Oai No Tenki

All about Doha

2011-11-30T20:29:00.001+08:00

1. No billboard on the highway
2. No kapchai on the road except for delivery boys
3. Tyre melt during the height of summer
4. Rain is merely a few drops
5. No umbrellas are sold anywhere
6. Water is more expensive than oil
7. The airport is in the city area (woohoo!)
8. Only one post office in the city
9. No postman send mails to home. All residents who want to receive mails need to rent a postbox. Currently, there's a waiting list for this
10. White cars are always sold out
11. Set lunch in W Hotel (3-star Michelin if not mistaken) cost QR85 (yummy!)
12. Fried calamari can be juicy
13. No drinking from tap
14. Fruit juices are thick and delicious
15. Office hour for banks: 7am - 2.30pm
16. Watching camel racing means driving alongside the camels (scary!)
17. Can't drive out of Qatar since the country is bordered by Saudi Arabia which has strict rulings
18. There's hardly a bookshop to be found anywhere.

Chilax from D2D

2011-11-29T15:46:00.001+08:00

18 November 2011 (Friday)
7.30pm
Board flight EK0347. Watched the final part of HP before falling asleep. Dinner had yet to arrive despite us being up on the air for probably 2 hours already. When food finally came, the air hostess took forever to clear the tray. Bad service. We wondered if it was because we were sitting at the last row.

10.30pm
Arrived in DXB. 4 hours transit. Had to get to the lounge via bus. The weather was warm. As it was rather late, we were tired and decided to take a break at Costa. Bought a small mug of hot chocolate (AED16). Left for boarding at about 1.45pm only to discover that it was the last call! We made a dash for the bus to head to the plane. Phew.

19 November 2011 (Saturday)
2.30pm
Arrived in Doha Airport. RnL were already waiting for us. We quickly paid for our visa (QR100) before looking for our luggage. I was disappointed to discover that the handle was broken and the plastic cover of m y tsa lock also came off.

It was a happy reunion for us. We were taken back to RnL's apartment in West Bay in our rented Citroen Picasso*. R was kind enough to inform us that Qatar is on alert and that if things get messy in the Mideast, we will need to fly back, all together. And while we were in his 28th floor apartment, he told us that sometimes he get paranoid about living so high from ground as desert sands are actually not suited for high-rise building. Great information there.

We chatted for awhile and had the puff L made before retiring to bed.

*Throughout our stay, R kept making funny remarks bout the 7-seater - hand brake at the dashboard and non-existence horn.

6.00am
I was up as soon as the sky became bright. L was surprised to see me up so early as she was preparing to leave for work at 6.45am. She told me I can walk to the city centre mall if I am bored but I chose to have a slow breakfast while reading "History of Arab". It was actually fun to just relax.

Gradually, the rest woke up and joined me for breakfast. L made us scrambled eggs and baked beans. We merely hang around till L came back from work. Her work finishes at 2.30pm (gosh!).

We left for Souq Waqif for sight-seeing and dinner. A bought an abaya, costing QR125. I bought 2 bottles of perfume (QR 40 and QR50 post-discount) as well as 1kg cashew nuts, 500g salted pistachios, 500g raisins and 500g dried figs. It was really heavy. We also tried the local crepe. Then we had dinner at Altawash, a Qatari Restaurant. The food was really good. We ordered halloumi, my favourite! The chicken was amazingly tender.

After dinner, we went for dessert at a road side stall. I ordered strawberry juice which was so delicious that it reminded me of the juice I had in Japan years ago. We had fun watching the shoppers.

Back at the apartment, we spent the night watching "Hantu Bonceng" which was really a funny ghost story. I didn't manage to finish the movie as I was very tired. Woke up too late.

20 November 2011 (Sunday)
7.00am
Woke up at a later time. L made fried rice from the leftover we brought home yesterday. Yummy!

10ish
R finally woke up. We headed to Salam for brunch at Farggi. I had a waffle with ice-cream which cost QR30++. Nice but too pricey for me. At that point, I was quite kan cheong already. SK had arrived but we were still waiting for our food! R said no worries as it was gonna take her some time to go through immigration and get her luggage. He is really taking it easy.

2.30pm
SK! I was so happy to spot her from afar. She was trying to read a book while waiting for us. I ran out to gave her a hug. We took her back to the apartment to freshen up. Our next stop (or rather first stop with SK) was the Museum of Islamic Art. The architecture of the building was boxy in an interesting way.

For dinner, we headed to ... actually I can't remember where we had dinner :(

Back at the apartment, R treated us to another movie night - Dalam Botol. Even though I didn't stay on to watch the ending, I was intrigued enough to finish the movie the next morning since I woke up early. Shared the inflatable bed with SK after warning her not to kick me.

21 November 2011 (Monday)
The day to drive out of Doha to the desert and visit Fort Zubarah. I was excited as it was gonna be the first time we are stepping out of the city. R bought a GPS just to ensure we can get there. It was a long drive. 45 minutes to close to an hour. L made us sandwiches for lunch.

It was a rather warm day. The temperature was reaching 32 degrees. Unfortunately, we arrived at the fort only to find that it was closed for restoration till next April. We managed to take some photos inside and signed the guest book. R told us that there was probably excavation going on as he heard some Danish were staying there 24/7.

On the ride back, we saw some camels inside a truck. The whole lot of us got really excited and started snapping photos of the happy camels. Seriously cute. R found it amusing.

Our next stop was Simaisma, a beachfront suitable for picnicking. We spotted a car parked nearby but chose to ignore. A dog walked past and it was really skinny. I have never seen a sadder dog. R drove into the road leading to the sea for better view of the sea. The road got narrower as we moved to the end. When we wanted to drive out, A thought R was gonna reverse all the way back but he had other ideas. He was gonna do a 3-point. A nearly screamed in the car...hehe.

We dropped by R's previous apartment, which was an interesting slanting building, before going back to West Bay to pick up L. Lunch was at Foodruckers. We all decided that we had enough of Arabic food.

When we got back , everyone was really tired. SK retired to bed to rest. It was when I tried to wake her up that I realised she was sick. Gastric. Nevertheless, she insisted on going out. We left for Katara Cultural Village to have dessert.

22 November 2011 (Tuesday)
It was SK's last day with us. She was still feeling unwell.

We visited Sheikh Faisal Museum today. It was about half an hour away from city. Our guide was an Egyptian who has been living in Doha for more than 10 years. The Sheikh has a very interesting personal collection. The museum felt personal. One of the photo on display had our guide in it when he was very young.

At about 1pm, L called to check on SK. She wanted to remind us to take lunch (after yesterday's experience). We had corned beef sandwich (A made this) outside the museum. It was a nice windy day.

After lunch, we decided to visit Dukhan, the first oilfield in Doha. We met with a mini sandstorm on the way there. R said we were lucky. Too bad photography not allowed inside Dukhan. We had a short break in the McDonald outlet before leaving for our next stop - camel-racing track. It was fun seeing rows of camels taking their walk. Last stop for the day was Fort Zekreet where part of transformers was filmed. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it*. We were lost!

As SK was not well, we had a short dinner break at an Arabian restaurant. She could only take soup and nothing else.

* Later, we found out that the fort was too small that we couldn't spot it. We probably missed it.

23 November 2011 (Wednesday)
6.00am
I woke up early to send SK out. L dropped SK off at the airport which was near her workplace. The weather had turned colder. It was kinda sad to see her off.

We spent the morning sightseeing. Lunch was at W Hotel in a 3-star Michelin restaurant. R encouraged me to try the Gulf Fish - Hammour. Set lunch cost QR85. I chose the fried calamari for appetiser (amazingly juicy and filling), grilled hammour in tomato sauce (so-so only) and chocolate cake for dessert. The restaurant was really packed. Good thing we made reservation.

We spent time at the Mushreb Enrichment Centre which is housed inside a ship docked at the Gulf. R wanted to show us the project Dohaland. The idea was impressive - a place where the people can interact, enjoy family time and still admire the architecture of the Middle East.

We ended the day with dinner at a seafood restaurant inside the Katara Cultural Village. We had fun choosing the seafood. Well, actually L decided everything. I was only there to eat. The salad spread was good. It was just a basket of vege. I almost finished the whole capsicum by myself. The grilled hammour was good, much better than the 3-star Michelin dish. Goes to show that sometimes even the best can make mistake.

24 November 2011 (Thursday)
It was gonna be a cold day. Fearing the chill from the dessert, we rushed to the nearest shopping centre to do some quick shopping. I managed to get a nice fleece jacket with hood with 25% from Dehenham. I ended up paying about RM270 which was a pretty good price.

Lunch was at the food court. Cheapest I ever paid for meal since I arrived in Doha. When we got back to the apartment, L was in the midst of preparing lunch for us to take along to the desert. Our driver was to pick us up at 2pm but we were running late.

By the time we were ready, we were almost half an hour late. Our driver, Brooke (???), was from Ethiopia. Each of us had a backpack. L and R brought a trolley bag (for his projector), Scrabble set, mat and comforter. We also added a pack of mineral water bottles plus snacks. Think B found us amusing with so much carry-ons. After all, it was just one night.

I crawled into the back of the 4-wheel drive, took a motion sickness pill and fell asleep almost immediately. By the time I woke up, our vehicle had stopped. B was letting air out of the tyres. Dune bashing was about to start. Initially, I was quite worried but after awhile, I found the whole journey really exciting. The ride up and down was similar to riding a roller coaster but without as much impact. I guessed B really went gentle since L threatened to throw up. I wouldn't have minded a rougher ride. Some of the most of exciting part of the journey involved riding down the sand dunes which was certainly tilting more than 45 degrees. Apparently, if you had the front view, you can really feel the impact. I held on tight as I could feel myself flung left and right, up and down whenever B had to speed up to avoid getting trapped in the sand.

The sun was up when we arrived at the Inland Sea, a huge inlet surrounded by giant rolling sand dunes. The view was mesmerising. Who would have thought there could be a "sea" in the middle of the desert. At close to 4pm, we arrived at our camp. It was awfully modern, beyond my expectation. There were 4-5 camps, each complete with aircon (for use in summer), mattresses, cushions, table and sleeping bags! The toilets were really clean but without water. I almost fell back the first time I tried to use one as the toilet was slanting backward due to the uneven terrain it was set upon.

Outside the camp, there were rows and rows of picnic tables and chairs, shaded by huge umbrellas. We chose one and started eating the fried kuey teow L made. It was really, really delicious. I was not hungry yet I took a second helping. At about 5pm, the sun was setting. I went out too late to catch some good photos. I never knew the sun could go down so fast. It felt was if it was running.

The evening was long. There wasn't much we could do except to take photos and chit chat since we couldn't get the 2-pin plug for the projector into the switch. Dinner was bbq. Wasn't great but bearable. Another group joined us for dinner but they were not staying overnight. A bonfire was lighted near our camp. The heat could never quite get to us somehow. The silence of the night was penetrated by the sound of the generator while the peace of the darkness was broken by the lights from the oilfield some distance away. The beach

It was probably around 9pm when we got the projector running. We skipped Mr Popper's Penguins, skipped Captain America and settled on Horrible Bosses. Most of us fell asleep halfway due to the very dark environment. I was inclined to attribute it to bad scripting. The movie ended around 11pm. R refused to let us go to sleep. We sat round the bonfire to talk. R asked some psychological questions. We took turns to answer.

There was another group of people having a party nearby. When we went to sleep, they were still playing their music loudly. L marched out to tell them to turn down the volume as we were trying to sleep. The guys had the cheek to invite her to join them but she declined. It was a good thing they were decent people and turned down the volume after all.

At about 3pm, I was awoken by loud voices and music. Another group had came to our camp to party. I was hoping someone will tell them off*. I tried to go back to sleep but I was shivering no matter how I tried to curl up to warm myself. It took me ages to fall back to sleep.

At 5am, I was awoken by A. Time to wait for sunset, which came only half an hour later. It was nice to feel the morning breeze. I took the opportunity to stroke one of the camel but it kept on opening its mouth as if trying to get a bite of my hand. We left the camp at about 8.30am after a western breakfast.

As soon as we got back to the apartment, we took turns to shower. It felt like I had not clean myself for weeks. I was surprised L had the energy to go for her belly dancing class later. Towards lunch time, we squeezed ourselves into R's mustang to fetch her and another friend for meals at an Afghanistan restaurant. The food was surprisingly good.

That was the grand finale to our trip in Doha. Next stop - Dubai

* The next morning, R told us he tried to wake up to tell off the people but he couldn't. In fact, it took him half an hour trying to wake up in the morning. R commented that he could hear my voice from the camp next door.

25 November 2011 (Friday)
I woke up the earliest as usual. Our hotel room in Novotel was really nice. There were two baths and a toilet. We had a mini living room separating the sofa bed and the double bed. I spent some time channel-surfing while waiting for SW and A to wake up while having croissant I bought the day before from the Mall of the Emirates. Ended up watching "The Suite Life on Deck" on Disney channel.

Spent the day visiting Atlantis and a nearby mall. Took a cruise* and ended up soaked due to the strong wave. Ended up going back to the hotel early. Skipped watching the fountain show at Dubai Mall. Guess I don't really have much luck with the show since the last time I was in Dubai, there was technical error leading to the cancellation of the show.

* Met a Penang lady on the boat. She strike a conversation with us when she overheard us speaking in bahasa.

26 November 2011 (Saturday)
Final day in Dubai. Spent most of the time in Dubai Mall. I managed to finish reading the latest wimpy kid book in the bookstore while waiting for SW and A to do their shopping.

Largely an uneventful day. Glad to be going home soon.

Seoul-searching

2011-06-04T22:52:00.003+08:00

It's been a week since I got back. Probably the best time to write something bout my recent trip...

21 May

Luggage: Half-empty (smartest choice I ever made).

Lounge: So many people travel at night

Airplane: Aisle seat (unfortunately). Can't even recall who I sat next to. Fell asleep quickly in the uncomfy seat. Skipped supper even though it's the nice satay. Had nasi lemak for breakfast (my favourite).

22 May

Early arrival at Incheon Airport. Bought limo bus ticket to Lotte (my first purchase in KRW15,000). Lined up behind a jap, waiting for bus. Workers very helpful.

