Back in London

Hi everyone, i'm back! Well, that's if anyone is still looking at my blog. I'm kinda in a semi-retirement from blogging though I do feel some sort of responsibility to kinda update things now and then. So here I am. Can't guarantee the same level of frequency as before but i'll try my best.

First of all, I really like to thank the people who came down to send me off, namely my family members and some friends who came down.
Here's the pic i took with the friends who came down. The feeling was a lot different the 2nd time round but I guess that was to be expected. The flight wasn't as bad as I expected and I did not too bad considering I was all alone on the flight, sandwiched between 2 aussie old ladies.

Came back, moved stuff into my place and then to ireland. Will try to talk about ireland (and all my previous trips *sheepish grin*) in a separate posting. No promises when though.

And now, school has started for a week. It's absolutely dreadful to start lectures again and the first week just reminds me about how term time is so horrible cuz I'll get hopelessly lost in some of the things being taught. It was strange to see the familiar faces back in lecture theatre but we somehow just get used to the whole cycle once again.

And my house! Well, the house that I'm staying in now is a lot more like a home now. We practically spent the first week, when there wasn't any classes, to go Argos and buy household stuff. I'm occupying the lounge, which is the largest room in the house but that also means it's the common room too. And we've started cooking! I'm slowly learning and i must say we are doing quite well and eating much better compared to hall food, though the time taken can be immense.(Like how i hate cutting carrots!) But at least it has been fun so far.

And I've signed up for French evening classes this year! Invested 200 pounds for 20 weeks of lessons and hopefully, they will be fun. It will be good if something good comes out of it but I just hope to inject some fun into school life. Not looking forward to the extra workload though, especially since i'm going straight into the upper intermediate class. But since I'm paying for it, of course I'll want to reap the most benefits. At least I didn't do too badly for my assessment to see which class I can go into.

Hopefully, the rest of the academic year will be smooth for me. Have significantly less lesson time as there's no more tutorials this year and no problem classes next term onwards but that will mean less help too.

Alright, will stop here as I'm going to sleep soon.(Yes, I do sleep very early ...i know that) Hope to update soon ...instead of youtubing ...heh

Performing magic

Thanks to a timely reminder by Chee Hui and Kelvin, I have uploaded this photo of me performing magic ...well sort of ...We went up this Harry Potter train in Marseille where they had exhibitions of the costumes and settings from the movie in this train which went around France and we happen to be able to catch it in Marseille just before our train to Monaco.

Resurrection

Hi I'm back to resurrect the blog. Almost 2 months since I last posted anything. Can't blame me really ...was busy with exams prep the whole of easter holiday, then I left immediately after my last paper to Spain. Came back after Spain and was left with one last week to get a house, pack up and move out of hall. And then it's on to 2 weeks of eastern europe and come back to sign contract, do some last-minute shopping, watch heroes, eat four seasons' duck ...blah blah blah. Moreover, I was staying over with the Imperial people and many thanks to ZY and the MOE gang for helping us to settle in and getting us a room. With just a brief 3 days of rest, I went for to France for another 10 days before coming back the night before I'm flying back to Singapore. And on the day I flew back, I got the key to my new house and before i knew it, I was on the tube from King's Cross to the airport.

Have been back for a week. Not much done yet and I've not really gone out that much yet. Well, will be looking forward to meet up with the various groups of friends. May be looking for a relief teaching job somewhere. Any lobangs do let me know yeah, especially if it's in the east.

Hope to start posting pictures soon. I'm having difficulties posting pictures now, so i'll do it some other time. A summary of my summer trips:

Spain
Went to Barcelona with Kelvin to meet Kandy and Jane. Went on to Valencia where we caught a bit of the Louis Vuitton Cup action from the beach. Then on to Granada where we ate the most satisfying and cheapest meal of seafood in europe thus far. And we ended it off with Seville which was a truly beautiful city.

Eastern Europe
Started off with Salzburg, a city which has a lot of character. Then it's on to Vienna, which really is just another big city. Then on to Bratislava where things are really cheap but without anything really worth seeing. Prague is a pretty city, all the buildings and architectural designs are what make it stands out. Krakow is quite nice too but we made few day trips out, most notably to Auschwitz. Warsaw is also another big city.

