I arrived in Stockholm by the night train yesterday very early in the morning, so the shops were all closed and the city has not been fully awake yet. Wandering around in the cold, I found the costs of living here very high. Using the toilet here, for instance, costs me 5 Swedish korna, or approximately 30 baht. Haing a shower is 20 SEK, or 120 Thai BT. A bowl of plain rice is 10 SEK extra, or 60 baht. A light meal at McDonald's would cost around 400 baht, I mean just a cheap burger and coke. This makes the cost of living even in Tokyo become comparatively cheap!, at least compared to when I was there in 2003. Needless to say, the costs of accommodation here is also very high and that applies as well to the youth hostel. For what I have paid here in a hostel or backpacker, I could as well open a room in a five star hotel in Bangkok. So, I decided not to stay longer than two nights as I would be broke before going back home.

I found myself in the heart of Scandinavia as they said Stockholm is Scandinavia's capital. In the city, I was very surprised to see Stockholm very much a fashion city, which is located midst many historical beautiful ancient buildings. The area is actually formed by 14 islands, making it the Vanice of Scandinavia. The size of the shopping area here is quite spacious, making MBK and Siam Sqare in Bangkok look relatively small. Surprisingly, I have not found IKEA in its mother land here yet. In many department stores, they sell mostly the fashion products, and yes... fashion-related things mainly, so I had a had time finding just a pencil to buy! Still, a hot-dog vendors follow you everwhere so long as there are crowd and that is good for a guy like me who is out of fashion, but more into eating!

My next trip is to go about in Norway (Oslo and Bergen in particular) in search for the origin of the LOB (Lancaster-OSLO-Bergen) Corpus. Having had a talk with Prof. Stenstrom the day before, what has also come to my interest is now COLT Corpus, which is originated in University of Bergen. I plan to spend a night at Bergen Montana Hostel before heading back to Oslo. Spending a night on train is not so bad an idea actually as you could feel like the time for transportation is shortened, of course if you don't mind to squeeze yourself in a compartment of six bed bunks where you can hear people snoring. Even if you travel in during the day, an hour does not seem to be very long as you could enjoy the beautiful view where every scence looks like a picture that fits in the train's window frame, or a moving video documentary, perhaps on Scandinavian countryside, sliding on your your side. One more time that I find myself waiting for the night train to Bergen which will arrive tonight at 10 pm. Gotta get some dinner before that. Though it costs me a fortune, Thai food is something I cannot live without! Oh... hungry now just to think of it.