flimflamFLOOM

2011-09-25T11:27:00.001+01:00

awesome summer spent at home :)) and now it's time to go back to london :))

2011-08-08T09:31:00.002+01:00

tired. and i wonder how long more this has to go on.

Lampeter

2011-07-01T11:54:00.000+01:00

Just finished my fieldtrip to Lampeter.

had a 3 days of lectures and practicals as preparations for the trip. the practicals were useful, learnt a lot about surveying and traversing. but the lectures were a bit overkill. info overload. but oh well, the 3 days crawled by...

monday, gathered in front of bloomsbury to take a coach to lampeter. the weather was fine till we reached wales -.- had stops for lunch, and toilet break at wales best toilet or sth. haha. reached lampeter about 4.30pm, got our rooms, unpacked and then it was dinner time. after dinner, work started.

basically it was just breakfast at 8, morning briefing at 9. then work all the way till dinner then briefing at 7pm then work until we're done for the day. up and about. tiring. with horrible weather for the first week. it was grey, and gloomy, and raining, and windy and miserable. the place was small and boring and miserable. argh.

first week we had to do 4 tasks. task 1 took up a bulk of our time. it was pretty interesting, did surveying and traversing and detailing. it was quite fun lor actly, just tht the weather and the place and the timing of the whole field trip and a certain group member...

omg the group member was horrible. he is soooo annoying. he just has sth against me like irritating to the max. urgh. he claims that i just want to argue with him and tht whatever he say im against it. im not the only one lor. my other groupmates also not for his ideas. but its just me. after tht, whatever i say is wrong and he cannot give me reasons. aiya just damn annoying la. made my horrible week even more horrible.

weekend came and we had task 3 and task 4 which weren't really counted. and also some time off but time off also nothing to do -.- we went to tour the lynn brianne dam. pretty nice place. and tht day was super hot. so many angmors sun burnt. haha. veh funny to see.

ohh and just to show how small the town is, 10 mins either way, you are into the next town. yup that's how small the place is. miserable -.-

2nd week is a lot better. it was scenario 5. we were all so worried that we'll be damn busy and overworked. plus due to the stress and bad weather, a lot of people were sick. but then, it turned out tht scenario 5 was actly enjoyable. quite chill and slack actly. nth much to do. but with nth to do, we really hv nth to do beacuse the place is...

we worked out in the fields with cows and sheep and cow poo and sheep poo and stinging nettles. luckily we had very good weather. it was quite fun working outdoors, and setting out our road and all that. i felt that i actly learnt in this scenario and there were lots of hands on. i like :)

and my group went trekking and trespass like a thousand farms and walked past cows and sheep. haha. fun fun :)

the trip is finally over :) time to prepare for dubai and then back home to singapore! :D

Copied from Facebook notes :)

2011-06-20T11:40:00.000+01:00

It's the end of Day5 of my 17day Eastern Europe Trip :D Really amazing 5 days thus far. like really really amazing. i just need to keep track of what i did so i'm writing a short note :D

Day 1:
Took a train from King's Cross to Luton Airport. Epic Fail #1: i didn't get my e-ticket stamped for visa purposes because i just thought i can walk through like any other trips. Got stopped at the gate before boarding the plane and the mean short guy did not want to let me on the plane, or back out to get the stamp. Another tall handsome guy excorted me out via don't know what way (but woah, i got to walk through unaccessedbypublic areas of the airport haha), got the stamp and had to do the security checks all over again, but i got on the plane fine :D whee :D

Reached Tallinn, Estonia 20mins early. Took a bus to the city centre and found my way successfully to my hostel. Really pretty hostel, with nice duvets and all. It was a 6 bed dorm. That night there was a hongkong guy, a canadian old woman (omg she is so cooooool she tours and tours when i grow old i want to be like her :D), a brit and a middle eastern who works in london.

Toured the Old Town that afternoon. Ate at a pub serving Estonian food in a European style (meaning estonian food tweaked for tourists -.-). and the chef that day was *drumroll* the chef from fat duck. YES the one michelin fat duck chef. slurp slurp :D omg the old town is full of cobblestones. i do not like cobblestones. they make my feet very painful. i dunno how the ladies there wear their heels.

ohh and i ate their national chocolate. it's like the uber famous everybody eats (there's like entire shelves of that brand in the supermarket) it. so i bought those atas one by one choose the flavour ones. bought 3 highly recommended by the shopowner and omg soooooo good. especially the marzipan (which originated from tallinn) super good. didn't buy for souvenir though (reason being..)

was super duper tired that night and slept at 11pm but the sky was so bright. i woke up at 7 the next day and it was alrdy bright i thought i took an afternoon nap -.-

Day 2:
I wanted to go the Lahemma National Park on Day 3 but apparantly it's only accessible by car, so i had to scrap that. Original plan was to go to Haapsalu (coastal town) today, but i changed that to Day 3 cos it was more convenient. So i went 270degrees around the Old Town.

I went to Kadriorg Park (NE of Old Town) to look at grass and statues and castles and the freedom monument, then i walked to the harbour (N of Old Town), sat on a bench and stared at a cruise come in. There's sth about the sea that attracts me. Love the sound of waves and looking at the cruise reminds me of my cruise trips. nostalgic :) and the sea reminds me of sailing :)

after that i went to the Open-Air Museum (SW of Old Town). took a bus cos it's quite far and talked to the old lady sitting beside me. she didn't really understand me and i didn't really understand her, but yah we managed to hold a 15min conversation. haha. the open-air museum is really really really nice, it showcases houses, farms and settlements of old Estonia, so really cool. and it's outdoors. you actly walk on grass and sand and yah it was by the sea. they had the real and some rebuilt houses of the past, and the best part is they actly hire pple to sit around and pretend they are from the past. just that a lot of them were talking on their phones -.- and i ate at this cafe which was in an old style tavern. the door is so difficult to opened i thought it was locked and they were closed. food served was all traditional estonian food, so i had a soup (i dunno what was inside but there's barley) and a drink. the drinks were pretty normal like coffee, tea but one had no translation so i ordered that. it's kama, some yogurt thing with grains, really really estonian and i like it :D

then i went to nomme (S of Old Town), which was where the old lady stayed. i wanted to see the residential area so i took a bus down to take a look. it was really interesting. they stay in houses along streets. like terrace houses, but standalones. bungalows? but anyway, the interesting thing is that every house is different. it's not like in singapore where all the houses look the same, each house was different. it's like there can be a stone house, then a wooden house, then a concrete house. no straw houses though.

Ready for Epic Fail #2? i was back at the hostel doing my accounts. when i realised i was short of a lot of Euros. so i took really good care of my stuff so i didn't think somebody stole my money, so i thought i rmbed the amount i changed wrongly. but no matter how i calculated, the amount didn't tally. so i smsed ziyang who was holding my room key to check how much i changed (i wrote it down) and guess what? i didn't rmb wrongly, i just forgot to bring the money. clapclap thankyou. so yup i brought over160Euros less than planned (85 actly, 75 was left from the previous trip which i didn't count it in). ah well, i survived. haha. have to pay for my chernobyl tour in UAH though. but yah, i'm fine :D

hongkong guy left.

Day 3:
Went to Haapsalu. it's a coastal town in western estonia. small town, with castles, and beaches. basically did a walkabout, and when i reached the promenade (omg it was so nice, there was nobody it was so peaceful so i sat and looked at the sea and fed birds) it EPIC FAIL #3 started raining -.- took shelter at a restaurant and had an estonian cake. then i decided to just go ahead with my walkabout with an umbrella. went to the harbour and spent the next two hours in and out of free galleries (because it was raining and nobody goes to the beach when it rains). Rain stopped and i made my way to the beach. wasn't really a beach, more of a seaside playground. there was a swing and i just sat on the swing and looked at the sea. told you i love the sea :D

then it got a bit cold, so i went to the only resort there and because the place looked like ZOMG atas maxed, i decided to just maybe hv a cup of tea while waiting for the bus to come. had a tomato soup instead and they served a welcome dish complimentary from the chef. smoked salmon, really fresh. and i noticed after that that the other tables didn't get it. wahahaha. my soup came and it was soooooooooo good could totally taste the freshness of the tomato soup and i was like ok i need to continue the meal. haha. so i ordered an estonian quail in grape soup, but they didn't hv that so the waiter suggested a pasta with smoked chicken and hazelnuts in an estonian style sauce and offered to change the chicken to quail. super yummy also :D then i finished my meal with a mojito creme brulee, made from estonian liquer. superb meal :D for less than 10euros :D love love :D

took the bus back to tallinn and then a coach to riga. this marked the end of the estonian leg of the journey and next is latvia!

Day 4:
arrived at riga at 4.50am. made my way to my hostel, avoiding leftover friday night clubbers. found my way there and they only allow check in at 12nn :( so i took a shower and slept for a while in the lounge. at around 8, the girl let me into the room (16 bed dorm), i put my things down, unpacked and ahem EPIC FAIL#4. i realised i left a bag of dirty clothes in tallinn -.- good thing there's only 2 tank tops from primark and a pair of socks. then i went out. the canoe trip i signed up for got cancelled so i decided to go to Sigulda National Park today instead of tmr.

took a quick look at the central market beside the bus station and bought a bag of awesomely sweet cherries :D

there was some cultural festival there, so it was really crowded and *gasps* lots of kids. basked in their festive mood, and trekked around. had sloanka, a soup with russian origins at the end point and took a bus back to riga.

reached riga at around 6, caught some parts of the GO blonde festival (a really big festival in riga where real and fake blondes compete for miss blonde or sth like that, and drinking and being blonde, yah). took out a map and followed it and toured the old town. more cobblestones. ate at a recommended restaurant and tried latvian food. yumyum :D

due to the lack of sleep, i slept at 10 and woke up at 8plus. hahaha. and my 16bed dorm only had 3 females that night, all solo travellers. woohoo :D

Day 5:
went to the art noveau architecture area. really really pretty houses. there was this picture in the guide book with an owl motiff and i walked the entire area looking for it. finally found it :D yay! but yah the architecture was really beautiful :) after that went to the central market. the market is huuuuuge. i love going to markets and supermarkets, it's these places where you can get some ideas of the everyday life of the people living there. and it's so busy, all the hustle and bustle makes me happy :D

then i went for lativan potato pancakes and a desert called bread soup (super super yummy) and woohoo headed to naughty squirrel hostel for the shooting. EPIC FAIL #5 when i arrived they were leaving cos they changed the time to an earlier one.so i kinda missed them as i was waiting for the receptionist who was attending to sb else. we chased them and reached the tram stop just in time. phew. i was the only female other than me was the hostel person who were bringing us there -.- nobody talked to me except for this philipino who worked in london.

when we reached the shooting range, which was originally a soviet bunk, we were given instructions and shooting started. first was a glock. we took turns to shoot and i was the last cos i stood the furthest from the lady in charge, who is the owner of the shooting range and some ex shooting champion. after i finished shooting she started spewing latvian words and the hostel person translated, basically, i'm good. hahahaha. next was the ak. i don't think it's ak47. if i didn't rmb wrongly, i think it's ak101, a more advanced version. the impact wasn't so great, it was ok. a bit scary at the start though. and yah, she started spewing more latvia. now, i'm really really good. hahahaha. third and last was the shot gun (the one the hunter used to chase bugs bunny). this one is the cooooolest. cos we had to load it. you knw the whole CHA-CHING thing. damn cool. and because this one gets hotter with use, the lady asked me to go first. hehheh. got a shock for the first one. the impact was huge. but yeah, after this, i'm talented. hahahaha. ohh and the group started talking to me. it's like i'm no longer this small asian girl (ok, i knw i'm not small, but most of them were big angmors, aussie i think), but somebody worth talking to. talked to them for a while. after we finished the shooting, went back to the hostel and chatted for awhile. omg this 2 guys are going to do a 4 month drive all around europe trip. super cool. oh and i impress them with my trip. they were like, wow but you're asian! eh what? asians pack a punch too,k?

then i went to the main branch of this Lido Group of restaurants. really highly recommended. it has it's own bus stop. it's not just a restaurant, it has it's own mini theme park for kids. and it's the largest log house in europe. the setting is marche style, you see, you choose, you take then you pay at the end counted. omg the variety was overwhelming. when i walked in i was like "shunjie, jolene, i need you here. NOW". the place is amazaing. a really relaxed happy atmosphere, food with quantity, quality and variety. i was enjoying myself, looking at the latvians dance spontaneously to the music and enjoying my food, i didn't want to leave.

tonight, there's only me and another dutch lady in the 16 room dorm. this is worth it. haha. oh and i figured out where. there's a room where alcohol is allowed downstairs. so all the men took that room. haha.

and that's all for now. ok, this was supposed to be a short note :b i'm really really glad i made this trip. i was a little nervous at first, i mean it's so long, and it's eastern europe. i actually did think of shortening it or forfeiting it, but i decided it was going to worth it and it has been so far :D really really enjoying myself and having the time of my life :D

every night i want to go to sleep quickly because i can't wait for the next day, but i don't want to sleep because i don't want today to end.

thank you mummy and daddy for letting me do this :D

Day 6:
planned to cycle from riga to jurmala (a seaside town) and then along the cycling path to kemeri nature reserve. Epic Fail #6 that didn't happen. the bicycle rental shop bluff me, they said they open at 9.30 but the waiter at the restaurant opp say they always open at 11. so i decided to train to jurmala and rent a bike there instead. when i reached jurmala, i looked for the info centre and she gave me the few nearest bike rental shops. none.of.them.were.open. bloody. hell. so ok fine, don't cycle lor. i walk. maybe it was a good thing, cos there were many places that were unreachable by bike.

and i walked along the beach. ommmggg love it. cos it was a monday, so the beach was pretty quiet. weather was ok, a little sunny but with a lot of clouds. so the sun came in and out. the sand was fine, the wind was cooling and the sound of the waves was therapeutic. and it's the baltic sea, and the waters in this region are less salty than normal sea water, so you don't get the sticky sticky feeling. very very chillax :) walked around and looked at the area then i took a minibus to kemeri. the moment i got off the bus i was like o.o super dilapidated. not a human in sight. so i scrapped the idea of going into the nature reserve, in case i get lost and nobody knows, walked through the outside park and waited for a bus to bring me back to civilisation. wanted to ferry back, but i missed it so i trained back instead.

