Even though I live in a single-season country, I have always closely identified November with autumn ever since I visited Oslo in 2009.

It was my first time coming head on with how autumn looks like and feels, walking on leaves-strewn paths in the park, admiring colourful trees that are in the process of shedding their leaves, and of course going around in a trench coat to keep warm from the chilly weather.

I fell in love with autumn then and there.

I visited Oslo very briefly on a cruise trip from Copenhagen. It was something organised by our university, where they would put all of the exchange students on one cruise and shipped us to Oslo for a day trip. Our cruise departed from Copenhagen harbour on a beautiful afternoon.

I shall not disclose in detail what happened in the cruise where about a hundred or so exchange students basically partied the whole night. I was more interested in the food as usual, but the point was we got to Oslo in one piece and had a good few hours to explore the city.

We were greeted by a very gloomy day.

Since everything was ridiculously expensive there, we opted for the cheapest (if possible, free) way to do everything. We packed our lunch from the cruise breakfast (sshhh) and decided to walk everywhere and visited only the attractions with free entrance.

Luckily for us, one of Oslo’s main attractions, Vigelandsparken, was free of charge! It was a public park with a collection of statues doing very interesting poses, almost abstract if you ask me.

It wasn’t long before I did the only natural thing that came to my mind: copy their poses.

And finally, my favourite pose which I completely failed to mimic.

Statues aside, the reason why I loved the park so much was because it showed me autumn just like how I had imagined it to be, with long rows of orange-and-green trees and a path you could just stroll on to admire the sight.

I started to become very obsessed with leaves, and one thing I loved was stepping on them and hear the crisp crunching sound.

When I got bored of just snapping pictures of them, I did the only thing that made sense.

You can see the joy in my face, but I mind you, this picture was harder to take than it looks! Well, apart from the fact that one of us had her face fully covered, it was another thing realising when the leaves were up in the air, they were all going to land straight on your open-mouthed face, complete with the dirt and all. I wouldn’t have minded having a few more tries so that everyone’s face could be seen, but I think my friends started to get annoyed with me so I stopped.

But whatever, I still think this picture is adorable.

In this chilly autumn weather (even Singapore is raining constantly these days), keep warm and dry everyone! xx