Spring semester only starts now for my school! unlike the other local unis :P

With my school schedule kicking in full swing and with my gyming, its been pretty hard to actually find time for much recreation, even before accounting for study time that i am going to need! assignments time and all, this semester is going to be really REALLY hectic. With five modules, i am cooped up in school from 12-5pm on mondays and wednesdays and 8.30-5pm on tues and thursdays. On the brighter side, i have friday and saturday off! now that cell group has moved to friday night. I guess i'll probably try to update more on these two days? hence a new post on saturday or sunday! instead of the usual blogging on sunday night...i dont know, see how it pans out! although procrastination is still my best friend :) resolution for 2013, 2014 to curb procrastination has not happened. probably will never happen. because why? i procrastinate! :D :D
Ming yang + procrastination = Ming Yang
I decided to use the last week to figure out the timings for travelling and slotting in of classes and trying to sieve out the free slots of time that i have in the week and if need be fill em up! I gym or at least try to, every day after school and so far, my injured right knee seems to be holding up pretty well! its a total pain to have a lifetime injury. one of those lifetime-stuffs you dont want to have. Anyway, getting started with school was pretty fun i would say! meeting up with all my friends after the longest break we've ever had! now, we can only look forward to week-long breaks between semesters. Summer too, since ours is a trimester curriculum. good and bad, It was a total drag when the whole "school is going to start" mood began settling in, like i just felt that i needed some time to just chill and do nothing before school starts. you know when life gets all hectic with events and all, and then suddenly school starts, it kinda feels shitty. like you have no time to rest. whereas two weekends back when i had lots of free time slothing around, i really wanted school to start! because i have slacked enough! i am probably the only weird one around.

Anyway, surprisingly, this module that i take this semester, called Introduction to the Internet has an element of weekly blogging inside! which sounds pretty cool, and its an individual project, so i wonder how is it going to work out eh! we are supposed to find out about interesting facts about the internet, or something along those lines. chanced upon this video while blogging, Anyway, i will post the link to the blog here when i actually have some content up.

On a sidenote, i am really NOT digging this blogskin of mine, and hopefully am able to change it soon! soon = 3 weeks or later i guess lmao.

HAHA i changed the heading of my blog to something so lame.



and i got reminded about how i've neglected my piano practice for the past week! school has really been sapping up lots of my time, but at least for good reason. If i pay attention in class. just realised how boring my title posts can get, i just aint good at coming up with nice ones! lmao when the title of the video is Sebonzakura, first thing that came to mind was Bleach. I just hope that with this incoming semester filled with lots of modules, i will be able to manage the last bit of the semester when project work deadlines begin to hound at my doorstep and finals looming in a short distance,

Sometimes i wonder if my life is actually interesting to read about xD but anyway, with this new semester, new year, i am trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle, one that keeps me upbeat and more 'alive'! you know, like when you are exercising, your mind is kind of kept in a more awake state, hence being able to perform better! currently i am just tired out from the early mornings that i have to get up....waking up at 6am is a HUGE chore as compared to the usual 12pm waking time of mine during the December holidays.

Thankfully, i now have a gym buddy!!!! currently gyming at california fitness as i hopped on their marketing campaign. It's $30 per pax for a month's usage at any one gym on the island!
Groupon deal here
By the way there is a first time walk-in offer so be prepared if you want to sign on a bond for subsequent months! for students, ask them about the students deal, we have it cheaper :)

I am also taking up classes! they have fitness classes over there, and currently im taking body combat! which is really REALLY fun!! its a really fun and challenging workout and it feels good when you are done with it! :) they have other classes too like zumba and all, and so far its been really really good! especially those cycling machines allow me to do cardio without really injuring my knee phew!

and maaaaan having a gym buddy really helps you out so much because then gyming aint so much of a lonely event! idk i've always been so used to gyming with friends. Moreover with those classes, you get such great support as at least you know someone else you know is going through the same "hardships" and fun times!!! so....thank you THANK YOU so much for introducing me to this groupon deal and being such a great great gym buddy!!! :D

I dont know i think this is part two if i didnt remember wrongly xD okay life is now officially SUPER BUSY as school as started. I am trying to use this little time i have to squeeeeze out a blog post!! schedule now is extremely packed but i guess i should soon be able to catch the flow of this busy lifestyle of mine eh! alright, the main thing about this blogpost is iceland yeah! i'll blog about my busy life some other time. :)

Being greeted in the morning with a whole big spread of food is just too awesome!!! we stayed at this hotel....i have no idea what is the name as half the trip i seemed like i was in a daze. but anywayyyyy the waffles. oh they are so goooooood!!