dinner was fun. haha. i basically have about 5lats to spend. the last 5lats. so i needed to find a cheap place. i just anyhow walk and i came by this interesting pelmini place. pelmini is a kind of dumpling with russian origins. and it's sold by weight. so you take as many as you want, they weigh it and you pay how much you take. so i had pelmini and i had a bowl of cold beetroot soup. it's a baltic soup. called zulva supa or sth like that. it looks like bandung. it's basically beetroot, cucumber, chopped egg and kefir (buttermilk) and dill. it tasted pretty good, but i believe it's acquired taste. whoever thought of mixing those things together... so the soup and pelmini cost me 1.70lats. then i crossed the street and had dessert :D had a chocolate cake with riga black blasam cream. black balsam is a liqueur only found in riga. that's 1.50lats. so i spent 3.20lats :D still got leftover for breakfast tmr :D hehheh.

so this marks the end of leg 2, the latvian leg. taking a 5hour bus to klaipeda, lithuania tmr. wheeeee :D

Day 7:

omg one week. i've been travelling alone for an entire week. wooo. in klaipeda, lithuania now. woah my god it is daaaaamn hot. it's 29deg today. spent most of the time on a bus though. wanted to take the 9.30am bus from riga and reach at 2pm but there were no more seats so i had to take the 11.15am one. reached at around 4.15pm. EPIC FAIL #7. seriously, do i have to have one everyday? -.- but maybe it was good, cos the 9.30am one was a minibus and i one i took was a big coach with nice big chairs. so anyway, i spent the 5 hours looking at the scenery. lots of vast green land with random houses here and there. and they have many many ponds and lakes. plus the clear blue sky today, pretty :D lithuania is 200m below sea level on average. random fact. haha. yup, so reached klaipeda, checked into my hostel which is like right at the door step of the bus station.

went to the old town to tour. after tallinn and riga, klaipeda's old town just pales in comparison. it was really quiet. ohh and they hv a lot of random statues here and there. like a cupid here, a mouse there, a cat somewhere else. apparantly, your secret wishes will come true if you stroke the cat's tail. but there was a couple making out so erm i gave it a miss. haha. if i have the time i'll go look for more.

i didn't really feel like exploring cos of the super duper hot weather, so i looked for dinner. had some fried cod thingy. omg the cod is suuuuuper fresh. ohh and i had a gira, which is similar to the kvass in latvia. hooked on the drink. it's very yummy :D then i made my way back to the hostel. i need to wash my clothes. haha. tmr's my last set boo.

oh and i bought a bottle of sunblock. haha.

Day 8:

OMMMMGGG I AM SOOOOO TIRED MY LEGS ARE GOING TO GIVE WAY SOON. anyway, today was hell of an adventure. hahaha. so i went to curonian spit, a long narrow stretch of land made up of sand dunes. Human habitation of this elongated sand dune peninsula, 98 km long and 0.4-4 km wide, dates back to prehistoric times. Throughout this period it has been threatened by the natural forces of wind and waves. Its survival to the present day has been made possible only as a result of ceaseless human efforts to combat the erosion of the Spit, dramatically illustrated by continuing stabilisation and reforestation projects.

original plan was to ferry there with a bike rented from my hostel, cycle to the other end and ferry back. but the ferry only goes from one end, so if i cycle i have to do to and fro which is like 100km. seeing that i've walked for a week and have another week to walk, i decided not to. 50km can, 100? maybe not. so i decided to ferry there, and bus about.

so i reached there. walked ard a little while waiting for the bus which is once every 3 hours for both directions. reached the other end, nida. the main attraction is the highest sand dune, 52m above sea level. so i walked to the sand dune and climbed up. it was sandy. haha. so a bit difficult to walk but i reached the top. omg the view was breathtaking. i dunno why, i was awed. it was like i can see the rest of the island, i can see the curonian lagoon on one side, the baltic sea on the other and i can see a bit of russia (not the big piece, russia has this other area beside lithuania). it was damn cool. at that moment, i was like, omg jasvin you're awesome. hahahaha. after the initial *gasp*, i saw this wooden path. damn. i walked up the sandy way -.-

so i just walked around the village after that, had lunch and caught the next bus to the centre part of the spit. i finished seeing the sights in about an hour. so i had 2 hours to kill before the next bus. i didn't want to go to the beach, cos i'm doing that tmr, so i decided to chill at the harbour. the moment i sat down, omg mosquitoes attack! so i couldn't sit. i had to walk ard but walking along the harbour for 2 hours is lame. so i decided to walk towards the ferry terminal, 18km away. there's this monument at the halfway mark. so i decided to walk to the monument and then take the bus from there. 1 hour 30 mins shld be enough. the walk was pretty ok. i could see the curonian lagoon, it was sunny and windy so the feeling was kinda good. only thing was the mosquitoes and sandflies. omg ive never seen so many sandflies before and the mosquitoes look more like dragonflies.

time was enough, i reached the monument and waited for the bus. ah ha, EPIC FAIL #9. i chose the wrong time to turn around, open my bag, reached for my water bottle and drink water. of all things, i cannot multi-task when it comes to drinking water. when i finished my water and put down my bottle, i saw the backside of the bus. OMG MY HEART DROPPED TO THE FLOOR AND TUNNEL THROUGH ABOUT 4238972km. the next bus is 3 hours later.the walk down is another 1 hour 30 mins. damn. so i decided to hitchhike. dangerous i know i know, but i selectively hitch hike. i told myself, i try 3 vehicles, by the third one if nobody fetch me, i'm calling the tourism office to save me.

1st car was a car of family, they didn't stop. maybe the car was too full with a dog and a baby. 2nd car was 2 females 1 male, i saw them at the harbour. they didn't stop either. 3rd car i was like omg pleeeeeeease stop. i put out my thumb, and the car drove past. it was an old couple, and the car drove past cos the old man didn't have time to react, he stopped a little down. YAY! so they didn't speak english and i didn't speak lithuanian, so using hand gestures and a map and pointing, they not only fetched me to the ferry terminal, they fetched me to the next destination. OMG SOOOOO NICE AND I AM SOOOO GRATEFUL :D wheepee!

had dinner, and came back to the hostel. i am sooo tired. the only walking i'm doing tmr is walk to the bus stop and take bus. hahaha. oh and lithuanian food is a little on the salty side for me. but the desserts are nice. they make yummy things out of raspberry, the same way latvians make yummy things out of rye bread. haha.

tiiiirreeedddd, but happy :D

Day 9:
woah, more than half my trip gone.

today i went to palanga beach, a beach along the baltic sea. i suntan facing north pole ok? cool hor. spain and greece and croatia? bo-o-ring! haha jkjk i still want to go :b yup, so today was chillax to the max. i went to palanga, found a nice spot and lepak there for 3 hours. then i decided to go walk about, but i just kept thinking of the beach. so i went back and sunbathed for another 2 hours. wheeee :D damn chill. lovely weather as well. sunny but couldn't feel the heat. love it :D after that i had dinner. omg the dessert was super good.

that's all i did today. rest and relax :D recharge for the next 8 days :b off to vilnius in a while :D damn excited for the next 8 days. people i've met have been telling me how beautiful vilnius, krakow and kiev are. ooooh excitement much :D :D :D

ohh and i saw my first chinese today. haha. met a hk lady at the hostel. hahahaha.

ohh and lithuanian tv is cool. you knw how voices are dubbed on tv? yah well, they do that in lithuania too, just that one person dubs the voice of everybody. so it was really funny when it's a woman talking, but a man's voice. it's like watching a monologue. hahahaha.

tata!

Day 10:

omg i just realised day 9 no epic fail :D ytd dun hv also :D yay :D

reached vilnius at around 5.45am ytd, after a 6 hour bus ride. had a pleasant surprise. woke up at 3.30 and saw the sunrise. pretty :D i went back to slp and when i woke up again i thought i dreamt that i saw the sunrise, but nope, it's real. there's photos in my camera :D whee. and i saw the night sky for the 2nd time since i started my trip. first one was during the bus ride from tallinn to riga. haha. probably will see it one more time tonight on the freaking 14hour bus ride to krakow o.O

ok so anyway, i reached my hostel and i originally wanted to upgrade to a single or double room. but i saw the dorm and decided not to. the dorm is very cute. the beds are like huge shelves fitted with mattress. so i have a 'shelf' to myself and it's really cosy. and each shelf has a powerpoint, a lamp, a hook and a place to put our small items like hp and specs. it was pretty nice :D omg and the toilet is daaaaamn nice. like hotel one. whee.

so i slept for a couple more hours and headed off. went to trakai. it's a historic city and lake resort. it has the only castle in the world built on an island. basically there's this piece of land in the middle of 5 lakes and the only thing there is a castle. really tranquil place. plus it wasn't peak season, so it wasn't really crowded, as with all other places :D yay. wanted to take a yatch to go around the lakes, but it's damn ex. cos i would need to rent the whole yatch. would be worth it if it was a group. tried to haggle but to no avail. so i took the ferry instead. haha. still nice, just that yatch cool ma :b hahahaha. oh and there was a group of MPs from Kyrgyzstan. so this guy saw me and asked if i was from central asia cos he thought it'll be cool if i was and i can go talk to to the Kyrgyzstan people. haha.

ate at a recommended restaurant for karaim food, food of the Crimean Karaites who inhabit the place. i knew i was at the right place cos there was this tour group there. taiwanese. talk about seeing my first chinese -.- haha. saw so many today. and while i was waiting for my food, kyrgyzstan people came. haha. woo the puff pastry damn nice :D

after that i went to the center of europe. it's this point 26km north of vilnius which is internationally recognised as the geographical centre of europe. so having this weird liking for special points (think 3 point land hahah), i wanted to go see. there was basically a monument by a lithuanian sculptor and 20 over flags of european countries. i wanted to take pictures of the flags of countries i've been to, but i realise i dunno how the flags look like, like you knw the vertical horizontal stripes? confusing. so i gave up. haha. and then i walked around the area, all grass and grass and grass. cos it was near a golf course. hahaha. watched people play golf, saw a mount of grass and decided to climb up to get a view of the grass and didn't realise it was so steep until i wanted to go down. made it down safely and went to wait for my bus.

i am very brave. this bus also comes once in 3 hours. hahaha. so to prevent missing the bus and having to try to hitch hike or walk 26km back to vilnius, i didn't do anything else but focused on the road. i just looked at the road and with any sign of sth that looks like it could be the bus, i stood up. hahaha. success ok? haha i boarded the bus and phew :D drank water. haha. cos it was really hot :x

reached vilnius and just wandered around the old town looking for food. haha. then i came back and i wanted to do my laundry but i can only do so at 10pm. so i thought i will hv to wait, but nope :D all i have to do is pass my laundry to the person and she'll do it for me :D yay :D haha. clean clothes! :D

Day 11:

the lithuanian leg is coming to an end. leaving at 5pm for krakow. 14 hours bus ride. woah. wish me luck. hope i can get some english book/magazine/newspaper to read. still hv a little litai left to spend. baaaah.

so anyway today i walked the old town, looked at the buildings, architecture and sights. pretty crowded at some streets. some were just damn quiet. and i climbed 2 hills. one to see the castle ruins and another to see 3 crosses. haha jk, the 2nd one was for the view.

there was some challenge going on, so throughout the whole day i saw pple running, cycling, carrying kayaks. quite cool. i saw a handsome one and said all the best to him. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

ate at some lithuanian restaurant. omg the dessert was awesome. dunno what it is but it was good. haha. and now spent the next hour trying to finish up my litai but i couldn't find anything to buy :( probably get something at the bus station later.

wheeee :D 6 more days left!

Day 12:

KRAKOW! in my 4th country at the moment. different timezone from the rest. haha. different currency, again. came from vilnius on a 14hr bus ride. omg butt pain max. but it was fine. cos i just slept most of the time. read half of the time magazine i bought. hehheh. quite interesting. ohh and i tried catching the sunset and sunrise. didn't really see the sun. but saw the nice sky colours :D

upon reaching, trammed to my hostel. pretty nice. 4 to a room this time. so i unpacked, and bathed and washed some stuff. wanted to sleep for a while but i was too excited about seeing krakow. haha. so i couldn't sleep. so i just checked out some krakow stuff and a new roomie came. a big bloke from canada with tattoos. sounds scary? haha omg he's super friendly and he's a nurse by training. looks really damn deceiving. haha.

then i went to a sunday market at plac nowy. just walked around. then i went to the main market square to look look see see and to wait for the free tour. pretty interesting, learnt more about the history of poland and krakow (pronounced kra-kov by the way cos their w is pronounced as v). and the guide was quite good. wanted to tip him more but ah well, tight budget :b haha. the tour took like 3 hours. omg it was hot at 33deg. like 8 and a half months since i was in that temp.

after the free tour i went to wieliczka salt mine. that was another 3 hours, looking at the mine and the museum. omg the salt mine is awesome. it was kinda inspiring, really. the machinery and technology used back in the 12th and 13th century, simple in today's terms, but really really amazing. engineers ftw! haha. oh and practically everything inside was salt and wood. omg timber! haha for support. reminds me of materials :b oh and i saw the nicest chapel ever. it was inside the salt mine and everything was done by 3 miners. it was really really really beautiful. and the salt mine was a good excuse to escape the heat. haha. there's this ventilation system in the mine that keeps the temp at 14deg whatever the season. quite cool.

at the end of the tour i was super tired! legs were screaming. had a polish dinner at a place recommended by the free tour guide and back to the hostel. super tired.

early day tmr. gng to auschwitz and another free tour.

whee :D very tired, but very happy :D

Day 13:

woke up, ate breakfast and checked fb, email blahblahblah. went to double confirm my flight to kiev the next morning and realised it's stated as cancelled o.O bloody hell. skyped my mum and asked her to check for me (cos the office wasn't open and i was going out).