France
A very special trip for me since I used to take Frence in school and I did put my knowledge of the language to good use, at times. Paris is simply fantastic and I'd love to return to Paris yet again. Reims was just for the champagne caves and I don't drink. Marseille was quite "messy" and we didnt really like the feel of the place. Nice and the Cote D'azur area was simply beautiful. Went to Monte Carlo in Monaco to get a feel of the lifestyle of the uber rich.

Ok, that's about it I guess. Hope to meet as many people as I can during this holiday.

Summer Hols!!!

And so the exams are finally over. Some papers were good, especially algebra, some so-so and some not that good, especially the applied modules where i'm not that good at it and there were some "surprises" in the paper. Well, at least it's over and my summer holiday can now officially begin. Not that I felt exuberant about the fact that I'm going to start travelling. The thing I want to do is just to chill and relax actually. Anyway, will be going off to Spain until 25th May.

Will update when I get back. Hopefully I get to post more pictures of the Greek islands. And then maybe Spain pictures later on. Well, have fun everyone and all the best to those having exams!

Greece Part 1

Hi everyone! Took a long hiatus from blogging, especially after going on such a long trip and having to prepare for exams after that. Well, I have to admit that blogging is no longer such a high priority for me now cuz I have to sift through the photos and publish the photos that I want to show selectively. Well, I will be dividing my greece trip into 2 parts. The first part is mainland Greece:

Kelvin, Kandy, me and Andrew who was with us for the first 6 days of our trip before we went on to the islands. We were at the highest point in Athens to wait for the sunset. Not sure if you can see from the photo but the wind was blowing really hard and it was really cold. Greece in general is a lot more sunnier than London (then again, that's not very hard to achieve!)

Sunset in Athens. Something that we always like to do during our trips is to either wake up early to catch sunrise or stay at some high point to catch sunsets. Rather ironic to me cuz the sun rises and sets every day. But it helps, I guess, if there's a nice view to complement it at the same time.

Here's the Parthenon at the Acropolis. Probably one of the more well-known places in Athens or Greece for the matter and ironically, most of the artefacts are actually located in the British Museum which is not too far from where I stay. The whole place is not as nice now cuz they have lots of scaffoldings as they are carrying out conservation works. Nonetheless, a great place to go see and marvel at what history has left us. I definitely know very little (especially compared to my friends here) but it's nice to come by and take a look, even though it gets grating to see rubles after rubles. It does help to appreciate the history behind it all but I guess I am still very much a visual person after all.Went to Olympia for a day where the ancient Olympic site was located. Where I am standing was the starting line of the ancient Olympic race. I think it's amazing to be able to see a place where the ancient Greeks conducted their Olympics. There were many Americans on tour there too cuz I think it's their spring break.

This statue appears behind the 2 euros coin for the 2004 olympic edition. Anyway, this is quite special to me because we are not allowed to pose with statues and I managed to find an opportunity to take one with this statue (owing to my photowhorish nature =p) but too bad andrew didn't take it with my legs. A lot of statues have not stood the test of time and are either half gone or probably sort of disfigured due to like acid rain and other pollutants.

Must be wondering why I am showing a toilet bowl right? Well, this is no ordinary toilet bowl. It's the one I used on the train from Olympia back to Athens and I saw that the hole actually leads to the track, which means it's actually a HOLE! Imagine if someone wanna do big business ...yewww

Joined a group tour to Delphi and Meteora and we got to stay in a posh hotel for one night, which was like a welcome respite from the usual repertoire of hostels. Always nice to soak in the bathtub for once. Anyway, this is an archaeological site in Delphi and I can't remember it's name (Not that I think I even remembered it in the first place.) Below me is the ancient theatre and we were told that there was no need for any form of background because the scenery that you see behind me already forms such a great background for their performance. How amazing huh?
Subsequently went to Meteora after spending a night at Kalambaka. This is where monasteries are situated atop cliffs like those behind me in the photo.

Pondering the vastness of the world and my place in this world .......

Part 2 will be about the islands. Can't guarantee when it will be up as my first paper is in a couple of days' time. Anyway, I'll be back in Singapore by end June. Will be going for a total of 3 trips right after my last paper. First up is Southern Spain, followed by Easter Europe and possibly France just before I come back. In the meantime, good luck to all taking exams and hope everyone is having fun too=)

Easter break is here!

Pissed off after typing so long then my IE got problem and closed down my window. So this will be a watered down post. Well, will be going to Greece on Sunday and will be gone for more than a week before returning to London to chiong for exams. Have a really screwed up timetable and all of us actually have to travel around london for our papers. Plus the fact that they told us so late really pissed me off the night I saw my timetable. Took them so long just to come up with that piece of crap.

