Tempting low airfare prices

How can you not be tempted.

The picture says it all.

But unfortunately im not travelling. Low on budget these days...Else i would have been to this instead.

Why...why now...

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Back in Singaland

Havent been updating alot but i think i should at least update where i have been after Talinn, and put up stories later.

So, after Tallinn, it was

Vilnius,

Krakow,

Gyor,

Bucharest,

Istanbul,

Dubai,

and finally Singapore.

Interesting me

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Berlin Quickie

Gotta make a quick update from Berlin.

its 11pm and im too tired to go out for a walk around. just wanna stay in front of the computer and do nothing.

I just got here by a 10 hour train. the direct train from stuttgart to berlin should take about 5 hours but i took 10 hours, 4 transits, 2 times 40 mins wait, to cut the cost from 120 euro to 8 euro. yes, 8 euro. its supposed to be some weekend special 5 to go promotion and someone got the tickets, and asked random people online to join, which we then shared the costs and its 8 euros, so i basically was in a train for 10 hours with
1. an old chinese guy doctor whose studying phd in germany, he grad from nanjing uni and became a dr for a while in china and somehow went to US for some research work and then now in germany for PhD.
2. a german architect girl who is moving to berlin,cameback after working 2 yrs in new york, got hit by the financial crisis and had to move to berlin.
3. a quiet indian guy who doesnt speak much, from somewhere north india and studyng in germany.
4. a 22yr old guy whose job is making videos. he is going for some festival thingy near berlin.

so its cool to travelwith random people and its 10 hour train ride which means i have too much time i dont know what to talk about to these people.

anyways, also some update from the past week.

i spent a day in vienna, its a nice place tho it was raining a little. didnt have enough time and wished i could have spent more time at the castle.
i spent 2 days in budapest, met up with csilli and stayed at her hostel. i met her 1st time in sg, 2nd time in japan and here i am 3rd time in hungary. :D
Budapest is very nice and i started liking sending postcards after i wrote 9 postcards in budapest in front of a church. basically i got 8 postcards, and i started writing,sitting on a nice bench in front of a nice church. and after writing 8 to other people, i realize i gotta write 1 for myself, so i bought another one and wrote to myself :D
i was in Karlsruhe and stuttgart, met up fengying and her bf. It was kinda rush, most of the time rushing around, but i really i enjoy meeting people i know in some other place. and i got to view a little of the life of aSEP student. I think its really nice....


now that i am in berlin, gonna go around for tmr and day after, then will move on to stockholm.

Interestingme

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Lithuania

Just came back from a Road Trip to Lithuania.

Its actually the first time i joined such trip, its really fun. We had a huge car which is more like a van. 8 of us went, 6 of us came back.

Saulius and kestas, the 2 lithuanian guy i get to know here in Gyor had their Erasmus or student exchange program ended and they are going back to Lithuania. and some crazy people came out with the idea of driving to lithuania to drop them off, so thats how the whole trip came about.

The trip going there started at 12 am and after crossing Slovakia, Czech and Poland we finally reached Lithuania Vilnius at 6pm. so its a 18 hours drive..we had only 2 drivers, a Hungarian and a French guy. they took turn to drive while others took turn to keep talking to them to keep them awake.

Vilnius is a nice city, tho it was raining at some point of time, i think its a nice city and from the suburb its alot of grey buildings. Its kinda sad but thats how it is because it was build for the worker class during the soviet times according to these lithuanian guys. And i never imagined i would really go to Lithuania, definitely not by car, but looking at the europe map and where the country is located, its definitely not a main tourist attraction. but its really a different story to visit a city when u have some friends there. It gives u a different feeling about the city for some reason.

Anyways, I will be doing Lithuania again. Because its in the plan for my long trip.

Thanks to Ryanair again, im doing my eastern europe trip...or baltic countries trip.

Budapest on 23rd June

Slovakia on 24th June

Frankfurt and Karlsruhe on 25th June

Berlin on ~ 27th June

Stockholm on 30th June

Riga on 2nd July

Estonia on ~ 4th July

Lithuania on ~ 7th July

Warsaw,Krakow on ~ 9th July

Back in Gyor on ~ 13th July

lets hope everything goes well.