went to auschwitz (pronounced ows-vict) concentration camp. and it was a 3.5hr tour so i couldn't make it for the afternoon jewish quarter free tour. the trip to auschwitz was sad. it's a really saddening place. i took a few photos and didn't feel like taking anymore. felt like i dunno, 1.5million people died at auschwitz and birkenau camps and people were snapping away happily, posing with the crematorium and all that. i felt it was a little disrecpectful.

it was an informative tour. learnt about how things were like in the camps and some ww2 facts. after the tour, while waiting for the shuttle bus, i talked to this new zealander. he was at the tour alone too cos his wife didn't want to do the tour (she was deeply affected when she visited the germany camp). yah and apparantly we had similar thoughts, about how some people were not getting the message from the camp. like the camp was preserved and kept, for people to visit, not as a tourist attraction, but more of a memorial for the millions of innocent people who died and suffered and to serve as a reminder that we should work together to prevent such atrocities. and such atrocities have been happening for such a long time and is still happening. will we ever learn?

and when he realised i was from singapore he was like "oh, the only place where a social experiment succeeded". we discussed a bit about it, and a little about genghis khan (he killed 10 times as many people as hitler did fyi). it was a pretty cool discussion. he travelled very far and very wide and he had very interesting pespectives.
omg he is damn cool, he and his wife and another couple drove from hongkong and they are continuing to western europe and finishing in uk. and they have been doing such driving trips for 30years. mega cool. gave some tips on backpacking home from uk. jiapei!!! hahaha.
ok so after the tour, i headed back to the city and went to the train station to find out about trains to ukraine. basically, my flight really is cancelled, alternative flights are from 300pounds and the train ride is 20hrs. not an issue really, i mean no choice right? but if i took the direct train, i will miss my chernobyl tour on the 8th and i alrdy paid for tht deposit. so i was looking for alternatives. and since i had to take a train, i rather spend the night travelling and use the day to see the place. so i thought i'll break my ride into 2 and stopover at lviv.

there was a 10.15pm train to lviv, reaching at 6am (6.5hrs cos of time difference). but they couldn't tell me if there were trains from lviv to kiev. so i went back to my hostel to check. so yup there were, overnight somemore and i will reach in time for my chernobyl tour. so i washed up, packed, checked out and went to buy the train ticket to lviv before getting dinner. murphy's law: what will go wrong will go wrong. no more tickets :( normal ones at least. still had first class.

and i decided to take the first class. because the total trip will be 15pounds more expensive then the direct train to kiev, and i won't miss my chernobyl tour and i get to tour lviv for a day. yup so i got it. bought the ticket, heart pain and went to reward myself with a good dinner and desserts :D

omg first class was super shiok. basically, instead of seats, we get cabins. there's 2, 3 or 4 to a cabin. i got the 2 person cabin but there was only me inside. so there were 2 beds, a tv, a fridge, my own toilet. like a mini hotel room. the refreshments in the fridge are for me. whee :D there was a bottle of water, a bottle of orange juice and a chocolate bar. shiok. haha. ohh still got a towel to wash up.

so since there was only me, i made myself at home, changed into my sleeping clothes :b washed up and slept. wah amazing. haha. not the most comfy bed, and the pillow was quite flat (so i took the other pillow as well :b) but better then seats right? haha. yup and slept through, only got woken up when we passed the border and the customs officer came to check passports. my neighbour didn't have visas so they were sent back to poland by car (i heard the translator). after settling my passport, the customs officer said "welcome to ukraine!" haha. i think that's the only english he knows. lol. ohh the translator was a passenger. apparantly it's normal. the officer will look for somebody on the train who can translate. in restaurants too apparantly. went back to sleep and got woken up a little before arrival by breakfast delivery. had a croissant and a tea. whee. shiok max :D
Day 14:
Arrived in Lviv super on time, first thing went to get my train tickets to kiev. yay got it! and i got the first class again. not because there was no more normal class but the price difference is like erm 4pounds? for a bed? for 10hrs? worth it. haha. so bought my tix, had my daily dosage of internet and went out. oh i put my baggage at the baggage centre. it's 10uah for the whole day. that's less than a pound.

tourist centre opened at 10 but i was out before 8, so i decided to just walk around until the office opens to get a map. took a tram to the city centre and when i reached i was like :O super nice! lviv was influenced by western europe because it's in west ukraine and it used to belong to poland. so the architecture was rennaisance. super beautiful. i just walked and admired the buildings. and there were many signs showing where attractions were, so i just walked randomly and followed the signs. walked for 3hrs and went to the tourist office. took the map and realised i saw most of the attractions. haha. awesome me.

walked around a little longer. and i noticed that the lviv people are damn chillax. like tuesday morning sitting on a bench chatting, reading, or at a cafe eating ice cream, drinking coffee/beer. erm no need work ah? it just got more crowded as the day passed. so i decided to immerse myself in the lvivian atmosphere. i went to a cafe and chillax too. haha. people watched, read the brochures i got from the tourist office. chillax max. haha. oh i drank coffee. apparantly, lviv is famous for that. coffee was pretty good. oh and the traditional apple pie was good too. a bit too dry though.

after that i went to the armoury museum. 3uah (erm less than 30p lol). uber cool. saw the armoury from the past. at first i was like woah cool. and figuring out how some stuff worked and trying to imagine how they fought. some weapons seriously don't make sense. like there was a rifle with only the barrel, no handle. won't hot ah? and there were some swords/spears thingies that look so heavy that once you hold them you cannot fight. lol. and some of the weapons were really nice, like they had very intricate details like carvings and stuff.

ah well, beyond that, they were used to kill and injure. why? sorry, still emo nemo from auschwitz.
then i went to the bell tower. climbed like over 300 steps up. think i climbed a lot this trip. haha. the view was awesome. from up there i looked at where i walked and where i missed. then i went back down and walked the places i thought looked interesting from the bell tower. haha. glad i did, i walked pass more rennaisance buildings and lviv university. lviv university is really pretty. and it's 350 years old.

ohh the train station is really pretty too. pleasant surprise upon arrival :)

after walking around, i found this dining place at a corner where there was a lot of human traffic, so i went in. it was cafeteria styled. you take your food and pay. similar to lido at riga. omg awesome. if only shunjie and jolene were there. i had a layered liver cake (i dunno who's liver but it's ukranian so i try), cabbage rolls, a glass of kvas and a slice of some layered strudly custard torte. super yummy, including the liver cake. all for less than 3pounds. amazing. haha. oh and the cabbage rolls were really nice. think i'll try and learn how to make. hehheh.

after makan, walked around somemore just to see the buildings again and back to the train station. off to kiev! :D
oh i didn't talk much today. mostly pointed and sign language. haha. few people understnad english. so i wrote down key stuff in russian and basically just point and gesture. haha. ah well, worked well :D heh. and the foreign symbols all over the place may be intimidating at first but it was fine. couldn't understand a thing. but some places do hv english translation.
oh and people in lviv are very religious. they have alike crosses around the place and i noticed that people will do the hand to heart shoulder thingy when they passed. some will stop and pray or sth.

and the fashion sense here is... like the ladies all seem pretty well-enodowed in the chest area and they somehow seem to like wearing clothes a size too small. boobs were spilling out from everywhere. i saw a lot of boobs today. either that, or they show their bra. interesting fact. so guys, if you want to visit ukraine, do so in the summer .winter all wrapped up, nth to see :b

Day 15:

arrived in kiev. finally! got the sleeper train. not as shiok as the previous train cos it's an intercity train and not an international train. it's a 4 to a cabin. with 4 beddy things. i got the bed on the upper deck and the bed doesnt hv like rails or what. so it was quite scary. and i couldn't move down cos there were 2 other ladies in my cabin. ah well. the pillow was damn good though. haha. omg and the toilet is the most awful one i've seen in a very very long time. didn't use the toilet at all. sorry, i very anal abt toilet cleaniness one. the train ride was 10hrs, i slept for 9. spent the first half hour trying to slp cos the cabin was super stuffy, no aircon :(. by the time i woke up, it was half hour to arrival. yay. haha.

reached kiev, found my way to the metro and took the metro to my hostel. checked-in, bathed and left for the chernobyl tour meeting place. the tour was, thought-provoking. like the auschwitz one. i dunno which place is sadder. both, innocent lives were lost, calamities in human history, but varying degrees of damage in different areas. both are lessons we shld learn, but we never.

on the 2hr drive to chernobyl, a video was screened in the van. it was basically a documentary about the chernobyl disaster. all the evacuation, deaths, lasting radioactive impacts. the thing that struck me most was that it took the soviet union 2 weeks to release the news that chernobyl exploded. and even within the 2 weeks, evacuation and all that were done secretly. men were sent to the site to rescue the fire without knowing the real risk. 28 firemen died due to overexposure in the first 2 weeks. it's like, if they had released the news earlier, evacuation in other areas could have been done and help would have come in from other places. damage may have been reduced. it's quite terrible. and here we have, japan falling into the same hole.

20years after the disaster, at the fall of the soviet union, real facts of the disaster were found in documents. and even unitl now, no data/statistics/information about survivors, rescue workers and all that.

the video interviewed some of the people who were at the frontline trying to salvage the situation. they have no regrets, they felt it was their duties. today, they visit the hospital very frequently due to damage to their bodies from radioactivity. heroes.

interesting fact: the angmohs thought i was japanese.

so we visited the town 3km from the nuclear plant. prypiat. it was a town built in 1970, specially for the nuclear plant workers and their families. many children from the plant died from overexposure. the people were only evacuated 48hours later. it was too late. the town was in ruins, due to neglect, age, looters and vandalism. it was, i dunno. like it felt so real. like i can imagine the mothers and children in the main square, the tourists and visitors in the hotel, the students in the school, the kids in the kindergarden and all the joy and laughter the amusement park (which was completed but nv open because the opening ceremony was on 1st may 1986 disaster happened 26th april 1986) would have brought. it's like, life should have been normal. there shouldn't be a bunch of random people visiting ruins at that site every day.

saw a kid's drawing in the school. it was sunny, happy and really colourful (typical kid's drawing you know). and i couldn't help but wonder if that kid had the chance to grow up and colour his/her own world.

we had lunch at the worker's cafeteria. yes there are people working at the nuclear plant. building foundation for a new confinement shelter for the exploded nuclear plant. omg worse meal of my entire trip. lol. after that we went to erm feed the catfish. nuclear plants need water for cooling right? so there was this water channel. and inside there are catfish. so we fed catfish. omg the catfish were sooooooo huge. like huuuuuuuuge. must be all the feeding. lol.

then we went to the observatory square of nuclear reactor 4 (the exploded reactor). looked at the confinement shelter and thought back about the video. thousands of men were used to build that shelter. it was such a huge and important task. and seemingly impossible. very inspirational if you ask me. the hard work, the commitment, the selflessness.

i recommend watching the video.

yup, that was about it. similar to the auschwitz conc camp, i think tours like this should emphasize the lessons rather than the story. this tour was ok, like the people in the group were actually thinking about the issue and what happened, what could have been prevented all that. interesting questions raised and interesting discussions. plus the input of different perspectives from all the different nationalites. there was a pole, 2 germans, 2 swedish, 2 americans, 3 finnish and 3 i dunno from where, oh and the ukraine guide of course. poland stopped the construction of their nuclear plant after the explosion.

on the way back, chatted with one of the germans. talked about the education system in germany and singapore. and also about national service. german says: your system is way cooler than ours. he wanted to study medicine on a military scholarship but the bond after studies is 11years long. that's a total of 17 years zomg. and it's not like at the end he will be some high ranking officer. he may not even have reached officer status.

walked along the main street, khreschchatyk street. didn't want to wander too far (i stay on a street parallel to the main street, really near) cos i didn't have a map and everything was ukrainian. not like in lviv, no signs, nothing. looked for a place to eat but omg damn expensive. probably cos it's along the main street. a bit like orchard road. in the end, i ate at this cafe beside my hostel. oooh really really nice and i knw i went to the right place cos at 7pm, the place was crowded. whee.

planning tmr's stuff. there's so many things to see in kiev. trying to squeeze everything i want to see in.

