My Grandfather's Army

Rockson is back. For those who dunno him... here's the link to his post on 2LT Li Hong Yi's email regarding (and i quote) "lack of quality control being practiced for the leaders of the SAF"..

the Today newspaper titled it "SAF acts after email complaint", incredible sia... maybe i should email Mindef, use some chim english and complain a bit... who knows maybe they will also "act"..

for those who still dunno what i talking abt.. here the link to the news article:

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/199795.asp

Sergeant: "What the f*** u think this is?? Your grandfather's f***ing Army issit? !!"
Recruit: "Yes."
Sergeant: "oops" *silence*

(Source: gerardtay.blogspot.com)

personal opinion:

dun be too harsh on the young man la... after all he did it out of goodwill, a sense of righteous-ness, a tad bit of inexperience in the "real SAF" and a (extremely) strong sense of "security"...

i'm glad for his battalion though... think after he's gone for his studies... everyone will heave a huge sign of relief... must hv been a pretty stressful few months...

Some stuff I found out after reading the super long email by 2LT Li Hong Yi:

1. 2LT Li Hong Yi asked to swap duty with the sway regular who kena sacked by SAF.
2. The regular was supposed to do a Friday and a Sunday, 2LT Li was supposed to do on the Saturday in btwn.

Now from what I remember (ORD for 3yrs+ liaoz), SAF regulation is that Duty Officers are NOT allowed to do duty for more than 24hrs (this is why the duties r planned on alternate days as such) and they hv to SEEK PERMISSION from the battalion RSM b4 changing duty... (although the latter is more like informing la... since most commissioned officers see themselves as above warrant officers..)

so actually our prudent 2LT also not very 守规矩 oso la.. =P

I am back...

and boy is it hot...

Tips from Sis

Our msn conversation (some of the words are in Polish cos I'm in Krakow):

Użytkownik minling . mówi:

btw, to give u mental preparation, u can feel the humidity in your breath once u step out of changi
ok.

Użytkownik peikai mówi:

haha ok
noted.

very soon now... I will be going home...

A sad sad day...

I am now posting from Istanbul, Turkey. Our June trip so far is really quite eventful. We visited Cabo Da Roca, the western most point of the Europe, saw real bull-fighting in Madrid, sky-dived in Interlaken and danced wif an old Italian auntie in Rome.

Today is a sad sad day, I fell down some steps while going down an overhead bridge.

My camera was in my hands as I was taking some pictures of the river before I went down. It smashed against the steps and the lens-that-poke-out-of-the-camera part became crooked.. the camera became totally useless.. cannot take a single shot..

it was a really good cam.. Fuij FinePix F31fd. Will have to depend on my frens for their photos from Istanbul onwards.

I tell myself: Its not the end. Although u dun get to take photos, u still get to see the scenery nonetheless.

But still, it will not be the same anymore...

A final blog post from Denmark

Yup... the last one from Denmark...

juz had a farewell dinner wif everyone's frens, played some silly games and talked abt the 1st time we met each other..

yip & ruoling r still rushing their embedded report, zer i guess is bz washing up and packing her stuff and cw is alr deprived of his laptop for the night (its packed inside his luggage)..

anyway i would like to use this opportunity to thank all my "sponsors" for this SEP...

.. My beloved parents (they had to pay for 2!)
.. My aunt and uncle who lent me their winter stuff
.. My cousin who lent me his winter stuff
.. NUS for their $$$$
.. An old friend who lent me his (spoilt) electric-heater-cum-pot & much-valued advice
.. Zhang Er, Yin Ye, Ruo Ling & Chee Wei for your excellent company & ur lovely cakes & cookies
.. A fren in London for letting us stay for the night
.. A fren in Stockholm who brought us around at night
.. My sec school frens for the Chelsea jersey
.. DTU for all ur free printing services & databars for dota-ing
.. DTU profs who passed all my exams/presentations despite my obvious inadequacies
.. My sis for letting me stay at her place for the 1st 2 weeks
.. My CBLC frens who showed me how much I had missed in NUS this semester

And a certain someone for her patience and understanding... =)

Some photos to relive the memories...

grateful for every single one... =)

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

and looking forward for more to come!!!!

A night in Tivoli!

Tivoli is the themepark in central Copenhagen. Its one of those places u keep telling urself u have to go.. but nv actually get the chance or make the effort to go to.. alwiz thinking "tt i'll go there some other time..", its not until ur last 4 days in Denmark that it dawns on you that..

"Shit.. i haven go Tivoli yet leh..."

So immediately after our Mon trip... we parked the car at DTU Lyngby and went back to Kobenhavn Central to see it at night...

The Star Flyer: Rl n Shyuan went on it!

The Screaming Onion Bulb!

