Introduced to Breda

A long time coming, but here it is! Text about studying in the Netherlands. I will be splitting these to three seperate posts:
Introduced to Breda - where I'll go through first impressions and arrival.
Studies - where I'll talk about... well, studying in NHTV.
On and Off the Land - where I'll talk about how my everyday life came to be in the country, and about leaving.

As my one and a half day vacation in Finland was drawn to a close, it was time to leave for the Netherlands. Vacation in a vague sense since it was simply meeting up with family and friends and then preparing for the next stop. Printing papers, sending emails and setting up my new laptop and so forth. Managed to haggle a brand new 80 euro suitcase down to 50 euros, so that was neat.
Barely rested, I climbed in a plane brandishing the Finnair insignia. I had to pay a little extra due to my heavy luggage, but that is fine. Teemu and I took the same flight to make things easier for the both of us. We took off, landed in a few hours and everything worked out fine. The next phase was to get ourselves from Amsterdam to Breda. We took a train right from the airport and it didn't take too long to get ourselves to our destination. The landscape and architecture looks... well, European. All in all the place feels a lot like a flat version of Finland.
We made way towards Alleewonen, our landlord for the duration, to sign our contracts and get our keys. It was just a short walk away, but the heavy luggage made that journey feel longer than it was. It didn't help that some companies resided in buildings that resemble residence and we weren't sure what was a store, what was an office and what was a house. We met with a few other students going to study games while at the office, and to my surprise there were a few from Finland. Jyväskylä, to be precise. After a while of discussion, contract signing and queries we got ourselves a taxi and took off to our lodging.

The humble abode

Tired and hungry, I started to inspect my room and the house in general while greeting our two rommates for the duration of our stay. The toilet is bizarre, and appears to be almost a joke made by an engineer. It's comfortable and all, but the design is just confusing. Seems this model is quite common here.
I went to rest after putting my things in their place. The next days I would spend in starvation while trying to find a store. In the end Teemu managed to get us the most vital of lifelines: ethernet cables. Finally I could check for nearby stores without interacting with people by asking directions (which I ended up doing anyway). People in the Netherlands are no strangers to speaking English, and the dialect seems commonly fluid. The next challenge appeared after picking a large selection of goods from the very nice selection as I approached the cashier of the grocery store. I packed my things and I was told the price I would need to pay. I handed cash, and to my surprise this was not in effect that day (I found later to be able to pay with cash at this same place). I offered my debit card, and that too would prove useless. I was instructed to move to a counter near the cashier for payment after a manager was called. I humbly accepted defeat and apologized. I managed to pay in the end, succesfully avoiding starvation.
The next step would be to furnish the house and rooms further. Thus it would be time to go to a place very alien to all Nordic citizens: Ikea. From our lodging it is a five minutes' cycle away, and a good place to get all the basic goods you would need.

As the few first weeks rolled by, there were a few particular events before school started. I'll write about those below. Notes about getting a bike and going to ikea or lidl most likely aren't that intresting in the end. How ever it is worth noting that getting a bike would be highly recommended.
Now, one thing that needed to be settled was what I will actually be doing in school. There were a lot of communication errors and things needed to be made sure of. At first I was about to be placed on second year studies for half a year, which is a double whammy of wrong since I'll be here for one full year and I have no experience when it comes to 3D work. That got corrected with a meeting before the introduction days, and I got placed in the first year visual arts class for a full academic year.
Next off was the intro days where new info was given to all students, a few talks were listened to and a bit of fun was had. Onto a pub crawl to "get to know Breda." Later on there would be Camp Lost, a three day event for new students. I'll leave the details out but there was cheap beer, dancing, games and other pants-on-head grade fun stuff for three days straight. During this time my image of a flat, cheaper Finland grew stronger as sweets and foods in general seemed very similar. Although the Netherlands is a land of sandwiches. All in all I believe I will like it here.

Sami - Time to Go (A Post Long Overdue)

As of this writing I am already in the Netherlands. Have been for a few months half a year, in fact. More on that later. I'll have a final word about Singapore.

We received our diplomas without much of an issue, despite there being a misspelling in the first one we received. Finnish names tend to be difficult so that's not new, and it wasn't the first or funniest instance.

We would enjoy a few more meals and other activities before getting ready to head home. The engineers would stay a few days longer than us.

I'm going to throw a short thank you to everyone I met during my time there. This includes every time any of us was taken somewhere and whenever we got to an event we wouldn't have known of otherwise. Thank you for the hospitality and friendly demeanor. Thanks for an excellent experience. And special thanks as well as apologies to my team for putting up with me and my small breakdowns.

Me and Teemu were accompanied by a few fellow flatmates as BG would take us to the airport. Had some coffee while saying goodbye. There was a minor hassle that was cleared up without any issue and we found our gate pretty quickly. The long flights back were around the same as they were when getting to Singapore, so no big complaints.

I had just enough time to say hello to family and friends, as well as shop for anything important before moving on to my next destination. I spent one and a half days in Finland after Singapore.

Sami - Towards the Last Days

It is soon time to depart from Singapore. There's about a week left, but I have already started to make preparations to be ready for my trip back to Finland. It's been an experience I am not likely to forget any time soon. Practically everything is different here when comparing to home, from traffic to architecture, nature, how you queue in line and how communication works.
Speaking of which, something rather amusing. There was quite a long span of time when we had no idea what to do with rent. Two months in we were informed of how it can work and got our bill for the first two months, but even then we needed to do some questioning with the company. And we noticed uncertainty there as well. It basically seemed like everyone knew we needed to get this rent paid, but no one knew how, including the company we needed to pay.

Anyway. The thought that I have mere two days in Finland before I move on to my next destination is very stressful, But I'm sure it'll be alright even if I don't have much time. More on that later.

A house at a beach

Social interaction with the locals lead to us being invited for food at a local student's place. That is our flat as well as the French game project students from one floor above. Her family would cook for us and we could take a look at the nearby beach and play games.

While eating out over at food courts is great, I've always thought that home made food is best, no matter where you are. And this was no exception, the dishes were really good. Something that resembled a spicy, sweet version of Karelian stew, rice, beans, chicken curry, chicken wings, among other goods and a dessert that tasted like traditional Finnish apple pie with the addition of vanilla ice cream.

I am very thankful for the cooking and hospitality, it was incredible to visit. The house was very nice too, and clear that a lot of time and funding was put into it's construction and decoration. Our host mentioned a collection of plates on one wall, and talked a bit of history about them. All in all, those thirty or so plates were most likely worth more than all my life expenses put together.