Day 16:

one word: tired. really. omg i walked for 10hours today. phew. think i got like 2 tones tanner or sth. haha. it was really hot today. hit 34deg. baaaah.

in the morning i left at 8ish to see some sights that were not covered by free tours. there's this motherland statue which is 100m tall. and the shield right at the top is a viewing platform. i was so prepared to pay to go up and eat bread for the next few meals. but it's closed. cos too hot. the statue is made of metal, so yah. so i didn't go all the way up. just went to the viewing platform 36m up. still had some view, but i bet the view right at the top must be super awesome.

walked along the river to take the metro. oh speaking of metro, i took to the deepest station in the world, 100m below ground level. omg over 3 mins to take the escalator up. haha. and apparantly, it is believed that a person living in kiev for the entire life, and takes the metro twice a day will spend 8years of his life underground. haha.

went for a free tour. 3 hours. walked around and saw major buildings and monuments and also some local stuff. really interesting. learnt some stuff about the history, and also about local life. then took a lunch break at some local student hangout with good cheap ukrainian food and went for the 2nd free tour. so that's 6 hours of free tours. lol. i didn't really like the 2nd guide, so i tipped him half of what i tipped the first guide. hehheh.

waaah damn tired. back to bathe, pack up and then i'll go see the lightings along the main street. it's just down the road :D mega like my hostel location.

it's back to london tmr. so fast.

another chapter closed

2011-05-24T13:16:00.001+01:00

EXAMS ARE FINALLY FREAKING OVER! :D i guess this marks the end of being a fresher. ah i still have a stupid field trip but that's year 2 stuff, so technically speaking, OMG MY FIRST YEAR IS O-V-E-R.

amazing amazing year :D new friends, new experiences, new life.

i look back at my to do list and let's see what i've done. must keep track :b

Appear on the Dean’s List (i'm sorry, mugger by nature :)) [got chance got chance :D hopefully]
Climb/hike up a mountain and camp at the top
Cross the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge
Cross the Millau Viaduct in France
Eat at a three-star Michelin restaurant [ate at a one star in eindhoven, netherlands. one step at a time :)]
Go horse-riding
Go on a caravan trip
Go on a cycling tour [NEXT YEAR!]
Go on a hot air balloon ride [NEXT YEAR!]
Go on a volunteer trip [NEXT YEAR!]
Learn German [hahah mission aborted]
~~Make friends from at least 30 different countries~~ [easy peasy :D]
Run a marathon [NEXT YEAR!]
Savour cheese from every country visited [doing doing :D]
Skydive/Hang-gliding or anything from the sky to the ground safely [NEXT YEAR!]
Take part in a weird quirky competition [NEXT YEAR!]
~~Travel alone~~ [done, annnnd SOOOOON LIKE TMMMMRRRR]
Try local delicacies no matter how disgusting they sound [doing doing :D]
~~Watch a famous musical~~ [phantom, les mis, oliver, chicago, wicked]
~~Watch a soccer match~~ [3 in fact. haha]

SEE

Baby-Jumping Colacho Festival in Spain [NEXT YEAR!]
Cheese Museum/Factory
Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling in England [NEXT YEAR!]
~~Fjords of Norway~~
Giant's Causeway in Ireland [NEXT YEAR!]
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
~~Harry Potter Filming Locations~~
La Tomatina in Spain [NEXT YEAR!]
Land's End in Cornwall [NEXT YEAR!]
Leaning Tower of Pisa before it becomes the Fallen Tower [NEXT YEAR!]
~~Loch Ness~~
Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany [NEXT YEAR!]
Northern lights / Midnight Sun / Polar Nights [NEXT YEAR!]
Olympia and Ancient Greece [NEXT YEAR!]
Queen’s Day in Netherlands [NEXT YEAR!]
Real Mona Lisa painting [NEXT YEAR!]
Roman Bath [NEXT YEAR!]
~~Stonehenge~~
The Coliseum in Rome [NEXT YEAR!]
Vatican City, the Angles and Demons way [NEXT YEAR!]

hmm doesn't seem like i've done much this year. hahaha. digressed from my list too much :b ok next year a lot of things to do :b for now, savour my freedom, pack my room and my bag for my trip and wooooohoooooooooo!

and by the time i go back to singapore, i would have gone to...
1) UK - scotland, england, wales (stupid field trip)
2) Germany
3) Netherlands
4) Belgium
5) Norway
6) Austria
7) Slovakia
8) Hungary
9) Estonia
10) Latvia
11) Lithuania
12) Poland
13) Ukraine
14) UAE

AWEEEEESOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEE :D

ok maybe when i'm free i'll come up with a list of what i've done and where i've been. sole purpose is to make you jealous. really. hahahahahaha :D sorry post-exam high.

omg i'm super duper wuper excited :D

2011-05-14T19:13:00.002+01:00

nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to.

DECLARED HIATUS

2011-04-08T09:12:00.000+01:00

It's coming to an end to my first year in university. Official lessons have ended. It's now the spring break. After the break, it's the exams. I want/need the first class.

I had an amazing first year.
I had an amazing birthday.
I had an amazing holiday to Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest.

time to end the year amazingly by doing well for the exams, so i'm gna be a mugger and i'm gng to ignore this blog for a while. photos are all on facebook.

kthxbye!

the past 37 days...

2011-03-13T23:06:00.000Z

omg it's been so damn long since i last blogged. damn busy. but now feel like slacking. so i'm slacking. haha. one thing has been constant all this while, i've been gaining weight. shit. damn. need to lose it. freak. good thing weather turning warmer. more motivation to go run :)

oh there was scenario 3! scenario 3 was much less intense then the previous 2. because the group was like a size of 12 people. used to be 6, so they just doubled it. the workload was considerably lighter and much more manageable, but a bigger group meant more effort in teamwork, cooepration and compromising. ah well, survived through it and i think our shrimp farm is realistic enough. haha.

after scenario 3 was reading week. went to scotland :D woohoo! basically, it was a really really nice trip. the train rides were so beautiful. saw a lot of things, best was the harry potter viaduct. it was really pretty :) saw pretty things, ate good food, enjoyed myself a whole load :) photos are all on facebook and that pretty much tells the story :D haha.

after reading week, school was just hectic. had to catch up on lectures, had many many labs, autocad and a whole load of new stuff. aiya, school is like school lor. haha. major part was the uclss production - a twist of fate. i was in charge of set design. we had a really tiny budget, but had to come up with a posh peranakan house. made do with ikea and batik and flowers and kueh. omg speaking of kueh, so much time and effort. but i think it was really worth it because people appreciated it and said it was nice :D yay.

had my fair share of fun, frustration and disappointment about the production. now that it's over, i think it was a job well done and yeah, glad i was part of it and glad people enjoyed the kueh :)

and the kueh was so good, i made it again for one world week at the aeisec global village. sold out ok? hahahaha. woohoo! oh yeah, and the ura hr came down for some career fair under PSD. so we went out for a good dinner at four seasons :D woohoo! they should come down more :D hehheh.

ok, time really really flies. 2 more weeks and the 2nd sem is over. my final week of lessons and then scenario 4 and it's easter break. after that will be exams and then i'm going home. omg damn fast. can't wait for easter break :D going to budapest and vienna. exciting yo! :D :D :D

i will try to blog more often :b and i'm too lazy to post any photos so just go to facebook. i update facebook so frequently :b

updates. FINALLY :D

2011-02-04T23:43:00.000Z

新年快乐 everybody! :D

i'm so sorry for the lack of updates. have been sooooo busy. school has already started. 3rd week just ended. time really really flies. started on new stuff and fluids and soils and geomatics. woah. information overload. haha. scenario 3 is next week. we're supposed to build a shrimp farm. and we're in groups of 12. like super ultra big group. hope it will turn out fine!

i've decided to drop the committee position in ewb. doesn't really seem to be for me. the comm is a fun bunch but my plate is full (and i'm getting fat) so i kinda just evaluated my priorities and ewb is not on the top. i'll be an active member though. so i'll just concentrate on singsoc and dhs (though this one really not much to do hahahaha) for now and next year no more societal stuff. i'm going to take up an overseas volunteer project for the summer and it'll be a year of prep. so hopefully things go as planned ba :D

so there's been a few bdays since. just celebrated one for my coursemate from egypt during an hour's break. no pictures though. it was rather impromptu and i didn't have my camera and i don't have an iphone to do mobile uploads (sour sour).

lujie's 22nd at azzurro with omnomnom italian food :D

yewjin's 21st. lunch, then a surprise at midnight :D

denise's 20th at koya with very good udon. she's not in the picture though. she sat at another table. haha.

fin's 19th with a surprise at his hall :D

and i watched another musical, les miserables. awesome musical. loooooooove the set and the singing and the story. can't decide which is my favourite anymore.

awesome :D

and we went to see london's ice sculpture festival. a tad disappointing cos there weren't many sculptures and we didn't go on the hands on day. we only saw a competition. so we saw the final touches and the final product.

my favourite piece :D

o.m.g the best part is we redefined hall life. this needs a section of its own :D

cooked curry and took hall food :D

omnomnomnomnom :D

must have bread with curry right? so we took from the dining hall. haha.

with a movie and a projector...

in-house cinema yo!

and it's been almost a month since i last blogged, of course there's a lot of good food that went into my stomach :D

french buffet at Le Bouchon Breton

ooooh double chocolate cake from patesserie valerie

OMG steamed mince pork with salted egg yolk, lor bak and sweet potato porridge from leong's legend

beef and fish sashim, miso soup and the best inari sushi i've ever eaten

teriyaki chicken, soft shell crab tempura and oyster tempura from ukai

the nearest to ice kacang i can find from candy cafe

chicken curry, fish curry and vegetable curry. indian food at shilpa.

and because its chinese new year, there's a lot of celebrations. firstly was the combined alumni cny carnival by hwachong, raffles, vj and dhs :D huge success :D then there was our little hall steamboat atas ttm and ytd there was uclss cny celebrations where there was not enough food but the turnout was good, with karaoke, mahjong and games. and i just came back from ura cny dinner with turkish food, exotic yo!

look at the crowd! :D i hung the lanterns leh. haha. cos dhs in charge of logistics.

steamboat for cny eve with fresh scallops, tiger prawns and 1 white promphet per person, all from billinsgate fish market where jiapei and i went at 4am in the morning. hahahaha.

uclss cny celebrations. so paiseh about the food :b

tas restaurant, serving turkish food. very full and satisfied from the dinner :D

ok cny celebrations continue tmr. for now. time to do a bit of readings. then sleep. before i lost them all next week for scenario 3. shall try to blog about the weekend if i can. tata for now :D

2011-01-06T10:44:00.000Z

oops. have been feeling too lazy to blog :b

much have happened since the last time i blogged. i'm back from my netherlands trip. came back on the 28th. spent time around london with my mum. went to shop/walk along oxford street, didn't get anything. nothing to get. watched phantom of the opera. amazing set. love the set. more awesome than oliver's haha. but there was something lacking, i dunno what. something. had the dhsya(uk) party. lots of food. brian's fruit cake was amazing. counted down with zhou1gong1 cos i was sleeping in my room while my mother watch the fireworks from the window. started school work and studying. ggrr... great way to start the year :)

foooood :D

ytd, went for arsenal vs man city live @ emirates stadium. amazing experience. the atmosphere was awesome. but there were no goals, so i couldn't experience the whole ecstasy with 60,000 other people. haha. the similar reactions from the fans everytime something happens on the field is quite funny. haha. oohh i saw the referee flash the card! omgomgomg. hahahaha. yay to live matches. cross out another on my to do list, but i wanna watch another one, one with goals so i can go GOOOAAALLLL!!! hahaha.

wheeeeeeeeeee!

best thing that happened so far, I'M GOING HOME THIS SUMMER! I CAN DO MY ATTACHMENT! :D YAY! see all of you in july in SINGAPORE! DURIANS! HUGO! whee! :D but before that, term2, reading week :D, easter break :D, exams ):, summer break, wales trip dadada. busy busy term starting soon. time to gear up.

ok, so here's a belated happy new year. and i'm gng to bath/salisbury/stonehenge today :D

i love holidays :D

2010-12-24T15:45:00.000Z

Happiness is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preferences, but that makes it easy to forget that sometimes happiness can be found in having what we’ve always had and everyone else is having. – Malcolm Gladwell

I’m currently reading What The Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a really nice book. There are some parts I find hard to understand, but the main gist really makes a lot of sense.

anyway, since i last blogged, there's brighton, bricklane and half of my netherlands trip :D

Brighton

a really small town meant for summer. haha. seriously. we walked around the area, looked at the nice buildings and walked around their main shopping area. and went to look at the port, basically all the tourist attractions and finished them in a few hours. the real attractions like water sports and the orb rolling thingy cannot be done in winter. but it was nice all the same, just time for my mum and i :D had a good lunch, nice htht. wanted to catch an earlier bus back but all buses were stopped because of the heavy snow in london. so we decided to take a train back instead. more expenisve, but at least we recahed home:D

Bricklane
decided not to go back to brighton since we alrdy saw everything there is to see. so we went to bricklane with jaipei and lujie and jiapei's friends from warwick, haikal and elizabeth. good good food. yummy :D then home to pack for netherlands trip.

Day 1 to 5 of Netherlands trip
pretty good trip so far. place is covered in snow. like totally. arrived at eindhoven after an hour's flight. got a little delay, but no too much. went to visit my 1st uncle in Panningen and 2nd aunt in Sittard. and that was day 1.

day 2 my mum and i just walked around the city centre of eindhoven. just stroll and look see look see. the highlight was the dinner at Avant-Garde, which is a 1 michelin star restaurant. OMG THAT WAS AWSOME. eating went to a whole new level. like seriously. it was an art. food was so good. and the whole process was so meticulous. amazing. one day i will have my 2 and 3 stars. hahahaha.

day 3 we went to aachen in germany. walked around a german xmas market, ate german sausage and german potato fritters. haha. bought belgian chocolate from germany also. haha. then on to vaals where the three lands point is. went to 3 countries in 10secs. video on facebook. hilarious. haha. then we went to valkenburg cave xmas market. the market is in a cave, and its the biggest one in europe. bought a 1m tall giraffe, dunno how its gng to go back to london, but it will. haha. trying to think of a corner to put it in, my room lacks that. haha.

day 4 we went to antwerp. walked around the area, looked at the buidlings and markets. omgomgomg the chocolates there are like mmmmmmmmm. if i could, i will buy one of each flavour from every shop i see. but sorry no moolah. haha. and we saw many branches of the belgian choc we bought in germany. haha famous yo. then we headed to zierikzee where i am now. my 4th uncle restaurant. the b&b above the restaurant recently became a 1star hotel. haha. eating good food every meal :D cos my uncles are great chefs :D

day 5 nuaed around the restaurant, cos its xmas eve and everything is closed. tmr also close. sunday maybe will open. so these few days are just for us to nua around :D i like and eat good food :D i like also :D haha. and read my book. oooooh :D

ok photos all on facebook im too lazy to uplaod here. im off to eat again. Doei!

OMGOMGOMG THERE GOES TERM 1!!!