Ride to hotel took slightly more than an hour. Lobby on 14 flr (so strange). Doorgirl helped me and Jap with our luggages. In the lift, she asked if we are together. That was awkward. At lobby, we each sat down in front of different receptionist. Again, they asked if we are together (???).

Receptionist: Fortunately, your room is ready!

Yay, was very happy because now I can freshen up before sight-seeing. Room was very very nice on 20th floor. Plenty of mirrors, complete set of stationeries (which I ignored after the first day), Loccitane toiletries (love it).

With a map in hand, I toured Seoul by myself. First stop was Gyeongbukgung. Got lost looking for it till a nice Korean man showed me the way. Receptionist told me not walkable, yet I got there within half an hour. Was in time for the English tour. Had a nice Korean tour guide who was interrupted by her son's call midway.

A few things I learnt bout Korean palaces:

1. All palaces face south as it's deemed the most auspicious direction. Note that even today, any house/apartment facing south fetch higher prices.

2. Characters from Journey to the West decorated the roofs. The more characters, the more important the chamber.

3. Zodiac animals decorated the compound.

4. Queen never leaves the palace (poor thing). She can only tell the 4 season from the flowers in her personal garden.

5. Hanging doors in each chamber allow better ventilation (really good idea).

6. Heating is underground with chimneys erected all over the palace (interesting).

Got lost after tour guide left. By the time I came out, the changing of the guard at 12pm had ended. So waited for the next one which was at 1pm. Good time to just sit down and do nothing. Found it funny to see some of the actors yawning.

Next stop: Insadong. Interesting cultural street. Had a tough time locating the restaurant I wanted to visit coz kept getting lost among the hanok buildings. Original plan was to eat vegetarian meal in Sanchon but 20 dishes were really too much for me. Finally settled for a sujebi shop. Ordered the oyster pancake. Though there were no oyster, there were plenty of octopus and prawn. Love it. My first real Korean meal.

From Insadong, I went to Myeongdong, a very interesting street filled with numerous skincare brand. Love the night market. As I was alone, I settled for packed food. Bought the local sushi roll + radish kimchi + squid (???) for KRW6,000, grilled octopus (KRW3,000) and sausages (KRW5,000). All these ended up not only as my dinner but also my breakfast on Monday and Tue.

23 May

Whole day spent in Westin. Thai girl sitting next to me fell sick and had to leave for home. Made friend with the Israel guy next to me. He became one of my closest friend during the course. Lunch was a wonderful spread of sashimi, seafood salads, tempura, kimchi etc. I took almost the same stuffs everyday. Met a really funny korean central banker who tried very hard to give us good tips on Seoul. Too bad I did my homework.

After welcoming dinner, walked round Myeongdong with my newfound friend, PK. Took him to a Korean tourism office for free internet. Found out Europeans probably don't like seaweeds.

24 May

Another day spent in Westin (boring). Cornered by someone from ADB who seems very interested in meeting ASEAN officers for macroprudential issues. Made plans with Singaporean girls to go shopping.

First, took them to Lotte DF, my favourite place, not just for the cheaper Korean skincare but also the way to the 10th floor was lined with Korean actors, one of whom is my fav.

We parted to deposit our loots, promising to meet outside 7-11 as all of us were in different hotels. On my way down from my hotel room, bumped into RN and later Yomi. They were going for dinner and were interested to know that I will be going to a famous dumpling shop. MS followed me to the place to check it out. In the end, all of them joined us at the shop. It was surreal. We insisted on getting seats together (luckily the Korean waitresses understood what we want). Ordered 3 plates of dumpling, 3 cold noodles, 4 spicy kimchi noodles and 1 hot soup noodles (safest choice). It was really a fun and unexpected outing. MS took a picture of RN sweating and proclaimed that it will be posted on FB to which OR reacted in surprise as he couldn't believe MS has one! Food was OK except that kimchi was too spicy for me. Cost of dinner: KRW12,000.

The guys left to meet RM who is flying off the following morning while we continued our shopping. Took the local subway to Dongdaemun where shops open till 5am. It is indeed a paradise for women.

Indecisiveness

2010-12-07T15:07:00.002+08:00

Bread Story, La Boheme, Lavender, Bread Talk, Delifrance - these were the bakery I checked out while deciding what to get for breakfast tomorrow. I never realise how indecisive I can be till today. I mean, just look at the number of bakery I went into!

All these questions were going through my mind

1. Deciding on the bakery - Which one offers the best pricing? Which one serves the freshest bread?

2. Egg tarts - Will it taste as good as the ones served at chinese restaurants? What if it's not tasty?

3. French loaf - I really like french loaf but no one else in the family does. Will I be able to finish it within 3 days? Are there any butter at home?

4. Brownies - Look good but I am sure it tastes better if I purchase it from a restaurant.

5. Curry puffs - Tempting but meat doesn't taste so good the next day.

6. Pain au chocolat - I should get it but it's 9.99 for 3. Sounds expensive. I can probably finish two but RM6 for a breakfast? Too pricey.

I ended up not buying anything.

How not to be a biased supervisor

2010-12-04T12:20:00.003+08:00

"All bosses have some form of biasedness"

Ever since I take on a supervisory role, I have developed a fear of being biased. I have witnessed how favouritism has led to discontentment and sow mistrusts among people. The result could be animosity and backstabbing, laced with intense jealousy.

How do I avoid falling into this trap?

A simple solution will be to treat all staff equally. But, what is the meaning of equal treatment? Give the same amount of work? Or perhaps fair amount of praises?

There are no two similar staff. One can be more outgoing than the other. Another can work more efficiently. Yet another can handle quantitative analysis better than qualitative analysis. Everyone has different characteristics, bringing with them differing strengths and weaknesses.

I believe then that the answer lies in recognising and appreciating their differences. At the same time, I need to weigh this with the need of the organisation which is to deliver results. I know what to do, yet I know not if my action sends the right message.

My thoughts:

1. Urgent work should be passed to the staff with the speed to meet the deadline

2. Analytical work with heavy writing requirement should be passed to the staff who can write well

Unfortunately, this is still not a fair treatment as staff will view it as a form of favouritism for delegating "important" works to the same people.

I am still at the early stage of being a supervisor. There is still a lot to be learnt. Up to this point, I have no answer for my question.

Buka 24 jam

2010-12-03T17:44:00.004+08:00

I finally gave in. Instead of getting better, I am now having blockage at my nose AND throat. Went to see the company doctor only to find the clinic closed! Upon inquiry, clinic has been closed for quite awhile. What am I to do now?

atishoo!

2010-12-02T18:44:00.003+08:00

A difference between having runny nose every morning and having it throughout the day is the amount of tissue used.

I am currently on my way to finishing up a whole box of tissue in one day. Mom has been bugging me to see the doctor since yesterday. However, I believe that I will recover by tomorrow. Otherwise, I will have to give in. After all, my two-year old cousin sister who was infected by me yesterday had recovered after a trip to the doctor. Mom has not failed to constantly remind me of this throughout the day.

I have nothing against the doctor. I just can't decide if it should be chinese sinseh or modern doctor. I hate decisions.

Empire State of Mind

2010-11-28T14:05:00.003+08:00

“People have a drive and enthusiasm for life that I haven’t found elsewhere”.

“Most people in New York are not New Yorkers. They decided to come here. That is part of what makes the city so interesting”.

Michela Bondardo

The first time I saw it, I knew I had arrived. At first, I could only make out the silhouette of buildings, with the occasional light against the night sky. The scene was not unlike the postcards you see. The bus disappeared into the tunnel and emerged onto the ground of the city itself. I was truly in the city. It was a feeling of exhilaration mixed with fear. The road was alive with cars even though it was late in the night. Even more exciting was seeing yellow cabs everywhere, appearing in all types and sizes. I never dreamed that one day I would be getting into one. At the same time, I realised I was alone in a strange city. A city I only knew by name.

I knew where I had to go but did not know where I was heading to. The moment I got into a cab, I was mesmerised by the tv ad at the backseat. This and everything else made up the life of the city. I was almost sorry when the ride came to its end.

As I alighted from the cab, I found myself at a crossroad – Lexington Square and 53^rd Street. I felt alone again. Assuring myself that it’s a safe city, I searched for my destination using only the apartment number I was given. I knew not if I were to head east or west. I just knew I couldn’t give up. I walked past a stall selling kebabs. I went past several pedestrians. Soon, to my dismay, I reached the end. Where was 250? Contemplating between going into a pub (249) and an apartment to ask for direction, I chose the latter. I made the right choice for I had arrived.

Manhattan was all about skyscrapers. To find myself staying in one was a truly marvellous experience. I was on the 26^th floor. The apartment was almost transparent with its glass wall. I could see the Chrysler Building not far from where I stood. I could see the busy street below, decorated with tiny yellow cabs. My room had a huge window, overlooking other buildings. Imagine my excitement when I found that I need not draw the blind when I go to sleep. It was a strange experience as if I was camping. Only I wasn’t in a wood but a concrete jungle. It was a moment of serenity.

Refugee style business class

2010-10-03T13:33:00.002+08:00

2 October 2010, 10.33pm

Eating shin bowl noodle soup for dinner in the LAX International Airport Lounge. Feeling like a refugee. Food is really scarce here with selections limited to instant noodles, sandwiches, chips, sad-looking fruits and mini cans of juices. They don't even serve fresh juices!

And the deco? Toilet tiles adorn the wall at the food area. Dull blue carpets with matching chairs. The arrangement of the seats appeared scattered even though it's not. The cleaners did not do a good job in keeping the place decent. If not for the internet, I would prefer to sit in the open area. Let's just hope the lounge doesn't start stinking.

Going public in LA

2010-10-02T23:26:00.004+08:00

2 October 2010

"I have live here for 30 years and I have never taken the public transport!"

Today is my last day in LA. A lot had happened since I first arrived a week ago. While I look forward to going home, I am also sad to leave this country which is full of friendly people and great places and food.

One of the most impressive thing I have done in LA was taking the public transport. I was told that everybody drives. Otherwise, you can't get anywhere. I have proven that it's possible to take public transport everywhere.

Going back in time....

28 September

I had the greatest time of my life on this day. My friend got me a visitor pass to enter the Warner Bros studio. I was allowed to roam around by myself as long as I don't get into the way of the filming crew. I met two great people today, Christine and Tatum. I went into the jungle where True Blood was filmed. The place looked awfully small. I walked on the streets of New York and other European cities. I saw the filming of the Pretty Little Liar.

At one point, one of the crew from the show approached me and WP. We thought we were in the way (i.e. appearing in the camera). But he only asked for our camera. As soon as he had my camera in his hand, he made a dash giving both me and WP a fright. Luckily, he was only pulling our legs. He offered to take a photo for us.

The people are really friendly. I got a bit lost as I tried to make my way back to the Bridge Cafe. To be fair, all the roads I wanted to use was blocked due to ongoing filming. Luckily another nice crew showed me the way and told me the cordon was only meant to frighten people away. I will not be penalised for walking past the filming as long as I am not within the camera angle.

29 September

It's time for the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. I took the metro for the first time since I arrived in LA. Similar to the German system, the metro here is based on trust whereby no one will check my ticket. Cost me $6 for a daily pass, enabling me to take both metro rail and bus till 3am the next day.

The Kodak Theater was full of tourists. It was not easy to get a clear shot. It's hard to imagine that the way leading up to the theater is lined up by shops. According to WP, during the award days, these shops have to close and the stalls will need to be removed. I wonder if the shopkeepers are paid any compensation for their loss of business.

I saw the stars on the floor with the names of various celebrities. I saw the famous hand and footprint. A thought came. Having your name printed on the floor is indeed cool. But what's not cool is having people stepping on you whole day and perhaps a runaway dog might even poo-poo on your name!

After awhile, I got bored. The day was getting hotter. I decided to head to the Getty Museum. I walked all the way to Vine and Sunset to board a bus. I was told it was ten blocks down and 2 blocks to the right. Unfortunately, LA is no NY. The blocks are much longer and hence, took me ages to get to there. Nevertheless, I made it.

I boarded the Metro Local Line 2 (Sunset-PCH) heading west and stopped at Hilgard Av/Westholme Av which is close to UCLA. The bus passed by Beverly Hill (fancy, big houses) and Bel Air. From there, I took the Metro Rapid 761 (Pacoima) heading North, which took me straight to the Getty Centre. The whole journey took about an hour (inclusive of waiting time).

Getty is a very interesting museum, housing European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, European and American photographs. Admission is free. I was lucky enough to arrive at a the hour where the free Baroque and Rococo tour was about to begin. For the first time in my numerous visit to art museums, I learnt about art appreciation. I hanged around the museum till closing time, before heading to Westwood to meet WP for dinner.

30 September

This was the day I shortchanged everybody!

It began with a lazy morning. I set out at about 10.30am to take a bus to downtown LA. I walked around Chinatown and stopped by a foo chow restaurant where rush hour was shot. Although the price was reasonable ($4.70 for rice and a dish), the food was just not great. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. Also, the service was poor. I left without giving tips because I thought no tips required.

My next stop was the Walt Disney Hall. WP recommended the dash bus route B which cost only $0.25. It goes in a loop, stopping at major attractions such as MOCA, Financial District and several others. I had fun sitting in the bus on a warm day, passing by important buildings in the downtown area. Later, I learnt that the cost for riding on a dash has been increased to $0.35 (my second blunder for the day).

The trip ended abruptly when I realised that I needed to make a move to USC if I want to attend the lecture on public health policy. I left behind the Warhol tote bag I was considering to purchase, got onto the dash, stopped at Union and took a cab to USC. The driver charged me $10 and that was all I paid. On hindsight, I should have given him tips cause that's the right thing to do. Good thing he didn't shout any abusive words to me.

After the lecture, I joined WP and her friends for happy hour.

1 October

When going public went wrong...

