The adventures continue...

I've moved to Norway and will now have all my posts at this link.  Please follow the new blog to read about my experience. :)

How did this happen?

A friend at work found a job in Norway online and asked me to apply, so I thought "Okay why not?" since I have nothing to lose.  After several interviews in Australia (2 rounds where I had 10 (yes that is TEN) people interview me) they flew me down (hence you reading this blog post!) and after that I decided to accept.  And so my life would diverge from that point onward and I would leave Australia.

This blog's summary

Day 1 in Oslo
Day 2 in Oslo
Day 3 in Oslo (Final interview day)
Day 4 part 1
Day 4 part 2
and finally my decision to move!

So I'm moving...

After much deliberation I have decided to move to Norway to start the next chapter of what's predestined for me.

I'm scared and excited at the same time, it's going to be a huge change!

I'm getting my work permit sorted at the moment then I'll be packing and moving probably in mid to late Oct or early November.

I'm sad to leave my current workplace and will miss them but life's too short not to take opportunities like this especially since I'll be working with some incredibly smart people and an awesome work environment.

I'll be documenting my progress within the next month or so in this blog.

My last day at work will be 24th September 2010.

Day 4 - Vigelandsparken and back to Singapore (Part Two)

It’s now 11:30pm Oslo time and I’m typing this onboard a Boeing 747 on the way to Singapore from London.  Today I visited Vigelandsparken and it was every thing I hoped it would be, although I thought Sinnataggen would be much bigger.  The park itself is quite big and you can easily spend 2 hours or so there which was about the length of time I spent.  You can walk to it from Majorstuen station which is only one stop away from the National Theatre.

Here’s some photos.

Majorstuen station, this is where you stop to walk to Vigelandsparken.

Entrance to Vigelandsparken.

Mr Vigeland, nice to meet you.

One of the many statues along the bridge to the water fountain.

Sinnataggen, the little angry boy!!

The water fountain features 6 gaints carrying a vessel.  The bridge links the fountain to the entrance area.

Children playing in the park, there were many of them.

The Clan, given by IBM as a gift.  In front of this you can see the water fountain in the distance.

Tripod to the rescue when you do not have any other person accompanying you.

Mr Tripod helping me out again.  Next to the Girl and the Lizard from 1938.

The Monolith, 17m tall featuring 121 human figures supporting each other and surrounded by 36 groups of human granite figures.

One of the entrances to the Monolith.

Human granite figures.

Sundial located behind the monolith.

The Wheel of Life, featuring a garland of men, women and children holding on to each other in an endless cycle.  You can see the monolith in the distance.

The bridge from a different section of the park.

Taken from the Oslo bymuseum, I took a walk there afterward, it's in the park as well.

Scary looking man.

Fancy some corporal punishment? :D

Also I saw this!  A bust of Abraham Lincoln presented as a gift.  For a moment I almost thought I was in the wrong country.

Catching the train back to Nationaltheatret!

All in all I had a pretty good time in Oslo, and manage to do everything that I wanted to do even though my original flight was cancelled and I lost my luggage for 24 hours.   It all worked out eventually.  I guess the highlight would have to be Vigelandsparken, Oslo itself is a very nice city especially in summer when it never really gets dark and also there aren’t too many people.  Although I didn’t expect the summer to be cold.  My interview itself was fun too just need to get things sorted out now, contracts and whatever.  I haven’t really made up my mind if I should go or not it will all depend on the contract, Mona told me a whole bunch of things that I don’t have concrete details of.  I just remembered they also provide unlimited soft drinks and surprisingly they even provide unlimited beer at the office!  Also their monitors are pretty good too, it’s standard to have 1920 x 1600 resolution.  Anyway, I don’t think the above matters to any non geek but thought I’ll say it anyway.

Well I am off to have dinner now, it’s creamy spinach and mushroom risotto.

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I am back in Singapore now, the above was typed when I was still on board the plane but the photos were updated later.  Just had a yummy dinner of tim sum, miam miam.

Day 4 - Vigelandsparken and back to Singapore (Part one)

I'm about to leave for the airport so this will be short.  I visited Vigelandsparken this morning and afternoon, it's a very pretty park.  Will upload photos later when I get internet access again, most likely in Singapore.  I've had a pretty good time in Oslo other than missing my luggage and cancelled flights, hopefully the return flight will be smooth sailing.

To be continued...