Interesting me.

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Praha

It was a good trip. despite the rain in prague. 

I remember this Argentina guy in the hostel came over when i was using the internet. He asked me to check the weather forecast. So it was Friday, the day when i arrived at prague. and the internet says its gonna rain heavily in Prague for both Saturday and Sunday and even Monday. Oh shit, we took so much effort and time, and the tiring 6 hours bus ride to prague and u telling me its gonna rain for the next few days that im here? Die.. 

So we ended up checking out nearly cities...maybe he wanna make a short trip to somewhere else to run away from the rain. At the end we both gave up because its raining in most cities in Europe except the london chunk, portugal spain chunk and athens chunk which is too far away to travel to. 

But it ended up not too bad, like walking in the rain in Prague, having capucinno in the Old Town Square because of the rain, watching street performer sing and dance in the rain, and sipping the warm coffee in temperature like 15 or 20....its good...i had a chance to see the city this way which would not have happened if its a sunny day. 

anyway, journey to prague was not really smooth also. We thought that we could have gotten a ticket on the bus, so we waited at the bus stop on Thursday evening, end up being told that no more tickets, we have to buy in advance after waiting for like 1 hour with all our luggage. 

But something i learned during the trip. Check weather forecast before u make any travel plans. Change it if the weather is not as good as you think it will be. 

And i really prefer to travel alone. much more relaxed and way more freedom......

Interesting me. 

PS : playing with DSLR is really fun..i think i will get one some day..

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Prague here i come !!

Leaving in 8 hours time to Prague. Staying there for the long long weekend till Monday. 

From now till monday, its gonna be awesome. 

Life goes on from there. 

Interesting me.

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Cheapest airfare ever

Why should everyone go travel?

My friend was telling me how cheap the flights are recently after the budget airlines started offering no fuel surcharge airfare.

So i went to do a search on some places that im interested in possible dates that i can go(means after my finals lah)

And the conclusion i got is everyone should go travel !! look at the price u can get

Singapore to Guangzhou return at SGD 234 by Tigerairways

Of course people who know this airline well will know u gotta pay some extras for check in luggage and some internet booking fee. but after all u still can get a trip to gz for mayb around 270sgd

KL - London (one way) at RM646 by Airasia X

This is a more tricky one. for the long flights they earn more from u by offering u all kinds of extra services like meals for RM38, check in luggage for like RM20 and something called comfort kit for RM25 (does this mean there wont be blankets in the flight?) but all in all, u can still get urself to london for less than RM700.

Obviously, the tickets getting back is somehow more expensive. Maybe thats how they earn extra hoping most people will buy round trip and they try to attract people by offering low low low tickets for one way.

Singapore - HCMC return at 106SGD !!!! by Jetstar

I dunno what to say for this price lah. i just went there in december for like 200SGD. somehow the price kept dropping after i bought my ticket and now....

Singapore to Taiwan return at 216SGD!! by Jetstar

This is crazy fare. Last year when i checked it was like SGD600++....mayb i should consider another trip to TW huh...


I wanna go !!


Interesting airfare.

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Cambodia Through my Eyes

Cambodia, an interesting country. I left HCMC on Thursday morning and reached Siem Reap on Thursday night, got a guesthouse to stay in and went to angkor wat the next day. walked around the night market in Siem Reap at night as well before going to Phnom Penh on Saturday morning. Visited Killing Fields, S-21 Prison, Russian Market and Central Market. and took the afternoon bus on Sunday back to HCMC. I wished i had more time to explore the country.

I didnt have much impression of the country before the visit, probably just heard people saying angkor wat is nice, things are cheap and stuff like that. So sometimes, i tagged along with other tourguides. I had no $ to hire tourguide by myself. I just walked around angkor wat and when i meet a group of people listening to the tourguide, i slow down, pretend taking some scenery pictures and listen to the stories. The same thing i did in S-21 prison.

To me, Cambodia is.......