We were late. WP was supposed to drop me off at the Union Station but we left home late. So I ended up waiting for the free shuttle to Union Station. 1 1/2 hours later and after 3 rejections from the driver, I set out to leave the campus on foot. I had vague recollection of the road taken by the cab driver two days ago. I went on San Pablo St and reached the main st. From there, I discovered that I could take bus 76 to downtown LA. The bus driver was kind enough to alert me when the bus reached the closest stop the Little Tokyo. That was where I was heading.

Little Tokyo is really little, unlike Chinatown. But I must say that the service is way better. I wanted to have sushi for lunch but the price was too much. I decided to try some ramen instead. The advertisement on the Daikokuya Restaurant was too tempting for me to resist. As I stepped in, I was surprised to see the restaurant buzzing with activity. It was almost full and they were opened only about 45 minutes ago! As I was alone, I was quickly ushered to my seat. There was no regret. The Daikoku ramen was the best I have ever tasted. The soup was thick with flavour.

I left Little Tokyo after lunch to get to the Moca store. I was still contemplating to get the Warhol bag. But in the end, I decided against it. I took the dash (this time paying the right price) and then the metro to get to Los Feliz. There is no shuttle to take me up to the Griffith Observatory and so, I decided to walk up. It was a long and lonely hike. Took me 45 minutes. By the time I reached the top, I was exhausted. The first thing I noted in the observatory was the pendulum, which was swinging because the earth is moving and not due to any other forces. I saw exhibits on the moon, galaxy, different planets, telescope etc. I watched a show - Centred in the Universe - in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium. A lady did a live narration while taking us around the universe.

WP was to pick me up from the hill as I couldn't walk anymore. We went to an Argentinian restaurant, Lala's, for dinner.

An amazing 6 weeks

2010-09-28T04:37:00.003+08:00

25 September, 1.51pm, Dulles

I am an idiot. Probably the biggest in the world. Just a couple of minutes ago, I realised that I have lost my passport cover. Which means I have lost my boarding pass on the way from Malaysia. How am I gonna explain to admin? And how am I gonna tell my supervisor that I am such a muddle-headed person? Gosh, things don’t look good for me now. I mean my supervisor was aware that I lost my toiletries when I went to NYC. And now this? Need to search for new job.

As I contemplated texting the admin manager while she was sleeping peacefully back home, I saw some messages sent 6 weeks ago when I first travelled to US. I was in Taipei, texting Vikki. I was in LA, texting WP and CKP. One to accompany me to dinner. One to know that I have arrived on the American soil. I might be a big idiot but I am also a very lucky gal to have so many good friends around the world. I was getting luckier till the passport incident.

In LA, WP took me out for dinner. I still recalled my excitement. It was a beautiful evening. And I didn’t get lost as I asked for directions to get to Terminal 7. WP came in her nice, new Toyota (almost paid off after 3 years of instalment) and drove around town, in search of a nice place for dinner. We settled on soup kitchen, a favourite of Jamie Oliver if I remembered correctly. We talked and talked and talked. Till it was time for me to board my connecting flight to DC.

Upon my arrival at DC, CKP and TC drove me to get a phone number and then lunch and shopping at Leesburg (Two weeks later, I went there again with a group of participants and thought the place looked familiar and the name never ring a bell). TSG met us for dinner that evening. We were at Ray’s hell burger, popularised by Obama. I don’t think I like American food very much.

Monday came and gone. It took the participants awhile to warm up to each other. I went to trader joe’s for the first time. I only made a second visit later and never did step foot there again. I just can’t remember the way. It was Friday when Dorji took us out to a popular pub in Adams Morgan. We spent most of our time waiting for people. I realised this is a popular past time throughout the whole course. Waiting. We stayed till about midnight. I didn’t order anything. Neither did Adrianna which was a blessing since two against one (Dorji) is better than one against one.

During the first weekend, IMF took us on a city tour and then, Potomac Mills for shopping. On Sunday, I went to the Natural History museum by myself. I have yet to find good and reliable friends. In the second weekend, I went to Leesburg (as mentioned in previous para). Car rental was a pain. The following day, we went hiking in Shenandoah. The ride was long. Two hours. Phillip had to pull out at the last minute due to stomach problems. Kate had the same problem and Alejandra decided to keep her company. And then, Esref pulled out due to the car rental issues. Left 8. Just nice for a huge SUV. But I still felt bad.

The day before I left for NYC, I met N&N for dinner. They were one of the sweetest couple I have ever met. We dined at Meskerem, an Ethiopian restaurant at Adams Morgan. To complete the night, since I don’t drink, they wanted to take me to dessert. But first, we made a stop at their home. It was a beautiful place. We were so comfortable that we ended up staying in and NR made iced chocolate for me. I wasn’t in the mood to eat anymore but to show my appreciation, I finished the whole glass. It was a huge glass. It was half an hour after 10 when they drove me back.

The next day, I was already in NYC. The first sight of Manhattan nearly took my breath away. The city was so alive. I arrived rather late but IQ was still up. I nearly got lost as he had given me a half-complete address. 53^rd St. I remembered Narissa told me it’s in Lexington Ave. So, the cab driver dropped me at the junction. I later found out that it’s about two blocks away from the actual location. He showed me around his simple yet modern apartment. I got a room with attached bathroom. Being a considerate host, he took me out to a nearby mamak for dinner. Unfortunately, I had tuna sandwich in the bus and hence, not hungry. In the end, I agreed to some fried calamari.

The next two days were a lot of fun for me. On the first day, I walked half of Manhattan. I got lost before I found my way to Bowling Green. Again half-complete information from my wonderful host. I went to 3 metro stations and no maps could be found. How I miss London at that point. At the pier, I decided against boarding the ferry to see the statue of liberty due to the long queue. I walked around and went up to Wall Street and the former WTC. I stopped by mcd for lunch (as I refused to pay tip) before heading out to the Brooklyn Bridge. I crossed the river and back again. The day was bright and sunny, resulting in me getting a little tanned. I crossed Chinatown to end up at Union Square to watch the liveliness of the Saturday market. A few more blocks and I was in front of the Empire State Building. And an even few more steps and I was walking past Central Park. It was already time for me to go to Hanum’s place. I was getting worn out anyway.

Hanum was a great host. And her apartment was cosy. I dined with her family, enjoying my first real home-cooked meal in US. In this situation, I always feel bad about my eating habit. We chatted like old friends. When someone asked later, how close I am to Hanum, I laughed. I knew Hanum 3 years ago from a 3-day course. We parted ways soon after. She, to follow her husband to NY and I to further my study in UK. To say that we are close is definitely an overstatement. Yet, I felt close to her at her home.

Sunday was a more free and easy day. I finally saw the Times Square, walked around Central Park, visited the MET and went up Empire State Building. It would have been a fulfilling day if not for the large crowd of tourists at Empire. I really hated the line. 90 minutes to go up. I made the right decision in not going on the ferry ride to the statue. At the end of the day, all I wanted to do was enjoy NYC like a resident, not a tourist. And I did just that.

My bus leaves at 6pm on Monday. I decided to walk around Central Park again. But I also wanted to visit the NYRO. IQ promised to take me there. But since it was Labour Day, he took me out to Macy to shop first. He was pretty convinced there will be big discounts. I hardly shared the excitement given his previous records. Sure enough, there was sale but not as good as the one I went to in UK. I didn’t manage to get anything as everything was too big. I discovered quickly that there’s no size zero in Macy. Quite a big letdown. My host, on the other hand, got lucky and bought two suits. We walked round the city a bit before stopping by the office. That was to be my last stop in NYC and then, it was good-bye. It never occurred to me at that point that I will be visiting NYC again in two weeks’ time.

The price to pay for visiting NYC was a long night of preparing for my presentation. I promised the team that I would do the first round. As I much preferred to do the charts by myself, I didn’t accept the assistance extended by my teammates. But it was worth my time as the result was almost satisfying. Almost because I felt there’s still room for improvement and I was not totally satisfied. Andre and I made a great team. In fact, we were the most entertaining presenters. Of course, Peter played a part when he suddenly turned on his microphone which stopped me on my track for a moment as I realised the echo from my voice. And Nisreen caught it on camera.

Thursday was football day! I thought I will play just for fun but those guys in my class really meant business. They were discussing the strategy once Marc invited us to the friendly match. There was no way I can play and not being blamed for being the reason for the loss of the team. Most of the class were present at the mall. Some to play, some to watch and some to video tape like me. It was a pretty intense match with plenty of pushing and some yelling. The match ended with the participants wining by a point. The score was 4 – 3.

After the match, I joined some of the guys for dinner at Mei Hwa, next to the hotel. Peter and Claudio were very happy. Especially Peter. Esref missed the whole game as he was lost. This happened even after he bought a GPS and was testing it out on that evening. He made me laugh a lot throughout the whole course. The company was good even though the food was so-so.

Eid came. We celebrated by going to a Moroccan restaurant. There was belly-dancing and an 8 or 9 course meal. Food was good and we shared the food, using our hands to eat. Arie had the most fun, taking photos of the belly dancer. He was teased endlessly after that.

Weekend came again. It was Baltimore Week! Sat was museum day for Wendy, Arie and I. It’s always advisable to take Arie out as he is the guy with the SLR. He takes pretty good picture. We took some silly photos and had a good time laughing.

In Baltimore, we walked around the aquarium and watched a dolphin show. It was a bit of a disappointment as there wasn’t much tricks from the dolphins. And the show was only about half an hour. Lunch was good. Nisreen and Levan ate shrimps for the first time. My table was full of mad people, playing with food and the hammer. We had the jokers – Arie, Andre and Richard. And we had the fun-loving girls, Wendy, Nisreen, Inna, Mada and I. At one point, Esref was jealous by the amount of fun we were having at our table that he came over to bug us.

Weekdays came. We were getting lethargic. Nooman couldn’t understand our restlessness. We spent most of our time joking and chatting. Work was slow. Edwin and Esref had made up. No more war, only peace.

On the Friday before my trip to NYC, Trina finally took us to the US Treasury Department. Security was very tight as we had to give our details to be cleared 72 hours earlier. Unfortunately, they could not clear Arie. He passed me his huge SLR and told me to take plenty of photos. That became my obligation and also a source of teasing from Trina. According to her, I was behaving like a typical Asian tourist. Syikes! We walked past the secretary’s room. His PA was in. I was thrilled but never got the chance to see him in person.

My final weekend in DC. I tried to organise a trip to the Niagara Falls but only Arie, Edwin and Rakesh were interested. I couldn’t get any of the girls to join me. Because of this, I made a last minute plan to visit NYC. I thought I could meet up with Kate, Alejandra, Tom and Levan but their plans differed from mine. I was lucky that my host agreed to accommodate me at such a short notice.

Once again, I boarded the bus on Friday evening. This time, I was with Wendy. The journey was more than 4 hours due to some unusual traffic but we were not bored at all with each other’s company. I learnt a lot about Wendy on this day and I shall treasure every moment of it. At IQ’s place, I got the same room I have grown to love.

As I had done most of my sightseeing the previous round, I settled on free and easy this time. I made plans to meet a friend for lunch. The morning was spent at New York Public Library and Bryant Park (I love this place). Lunch was at Hard Rock Café on Times Square as recommended by IQ. In order to get there, my friends and I had to take the metro. It was pretty funny as we were following the GPS on his phone to locate a metro. GPS said a metro is nearby but we couldn’t see any. So we walked further down. But we were moving further away! As we turned back to the original junction, we discovered that the metro was just across the street. We concluded that the authorities in NYC do not encourage metro usage as the signs are often hidden.

In the evening, I spent my time reading in Bryant Park while waiting for the free performance by Brooklyn Philharmonic to start. It was a beautiful evening with the moon shining brightly upon us. Little did I know that I will make a new friend and have dinner with her.

Sunday was short as my bus was to leave at 5pm. I spent the whole day indoor, chatting with my friends. I had leftovers from Hard Rock Café which lasted me both lunch and dinner. I really should stop ordering so much food. And my NY dream ended that night.

It was finally the last week in DC. I began to feel the sadness weighing upon me. I knew I was going to miss the company of all these people I met. Not a day passed without feeling the burden of separation which could be forever for some of us.

On the final Monday in DC, a few of us got together for masak-masak. My friends made great food. We had so much food that we chatted till 11pm. Wednesday was the day before our final presentation. I spent the night working on the slides for the presenters. To celebrate the finale, my workshop group went to dinner together with our counsellor. We found this nice Peruvian restaurant not so far from the hotel. Friday was spent on a Moroccan dinner and ended at a beer place, Brickskeller.

Those two final nights, I learnt new things about my friends. Levan made his longest speech for the first time in 6 weeks. He taught us the toasting custom in Georgia. It’s really tough to have dinner in Georgia given the custom. Every sip requires a toast. Nikolay surprised me with his ability to joke. I thought he is all about formulas and maths. And there he was on that final evening, entertaining us with his jokes.

After the drinking session (I didn’t take any beer even though Dorji tried his very best. Luck was just not on his side), I went over to Nisreen’s room to bid farewell to Wendy and her. By the time I got back to my room, it was almost 2.30am. I woke up at 6.30am to do my laundry and to see Wendy and Andre off for the final time. It was a tearful farewell.

At about 10.30am, Peter came to my room to download some photos. Luckily he was there as Tom called 15 minutes later telling me the shuttle has arrived. I was in a panicky state as I thought it was 11am. Peter helped me with my luggage. I was even luckier when I got to the lobby to find Peter with Claudio and Arie. I seriously needed help with luggage. We bade each other farewell and I left on the shuttle. Tom and I parted at the airport, promising to keep in touch.

Sometimes, I wonder. How many of us really do keep in touch? Only time will tell.

Behind the scenes

2010-09-27T16:26:00.004+08:00

Someone told me,"You either love NY or LA." It's pretty obvious that I enjoy NYC tremendously. So, how will I feel about LA?

My first full day in LA was spent in Universal Studio. The weather was crazily hot. I mean 101 Fahrenheit? That's like heat wave. But there were no other days.

We arrived at the studio around noon. I could feel the heat burning my skin as we left the car. We passed the City Walk before arriving at the entrance. There was a red carpet rolled out in front of us. As we tried to locate our entrance (WP bought an annual pass), two guys were sweeping the floor. Suddenly, one of them started dancing. We then realised they were entertainers! It was a pretty cool trick.