Day 3 - Interviews at Lysaker, Sightseeing at the Oslo fjord and Akershus Slott, food shopping at Oslo Central Station

Today was mostly consumed by interviews, I woke up at 4am this morning then fell in and out of sleep till 7:30am. Had a shower, breakfast (saw another man who had the same Norway travel book as I!) then caught a cab to Lysaker through the hotel. The interview location was.. pretty interesting. It's located in an area that's almost completely surrounded by trees with no other surrounding buildings. Nice. I had my id taken then met Mona the director, after a chat (going through my references and other papers) and a visit to the company's showroom I met the rest of the team, Tom and the other software engineers. It was pretty alright, we just chatted, talked about work that I've done and am currently doing. Then had a quick lunch at the company cafeteria. The food was quite decent, baked potatoes, crumbed fish and salad. If you were hungry you could go for seconds but I was well, rather not hungry from jet lag. Been surviving on nothing but coffee the past few days. There's Walter (who is Dutch, unsure about name spelling?) and another Norwegian guy (who is half Scottish) who I spoke to. I was saying how cold it is even though it's summer and the Norwegian guy was saying how it's humid today and I said I can't feel anything. Haha! After lunch I had another interview with Andre's team, Thomas (unsure about spelling?) and then Andre again, he was the last person to interview me and he asked lots of technical questions.  Thomas is quite the geek.  He built a laser system that keeps track of who scores goals in fussball, there's even a table that keeps track of everything!

Then Tom, Mona and Andre went to a corner and had a discussion and made a Yes decision. Actually, Mona made it quite clear at the beginning of the day that I pretty much already have the job and just asked what questions I had. To be honest my brain wasn't working much today and in the afternoon my brain just went poof. Anyway I'm glad it's done, she just said the contract will have to be sent to me as since they got bought over there's no concrete process on drafting one yet so I'll just have to wait. I also asked her where was a good place to buy chocolates. :D Oh I also got some of the receipts sorted out which is good!

So I left about 4pm after thanking Mona for her time. Caught the train from Lysaker to the National Theatre then walked to Aker Brygge and caught the Oslo fjord sightseeing tour that goes around the islands for 2 hours.  Which is good because I got time to do some fun(ner) things!

Here's some photos.

On board the ferry.

Oslo opera house.   It's supposed to look like a glaciar.  The roof slopes and you can walk on it.

Houses on the islands surrounding the fjord.

Bath houses.

Boats.

After that I took a walk to Akershus Slott which is a fortress and a castle.

Here's some photos. It's pretty during the evenings.

Akershus Slott from the ferry.  Part of it's under renovations i.e. blue scaffolding.

Had a quick walk to Oslo Central Station and bought some food to take back. Chocolates and things in a tube. Caviar and mackerel. There's even bacon and ham in a tube. Didn't get those though.

The above is the Norwegian stock market, I took this while walking towards Central Station.

Took the above shot walking towards the stock market from Akershus Slott.

Finally I had dinner at the same place as yesterday, Egon, this time I had Chicken Fajitas. Then walked back to the hotel. I'm really buggered!  Tomorrow morning I intend to go to Vigelandsparken then catch the plane to London and then to Singapore, tomorrow late afternoon.

Day 2 - Bygdøy (Norsk FolkMuseum, Viking Ship Museum) and Central Oslo (Royal Palace, City Hall, Aker Brygge, National Gallery)),

Well today I finally got some fun things done.  My interview was postponed till the next day.  Today it started to rain in the morning so I had to buy a pullover because it was cold!  It's summer here and it's colder than Brisbane's winter.

I first stopped at the Royal Palace, here's a photo.

After that I took a walk to the National Gallery where I saw the Scream and other paintings. Just a useless fact, another Italian guy had the same guide book as I did!

Entrance to the museum shown above.

Then I took a walk to City Hall and then to Aker Brygge where I had a simple lunch of Chicken Focaccia with Tsatziki.

City hall entrance.

Mural on the wall, it's very very big.

Here's photos that I took at Aker Brygge which hosts shops and restaurants and other crazy things.

Someone's face?

The eternal peace flame.

And the Nobel Peace Centre.  Is it ironic that the word Slaughter is visible from outside of the Peace Centre?

Caught the ferry from Aker Brygge to Bygdøy and went first to the Folk Museum.

Stave church at the Folk Museum.

Loft opposite the Stave church.

And then to the Viking Ship Museum. Whilst I was walking this man in a car stopped past me and started to speak Norwegian to me, he was looking for directions to somewhere but I didn't understand and he didn't speak English, so yes, I am now tour guide for Bygdøy, don't ever forget that.

One of 3 very large Viking ships at the museum.

Then I walked back to the ferry terminal and caught it back to Aker Brygge.

Ferry terminal, that's someone's boat latched near the terminal.

Another funny thing happened when I was at the ferry terminal. This elderly man came up to me and asked if I was Japanese and then asked if I was Korean and then he said sorry and gave up. Haha. This always seems to happen to me wherever I go! Anyway I told him I was Chinese and then he started speaking to me in Chinese. Talked to him and his son and daughter, who are American citizens, on the ferry.

Anyway! I found my luggage, which is good. Now I just need to get some sleep. :D