Anyway, been doing the usual stuff lately. Must admit I have been really lazy to blog cuz I am being plain lazy. But I will still post up nice pictures of my trips as and when I can.

Some random photos of what I have been doing ...having picnic in hypde park

Vine gathering in UCL. These are the people from my batch who came. Basically a good afternoon of good food and mingling around and finally, doing mass dance, cheers and singing the Victorians' anthem.

And congrats to my friends who got into the Imperial singsoc exco. Special mention to ZY who is now the Events Officer. My jaws dropped quite a bit when I heard (=p) but I am happy that you want to do it nonetheless. At least it's not 2 S37 people slacking now ...haha

Well, have a great Easter everyone! Will update when I return from Greece or perhaps after exams or when I am bored from all the revision =)

A great surprise for 22nd birthday

Ok, so this is a looong overdue post and so here it is now. I've had a tremendously eventful birthday this year, especially since it falls so nicely on CNY eve itself. Nonetheless, it wasn't extremely great to grow older when you are in a sea of so much younger people. Some of my fellow coursemates are disgustingly young, but that means also they may be more immature (just saw someone throwing paper bits onto some guy's hair during lecture yesterday). But still, it was a great CNY eve and a birthday filled with lots of surprises, which of course I have my friends to thank!

Anyway, it all started the night before when a couple of them came to my room and surprised me with a birthday cake. Kelvin, Kandy, Michelle, Vivian, Jieying plus my two Cambridge friends, KR and Andrew came down and we were in my room the whole night thereafter. It was actually a decoy for the actual thing itself cuz they had all said a long time ago that they had something on.

So, Kelvin was supposed to cook mee sua for dinner and he came over to my room quite early(on hindsight, I should have been quite suspicious why he came to my room and just sat there). Since he didn't want to start cooking, I ended up watching youtube and having a video conversation with yvonne, who so very nearly spoiled their surprise for me. And when we finally started cooking and were boiling the eggs, I was asked to take something from my room. As I opened my door, lo and behold, EVERYONE and I meant everyone was in my room. There were the HPH and Canterbury people plus the 4 Imperial moe people.

Thereafter, I was blindfolded and led into lifts and up stairs to a mysterious place ...which I could have so guessed ...JANE AND KANDY'S ROOM where I was greeted by the sight of ...

Ok, not quite this but we had yu sheng where we lohei. And then, we had a scrumptous steamboat dinner with lots of stuff like prawns, sotong, chicken .......We basically stuffed ourselves with so much food but I am most definitely not complaining. If you think that's all, you're wrong ...
They just had to tekan the birthday boy=( Even when he has been quite nice to them=P Well, I was literaly dragged into the toilet and had a birthday shower of a mixture of cold and warm water. It felt like Cambridge part 2 as I shivered on my way back to my room afterwards to change up.
The aftermath as Sam and everyone else looks on.

The next surprise was the cake and I have to thank Jane and Andrew for this! The 2 of them did the tiramisu until the wee hours of the morning and I must say it tasted really delicious. And I heard Andrew was extremely apologetic as he said "Sorry Clarence" for every drop of alcohol that they put in. Notice the "C"?
Me, my birthday cake and wishing ....*secret*

And finally ...the PRESENT~ They gave me 2 boxes of pineapple tarts and together with the box that Darius gave me ...I have 3 altogether! First time getting pineapple tarts for birthday present I must say and I am almost finishing my 2nd box already.

The MOE people: Keng Seng, Haojun, Astee, Jane, Darius, Kelvin(top), Keng Rui, Me, Kandy, Michelle (bottom)

Canterbury plus HPH: Jieying, Evelyn, Michelle, Jane, Kandy(Girls), Sam, Me, Andrew, Zhenqiang, Kelvin (Guys) There were others who came down to like Michelle, Vivian and Jasmine.

All in all, I had a great time! It was a nice way to spend my CNY eve and birthday. Want to thank everyone for giving me such a wonderful surprise and must thank specially the people who planned the whole thing, like Kandy, Kelvin, Jane .......Really appreciated it a lot=)

And the year has started out nicely for me too, by winning the 2nd prize of the Internation CNY carnival lucky draw which was a mini-fridge plus voucher. Hope everyone will have a great lunar year ahead and though it's a bit late: Gong Xi Fa Cai~~~