Hamburg Part 2

Only 2 more weeks to holidays.. I can't wait! But first, I will have to get through a CBL week, a Psych exam and a week full of lectures.. dread! I'm gonna skip the last day though.. shhh!

So here are more photos from my trip to Germany last month.. first up is the midieval town of Schwerin! It's about an hour from Hamburg by train, and is a rather quiet town. And we stayed in this hostel in the middle of the woods, by the lake! It's a really picturesque place, too bad it was raining on the day we were there..

In the middle of a park, under the rain...

By the lake

Impressionism?

Scrumptious dinner in a very 'homely' restaurant

We were lucky enough to stumble across a festival while roaming the streets at night! Apparently, it was the "Arrival of the Lübeck 'Martensmannes' (Marten man)" festival who used to bring wine from Lübeck to Schwerin and this festival is to celebrate this great man.

Bread-roasting!

Now you see it ... Now you don't!

Yumm.. yumm!

Having coffee and cakes in a 'chi-chi' bar ;)

And the last stop of the trip was, of course, Hamburg! It is the second largest city in Germany and the second largest port city in Europe. I'm really amazed by how organised and clean the cities and towns are in Germany.. most of it anyways.

One of the many lakes in Hamburg

The Alster lake in the centre of town

The Rathaus (Town Hall)

Came upon this in the square.. how cute right!?

One of my friends, Grace, has a friend in the city so he brought us to this really nice brewery/restaurant called Gröninger .. it was underground, just next to the brewery thingies and the atmosphere was really nice! Oh forgot to mention.. the typical German meal consist of a roast meat/sausage, fried potatoes with bacon and sour cabbage, with a glass of beer! Not fantastic cuisine but filling nonetheless hehe..

Gut appetit!

A keg of beer anyone? :P

Hamburg is also famous for its nightlife and red light district. I didn't get to see much of it though.. coz we were totally exhausted by 3am when we finally made our way to the Reeperbanh (the red light district).

Left: Our hotel Right: Sex shop

And this is for YH! ;)

And that's it for my Lubeck-Schwerin-Hamburg trip! And can you believe I didn't eat any hamburgers the whole time??

Hamburgggg Part one

I'm back in Peterborough today for the second half of my 6 week attachment here.. not long more to go! It's not THAT bad a place here but home (Cambridge) is always better =). Here are a few pics of my room in the flat:

Simple and empty? hehe

Last nite, I got back from my first ever weekend trip! Well, it started on Friday but still technically a weekend trip ;). It was a LOT of fun and very little sleep! I don't have all the pictures yet so will only post the first part of my trip: Lübeck!

Arrival at Lübeck airport

Lubeck town seen from the top of St. Peter Church


Another shot

Beautiful Autumn

Lübeck is also famous for being the 'Marzipan capital' (something I didn't know before =P). It is said that marzipan is the brainchild of a talented confectioner in this little town. So of course we had to visit the Niederegger where this almond+sugar combination was first made.

The Niederegger


Everything in the shop contained marzipan!

We also stumbled into a local cafe which reminded me a lot of my favourite one, Starbucks! The layout, decorations, drink selection and logo are all pretty similar to Starbucks. They do have some unique and original drinks though.

Starbucks wannabe?

While wandering around the cobblestone streets, we came upon this sign!

Please play football on the road kids!

More to come later =)

All ready for Psych!

Nafplio - Easter 06

Wow, another 3 months have passed and I've finished my O&G attachment (obstetrics and gynaecology =p) ... Saw a few deliveries and a C-section.. I was really surprised at how quick the surgery actually lasts.. to be fair, getting the baby out is the easy bit. It takes almost twice as long to close the wound afterwards!

After witnessing the live births, I have much more respect for all the mothers who have to go through labour.. just imagine going through the worst pain ever! (yeah I know there is pain relief but they don't always work!) and having a baby passing through the birth canal! *Ouch!!* Am I glad I'm not a woman =)

But what really amazes me is how at one second, the fetus/baby can look so alien/sci-fi-like with no sign of life.. it's head squeezing slowly out of the mother's womb.. it's bizzare! Then the next second, the whole body of the baby just slips out and once it takes its first breath, it lets out his/her first cry.. everything just moved so quickly that it's so surreal. And the funny thing is, once the midwife gets hold of the whole baby after popping out, she immediately wraps a small towel over the baby and literally drops the baby onto the mother's tummy and say "There you go, it's a boy!". It still makes me laugh..

