Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Sculpture upon sculpture in Sweden

After leaving the Malmö Castle, I basically walked around seeing what the town was like. I didn’t even know where I took some of the photos (actually I did the same in Copenhagen, and for some of these places/sculptures, I found their name on Google Maps later :P )

If you look closely, you will see that the white sculpture from the previous post is also in this one. This photo is taken from the opposite side.





a very special sculpture

it's called the "optimistic orchestra"

it was so special that I needed to take a photo from the other side too

and also a closer view of the orchestra members

in another square they had another sculpture, called "Gustav Adolfs torg"

a close-up

there was this interesting "waterfall" down to the river (or is it a canal?). And at the back, right at the "bank", there is a cat... (a sculpture of one)

another sculpture...going across the bridge



looking back to the "waterfall" and "cat"

the same "Way To Go" sculpture goes back on the other side of the bridge

and this photo is just because...this is the Disgusting Food Museum (which I did not enter)

Triangeln shopping center

it's triangle-shaped

St John's Church, behind Triangeln (there were a few exits from the shopping center, so I exited from the back)
I have a closer-up pic of the church, but I like the pattern on the ground of the square, so I chose to post this one.

There was a specific reason why I went to Triangeln, which is a little south of central Malmö. When I was researching the way to get to Malmö, someone recommended getting off at Triangeln station, which was right before the Malmö central station, because of the “impressive arrival hall”. I actually tried to do that, but I somehow missed the stop (not being familiar with their announcements, I didn’t know it was that stop!), and only saw that it was Triangeln station after the train had started moving off. (luckily that didn’t happen on my actual stop)

So I decided to take the train back from Triangeln instead. Here is the station:


I guess it is pretty special!

But I needed to see the "arrival hall"...

another...sculpture...


this is actually halfway down the escalator; there's another one going further down

not so impressive, actually :P

I guess basically this is what's special! (see the church through the roof?)

Since it was still early (around 3pm), I went outside and looked around a little more (the train tickets that I had bought were for the round trip, and they weren’t fixed for a certain schedule, just for the day). I found this nice square where people were skateboarding.

blue flowers...or blue leaves?

looking back towards Triangeln

I sat around for a bit since I had nothing else planned (I was so lucky that the weather was lovely that day!) I remember checking whether there was anywhere else worth going in Malmö, but I didn’t find anything much; I just walked around a bit after that and went back to Copenhagen.

Monday, June 26, 2023

Is this a generation gap?

I posted this on Facebook some time ago:

"Don't understand people who sit with their backs to the people they expect to join them at their table. Surprisingly, there seem to be more and more people like this."

This was triggered by my two lunchmates always sitting with their backs to the cafeteria counter. I remember reading somewhere before that people tend to sit facing the door, to see people coming in. In this case, the seats in our cafeteria are not facing the door (the door was on the side), but one direction was facing the cafeteria counter, where people would walk out from after paying for their food, while the other faces away…to “nothing” (the end of the cafeteria)

I always sit facing the counter if I’m the first one at the table. This allows my companions to find me easily, and also allows me to wave to them if they don’t happen to spot me. (and lest you think I'm the only one...my pre-MCO lunchmates used to do that)

It already had happened once before that one lunchmate sat facing away from the counter, and also hidden by the people at the table behind him. I totally couldn’t find him until an acquaintance pointed him out to me, knowing that I usually eat with him.

Anyway, only about a week after that Facebook post, I passed the cafeteria counter after an extremely long queue, and found one of my lunchmates sitting at a table (facing away from the counter). I asked her where the other lunchmate was, since I had been queueing for ages and he wasn’t still in the queue. She had no idea…and then suddenly spotted him sitting at another table, also facing away from the counter.

Well, this wouldn’t have happened if you guys had had the sense to sit facing the counter and look out for your lunchmates, would it?

Then today…there was a long queue again, but this time I was the first out. So when I saw my lunchmate looking around for me, I waved to her. When she arrived at the table, she commented, “Wow, you could even notice that I was looking for you and knew to wave at me.” Er…that is what normal people do…

Another strange comment that I heard from my lunchmates (more precisely, one of them, but the others seemed to agree) was that the slides from a certain training were too “bare”, with a lot of empty space on the slides. I was like, “That’s how it’s supposed to be, it’s just that people nowadays cram everything into a slide because they don’t know how to present something properly.”

Then I changed the topic, because I didn’t want to start a debate. :P (or more like stopped it, since I’m not good at finding new topics…) I did sense a slight shock around the table when I said that though...

Actually I have had the opinion for ages that nowadays many people make lousy presentations. I usually don’t say it because I think no one wants to hear it, but hey, this is my blog, I can say what I want. Anyway, just saying it here in case there are some kindred spirits out there…

Now that I’m on the topic, here’s something else: Recently the managers seem to be asking those who want to improve on presentations to volunteer to do more. But the thing is, no one asks for feedback on presentations. Do they think that they will just get better at it if they do more? Well, I beg to disagree. I guess there would be improvements to a certain point, that they would get better at figuring out what to present and feel more confident. But just because you do more presentations doesn’t mean all of them are not being hated. Without any feedback, the same mistakes will keep being made, and if people hate something about your presentation but do not let you know, you might continue doing that same thing that people hate (and get better at it!).

Okay, time to stop the rant. :P

As for the title, the oldest of those is 9 years younger than me... (and the pre-MCO lunchmates I mentioned were closer to my age)

Swedish meatballs and the Malmö Castle

After visiting the Turning Torso, I walked around till I reached the Malmö Saluhall, a food hall.



In the end I opted for the Swedish meatballs.


Yummy...those in IKEA Malaysia cannot compare!
(the green thing is pickled cucumber)

this is where I was sitting...in a half-floor above the market floor

going back down to the market hall

just a view...see the white sculpture on the left? There are so many sculptures in Malmö!

Then the Malmö Castle...

an information tablet near one of the bastions


the castle (not pretty :P )

bridge across the moat to the castle

a map of Malmö?

the courtyard

a giraffe inside the castle :O (I have no idea why they had a giraffe there, and I was extremely curious :P )

And this giraffe is why I took a photo of the one in Copenhagen...

leaving the castle and walking away around the other side (that is the bridge that I crossed to the castle earlier)

view from the back, with the moat

a windmill

reaching the castle's garden



Here I shall stop, and leave the rest of Malmö for its final post!