What the ...?????

Check this out:

Worshipping - the traditional and the modern way

Bangkok - being one of the religiously most active cities of the world - is an ideal place to explore places of worship, both traditional and modern ones :) Starting the day with a ride on the river after which Bangkok was once named "Venice of the East", the Mae Nam Chao Phraya, I chose to take the traditional way first. Amazing, golden, emerald, indigo, ruby-red sparkling Temple of the Emerald Buddha took my breath away with its thousands oft glittering buildings, statues, chapels, small temples, big temples...followed by Wat Pho with its stunning 15 m long reclined Buddha - yes, photos follow as soon as I'm back in S'pore - golden, smiling, peaceful...
And then Bangkok's second-most famous places of worship - shopping centers, markets, stalls full of cheap and cheaper clothes, souvenirs, accessoires, clothes, shoes, vegetables, buddha statues, food, fish, fruit - everything you can dream of and more...coming back exhausted with hands full of plastic bags filled with clothes (yes, I know ;)) and a mind and a heart full of colourful, overwhelming memories...

Bangkok - city of the cities...

Yeah, I arrived in Bangkok, stunned by the temples of Angkor, overwhelmed by the differences and similarities of this most famous, most mysterical, most legendary city of Asia with Sao Paulo - liveliness, chaos, narrow streets, big streets, highways, people, people, people, food, markets, street stalls, food, chaos, atmosphere - what an atmosphere!

Angkor Wat - Temples, Temples, Temples

Just a few short lines from Cambodia - photos and long post when I'm back in S'pore! Arrived, hostel is great, temples are amazing, weather is okay, day after tomorrow I'm off to Bangkok :)

I miss u all.

I saw NEMO!

Yeaaah, I just came back from my trip to Tioman (amazing Malaysian island, almost as beautiful as Ilha Grande in Brazil!) - and it was just great!! 

I took my SCUBA-diving license there - three days with five dives and loads of theoretical stuff...at the beginning, I didn't really like the feeling under water, I felt quite uncomfortable, but on the seco

nd day I started to get into it and yesterday was just BEAUTIFU

L and AMAZING! 

We did a fun dive to a small island with a coral reef and saw octopus, turtle, loaaaads of really colourful fish and 

NEMOS! yeah, small clownfish - sooo cute!

I hope I can get some of the pictures we took and upload them here :) 

And yeah, I got some!

Diving Buddy I:

Diving Buddy II:

Diving Crew:

And - only three more days and I'm on the road again! Thursday morning I'm flying to Cambodia to see the temples of Angkor Wat till Sunday, then Siem Reap - Bangkok, a few days in Bangkok and then probably the train Bangkok - Butterworth - KL - Singapore, which will take more or less 2.5 days :) 

Random thoughts during class.

Yes, now I'm sitting here in CRC 1 (or something like that) in a reeeeaally interesting lecture - well, to be honest: It is quite interesting, especially when I tell myself that it is reeeeaally useful for my thesis next year ;). It's called marketing theory and research and is about how to interpret and use research papers. Actually quite challenging intellectually - most of the times ;)

So the ones who know me and who know how I'm studying: Yes, as usually I occupy three tables with 

- my notes

- laptop

- drink (still pineapple juice, not yet coffee ;))

- glasses

- pens

- more notes

- articles

- more notes 

- NO chocolate (and I'm proud of that!)

and YES, I'm sitting in the last row ;) (dedicated to Chris, I miss u girl!)

Okay, apart from the start in a new working week, what happened last week (I hope that at least one lonely soul reads this article):

- wed: GREAT housewarming party (see below) 

- thu: work work work. met my deadline. yay

 :) but I missed Capoeira :(

- fri: not much.

- sat: not much. lecture from 12 - 3 :(. not much.

- sun: study. and, second highlight of the week: Capoeira on Sentosa! I really enjoyed it, I'm really getting into Capoeira! Hope to find a good Capoeira class in Koblenz when I come back (I guess in Valler this should be hard, don't know if some of the elder ppl living there are interested in Afro-Brazilian martial arts ;))

Below a picture of Sentosa:

So, for this week there are quite a few exciting things I'm looking forward to:

Tonight I'm going to Wala-Wala, a bar in Holland Village, with a decent live band on Mondays.

Tomorrow Capoeira class again. 

On Wednesday, my great buddy Ian is taking us out for the Chinese Mooncake Festival to let us try original Mooncakes :) and afterwards probably going out for Ladies Night. 

Thursday Capoeira again. 

And Friday morning the absolute highlight: I'm leaving for Tioman (a Malaysian island) to get my diving license! A three-days-course with some pretty nice ppl, loads of fun and water :)

Again - I miss you all and am looking forward to see you again - in only about 2.5 months, time runs...

Hugs and Kisses!

Housewarming Paaaarty

Yay, finally we did it, we threw our HOUSEWARMING PARTY! "We" by the way, that's (from left to right): Ashima, Mona, Karin, me and Sandra. 

It was really great, we invited a bunch of people, around 40 - and almost everyone showed up!! We enjoyed it so much, talking to sooo many knew people, getting to know so many interesting people, drinking, dancing, talking again, listening to the music - we had a great time! (And if anyone who attended our party reads this: We hope you had a great time, too!!)

Wanderlust + Homesickness.

Yeah, I have to admit it, it finally struck me: the well-known 5-weeks-foreign-country-homesickness. Already had it in Brazil, so it's a bit better this time, nevertheless do I miss my family and friends really much this week...

I have so much to do - both for Uni as well as for my texting job - that I can't really think about it, but it still leaves a bad feeling. And you all know that going to bed and waking up with a bad feeling is not a very nice thing! 

Nevertheless, I'm still happy to be here and I know that it takes just a few more days to get over it :) In the meantime, let me show you some photos of our trip to Bintan!