Welcome, welcome! Started this blog to let family and friends keep in touch with what goes on in my life as I experience life as a 6-month exchange student in the Netherlands a.k.a. Holland. Bookmark this site and keep coming back to see things through the eyes of the mighty Joyce! Later, alligator!
Many many years ago, I discovered a super delicious, sinful, addictive chocolate called Schoko-Bons (part of the Kinder family). However, my enjoyment of it was shortlived because about a year or so later, for some mysterious reason, it completely disappeared from Brunei supermarket shelves and as far as I knew, everywhere else too.
But surprise, surprise! I was grocery shopping today and I chanced upon my long-lost friend! It was placed right there with the rest of its Kinder cousins. I think it might a limited production only for Easter. And it costs Eur2.99! But its so worth it! It tastes just as good and sinful as I remember. Uh-oh, I feel a re-addiction coming...
GONG XI FA CAI and Happy New Year, everyone! May this piggy year bring you lots of good health and wealth!
Well, I'm at home. Its so boring! Everyone back home is visiting one another, gambling, eating, having fun. Have no plans for the day or the next few days until Thursday (when I go to Barcelona) so I think I'll just get a head start on school work, ie. tens of pages of reading for 'User Profiling and Personas', and two sketches for 'How to Draw a Cup of Tea', and probably some research for our project.
Yesterday was pretty great. We went to the city where the Carnaval was held and the atmosphere was spectacular. It was colourful, noisy, crowded, everything!
On the way to the Carnaval. These girls were the weirdos and I was the normal-looking one (coz I didn't have any costume) At the heart of the party There was loud music and beer all over!
Inside one of those tents. They were selling beer at Eur20 for 10 cups or something. Madness!
Celebration! I was the only normal looking one there, which actually made me look like the weird one.
Amateur gynae? Nice one.. And one of the funniest one was seeing a really beefy dad wearing a puny skin-tight PINK tutu with fairy wings! Too bad, didn't get a picture of him. He was with his daughter too, bet that's where he stole his costume from.
And outta nowhere, these guys attacked me with some pink hair spray And admist the choas, I spotted an unattended article. He was entertaining himself with the confetti on the ground in oblivion.
Who's gonna clean up the mess now? Some kids playing near the public urinal. Yup, its a PUBLIC urinal out in the open. Here's another one. I'm such a perv! And after that, we went home and got ready for our Reunion Dinner. Eight course meal, clockwise from top left: sweet corn soup, omelette + hotdog + vege, omelette + ham + shrimp (cooked by yours truly), bak kwa (brought by yours truly again), salty vegetable thing, mixed vege + cashew nuts, sweet and sour fish or chicken (forgot which) + potatoes, vegetable and finally, rice (contributed by me, again!). Also unseen in this picture 'lou he' and mandarin oranges (which I got from the market at Eur2.50 for 30) More pictures coming soon!
Well, Valentine's Day was pretty un-Valentinish. I didn't see love-struck couples walking around hand-in-hand lovey-dovily. Nor did I see anyone at all holding roses or any other love-flowers. And my own pretty baby was far, far away. Well, Valentine's Day was just uneventful. Hm, just remembered, maybe it was because I was out only for 10 mins that day!
On a happier, yet sadder note, Chinese New Year is coming! Yippee! We're gonna have a Reunion Dinner on Saturday at Yixian's place and we'll also have special guests like two Delfters, two Dutch-who-were-SEP-ing-in-NUS-last-sem-ers, and a couple more friendly international housemates. And I've offered to bring plain rice (what would we do without our traditional staple) and also mandarin oranges (hope prices won't hike up at the market on Saturday!). Hope that there's gonna be LOTS of DELICIOUS food!
For the sad part, its my first time not spending CNY with family. *sigh* No visiting houses to get ang-pows, no yummy tidbits and free-flow cokes, and no seeing my cute little niece dress up in what-I'd-bet-will-be the cutest red outfit (but there WILL be pictures sent to me). Oh well, at least we're planning to head up to Amsterdam's China Town so hopefully I will feel the ambience still. And its coincidentally the Dutch Carnaval week so we have one week holidays and we girls are gonna go to Barcelona for a couple of days! Double yippee!
Ok, every entry has to have some pictures from now on. So here are a couple of random pictures unrelated to Valentine's Day or Chinese New Year!
From Schipol Airport to Eindhoven by train Just arrived at Eindhoven by train Once of our first meals + my housemate from China (I'm indebted to him for having a rice cooker!)
Bowled over! Cute little car (all cars here are left-hand drives by the way) Ice from 'The Day After Tomorrow!!' Just kidding, its just the icy remains of the ice sculpture exhibition that we missed. :( One of my common lunches: Club sandwich with fizzy juice! Retro!! My 'hood The first dinner I cooked all by myself. Edible.. except for a couple of burnt parts in the nuggets and some uneven cooked parts in the potatoes.. the cabbage was ALL edible though! Cos it was RAW, haha! Did I mention already that I see this everyday when I get up? And tonight's dinner. It looks better than it tastes. Fried rice was kinda bland, even with the pre-mix! And mushroon soup was kinda dilute, also pre-mixed. Cheater, haha! And lastly, project groupmates at Work domain
School has started for a week now but the first week was 'Activity Week' for us ID students. It was kinda like orientation where we did a small group project on a famous designer and had to present a panel and model in the exposition (exhibition) on Friday.
The serious stuff starts tomorroow, Monday. NOOOOO!!! I don't feel like starting school coz I have a feeling its going to be as busy as NUS. I wanna still be on holiday! I hope it'll go ok. Sometimes it can get a bit difficult as the other students start talking in Dutch. They do try to converse in English for my sake, but sometimes they unwittingly go back to Dutch and I get lost. And same goes for the tutors as well!
Well, here are some pictorial descriptions for my loyal readers...
First day at the cafeteria with the rest and Dom We have a salon! (they even offer beard trimming for about Eur 5 I think) Main lobby area Revolving doors My 'Activity Week' groupmates in our studio Having lunch at Kennispoort cafeteria Before: Our clay model, a remote control that Ettore Sottsass would've designed during the peak of his design life. (it might be the death of him if he saw what we did!) After: Workshop at Matrix. Its HUMONGOUS! And they have separate smaller rooms like a sanding room, clay room, etc. And they have free supplies of paint, wooden sticks, colour paper, cardboards, etc. Plus, we have free Eur25 worth of printing. Stingy NUS only reimburses us up to S$25 for supplies and printing?! Darn NUS! One of my favourites in the exposition. Haha! Forgot who the designer is, but pretty obvious what his theme was, isn't it? And the result of our project
It snowed again yesterday and it was H-E-A-V-Y! Everything turned white within an hour. Unfortunately I was stuck indoors when it was snowing and I had noone to play with outside anyway. But I was really enjoying the walk back home from school. Here are some pictures.
When I was briefly outside running between buildings My first ball of snow. It was like soft ice, all squishy, mash-able and freezing my fingers! (excuse the pimples) Snow! ID building in TU/e Too bad the river wasn't frozen. Would've been cool to see it. Ok, snow's not all beautiful, like this one by the road. Its all muddy and icky! Dirty snow frozen on a car's mudflap The snow was this deep Reflection: me, snow, cathedral (in order of importance, haha) The view outside my bedroom window See how the snow falls sideways!