A country that call themselves Kingdom.
It was written on the arrival card, Kingdom of Cambodia.

A country where the custom takes 2.5 hours to cross.
Perhaps its only for that day due to new year's day and long weekend, but the custom took us 2.5 hours, rediculously long. And the weird thing about the system is, you just have to trust the bus company, because u pass them ur passport and they will settle for you. You have no idea where he took the passport to and so on. Whats more, the australian in the same bus with me used 1USD in "replacement" of a so called health card.
"apparently, if you have a dollar, it means you are healthy"

A country where i didnt do enough preparation.
I didnt really prepare enough for the country before i leave. Only asked around for brief information about Cambodia and Angkor Wat. So what happened was i didnt buy the lonely planet and i borrowed from the lady sitting in front of me during the 6 hours journey. I looked up for the hotel places and i snapped a picture of the map so i can find the hostel.

A country where almost everything cost 1 dollar.
I had the fried rice with chicken at 1 dollar. In cambodia, USD is very common and basically you can survive with just USD. But of course, changing some rial helps u to save a bit(1USD = 4100Rial). Some of them are targeting at tourist and they just shout 1 dollar for watever u ask them for. I heard a mango for a dollar when u can get it for 1500 Rial. I heard of a bottle of small mineral water cost 1 dollar when u can get it for 500 Rial. And of course, i had my fried rice for a dollar.

A country where tuk tuk is more common than taxi.
To travel around siem reap basically tuk tuk is what you need. Of course you gotta be good at bargaining, because they try very hard to rip off any potential target that they can find.






A country where crickets and spiders are considered delicacies. People selling deep fried spiders and insects along the streets. I didnt dare to try any of them. Not sure why, but i didnt. Too scared perhaps. I even saw some people trading live spiders. They carry a pail around, there are some vege leaves like thingy in the pail and underneath it is whole bunch of spiders crawling around. People order and they use their bare hand, grab the spider and stuck them through a bottle thingy, They prob cant use plastic bags because the spiders are good at crawling around.




A country where the scenery is as nice as pictures.
Simply amazed by how beautiful angkor wat is. And who actually believe that it was build few hundred years ago without engineers and great machines. It deserves to be in one of the 7 wonders of the world.






A country where pictures are as nice as actual view.
The painters there are simply talented. They can paint such nice pictures at that place. I have no idea where they learn their art from, but i know for sure, the paintings are better than pictures in my camera.





A country where people dance in front of the royal palace.
I was walking around in phnom penh at about 5pm and saw this bunch of people dancing in front of the nice building. Later i found out it was the royal palace. For a moment i thought they were @ers because they played songs and someone was leading the dance and everyone was trying to follow the moves.

A country where Chili Sauce is kept in a weird container.
I cant really read korean but i understood the english word saying "LOVEHAIR". I didnt really take the chili sauce, not because it was kept in a potentially hair gel container, but i dont really like chili anyway. Still, its something i find interesting.

A country where turtle are treated as delicacies.
They had this place where they serve turtles, the whole thing, with some herbs. I think it cost like 15USD, alot for the country's standard. Didnt really try it. Just snapped a picture and ran away.

I also tried the Angkor Beer. And it actually taste quite good. I liked it at least.
Dont think it can be found anywhere else tho.





Some people asked me, dont you feel bored travelling alone?
What do you do when you are bored?
I would say sometimes. But i still like the feeling of travelling alone. Altho at some point of time i wished i was travelling with someone in Angkor Wat.
Travelling alone is a feeling of freedom, freedom to adventure and do anything you want. I bought a book at angkor wat and i sat down at random spots to read out about the place im visiting. and it is really a nice feeling.
Sometimes, i ask others to take a picture of me. Other random travellers that i can catch along the way. or any random passer by. When i got sick of trying to find someone to help me take pic, i take pic of myself. My shadow. I think its quite nice and quite fun. Tho cant really do alot of different pose.





And when im really bored, i take pictures of other travellers. People who are so focused on taking pictures. or even people who are posing for pictures, even tho they are not posing for your camera. Who cares. its nice and fun.





