LanguageSelect

Wednesday, 31 December 2014

Happy New Year from Singapore

As I'm writing this post there is less than two hours ten minutes (yikes!) left until 2014 ends and 2015 starts. I've now spent a month visiting my girlfriend (yep o_O) in Singapore, and I have only a little under a week to go before I return home. My original plan was to update this blog a bit more often than I have done, but it didn't really work out like that. Oh well...

Adjusting to the climate in Singapore was not easy, but it was doable, much thanks to the presence of air condition almost everywhere, from malls and restaurants to public transport and people's homes. Even so, I've never been so sweaty from moving around so little in my entire life. Maybe except for staying in my apartment in Montreal during summer when the sucky air condition there didn't manage to bring the temperature under 28 degrees during day-time. Heh.

Speaking of climate... I expected it to rain almost every day after what I had read about Singapore ahead of my trip, but there was a surprising lack of rain in the first few weeks. It picked up a bit after that, but still, it hasn't been too bad. More cloudy (and less sunny) than I expected too, but I'm not complaining about that!

Saturday, 29 November 2014

Singapore, you say? Departing now!

So, we've already established that I'm going to Singapore. In fact, I'm going there today. But where exactly IS Singapore, and WHAT is it? Is it an island? A city? A country? Let's take a crash-course on Singapore and find out! Maybe you know all this and more already, and for sure, there web is full of places one can visit to get a lot more detailed and (probably) accurate information than what is contained in this blog-post, but... whatever, I'll make a post about it anyway!

Where is Singapore?

Singapore's location on the map
Singapore is situated between Malaysia and Indonesia, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, in Southeast Asia. Its closest neighbors are... you guessed it, Malaysia and Indonesia. It lies only a single degree north of the equator, and is by its location pretty well sheltered from natural disasters like tsunamies, earthquakes and hurricanes (but not thunderstorms!).

What's the weather like?

Being situated close to the equator, Singapore has a climate classified as tropical rainforest climate with an almost uniform warm, humid season lasting all year round, with an abundance of rainfall, and thunderstorms appearing on 40-50% of all days. The only distinctive changes take place in the two monsoon seasons (approx. Dec to March, and June to Sept), in the form of more rain and wind.

But what IS Singapore?

Singapore Skyline
Singapore is an island. Actually, it's a group of islands. Actually, it's a city! Actually, it's a country (and/or a city-state, if you will). Actually - it's all of these! It's also one of the safest (statistically), cleanest (famed for it) and most beautiful (according to many "top city" lists) cities in the world. Even its airport is considered by many (if not most) to be the finest in existence. Singapore can also routinely be found in top places in world rankings related to crime statistics, education, quality of life, environment, shopping (24/7 mega shopping malls, Orchard Road boulevard), business, etc.

The famous Marina Bay Sands (Hotel)
The city-state itself is a melting pot of many different ethnic groups and cultures, like Chinese, Malay, Indian (and a little British) - and religions/beliefs, like Buddhism (33.3%), Christianity (18.4%), Islam (14.7%), Taoism (10.9%) and Hinduism (5.1%), plus many (17%) with no religious affiliation - all co-existing side by side peacefully. This is also reflected in the languages (four official languages - English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil), architecture and (importantly) the cuisine of Singapore. Food defines Singaporean culture, and with its blend of Malaysian, Chinese and Indian food, there's something here for everyone (even me, I hope). And then there's the festivals of various types that take place all year round, including the Hindu festivals Thaipusam (Feb) and Deepavali (October), Chinese New Year (Feb/March), the Malay festival Hari Raya Puasa (July) and the National Day Parade on the 9th of August...

How interesting/amazing/super cool - where can I learn more?

Want to learn more about Singapore? Check out Wikipedia or Lonely Planet, or click this link for a list of 50 (subjective?) reasons for why Singapore is a great city(state). Oops, time's up. Have to leave for the airport, or I'll be late!

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Blog-resurrection and vacation to Singapore

Singapore Skyline at Night
(Image courtesy of posterize at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
Considering that I will soon (less than two weeks from now) go on a month-long vacation to Singapore, this is as good a time as any to restart my blogging-activities here, so I'll have a place to write about the experiences and adventures I'll have while I'm there.