Our first stop inside the studio was the special effects stage. We needed shelter from the sun and the show was about to start. The host appeared, asking for volunteers. WP volunteered to be the leading lady and got us the VIP seats, facing the stage! It was a lot of fun as the hosts showed us studio tricks. Nothing is ever what it appears to be. A Tokyo subway scene from Hero was completely fake. In one scene, WP had her arm cut by the host. I thought there will be camera tricks but when he cut into her arm, blood began to ooze out. The knife did look as if it was cutting into her flesh. The scene caused a kid to cry. I had to close my eyes while holding my camera to record it. Pretty scary. The trick was in the knife which hold a pocket of red juice attached to the handle.

As the day was hot, we bought ourselves ice-cream from the Ben & Jerry stall. I tried churros for the first time. Pretty good I must say although very unhealthy at the same time. That was to be my brunch. Next, we went on the hour long studio tour. We got a glimpse of the sound studios where productions are made. We drove past sets from Friends, Jaws, War of the Worlds, Desperate Housewives, Psycho, Bones and a host of other movies / dramas. The tram ride itself comprised of 3D experience. We experienced an awesome fight between the King Kong and a dinosaur as the two monsters threw each other around us. We saw water parted in front of us to let our tram passed. We went through an earthquake scene from Bones. It was the exact same scene. It's hard to tell which is my favourite. I must say driving past Wisteria Lane was totally awesome. The only downside was me getting toasted by the sun.

I am not much of a ride person but WP persuaded me to go on the Jurassic Park ride. It was supposed to be non-scary. The ride would have been uneventful if not for the dramatic plunge straight down an 84-foot vertical drop waterfall. At that point, both of us lost our hats. The camera caught the moment, our hands on our heads as we attempted to save our long gone hats. Luckily, we were seated in the middle and so, our hats ended on the passengers behind. Hehe. WP was soaked from head to toe. I was spared from the splashes as I got the middle seat. We agreed that that will be our last water ride.

I was not keen on the Mummy ride. Hence, we moved on to the Simpsons Ride, which is a virtual roller coaster. The line was long but the ride was totally worth it. That was one of the most enjoyable ride without any physical pain involved. Once I closed my eyes, the effect was not so bad. One of the more interesting part about the ride is whenever the characters from Simpsons use anything involving water, we get sprinkles of water upon us. That was neat. The ride ended too soon and we had to leave. We spotted Homer sweeping the floor outside Kwik-e Mart. We asked for a photo with him. When my turn came, he played a trick on me and closed my face with his hands. That was funny. We managed to take another proper one.

Shrek was the next "ride" on our list. It's a 4D adventure. The seats not only moved but you also feel the effect from wind blowing, water sprinkling and spiders falling on you. Interesting but not as much as the Simpsons ride.

We stopped for drinks and admired the halloween deco. There was only one last attraction, the Waterworld before the studio closes at 6pm. No firework for me due to the early closure.

We didn't realise they have moved the closing hour earlier as fall has arrived. Waterworld was fun as there were real actors performing some death-defying stunts complete with plenty of explosions and gunshots. We had great seats and not too far from the soak zone. Those on the soak zone were completely drenched before and during the show.

We ended the night with dinner at Tea Station, a popular Taiwanese restaurant.

Strangers I met (DC & NYC)

2010-09-27T00:23:00.002+08:00

Being the cheapskate Malaysian, I had to lunch at the golden club lounge. I took a seat with nice big sofas. An elderly gentleman joined me at my table. I figured he didn’t notice my bags and hence, decided to sit there since there were many empty seats available. He was rather friendly and we started talking. I did not get his name but I know he is a rep from US to Murphy Malaysia in the East coast. He told me interesting stories about his work. I figured he is probably quite highly ranked. He come from Louisiana, which is a long way from where he is working now. Luckily, he gets to go home for a month every 2 months. So, the job is not too bad except that you can’t take leave during those two months. Because of him, I didn’t finish reading the Cleo magazine but it doesn’t matter. The conversation was more interesting.

The second stranger I met must be this Malaysian boy who stood behind me while we were waiting for security check at the LAX. My Malaysian passport started the whole conversation. I can’t recall much of the conversation now since it’s 6 weeks ago. We didn’t manage to complete our conversation as we had to go through the security check. By then, we were both going on different ways.

The third stranger I spoke to is this chinese girl who just completed her phd in the US. We were in front of the famous bull in NYC when we first chatted with each other. We were both alone and looking for someone to help us with photos. It’s a pity that I didn’t get her contact. Will be nice to know more friends in the US.

Now, who is the fourth one? Should I mention about the girl from Taiwan who took my photos at the MET? But we hardly spoke. We were just asking about simple stuffs in mandarin. Really good training for my mandarin.

The fifth stranger is actually more significant. Nisreen, Wendy and I were at the Pentagon City metro station when a man stopped by Nisreen asking when is eid. He introduced himself as Sami and started asking about us. He found us interesting and decided to give his train a miss to hop onto the same train with us. We exchanged email and phone number. Probably a day later, I received an email from him, telling me about the free Jazz performance at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. I was excited with the prospect of free performance. I admit that anything free attracts me tremendously. It’s a chinese thing…maybe. Anyway, Sami also went to the performance and dropped by to say hi. That was the last time I met him.

Finally, the sixth stranger who has became my FB friend, Nadeen. I was alone in NYC again. It was sat and BoA organised a free performance (what else?) by the Brooklyn Philharmonic at Bryant Park. A lady took the seat next to me on the bench. I hardly looked up as I tried to enjoy the songs amid filtering the noise pollution from the city dwellers around me. Towards the end of the performance, I asked Nadeen to help me with a picture and then, we started chatting. I can’t remember how it started but soon, we enjoyed each other’s company so much that we ended up dining together. She took me to 46^th st, to a Spanish restaurant near her apartment, The Belmont. We had a wonderful time. I even ordered a glass of sangria. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish it.

End of Part I (written in Dulles)

9.24am (LA time)

I never thought I will meet more strangers on my way to LA.

At the aerotrain to Gate D, a middle-aged man approached me and asked "So, IMF keeps all the money in that bag?" He was referring to the IMF bag I was carrying with me. He was kidding of course. I found out that he works for the State Department. We didn't manage to continue our conversation as the train arrived at the gate. Would have been interesting to chat further.

While waiting for my flight, I was busy typing on my netbook (I was bored). A man sat beside me. I looked up and he smiled. We started chatting. He introduced himself as Aaron, a magician. I was very interested to know more as I have never met a magician in my life! He played some magic using cards. I was totally impressed. There were no camera tricks. The cards just changed in front of my eyes. He also did the usual magic (he insisted there's no trick, only magic) where he took a card from behind my ear. I felt pretty lucky to see a real life magic show. We had to part inside the plane as I was flying on United First. But he gave me his website to check out.

Waking up in LA

2010-09-27T00:14:00.002+08:00

9am (LA time)

It's morning in LA! Weather is just perfect in the morning. But I can't say the same about the afternoon. Expected 101 fahrenheit later and I will be in the Universal Studio! That will be crazy.

My plane was delayed from Dulles to LAX. Touched down at about 7pm. WP drove me to dinner at the cinema area (must remember to ask her the name of the place) as we planned to catch a movie called A Night to Remember. But when we saw Wall Street on the board, we decided to switch plan. As the movie only stars at 10.30pm, we walked out after dinner. Went into Borders (how many Borders have I gone in since I arrived???) and Amoeba Music Store (really hippy place).

Got back to the cinema at about 10 minutes before the show. Ticket cost $16. Shocking. Seats were wide with plenty of leg room. There were no commercial, only previews. Screen was big. A cinema worker came out to give a short speech (apparently it's normal) and the show started. I was zoning out throughout the whole movie. With the different time zone, my body was having trouble adjusting. And of course, I didn't manage to sleep on the plane as I didn't like the seats.

We got back to WP's place at about 1am and only went to sleep at about 2pm. By then, it was already 5am in DC. I had been up for almost a day.

Celebration dinner

2010-09-24T11:32:00.002+08:00

It's finally over. We had our last workshop today. Esref and Edwin did a good presentation. We won't need to work together anymore. That was kinda sad since I love the team now. It's such an irony as I had been very frustrated with them in the beginning.

For the past two weeks, all we did in workshop was to joke and chat. I am pretty sure Nooman is getting frustrated with our don't-care-attitude. Other teams have been commenting how noisy our room is with constant yelling (that's mainly Edwin, Esref and sometimes Rakesh), laughter (Nisreen and Andre) and other kind of loud noises (e.g. when we knocked on the wall to tell the other side to keep quiet as we are trying to work....yea right).

We came to a point where we were treating the whole exercise as a fun project. With Esref and Edwin as presenters, we came out with ideas to play the theme song of Pinky and the brain but in the end, chickened out as the other counselors seemed pretty stern. Esref suggested buying the Yes, We Can t-shirt and wore on it on the day of the presentation. Unfortunately Edwin thought it was a waste of money. I wanted to replace our team name to woosh woosh but Edwin was against it too. That's how much crazy stuffs we had been planning to do.

As a celebration of the finale, we went out to dinner together as a group with Nooman. It was at a nice Peruvian restaurant at I Street. We had a lot of fun especially when Levan started educating us on the toasting tradition of Georgian. How many times can a person toast anyway? Plenty according to Georgian. The guys were having Sangria. I have sworn off Sangria after the NYC incident.

Celebrating a big round yellow moon

2010-09-23T08:51:00.003+08:00

I figure today will be a good day to write. Somehow, the big, round moon is creating a sort of nostalgia in me, provoking a strong emotion of homesickness and at the same time, wanting to be alone.

My six weeks here is almost over. So much has happened. As someone will put it, too much. But of course at that time, he was referring to the price he paid for his HTC phone.

I don't even know how or where to begin. Perhaps I should just talk about the people I met.

First up, there's Nisreen. I can't remember when we became close. Perhaps it was after the metro incident. We were waiting for our train back to Foggy-bottom when a man approached her, asking when is Eid. Soon he became interested in the multi-nationality of the three of us and started asking more questions. I gave him my number and email. No harm done since it's a temp no. I shan't repeat the mistake I made 2 years ago. To cut a long story short, Sami became our favourite conversation. That marked the beginning of our friendship. Of course, there were times when I became an unbearable person. Like when I was being overly obsessed with doing the charts my way instead of letting others help. Nisreen surely did not approve of that.

And then there was Wendy, the lady with an influential background in her home country. She truly surprised me with her friendliness and down-to-earth nature. I will never forget the day she made me cry on the bus to New York. So much has gone through in her life and she had held on strong. Compared to her, my life is as mundane as a car manual. She will also be remembered as the one who has the naughtiest imagination. It didn't surprised me one bit that she got the room with a bathroom with red light.

Who's next? Maybe it should be Andre, the guy who was always late in class. We hardly spoke much. Merely casual hellos and goodbyes and how are you. But I do know him as a great person. Extremely outgoing. Love peace more than anything. Always the guy to break the tension in the workshop. Without him, there will be bloodshed. I guess we truly became friend after he offered to share the presentation with me. We made a great team. We were entertaining as well as informative (that's what I would like to think). Thanks, Andre for the macaroni and cheese and introducing me to woosh woosh.

I think I must mention Tom at this point. He is after all my permanent lunch partner when everyone else has their own plans. From the very beginning, Tom is a quiet and technical (OMG, he loves to write formulas on board) guy. He is also one of the most gentlemanly guy in the class. He held the door for the ladies, he let the ladies walk first, and other little gestures that make me appreciate having him in my team. Like an older brother I have never had.

Perhaps it's time to talk about Esref, one of my favourite person in the class. In the beginning, I dread having him and Edwin in the same group. They fought all the time. They fought in class and in workshop. One in Turkish accent, the other in thick, Indian accent. They really gave me headache all the time that I zoned out. But now, they had become the greatest asset in the workshop. Seems that I can't talk about Esref without Edwin. While there were some major tensions in the beginning, they made peace in the middle of the workshop. Esref with his jokes really lightened up the discussions, earning them the nickname "Pinky and the brain". As the whole team forced them to present the program scenario, they strategised by shooting questions to other team before they can shoot back. I must say that's a pretty good strategy.

Then, there's Arie the photographer. Can't believe he made me carry his SLR into the US Treasury Dept, resulting in me being marked as a typical Asian tourist. Although I must say I truly appreciate him and his camera. Most of the good photos I have originated from him. Six weeks into the course, Arie is officially 10 months pregnant. I am glad I have good self-control when it comes to food. But not so good when it comes to stuffs like great books, famous people and movie scenes.

Other people worth a short mentioning:

Dorji, one of the first few person I made friend with. He took me to Trader Joe's, Adams Morgan (pub) and my favourite uncommon cafe (which happened to become Tom's fav too).

Dear, sweet Rosa who loves shopping and will be marrying her fiancee next year. I only remember going out to the pub and shopping with her. She is the prettiest girl from Cape Verde I have ever met.

Claudio, the friendly Brazilian. I like the way he calls my name. There's a certain pitch to it. Must be the accent. But man, he can be quite stubborn. I mean, if the chinese dude said we can't have the outside table, then we can just sit inside. I don't understand why he is so particular. Oh well.

Adrianna, the pixie size girl with long, straight hair. Really long hair. We talked but we never went out together. Such a pity. I do know she shops a lot. I just don't do it as much.

Peter who sits next to me must the the tallest guy in the class. He loves sport and taking photos. Of himself not other people. I heard how he almost got into a fight with some locals over basketball. Wished I had seen at least one game but I never have the time.

Driving, hiking, driving

2010-08-30T10:35:00.002+08:00

Shenandoah National Park. That's where we headed to on a fine Sunday morning. Roshan was kind enough to prepare some food for everyone. She bought a whole lot of stuffs. While we were on time, some of our friends were late. Manduul and Ennie were the last to come. That marked an unpleasant start to our hiking trip. There were more to come.

When we got to the car park, we found that our rented car was blocked. We had to wake the owner up to remove his car. By then, tension was running high especially when a member found that we had to return the cars rented yesterday for the shopping trip. Our agreement was to rent for two days. But, one of the driver refused to rent for two days and so we had to settle for one.