The thing is that you are not supposed to "toast" the waffles in the toaster for the breads but.....WOHOOO it tastes so nice and warm and crispy right after that!! add some honey on top voila~! you have a filling breakfast alright!! they have scrambled eggs, lots and lots of them!! personally, i take like 2 of those servings you see above for the eggs per breakfast. and that excludes their local way of cooking scrambled eggs that are omelette-like with tomato slices in between! i think they were tomato slices. i dont remember...how that kinda sucks if you dont remember what you ate?!

aaaand our long bus ride begins. Its crazy how long a bus ride can take, we still need to take a pit stop in between? i believe it was about 6 hours drive or something??? that's like taking an airplane already!



But anyway, we stopped over at this petrol kiosk, its quite spacious, looks so new and is located like outta no where. its amazing how there even are people coming by? and i found it kind of intriguing that a kiosk situated out of no where can possibly be so nicely kept and it also has a very IKEA feel? you can see by the photos below. It kind of reminds me of last year when i went Sweden, whereby lots of furnitures and decorations were all from IKEA. In fact, they even smelled the same. Whereas this does not have the smell!



dat wonderfully beautiful icelandic water bottle. bought 2 of these!! of which one was filled with snow to the brim. by the way, fun fact 101: a full bottle of snow will melt to approx half a bottle of "snow water". And i dont think it is actually possible to bring snow back to singapore and have it kept the same way within the bottle even with a freezer in SG. just what i think.


By the time we reached our destination, the sunlight is already out!! this is the second day of sunlight, and kind of like first day of sightseeing. Geothermal is possible in iceland due to its geography. As such, there are many of these hot springs peppered around the country, Hehe sorry for the blur photo, i believe i set the aperture too high xD and my camera was on aperture priority i believe lmao.


tried to, didnt quite work out. Here, i began to realise just how useful it is to have a GoPro and a monopod mount and you will be able to pull off lots of great videos for your trip!! really excited for my next trip overseas as i am definitely going to bring my GoPro and record so much of it!! the water inside is boiling hot, so we aren't allowed to touch it (duh) but anyway, the hot water is directly channelled to nearby homes and whatnot to warm up their houses. So yes they actually do have water pipes running around the houses and the hot springs are what keeps the houses warm in winter!





Lunch was pretty awesome with such a nice view! and the interior is pretty neat itself! for us to get to our destination for lunch, we had to travel quite some bit off the main road just to get to this hotel for our hearty lunch! As you can see, the interior looks really simple and beautiful! absolutely digging the log cabin feel in this tiny house.


It is not just the interior, but just look at THAT view?!?! it really is to die for man, not to mention, its winter now, can you imagine just how beautiful it will look like with all the green pastures and hills during spring???



yes that is my GoPro that went missing.... sad that it is gone because of all the wonderous memories that were stored inside, but anyway here is the delocious food that they serve!! the vegs.... i left them uneaten as usual :P it's just a me thing whereby i dont eat veggies yknow.... not really.

Next, we went on to look at waterfalls! okay from here on, its just waterfalls and waterfalls all the way lmao. We saw i think 3 waterfalls?? Anyway, here is one of the waterfalls. As time is getting pretty late, its already 12am and i have 8.30am class tomorrow oh gosh the dread......Thank God though that it is only the first class hence it should be quite slack!! :P




Man, that frozen waterfall just somehow reminds me of the movie frozen xD okay i am so sick of that movie already though since everyone keeps on playing "let it go" let it go already, guys. Anyway, i will be posting more on waterfalls for the next post!! maybe i'll do another 2 more posts on iceland.... i dont even know whether i want to blog on france and london as i dont really have much videos left of them.... and for those two places, i actually took way more videos than photos so its really quite a bummer.....after losing that gopro haiz....okay i guess i shall stop here, want to adopt a new lifestyle of sleeping earlier and all. A healthier one hopefully. :)

With tuesday classes starting at 8.30 as compared to 12pm classes on monday, i pretty sure do have tuesday blues instead.