We headed for the beach. Being a person from a land with over a hundred thousand lakes, the sand and beach itself didn't interest me as much as the scenery itself. I decided to stand ground and look around, enjoying the slowly changing lighting, the clouds which act a bit differently to Finland, at least upon my observation. Watching air planes show how deceivingly close the clouds are as they flew between the giant formations. Seeing the sun slowly rest itself behind rippled clouds and the silhouette created by palm trees.

We ended the day with chatting and a few different card games. On our way back us Finns and the French students talked about our languages. Both having their subtleties that seemed peculiar to the other side.

Truckin' again

One day BG suggested we head for lunch outside school on his truck. A bunch of us agreed, even though the break ended up taking a bit long. Showed us a food court that has some very nice noodles served on banana leaves. Included prawns, squid and pork with a noodle and egg mixture, on which you would squeeze a lime to add flavour. Had some grass jelly as well. Similar to jolly in texture, mildly fruity in flavour.

Another day I and Teo would venture with BG and his girlfriend on another after-school adventure. Had more barbeque which included squid, cockles, stingray, chicken among other things. One peculiar new flavor was something they called "smelly bean" which lived up to it's name. The bizarre thing was that it didn't smell at first and it tasted like a mild bean, but once you had eaten it, a strange smell would rise up to your nose. Not bad, but not a fan either. Definitely something to experience.

After my humongous failure to pay BG back in a more fair manner, he saw through my bluff and punished my soul by walking in a bakery and buying something. He bought two green cubes that had a cold exterior, and a mushy interior. I tried to pay for these as well, but he would reject my offering. In addition, he bought a moon cake which I would split with my flatmates later on.

Non-European movie going experience

We decided to head for a cinema to watch the newly released Shingeki no Kyojin film. Or as some would know it better as, Attack on Titan. This film apparently will not see a release in Europe at all, at least a cinematic release. Not going to spoil the film, but lets say the experience wasn't much different from Finnish cinema. I guess I got lucky, as Teo and Jussi, the two engineers I went with, had experienced literally ear-shattering cinema experiences earlier. This one didn't really live up to the quality of Finn Kino, but I wouldn't say the quality was bad. Some people reacted to things happening in the film rather strongly as well, which would be unheard of in Finland.

Sami - Birthday

Time has passed yet again and it's time to put some text up in here. It has been a while, so there is quite a bit to write about.

As far as the project goes, some issues regarding communication have been apparent, and that has been an ongoing issue when it comes to my work. It has been demotivating, and so I tend to stick to my own things while trying to keep up with what needs to be done to the best of my ability.
A lot of my focus has been put into the UI of the game, and I've needed to inquire about changes that may have happened instead of actually being informed of changes. As for texturing, some of that has gone smoothly and the assets have been added. Some things have required reworking, but it seems the base is fine in most cases.

Free time

All in all it's been true that the free time here has been far more interesting than school. Even though I have no laptop of my own and idle time at the apartment would be wasted by sitting around thinking about things, there tend to be things that come up and keep me occupied. Whenever I am idle however, there are a few ways I spend that time. Thinking about life in general, my past experiences, fear for the future and the somewhat unreal realization that I am across the globe from my home are things that appear in my head when I take time to rest. That or I play Monster Hunter or enjoy animated shows with my flatmates.

I have also decided to spend some Saturdays at least partially in school to draw and study if it precedes some plans. To keep myself active and motivated.

I and Jussi went to a nearby arcade. Very cool experience, plenty of games available only in Asia. Mostly racing, rhythm based or light gun shooter games. King of Fighters and Metal Slug 4 appeared as a few rare gems of genre breaking pieces, as well as a single pinball machine. A few games to mention. There was a boxed in shooter with a horror theme. Sadly I can't remember the name. It had plenty of jumpscares and the seat would shake or wind would be blown to your face or sides when something happened.
Another was a mix of genres I haven't encountered before: A rhythm based light gun shooter, where you'd shoot things on screen in the rhythm of music. Everything was in Japanese so I couldn't tell you the name since I can't read those signs. Enjoyed the game plenty though.
The place was not coin operated, but instead used top-up cards. Deceiving in a way since it's much faster to use, and you tend to put more into your card's balance.

Catering pt.2

We had a repeat of the former weekend. We decided to cook more for the locals and rouse up more conversation. We made macaroni casserole this time, Since serving it was easier and it was all mixed in, this dish was a lot more popular despite being a bit too lacking in salt for a Finn. Sadly, BG could not attend, but quite a few people came by. Chatting about various things and possible plans for days to come. All in all, getting to know folks a little better.

Later on during the evening we were visited by some more students and also got gifts. There's some celebrations going on overall, so we were gifted some tidbits suitable for dessert. Flavours both familiar and new, mostly on the sweet side.

One evening an engineer asked everyone a strange question. His tone seemed akin to random bouts of madness, as is common for engineers. I needed to request him to repeat himself many times due to my confusion, something about termites and smoke. After about the twentieth attempt, I understood what he meant. A student invited anyone willing over to take care of some driftwood she found and wanted for herself. Without wondering about their motivation, I joined in.

I, Aleksi the mad engineer and Teo joined in with two students. The initial plan was to smoke any termites out. With some really lacking tools, the idea was doomed from the start, and we sought for an alternative. As we are speaking of driftwood, water is no issue. So we went to drown the piece in a fountain and stuck there for quite a while. An hour or so, I'd say. We spoke about this and that, sharing myths, legends and stories as well as talking about tv-shows among other things.

SG50, first day

We learned that Singapore's 50th birthday would be celebrated throughout a week including both weekends, with the first and last days being the busiest. BG Invited me, Teo and Teemu for a barbeque, and the selection was better than last time. We spent many hours eating and drinking, enjoying crayfish, prawn, squid, salmon, saba, mutton, chicken, beef, pork, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and noodles with a selection of soft drinks and a 70 dollar personal tap of beer. A great feast to say the least, with the intention to eat until we would be kicked out. That did not happen in the end, but we'd leave on our own terms and with a full stomach.

Might I add that Marina Bay, the area we were at, resembled Jurassic Park mixed in with a sci-fi feel. Mixture of exotic vegetation, cars going about giving tours with automated robotic voices, giant metal structures made to resemble trees, a boat-like spaceship-esque structure on top of three towers which were far larger than I imagined when I first saw them probably kilometres away, and a giant dome of glass and a network of pipes. Truly a sight to behold.