On the way to the airport, we ran into problem with the GPS. The second car was unhappy and soon, took another route while we took another one. I felt really bad. By the time, we arrived at Reagen, mood was running low. One member opted out, enabling us to rent an 8-person seater.

The drive was an hour long to get to the foot of the mountain. To get to our hiking destination was another hour. Weather was good. Not too warm. We stopped for lunch before starting on our hike. The trail took us less than 2 hours to complete a round.

With additional time to spare, we drove to Luray Caverns to continue our adventure. Unfortunately, upon arrival, two members refused to enter. With the majority keen to go in despite the high ticket price ($23), we left the two members at a cafe nearby, promising to be out within an hour. I was glad that a few of us went in as the trip down the cavern was amazing. Definitely an eye-opening experience.

By then, we were all too tired to do anything else but sit quietly in the car. The drive back was almost 2 hours.

I learnt a really important lesson from this trip. While it's tough to organise something for a group of people, it's even tougher to organise it for a group of people from different continents. People who barely knew each other and hence, less tolerance towards disagreements.

Achievements for the day

2010-08-19T09:26:00.003+08:00

1. Bought an umbrella cost $6 (with help and some push factor - it was raining)

2. Managed to stay awake for the second half of the afternoon

3. Mingled around during tea break. Spoke to new people. Beginning to memorise names instead of countries

4. Walked to white house and took photos though not very nice. At least didn't go straight back to hotel (feeling not so anti-social)

5. Bought haagen daaz which was on sale ($2.99 - almost half price)

6. Bought detergent but only plan to do laundry tomorrow coz today too lazy and still have sufficient clothes

7. Cooked real food instead of instant noodles. But pasta sauce from traders' joe not that great

8. Still awake at 9.30pm

Still need to

1. Memorise directions. Seriously need to get lost alone in the city

2. Talk to even more people

3. Reorganise my stuffs. Room in semi-mess now

4. Do laundry

Where everything is

2010-01-02T20:10:00.004+08:00

Two years ago, when sis received an offer to move to Dubai, my family was concerned. After all, none of us knew much about the country at that time. It was not easy to imagine the kind of life sis will be leading.

On 24 December 2009, we finally experienced her life for the past two years. Our flight was delayed during takeoff and when we arrived, due to congestion, we had to wait 10 minutes before allowing to leave the plane. The attempt to exit the airport took almost an hour. We were very much behind schedule. Trip to Madinat was off :(

We hailed a cab to the hotel. Trip was less than 30 minutes. Cab driver was very friendly. He started acting like a tour guide, introducing the various attractions in Dubai. However, that came with a price. When I handed him AED100, he returned only AED30. The meter read about AED67.50.

Dinner was at the Mall of the Emirates, which house 800 shops. We had chinese food at chop chop. From the restaurant, we could see the indoor ski. It was truly amazing. What was not amazing was the price of food. I couldn't help scanning the menu for dishes below AED20. Not very successful. Sis warned never to look at prices or we will never be able to order anything.

25 December

Our day began with breakfast at Coffee Bean. Cost? AED16-18 per person, based on our order of the set menu available. The plan of the day was a tour of the Lost Chamber and finally Christmas dinner at Saffron, Atlantis Hotel. We drove into Palm Jumeirah amid a nice sunny weather. Pity we couldn't see the palm shape of the island.

After a tour of the hotel, we purchased the AED100 per person ticket into the Lost Chamber. Not only did we saw many kinds of underwater life, we were also allowed to touch the starfish (felt hard but sis had fun picking them up and "dumping" them back) and sea cucumber (slimy!). One of the workers informed us that the feeding time is at 10am, 2pm and 4pm. We just had to wait about half an hour for the 2pm feeding! This info was not published anywhere as the management wanted to prevent over-crowding at those periods.

We spent the next few hours waiting for 6pm, thanks to sis' brilliant scheduling. The buffet dinner in Saffron was most lavish - lobsters, prawns, scallops, sushi, tuna, dim sums, and all kind of desserts. We stuffed ourselves within an hour and a half and decided to leave. The waiter, whom we strike up a conversation with, offered "buy 4 free 1" to us. So in the end, the bill only came up to a little more than AED700.

Our last stop was at the Madinat. Unfortunately, the stage for Christmas was already dismantled. There was nothing much left to see.

26 December

Mom decided to save and cooked instant noodles for breakfast. The day was spent travelling on metro. One may ask what's so interesting bout metro stations. Well, aside from the fact that sis was involved in the project, the designs of the stations were really something to marvel about.

There are a total of 4 themes - water, fire, air and earth. Under the water theme, the selected stations were decorated in blue tiles and bluish lighting, creating an underwater feeling. Fire theme is red in colour with ceiling light shaped like the sun. Green becomes the main colour for air and flying carpet-shaped lamp decorated the ceiling. Earth is brown in colour. We stopped in several stations just to look at the decorations.

At about 5pm, we left for the Global Village, an annual funfair. Stalls from various countries were set up, selling handicrafts and food - Yemen, Jordan, UAE, KSA, Europe, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Sweden, Sri Lanka etc. We spent more than 3 hours there. Mom ended buying some decorative items from a Kenya stall.

27 December

The day began with finding a parking lot at Deira. Took us more than half an hour to get one. Our morning was to be spent shopping in Bur Dubai, a traditional district. But first, we need to cross the creek via an abra. Abra is a traditional small boats costing AED1 per trip. It's much cheaper than the modern water bus (AED2 +) and more exciting.

The shopping did not take long as there was only one or two rows of shops. It felt like visiting Masjid Jamek area in KL. We bought souvenirs made in Pakistan, India, USA and of course, UAE (not easy to find though). An important thing a tourist must do is haggle over the price. Sis was very good at it.

Next, we decided to have steamboat at Xiao Wei Yang, the restaurant which told us they have no change when my sis first went in to get some coins for parking. We were curious to know if they will eventually magically produce some change for their customers. Food was OK. Nothing fantastic. Dealing with the waitress was a pain as she could only speak minimal english and not a single word in mandarin. Wonder where she's from. Billing time came and wow! They have coins!

Having taken the abra, we decided to try the water bus and tour the creek. Based on the brochure, the whole hour trip will cost AED4. Pretty good bargain. Unfortunately, we were at the wrong side of the creek and had to cross back to Bur Dubai for the station. Having caught the water bus, we settled down comfortably and began to doze off.

At Baniyas, we were told to leave the water bus! We had caught the wrong water bus. We gave up and decided to leave for the next stop, Mercato. Mercato was another interesting shopping mall, built based on the Italian concept. The interior design wowed us. While sis and I did a short tour of the whole mall (it's not very big), mom and dad found a stall selling some very nice nuts.

Having left the mall, we went in search of the closest spot to view the Burj Al Arab. It took us awhile as we kept finding even nearer spots. After a few shots of the 7-star hotel, we left before the sky turned dark. Couldn't wait for the lights on the building to be turned on as we had to catch the dancing fountain at the Dubai Mall.

Dubai Mall is reportedly the world's largest shopping mall, housing 1,800 shops. The tagline is "Where everything is". Unfortunately, the show had to be cancelled due to technical errors. So, we left. Sis drove us to her apartment in Marina Bay to search for food. We dined at Da Shi Dai, a restaurant located on The Walk.

28 December

We spent the morning driving around sis' previous rented villa and apartment. Then we lunched at a restaurant in the Battuta Mall. Did some last minute shopping for souvenirs at Geant.

Flight was at 7.30pm. We took a cab and this time, it's only AED62. Well, that's the end of my Dubai trip. Wish it was longer.

Likes:

1. Winter in Dubai is surprisingly pleasant.

2. No parking fees in any of the shopping malls we have visited!

3. No traffic jam!

4. The many, many variety of shops. No wonder sis can't buy anything in Malaysia.

Dislikes:

1. The lengthy walk in the airport. Too big.

2. Rude cab drivers.

3. Pricey food and services.

4. Nothing is really within walking distance. Hardly see backpackers despite the pleasant weather.

A disastrous comeback

2009-11-16T07:53:00.003+08:00

After a 2-year hiatus, I embarked on a journey of treasure hunting once again...with disastrous results...

Location: Kijal, Terengganu

14 November

Dragged myself out of bed early in the morning. Had to get ready to leave for Lanai. Decided against giving morning calls to teammates as I trust them to be able to wake up.

6.30am. Received call from teammate. Wondering what happened to me as I did not call and was late. Actually already reached the traffic light towards the bank.

Arrived 5 minutes later. Found my teammates at the multi-purpose hall. Lavish breakfast spread for this year. Buffet style.

After morning briefing, took group pix and finally flagged off around 7.40am. Our car clocked out at 7.44am. The moment we arrived at the destination, we started checking out the questions. To our horror, we failed to answer the first 6 questions. Things only improved marginally better in the other destinations. It was quite disheartening to encounter such obstacles from the start. Throughout the journey, many times, we felt like giving up and just speed off to the hotel. But we didn't. By the time we had completed the questions, we were past our time limit and were late more than 10 minutes. In spite of that, we were in good spirit.

As we had 3 hours before the dinner, we adjourned to our rooms for a break. SS and I was given a room on level 2, which was a level below the hotel lobby. The room was stuffy and the view of the tennis court was half-blocked by the roof of a store room. We were given only bath towel. Compared to the room my other friends got, this felt like a third-rated room. To make matters worse, the lift to our level closed after midnight. We had to use the staircase to get back.

Luckily, we had a good time during dinner. The theme was "Battle Night". My team dressed up as ninja. Not many people could recognised us in our masks. The event was very well-organised with a "Billy Jean" performance by 6 of the bank staff and a hilarious MC. We played a Q&A game using a device handed out by the organisers. I thought that was pretty cool. The night ended with the prize-giving ceremony. My team didn't even make it to top 40. Sigh...

15 November

Took a walk around the beach before heading off in search of famous places to eat. Our first stop was at Kedai Kopi Hai Peng. We ordered some coffee and their local buns. Turned out to be pretty good. We ended up buying some instant coffee and kaya back. Note: Mom commented that the kaya is very expensive but it tastes very good too.

Next, we went for lunch at Tong Juan Restaurant. One of the specialty is baked crab. I thought the food was alright.

Before heading back to KL, we managed to buy packets of fish crackers, raw keropok lekor, salted fish, dried anchovies, dried shrimps and try a local delicacy called sata (made of fish and similar to otak-otak). The car was full to the brim! I was left with only RM3 in my purse :P

I dare say this has been a very delightful trip back. Should do it more often but with more cash :)

Felt cheated in Prague

2009-11-12T07:59:00.003+08:00

4 November

Took the 8.58am train to Prague. Unfortunately, this was not the direct train. Ticket seller merely informed us that there is a train every hour to Prague. Ended up having to change station. Luckily, a kind ticket officer helped us to get off at the right stop. The change caused us additional 2 hours long journey. Along the way, we witnessed several change of season, from the beautiful autumn, to snowing, to shining sun and lastly to what appears to be a wonderful feeling of spring. The view was breath-taking.

When we arrived in Prague, the weather was gloomy. As hotel stated it is near the station, we attempted to walk, dragging our luggages behind us. We were caught in a downpour. Took us awhile to locate the Prague Square Hostel, given it's obscurity (entrance via a narrow "lane" between buildings).

Upon entering, to our horror, there was no lift. Well, actually there was but we had to take a flight of stair up to the lift which does not stop in front of the reception. Very weird setting. At the reception, the person in-charge refused to accept euro as payment despite being noted in the website that they only accept euro. Another confusion which caused us a great loss of koruna.

Our room was in the second floor. The key, a rather old one where we had to twist in the keyhole. While the room was relatively clean (still a massive downgrade from the one in Vienna), we disapproved of the transparent curtain. Our room faced other buildings plus some construction work outside. We also discovered that the shower room on our floor is a common one i.e. shared by both male and female. The only female shower we could find was on the first floor. Very inconvenient.

Seeing that the rain had stopped, we ventured out to the old town. It was only a short walk away (likely to be the only major plus point of the hotel). The famous astronomical clock was quickly found. Many tourists were already there. After finished taking photo of the old town square, we still had another 15 minutes before the clock strike 5pm. We decided to wait. The crowd grew. The result was pretty funny. At the end of the show, some of the people clapped. I shan't reveal what was seen as it was best experienced by oneself ;)

Our next stop was the Charles Bridge. Once again, the place was brimming with tourists. Enroute, we were stopped by a man selling ticket for a mini concert which started almost 15 minutes ago. He was willing to give us major reduction from CZK200 per person to CZK100 to CZK50. He assured us the seats are warm. Finally, we relented. It was a pretty interesting experience to watch concert inside a church. One of the composition was Four Seasons by Vivaldi. I must say Vivaldi is very popular in Prague. Wonder why...

For dinner, we decided to try a local restaurant. I ordered the goulash (beef soup with dumpling) set, costing CZK175. My set comprised of a starter and main while DJ opted for main and dessert. The dumpling was not what I expected as it was merely bread. The soup (or rather stew) was pretty good but there were only 4 pieces of beef. When dessert came, the waiter served not only DJ but I was given a serving of the apple doughnut too. As I could not eat anymore, I tried to tell the waiter that he made a mistake. He checked and said I could keep the doughnut at no extra charge. However, the bill was higher than expected due to exorbitant service charge :(

5 November

This morning, I accidentally set my alarm at 5.45am not realising that I have changed my clock to Czech's timezone. The good outcome was that I get the shower all to myself, not having to worry about other occupants coming in. Note: There's no lock on shower door.

The sun was shining brightly. We wasted no time and rushed out of the hotel to reach the Charles Bridge where it's almost empty. It was fun taking photos without having to avoid the crowd.

We spent the morning at the Prague Castle, located only after we got lost in the maze of roads and confusing signboards. The entrance cost CZK350. The ticket seller tried to convince us to take the audio guide but after considering the cost, we refused her 3 times. Our first stop was the St Vitus Cathedral. The queue appeared long but the wait was probably only 5 minutes, not 1 1/2 hours as claimed by ticket seller. Then we went to visit other smaller churches within the area and later stepped foot into the quaint homes where Kafka once lived. It was not easy to capture the whole row of houses as there were just too many tourists!