Something that's different from my earlier attempts at blogging is that I will this time around attempt to blog in two languages simultaneously. Norwegian visitors (or rather, visitors with Norwegian language-setting in their browser) will see the blog-posts in Norwegian, while everyone else will see them in English. Those who want to can, however, switch between Norwegian and English simply by clicking on the flags at the top of the blog, and this choice will be saved in a cookie in their browser for their next visit, and between different blog-posts. I'll also attempt to add English versions of as many of the older blog-posts as I can be bothered to :P

Immaterial technical details about the blog aside... The fact that I'll be staying in Singapore for (over) a month also means that I will, for the first time since I was in New Zealand in 1990, spend both Xmas and New Years away from home! I may have to go visit "Sjømannskirken" in Singapore at some time during December, if for no other reason than to smell traditional Norwegian christmas foods...hehe will see what happens! ;)

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

On old roads and new trails

Starting to be a while since I last updated this old, decaying and just about abandoned blog, and all the faithful readers (hehehahah) probably know already what I'm going to write here now, so it's pretty pointless - but I have a few minutes to waste, so I'll update it anyway!

My time in Montreal and Canada is over, and I have now been back in the old country and Alnes (...my home, there lies AAAALNES myyy hooooome~~) for almost a week and a half - and here I might end up staying for the foreseeable future. I have mostly spent this time relaxing and getting up to speed on everything that has happened since I left early in 2008 (FIVE years!? That is a long time...). Although, I guess not that much has happened that I haven't already been given updates on either when I've been home for Christmas, via Facebook/Skype or through a steady stream of updates from my dear mother :)

In other news, I am - along with Are B - in the final phase of project "found-our-own-game-development-company". The pieces are falling into place, and in a short while my "vacation" (which started after I had my last day at work in Canada on the 17th of April) ends and I can once again start working full-time with game development. I expect there will be many long days and evenings in the time ahead, but that is just a bonus when one is doing that which one lives for :)

To end this blog-post I'll quote a verse in English written by J. R. R. Tolkien, which I feel summarizes in a nice way where in life I am at just now:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Update from Canada

After having spent half a year in Montreal I suddenly, just now tonight, got an intense craving for meat patties and boiled potatoes, så I sprang out of the comfy chair and jogged over to the supermarket, where I proceeded to purchase various raw materials (potatoes, mini-hamburgers and vegetable oil). I've never boiled potatoes before, but how hard could it be? I thought. Thus:


(Didn't bother to peel the potatoes before boiling them.)


Result: The potatoes were boiled, the mini-hamburgers fried, and it tasted. Something.

Other than that? Still haven't learned French, have found a store selling brown cheese produced by Tine (in Norway), the people at McDonalds across the street from work are finally beginning to realize that a hamburger WITHOUT CHEESE actually means that they should not put cheese on it, have managed to transfer money home to Norway to make the payment on my student loan, and looks like I'm getting visitors from Norway around Easter-time!

That's all I have for now.

See ya!

Tuesday, 10 August 2010

Status-update

My apartment in Oslo is now just about empty; only the moving boxes, suitcase and my laptop remain. Everything that needs to be packed has been packed, the cleaning is done, and the empty Urge-bottles have been returned for recycling. My dear parents (aka mother and father), who drove me to Oslo to give a hand with the cleaning (A THOUSAND THANKS!), are now driving on the E6 back home towards Alnes (or, at least E6 all the way to Dombås).

On Thursday I'll get up extra early and jump on a plane (6:55am) in direction of Montreal - with a small stop in Frankfurt along the way. With a bit of luck I'll manage to navigate through the airport there without missing the plane onwards to Montreal. Then, when the plane finally lands in Canada we'll see if the immigration authorities let me through customs and all that. Rumours have it that the process through security, immigration and customs can take up to 3 hours. Urgh...

Temporary apartment has also been taken care of. Hopefully I'll have found a more permanent apartment (I'm not buying, but renting) before my moving boxes arrive in Canada in a container alongside moving loads from other Funcom-people, so I won't have to drag those boxes around or pay for storage or any such nonsense.

Well, that was that! Next status-update? Maybe after I've arrived in Montreal. See you, Norway!