Either way, we left to lie down in an open grass field, since soon there would be fireworks. The whole thing lasted about half an hour. They gave teasers of the show to come, and finally the sky lit up in bright colours for five minutes straight.

After this unique view, we headed home. Public transport and roads were absolutely stuffed with people, and we even saw large queues for elevators. I have never been in such a busy area, navigation was difficult. In the end we entered a large mall beneath the boat spaceship, and I was struck with some vertigo. My travelmates took a few jabs at me with this, daring me to look down at what looked like a maze of platforms on different levels. In the end we got ourselves a taxi cab and got home safely.

Week of SG50, local experience

A new course was planned by a few flatmates. I, Teo and Teemu once again formed a group to head for Plaza Singapura in Dhoby Ghaut. A mall in there included stores that sparked my interest. Replica models of bladed and projectile weapons of both real and fictional origin. Lord of the Rings, God of War, ancient Japan and China, viking weapons as well as muskets, models of cannons and armour. Next to this were stores that included game merchandise and figurines. I was fooled to think that I had found the limit on lewd figurines to find, but one store included nude models as well. Censored with tape. Even still, kind of surprising to me since it seems such material is under some strict rules.

From one of these stores I found something I have been looking for a while, as well as things to bring back to my family back in Finland. I'm glad that I won't be going back completely empty-handed.

One day after school I, Teo and BG went for dinner at a nearby food court in And Mo Kio. BG said that I "hold chopsticks more Chinese than him." I guess it comes naturally to an extent. He also spoke about some plans about macaroni casserole, and that he'd want some since he had to skip last time. The agreement was done earlier, and we would now buy the missing ingredients. Ended up with some more premium things than before, including mozzarella and Danish blue cheese.

The final part of the Catering trilogy happened. The day arrived and we cooked for BG and his girlfriend, showing how we did it. I decided to write up a recipe in case he wants to try making it himself. The casserole was enjoyed by all, and right when the last plate was filled, some animation students visited. The literal words being "we are hungry and we heard a rumor that there's food here." The last plate was given to be shared by our two new guests.

Towards the end of the week aside having my Chinese name told to me by a fellow student (Secret-snake or Three-rice Company-strip-strength Book-weak-able), BG decided to take me and Teo for another adventure. This time we would be travelling in his pick up truck. One of those Mitsubishi mini pickups with a scaffolding on the back. The car sounded exactly like a beat up veteran of the roads should. We were sitting in front until BG's girlfriend joined. At this point I and Teo travelled in the back. This is what I meant by local experience on the title, as this seems fairly common in here. The windowless open view to the back and sides of the car really showed the modern beauty of the country. The planted trees and architecture, the open yards and the decorations. This illegal-in-Finland style of travel felt great.

We went to the East coast. More food. Stingray, shellfish, clams, chicken, mutton, squid and other delightful dishes. A good view and a dessert drink which I can't remember the name of was had while walking about the shore.

Later on after another trip on the back of the pickup, we went bowling and I suffered defeat each time. Good times were had, however.

At the end of the day I had to bitterly accept some more charity as I lost a battle of cancel-order against our guide. I didn't want a four-dollar ice tea but BG would have none of that.

It's bullshit.

Sami - Catering

It's been a while since I wrote last time. This is mostly due to laziness, but some things have happened during the last week as well.
For one, I've started to spend more of my free time (and sometimes project time) on drawing, trying to learn more since I've been procrastinating on my studies for quite a bit.
This is due to reading some posts by artists I admire, but also because I got around an art book shop with a project teammate of mine (A place called Basheer Graphic Books). Even though my wallet might not be so thankful, I must thank her for taking the time and choosing to take me there. There was a sale on some items so I didn't end up spending as much as I feared, although there was some temptation to get more books.

Futile Payback

In addition, mainly due to the generosity of a local friend of ours (one that I mentioned before. From now on referred to as Barbecue Guy or BG, in the same team as Teo the engineer.) we decided to host a party of sorts. He has bought us all kinds of things to the point of despair. Before his actions I didn't know a person can be destroyed by pure charity. Anyway, onto what we had in mind. We were thinking of cooking something Finnish for the locals. The recipe we ended up with was meatloaf with brown sauce served with potatoes and grated carrots, with a dessert of crepes with jam. The only problem was that our flat has no oven. Now, Barbecue Guy said it's no issue, that he has a smaller model oven he can borrow. We agreed.
The day of preparation arrived and tasks were shared. Three of us would go to the grocery store and two would clean up in the meantime. (One of us was away, over at Malaysia for a short period). Around 80 dollars worth of supplies were bought, slightly less than I had anticipated. Once I, Teemu and Toni returned from the shop, BG caught up to us with his car, bringing his oven. The timing was perfect, and Teemu grabbed it. To our dismay at the apartment, it turned out the oven was bought that day, under two hours ago as we found a receit on the box and the appliance was in enclosed packaging. I did not notice this since I didn't have a close look at it yet. Either way, he had one upped us by 50 dollars already, as the oven cost around 130 dollars.
Finally the day arrived (Thursday after school) and we all were anxious for one reason or the other. I was nervous due to two things: One being that we made some improvised decisions when it comes to ingredients and I hadn't cooked for a large amount of people in a long time, and the other because I had a feeling BG had something else up his sleeve.
Around ten people arrived to the flat that day. Local students, and one of the lecturers at NYP as well. We were prepared to cater for six or so. Not everyone ate though, so it wasn't an issue. There was enough food to go around, and while people waited Finnish drinks and snacks were offered. I was in charge of making the meat loaf, sauce and making sure the potatoes were cooked. Teemu prepared the grated carrots and helped me with the preparation of the meat loaf. Teo was in charge of dessert. Everything turned out fairly well despite some minor issues, as is natural for a group of people with Finnish intuition. Problems like removing a tray from the oven without oven mitts wouldn't be an issue.
People seemed pleased with the meatloaf especially. Some of the potatoes and carrot was thrown away. Our dessert seemed to please our guests as well. The reaction to Finnish drinks and sweets were mixed at best. Towards the evening BG had disappeared, apparently to have a smoke. He returned with a bunch of pizza, garlic bread and chicken wing drumsticks. Our plan to repay was wrecked in an instant, and we have given up on fighting generosity with generosity.