The remaining of the day was spent at Wenceslas Square. We opted for McD for dinner after the horrifying experience the night before.

6 November

I decided to wake up early again to have my quiet, uninterrupted shower.

We left the hotel at 7am to take photos at the Powder Tower and Municipal House. While there was no bright shining sun, the sky, nevertheless, remained clear.

At around 8am, we returned to the hotel for our breakfast. Later, we went out again to purchase our souvenir from the market on Havelska Street. We had discovered the day before that goods are sold at a lower price in the market compared to shops. After making our purchases, we returned to the hotel for a second time to deposit our souvenirs.

Our next sight-seeing itinerary was a stop at the Petrin Hill via the furnicular (CZK26). Saw the Petrin Tower but did not go up because of price. Went in search of some other monuments on the hill only to be confused by the multiple signboards and getting lost. Met many other lost tourists. Gave up in the end and returned to town. After the long hike up, we had to return to the hotel for a third time to take a break. My feet was killing me. At this point, I must say the location of the hotel is mighty convenient.

Our final night in Prague was spent on Charles Bridge and having McD. I also bought a chocolate and banana crepe from the weekend market at the old town square.

Discoveries in Prague:

There are hints that Malaysians like to visit Prague - shop keepers recognising my friend as a Malaysian, some greeted her with "apa khabar" and we bumped into a Malaysian family. They recognised us through our language cause we were speaking to each other in BM.
Haggle over prices in shops when you purchase souvenirs. Although most often unwilling, the shop keepers will still lower the selling price. I am sure their profits is more than 1x.
Toilet and sauces in McDonald are charged a fee.

Beware in Prague:

Selected money changers charged no commission. Choose wisely. Unfortunately, some may still charge commission as they may claim that the no commission only applies to the selling of koruna.
Service tax is part and parcel of eating in restaurant even though it is not mentioned in the menu. Be sure to ask how much is the tax as some restaurant can charged up to 18.75%.
Forget about paying the CZK350 for an audio guide in Prague Castle. The line into St Vitus Cathedral is not 1 1/2 hours as claimed by the lady ticket seller.

Captivated by Vienna

2009-11-11T07:46:00.006+08:00

Location: Vienna, Austria

31 October

Arrived at the airport in the evening. Weather colder than London! Found train to city centre. Confusion over tickets. No one around who could help :(

Finally managed to get the right tickets (EUR3.60). However, missed the stop and ended up at the last station, Flosidorf (think that's the name). Wouldn't have realised if not for kind Austrian lady who told us to leave the train in her language. She went to the extent of asking the train driver to help us. Luckily train driver speaks english. Took us to main entrance and showed us which platform to get on. We were about to make our move, after thanking him, when he turned back to tell us we missed the train and had to move to another platform. So very kind of him. At that moment, I truly think Austrians are the nicest people.

At last, we arrived at wien sudbahnhorf station. According to the direction given by hotel, it is only a short distant away. So, we walked. But we walked and walked and couldn't locate the hotel. It was cold and we were tired and hungry. Frustration set in. There were hardly anyone around. Shops closed early that day. Called the hotel but they weren't very helpful. We relied on ourselves before locating the hotel which we thought were the wrong one.

Luckily, hotel room was very nice. Ensuite. TV with CNN channel. Everything was nice except no breakfast provided. Also reception not very friendly.

1 November

Next morning, found out the nearest metro is Keplerplatz. There was a bakery and supermart around it. Very convenient to buy breakfast and water.

First stop was Schonbrunn Palace. Bought combined tickets for EUR22.50 (I think). Received discount vouchers for other places. DJ didn't get. Went to ask counter. Apparently, mine was a mistake but since given to me, I got to keep it :)

Learnt a lot about Sisi, Franz Joseph and Maria Theresa. Too bad can't take photo inside. Made a stop at the cafe to use one of my coupon to order Kaiserschmarren (imperial pancake served with apple jam). Quite nice but too sweet after a few more bites. Later walked up the hill and found the view breath-taking. Can't stop snapping photos. I pronounced autumn as my favourite season.

Next, went back to city to search for the furniture museum (incl in combined ticket). Nothing much but DJ loved the furnitures. Me no fan.

Lastly, headed to Stephansdom. Day getting dark. Interrupted by a man selling tickets for a mini opera. Claimed to be a student from Albania. Offered us a buy 1 free 1 for the EUR36 ticket (seat C) and upgraded us to seat B. Decided to try our luck.

Dine at the local fast food, serving only fish. Bought salmon baguette plus bottle of mineral water (EUR6.40). Baguette was nice but water was sparkling! What's with these people anyway?

Lucky for us, he was not a cheater. We found ourselves in a mini concert hall with many other people. Some famous composer (think Mozart) played there before. There were two sessions - compositions by Strauss and Mozart, accompanied by opera and ballet. Photographs allowed. Was very happy when the Austrian lady sitting next to me, commented that the concert is quite good. Not cheated (yay)!

2 November

Another nice day. Bought croissant (EUR0.79) for breakfast. Walked around Stephansplatz. Visited Hofburg for more stories on Sisi and her family. Found hundertwasser haus. Was not easy as it was not near metro. Had to rely on map. Kind Austrian lady offered to give us direction (noticed how many kind people are there in Austria?). Best part about the place is the nearby shops selling cheaper souvenirs!

Took metro in search of Strauss statue at Stadtpark. Didn't take so long.

At night, had dinner in cafe near hotel. As day still early (even though it was pitch dark already), went to buy train tickets to Prague. Most unfortunate, ticket was not prices EUR29 as expected. Was told that cheap tickets were sold out. Had to pay EUR59 in the end. Also decided not to go to Bratislava as there's till much to do in Vienna.

3 November

Rainy day! Plan is to spend most time indoor. Visited the Kunsthist. Museum (EUR10). While waiting in line to buy tickets, I was standing behind a Korean girl. As she made payment, the ticket seller gestured to me to put in my euro with her. I dared not refuse but I suspected he thought we were travelling together. The Museum housed some very interesting items. Enjoyed spending time taking photo of the magnificent staircase and photos of the paintings.

In the afternoon, went to the State Opera House for a tour (EUR6.50). Tickets to the shows could be very pricey. For example, tickets for tonight's show, Swan Lake, cost between EUR30 to EUR80. Seats at the side balcony can run up to several thousand euros while the main balcony is reserved for VIP. For poor tourists like us, might be better to invest in standing tickets. The booth only opens an hour before the show starts. So no reservation allowed. We were rather late when we returned to the opera house in the evening as DJ thought it will start at 8pm.

The ballet was 3 hours long. During the first session, I was standing rather far back. Yet, I still managed to watch the show as the people in front were standing on lower platform. Plus I am not really that short. After the first intermission, people began leaving. They were there just for the experience while I wanted to watch the whole show.

The composition was beautiful, the dancers were amazing. Everyone clapped at one point when the lead dancer spun several times continuously and elegantly. However, I was shocked to find the sad ending where the lead characters perished. I remembered clearly from my childhood cartoon days that they survived and lived happily ever after. It was hard for me to accept the ending :(

Summary of inner thoughts:

All in all, I enjoyed my experience in Vienna. The city is filled with characters and the people are generally nice. I was surprised to find the city so serene, unlike the bustling London. The minus point is the high cost of living. For example, travelling on metro is not cheap, costing EUR1.80 per way. Nevertheless, I remained impressed by how much faith the operators had on the citizens. There are no barriers. Payments rely entirely on commuters' sense of honesty to stamp their tickets whenever they used the metro.

4 November

Left Vienna early to board train to Prague. It turned out to be a long ride ahead...

Two weeks of adventure

2009-11-09T21:48:00.010+08:00

Second day back in Malaysia after two weeks of dreamland. Much had happened.

Title : A series of unfortunate events

Location : London, UK

24 & 25 October

Excited to be going back to UK again since my last trip in January. Unfortunately, mood dampened by flight delayed by about an hour due to technical problem. To make matters worse, the video on my seat was not working. Luckily, I slept through most of the 13 hours, waking up only to eat. The last two hours or so was probably the most unbearable. This is the wonderful MAS service to its customer.

Arrived at Heathrow at 7 plus. Could not understand the two hours delay. Flight ticket stated arrival time as 5.20am. Later found out the time confusion due to UK changing its clock.

Decided to take tube to hotel. Travel interrupted several times. First, had to take replacement bus halfway through to get to Hammersmith. Just when I thought I can finally get onto the Hammersmith & City line to Great Portland Street (GPS), that particular line was disrupted. Had to take another line to stop elsewhere and then changed to another line. Very confusing given my fatigue.

Finally arrived in hotel after more than an hour of travelling. More bad news. Hotel misunderstood my booking. Thought I was supposed to arrive the day before. Now forced to wait an hour for a room to be ready.

When I received my room key, I was taught how to use the lift. I wasn't really paying attention and ended up rushing into the next available lift and found myself unable to press any button cause there weren't any! I went all the way up to 6th floor and stepped out at the lobby. Realised that I had to press my floor number on a hi-tech computer near the lift and then it will indicate which lift I should enter. Amazing.

Room was very comfortable with large TV. Unfortunately, complimentary internet access only for own laptop. Tried searching for some mineral water but none provided. Darn.

Despite the misfortunes, I tried to minimise the interruptions to my plan and arranged to meet my ex-schoolmate later in the afternoon. After briefly freshening myself, I set out to search for oxford street using the map I printed from google. Unfortunately, I had too much confidence in myself and ended up losing my way. Resorted to asking for directions to the nearest tube station only to find myself already pretty close to oxford street.

Having found nothing interesting, I moved on to Covent Garden in search of Radley and perhaps obtaining ticket to Lion King. I only succeeded in the first task. Sadly, tickets were sold out for Lion King. Went back to Oxford St to meet friend. Later had dinner at Mayflower in Chinatown. Thank god for good dinner. We were given a small opening under the staircase. Very private and cosy with seats enough for four only.

26 October

Arrived at bank station but could not locate the large black door of BOE. Went round building only to discover I missed it the first time. Quite an idiot. Went in to reception. Found that most participants had already arrived. I wasn't late. They were just earlier than me.

Each of us was given a name tag to gain entry into the building and a pass (which must be returned to the security before we leave the building). No photos were allowed anywhere :(

Guided through the mysterious hallway of the building by the coordinator (HS) up to the 7th floor where the training room is. We were to use that way for the rest of the week. The tea break room was well-equipped with 4 PCs, drinks (orange juice, coffee, tea, sparkling/still water), biscuits, publications from the bank and most importantly, daily newspapers.

Event began at 9am with introduction by course advisor, OR. The first session focused on the theoretical aspect of exchange rates. Found myself feeling sleepy. Must be jetlag. After lunch, we were taken out for group pix. At the end of the day, we had a welcoming reception at the City Rocket Restaurant.

I made fast friends with RLO and RRA. A game was played in which participants had to answer questions related to all the countries where the participants are from. I couldn't answer the one for Msia cause I didn't know the height of KL Tower. In my panic, I texted my msian friends in warwick and also another friend whom I knew will have a pc in front at that very moment. Thank god one person replied. Can be quite humiliating not to know especially when participants from neighbouring countries began approaching you for answer.

After the reception, a few of us left together only to discover none of us remembered the way back to the bank station. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily as we discovered later), we met another group and one of the member has a GPS. BU attempted to take us to the right direction. While we did find our way in the end, it was to another tube station which was a bit further. Kinda funny to be so lost.

Back at hotel, managed to catch the last part of an episode of House. I miss the show :(

27 October

Found my favourite Crunchynuts at the breakfast room. Vowed to eat only Crunchynuts and yogurts for the rest of my stay in the hotel. Left hotel early to take a walk at the Regent's Park. Unfortunately, got a bit lost and hence, had to cut the walk short.

Was feeling sleepy during class again. Thought I had enough sleep. Very baffling.

Met ex-coursemate, MK tonight. Supposed to watch ticket but cheap tickets mainly sold out due to school break. Decided against watching anything as I preferred to catch up with MK. Went into a Mexican restaurant, Navajo (???) near Covent Garden area (I think). Had a great meal. Although too full, still continued for a drink at a nearby pub. Bought camomile tea. MK remarked that it's her first time seeing a friend have tea in a pub. Halfway through, fire alarm rang. Saw angry waitress running around. In the blink of an eye, firemen appeared. Nothing major happened. Phew.

Departed at tube station. On the way back, tube got interrupted. Geez. Bad luck not ending yet.

28 October

Woke up, switched on bed light and poof. Room went dark. Nothing working. Called reception while cursing my luck. Luckily can still switch back light from main switch box. The bedside lamp was faulty. When is it gonna end???

During lunch, a few participants organised a walk to the Tower Bridge. I chose not to join as I wanted to run over to the museum to attempt to purchase some souvenirs. When other participants found out about the walk, they wanted to go there too. AB asked for the direction from RJ. Would have been uneventful if not for RJ's blunder in speaking too near to the mike. So, when he was explaining the route to AB, all of us could hear him in the room. That was seriously funny. Yet, no one else seemed to be laughing. These people were just too serious or was I too ticklish?

Wanted to try my luck at getting some theatre tickets tonight. But RLO wanted to go to Oxford St. Decided to go with her and HE. Unfortunately, road work at Oxford Circus. Got stuck. Finally detoured and ended up in Starbucks with RLO where we spent the evening chatting.

Back at hotel, caught a bit of True Blood. Fell asleep before the ending. Was exhausted.

29 October

Another uneventful day during the course. By now, RLO and I had submitted to our routine of sitting at the same spot during lunch. A new mate, OG began to adopt the same routine.

In the evening, we were taken to a tour of the British Museum. OR and HS had to make sure they get everyone to the location via tube during rush hour. OR claimed he has not lost anyone yet. By the time we got on the tube, only half of the participants were still following OR. All was not lost as the rest managed to find their way and arrived earlier.

The tour was led by a volunteer who told us interesting stories about some of the artifacts. That was a truly memorable tour. Later in the evening, I joined a few of the participants for dinner at a pub around Russell Square. 3 of us ordered fish and chips and it came out really hard. Couldn't finish the whole thing plus the peas were yucky.