I'm looking forward to next week.. gonna be starting my Psychiatry attachment next. It's gonna be fun! haha. Lots of things to look forward to in the coming months.. I can't wait ;)

I found this in my house! Do you think it's radioactive?

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Last but not least, I am glad to announce that the STAND UP Against Poverty Campaign last Sunday was an overwhelming success all over the world! Here's an excerpt from the official website:

Official Guinness Verification:
The world record for the most people to 'Stand Up Against Poverty' in 24 hours was set on 15 - 16 October 2006 for the United Nation's Millennium Campaign and involved a massive total of 23,542,614 participants in 11,646 events around the globe.

Six years ago, 189 world leaders sat down and agreed to end poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. On October 15&16, over 23 million people across the world stood up to remind them of this promise.

Jump Up! Can you spot me?

Summer Hols

Boo! So 3 weeks have come and past before I even realised. Am now back in the UK and the summer weather is all but gone... now it's just constant grey skies, cold and humid :S

I went night diving for the first time during my holiday, and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!

Here are some of the things I saw... (pictures don't do them justice!)

This cute little baby puffer fish was one of many
surrounding us as soon as we descended from the surface.

We got to see lots of crabs... from humungous ones to smaller than a ten cent coin!

This one is tiny as hell! I wondered how my friend spotted it.

Now this one was HUGE! And don't ask me what's on its back lol!

I've always thought that it must be really hard to see anything at night in the middle of the ocean! But the underwater lights were quite impressive. I mean, of course there was a limtied view at one time, but your eyes can only focus on so much at any one time anyways. So it turned out to be some kind of hide and seek, trying to 'seek' for the underwater treasures!

These tiny 'christmas trees' are in abundance on the corals.
They shut when you come to close.

Can you spot it?

This lionfish looks majestic in the water!

This is as close as we can get to the squid. It was fast!

This cuttlefish can change colour according to its surroundings. Amazing!

This is a nudibranch.
It's the cutest little thing ever, and they are hard as hell to find!

And the highlight of the dive was when we stumbled upon this...

A hawksbill turtle!

We followed it around for a bit, since I think we have just woken it hehe. Then it needed to resurface to get some air, and it was 'dancing circles' as it went up, it was breathtaking!

My friends told me I was really lucky to see all these in one night and prepare to be disappointed in my future night dives.. haha, I hope they're wrong!

Oh... and a shout-out to Gee! happy? lol

Home Sweet Home

"Another summer day has come and gone away,
And I wanna go home..."

Feels good to be back!

Longing for the hols...

My summer holidays cannot come any sooner! I'm finally in the last week of my paediatrics attachment now. It's actually a very interesting specialty, but I find myself thinking about the holidays and can't seem to concentrate.. haha that's coz by this time of the year I'm so conditioned to being back home after travelling around Europe.

Anyways, remember in my last blog when I said it was really hot here in the UK? It's supposedly getting even hotter this week.. it's predicted to reach 37C this Wednesday!! Guess this whole thing about global warming is slowly coming true.

So the World Cup has come and gone.. and what a tournament it was! There were lots of surprises as well as disappointments but overall, although my favourite teams Brazil and England didn't shine, I really enjoyed the whole month. I mean 2 or 3 international football matches a day? What can beat that?! Ohh.. World Cup and Wimbledon at the same time probably does.. hehe. And who can forget the final! Zidane... no matter what reasons you have, it's still the silliest thing you have done in your career. Let's hope you're not remembered for that freak moment of craziness.

Italy, the World Champions.

Okay, just 11 more days to go now.. Kambate! Those of you back home, wait for me to come back and party! For those who don't know where Brunei is, here's a little geography lesson for you ;P

Home sweet home