Friday (a day off due to Hari Raya Puasa) arrived and we decided to go to the barbecue place again. This time without BG, but with another group of locals. Chatting and sharing stories and jokes, the evening went really smoothly as we ate ourselves full. I didn't need food at all the next day, but had a small dish of noodles in the evening since we were traveling outside. During this time there was talk about planning to do something next weekend as well. Since we have an oven now and all. BG said he would grab it in the course of about a month, but I wouldn't count on that.

Sami - An Underground Guild

Over the course of the week we went through another presentation about our current situation on our project. To put it bluntly, a lot of work needs to be done. I got the task of working on the user interface, and the placeholders did not fit at all. A new version is in order and I am working on that. There's also the awaiting tasks of texturing which mean I'll need to get back to the dirt. Getting the UI to a good status is a little difficult since there's still decisions to be made about it and there's a bit of difficulty when it comes to communication.

The week's off-project time brought it's own delights. Teo, an engineer from our flat and from another project group invited me to have lunch with his team. Aleksi and Toni would also join us. A warning was shared: We'd need more than an hour for lunch. I saw no issue with this, I'd just work overtime.
I was lead to a neighboring school campus, a short stroll away. There a local friend of Teo (not the same as the person who got us to try durian) was picking a place for us to go, and seemed to have an idea after doubting his first spotted culinary sanctuary. We entered a place that upon first observation seemed strange to me. All the tables had metal plating on the middle and some sort of smoke flue hanging over them. Our local guide would do the talking and in a moment I learned what this place was about:
It was a type of all-you-can-eat restaurant, and the buffet table had all kinds of goods: Salads, vegetables, sauces, fish, prawn, squid, chicken, pork, beef... One thing though: the meat was all raw. We would go grab as much as we can and take a seat to a table, and the metal plate revealed a grill on the middle. We would cook all these marinated goods ourselves.
This was excellent all in all. This was another take back to how I'd spend some of the summer in Finland. The difference here being that we were indoors. Plus we didn't pay much for it thanks to our local friend's charitable nature. We spent a good one and a half hours there, filling ourselves up. A thought kept coming up to me: It's a shame this would never work in Finland. Would be nice to see something like this though. Maybe there is and I've been living under the rock residing under a bigger rock.

As was mentioned before by Teemu, we had something else this weeks as well. On a later day, Teemu and Toni informed me that there would be another event where wizards would test their strength: MTG Origins prerelease. We set off to the wilderness where this gathering would happen, and the trek was long. We walked endlessly in the wild forest as earlier conquerors looked down upon us from their trees of glass and metal. I was at the rear as the slowest member of the group, and I had to keep up my pace. We faced a stray canine beast, but after it realized it was outnumbered, it backed away. Might have also been the fact that I reeked of death at this point.
We walked for one and a half hours to reach our goal. We saw a large building of stone, and set off to find the entrance to the guild entrance. I was drenched and feared it would pose an issue, but we found that our goal stood under the building, in a carved cave which already smelled of past duels between wizards. Thus I would fit right in.
The event begun at midnight, and the battles seemed to be in my favor at start, but it soon dawned upon me that my provided spells would prove to be futile towards the end.
As the trek back would've been horrid at four o'clock in the morning, we decided to hail a magical carpet that would fly us home for a fee.
Sadly I was too tired to join a later adventure that weekend, but there'll certainly be another chance another day.

Sami - Wizard Battle Royale

I was quite keen to get myself to a Magic: the Gathering event after such a long time. The last time I did anything of the sort was when I played in FNM during RTR. Excuse my lingo there, sages know what I speak of.
I prepared myself for the upcoming battles in the side events as I, Teemu, and a few engineers made our way to the familiar locale of the Expo Hall, although this place was a lot more expansive than I originally thought. I wouldn't be taking part in the main event, for my inventory was not complete and I knew that the lines were filled by the greatest of wizards from Singapore and elsewhere. After quite a distance indoors we would start seeing people trading their spell scrolls. We had arrived. Plans were made to show the might of European planeswalkers in a trio team Sealed match, where we'd have a shared pool of cards to build our inventory from. The time for that wasn't now, however. I settled to destroy my eastern opposition in a game of four-way Commander. This showed that mana flows differently here, as the game turned into a 3v1 game against the strongest among the wizards. The battle was harsh and fate was sealed, and despite my vain attempts to destroy his library of spells, I fell.
How ever, in the trio match I had more luck. I managed to defeat two of my three opponents. My arcane brethren weren't so lucky, as they fell before their superior foes. The break in between matches due to the team total score was an experience in it's own way as we went a bit further away for food (We got two free rounds and could have a break at that time). We needed to be back in 50 minutes time. Had a spicy Korean seafood soup. My meal choice was poor since I needed to eat in a hurry. Again I would sweat like there was no tomorrow. I have to make note that this particular place had forks and spoons in use, and to my dismay I realized that eating with these utensils had become more difficult as I have gotten used to chopsticks. I had to find these eastern standard tools in order to finish my meal in time.
I also played a match of Draft on Sunday after drifting about in a mall with my comrades. The way that was played was a brutal single elimination: You lose, you're out. I managed to stay in for one round as I overran my opponent, but afterwards I was utterly destroyed.
Aside the battles there was merchandise to buy, but due to the price tags I settled for some Commander-suitable single cards. I also traded with some locals, including someone who recognized me from CharaExpo. I guess I do stand out like a sore thumb.
To my surprise once I got home Sunday, one of the engineers had taken upon themselves to buy a board game. XCOM. We would be playing that quite a bit on our free time I'm sure.

Another Week Begins

After the flowing mana became dormant again, another week begins. I hear rumors of broken promises and plans that may or may not go awry when it comes to a trip to Hong Kong that was being orchestrated. I wasn't planning on taking that route due to having enough on my hands and due to spending quite a bit already. All the while I am still focusing on modular tile texturing.
Due to the sudden changes in the plan to venture forth within the eastern world with our new acquaintance, I have yet to have a taste of tortoise flesh. How ever, this week I managed to grasp a treat originating from India thanks to an earlier exchange student reminding me of it. He had mentioned it before I left for Singapore.
Murtabak. I'd describe it as a filled pancake folded during the cooking process. It contains onion, spices and a meat of your choosing. Chicken and mutton seems quite common in this area. You are also given a dip sauce, which has a flavor I'd simply call delicious with this combination. I guess it is a type of curry gravy flavored with some herbs. You tear away pieces from your pancake sandwich pizza thing and dip it into the sauce. Left over scraps are easily dipped with the help of a spoon so not much is left on the plate.