2010-12-17T17:09:00.001Z

WOOOHOOOOOOOO HOLIDAYS ARE HERE! SCENARIO 2 HAS ENDED! TERM HAS ENDED! OMMMMMMMMG. seriously, it's not the holidays that's making me happy, it's the end of scenario 2 that's really really really what cege students were looking forward to. haha.

ok so since the last time i blogged, we went to oxford. it's pretty much like cambridge. we went around looking at colleges. personally, i feel that the architecture in oxford isn't as diverse as cambridge. and i prefer cambridge. prettier. omg went to both with dunmanians. muggers united -.- haha, anyway, it was a good trip. a relaxing one with the people i feel most at ease with :) a bit of enjoyment before scenario 2. haha. photos are all on facebook. :D sorry i just finished scenario 2 i'm lazy. haha. blame it all on scenario :b

so anyway, yup monday was the start of hell. haha. scenario 2 started. my group consisted of me, alexa, dave and jack. it was really fun working with them. many different perspectives and we all specialised in something different, so it was good in a way i guess, though we didn't split up the work like how the professors wanted us to. haha. but yup, it was a week of intense calculations, drawings, writing and yah. that. our footbridge is cool and it can stand. hopefully. haha. stayed up late all week and there was one day we left school past midnight, after the security guard shooed us away. haha. worked hard, but fun i guess. oh and my group had very good welfare. the night we stayed till midnight, alexa made pasta for us and brought magnum. one morning dave brought doughnuts and ytd afternoon fuwei delivered ben's cookies. (awww so sweet hor? walk in the snow somemore leh :)) envy of all groups :D haha. but yup, we slogged hard and we handed in on time and we ended with a group hug :D hehheh.

oh and my mummy is here. felt like i've neglected her. haha. went to fetch her from the airport with fuwei on monday. after she arrived, both of us left for school. then that day i fell sick. had some funny stomach problem. brought her to gbk. tues i left home early, then fuwei brought us to hi sushi for jap buffet. food not bad but not enough variety i think. went back to do work. weds left at 9am and came back at 12.30am. haha. mummy had to eat microwave pizza. ytd a little earlier came back at 10plus pm. then dabaoed beef horfun for her. haha. so poor thing.

but we're going to brighton for the weekend and then to netherlands until the 28th :D

yay i'm so tired now.

o.m.g. it's december!

2010-12-11T05:40:00.000Z

woohoo. busybusy :) do i even say anything else? why am i blogging at 5am in the morning? i dunno. i slept at 2am. then i woke up at 4am, thinking it's 8am, on the com, saw the time and went o.O. and since i'm awake, might as well, do what i keep postponing. haha.

the past 2 weeks as been rather crazy. had so many meetings. every lunch break, there's a meeting somewhere. i also dunno why i got so many meetings. i just have. haha. information overload sometimes. heh. that's what minutes are for. best one is sunday 9am. later 9am also got meeting. enthu ttm. so early on weekend meet. haha. but what to do? timetable clash until cannot clash.

and i've started running again. but somehow i only run for like 3-4 days consecutively then the next 3 days no time :/ must run! or else cannot take part in marathon ): i refused to get a gym membership cos i dun really like running on treadmill, so i just run outside. and it was the cold spell recently. i ran in -4, i ran in the snow, i ran while it was snowing, i am great. omg my ego is terrible. hahahahaha.

i watched 2 musicals, oliver and chicago. both with fuwei and his friends. omg oliver is amazing. the set is awesome, like really really nice. we should totally recreate it for a twist of fate. haha. yup sure :b haha. love the oliver set. like really really love it. and the cast damn cute, especially the small little black boy. super high. but i like the boy who was dodger. i think he's damn talented. grow up will become a very charming performer. and the guy who acted as bill sikes had such a bloody sexy voice. can fight miao qiao wei. haha. stall seats for 23.50 :)

chicago was a different type of musical, more dancing than acting. very sexy and sultry. the guys, good bod but ah well... none caught my attention. velma and rosie were like the leads. i liked velma better, i thought she carried herself and her character much stronger than rosie. but both were great. can sing, can dance, good bod, sexy ttm. haha. must watch must watch! stall seats for 28.50 :) and my next musical will be phantom of the opera with my mummy :D

jiahui came down last weekend, to pass mabel her bday card. so sweet. jolene i will fight to go back singapore to pass you bday card. haha. cross fingers eyes and toes. so went to winter wonderland, ate at four seasons and candy cafe. aiya is all eat eat and eat. really. all we do is eat. at this rate, sure fat. haha. that's why must run.

thurs go paktor with fuwei :D haha. went to covent garden to light up xmas tree :) then just walked around aimlessly, ended up at trafalgar square and saw the burnt xmas tree from the demonstration, and then walked aimlessly again until we reached this restaurant. italian. azzurro. the food is sooo good. love my chili seafood pasta. and the tiramisu and chocolate mousse so good :D best meal in london i can say. like omg it's not chinese food. haha. make me miss eating good food with jolene and shunjie ):

ytd my hall had the xmas celebrations. had xmas dinner at the decorated dining hall, then a party at the bar. didn't stay long for the party. too noisy. went down, show face, had a glass of champagne, left. too noisy, go mabel's place do work until 12. come back, party haven't stop. zzz. then do some stuff and slept. haha.

going to ealing broadway today to support john and other archi students for their exhibition, then maybe watch harry potter. like finally! urgh. everybody watched it alrdy. tmr, going oxford with michelle. who michelle? ms leong. haha. she's here in uk and she bought yakun kaya! :D omg. haha.

it's the last week of school next week. soooo damn fast. it's scenario week. i wonder how many hours i will be sleeping. the previous scenario i slept 20hours in the entire week. o.O after this scenario is the winter break! :D woohoo! and my mummy is coming on monday. ultra excited! :D

ok im too lazy to post pictures. go facebook see tyvmbb.

72 DAYS IN LONDON

2010-11-29T22:48:00.000Z

HELLO WORLD! omg so long since i blogged :b basically what happened since reading week and the amazing trip to norway is just school stuff. shall break it down.

Civil Engineering
Busy, as usual. with the lectures, tutorials (i was the only one that turned up today it was so effective cos i mean all the attention was on me :D i really don't mind more of it like that :b), lab. the structures plane frame lab was super lame. the course is still manageable as of now. the most frustrating one is design, where we have to draw all the plan and section and stuff and i did the stairs calculation till i wanted to go crazy but im satisfied with the end product. so yay :D

and preparation for scenario 2 has started. we're supposed to come up with a regeneration plan for West Hamstead/Finchley Road area, and then design an actual can stand can use footbridge. quite exciting right? and i like my group. we chose ourselves so i'm in a group with 3 other angmors. haha. they are the seriuos about the project kind, but in the process can still have fun. i like :D

averaging B's and A's for my work so far. and i'm no longer aiming for the faculty or department award. i've decided that i have to forgo some things to get a more holistic education and to make my life here more fulfilled. getting so involved in so many stuff means less time and energy for school work. but it's a trade-off i'm willing to make. for the first year at least, till my priorities change in the future.

Engineers Without Borders
busy with meetings and upcoming events. and there's a new scheme we want to implement. and a new project i'm thinking of starting up with a friend from egypt about the garbage problem in egypt. still in the talk only process though. oh we had our welcome meet and greet session on friday. turn out was not bad. yup and there's the international development course this sat. i want to sit in and listen to the speakers, but i've got to prepare the food :/ ah well, excited all the same. at least i know the events and activities we have actually create an impact somehow. makes me feel that i'm doing meaningful stuff. and the committee is a bunch of fun people from all over the world. different perspectives, not just confined to singapore. i'm actly the only asian there. haha.

UCL Singapore Society
had the agm recently. i'm the events director (that's my 3rd events post :b). i ran for president and vice president but didn't get them. i'm actly quite glad about it cos i think my plate is kinda full for the moment. but i really want to be in the committee cos as i said in my speech, i want to take the lead to serve the society. so yeah, happy with my post :D meetings are starting soon and yup :) excited about what we can/are going to do.

DHSYA(UK)
more activites up and coming. nearest will be xmas/new year stuff. and then there is the combined alumni CNY carnival. woohoo :D must liven up the dhs alumni here. and i always love meetings cos the president so cute. haha meihui you got stalk me until here not?

Frisbee
one sentence: i stopped going after i paid for the membership -.-

A Twist of Fate
This is a musical by the UCL Singapore Society, to be staged in march next year. i'm the set design IC. cs productions actly got me interested in all the backstage proppy stuff. so yeah glad i can help out in some way :D i shall use my civil engineering knowledge to make really stable stairs. haha. nothing much has started actly. meetings soon and then time to get the work done. so it's all still in the planning stage. i need to read the script. haha. like soon.

woah 72 days in london. it's not really a very long time, considering that i'll be here for 4 years. but it's not exactly short. it's like more than 2 months. i've been away from my family, my dog and my friends for so long. i miss them so so so so so much :( but i've made so many friends here, and some i really feel are friendships that will last after we go back to singapore ;) of course my friends back home are irreplaceable. you all are the best ok? and my mummy is coming in 2 weeks! like omg omg omg excited!!! :D :D :D

yeah, i think that's about it. pictures are all on facebook! sorry i'm too lazy to post them up haha. anyway, the pictures don't really have link with what i just typed cos the pictures are all of events and yah pictures speak a thousand words so just go look at them, i blogged unpictureable stuff. hahaha.

OMG NORWAY IS ULTRA SUPER DUPER AMAZING :D

2010-11-14T18:26:00.000Z

HELLO EVERYBODY! :D NORWAY IS AWESOME!

Day1:

Flew to Oslo Rygge from London Gatwick. Arrived at the city centre in the evening. and it felt like midnight. their day is like from 9 to 4. damn sad. ziyang got pickpocketed outside the bus station. with all of us looking. this norwegian guy suddenly just came up to ziyang and danced with him and teach him self defence moves and poof. £25, NOK200, our return bus tickets, hall card, driving license, debit card gone. made the necessary phone calls. grabbed a bite from a cheap cafe and headed to look for a police station to make a report. interesting enough experience. haha. after that went to look for a bus to the campsite we were staying at. we stayed in a family cabin. cosy little space :D

Easy bus from West Bompton to London Gatwick

Ryanair from London Gatwick to Oslo Rygge

Rygge Ekspress from Oslo Rygge to City Centre

Supermarket first for next day's breakfast!

Quick bite 2 for NOK30 pizza at Cafe de Luca

At the police station which doubles as a police museum.

Finally found the stupid bus stop to take the bus to our stay

our cabin has a living room...

a bedroom...

and a kitchen :D

Day2:

Explored Oslo. Went to the Vigeland Sculpture park to look at sculptures. their sculptures are like about procreation. a lot of naked figures of men women and children. quite interesting but cos it was cold the park was quite bare and quiet. took a lot of photos and headed off. wanted to catch the guard changing at the Ankershus Fortress but we couldn't make it on time. so we decided to take a slow walk there and stop at anything that looked interesting enough. haha. saw the oslo university. looks like ucl main quad in a different colour. haha. reached the fortress, walked one round around it. pretty views :D and camwhored. then it started to get dark and we went in search for cheap traditional norwegian food. but we couldn't find any. saw a lot of kebab, indian and sushi places though. we settled at this indian buffet restaurant. NOK99 per person. yummy quite nice :D i like the curry veg :D went to the opera house to see the night view and to kill some time. after that headed to the train station to train to bergen.

outside the cabin :D

the campsite :D pretty hor?

the reception

sculptures at vigeland sculpture park

omg steps ):

tired haha

woohoo halfway done!

very vey tired :b

view from the top

i dunno why birds like to stand on statue's heads

oslo uni. looks like ucl main quad right?

the building is either some parliament house or some theatre i dunno. but anyway, here's lujie, ziyang and jiapei (left to right)

fortress got canon :D

norway has many many clocks

see the patch of emerging new world out there?

part of the buffet

yuuummmmmmm :D

Opera house

night view at the top

ICE CREAM! rum and raisin, before nine and some chocolate dunno what.

to bergen!

Day3:

MY FAVOURITESTESTESTEST DAY! :D reached bergen at around 6.30. ate breakfast and then we started our 3km walk to the hertz place to collect the car. lost our way a bit but found it on time. collected the car and off we go! :D we basically took a round trip. from bergen to sognefjord and back via the coastal route. omg the views were awesome. like awesome. we watched it change from green to yellow orange brown to a bit of white to TOTALLY WHITE and back to green again. seriously omg the view is omg omg omg. i totally don't mind going back again just for the views. really really really very very nice :D ok so after the amazing driving trip (jiapei is a very good driver), we headed back to the city and looked for our accommodation which is actly a house. the person rented out her first floor whiloe she stays on the 2nd and 3rd. she is super duper friendly. gave us suggestions and recommendations. then we headed out again (since we have a car) to look for some night life outside but there were none. haha. our night life consist of eating an awesome kebab in the car :D

arrival at bergen

green :D

the car. we got a free gps which was a lifesaver :D

turning orangey :)

turning white...

the water damn cold. seiously. i mean, look at lujie's face. haha

getting whiter and whiter...

and whiter...

OMG AWESOME!

:D :D :D

we look superimposed

jiapei the driver

pretty :D look at the clear blue sky.

we had to take a car ferry across the river.

i was the bread spreader of the trip. haha.

WHEEEEEE~

awwwwwww~

the house: one of the rooms

the dining loungey area

omg look at the toilet. shiokness!

the other room. the wooden thing is a sauna.

KEBAB!

happy boy 1

happy boy 2

happy boy 3

Day4:

Returned the car early in the morning and walked back to the city centre to explore Bergen. first stop was the hilltop of Mount Fløyen. it's this 320m mount in the city. so we walked. though there was a funicular. but being active and young, we walked. the walk was soooo steep. tiring. good thing they kept stopping to take pictures. haha. nearer to the top, the road started becoming icy and slippery. all of us basically just focused on not falling. haha. reached the top in 1 hr 10mins. and the view is amazing. clear blue sky again :D went down and by the time we got down it was lunch time! yay! went to a good cheap cafe recommended by the house lady. yummy :D then we went to the fishmarket which was a super duper major disappointment. so small and tiny and haiz. then we realised it was 5 more mins before the kebab student timing ends so we chionged to the kebab place to get a kebab. just to save NOK5 -.- hahaha. like that then shiok, lol. then we went to bryggen, which is a unesco world heritage site. after that we headed towards a fortress like thing which really was a fortress. and took a series of failed jumpshots. ok my fault ): haha. then we decided to go to another part to see if we can see the sunset. but nope, bergen is surounded by 7 mountains, all blocked up. and the walk there was uphill. this trip is like a test of my fitness level. lol. travelling with 3 officers not easy leh. haha. then we went to look for dinner. we had a 5 course dinner. haha :D yummy :D then we headed to the train station to catch the train back to oslo.

us with the friendly house lady :D

pretty hor their houses?

view from the house

refuelling before returning the car

the icy road

view from the top :D love the sky

trying to come down with falling down

whee~

Bryggen

we look superimposed again haha

so preeeeeetty :D

course 1: norwegian fishcakes, fishsoup, fish stuff. haha

course 4: pizza for NOK99 yummy shiokness ttm

course 5: BEN AND JERRY'S!

i dunno what they are doing -.-

super icy and slippery

the fish market :/

bryggen again

the inside of the houses

some fortress

yay student kebab!

no sunset but got pretty view :D

hahahahahahaha

course 2: REINDEER hotdog :D

this is lunch. some norwegian beef stew

lunch as well. beef burger. salsa is yummy :D

cannot do jump shot but can zi pai :D

Day5:

Last day in norway. arrived early in the morning. had breakfast and then we deicded to visit the most romantic park in oslo. it was so disappointing nobody took photos at all. haha. then we just walked around. nua-ed around. and then we had sushi lunch. norwegian salmon ok. yummy :D but the most yummy one is the codfish omg amaaaaazing. so want to have it again :D yumyum. then we had ice cream (yes again) haha. and ate our last loaf of the amazing grovbrod, which is this amazing norwegian bread. damn nice. and headed to the airport and home sweet home :D

yummmmmmmmmmmy :D

yummmmmmmmmmy :D

so it marks the end...

dinner at chopchop :D

omg amazing 5 days. i love reading weeks :D yay :D but it's back to school again tmr :/

BOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOOOOOOM!