And last but not least, its a country where cappucino cost 1.5 USD, coke cost 1USD, and Angkor Beer cost 0.80USD.

And i didnt want to put on pictures of the killing fields and S-21 prison. I think its more impactful for others who have not been there to see it by yourself, listen to the stories by yourself. and feel the war by yourself.



I think i will be back. Be back with someone, not alone.

Cambodia. I like.

Interesting Cambodia.



******************************************************
Cant believe i have spent more 20 days away from Singapore already.
Its almost time for counting down the days in VN.
Today is Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thursday. Day after tomorrow is Friday. The day after that is Saturday, the day i leave this lovely country.


Miss the food here? Kind of.
Miss the traffic here? Kind of.
Sinh To? Kind of.
Cheap noodles? Kind of.
Freedom? Kind of.
AIESEC Vietnam? Kind of.

Sad? I think so.
Miss the people here? Sure thing.


Interesting Vietnam.

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Short update from Phnom Penh

3 more hours to my next bus ride.

It will be a 6 hours ride back to vietnam, HCMC.

Just came back from the killing fields and the prison museum. Its really an interesting, eye opener, scary experience looking at the human skulls and bones left over because of the so called revolution. So many people were killed and tortured.

And the pictures of the soldiers + prisoners staring at you are quite scary.

I havent been reading much about Cambodia's history but from the pictures in those places, cambodia was hell 30 years back.

More pictures when im back to regular internet access. Going out to Central market in phnom penh for a short walk.

Interesting Cambodia

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Live reporting from Siem Reap, Cambodia

Currently in Siem Reap.

So wassup about cambodia?

I took a bus from HCMC - phnom penh, the custom was so damn f***ing crowded that we spent almost 2.5 hours there. Just to clarify, the "we" used refer to all stupid asses who chose to travel and take the same bus with me on new year's day.

Ended up at phnom penh about 2 and the bus phom penh-siem reap only started at 3 when its supposed to be 2.30. and due to watever shit reasons, we ended up at siem reap 9pm instead of the supposedly p7pm.

Stayed in a cheapo guesthouse for 6 dollars a nite. That means 3 dollars per person. I shared the room with some random chinese guy who sat next to me on the bus. A guy from hunan working in HCMC. exactly 20years older than me. but who cares. i need someone to share the cost.

And i took a tuk tuk around Angkor wat, visited lots lots lots of temples aka rubbles aka stack of stones. I decided to buy a guide book @ 5 USD because i had no idea what all those stones are and the guide book at least helped me made some sense out of the stones.

Angkor wat is too nice to finish it in a day. i cant really finish anything and i dont think i really seen and enjoyed angkor wat enough. So i decided that i will be back. Some time some day with some one. I shall take a whole week to visit different temples and just take my own time and enjoy the scenery around the temples. the 1 day ticket cost 20USD and 1 week ticket only cost like 60USD. based on how cheap things are in cambodia i think it would make sense to spend 1 week in siem reap or at least 5days to really enjoy the life here. (dinner cost 1USD for fried rice. 0.75 USD for fruit shake. 3 dollars for the cheapest bed. So if you wanna live budget, u can basically survive on 3 for bed, 1 per meal, 1 for water, 2 for bicycle means 7 dollars a day not including the ticket to angkor. )


generally things are cheap. next time i come to cambodia i wont bring any t shirts, because i bought a shirt for 1.5 dollars, mayb if u buy more u can get it at 1 dollar each, buy 3-5 shirts here and u dont need to carry any shirts over.


Tomorrow, i will be heading to phnom penh at 6am. hopefully reach there around lunch time and be able to go to the killing fields and prison in the afternoon. stay over for a night and go to the market place on sunday and head back to HCMC in the afternoon.

Well, thats a very basic summary of whats happening. more pics coming soon.

Interesting Siem Reap.

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14th Day in Vietnamland

Best of 14 days of Vietnam

Date : 16th December 2008
Day 1
Location : Bui Vien Street, HCMC

I was riding behind Phoebe all the time. She picked me up from the airport and settled down in the MC house. Met up with Murad (again) and went out for lunch with other sg @ers and discussion with phoebe about JD.

