day until my legs feel like jelly.

I also spend my time calling up aunties, uncles, friends, my grandma, parents, cousins and shaun on Skype to chat for much longer than a phone would allow me too. So it's been good.

I realise I've completely become a ketchup convert and I'm happy eating bread and cheese or crackers and cheese for every meal. But then again I've always loved bread and cheese. Gouda, is the cheese of the moment...I eat it for every meal :D My room mates are questioning my Asian-ness. My Indian-ness was being question until I made a pot of tomato rassam...so I think I should cook rice more or something :s

Inspired by a Chinese neighbour's fried fish, I decided to bake my fish with ginger, sesame oil and soy sauce and vegetables to have with my rice. It was delicious and easy, better still, hardly any clean up at all. My style of cooking indeed.

Last night I made tang yuan (or soh yee as my grandma calls it). It was great to have that familiar taste of sugary, gingery soup coupled with the chewy balls that are just plain fun to chow down. This time they were plain, but I'm hoping to find peanuts and sesame seeds so I can make one with filling. Any suggestions or ideas for alternative fillings? Peanut butter perhaps? Let me know!

I've been feeling a little affected by the fact that I'm not around for the things happening back home, some big things likr the birth of a new niece in December, other smaller things like not being there to pick Shaun up after a long day at work, not being there for Arman's ORD, Shaiful and Jia Le's birthdays, not being there when Rett had to send off Toby....And not being around for all the things happening in church...I must admit when those feeling hit me I just don't go out and mope around in my room. But my friends here always manage to make me feel better somehow and they are experts at coaxing me out of a slump.

"If it's a broken part, replace it.
If it's a broken arm then brace it.
If it's a broken heart then face it.

And hold your own
know your name
and go your own way."

Song of the moment : Details in the Fabric by Jason Mraz

Cotton Candy Skies

I think the sky speaks for itself.
Simply, literally, Divine.

It's amazing that God would paint such beautiful scenes for us to enjoy. Standing before a sky of powder pink, lilac and baby blue makes me feel so insignificant and small. But I'm inspired, and my soul is awakened to sing, "My God how great Thou Art".I'm reminded that it is my Father's world and that He does speak to me everywhere. And today He chose to speak to me by dipping the clouds in my favourite hues and saying, "It's time you looked up, my child".

To Market, To Market, To Make Me A Cake!

Today I decided I must bake something or I WILL DIE. Seriously, it has been a month without having baked a single thing. So I checked with Bryan if I could steal some Coca Cola for a Coke cake and he was like, "Sure, I'll exchange Coke for cake". So it was settled. I set out for Willy's supermarket with my backpack and a loooong list of things to buy. Flour, eggs, cocoa powder, vanilla sugar...the works!
Then I get to the bus stop after spending 229SEK (SGD$46), with close to 7Kg in my backpack worth of goods only to realise that the bus was not coming for 58mins. That means I'll pass the 1.5 hour mark for how long the bus ticket I got for my ride to town validity period and will have to spend another 12SEK (SGD$2.4) for a 15 min bus ride. So I decided to walk. I began walking at 12:07pm, I got home at 1:43pm. I kid you not. It didn't seem to far because the weather was cool and I didn't realise that my hands were actually numb from the cold until I had to open my door.
By the time I got home I was more hungry than tired. So I looked at my fridge and decided that my mushrooms had to go as they've been in there too long and the amount of milk I had left was way too little to have cereal with. Looks like I'm having Creamy mushroom pasta for lunch then.

I threw in one cup of milk, half a cup of water, 2 sliced button mushrooms, a knob of butter, and salt and paprika to taste into a pan and put it on medium heat. Once it started to boil I turned the heat down and kept stirring to reduce it without burning the bottom. When it was all lovely and creamy, I poured it onto a plate, put on 2 slices of Gouda cheese and threw it into the oven to melt the cheese. This is certainly something I'm gonna be making in the near future. Shiokedelic to the max!

But that's not all I made, remember the Coke Cake? Here's where I got the recipe. It's the same one I used to make back in Singapore. You can't taste the coke at all, but usually one person out of the entire group will say they can taste it *shrug*. I just love it because it is MOIST and RICH and CHOCOLATY!
It was a bit strange making it in a not-so-well equipped kitchen and using 'dl' cups instead of 'ml' cups and weighing scales but with the help of some "aggaration" it turned out alright. And the best part is, I have no more cake left, every last bit was gone. Yay! I don't have to feel guilty about finishing left over cake in the fridge!

Mojlkuddensberget - probably the highest point in Lulea

I loved the Mojlkudden hill that I had the Christian fellowship BBQ on so much, that I decided to take my friends there two days ago. Only Katalin, Bryan and Song could make it, so we packed our dinners and made our way there expecting a beautiful sunset and a great view of the city. We got everything we came for.

Nasi Lemak!

I had some left over coconut milk from the time I made my grandma's spicy tomato soup, so I decided to try and make Nasi Lemak! There was no need to make any sambal since I stumbled across a shop selling sambal olek in Boden, so it was a meal waiting to happen really.