2010-11-08T16:09:00.000Z

OMG SCENARIO 1 IS OVER. O-V-E-R. OVER! :D such a tiring, intense but actually it was quite fun week. woohoo! i hope we come out of it fine :D but anyway, i think my group's really cool. the best thing that came out of this was that i made 6 new friends :D haha. yeah. i didn't knw my group members before this. lol.


Group A+

5th November was Guy Fawkes Night. so guy fawkes is this guy who wanted to blow up the houses of parliament on the 5th November 1605. he was caught. On the night of November 5th, throughout Britain, we commemorate the capture of Guy Fawkes with bonfires and fireworks, and by burning an effigy of Guy. yah, google it.

so there were fireworks on friday, saturday and sunday at many different locations. some free, some charged. so i went to the free ones. like duh. haha. originally wanted to go for just 1, but i got hooked. haha.

friday went to the one at clapham common. left the hall with fuwei at like 6.20pm. the tube was sooooooooo crowded. the stations were packed. you don't know what is people mountain people sea till you see it, the tube stopped at like every single station for damn long cos of the human traffic and dunno what. so yah, we decided to get down a few stops earlier and walk. while walking towards the place, the fireworks started, so we kinda missed 5 mins of it. but the display was 25mins long. so we still caught 20mins of it. the fireworks were really really pretty :D like boom boom boom. haha. omg boomz. haha. yah ok i dunno how to describe it, you have to see it for yourself. the clapham common one was more like ndp or new year's one i supposed. like really huge and grand and wow. yah. ok i suck at describing. haha.

pretty. but there were trees blocking ):

after that we went for dinner at fourseasons. the roast duck very nice. and i'm great at picking up tofu with my chopsticks. woohoo. omg and the kailan. chinese vege leh. haha. and then despite the cough, we went to eat haagan daz icecream. bailey's, rum and raisin and belgian chocolate. yummy ttm :D satisfied my icecream craving. and we were at leiscester square and there was this fun fair going on, so we went to take the carousel. like £2 per person. and we were the only ones on it. lol. but their merry-go-round turn daaaaaaaamn fast. like daaaaaaaaaamn fast. but it was fun. love merry-go-rounds :D

yummmmmmmy :D

the very fast merry-go-round

Saturday went to blackheath at greenwich to watch the fireworks. we left earlier in case the same thing happened again. and we had to change tube to tube to dlr. first time on the dlr. we were like 2 suakus, dunno where to go and how to pay and yah but we found our way and we reached blackheath like an hour before the display was supposed to start. haha. there was a funfair kind of thing there, so we went to look see look see and ate a hotdog bun cos i was freaking hungry (brunch was bad that morning). and then waited around and finally the fireworks started.

yummy.

OMG THIS ONE IS DAAAAAAAMN AWESOME. LIKE SERIOUSLY. i think this is the best show out of the 3 i watched. the fireworks were sooooo nice. they were like soooo near we, putting them off 50m away from us and we could feel the debris dropping on us. ok maybe that's not good but it was that close. and yah it felt like the fireworks were going to fall onto us and like omg it's just sooooooooo pretty. like hogwarts dining hall feel u knw. you look up and it's sooo magical :D and the best part was the place was just this really really big grass field. so no trees no nothing and we were standing quite in front. perfect view :D

im so sorry the picture is doing the fireworks no justice.

after that we headed back and it was like 11pm by the time we reached so most of the places were closed. ate at chinahouse. recommended by many people. so yah i went to try. food was quite nice. see below. haha.

king prawn fried noodle. the prawns were so crunchy. very got kou gan. yummy. and got taugay :D i love taugay :D

fuwei ate beef horfun. very nice also. beef very tender.

ok after that we ate ben & jerry's icecream. chocolate fudge brownie or sth like that. yummmmmy.

sunday, since lujie the poor little boy missed the friday fireworks and i could totally feel his disappointment like the vibes were so strong, so i asked him to go watch the one at victoria park. so him me and sam went to the victoria park one. had to miss dinner, so we packed a sandwich meal deal from tesco to picnic there while waiting. reached rather early, like 45mins before. so we just stood around and ate our sandwiches.

the 2 small boys eating happily and in anticipation of the fireworks haha

i personally feel that this one paled in comparison to the other 2. but it was still very nice and pretty. and it was like a pyrotechnic show. they had lights and music. the music made the whole atmosphere really fun and lively. it was a very cheerful feeling. watch alrdy will very happy one, which the 3 of us were at the end :D

:D :D :D

while trying to get out of the park and squeezing with the people (it was another people mountain people sea), we saw benedict. and he looked like he was with another girl. we got super excited and high. haha. we started stalking him. lol. until lujie saw that he was with 2 girls. sian. hahahaha. but it was damn funny. maybe the whole cheerful atmosphere minus off a few numbers off our age or sth. lol.

look at the people. and spot benedict. hahahaha.

after that met up with fuwei for supper before he left for austria. went to hare & tortoise which sold malaysian singaporean food. wanted to go there the previous night but it was closed. so this time we were early enough. haha. and i ate penang prawn mee. nice leh. not very penangish la but it was nice. and it made me think of the beach road prawn mee. i want!! haha.

wooooooooo~

OMG. NORWAY TMR I AM SOOOOO EXCITED. OMMMGGGGG. BYEBYE PEOPLE IM OFF TO NORWAY TO EAT SALMON AND SEE THE FJORDS AND HAVE THE TIME OF MY LIFE :D WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

OMG A WEEK BEFORE NORWAY!

2010-11-04T13:10:00.001Z

lunch break now and since i finished eating i shall blog. i wanted to take a quick nap but cannot cos the nap will really be damn quick. been sleeping at around 4 and waking up at 7 plus 8. dark eye rings coming out ): ok fine so it's my fault for going out even though i have work to do but i'm in london, ENJOY LIFE, YO! :b

311010 ADVENTURE ISLAND!

we went to a theme park in east london called adventure island. it's a family theme park, so they had rides for all ages. we got the tickets for above 1.2m which was £22 inclusive of return train tickets. so it wasn't that expensive :D met at 8plus in the morning, tubed down to liverpool to take the train. it was an hour's ride and i dunno what happened. i was sleeping. haha. reached southend victoria and started to feel like a little kid all over again. like woohoo im gng to the theme park :b

the theme park had quite a number of rides, finishable in a day. they had a lot of spinning rides. like spin spin spin and spin spin spin and spin spin spin. they only had 1 rollar coaster which wasn't very big. and too much spinning makes people gong. haha. at the end of the day, only lujie nv complain about queasiness or gongness. and he took the most rides. zai. i had to rest after some rides. old alrdy. haha. the worse was a ride called scorpion or sth. omg spin finish when i got down i thought my world will nv stop spinning again. it didn't for sam. haha his world spun for another day. poor thing

oh and cos it was halloween, they had this halloween theme. so there were like halloween songs being played and there were people dressed up as zombies all over the place trying to scare people. quite cute. really put in a lot of effort to create the atmosphere.

anyway, we played in the morning, then we had a late lunch and after lunch cannot play so we went shopping! omg the shopping centre is amazing. they have tkmaxx (big brands at 60% off), primark (cheap cheap cheap), h&m and poundland (everything for a pound) in the same place. and it wasn't crowded at all. but i didn't buy anything except for sponge (to wash stuff) and tablecloth (to clean stuff) and a vaccuum flask. haha. i shopped in the home section. lol. after shopping, 4 of them went back to catch the hall dinner and the other 4 went back to the theme park to play again :) then we headed back and had dinner at chopchop. cheap and good :D yummy :D

£22

group shot!

off we go! :D

adventure island!

at night... ok fine so it was like 5pm...

yummmmmmmmmmmy :D

011110 Scenario 1

omg like binary code or sth. but yah this week is my first scenario week. it is a week of no lessons/tutorials/lectures. we are given a task and we have to kind of like work on it in groups. like project work in a week. so we were supposed to have 8 a group but there some unknown in my group who nv appeared so we have 7. and all 7 of us are from different places. quite exotic somemore. like singapore, spain, bahrain, pakistan, france, lithuania and cyprus. cool right? haha. it's really interesting working together. quite tiring, with all the research work, meetings, discussions and stuff but a nice break from normal school.

021110 Watford

for the scenario, we had to go to watford which is southwest of london to monitor traffic conditions. we went and surveyed and took a look around the city centre then we had to make our way to our spots. and for an hour, we stood there looking at vehicles. 6 of us had to copy down the license plate numbers and 2 of us had to track the types of vehicles. turned into a snowman after that. it was so cold. not because the temperature was low, it was fine, but the wind was damn strong. brrrr. everybody was so glad to be back on the bus after that. haha. original plan was that we will leave the place at 6 and reach london around 7 but there was some miscommunication with the bus company and it became reach london at 6. so originally is cannot make it for hall dinner become can make it for hall dinner but i still went out to eat dinner. haha.

since we reached early, i went to the study abroad fair and took a look at some universities. eth zurich is on the list :D im choosing between that and delft. maybe open my options to usa. im not sure. but no guarantee, there are soooo few spots. after that went to put my stuff down cos they were soooo heavy and helped people take food (since im not eating don't waste ma haha). then met fuwei and we went for dinner. had dinner at leong's legend in chinatown. it's a taiwanese restaurant. not bad the food is nice and it's not expensive. i had the zha jiang mian, oh awesome :D the lu rou fan that fuwei had was nice too. the sauce was very fragrant. the xiaolongbao was soso, not dingtaifungish. haha. but the chili oil was mamamia :D haha. after that is desserts, like duh. went to a frozen yogurt place called snog. they had bittersweet dark chocolate. and the toppings quite generous. yummy. miss frozen yogurt so much. my yami yogurt!! j.co!!!

watford!

OMGOMG CONGESTION! -.-

zha jiang mian :D yummmmmmmy

frozen yogurt! :D

031110 Wicked!

went to watch Wicked last evening. thongthong helped like 30 of us get group discount. so our tickets were like £14. not bad not bad. the musical was really nice, but i think i was too tired to appreciate it fully cos there were actly some parts where i dozed off. oops. but i think the focus of the musical was the plot. there were some funny parts too and their vocals are amazing. totally worth the money the time and having to stay up till 4.30 to finish my work. haha. next up: oliver or phantom :D

woohoo!

most of us who went. hahaha so big group.

time passes by daaaaamn fast. it's alrdy november!!! so amazing. and yes life in london just started. i realised i've been eating bread with jam for like forever. so all i eat is like bread, hall dinner, bread, hall food, bread bread bread bread. cannot! i must save and i must go out eat. and i kind of only have lunch time to meet up with people so i must do that more often! new target is eat out for lunch twice a week. cheap good food. haha. yes i must enjoy life in london by enjoying good food, right jolene and shunjie? haha.

and this time next week, i will be in norway looking at the fjords. amazing :D

and the squirrels are getting real fat

2010-10-31T05:00:00.000Z

Hello! it's an unearthly hour of 4.37am right now. i can't sleep i don't know why. maybe i'm too excited about the theme park later. haha. and we just had daylight saving. like after 1.59am is 1am. so cool. hahahaha. we gained an hour for no reason, but we will lose it next spring ON MY BIRTHDAY (!@#$%^&*)

ok so since im awake at this kind of time, i decided to blog :D woohoo. and the greatest thing that happened between now and the previous post is that WOOHOO THE TOY IS OVER OMG YAY. it was due on thurs. couldn't wait to hand it in and get it out of my head. went there with my ultra portable toy in a plastic bag and when i saw what the others have i was like "oh dear..." but ah well, it was so interesting to see other toys and the mechanisms people use to make their toys work. when it came to testing, mine worked but needed to be tweaked a bit. so yah cross fingers toes and eyes x) this toy project was like sooo troublesome, i spent so much time effort and money on it but it was a good experience. a kick in the butt for us to start the course. haha.

some of the toys

everyone waiting for the testing to start...

my toy :D i watned to throw it away after the thing, but couldn't bear to so it is now sitting in a little corner collecting dust.

friday long day at school and a happening happening night. went to get shiqi's cake and then had an EWB social dinner between UCL and imperial. we went to this ethiopian restaurant at finchley east which was in zone 2 (ooh my first time out of zone 1). it was had such a cosy atmosphere. a perfect place to bring shunjie and jolene. haha. it was a buffet of ethiopian food. haha. the food is quite nice and yummy. pretty worth it for £8.50. and because they wanted to give us a really ethiopian experience, we had to eat the ethiopian way, with our hands. there were no utensils at all. haha. really interesting experience. glad i went :D

ethiopian deco...

we filled up the entire place, more behind

the food :D

queueing for the food

after that rushed back for shiqi's birthday celebration with the cake. supposed to celebrate it at ULU bar but they didn't allow outside food (the cake) so we adjourned to my hall's common room. and we just sat around and had orientation. like introduction and playing orientation games. it was quite funny and suaning was damn focused on his games and introduction objectives. but it's a really good way to know people :) and connaught bar was having a halloween party. so there were 2 parties in connaught that night. haha. stayed till like 2plus in the morning. yay hope shiqi enjoyed himself. love celebrating birthdays :D

sitting around like an og. haha.

birthday boy! :D

saturday i spent my entire day doing work so that i can go out at night and on sunday. ok there's nothing much to blog about doing work so fast forward. i finished my work early and went for a jog. the squirrels are sooooooooooo fat. getting fatter and fatter. luije suggested catching one back to watch it sleep in the room -.- after that went off to vic's house for her housewarming, the bus is so cocked up. we got up the correct bus number and on the way, the bus driver just announced that the destination has changed. then at some angel place, the bus stopped and all passengers had to get down. we alighted and the bus stop does not cater for the bus we were on -.- so we had to hunt for another bus stop and wait for the next bus. and pay again. baaaah. ate and talked and chatted at vic's house. there was a weird atmosphere, maybe cos i didn't know the people there well enough. so it wasn't as fun as i thought it would be. stayed for a while and then headed back. waited to watch the daylight saving thingy :D haha so cool. like a min ago it's 1.59am and then it becomes 1am. haha. chatted and talked till like 2 plus 3. came back, tried to sleep and can't.

