Kaiz: August 2005

Next to the city hall was the newly opened Nobel Peace Centre

"To inform visitors abt Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize and current conflicts and international peace efforts"

The Nobel Peace Centre has quite a unique exhibition style.
After we passed by the latest nobel prize winner exhibition, we went thru a passage where many short quotes of speeches abt prejudice or conflicts were flashed:

"Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Koran its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief"--Article 8, the Hamas Charter
"We simply believe that the United States of America was founded as a white Christian nation"--www.KKK.com
"Lebensraum"--Adolf Hitler
"The bible is the authoritative word of God and contains all truth"--Bill Clinton
"Zimbabwe is for black people not white people"--Robert Mugabe
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man"--Thomas Jefferson

It was most interesting to note the above quote by George W Bush being displayed together with them. Other quotes by him displayed include:
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"
"You can run but you can't hide"

After this there were other displays about the current conflicts all around the world and the glimpses of hopes by some more "politically correct" speeches in contrast to the ones above

This is an amazing place.
It's supposed to be the Nobel field of Peace Prize laureates. Each screen representing one laureate. Whenever you go near one, the LEDs below will change colours slowly, soft sounds will emit and the screen will display more info abt the laureate. And even when there were many people wondering around, there is still a strong feeling of awe, reverance and tranquility about this place

This is an absolutely awesome book about Swedish inventer and industrialist Alfred Nobel. The book is totally blank and the words are projected by the projector above this book. The projector auto sense which page you are flipping thru now and will project the corresponding content onto the blank page.

What's even more amazing is that you can actually manipulate the images, ie you can use your hand to select certain topics projected onto the pg as though it were a hyperlink. Certain topics are even linked to the surroundings of the book eg. selecting a certain option will defog an otherwise opaque window to show the view of Sweden in the far distance!

Next I went thru an exhibition on Amnesty International with graphic images like children carrying guns. Apparently gun control is one of the most pressing concern.

Another amazing technological display. You can find out abt everything you wanna know (eg. Nobel Committee, Alfred Nobel, past Nobel Laureates) by just adjusting vertically the knob at the side of the screen and the whole screen would change automatically.

Pardon me, but I've a thing abt quotes: (all are quotes from former Nobel peace prize winners)
Be happy: "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."-Dalai Lamai
Be free: "Please use your liberty to promote ours."-Aung San Suu Kyi
Take a stand: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference"-Elie Wiesel
Be brave: "It often takes more courage to change ones opinon than to keep it."-Willy Brandt
Live, and let live: "We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children"-Jimmy Carter
Communicate: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world"-Nelson Mandela
Respect Others: "A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons"-Biskop Desmond
Act: "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person"-Mother Teresa
Be patient: "Let us be patient with one another. And even patient with ourselves. We have a long, long way to go."-Emily Greene Bald
Don't lose faith: "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope"-Martin Luther King

Nobel Institute-home of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, committee selected by the Norwegian Parliament(Storting)
From 1905 to 1946, peace prize awarded at the Nobel Institute
From 1990, Peace Prize Ceremony at Oslo City Hall

Beautiful statue at one of the Norwegian houses

I just love the wall creepers

Norwegian guard

Royal Palace
The statue of the man riding the horse is King Karl Johan of Sweden and Norway

Vigeland park-one of norway's main attractions with more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and cast iron

Famous angry young boy

Man playing with his son
I like the way the background fits into the pic

Man frustrated by his children?

Beautiful flowers

Fountain surrounded by so many sculptures

The monolith: a 14 meter tall column with human bodies carved out of a single block of stone.

Mum overjoyed with her newborn

Mum bullied by children

Young lovers

Old lovers

So cute

Too bad I miss the Holmenkollen ski jump(hailed as the mecca of ski jumping) and Edvard Munch's Scream painting

Conclusion:

I still can't forget the fjords of West Norway which I visited at the beginning. They are just unimaginably beautiful. Anyone who has enough of excess, unneccessary technology and pollution and who just crave to be back to nature and embrace the gift of virgin wilderness, pure water and clean air will naturally find West Norway the garden of Eden.

Some facts:
-NORWAY is the world's best place to live, according to the United Nations, which just gave it top ranking for a fifth successive year.
-Norway, a country with only 4.6 million inhabitants, is the world's third-largest exporter of oil, after Saudi Arabia and Russia. This generates a huge stream of cash for government coffers. To avoid the common traps of great natural wealth, the money is put in a petroleum fund, now worth about 1.2 trillion kroner (S$310 billion)

But you must first be loaded. Let me give you an idea. The BK meal there costs S$20. So if you extrapolate everything is abt x3-4 times more expensive than singapore. And not forgetting the incredible tax..... Sigh... <Big Mac index>

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post.
Henry lost his camera, or rather, his camera got stolen. Gone too were all his photos for the norway trip....sigh..

What happened was that we reached Oslo Sentralstasjon around 12am on Sun morning.

We couldn't find any bus to take us to the hostel that the Jet & the girls were in. And the wooden benches in the Sentralstasjon seem too hard to sleep.

So we left the Sentralstasjon. Immediately, we felt sth was wrong. Behind us while we were taking the photo of the tiger, gangs of youths were hanging around, talking loudly and apparently looking for trouble. There were evidently some drunks around after Sat night clubbing. We felt especially uneasy and vulnerable standing out as tourists among them. And there were no sight of any security personnel or police. We quickly hurried into the nearby bus terminal.

The security person disallowed anyone from lying down on the chairs. So we had no choice but to sleep sitting upright. As we were sitting next to the automated door, throughout the night, we were woken up by the cold air rushing in whenever someone walked past the door. Sometimes, drunks also walked in and created a nuisance b4 the security chased them away. And when we finally got to sleep peacefully , we woke up to realise Henry's camera was missing!

After much frantic seearching, I helped Henry to report the loss of luggage. Henry was too distraught to travel after that so I went on alone...Sigh..

Oslo, being the oldest of the Scandinavian capitals with 1000 yrs of history, has notably many statues of famous people.

Oslo was destroyed by a fire in 17th century. It was rebuilt and renamed 'Christiania' by King Christian IV of Noway. The original name Oslo was later restored.