The bottom two photos were taken with my xperia z3. and that, my friends, is why you need to buy a xperia x3. It's always going to be king oh yeah! COME ON GUYS. CONVERT TO XPERIA.

As promised! I did a one-day build because i was bored and here is a photo of it!


It's a Counterstrike Global Offensive karambit? lmao. ermmmm it's my first try, tried it out and yes it does work! Am i happy with the paintjob? mmmm ok,ok, within acceptable range. Life-sized, extremely solid rubber which is nothing like my eraser in my pencil box, pokes plastic bags, aaaand most importantly is blunt. I just wanted to figure if i could get a cool looking knife out of it and yeah! managed to work out. up for sale? yep! Drop me a fb message for details. It's a replica btw, so no it's not gonna cut your chicken during dinner.

Gosh i can't believe this is the last week of holidays till uni sem starts again... Having a headache now so it sucks -.- but anyway, the weekend was really fun!! i spent the whole of sunday in church lmao. It was really tiring to serve later on in the evening, especially after waking up early to book seats. This is the first time we had cell group on friday night and it felt very different! spent less time fellowshipping, however it was made up on sat when we met up for "sports"! we popped by Kallang wave mall, where the new sports hub is and maaan the place is HUGEEEE and there's beach volleyball courts too?! how cool! :D

Here is a video of my sunday fellowship! :P
You can also see my one-day build in action~ we were half laughing too xD oops


Coming back to saturday "sports" meet up, I tried the panorama thingy but failed spectacularly but oh well! there's always another chance! my first few times using the gopro was a failure too! There was free entry into the national stadium and... it looks OKOK to me...? i am still unimpressed with the fact that the seating capacity is still the same, just that at least now it is a whole lot more modern and has a ton of USEFUL facilities all around! well one thing's for sure is that they probably have more toilet seats so yes we do have more seats!!!


lmao i wore the sunglasses for fun. by the way, the sunglasses are pretty cool! they are Orion sunglasses, both my friend Aiks, and i have one each and the colour saturation through these lenses are so goooood. best part is that when i brought it overseas, i didnt have it fogging up YEAH!

Orion Sunglasses

ah shuks i really hate this headache. Anyway, there are swimming pools, gym, library, ICE SKATING RINK and basketball courts all in the vicinity making it an awesome place for doing sports! but we didnt do sports lmao. Instead, we sat around and chatted, attempted deep conversations and just simply spent time together all the way till it was pitch black! sometimes, it's not about it being an eventful day but rather just simply spending time and slacking with one another is a fun thing to do too! we walked a round around the national stadium and it wasn't that big..

well what other way than to spend the beautiful evening with beautiful people huh??  These photos were taken from my xperia z3, the low lighting doesnt seem that impressive but oh well! it's still good (y)

So... here is part 1 of iceland!! instead of blogging day-by-day guess an overall one would be a whole lot better! Iceland was really icy to say the least! aaaand there's a lot of waterfalls, glaciers and lava fields. Or at least frozen lava fields. There isnt much shopping to do, the city areas tend to be pretty quiet i feel and they're really energy saving? in fact usually its just fields and mountains of snow and ice all the way! i think we spent most of the time of the trip on the bus driving from a place to another. Nevertheless, the waterfalls were really beautiful and shocking at the same time! there sure is an abundance of snow there! Iceland is also called the land of fire and ice as it is filled with ice (duh) and volcanoes too! I remember theres this place in some documentary that talked about the place where lava meets ice, where you have molten lava plunging into the icy waters...it could be iceland i guess! one thing's for sure is that there is a diving spot where you can dive between two tectonic plates? YES iceland is the place! we saw the spot, but didnt dive!