WE'RE GOING TO ADVENTURE ISLAND LATER! :D WOOOHOOOO!

cough cough cough

2010-10-27T20:33:00.001+01:00

urgh. i'm coughing again ): sucks ttm. and i haven't blog in forever. been busy with i don't know what also.

school has been busy as usual. been sleeping a little too much during lectures though. especially context. boring ttm. and then there's chem and bio. eeew. but ok though. can still catch a bit here and there. need to do my own self-study to catch up. sian. toy is still not working properly. works at time and in random. i'm just going to cross my fingers in front of the professor or sth. zzz. 5% of module which is 25% of total. so it is like erm 1%? but i think my toy is bright and cheerful. effort for making it look like a toy :D heh. ok that's it for school. really nothing interesting. just lectures after lectures.

ok so we had our 1st month in london celebration at Goldmine @ Bayswater with jiapei, lujie and ziyang. 4 of us damn gungho. we walked there. like a freaking 1 and a half hour walk. reached cold and hungry. made the food yummier i supposed. the food is damn nice :D so long since i had like real chinese food :D our budget was £15 per person and we ate till £13.20 per person. left £1.80 just nice tube back. hehheh. we didn't want to walk back cos we will be hungry again by the time we reached home. then we went back and had haagan daz bailey's ice cream with cocktail :D yummmmmmmy :D super satisfied sunday cos of great food with great company plus we washed our jackets and hoodies and bedsheets :D hahahahaha.

Roast Duck, Curry Fish Head, Hotplate Tofu, Wanton Soup, Egg Fried Rice, Sweet and Sour Pork

next significant thing was the trip to Borough Market and Tower Bridge on Saturday. wanted to go Borough market for such a long time already. heard so much about the cheap good food. not exactly cheap, but good. the cheeeeeeese daaaaaaaaaaamn nice. had a great time sampling :D hehheh. and yes, we walked there too. haha. went with jiapei, lujie, ziyang and jiapei's friends yunbing and joanne. borough market was so crowded. squeezed here and there. walked around, sampled, bought brownies and cookies and looked damn long for savoury food. finally found curry :D i had carribean curry, ziyang had thai green curry and joaane had malaysian curry :D yummy. after borough's market, since we were in the vicinity, we went to tower bridge to be tourists :D the wind was so strong. coooold. and we took photos, like duh! we wanted to take a group photo using jiapei's dslr, so we waited for somebody who had a dslr so that he/she will know how to use. and we had a nice picture. but i don't have it. must wait for jiapei.

after an hour's walk...


the front of the market, hiding all the chaos at the back...

CHEEEEEEEESE

the curries :D

the Shard, europe's tallest building to be

Tower Bridge

i think this is so cute.

hahahahah mountain climbing

sunday had the first dhsya(uk) event. we went to cambridge. it felt sooooo good to be with dunmanians. like the frequency is there you know. then we talked about our teachers, the school food and rooms and all that. nostalgia :') cambridge was really pretty. the weather was so nice somemore. clear big sky :) but i think cambridge is only worth going if you actually know people from there, or else there really isn't much to see and do. the pretty things are all in the colleges and we can only go in with students. good thing wenxiu is cambridge pr :) hehheh. oh and we went punting. but i didn't punt. cos i didn't trust myself to stay balanced on the boat. and i didn't want to fall into the water during winter. maybe if i go in summer i will try. haha. OH and when i was looking at the sky, i commented that the rainbow was missing and everybody say i wish for too much. but later in the day, the rainbow really appeared! :D but i couldn't get a picture of it ): hopefully the pro cameras caught it. and i think i caught a cold in cambridge ):

rare lovely weather :)

Market Square! FOOOOD!

Ostrich Burger! Yummy!

King's College, the prettiest of the 3 we saw and supposedly the prettiest in cambridge!

so postcardish

their chapel is soooooooo pretty. i went in and WOW

GoodBye Cambridge!

went to finsbury for brunch. horrible service.

but nice food :)

punting! and phototaking :b

rum and raisin ice cream on a cold day. shiok!

Trinity College!

very pretty also :)

St John's College! the rainbow is supposed to be there. use your imagination.

st john's college is huge

bridge of sighs

ended with dinner at nando's. very very hot officially killed my throat.

their moon always so low hanging.

yesterday was uclsingsoc FRIGHT FERRY! halloween party on a boat. my first halloween party and my first boat party. the scenery was so mesmerizing. it was so cold but i just wanted to stay out to look at the scenery. and we choped place to take pictures with tower bridge in the background. pictures with jiapei (again). so must wait (again). haha. anyway, there was a dance floor on the upper deck which i happily avoided. just went around taking pictures and catching up with people and talking and chatting and drinking. yay i got free drinks :D had a maliblu pineapple with the free drink upon entry, bought a bailey's, got a free bailey's with the ticket jeric gave me, and got 2 smirnoff ice with tickets from fuwei and chaorong. thankyou very much :D hehheh. it was really cool seeing people dress up. some really put in so much effort. i wanted to really dress up too, but my lecture ended at 6 and we had to arrive at 6.30. so erm yah. just did something simple. went as a london police. haha. pure laziness, but i didn't want to pon lecture. somemore the lecture is 4 hours lecture. and since we had to skip dinner, i made dinner for 6 and basically just sandwiches. and yogurt for desert. £1 per person. cheapcheap :D haha even cheaper than the bailey's i bought. lol.

thongthong! ok but i anyhow say a name you also don't know. hahahaha.

Fuwei, looking good in the weird specs. haha.

catwoman, policewoman, spiderthief

Mabel :)

John! :)

Maliblu! seriously the best OG :)

the police :D

ok too many pictures. go facebook see! :D ok i'm going off now, maybe to sleep. i slept my whole day away. no i wasn't having a hangover i was sick. i went to nhs (national health service) and the clinic was so empty but the doctors all busy so i was told to go back later and try but i didn't. i just went back to bed and slept. heh. and today my hall had a thai special dinner. but everything was tasteless to me, except the rice pudding. so wasted ):

annnnnd... don't be jealous people... but... I'M GOING TO NORWAY FOR MY READING WEEK! :D COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

i am so busy, but i'm loving it ;)

2010-10-16T23:32:00.000+01:00

school has been so busy. full timetable, assignments, readings, catching up on chemistry, trying not to feel too lost during lectures and trying to stay awake... urgh happens like every lecture or sth. ok not every lecture. not the maths and more physics based one. those like chem, sustainable devt and stuff are like zzz. oops. haha. but it's like having computing all over again. understanding but not understanding and feeling totally lost and not being able to comprehend what i actually need to know and yah all that confusing stuff. and the worse is that it's not for one module. but for like 3? bleah.

homework isn't really piling up, just the stupid toy i have to make? it's really really damn irritating and i'm at a total lost of what to do for it now. i'm going to try again tmr. bleah. hope it works or else i will like ~!@#$^&*() got so much help, especially from jiapei. but it's still not working i'm so depressed about it ):

oh and we had to do this drawing assignment in which we had to make a sculpture of shapes and draw out the different views. i just randomly picked things off the shelf and drawers and placed them together. haha. damn cute.

got straight, got round, got irregular pyramid

and my course is sooooooooooo expensive. so many things to buy. i had to get like drawing boards and special rulers and set squares and all that stuff. totally super duper expensive. but i found cheaper alternatives and like sourced for the cheapest available. but still expensive ): a scale rule cost £4. like hello? my ruler is 40cents -.- bah that's it for school.

i'm going to join ewb (engineers without borders). i made it into the committee, am the events officer. have loads of events to plan. sounds fun and yah, it advocates for human development throught engineering :) so i like. i'm going to join frisbee too. trainings are weds and sat for outdoors and mondays for indoors. i will try to make for all the trngs but competitions will see as i go. cos i just really love the playing and training is fun. frisbee people are cool :D though i go whammed during training and my mouth bled and i got send off the field. haha. but chill, nth serious. and the training is at regent's park so pretty and so near the 99p shop in camden. omg have to stop going there to buy snacks. i am going to become fat. and i wanna commit to a volunteer society, looking at animals and soup kitchen. but the animals one all damn far and the soup kitchen may not be looking for volunteers now so hmm... i'm thinking about running for ucl singsoc exco but just thinking. i'm still evaluating the amount of time i have for like school and social life. haha.

oh and i wanted to join asian boards but thurs and i went to the asian boards thingy cos i needed to play mahjong. and erm well..

need i say more?

ohhhhh sth super interesting. last friday, my hall's kitchen roof caught fire and erm we had to go to international hall (10mins away) for meals -.- and then on tuesday, while i was having lab, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. turned out an experiment produced smoke which set the alarm off -.- and the fire engines arrive whether or not there's a fire. as long as the alarm goes, the engine arrives. there was this hall with this guy bathing with the max temp hot water and he set off the alarm and the fire engines came. hahahaha.

monday a few of us went to watch a concert by the singapore symphony orchestra. we walked/ran there cos we were running late and we refused to take the tube. reached just in time. the concert was nice. the pianist was cool but too bad we couldn't see his fingers. after the concert we took a nice long stroll back, still refusing to take the tube. haha.

the orchestra

free tickets from the suka dinner :D

ok anyway highlight is probably like today. there as the ukssc hyde park picnic and jiahui came down from manchester. so last night mabel qingyi and i went to buy stuff for the picnic and mabel, fandi and i stayed over at cindy and qingyi's room. oooh dunman high gathering. i love being with dunmanians. gives me a sense of comfort :) morning 3 of us woke up to prepare the food (basically just tear the wrapper and throw into the oven) and then we wanted to walk to hyde park but little miss meng had to put contacts, decide to roll up her pants or not, straighten her hair dadadada in the end we just took a bus. it's my first bus trip in london. haha. so we went to hyde park and dhs mat has a lot of food :D yay. so i just ate, took photos and played frisbee. ucl played against imperial. i'm going to refrain from saying anything here. ucl won :D haha yay!

the food we prepared

a little corner of hyde park


dunman high! :D

after that mabel, fandi, jiahui, anthony (jiahui's friend from manchester) and i went to south bank. we wanted to walk but it was raining and it was quite far so we tubed. had lunch at this chinese place called chopstix (they don't have chopsticks though). buffet for £7. quite ex, but then it's south bank so yah. and the food was not bad. then we took photos with big ben and london eye and went to the royal theatre place. i wanted to go to the cheese and wine exhibition so they went with me :D yay. we went to this art exhibition by inmates first. some of the art pieces were really nice. then we went to cheese and wine. omg the cheese so nice yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy. i tried and refrained from buying. i have great self control. after that, i headed back to hall while they continued touring. and i nua until now. haha. bad bad. i should be doing work.

part of the buffet for lunch

my favourite piece at the art exhibition

OOOOOMMMMMMMMGGGG CHEEEEEEEEEEESE

tmr we're going to celebrate our 1st month in london. so fast. it's been a month. time really flies cos life is so packed with activities. and in fact, i don't really like miss singapore that much. i mean family, dog and friends of course, but on the whole, yah london is like home alrdy. there are always times when i wish my parents were here to watch ppstream with me, laugh with me, eat dinner with me, my dog was here to welcome me home, walk with me, look at me eat, and my friends just to be there (yes shunjie jolene leeyan weiliang i'm talking about you guys). friends here are just different. baah.

and i've made a pact with myself. i'm gng to start running. if i end late, i will wake up early to run. i must run, then i can take part in the marathon i set out to complete :)

School finally starts...