30 October

Last day of course. Two highly-respected professors were invited for the last two sessions. One of the professors began by greeting everyone in their own native tongue. Truly impressive.

Farewell lunch was a few minutes walk away from the bank, Mehek Restaurant. Indian food which OR love. As everyone began to say farewell, a few of us made plans to meet for dinner.

RLO had to meet a friend. So, I thought I can do some last minute shopping at Oxford St. Plus I was supposed to meet a colleague but she couldn't turn out at the last moment. I found out later she did heavy shopping during the day and worn herself out. While I was busy shopping (or attempting to shop amid the massive crowd on a Friday afternoon - where do these people come from???), another ex-coursemate called to tell me we can meet up later that day. Darn.

Had to rush back to hotel to meet AN who was to arrive at GPS at around 6pm. Invited him to join us for dinner but he had to rush back to Oxford.

Went to a pub with the gang. Had to sit inside since no seats available inside. Ordered orange juice again. Two guys ordered a beer and discovered the sweetness, making it a girl's drink. Never knew there was such a thing. While we were there, we saw lines of cyclists passing by causing traffic to stop. Wonder what's the event. Halloween?

After awhile, we switched to another pub where we can get food. Some of us were hungry (incl myself). This time, I decided to save money and ordered only tap water to go with my food. We talked and talked. One topic came out was about the fish we eat in our respective countries. Topic came out because OG ordered fish finger burger. When question came to me, I went blank. I seriously have no idea and in my panic, I blurted out tilapia, saying it's probably alien to them since it's in BM. To my horror, they said they know tilapia. Darn. Didn't know is English.

When the gang were finishing their second round of beer, BU turned to me and asked if I was gonna order my second beer :) Should have said something witty but I can't.

We departed at the hotel lobby, not knowing when we will meet again. These were really nice people. Now we are FB friends.

Summing up some inner thoughts:

1. Latin Americans are a friendly lot. They smile a lot too. I like them and hope to visit someday.

2. European seems so distant and cold. Where's their sense of humour?

3. Sparkling water baffles me. Why would anyone want to drink that? I kept to still water and orange juice the whole week.

31 October

Colleague came to visit and picked up my stuff for temporary deposit at her home. Very kind of her. If it hadn't been for her, I would have struggled through my trip to Vienna and Prague.

Cuti-cuti Malaysia

2009-10-20T07:52:00.004+08:00

9 October, Kuala Selangor

Planning often fails especially when it comes to punctuality.

Our original plan to set off for Kuala Selangor by 5.30pm was obstructed by the delay of the train and two friends being stuck in a meeting well past 5pm. Funnily, Mel ended up at the wrong building as she exited the station causing much confusion as I attempted to give her direction in the wrong place.

By the time we left the bank, it was close to 6pm. The journey was largely uneventful (thank god). As the evening was still illuminated by light, we made a stop at a restaurant first to have our seafood dinner. Irrational euphoria led to the order of 9 dishes - prawn, crab (2 plates), steam fish, vege (?), oyster (?) etc.

We left the restaurant around 8.30pm and stopped at some local stores to buy anchovies. Bad decision as later found out that the anchovies aren't fresh and covered with unknown white powder (common in the anchovies sold in city).

Arrived at firefly park around 9pm. Ticket per person cost RM15. Somehow, the price didn't seem to worth the experience. Very few trees were really lit with fireflies. Disappointing. Shall blame it on development (which I may have an indirect hand in).

10 October, Malacca

Made Mel wake up early to have claypot noodles for breakfast. My favourite.

Arrived at bank too early. Friends were late (tsk tsk tsk). Hence, began a long and boring journey.

First stop in Malacca - famous chicken rice ball shop. Only 11.30am but already long queue. Meal was good but I still wonder what's so great bout this apart from the rice ball?

Next stop - tour Malacca historical area. Took photos. Looked for shades (was a hot day). Went into a museum (mainly in search of aircon and seats). Not very cultured person. End of historic tour and back to food trail.

"Lunch" break in little shop near Heeren Inn. Had rojak, mee siam, chicken pongteh and cendol. Chicken is nice though the color isn't.

Checked into Baba House. Very, very, very slow service. Nice deco at reception. Can't say the same bout the room. Had to climb up winding steps and walked till the end of corridor to find room 205 (I think that's the no). First reaction - stuffy. Next - no window!!! Actually got a tiny, barely there, half-opened window facing the corridor. Only consolation is the cleanliness. If this is what they called deluxe, I have no idea how standard room will be like.

Rested before walk around Jonker Street in search of pineapple tarts and souvenirs. After much calls to our Malaccan friend, we still ended up not being able to locate the right shop. There were just too many pineapple tarts shops. Decided on the one listed in my friend's travel guide which shows a shop with the largest pineapple tart. Wrong choice. Too little filling, too much biscuits. Even the honey lime was too diluted. Seriously made lotsa wrong decisions.

Went back to room to put down things but ended up resting till about 6pm. Arrived at famous satay celup shop at 6.30pm. LONG QUEUE! Waited an hour. Finally got a table. Took some stuffs and started digging in. Once again, the feeling of what's-so-great-bout-this feeling appeared. Seriously over-rated.

Spent the evening going round Jonker Street. By then was very tired. Decided to find a spot to sit down with Mel and enjoyed the night while waiting for friends to appear. Ended the trip with supper at a coastside restaurant (can't remember name). Ordered carrot and orange juice. When order came, found the drink devoid of carrot taste while Mel's mixed fruit juice filled with carrot taste. Finally realised waiter made mistake.

Arrived at hotel close to midnight. Took shower in cold water as hot shower not working. Yet another complaint I have with this hotel. Aircon cannot adjust lower. Torn between freezing in room and turning off aircon completely. In the end, turned off aircon.

Woke up early for breakfast. Room already almost full at 8am. Managed to squeeze into small table at corner. Counted there are probably around 6 tables for a few hundred guests. Food not filled quickly for those who came later.

Left hotel for airport at around 9am. Bade Mel farewell. Not sure when will meet again.

13 October, Home

Saw Mel on msn. Both caught a cold! But mine worse cause came with sore throat (result of over-indulging in the twisted rope biscuits).

20 October, KL

Yet to send the postcard for Mel. Must send by this week or will be another 3 weeks before chance to visit P.O.

Tremor felt

2009-10-01T07:52:00.002+08:00

It was probably around 6.30pm when I felt my chair shaking. It wasn't violent but the shaking was there. At first, I assumed it's the way I was sitting causing the chair to wobble. But it didn't stop even after I adjusted myself to a proper sitting position. Then I thought it's caused by the train crossing the track. Barely a few minutes later, my colleagues started commenting about the shake. And so the mystery was solved. We figured it was probably an earthquake somewhere in Indonesia.

I left before anymore tremor was felt. Half an hour later, staff were told to evacuate the building.

At another block, the staff reacted as we did. They gathered and sounded concern bout the tremor. But as quickly as they gathered, they went back to work. Goes to show that as long as you are not dead, your work is more important than your life :)

From the news: 7.6 magnitude tremor in Padang Indonesia

Silent September

2009-09-30T07:53:00.003+08:00

End of September is here. It's been a month that just flew by. Much had happened, yet memories are scarce...

(under)Achievement: Read only 1 book this month compared to 9 in August! So much for my reading hobby

Dream of the month: Win an Emmy! Nothing is impossible

Resolution: To be nice

Darn, there's really nothing much to write...

Hop on, hop off in Philippines

2009-09-23T07:43:00.002+08:00

My first time to Philippines and all I did was eat...

13 Sep

I have often heard of the delicious nasi lemak served on MAS. Today, I finally managed to try it. Thought it was alright. Arrival time was estimated to be earlier till the pilot informed us of a delay due to traffic congestion at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Sigh. Landed at 4pm, 10 minutes later than the time on my boarding pass.

I was walking towards immigration when I spotted my name on a large card. It was the organiser. My two colleagues were already there with her. We were taken to the fast lane and escorted to the waiting room after we had collected our luggages. There, we were introduced to the Singaporean delegates.

Soon after, we left for the Summit Ridge Hotel. I was told earlier the journey will take 3 hours. With my wrist band and sour mandarin peel, I was prepared. Luckily the traffic was ease and it took us only 1 1/2 hours to get there. But the journey was still quite rough (though not as bad as in Sri Lanka).

At the hotel, we took time to freshen up before being whisked away to the Pamana Restaurant for the welcoming dinner hosted by the DG of BSP. The restaurant was originally a family home. All the furnitures belong to the family and hence, come in odd pieces. The dinner was meant to give us a home atmosphere. I think there were about 10 dishes. We were stuffed by the time the grilled seafood came. During the dinner, I was introduced to bagoong, a local fish paste. It tasted great. My colleague and I even bought some home from a local supermart.

14 Sep

Meeting whole day. Spent time watching Batman met Sherlock Holmes in my room while waiting for dinner.

The dinner tonight was hosted by the MOF at Antonio's Restaurant. The restaurant was hidden in the middle of a mini forest. We had to use small lanes to get there. It was totally worth the drive and the insects which accompanied us throughout our dinner.

We felt privilege to have the dinner prepared by Antonio himself. It was a standard 3-course meal with salad, fish as main and chocolate cake as dessert. The cake was simply marvellous. Once again we were stuffed.

15 Sep

We left the hotel at 11am. There wasn't much time to do anything. The journey took 2 hours. It was a hot day. When we arrived at the airport, we were once again taken to the fast lane for security check. However, our organiser left us once we were inside. The check-in counter was not announced till an hour later. Seats were scarce. The departure hall is really small and old-fashion. Travellers were hanging around everywhere.

Airport tax cost us 750 pesos. I thought there were more things to see once we passed immigration but there were only about 20 shops! I had to settle for a mini bowl of wantan noodles (105 pesos - exorbitant price!) as there were no fast food restaurants. It was truly a big disappointment.

The worst was when our flight was delayed by half an hour. Once we boarded the plane at 5.30pm, yet another bad news came. Our flight was no 9 for take off. And then, the announcement came to tell us that an aircraft was stranded on the runway. We had to wait for the personnels to clear the runway before we can leave and that can take anywhere between 10 minutes to 1 hour! By the time we left NAIA, it was 6.40pm.

What I love:

1. The rain shower bathroom in my hotel

2. Bagoong (Shrimp / fish sauce)

3. Multi-channels TV

What I dislike:

1. Flight delays

2. Chaotic airport

3. Bumpy roads

Lucky Day

2009-06-18T08:13:00.002+08:00

I found my BOJ mechanical pencil!!! Well, I didn't exactly find it. Someone else found it near the Reuters island and she happened to spot the message on my board - Anyone seen my pink BOJ mechanical pencil? I knew I will see the pencil again some day :)

A whole new world

2009-06-01T14:00:00.008+08:00

An invitation from the CBS Sri Lanka took me to Colombo at the end of May. Despite my initial reluctance, the trip turned out to be an eye-opening adventure I will never forget.

The flight to Colombo took 6 hours 40 minutes with an hour stopover in Male, Maldives. Flying to Male took about 3 hours 50 minutes. During the stopover, I watched the workers cleaning the seats in preparation for the passengers from Male. To my horror, they did not change the blanket nor the cushion. I realised that I was going to be boarding a transit plane, in this same manner, from Colombo on Sunday.

By the time we arrived in Bandaranaike airport, it was 25 minutes past midnight. I was tired as I could barely sleep in the plane due to the multiple interruptions arising from meals and landing. At the arrival hall, our driver was already waiting for us. The ride to the hotel took us through small towns and lasted almost an hour. My heart missed a beat when the driver turned into a lonely lane. The place was dimly lit. Soon, we found our car stopping in front of a huge wooden gate. A sign read The Sovereign. We have arrived! A guard pushed the gate to allow our car in (1st shock: non-automated gate).

Upon checking in, the porter guided us up two storey of stairs (2nd shock: no lift???) . I got into my room, quickly cleaned myself and fell asleep. In the morning, my mind was finally clear enough for me to inspect the room. At a glance, the room was reasonably decorated. However, a few important items were missing such as blanket, tv and shampoo (3rd shock).

After a western breakfast in the dining hall, we proceeded to plan our trip to town. We were annoyed to find the staffs unequipped to provide us with even simple information such as the distance from the hotel to town, nearest location of a money-changer and the best way to get around. Neither were there maps! Finally, the manager, Kumara, came to solve the issues. He even offered to accompany us to town.

We waited for 15 minutes or more for the cab. The trip to town took about 10 minutes probably, costing LKR 460. We were taken to several gem shops before finally finding a bank in the Majestic City shopping mall (resembles the Weld or Pertama) to get some rupees (Sri Lanka has capital control). The bank was very old-fashioned, largely relying on human power for transaction activity. Our transaction took nearly half an hour (USD1 = LKR114)! With some rupees in hand, we bought some Mlesna tea from a tea centre in the mall.

Next, we headed towards Gangaramaya temple near the Beira Lake. Finally, Kumara left us at the Pettah market before returning to the hotel. The market was filled with mainly local. We strolled along the many shops, noting the close semblance to Masjid India in Malaysia. Suddenly, a man approached us and started giving directions. He took us to the saree lane, up to some shops selling saree and salwar cloth. I spent LKR 2,600 on a set of salwar cloth, from the discounted price of LKR 2870.

Having satisfied ourselves with cloth-shopping, we set out to head for the next stop. We were advised by the shopowner to head to Crescat, a shopping mall. Strangely, the man who was giving us directions wanted to take us elsewhere. I refused as I realised that the place he spoke of was not recommended by WikiTravel. My friend and I decided against taking another tuk-tuk too (after having been cheated twice to pay LKR250 per trip). We chose to walk without proper directions. The man followed us. Shortly, we learnt his real intention. He asked for LKR300 as tip for taking us to the shops. We ignored him and walked away. He followed us for some time before leaving us alone. We were glad nothing happened.