Heng Yip chose not to take the ride.. so got photographer.. haha

Glad many of them found the free fall thingy quite shiok... haha

Time for the big event of the night.... FIREWORKS!

at the end of the day.. everyone was really tired.. i guess cos of the travelling to Møn and the fact that we stayed in DTU so much our "travel stamina" was quite weak liaoz.. 2 more days in Denmark.. its been fun and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.. will miss the natural air-con, pretty danish girls & all the good times... ;)

there are still many things to be done.. like packing everything, our final 42542 presentation on Tuesday and rushing down to the other places in Denmark where I tot i "still got time and can go again some other time la"...

i had hoped to be able to blog abt our month of may.. which we essentially spent mugging (and some dota-ing) in databars in 308 and 341 late into the night... and went back at ard 3am, when the birds start chirping and the sun starts to rise... and how the security guard became peng you wif us cos we were there almost every night... and also how we managed to celebrate Cw, Zer & Rl's bdaes.. (yip's one was a bit non-existent cos everyone was kinda in a post-exam-nua-ing mood... but Happy Belated Bday Yip!) hopefully i'll hv some time to do so b4 we go off for the june trip...

there were plans to make use of our eurail pass (we hv 1 day extra left unused) to travel to Jutland, the western (bigger) island of Denmark. Maybe visit Aarhus or Aalborg or Odense... but it seems like too many things to do and way too little time... oh well..

a 5-wk-long trip awaits....

Møn, Denmark

Møn (pronounced as Mern) is a nice island along the west coast of Zealand... quietly famous (if there's such a thing) for its white cliffs... its a freaking long train + bus + walk if we wanted to go there... so we took this opportunity to plan a car trip!!

long and tedious searches were made to find the cheapest and biggest car possible for 7 ppl... not ez manz... cos we r all under 26 which meant alot of cars we cannot drive... finally we settled for a Peugeot 307 Stationwagon..

(same model and colour.. but this is not the one we drove,
forgot to take pic of it *OUCH*..
i kop-ed this from some google image search..)

its a 7 seater but wif only 5 seats and a boot space to squeeze 2 ppl in... -_-", oh well... better den nothing... a day's rental costs 400 DKK (approx. S$110)..

and so i was (after elimination) made the driver and yip was the navigator and we headed out for a 2hr ride to Mon!

My VC!

Cw n Rl took turns to suffer in the boot...
Zer stayed there for the entire trip (to and back!)

wasn't ez u know... its a manual car... means u hv to freaking recall all ur psycho-motor actions.. not only tt muz change to right-hand driving... changing gears wif ya right hand and steer wif left, keeping to the right side of the road & concentrating on keeping in the centre of the lane (i tend to drift right cos i would instinctively wanna place myself on the right side of the lane... i think only drivers can understand this better?) + its freaking raining like siao...

drive until a bit kia kia...

speed limit was 110 km/h... there were cars and buses (yes those coaches wif ppl inside) and vans (they dun hv speed limit sticker one) gng faster than 130 km/h!

got a freaking cool SUN-ROOF!!!

resting by the road
for the guys at the back to stretch their legs..

as usual for driving in a foreign country with manual driving for the 1st time, near-death experiences are not uncommon...

we had to go thru this dirt track to reach the cliffs and while gng upslope, the freaking engine 死火 on me!! (i was in 2nd gear.. but i think cos we 7 ppl too heavy le... 1.6l engin bo lat) so there came the worst case scenario where u hv to move off on a muddy slope with 7 ppl in a 1.6l car and a traffic jam behind u... tried to move off but we slided back! it was really REALLY close and i think i splashed quite a bit of mud on the car behind us... but luckily we managed to pull ourselves up the slope before any multiple car collision thingy happened.. (orh mi tuo fuo...)

after tt we had to go thru these windy dirt tracks tt threaten to swerve your car off the road.. i dunno if its the tire tracks or the slope of the road or me... but i was quite shaken la.. -_-"

anyway i'm juz glad i managed to reach the place in 1 piece... ok enough abt driving...

time to go to the main part of this blog post... Møns Klint!

really nice view from the top of the cliffs!

do u still remember ur secondary school geography lessons?

haha the good thing is we hv Ms Tan
(Shyuan from Amsterdam who's visitng Rl)!!!
a budding Geography teacher (MOE scholar ok.. mai siao siao!)
to explain to us erosion, weathering and erm... rocks in general..

an outcrop with a eroded hole...
u can see a 1000 feet drop down to the sea below..

see the light blue sea and the seemingly white glow off the coast?
its due to the calcium carbonate (chalk) in the water..

everyone trying to get a good pic of the cliffs..

look like a face hor?

picnic!!!
actually, we brought a quilt and wanted to lie on the grass in the sun,
experiencing the sea view and the gentle breeze... but... oh well...

walking down the long steps after lunch...
(and walking back up after tt...
nv had so much exercise since skiing in Isaberg...)

at the bottom.. after a long long long long climb down...

many fascinating rock stuff down here! (got fossils oso..)

and u can actually see the ancients layers of sedimentary rocks blah blah blah...
the perfect geography field trip i tell u..

got PE lessons oso! Yip n Rl training Shot Putt.

really really liked the colour in the water..

having a bit of craziness on the beach..


everyone wif their "trademark" jumps

Huge chunks of shattered rock at the cliff bottom..
i forgot to mention there was a sign saying..
"Walk at the bottom of the cliffs AT YOUR OWN RISK."
or something like dat..

A really fun trip! =)