Into a saucepan, I put two small cups of rice with one cup of coconut milk and one and a half cups of water. Then I added half an onion that I had minced up, a slice of ginger and a pinch of salt. Put in on a hot stove till the water boils and then turn down the stove to the lowest setting and let it cook till slightly moist and fluffy. I attempted to make a nais lemak style egg, which I must say made me think fondly about Changi Village.

And of course I needed a side dish, so I just made a spicy kentang goreng which is really just frying boiled potato chunks with curry and chili powder and i stir fried some crabsticks with mushrooms and oyster sauce. I don't think it looks very good, but looks in this case were deceiving, because it was YUMMY!



My housemates Kenza and Lucie are excellent cooks, their dinners always look and smell so good. And they nice enough to let me have some but that just leaves me feeling bad for offering them my food because it's not half as good as theirs :s


Here's Kenza's Middle Eastern-ish tasting chicken risotti:








And here is Lucie's French gratain with
penne and salmon:

Making plans

I never imagined that I would ever say "I'm tired of planning", but that time has come folks. This entire week has been spent planning for a trip to Italy and Greece from Oct 3-12. And yes it sounds like a load of fun, but planning it has reduced my sleeping hours and studying hours drastically and because I feel like I'm spending too much money I get occasionaly pangs of guilt that don't go away until I est chocolate and let some guilt of a different kind take over instead. Then its not so bad.

Anyway it has taken so much effort to plan because we are on a budget and we want to see Milan, Cinque Terre a scenic collection of 5 towns south of Milan, Venice, Athens and Santorini the MUST SEE greek island.

It is a really hardcore trip, like Mel's and my whirlwind Scandinavia trip. There will be many nights on trains/planes/ferries and train stations. We'll prbably get to sleep on a bed like 4 times the whole trip.

And flights to and from Athens is the killer because everything else is really cheap 30-40 Euros, but getting to athens is costing us close to 200 Euros!! But its Greece, and getting there from Italy is cheaper than getting there form anywhere else so I might as well do it now.

My travel buddies for the whole trip will be Mel and Bryan but Dale and Song might skip Italy and join us in Greece. They better...planning this trip with all the connections and 4modes of transport involved blood, sweat and tears. Bryan was saying we should get credits for travel planning. Anyway Song told me he wa simpressed with my plan, and coming from someone who studies tourism or the like...I'm pleased.

So how much is my 10 day 5 city trip gonna set me back by? A grand total of SGD$1000. Cheap? Siao ah? Expensive? You tell me.

Weekending

Thursday

The weekend began early this week with a visit to Toys R Us on Thrusday. It really made me miss Shaun because he's the biggest Toys R Us fan I know personally and whenever we went to one, we would sword fight in the aisle and I would proceed to give my 'anti gender bias' speech about why girls have vacuum cleaners and pooping babies as toys and boys have jets and super soakers.
I digress, anyway, yes we had fun looking at giant plush unicorns, Monopoly Sweden and I even played dress up as a viking!
Saturday
Then on Saturday Melissa and Bryan had signed up for a boat trip around the Lulea Archipelago, so Dale, Song, Vishnu and I decided to take a trip to Boden as there was a indoor pool there with slides, a current pool, steam bath, jacuzzi...the works! Before going, we had to stop by a sports shop as I didn't have a swimsuit and the boys readily helped me pick one. It was sweet, strange and embarrassing all at the same time. We (I) managed to find a pink bikini top and pink shorts to match. So we skipped over to the bus station and waited for number 23 to roll on by and take us to our water park.
Though I have no pictures to prove it, we DID have fun and TONNES of it too! The slides were awesome though there were some minor cuts and bruises sustained by the boys. No biggie. We went down the slides many times, then all clung onto a float shaped like a loooong snake and went round and round the current pool before calling it a day. The steam bath and jacuzzi were a nice touch to round up the whole day.

Our search for dinner led us to a small grocery shop run by an Iranian man. We found sesame oil, sambal and tom yum paste as incredible prices! But one the expiry date for the tom yam paste is 2 weeks ago...so I'm gonna try and freeze it. After a nice pizza dinner we headed back to Lulea by bus, chatting the entire time. It was great :)

Sunday
Haparanda! That is where the nearest IKEA is. IKEA truly is the same everywhere, except for maybe the food...but there isn't much to say about it because it really is the same.
But this was an IKEA paid trip, so food and refreshments were provided. In fact the areas around IKEA are more worthy of mention.
First we decied to go to Finland, which we were told is just 5 mins away. Well it took us more than 5 mins but it is very very near. The whole time we didn't know if we had reached Finland as the border was just a stony path and the only way we realised we were in finland was seeing a door sign in Finnish. it was quite cool seeing everything in a different language an being a mall that excepted euros if you did not have kronor.
But we quickly got bored of the lack of things to do in that part of Finland so we turned back round and walked over to Sweden. We wanted to see the stores that were surrounding IKEA. My favourite was the candy shop called 'Candy World'. I was pretty awesome, especially the 'pick & mix'. Just rows and rows of a never ending supply of candy (Godis in Swedish).
And such ends my eventful weekend, it was great and I must say I loved whatever it was that we were doing. Of course, the company was awesom-est :)