cucumbre's VirtualTourist Home Page

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Biking in Yogya, Indonesia

Cucumber

Cucumbre is, in fact, Cucumber, which was already the name of another VT. It is a nick given by university friends during my undergraduate days. At present, I am a research student, pursuing a doctorate. My research area is on weird stuffs like origami mathematics and paper pop-ups. So like-minded ones, do contact me. I love photography and video productions as well.

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NTU friends from overseas

The big map and a small Singapore

Travelling starts with my fascination with the world map. Since young, I love to flip the atlas and study the world geography. I was so enchanted by the globe when I realized my home country is just a dot on the map and the rest of the world is so big. In primary school, I would memorize all the countries' names and their locations, and did well for social studies' tests to name countries on the map. :P

My relatives and friends who are non-locals have also been a great influence. In particular, there is Uncle Terry who is a British and visits Singapore frequently with my aunt. Since young, he has told me stories of his travel and I am so inspired by his knowledge of the world.

My tertiary institution is not just the place to study. It also contains a global community where I got to make some good friends from overseas. Then came Christ who stuck to me the Great Commission too.

So this and that, all the little little things added to my love to venture beyond the dot on the map. :)

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Uncle Terry & Aunt in S'pore

Unforgettable experiences

These were some travelling experiences that are unforgettable.

On my maiden flight out of S'pore, I reached the airport late and missed the plane to Hong Kong. I managed to have extra plane charges for my absence waivered. *phew* The following day, I took another flight. My HK friend wasn't convinced that I missed the plane.

In Yogyakarta, my friends and I went up to a mountain village at Gunung Kidu. When we was leaving, it was so dark at night I could not see my feet. But the moon was exceptionally bright and it lit the way and guided our van on the mountain track.

I am a short, small-sized guy. So carrying a heavy, fully packed haversack that was two-third of my height from Stockholm to Copenhagen is eh... a feat.

My most memorable movie was at an old Chinatown cinema (Rex) in Kuala Lumpur. All of us watched with feet raised as there were rats running beneath the seats. All the kissing scenes were cut. It was a James Bond movie.

At Stockholm, 4 of us took different directions to locate a socket converter in an electronic shop. It was like a treasure hunt as we had to move off to elsewhere in 15min. We couldn't find any store assistant in the crowd and everything was in Swedish. When we gathered, we returned with emptied hands. At that moment, we saw our treasure just behind us. There was only one on display.

One of my travelmates misplaced her air ticket a few hrs before we were to leave Yogya. We didn't manage to find it after searching high and low. So we prayed. Within a min, we found it. It had slipped into the side of her bed.