I decided to throw away my winter coat of many years and take a swim in the campus pool area. It is a good place to go, although I do not know what time would be best. I went with an engineer when the sun had already set in order to cause terror when two Finns destroy the area with their utter ignorance. However my partner in crime had already gone to the pool a few times, and there weren't that many people. Could swim in peace and the ignorance was already dealt with before. Will definitely do that every now and then from now on, perhaps take a look at the Shower of Bees, a legend told by the engineer.
I hope that later this week I'd have a chance to be taken for a trip by the Expo Sage of the East as was said prior. But there is no certainty about the state of vehicular repairs right now. Might be at the end of this week, might be later.
On another note, I have now settled to get a room in Breda for my one year exchange period, so now I need to figure out the timing and means to get there in addition to the many documents I need. Preparation for that trip will be hasty as there will be only a few days between my arrival from Singapore and my departure to the Netherlands. And I'd need to get and set up a brand new laptop as well. All in all a stressful thought.
As the end of the week came closer, I set these stressful thoughts aside for a while when I found that while the original travelling plans had gotten a bump on it's way, the travels themselves would still happen. Might as well make note that also the trip to Hong Kong will take place, apparently. Not relevant to me, but it just means things went better than expected all in all. Anyway. We took ourselves to an area with our local guide that was a lot more like my initial imagination had pictured Singapore to be. A lot of traffic, people, small alleyways, street vendors all over the place, lights blinking and so forth. We enjoyed a local treat: Durian. A large, spiky fruit that had meaty bits inside covering the large seed. The whole ordeal was like dissecting some sort of alien cocoon: The hard spiky surface was cleaved with a large knife to get to the inner delights. The flesh of the fruit had a yellow skin-like cover under which soft quark-esque substance was around the seed. It also tasted a bit like quark, and many of our group grew tired of the taste quite quick. Personally I liked it as long as it lasted, but each to their own. Worth a try either way.
After that treat we went to have ourselves a single beer at a local terrace. After our guide exchanged some words, six bottles were brought to us and we were enjoying them in peace. During conversation another bartender brought six bottles of a different type of ale to us, visibly confused that we had ourselves a batch already. She was determined to sell this bucket of ale, and proceeded to fill our glasses with the current drink we had, apparently to motivate us to drink faster. I tend to be rather quick with drinks anyway, and personally didn't mind having another so I settled with one more bottle. Three from the second batch were bought in total and from it all I drank five cans worth due to the latter offering's flavour causing an engineer to give away half a bottle. I didn't like it that much either since it had a side flavour reminiscent to tobacco, but as a Finn who already had a few sips I wouldn't turn down a free glass of ale.
Amidst discussion and warnings about the local criminals and shady services, new plans were made due to our local guide remembering my enthusiasm for strange dishes. Nearby there was a place that served frogs in different ways. We had rice and two types of frog legs: One set in sweet and sour sauce, and one in hot and spicy sauce. The latter must be the spiciest food I've had here thus far. Nevertheless, frog is pretty much like a miniature chicken when it comes to texture and taste. Very good all in all.
We headed home and got to our rooms and beds. In the weekend I would simply rest.

Sami - Chronologically Confused and Probably Biased Notes About Singapore

Observations and thoughts while I'm here. I'll update it at some point.

Flights

• Pack everything in the large compartments of your luggage. Anything small and/or valuable should be hidden amidst your clothing within the bag or on your person.
• If travelling with Turkish Airlines, do not bring any blue underwear, you may no longer have them on arrival. This varies on person to person, may be the product of paranoia.
• Wear comfortable clothing for the flight.
• Watch Turkish movies on flight.
• Don't eat pizza at the Turkish airport.
• 17 hour flights aren't too grand.

Singapore

• Buy water, bring it with you everywhere you go, keep yourself hydrated.
• Check some lists of laws to know, some are rather strange. For example: Connecting to an unsecured WIFI is considered hacking.
• Figure out key supply locations as soon as you can.
• Be prepared for a short period of illness.
• The weather strikes you like a hot sponge.
• You get used to the weather, but air conditioning becomes very appreciated. Sometimes air conditioning is not very appreciated.
• Everything you do or don't do is a ticketable criminal offense.
• All banknotes have the same face on them (Singaporean Uncle).
• Have cash on you, pay for everything using cash.
• Things are cheap. Except beer.
• ATM’s vary in their exchange rates, Visa Electron and Visa Debit are fine for withdrawal. Withdraw large bundles at a time.
• Guards and police aren’t as common as you’d imagine.
• Streets are less crowded than originally imagined. They are still crowded though.
• Street layouts are confusing.
• Crosswalks are placed sparsely and look dangerous.
• Milk tastes weird.
• Rye bread is nonexistent, any other bread is a luxury.
• Winter melon tea tastes like liquid popcorn in cooking oil.
• All concentrated juice looks like cleaning detergent or radioactive ooze.
• Salt is used gracefully.
• There are no potatoes.
• Everything sounds like a video game.
• Food is eaten either with sticks (and spoon) or a fork and spoon, no knives.
• Food is generally good.
• It can be warm and dark at the same time.
• The immigration office removed a paper clip from my passport.
• I wonder when we'll be paying our rent.
• No one sleeps.
• Money tends to crawl out of your pocket in events.
• I wonder how I'm going to deal with customs.
• A large European may have trouble in smaller local grocery stores. The hallways are like 5cm wide.