2010-10-06T22:48:00.001+01:00

omg i haven't blogged for a week! i'm so busy ): ok fine it's not that bad. at least i'm doing sth in london and not just hanging around.

weds 29/9
had a walking tour for my first assignment. went to the river thames area. it was raining, so there was just this big group of people standing in the rain, drawing the london eye -.- so we took a walk along river thames, saw some famous bridges and stuff. really pretty. after we completed the walk, i walked back to connaught, taking in the sights along the way. everything is so old and quaint. and i stopped by the horse guard museum and saw the guards changing. the horses were quite smelly though. haha. horsey smell. so took a long walk back. wanted to go to borough market, but it wasn't in the way, so i headed to covent garden market. a market aimed at tourists. there wasn't much food, so i didn't buy anything. haha. found my way back by just walking and following random signs. woohoo i didn't get lost :D

drawing in the rain

graffiti on some building

River Thames

at the horse guard museum

a part of the covent garden market

some church i went in to look look see see

later that night, brought a cake which i bought from marks and spencer to ramsey hall to celebrate john's birthday :D oooh i love surprises. he was so touched :D yay :D mission accomplished :D

the cake. yumyum.

birthday uncle

thurs 30/9
went to freshers' fayre. took a lot of chocolates and sweets -.- signed up with a whole bunch of clubs and societies. but i don't i will be able to join all cos my timetable is really really cramped ): and a lot of activities clash. plus, it will be quite expensive. horseriding, gliding, mountaineering... all too expensive ): so i've got to decide on which one to focus on, and i'm inclined towards frisbee, engineers without borders and hiking and walking. oh and asian boards, just for the mahjong. haha.

the fair. had to queue to see the booths. for like 20mins -.-

after that met john and we headed to the buidling centre, which is like singapore's ura. they had exhibitions on too :D totally going to visit every exhibition :D so nearby somemore :D yay love it :D

engineering exhibtion

london plan

fri 1/10
had a meet the mentor session. well... i was the only one in my tutorial group to turn up. lovely. really. and my mentor was telling us how busy we will be with homework and assignments and all that stuff and how 30% fail and only 2 get first class. really, a great welcome speech -.- after that had our first official lecture. and by the end of the lecture, we had another assignment. we have to make a toy which will accept 3 spheres and 10secs later, the spheres will come out via 2 exits in the sequence of exit A exit A exit B... and the toy is for toddlers and must be able to be dismantled into 3 pieces to be kept in a box. like real toy. rumour is that 5 quit after receiving this assignment. not sure if it's true though. haha.

at night went for singapore uk association (suka). they had their annual agm and dinner. half of the people there were from uclsingsoc. it was like a singsoc event -.- they elected their new comm, which is like a walkover. after that had dinner. and there was singapore food! omg. satay, nasi lemak and sambal. you don't know you miss the food until you taste it. not the best, but better than nothing :D and the teh tarik was great :D

singapore high commission

yummy yummy

sat 2/10
connaught hall had a basketball session and i went to watch. it was pretty interesting watching from the top. i could like analyse what each player likes to do and what they cannot do. haha. after that, connaught brought us to camden town. then it was free and easy for us. walked around the markets. wanted to buy things for the boat trip but didn't get anything. bought cheap door hangers and liquer chocolates from the 99p shop :) that will be my favourite shop along with primark. haha.

connaught hall basketball

camden! :D

love the way they try to attract attention

then had a dhsya(uk) meeting. settled things for the picnic and day trip. and yah ate at the korean place assa again. why are we always eating korean food in london? and it's not that great. good, but not great. would rather grab a sandwich. cheaper. haha.

the food we had...

sun 3/10
jio-ed people out last minute to play frisbee at regent's park. lovely day, lovely weather. and it was really fun :D i want more frisbee sessions :D just recreational and all fun, enjoy the company enjoy the weather :D

oooh and we cooked supper, using minghao's induction cooker and jiapei's pot. bought the ingredients, and we had a curry party :D for what we had, i think the curry was not bad. yumyum :D 1st homecooked meal in such a long time :D i miss cooking ): ohh the pot was totally empty by the end. satisfaction yo! haha.

marketing! :D

had to use the curtains to cover and people fanning so that we won't activate the smoke detector :b

even had toasted bread

yummmy :D

stop salivating :D

mon 4/10
lectures officially start. but then i alrdy have 2 pieces of homework. so it doesn't really count as an official start for me -.- and seriously, they just plunged us head on and kick us in the butt. still need getting used to after such a long break, but hopefully, i will be fine. ok fine, i will be fine. i'm sure :) yes! haha. ok i'm being optimistic :D

had a welcome buffet by connaught hall. the food was quite bad. normal dinners are so much better. the buffet wasn't really free flow. you can only take up to a certain amount each round you queue. they had to control the food so that there was enough. and yah, the food was quite bad ):

tues 5/10
lessons again ): even more. 9am to 6pm with an hour's lunch break. but i finished my work earlier and went back to rest before going for a volunteer meeting session. was so hungry by then. after that, rushed to meet and speak the engineers without borders chairperson. put my name for comm. then after that went to the hiking and walking meet and greet session. after the briefing, lost them when we were heading to the eating and socialising place. so i didn't get dinner ): had lujie's digestive biscuits to curb the hunger. and jiapei's apple. and some chocolates. and tea. haha. great to have hallmates who stock up for war. hahahaha.

weds 6/10
omg today! my summary skills are great. so fast 1 week alrdy. haha. anyway, had lessons, like duh. see my timetable. it's terrible. ended at 12 today. and yah it's so early cos it's like "do you own things day" something like cca day. so i ended at 12, rushed back to changed, ran to the bank to activate the card that finally came, deposit leftover money, ran to nando's at brunswick (yes shunjie! they have nando's here and water is free flow) to say happy birthday to rachel. sat for a while then jogged to the northern end of regent's park for frisbee! :D yay it was really fun :D i'm going to join it :D it's fun, it's something i like, and it's one of the cheapest sports club. haha. but then, joining frisbee, i probably won't join hiking and walking cos both have activities on weekends. sucks. in such a dilemma. eeeek. so frisbee for the entire afternoon, went back to connaught for dinner then headed to sports night and the uclu bar with frisbee people. first sports night. interesting experience. i just concentrated on the game so i won't lose so i don't have to drink so much. but i'm actually feeling woozy. see, and i still blog, so noble :D haha.but it was really amusing seeing them make people drink (as long as it's not me) :D haha.

ah well, school has been really really busy. cramped up timetable, lots of activites from clubs and societies and connaught hall itself. and i still need a social life. baaa. but i will find a balance, i'm sure. and yes, i'm aiming for the prize given to the department's top student :D go jasvin! :b

At home, in London

2010-09-28T10:28:00.001+01:00

time flies. it's alrdy like the 2nd week in London. oooh. and lessons still have not started. it's now like the official departmental induction week. so there's still more induction going on. and whatever they say this week we kinda heard them last week. especially the transition program on thurs. BUT i'm going cos i want the organiser :D school handbook you knw? essential :D haha and it's expensive.

yah so since the last time i blogged nothing much really happened i guess. we ran for a run to regent's park. it was sooooo cold. the wind was freezing i felt like my brain froze. and i didn't sweat. it wasn't an intensive enough run but it's too cold to intensify it. i need to consider the gym membership... but anyway, regent's park is sooooo pretty :D looks like a really good place for picnic. and we saw a squirrel which was cheated by lujie. heh.

pretty :)

they kept checking the map cos we didn't know the way

people practising wing chun. i want to learn also!

quack quack quack

hello weiliang the 2 of them combined reminds me of you :')

ok this photo proves that i was there. not nato ok. haha.

cute!

omg and we went to primark. there was a blackout so they were running on their generator. so some lights were not on and the escalators were down. and it was sooooo stuffy. i bought like 2 jackets, a pair of boots, 2 long sleeves, a pair of gloves, a hoodie, a bag, a pair of jeggings which totally look like jeans but no pockets, and 2 nighties cow print damn cute. haha. i'm like known my my animal prints cos i have like leopard and zebra. now i add cow to the collection. hehheh. and i spent like £90. oooh so happy :D but most of the things i bought were necessary so yah ok fine i'm just trying to feel less guilty.

oh and before primark we went to the ucl welcome carnival. the games were all larger than life size. but it was rather quiet. not many people were there. so i guess the atmosphere wasn't all that great.

the games

there was some planting dunno what bulbs for some elderly thingy. haha.

saw this around the corner. it's really nice. it's the barrier to block the construction site. and on every piece there was a drawing of a construction worker. i think it's really creative and it brightens up the street.

did our laundry on sunday morning. didn't have enough whites among the 3 of us so we asked cheryl to pool in some. the dryer didn't dry in 1 spin and we didn't knw how more spins were needed so we took our damp clothes to our rooms to hang dry. oh and our dryer to like 20p and washing machine is £1.60. other halls are like £1 and £2. hahahahaha.

my laundry :)

jiapei's laundry

on sunday afternoon, there was a welcome tea at connaught. it was at the lobby. the place is too small. there were so many people cos a lot of people just moved in cos ucl and lse are starting school soon. so we just socialised over tea and biscuits for 3 hours. then we had dinner. more socialising. then it was connaught's bar grand opening and we just socialised some more there. socialising is tiring. met a lot of people from many places. but after a while, they start to look the same. so the moment they change their clothes, i forgot who they are. haha. ok but they forget me too. cos when i changed for clubbing and wore contacts, a few of they insisted they never met me before and were amazed at how i know their names -.-

that night was fresher's fiesta. went to KOKO. it was quite crowded and i think it'll be the only clubbing event i go to in a long time. didn't really enjoy it .the drinks were so expensive. no wonder the brits drink before they club. and half the time the music they played were unknown to me. not very mainstream. and the guys we went with were nice. they kind of form a circle around the girls. haha.

we got back at 3am. i washed up and slept at 3.15. damn, i'm efficient. woke up at 8 for breakfast. ahah. and induction started at 10. omg our induction is sooooo boring. and we didn't have a chance to socialise. it was just sit down in the lt and listen. so yah didn't get to know many people. for the first year, lectures and tutorials are held by the department with a total of 6 different courses. so there's like 120 people. quite a number of chinese and hongkongers. and i met a turkish, a lebanese and a guy from cyprus. totally exotic mix. and there's more induction thingy today. all talks. boring. haha.

oh last night connaught had a clubbing thing but we didn't go so we had a mini party in theodore's room. we were drinking tea and playing monopoly deal. our kind of party. haha. then theodore's parents came back with alcohol and pies. haha. but it was 2 small bottles among 8 people. just to try the taste. minghao turned red, taught us the biological reasons and got high. haha. ohh and i learnt to play bridge! yay like finally. been learning it since like sec1. haha.

ok so i'm beginning to feel at home alrdy. like really settling down nicely. voice still tranny-like. and i'm really beginning to understand why the seniors say ultimately, when we arrive the people we stick to will still be singaporeans. like yah hi and bye, and the initial introduction is fine. but after that, there seems to be no common topics anymore. and even if there is, the conversation ends fast. so yah. ah well.

ok i'm going back to my drama byebye! :D

Still settling down...

2010-09-25T08:36:00.000+01:00

aaaaah... i'm still settling down. still rather unused about some things, like the weather, the efficiency of the banks... lalala. oh but i love they way they walk. fast.

i caught a cold and now my voice sounds like a tranny. my nannies have been forbidding me to eat chocolates, mooncakes and heaty things and complaining that i don't drink enough water. naggy people hahahahaha. ok la, they are just being caring :)

ok so the past few days i've been like still settling all the registration and banking stuff. registered with the nhs and had to do the urine test. hate it -.- setting up a bank is a horrible experience. hate it. so much things to do. and i have no idea what to do with portico and stuff -.-

weather's turning cold. cos of the rain maybe. rained for past 2 days. wind is like cold cold cold. wind come, hide behind somebody but wind still come. somehow. hopefully today is a sunny day. there's a carnival going on. excited :D

ok so other than the settling down troublesome stuff, i've been visiting various halls. ok so our toilet is shared by many and maybe we don't have auto doors and all the atas stuff. just a really simple hall with the necessities and some extras. but i think connaught hall is a really cosy place and the layout makes it easy to see people and make friends. so yeah, i'm liking my hall. just need to do up my room. heh.

and ytd was like tourist day. went to the charles dickens museum with mabel jiapei lujie and zuxin. its a mini museum inside the house he used to stay in. i read 4 of his books and didn't know he wrote so many haha. and i rmbed his biography was the first which i tried reading. didn't finish of course. and i wanna watch oliver! love the book though read it so long ago i've already forgotten what's it about. haha.

there was a short film on charles dickens' life

a little portion of his published books from different eras

oliver twist :D

i remember going with jiapei but different dates leh... haha.

the house. all houses that belonged to famous people have the blue plaque on top.

we went for the open-top tour bus in the afternoon. £2 for ucl students. original £20. worth the money we paid. haha. so touristy taking the bus and taking in the sights. saw the beautiful architecture and some famous landmarks. saw people running in tanktops and shorts dunno how they do it while we were freezing on the bus cos of the wind. but yeah. pretty cool. saw the part of london to far to walk to. i haven't taken any public transport you know. amazing. just walk everywhere.

connaught and friend (mabel is the friend, she's from canterbury)

love it the way they have such old architecture in the middle of the street.

do you see ben? (no not the yellow guy)

westminster abbey

you can view other pictures from my facebook :) ok i'm going for a run later with my nannies.

i love it in london, but i miss home...

Settling down...

2010-09-21T23:17:00.000+01:00

getting ready for school is sooooooooooo tiring, for the past 2 days, we've been doing lots and lots of walking just to prepare for school and life in london.

monday was spent on getting the phone card and buying like daily stuff. i brought so much fruits. the strawberries so cheap. haha. so finally got the phone card and i have like unlimited text and free incoming and 100mins outgoing for £10 (shit the £ sign is so troublesome). and walking the whole day is super tiring. we kept walking up and down tottenham court road and oxford street. omg oxford street! shopping! and primark is sooooooo cheap :D super got to go there and shop. and there will be a wailing siren like every half an hour or so, like london is in a lot of crisis. had a lunch meal deal from superdrug (like a guardian, watsons place). a sandwich, packet of crisps and a bottle of drink for £2.49. not that bad. and dinner in hall was not bad too. hopefully the standard remains and not deteriorates as time goes by as many people claim...


lunch

oxford street

today went to enrol, get the student id card, get the ucl password and id and tried opening a bank account but it is soooooooooooooooo troublesome. omg i love singapore banks! walked around to all the banks and they all want the stupid student letter in a specific format and all banks different format -.- wahpiang damn troublesome. so i have to go my department to ask for the letter -.- shit troublesome man. but we got the water filter (london has hard water with a lot of calcium or sth which is not good in the long term so we need a water filter). jiapei lujie and i shared one so jiapei is gng to do the filtering and we just go get the water. what to do? save money is like that one. haha.

the main quad

my department is here so this will be where most of my lessons are held i suppose

ok this is the REAL body of benjamin bentham and the head is fake. cos apparantly students from rival schools kicked it around like a football. disgusting.

ohh lunch today was free! :D ok not entirely. i dabao-ed from breakfast and brought some fruits which i bought last night. woohoo money saving ttm. for dinner, we had some pizza and pasta night to welcome early comers at connaught hall. there was wine too. and like music. haha. the food is really not bad hope it maintains. and the lift is REPAIRED! OMG YAY!

lunch

dinner

and we just had a water tasting session to try out our new filter. haha. it works. yay. ok im tired, shall go sleep long day again tmr and hopefully i can get my bank done. urgh.