Date : 17th December 2008
Day 2
Location : Some random restaurant, HCMC

Lijun's arrival, we had a welcome dinner thingy and it was a great meal. Saigon red, Hot pot random stuffs, bun (read as boon, a kind of noodles), Banh Khot, Banh xeo and other random stuffs.






Date : 18th December 2008
Day 3
Location : Somewhere in district 1, HCMC

My first day to RMIT, started off with a good breakfast pho ga(chicken noodles). met bunch of cool RMIT people. the campus is great.




Date : 19th December 2008
Day 4
Location : CanCham, HCMC

Went to a random xmas party in some rich man's house. Paid ridiculous price for it for not enough food and no beer. interesting people we met in the "party" anyway.










Date : 20th December 2008
Day 5
Location : Cu Chi tunnel

I was discussing strategies to fight against the US army with the VC (viet cong). It was an interesting day finding out more about the religion at cao dai temple.

Date : 21st December 2008

Day 6

Location : Somewhere, HCMC

i went to this place for dinner, a huge area where they decorate it as HCMC many many many years back. Free flow of traditional vietnamese food at a place with good scenery and nice environment

Date : 22nd December 2008

Day 7

Location : Somewhere near the airport, HCMC

Had chicken feet as "dinner". picked up Andy from the airport and moved out of MC house at night to a place nearer to RMIT.

Date : 23rd December 2008

Day 8

Location : Somewhere near Ben Thanh market, HCMC

Went to this place something like a bakery for smoothies and bread. Quite expensive for Vietnamese standard of pricing. But its good environment and stuff.

Date 24th December 2008

Day 9

Location : Loc's House, HCMC

Instant noodles + beer + ice cream for dinner at home. The beer in the pic is for display only. we didnt actually finish off all the beer.

Date : 25th December 2008

Day 10

Location : Phuong's house, Vung Tau

BBQ dinner at phuong's house. Nice beach, great fun with cool people. Cheap and good beer and nice hot pot stuff.

Date : 26th December 2008

Day 11

Location : Some beach, Vung Tau

went to the beach and got my sun glasses for 20,000 VND (abit less than 2sgd). Slacked at the beach for almost the whole day and really good time there. I miss there now.

Date : 27th December 2008

Day 12

Location : RMIT, HCMC

picture with LC RMIT after LCP election. Congratulations to Thao for being the LCP.

Date : 28th December 2008

Day 13

Location : Somewhere, Mekong Delta

1 day tour to My Tho city and took some random boat rides around the river. visited a few places, drank some honey tea, had some fresh fruits with traditional vietnamese singing, and a coconut candy factory.

Date : 29th December 2008

Day 14

Location : Loc's house, HCMC

Breakfast bought by Lam, its called Ba'nh Cuo^'n. Its some super nice rice skin wrapping some vege and some pork. I know whatever i say doesnt really make sense, but i know how it taste like so its ok.

Interesting Vietnam

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6th day in vietnamland

Sunday, 21st December. 

6th day in Vietnam. 

Location. King Baguetteria, Tran Quang Khai, HCM, VN

I arrived in Vietnam about 1 hour late from scheduled. Sighz, tiger airways. Meeting phoebe who picked me up in the airport is a good feeling. The others got their trip 99% planned by Long through booked trips.  

My first time travelling in scooter with my backpack, phoebe almost had no leg space coz of my backpack. first shock was seeing Murad coming out of the MC house half naked, he got no more red hair.
 

The lunch was great, for about 6sgd, we had buffet kinda thing in a proper restaurant. Great not because of the food, i mean the food was mediocre, but the 6sgd for buffet was great. 

Get to go out for a vietnamese hot pot kind of thing on the 2nd day evening for dinner, met up with Li Jun who just arrived. of course other @ers as well. the hot pot is really good. started liking Viet food after that. 

After which i spent 2 days in RMIT, helping out in SRB and meeting up with the members of RMIT. ALL of them bunch of fun people. apparently RMIT Vietnam is exactly the same as RMIT Aus, buildings are similar, you get the same degree, and they even studied australian law. o, the ice cream in RMIT is reallllyy good. I had that for twice after lunch everyday.  