Sami - A Reminder of Home

The weekend had left me exhausted, but still it felt nice to get back to school after a total of five days of being elsewhere. The curriculum seemed quite clear as well. How ever, the exhaustion along with the new tasks left me at disarray, and during the entirety of Monday I got nothing done. Texturing is the current task at hand, and I have yet to grasp good methods. Later on I started feeling a bit weary and my throat was sore.
Our local friend from the weekend had informed me that I should ask one of our team mates about places to go, and now it's certain that more money will burn if I do go to a journey with her for art books.
All in all I've felt rather useless this week since I've been struck by weakness. Guess it could be some kind of flu. Must fight through it in order to go to Grand Prix. I haven't gotten much done with the project to my own shame because of this, and it has been stressful. Getting the hang of a good workflow has been an issue too. Although I am starting to understand good approaches for Diffuse and Normal maps when texturing. Well, at least I haven't been a complete waste of space due to the concepts I made which are being realized. And now my task mostly consists of making modular dirt.
Friday arrived, and due to the schedule regarding Grand Prix, I wasn't sure if I could keep my word to the merchant at CharaExpo if not today. Thus I gathered a party to travel to the promised land. I shall provide images later, as we will take it upon ourselves to return. There were two additional stores with similar wares right next to the one we went to but didn't have time to see the everything that was available. Albeit I did succeed in my quest, and it was the last figurine of that character that they had. I would be pleased to take my business there again. Assimilation seems to be taking place.
Browsing through the displays took me some time even if I settled for one purchase alone. We decided to leave at the closing hours and hunger took over. I spotted a poltry meal restaurant named KFC and half of our group settled with that choice while the other went for Subway. Weird enough, amidst the chicken-filled meal there was a small portion of something that reminded me of home: a small container of mashed potatoes with brown sauce. The sauce even had a slightly oversaturated taste of black pepper, just how I made it back home. To imagine that I would encounter something like that in a place that is known in, but still hasn't reached my homeland. The returning trek home took its toll as we went by to get groceries, so I would turn all that unhealthy energy into concentrated salt that pushed it's way out through the pores on my skin.
Grand Prix approaches.

Expo

Lo and behold our joined post. Images you shall find below the texts.

Teemu's quest for geekdom

Sami will have a wall of text regarding the expo so I’ll try not to drag on subjects for too long. I have actually never been in a convention before, not sure why. This would be big so I wanted to get the most out of it. I firmly decided to not regret anything and thus I didn't: it’s that easy.

The place was crowded. I knew it would be yet I was still astonished by the enormous mob of geeks slobbering for the contents of their Mecca. I also wanted to get myself some keepsakes of the event but I didn't really know what I was looking for. It would have been fine if I could carefully check out every booth and decide what to get but thanks to our local friend I got warned that the merchandise sells out really fast, especially the popular ones. As I hadn't got the time to search for what I wanted the most I had to secure at least something in the way before it was too late: needless to say, the method wasn't the healthiest possible for my wallet, but I had already decided to have no regrets.

I've never really cared too much about figurines, but they were the first things that came to my mind and the first ones to sell out so I started looking for some depicting characters from shows I really liked as I didn't really want to use a lot of money for a character I cannot connect to. My obvious target was Haruhi, but to my surprise there didn't seem to be almost any merchandise from the series. I settled for a figurine that I liked but wasn't super excited about it. Afterwards I could search for more with at least some insurance. Eventually I did find one (1) figurine, or indeed any kind of merchandise, of Haruhi; too bad it was mediocre at best. I bought it anyway, praise the fandom!

For the rest of the day I roamed the booths and places looking for something interesting as well as simply enjoying the event. There was a lot of cosplay and it did nothing but escalate as the day grew longer. After we came back from lunch everybody with a costume that takes preparation had finished them and the sight of all of it was breathtaking. Sami had taken my phone for the sake of actually getting more than, like, four photos of the event. As a result I had him take pictures of pretty much every time I got moderately interested in something (read, often), maybe I should have become a producer after all.

The more interesting events in the expo consisted of Japanese show-wrestling and a huge trading card game tournament area. The wrestling was amusing in its own over-the-top way but it was far too scripted for my liking. I was hoping to get to play some Magic in the card-game-area, but wasn't surprised by the fact that mtg had little place in a place like this. Instead the game of the day was Cardfight!! Vanguard, the trading card game. I am NOT going to take up another tcg, so I didn't really delve into it, but the tcg-focus was seen in the booths as well, for there were a lot of card sleeves, playmats etc. that work just as fine in Magic.

Wallpapers/art/whatever-you-want-to-call-them had probably the best quality- price ratio in the event. This was especially true in the second day when artists were more desperate to sell them off and they were really affordable. Aside from the figurines, mtg-related stuff and art, I looted random accessories, a canvas and a shirt that radiates manliness.

As for what the future holds, I haven’t eaten the ghost pepper wings yet. Also our next weekend will be quite a blast as well, I am sure, as we participate (not in the main event) in Grand-Prix. Hype!

Sami - Awakened

The slight exhaustion brought by the three day marathon of video games didn't make it's way through a good nights sleep. I prepared myself for the upcoming journey with a luxurious breakfast of noodle soup made using our brand new electric kettle. CharaExpo would be located quite a ways away and we would be meeting our flatmate engineer's colleague at the expo station. We walked in the warm dawn through the campus of our school, heading towards the metro station on the commonly traversed path in the beautiful city adorned with it's common, seemingly exotic trees planted all round the busy streets and roads.

I had prepared myself for the upcoming event, being my first time in such an environment, not to mention this particular adventure takes place on the edge of the globe. I was sure to spend money, and to possibly regret my spending later on.

We made way for dozens of minutes standing in the hollow, bleeping rail caterpillar filled to the brim with people, transferring to ever more colourful groups along the way. Finally arriving to our destination four of us, that's two engineers, Yours Truly and Teemu, now waiting for our local friend. Contrary to our broken sweat about us being late, he was there over half an hour later than us, apologizing the timing of his arrival.

We now made way to the Expo hall, where we'd pay eight Singaporean Uncles for entry. The warm air made my large body sweat further surely making me a stereotypical sight later on, but once the gates were passed, the cool air within this new contained hub refreshed my mind. A huge mass of people going about the many organized booths, women and men dressed up as familiar characters all round and electronic music with exotic languages filled the hall decorated with a card game tournament area as well as a professional wrestling ring, I felt the need to seek something I had forgotten before.

I started my quest for simple figurines, settling myself in line that went around a section of booths just to grab myself something that I may never find in my homeland. Names of characters filled my mind as I looked at the models on display. The laws on certain content in Singapore seemed illusive as many of the dolls shown creep towards that border and perhaps beyond, but still there they were.

I fell victim to the expenses, but I was prepared with my shameful European bank-borrowed wealth. I decided to borrow a better phone since Teemu didn't have a habit of taking photos, and I tried to document our day the best I could. I didn't take photos of myself or the group I was with however, partially due to my dislike of photos taken of me and mostly due my own stupidity, Batman had convinced me otherwise at one point. After my first purchase and my first dozen photos, not to mention after the few series of anime I've watched recently, something awakened in me and I felt the thirst for more merchandise as the slippery bills tried to crawl out of their safe lodging in my pocket. Throughout the day I went by many booths and spent a lot of time in the creators corner hoarding artwork, figurines and other small merchandise. A lot of things that I didn't even know the origin of, at least yet. As I browsed through trading card sleeves trying to find ones decorated with amusingly lewd images, a character popped in my head and began my quest to find anything of this character from the event. I grasped a few sleeves and started to go around different booths asking for items referring to this character sadly to no avail. However, a friendly man behind a counter mentioned that they may have the thing I'm looking for at their store, but didn't bring any to the event. I started a bombardment of inquiries if he'd be here the next day and if he'd pass through their store after sundown or before dawn, he said he'll see what he can do and gave me his business card. I had hope for tomorrow.

