Not bad a day..

2nd August 2003 2046B

            Quite an interesting day in Stockholm today.. we were actually quite lucky today lor.. we first went to the Army Museum which was quite interesting lar.. so happens that there was a mini parade at the parade square in front of the museum.. so we managed to catch the mililtary band and a small Swedish contingent in action...

            Next we went to the Norkiska Museum which is sort of an museum for Swedish cultural history.. not veri interesting to me lar but my guy fren veri weird one.. he like die2 muz see everything single thing in the museum one.. and he is a Catholic and he alwaz wants to go see churches which i have not much interest in.. in fact now, i am veri sick of churches.. tink i have to start to declare that i am an anti-religionist or anti-Catholic/Christians so that i can refuse to go near any churches.. to me, churches are only nice to see from outside.. maybe can take a few pictures of them.. but i have already seem a lot of churches since i came to Scandinavia lor.. and all the churches almost all the same one lar.. so i reali hate it when he keep suggesting to us to go take a look at this church or that church..

            The Vasa Museum is located just behind the Norkiska Museum and its a much more interesting one .. at least to me lar.. in the 16th century, the Swedish King ordered the construction of a warship.. after it was commissioned and during her maiden voyage, it sunk.. the funny thing is that it din even fight a war or hit an iceberg lor.. it was sort of sunk cos of strong winds.. and guess wat, the ship haven really left the Swedish harbour.. it sailed for few miles from the harbour and its sails suddenly caught strong winds on one side and starts to list so much that its lower gun deck starts to get flooded.. den juz lidat, it sunk... weird... but anywae, they managed to retrieve the Vasa from the seabed and put it into this museum... its quite dark in the museum lar so i could get a good pic of the remains of the Vasa.. Apparently, the Swedish say that cannot have too much light or the ship will sort of "spolit" quickly.. aiyah... doesnt make sense one lar..

            oh yah, they have two de-commissioned ships at th museum too.. one was an ice-breaker and the other is a lightship.. a lightship is like a moving lighthouse lar.. but i tink its have been more or less phased out liao...

            Then we went to a tourist attraction known as the Skansen which is supposed to be a major attraction in Sweden.. its quite a large place with numerous buildings.. in fact, they claimed that every historical Swedish building/structure can be found in the Skansen.. there are glassworks, pottery, iron, engineering workshops, small towns, windmills, observatory and even have a mini zoo with some Nordic animals in it.. Photography is also forbidden in some of the buildings (same reasoning as they gave for the Vasa Museum)..

            Next we went to the TV and Radio Tower.. its abt 320m tall and its the tallest building in Scandinavia.. haha.. skyscrappers dun exist in this part of the world lar.. most of the buildings are less than 10 storeys tall.. even for those in the city centre.. anywae, the Tower was 30 storeys tall.. the view at the top really reminds me of the Empire State buliding in New York.. the feeling is almost identical.. looking over the rivers and city of Stockholm compared to looking over the whole of New York City.. 真的有一点"回到过去"的感觉... =P

            Then we went to another side of the city to look for the Hard Rock Cafe.. i got a fren who asked me to help him buy some pins from Hard Rock.. at that place we start to notice a lot of fancy cars along the stretch of roads.. there were a lot of cars moving through that road lor.. but 我对车没有什么研究 so i dun reali noe the names of the cars.. but i did took quite a lot of photos of them lar... in the end, i went to ask a Swedish man and found out how was going on.. apparently its an annual event called the "Cruise Nite".. every year for a weekend,  the Americans in Sweden will have some sort of meeting/gathering in Stockholm and on the Saturday nite, they will all drove their fancy cars to this road to sort of showcase their cars and party on the roads.. tink got some Swedish also join in the fun.. tink some of them are probably car dealers..

            its quite an eye-opener... to see the people having fun on the road.. in fact tink most of them have drink quite some amount of alcohol lor.. some were simply juz dancing in their cars.. den there are also many Swedish families who will have a picnic by the road and spent the whole evening looking at the cars and people partying.. 

            Tommorrow we will be going "shopping" in the city centre.. but doubt we can afford to buy anything lar.. and we will leave for Coppenhagen at around 11pm. . oh before i forget, my guy fren said that left me quite pissed today oso.. the three of us were toking about scholars and President's Scholars.. den we mentioned about this guy called He Ruimin who is ingenious and one of the President's Scholar from my batch.. then he is also from navy one mah.. and guess wat my fren commented.. he said "i tink its a waste of him (He Ruimin) to be in the navy.."  wtf!!?! i was quite dulan and asked him " is he trying to say the navy is not good enough for him?".. den he realised he said something wrong and start to 转话题.. hmph..!!