The tour package was a really relaxing one with zero activities i believe? So our tour group had mainly older people.... i really thought it would be a good opprotunity to make friend with fellow teens, like what i did in my trip to Finland but nope!! it was pretty much just brother and I. The other two girls from another family were my age> but they were just too quiet and reserved >.< nevertheless, it was still a fun trip though!! as mentioned in previous post, i travelled with Dynasty travels and it was a slacking sort of itinerary, they dont pack it all up like chan brothers. Personally, i prefer to travel on a slackish holiday instead of one filled with deadlines and all. personal preference! ironically, dynasty travel packages are also on the high side; should have seen the hole in mum's wallet when she came out of the travel agency man!

#funfact101: i only took 2000 photos or so for this trip...


So first look at iceland!! wow and i remember when i was young, that greenland has lots of ice and iceland has lots of greens hmmm..... even the airport is filled with snow :D but less than finland i must say..



First look at the airport~ everythign is pretty simple i would say, no fancy decorations or whatsoever.


aaaand.... this is iceland's airport!? you can see little bits of snow around me, but actually theres a TON of snow at where i am actually looking at! :P the temperature was about -5 to -15 degrees so it aint too bad..?

Although snow here seems to be...taking up quite a big portion. here is a shot in the bus when we were on the roads, at a junction, this woman stopped and bruhed the snow off her windscreen before continuing with the drive which i found pretty cool huh! at this point in time, i was still pretty much in a daze. It's like in my mind, i am going "okay this is iceland, i am in iceland. what am i doing here? i dont know. oh right family trip" Somehow i just felt so tired and lost! although i definitely did have ample rest beforehand! i just kinda wasn't "prepared" for this trip while i was slacking my holidays away.



After a crazy long drive, we finally reached out hotel!! i think it was a 4 hour drive or something like that...i only remember dozing off later in the bus while the tour leader was telling us about iceland! like the statistics for population, etc etc. felt like i was in a lecture for sure!


see? its so nice that you have others looking at the ceiling too okay! what i like is that with the ceiling overhead, it feels pretty much like as though it was a few buildings joined together by this glass roof/contraption which makes it really cool!! i absolutely love this kind of architecture, and doing so really makes the place feel a whole lot more spacious!


Dinners at iceland are really REALLY good. i was shocked by just how soft the meat is! and for the record, the food here really tastes VERY different back home. like even though they serve salmon, it's taste varies slightly from that in singapore. You dont get chicken meat here either, instead you have turkey. pork here is like WOAH HEAVEN. you have huge huge chunks of pork to eat and mind you, they're tender! usually in singapore, you always end up getting really small chunks or slices of pork that is overcooked-hard. here, its really tender and you can really dig in because its literally a fist-size amount of pork at once (sometimes)! best part? its a buffet MUAHAHAH erm then again, this is hotel restaurant food so obviously it tends to be much better than the usual food you will get from the streets eh?


I shall leave you with some pictures of the food that we had for lots of days!








You can imagine how fat bro and i have become especially when this is a buffet!! so we usually go for like 3 rounds of food :P which was so yummy!! erm took really little potatoes, just spammed the meat like nobody's business. Especially when its the first time you have a buffet for a long while, wohoo!

This is our first try at northern lights, although it failed really badly! like we couldnt even see a thing...we had 2 hours on this boat, an hour was spent waiting for it, so bro and i split the remaining hour to take stupid photos and play cards at the bottom!



Well if you've seen the video of my trip, you would have seen our stupid poses and all for the northern lights! well here's where it started i guess xD always anyhow posing around, doing stupid things, but that's what makes the trip more fun! Hidden inside bro's jacket, is a bottle of jaegermeister heh heh heh :P



There are seats inside for us to sit around and chill, i guess that's all you can do here when there's really nothing in the skies! neither can you see any whales in the sea now...so we just pretty much slacked off into the night!



This night i remember was particularly drowsy, we stayed out until it was like 12am? before reaching back into the hotel and resting up. It was supposed to be the longest night for the trip! but it was pretty alright, afterall, i spent the time chatting with the other tour group people, getting to know them better too :) it still feels kinda mmmmm half half at this point in time as we didnt get to see the northern lights, and so far, we have yet to see any daylight for iceland! There's only a good 4 hours of daylight a day during winter in iceland though! :) once it's past 2.20pm, the sky is usually like our evening skies ar 7pm i would say. yknow what? i'll just do a day by day post...it kinda makes more sense -.- that way i can go more in depth! i'll prolly do 2 days at once at times i guess!