The structure of time seemed to change as I indulged myself in the many joys of the event: watching wrestlers do their rehearsed exotic dances, hearing out creators of shows talk about things while the seemingly afraid security asked me not to take photographs in this area, watching different card games play out and finding many characters both unknown and familiar and both alive and sculpted. Doppelgängers in the many forms of Hatsune Miku was a common sight. Our group shattered and reformed many times as each of us walked about finding our own cup of tea.

At some point in time, in some point of space we gathered together and decided to go for a meal, the meal I showed you earlier in my case. We got out of the hall and ventured a little on the public transportation to have a new food court shown to us. Albeit very typical of the courts seen before, this also had a charm of it's own. Many small kitchens in a tightly packed space serving many different dishes for many different tastes, as was the norm. It wasn't crowded, but there were some people. Then again it is one or the other everywhere in here. I decided to obliterate a bird's walking mechanism while others settled for other dishes. Our local friend introduced us to some additional treats, salmon with soy and wasabi. We returned this favour by handing him our precious ammonium chloride flavoured treats, salmiak. The reaction was mixed I'd say, as his eyebrows wiggled in a rapid frequency as he chewed down these questionable black diamonds.

Once we would return home with full hands and spacier pockets, we had already separated from our local guide. With a tired body and mind I drifted towards our home-for-now and settled to rest and prepare for tomorrow, while an engineer succumbed to temporal madness much to the confusion of myself and a few others. Such is the way of the Eastern winds.

The next day was bittersweet. I managed to grab more artwork, but while the friendly merchant was located in the same booth as the day before, he hadn't gone back to bring the goods I had desired. He spotted me from a distance and was already distraught realizing I kept my word, and his apology seemed sincere when I said he'd know what I was going to ask. Thus I have two quests: Turtle soup and this merchant's store. Seems it is in a convenient place with potential for pleasant photos, so that is fine by me. It also was definitely a business scheme by him, whether his words were sincere or not. All in all the day was more calm. There was less people around, cheaper prices and we stuck our ground for a shorter time. We had to make a re-entry due to my own thoughtlessness how ever, as I had left an important blueprint to a booth. Luckily the people there were kind enough to hold on to it in case I would return and the recovery was successful with an exchange of a few words.

As the day turned to dusk, new schemes were created for next weekend as we'd head for Grand Prix. And as of this writing, I do not regret my spending as much as I had anticipated. In fact, I feel I should have grabbed a few more items that I passed. Perhaps the merchant has some irresistible items among his wares, and I do not doubt this.

Images

Note: These images are not meant for commercial use. All characters and products under copyright belong to their rightful owners. The only intellectual property held by the Author of this blog is of the photos themselves. If you feel a photo should be removed from the blog, please contact us.
These photos are few of many. The rest of the photos may be viewed in a compilation that I will share on this post later.

Booths and general view:

Activities;

Cosplay:

Figurine examples:

Loot:

Sami - Prelude to Expo

Mind the short post this time. I believe after this post I may start writing more free form about everything that goes on, some thoughts and miscellaneous stuff. I'll try to take notes about various things to make the texts a bit more lively instead of just telling plain facts, and I won't be making scheduled writing.

As for this week, The beginning was mainly preparation for a presentation where we'd showcase our project and take feedback. After that was done, we made some basic plans and us exchange students were gone for the latter half of the week starting Wednesday, since we'd be play testing games made by local developers. Some neat titles, some horrendous ones. Specifically a game that shall not be named made me starve for turtles, and my current quest regarding food is to find turtle soup. Shouldn't be too difficult since some of the local contacts from school are ready to show some places. I sure am ready to take on these ventures. Anyway, we spent three days testing games and I can't say anything under the rulings of confidentiality.

I and Teemu will be writing a joined post about this weekend, since we took part in an event called CharaExpo both Saturday and Sunday, an anime oriented event with lots of things going on. Lots of stuff was bought, plenty of cosplay was seen, and dozens of photos were taken. I wont go in depth about the event and temporal madness just yet.

I ate some chicken feet with noodles as our Expo group was joined by a Nanyang Poly student who wanted to show us a nice food court. Stuff's good, like chewy chicken meat with thick skin and small bones.

Sami - Stylus and Squid

As time has passed, it has become clear that there is a certain bureaucratic touch to certain aspects in the school as well. The tools needed are available, but you may need to wait on them for quite some time. “Tomorrow” is the word I heard for almost two weeks. Stress was building up as I fumble about with Autodesk Maya while waiting for a stylus so I could become something more than a shapeless blob taking over one of the working stations. I suggest bringing your own Wacom tablet. I myself didn’t bring too much in the way of electronics so I now need to hold on to my sanity.

We are still waiting for our missing and rather valuable team member, and we should have things in good shape before rather than after his arrival. If he is even destined to arrive at all. Skepticism takes over as I look around on my chair, spinning aimlessly and counting the times I hear the same melody play out outside the project room every now and then. Being a first-year student among third-year foreign students brings it’s own mental strain too.
Towards the end of the week, Thursday, I got my pen and finally can get myself accustomed to the smaller drawing tablet and can finally get to work properly. I will need to remember to return the pen at the end of the project, lest I be chased all the way to Finland for it. Although a detour would be in place since I’d be located elsewhere at the time. Maybe I won’t cause that much of a hassle though.

Either way, getting around doing some concepts as we figure out the art direction for the project.

Foods n' Stuff

On the earlier post I mentioned strange laws and being cautious. This doesn’t mean that you need to be looking over your shoulder every minute. I have yet to see guards or police in public after the airport and most people tend to do whatever works for them at the time.

I have given up on finding milk that tastes “right.” I found something that is probably as close to regular milk as you can get. It might be that it’s not about it being processed too much, but rather too little. I remembered how much Finnish milk is processed in the end. As one would imagine, it was I who is the strange one all along. Even if the milk comes from Australian tree-dwelling flesh-eating spidercows or something similar.