I also spent an evening in some so called xmas party in cancham, which i think is super overpriced for "not enough food", "loads of ang mohs" in a "rich man's house". But getting to know lam and loc is good fun. at least i managed to pick up some random viet there. 

and not to forget a day of cao dai temple and cu chi tunnel (read as gu qi tunnel). With long there as translator and tourguide its really great fun travelling in Vietnam. But i dont really like the idea of guided tour coz its like being forced to move out of the place even though felt like staying longer at some point of time. not to mention its SUPER overpriced. 

Summary. 

in 5 days of Vietnam. I did...

Ride on motorbike

Drove motorbike

Shared MC house with MC

Had buffer kinda thing for 6 SGD

Randomly ordered without knowing wat im ordering in a cafe

Went to a club

Had BBQ with RMIT members

2 days of SRB, each from 2-6pm

had lunch in RMIT

had pho as breakfast

sit in cafe for few hours just to use internet

had street instant noodles

took xe om

took taxi

took alot of free rides from @ers here

had hot pot the vietnamese style

paid 20 sgd for ridiculous party

had strawberry milkshake from street stalls

count 1-10 in vietnamese

learnt simple words in vietnamese 

risked my life 1000 times crossing the roads 

bought a helmet for motorbike at 3.5 sgd

started my own mini vietnamese langyuage notebook. 

crawled in the cu chi tunnel

visited cao dai temple

**********************************************************

FAQ

Q1. 

Q : so what do you think about Vietnam? 

A : Interestingly messy

Q : huh?? 

A : because in sg and malaysia everything is so boring that u will never drive a motorbike in the opposit direction against 1000 other bikes. And its really interesting because u never know when to move and when not to move, but somehow viets know. and there are almost no fixed direction for any vehicles, taxi do U-turns in random middle of the road, people popping out of no where and the roads are so unorganized to the extend i have no idea how its numbered and named. That makes it interesting for a person who have been taking MRT and seeing shopping mall everytime coming out of a MRT. Perhaps is just too sick of the similar daily life, no excitement, so i got quite excited about the traffic in HCM. 

Q : So your name is? 

A : Siew Yik

Q : *blur face* huh? 

A : Siew Yik.. *swt*

Q : *paiseh face* how do you spell it? 

A : S..I..E..W 

Q : S..I..E.........

A : W

Q : W..

A : yeap, Y..I..K...

Q : Y..I..K.....*silent for 2 seconds* Siew Yip?? (there are 1000 other variations of this)

A : *watever you say* yea...Siew Yik..

Q : o...ok..Siew Yik...

** somehow my name is abit hard to pronounce and i usually have to repeat my name 2-3 times before people getting it. Perhaps i should introduce myself as SY ** 

**********************************************************

But i really like the experience im having here, everyday is exciting. People here are fun and relaxed, things are cheap, and you can get killed in traffic anytime of the day. So everyday is the last day. Cool !! 

And LC RMIT people are so cool !! omg...they are just damn cool and fun !! 

Interesting Vietnam

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Excited about Vietnam

A meeting on skype with Phoebe, MC VP TM from Vietnam.

Excited about the whole Vietnam Trip!

My Job there will be working closely with the newly form LC team, including LCP and EB to expand the RMIT LC. Working full time with the MC is gonna be challenging yet exciting, with a position called LC Expansion coordinator.

Im gonna spend my Xmas, New Year and Bday in Vietnam! or cambodia. yay!!

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Vietnam here i come

From Singapore (SIN) to Ho Chi Minh City (SGN)
	Tuesday, 16 Dec 08		Flight TR 326		Depart Singapore (SIN) at 07:45 and arrive in Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) at 08:50

From Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) to Singapore (SIN)
	Saturday, 10 Jan 09		Flight TR 329		Depart Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) at 17:25 and arrive in Singapore (SIN) at 20:20

Total Price : 205.02SGD

Thanks to Tigerairways

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