back from tromsø & london!!

ok so many weird/funny/crazy things have happened the past few days.

1) cut my hair MYSELF today AND it actually looks decent and it saved me 24 € so i'm quite happy with it. same hairstyle, just shorter. perhaps, if finance doesn't work out i can always try hairdressing! i dunno, perhaps exchange has made me more wackier (and impulsive)? i also did xingyan's fringe and made her look かわいい but she says she's not used to it *sobs* hee.

2) just came back from tromsø for the purpose of catching northern lights, and desperate from the fact that we didn't see it the first 2 days, guess what the three of us (xiuli, xingy & me) did? you'll never believe it. since the helpers from the tourist centre suggested we try going to the street behind the tromso museum (the other end of the island which seemed very far away on the map but is only a 15 minutes bus ride away), we actually took (i wont say steal as we returned it!) comforters from the beds in our room and camped at that area, ON THE SNOWY ICE about 3 feet thick for nearly 4 HOURS waiting for the northern lights. 

obviously it didn't show as the clouds started piling up in the sky BUT there was a consolation! i saw my first shooting star, but my wish wasn't granted so i'm still a little disgruntled ehehe. Nearly froze to death, by the way. i was wearing my thin black boots (which had a good grip), but the 2 layers of socks were not enough to protect my poor toes. At the end of the trip, we were cold, grumpy, and we found out that our comforters & mat taken from the hostel were frozen as the snow had melted into ice by the heat emitted from our butts. It was super hilarious la. Below is the picture of the evidence from our mini adventure:

3) hmm, what else can i recall? oh yes. WALKING ACROSS THE BRIDGE TOWARDS ARCTIC CATHEDRAL. i don't have an actual photo to show you the blistering wind we braved through as my camera battery had died out and i wanted to save my other one for northern lights (which didn't appear). the journey there looked short but THAT WAS A LIE!! it was long and arduous and the wind just kept blowing and blowing and blowing. Especially when we got to the middle of the bridge which was facing the strait. If i stood still, i swear that i could have been blown away! Thank goodness for the metal bars surrounding the bridge - what a lifesaver. Albeit that, it didn't mean that my hands and toes didn't feel cold. Those poor little things... BUT on the bright side, it was good exercise, and fun! Reminded me of rainbow bridge in Japan that Dad made us cross during winter. But in this case, it is IN the arctic circle! brrrr.

4) Okay this doesn't really count as wacky, just that it was my first & super fun experience: dog sledding AND skiing, first and second day respectively. Let's talk about dog sledding first. In our quest to seek the northern lights, we paid 1,220KRO for the dog sledding and a hot meal. Although dearest Miss Northern Lights didn't make an appearance despite the relatively clear sky (apparently it was magnificent the previous day & we missed it since we were in london), we had lotsa fun doing the dog sledding. Altogether, there were 12 dogs pulling about 500 kg of us including the heavy suits we donned + the driver of the sled and man, those dogs sure had good exercise. There was especially 1 dog that we noted, right in front of us (a white husky) which had regular peeing intervals. heehee. Plus, their butts kept shaking!

After our dog sledding and patting the 300 dogs on the compound + carrying this baby husky which was so cute & cold it was shivering, we proceeded to our hot meal: reindeer meat. Yes, I was shocked too but it actually tasted pretty good - like mutton meat and soup for the stew. 

It was dark so I couldn't see what I was eating. But looking at my photo, I must say that the portion is so little, should have asked for more! 

Item 2: Skiing. I really really really enjoyed it! The skii instructor was nice too, we decided to hire him to bring us to see northern lights that night too, but instead, we met with a snowstorm. Really, we had no fate with Ms Aurora Boreallis. Well, what made it enjoyable was that I didn't fall after skiing down 2 steep slopes, but towards the last part, my balance got the best of me and I fell while meandering down this windy slope. I found out that falling down was actually fun & part of the experience! hahaha. It didn't hurt one bit! 

Yup, so I guess those were the highlights of our tromsø trip. Shall update you on london - WAH: 4.95 pounds chinese buffet, sainsbury & primark - i love london!