Fruits are cheap and nice, that’s something to grab for snacks. I was tempted to buy some interesting and relatively costly snacks the other day. A roommate of mine grabbed some pringles-esque chips flavored with wasabi, while I was staring at things that I couldn’t comprehend. Fish snacks that from the looks of I couldn’t tell whether it was fish flavored or meant for fish, something that resembled tiny birch trunks, a strange looking mixed bag that had “leather jacket” as the first thing listed on the ingredients, something that looked like liverwurst sitting in the middle of the snack shelf and something flavored with “chilli power.” Must take some of the stuff as homecoming gifts. After all, they cost only a few Singaporean Uncles.

I figured I'll also describe some foods that I try in the cafeterias and around town. Sometimes I'll accompany the descriptions with some really crappy images if I get that system to work. I'll warn you, you're better off seeing just the thumbnails as the image quality is absolutely horrendous. Here's a few for a start.

Hotplate Sotong

A Korean dish. Vegetables and squid served with rice and a sweet hot sauce.

It's served while the oil is still boiling, and the squid are fried to have a crisp surface while retaining a soft center. The vegetables work well with the sauce and the flavor is good. The only issue is that the flavor is gone really quickly due to the burning sensation, and you need to take short breaks in order to get that flavor back when you eat.

Teriyaki Chicken Don, Bandung

A Japanese dish of fried chicken with sweet teriyaki sauce, rice and fresh salad. In addition, a separate broth with a prawn-suited flavor. Good in general, the chicken was soft and the teriyaki worked well with it. The rice was a little plain, but that was easilly fixed with a little bit of flavored soy.

I drank something called Bandung with it, which is a drink well suited as a dessert. Apparently very popular in Malaysia. It tasted like a milkshake with the added flavor of caramel and berries/fruit. Despite the flavor, it doesn't look like a milkshake. It is a pink drink served with ice.

Sami - First week at Singapore

Before I talk about my experiences, I'll give some basics about who I am. Also a bit of a warning: My writing may not be exactly short. Plus my post will be lacking in pictures.
Anyway, about me: Sami, a game graphics student from Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, off to be an exchange student after my first year in KUAS.
Eager to learn 3D art, mostly worked in 2D thus far.
A sample of my works: HERE

As I began my first student year, I already decided that I'll take everything I can from the few years, Thus I was eager to sign up for the exchange programs that were available. I picked Singapore and the Netherlands as my priority targets, giving me over a year of time abroad.
Needless to say I got picked for Singapore, but as of this writing some things are a little shady about the period over at the Netherlands. All I know right now is that I got accepted for that as well, just need to work out the details. I'll write about both experiences on this blog.

Departure and Arrival

As I got accepted and got all the paperwork done, it was time to decide how the flight should be arranged. Teemu (A fellow exchange student from KUAS, programmer and fellow blog writer) and I decided to get us to Singapore and back on a budget, so we picked a flight arranged by Turkish Airlines. A 17 hour trip with one (about 3 hour) transfer in Istanbul, with the departure being in the evening of 1.6.2015. The food was alright and the flights in general were pleasant. A thing of note about your luggage is that you should keep all things in the large compartments of your suitcase/duffel bag/etc. I lost my sunscreen and hygiene related things since I put them in a smaller section of my bag. Not to mention the strange disappearance of a few pairs of underwear.

We (That is a total of five students from the same flight) arrived at the Singapore airport nearing the evening of 2.6., and made way towards our accommodation via taxi. We didn't have much of a plan since the instructions we were given were vague at best. "Come to Nanyang Polytechnic." It was late, so we figured it'd be better to go straight for the housing, and we were lucky to run into a group of engineer students that arrived earlier. I and Teemu were split from the other three students as reservations were made before our arrival, I and Teemu would share housing with four engineers.

First Week

The next morning we headed for the actual campus and our working area. The school is quite large, so it'll take a while to get used to.

We got placed in our seperate teams, I, Teemu and Eero (producer/designer) were put to work on one project with five other people, one of whom is yet to arrive. I'm not certain how much I can talk about the project itself just now, but I'll talk about some of the things that happen during the project and what I do without putting out any information I shouldn't be sharing.

Because we are still awaiting the last team member, we can't do too much, it's mostly been brainstorming and conceptualizing some ideas. The programmers have been setting up a basic framework and our producer has set up some things to keep track of progress.

Most of the week was about getting used to the weather and local area and getting our accommodation deals signed and keys handed. The way traffic works and streets are laid out are vastly different from what I'm used to, so navigation is something to get used to as well.

The first difficulty was and still is finding regular milk. Everything's processed, soy based or flavoured somehow. The local food culture is nice though, there's plenty to pick from and the prices aren't as hefty as I thought they would be. A canned or bottled soda is a dollar or so and a modest meal ranges from two dollars to three. To put this in perspective, one euro is roughly 1,5 Singapore dollars. When going even cheaper, you can do as we do and get packed noodles to cook up in house. But going out for a meal is not a hassle if you don't mind walking a bit in warm weather. I'm planning on trying as many different foods and drinks as I can.

I can say that coming over here is a good idea if you're out of shape and/or need to lose weight. I'm a big guy and the daily routine added in to the weather really makes me spend a lot of energy. I am certain I will lose weight and feel more energetic when leaving Singapore. Just have to remember to keep myself very well hydrated.

On Friday, all KUAS students got their Visa applications finished up, so we no longer need to think about anything else than keeping our hands on our identity cards. We also got our metro tickets. The system is pretty neat, and now it's really easy to get around Singapore. How ever, if you thought you need to wait for a long time with applications and meetings at KELA or the workforce office in Finland and you think it's very mind-numbing, you haven't seen anything yet. If you have a mobile console at hand, you'll be fine though. Afterwards we had lunch and went to see some shops. Game stores were high on the interest list, and we found a few. most of them small shops that also offer figurines, manga and some other really cool stuff. I picked up the art book for Assassin's Creed Unity for two dollars.

As the weekend arrived, so did the exhaustion and I got a little sick. Might be that the bacteria base and other changes caused me to have fever Friday night and my stomach had issues all weekend. But that's fair enough, a bit of rest at the end of the week is fine, there's plenty of things to do later on.

Think that'll do for the first post. Maybe I'll work on a reference list for things to check out and foods to try as well as things to keep in mind. There's quite a few lists of laws to remember, and you might want to keep caution in certain cases, but I don't think I'll get to that in detail unless I end up having some sort of adventurous experience with it.