"You're wishin' too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughta be.”
-

cause cold nostalgia chills me to the bone.
but drenched in vanilla twilight,
i'll sit on the front porch all night,
waist deep in thought because when I think of you;


it's really a love-hate relationship with snow. i love how the snowflakes swirl outside my window, love how it makes me feel like i'm living in a snowglobe, i love to observe footprints and pawprints in the snow for amusement, i love to take long walks and never get sweaty or tired, but sometimes the cold is really annoying! i can't wait for spring to come, yet i feel a tinge of sadness because this will mark the end of the first and maybe only winter i'll be experiencing. sighhs.

i need to get a new hobby. cooking/baking is too expensive(i spent approximately $10 to buy ingredients to make curry puffs) and i have too many cuts/scalds on my hands at the moment.


chasing the northern lights.

kiruna was a amazing experience for me. i hestitated a long time before deciding to go, because of the cost involved, but i am so glad i went, and i even hope to visit it again someday.

we stayed two nights in abisko, and what i loved most about it was the rugged wildness, how hard nature has made it for anything to survive in this extreme weather. the arctic chill really pierces to the bone. all the trees were withered and leafless, the snow was knee-high at best and the landscape was barren, there weren't even the nice white coniferous trees there. it was just stark whiteness. yet in spite of the imperfections, or maybe perhaps because of it, there was this beauty in the place, a rugged, wild kind of beauty, swirling in the wind. there was almost no wildlife at all, the place was still and quiet, except for the howling of the arctic wind and the occasional train passing by.





we went up to abisko sky station twice, once in the day and once in the night. it's supposedly the best place on earth to see the northern lights. the cable car ride up was totally surreal. as you ride up into the clouds, everything gets bathed in blue, for some reason. it gets so misty that you can barely see anything at all, and then you feel like you're just hanging in space, legs dangling and nothing else below you. amazing.


as for the northern lights, i managed to see it on the first night, but it wasn't that spectacular because the night was cloudy. nonetheless, i realised that kiruna is worth a visit whether or not you are looking for the northern lights or not. the wildness of the place is one of a kind. i can imagine how much the indigenous people of the arctic respected and lived in awe of nature, and even now, i can still feel the same respect coming from the people who live here. i mean, how many places are there on earth where nature is as powerful and unforgiving and beautiful as this? i would want to go again, to spend at least a week there, to dogsled, stay with the samis etc, and really experience life in the arctic.