Time to say goodbye to SINGAPORE

After having posted 49 posts on my blog during the last 6 months, it is time to post the 50th and final one: it is time to say goodbye. My time in Singapore is over - I spent 178 fantastic days here - studying, travelling, working and so much more.

The last six months were definitely one time of my life and I am so thankful for everything I experienced here. I have seen lots of fantastic countries in Asia and met so many great people during my time in Asia and I want to thank all of you, who were part of it.

This is how we came to Singapore on 27th December 2006 ...

Tessa, Jaqui and me ... exhausted from the trip
... with our luggage

And that is how we are leaving, in June 2007:
... with a 20 kg box to send home and many more thing to take home - but I am not only taking clothes, shoes and bags, but more importantly I am leaving Singapore taking lots of new experiences, friendships and opinions with me!
Thank you Singapore and see you again!

Saying goodbye to Brotzeit - a great team!

After Tessa and I worked at Brotzeit - the German restaurant in Singapore - and tried nearly all the food and different types of beers for almost two months, we had to say goodbye to all of the nice people there. Of course we needed to have a farewell party and in the end we even had two :)
Goodbye Lynn and Haida ...
Goodbye Jasren, Zulis and Sairul ...
Goodbye Sunil, Deepak, Yanti, Aho, Sairul and Lynn ...
Goodbye Deepak, Sunil and Yanti ...

Goodbye Kodi and Neet - the beautiful couple ...
Goodbye Nasir and Yanti ...
Goodbye Neeraj, Nasir and Xiao Yu ...
Goodbye to the kitchen crew and Chef Hans ...
Goodbye Caster, Neeraj, Sunil, Deepak and Amrit ...Goodbye and thank you to all of you: Sairul, Nasir, Martin, Audra, Sulaimann, Kodi, Neet, Lynn, Caster, Zulis, Sharin, Hans, Yanti, Jasren, Fariz, Deepak M. & S., Sunil, Neeraj, Raju, Amrit, Rukesh, Iskander, Haida, Bishnu, Aho and the whole kitchen crew.
We enjoyed working at Brotzeit as the Olsen twins ;) It was great working with you and getting to know you all! Take care and auf Wiedersehen!

Vietnam

Finally, I'm also putting the pictures from my trip to Vietnam on my blog - 2 weeks from North to South. I was travelling by myself, but on the way I met many interesting people to share so many impressive moments together in Vietnam.

Hanoi ...

Trekking in Sapa (2 km from the Chinese border).

My friend - a woman from a hill tribe ...

This place is known for the many beautiful rice terraces ...

After Sapa I continued to Halong Bay - one of the most fascinating places in Vietnam. I stayed on a boat for the night ...

... on the way we also visited some caves

And in the evening we challenged the karaoke machine on the boat ... we sang English as well as Austrian and Australian songs :)

After I selpt on the night train from Hanoi, which took 16 hours, I arrived in Hoi An - a very romantic little town.

On the river ...

There I attended a cooking class, which was fantastic! First, we went to the market, to buy the food we needed ...

Afterwards, we started cooking and that is one of the dishes ...
... and my decoration

The next stop was China Beach ...

Erin, Laura and me
The final stop was Saigon - HCMC.

I visited the Cu Chi Tunnels - where the Vietcong had hidden and fought against the Americans during the war. They had built and lived in these tunnels in the ground - amazing how small these tunnels are if you imagine that there were around 16,000 people living in them!Traffic in HCMC!
In the Mekong Delta ...Farewell-Dinner with the "Aussie Chicks" :) I meet them now and again along the way and we had a great time together in Halong Bay and in HCMC.

Marathon in Singapore - EATING (27/05/07-29/05/07)

Since we are both leaving Singapore soon, we were trying to catch up with the local food here in Singapore during the last couple of days. Xiao Yu and Maresa were very nice and joined us showing us different places to eat and different dishes ...

We started off on Sunday night with different seafood dishes and lime juice :)

Afterwards we shared some Chinese deserts ...

A "nice" dish made of the womb of frogs ... yummie! (Apparently it is very healthy ...)
On Monday the marathon continued.
In order to digest our food better, we drank lots of Chinese tea ...Inbetween we needed some Western food again. Fortunately, our Italian flatmate Savina cooked some real Italian Lasagne - wow that was great!
Having the lasagne with the two Italian girls :)
As Xiao Yu and Maresa miss the Austrian food so much, we also went to Brotzeit to have some real Austrian food. We were sitting outside where we could enjoy the beautiful view on Sentosa ...
The all-time favourite PORK KNUCKLES (Schweinshaxen) :)
A lot of Chinese people come to try this dish. We, however, prefer the Käsespätzle as well as the Käsekrainer - these are of course accompanied by a real Radler (mix of beer and Sprite)
The marathon came to an end on Tuesday: We went to Geylang.
Geylang is the Redlight-District in Singapore. There they also sell very typical food and of course we also went there to try some dishes, we have never tried before ...

Here you see Tessa and me eating meat - in fact, it is FROG!And this is what the frog stew looks like :)

The four of us enjoying the new tastes ...

Even more frogs available ...

The food marathon continues ...

Some egg pies - quite sweet

And finally the desert - Soy milk in different variations together with a fried something ...

Tessa and me evaluating the tastes ...

While Xiao Yu and Maresa are playing around with the chopsticks ...

So these last couple of days we tried many different dishes and got to know new tastes. Thank you Xiao Yu and Maresa for showing us around :)

Nevertheless, some exercise will be necessary during the next days so that is where you will find us :)

And that is also a nice place to be as it is getting hotter and hotter in Singapore!