We kept walking and stopping occasionally at shops along the roads. Soon we came to Laksala, a state-owned emporium, selling handicrafts and jewellery. Nothing caught my eyes. So we set out again, attempting to locate Crescat on our own. We realised that each time we asked for direction, we will be asked to catch a tuk-tuk. Our aimless walk took us to a heavily-guarded area, consisting mainly of hotels. We later learnt that this particular location houses the President's home, army base and old parliament. As we tried to enter the road, we were stopped by two guards, requesting to check our passports. It was a normal procedure.

We continued our journey happily, thinking that we will be reaching Crescat soon. Once again, we were approached by a local who can speak Malay. Our journey took us to the ocean. Suddenly, we felt droplets of water. Our initial thought was that the source came from the strong wave. Soon, we realised it was raining! The man managed to persuade us to take a tuk-tuk to the next destination. Little did we realise that we will be taken to yet another gem shop i.e. Gem Paradise. Sigh. A pair of ear studs, shaped like a 3-petal flowers caught my eyes. The petals were made of sapphire. Unfortunately, the cost was beyond my budget at USD300.

It was 5pm when we arrived in Crescat. It was a tiny shopping mall. We started looking for places to eat as we did not take lunch. The only available eatery is the food court. We settled on two pan pizzas, drinks and garlic bread, costing LKR690 (4th shock: more expensive than Malaysia!) . The tuk-tuk ride back to hotel cost us LKR450 (negotiated price). It was pretty amazing that we found our way back given that the hotel did not provide us with its address! The tuk-tuk driver asked us how can we go around without knowing our own address. Luckily, we remembered the landmarks and the number of the hotel. We also had Kumara's handphone number. We did not take a cab because cab can only be called to hotels. Geez.

27 May

Registration began at 8.45am. The opening ceremony was held at the auditorium in the CBS building, which is connected to the hotel. GH was invited to join the lighting ceremony as the foreign rep. The Governor attended the ceremony too.

The seminar was conducted by two professors from Jawaharlal Nehru University. While the two are very knowledgeable in their areas, I was somewhat disappointed by the course content which was not what I expected.

At the end of the day, the foreigners (only 4 of us including 2 from SAMA) were driven out to town. We were taken to Laksala. It was here I found most of my souvenirs at reasonably prices. The gems were reasonable priced too although the designs appeared to stall in the 60s. The emporium closed at 7pm. We headed to pizza hut (again!) for dinner.

28 May

Another day full of presentations and discussions.

In the evening, we were taken out again. This time, we went to House of Fashion, a local department store and Odel, a higher-end department store. It was interesting to note the contrast between the two shopping malls. We had McD for dinner. I bought a McChicken Junior for LKR110.

On this day, we found out that the hotel does not accept credit card! (5th shock) It was a worrying situation as each of us brought only about USD300 into the country. From this day onwards, we had to be very careful with our spending.

29 May

The final day of the seminar.

As like the two previous days, we were taken out. This time, we spent our time at the beach to watch sunset. The view was amazing. I was quite envious of the people who can enjoy this scenery day in day out. More so, of the staffs at the central bank, which was located at another part of the shore of the Indian Ocean. It was hard to imagine that this was a place filled with painful memories from the tsunami destruction.

At about 7pm, we left for the Galadari Hotel for the closing dinner.

We returned to the hotel slightly after 10pm. The sight before us was unexpected. There was a truckful of army in front of the hotel. We got down from the van and started walking towards the reception area. Halfway in, a military man came out, gun in his hand. It was quite a shocking experience to come face to face with one of them. In order to avoid anymore "confrontation", my friend and I moved aside to let them all pass. Phew. Things settled down after that. Apparently, there was a function in the hotel earlier. The army was there to escort some VIPs.

30 May

Our excursion were to start at 6am. I went down to lobby a little earlier to get the receipts for the hotel and airport transfer. The night before was a nightmare for me and my friend. First of all, we were told that they don't accept USD. Later, they told us they do. Then, we requested for the bill early in the morning on Friday. But, they didn't get it down till evening and even that we had to remind them. Next, they combined me and my friend's bills. We needed separate billings to faciliate our claims. They could only provide the separate billings the next day (???). Luckily, when I went to lobby to get the bills, they were ready, properly typed out.

The journey to Kandy was estimated to around 3 1/2 hours, through trunk roads. The ride was so bumpy that in the end, I couldn't stop myself from vomiting whatever was in my stomach at that time. It was a good thing that I decided not to take breakfast till we arrived at the destination.

Our first stop was at the Elephant Orphanage. The entry for foreigner cost LKR1,250 while it was only LKR100 for local. The experience was pretty amazing. We were separated from the elephants only by a thin rope. I saw the feeding session. A little elephant wanted to walk beyond the rope but the keeper yelled at it. After the big elephants were fed, it was the babies' turn. Two babies followed the keeper to the milking shed. We followed them from behind. Some of us attempted to touch them. When we ran behind them, the babies ran too. It was so cute.

At the shed, visitors were given the opportunity to feed the babies from a huge milk bottle. We were also lucky enough to see a 6-day old baby elephant. One of the keeper kindly took a photo of the baby for me following the request from one of the CBS staffs. Next, we left their living quarter, crossed the road to the river. We were to wait there for the bathing time, while sipping Ceylon tea. It was fun watching the elephants marching up the road towards the river and being forced to take bath. A few wandered off to the other side of the river to play in the mud.

I bought a name card holder made of elephant dung (LKR350). I couldn't resist getting one despite the eekiness associated with its origin. In addition, it was stated that the money will be channeled towards the improvement of the orphanage.

After awhile, we left the orphanage to head to our next stop, the Geragama tea factory. We were shown the process of tea production using machines aged 106 years old! I could not resist the temptation of buying some teas and ended up with a bag of green tea. My companions spent even more. However, I was told that the best tea is in Nuwara Eliya, where the Saudis are heading to after the trip to Kandy.

Lunch was in a hotel on Amaya Hill. We were treated to a western buffet. The scenery was stunning. But the trip up was not due to the uneven roads :(

Our last stop was in Kandy to visit the famous Temple of Tooth Relic, a Unesco Heritage Site. The security was very tight because of the bombing in 1998, which destroyed a large portion of the temple. Surprisingly, the pagoda holding the tooth relic survived the blast, almost unscathed. We were unable to view the tooth as it is only taken out twice a year. Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves, by walking around the temple, admiring the beautiful statues.

At a particular worship area, I was approached by a monk. He led me into the area housing the statues! When he handed me some flowers to put in front of the statues, I couldn't stop myself from asking if I had to pay. I felt bad for being so suspicious over the sincerity of the monk. It was actually a privilege to be allowed such close look of the statues. One of the statue was donated by Malaysia!

Later at the museum, we were again given the privilege of stepping into the balcony overlooking the lake in Kandy. The monks even opened the window facing the pagoda for us to see the partially gold-plated roof, donated by one of the Presidents of Sri Lanka.

It was almost 6pm when we left Kandy. We bid farewell to our friends from Saudi Arabia, who took another jeep up to Nuwara Eliya, accompanied by a staff from the CBS. The rest of the staffs were to accompany us to the airport. We bought our last souvenir, cashew nuts from some local shops on the way to the airport. From LKR800, we negotiated down the price to LKR700. Hopefully, that is a fair price for 500g of oven-roasted cashew nuts. (Mom was very pleased with the extra large cashew nuts, which are twice the size of those imported from Thailand).

We were greeted by tight security at the airport. While the loading of bags up the bus to take us to the departure hall was free, they charged LKR50 for unloading the bags to the check-in counters. We chose to push our own luggages in as we were not ready to check-in. We rested on the chair in the waiting area till about 10.45pm. I took the opportunity to check out the souvenir shops. To my horror, the souvenirs were sold at about 3 to 3.5 times more than in Colombo!

The checking in took awhile either due to the inefficiency of the staffs or the computers. The same could be observed even at the business class line! I was really frustrated with their service.

There had been a lot of ups and downs throughout the whole trip. While I had trouble with the too salty, too sweet and mainly overcooked food, agressive drivers, bumpy roads and bad service, I was swept away by the beauty of its mountains and beaches. The simple decorations in the worship areas and the white statues of Buddha remind one that simplicity is still the most beautiful thing in life. I hope that the next time I return to this wonderful land, I will see improvement in the standard of living of the people but without destroying their gifts from god.

Weekend of learning

2009-04-26T19:43:00.005+08:00

Friday night

Started my first yoga class. Barely made it on time thanks to a long-winded lecture (sigh). The class was small which was good for beginner like me. We began with simple breathing exercise before moving into the harder positions such as cobra. It was quite a struggle for me. By the end of the class, I was totally soaked in sweat. Even though my body was sore from the exercise, I had a lot of fun and am looking forward to the next class.

Saturday night

Theory of enough - This was the last phrase to appear on the presentation slides. It carried simple meanings but significant enough to to make an impression.

The theory is linked to our realisation of divine intervention in our life. Most of the time, we find ourselves unable to control things that happen around us. In addition, as we grow older, we find our options in life decreasing. If these are facts of life, what else can we do? Do we sit around and accept our fate?

Not necessarily. There are things which are still within our control which may or may not have an impact on divine intervention. Firstly, do good things - What goes around comes around. Mom has always told me that if a person thinks evil things and do evil things, God knows and God will make sure the person receives the right punishment even though the punishment may only come very much later in life. So, if ever someone does something unkind to us, we should not retaliate by behaving in similar manner as that person. Rather, we should continue doing what is right.

Second, do only the white things, never the grey nor black. Once we decide to do something that falls in the grey area, we will become more acceptance of the grey things and without realising, we might have moved into the black area. This reminds me of a chinese saying - To become bad takes 3 days, to become good takes 3 years.

Third, self-renewal (solitude and reflection) and the theory of enough. The theory is about considering what is enough in your life. For example, you need a house to stay in, a car to drive to work, a secure job etc. When you have accounted for all the things that is enough for you, then anything beyond those are a blessing. It is only when we know what is enough that we can be grateful with that we have. And when we are able to be grateful, we will be happy.

The theory really made me think about my life. I have come to realise that for awhile, I was consumed by my desire for more. To me, I still don't have enough when in actual fact, I am already a blessed person. I may not be rich but I have all the basic necessities in life. I have my family with me. I am learning to appreciate everything I have now. I hope this is a lesson I will never forget.

Sunday morning

I was at the temple this morning. While my previous intention for going to temple was to pray for a desire, today was different. It was to express my gratitude for things that I have in life.

Kiasuland

2009-04-19T16:13:00.002+08:00

1 April

7 years later, I made my second trip to Singapore. Again, it's official. Four of us from the delegation were on the same flight. As soon as we arrived at the arrival gate, we saw a man holding a board with our names. I was tempted to snap a photo of him for memory sake but never did.

The trip to the hotel took about 40 minutes. We checked in and having freshen up ourselves, promptly left the hotel for a late lunch. Our adventure began with attempts to locate the nearest mrt station, Outram Park which was around 25-minute walk away! After a hectic walk, we arrived at Orchard Road. I was disappointed as there was no sale around this time of the year. So I made my way to Chinatown next. It was late afternoon by the time I arrived. I walked and walked before finally settling down in a small restaurant specialising in dimsum and porridge for dinner. As I could not bear the thought of walking to the hotel from the mrt station, I braved myself to take the bus. Thanks to the efficient transportation system in Singapore, I had no trouble catching the right bus back.

2 April

The whole day was spent in the meeting room. I nearly nodded off. The discussion was pretty dry.

Finally at 5.30pm, the meeting was adjourned. I made my way back to the room, freshen up and left the hotel for Raffles Place. I was to meet two friends for dinner. I managed to catch sight of the Singapore River and the Raffles Place before we decided to dine in a Japanese restaurant. It was nice catching up with them.

3 April

Another day spent on meeting.

At about 6pm, the delegates left the hotel to experience a ride on the Flyer, courtesy of our gracious host. It was my first time up on a flyer as I have neither went on the one in Malaysia nor the one in London. A little past 7pm, the sun began to set. The host had arranged such that we saw both the day view and the night view. Dinner was in an Indonesian restaurant known as Tambuah Mas, Marina Square. We were treated to plates after plates of seafood - fried mini octopus, fried soft-shelled crabs, fish, huge prawns, stir-fried vegetables with scallops etc. Pity we didn't manage to finish everything.

After the dinner, a colleague and I decided to do some last minute shopping at Mustafa which opens 24 hours a day. By the time we were done, it was close to 11.30pm. Time to head home.

4 April

I woke up early to do some last minute sightseeing. Incidentally, a friend from Philippines wanted to see more of Singapore too. So both of us left to find the famous Singapore Merlion. We thought we were early but there were already plenty of tourists crowding the park. The weather was extremely warm despite being still early in the morning. Our next stop was the more than a century old Thean Hock Keng temple. Once again, the place was surrounded by tourists. Our last stop together that morning was Chinatown. We had some trouble finding the place till we decided to ask for direction from an elderly man. The man took us to the entrance to Chinatown before turning back on his journey. I was touched to find such helpful people.

Soon, me and my friend had to bid each other farewell as I had to leave to meet some old schoolmates for lunch. Then it was farewell to Singapore.

I hope that the next time I come, I will be able to visit the night safari and do some shopping!

Worse than a 70-year old

2009-03-15T14:36:00.002+08:00

That was what the doctor me when he saw my x-ray. That was totally unexpected as the co. doctors assured me several times that there was nothing wrong with my lungs. It was only post-nasal drip which can be easily cured. If it's so easy, why didn't I get well 6 weeks ago when I first started seeing them? I was prescribed two rounds of antibiotic. The first consisted of minimal amount of steroids. Two tables per day, morning and evening.

The current doctor, Dr. W, was not pleased with what I told him. First of all, it's definitely lung problem. Post-nasal drip will only result on markings on my right lung on the x-ray. The reason is that there is a direct tube from the nose to the right lung whereas the tubes into the left lung are spread out and smaller. But now, he can clearly see markings on both my lungs. Hence, it's not just post-nasal drip.

Second, the x-ray specialist did not clearly identified my problem. If the specialist is truly a specialist, the person would have been able to spot not just the post-nasal drip symptom. Dr. W refused to comment further on the so-called x-ray specialist.

Third, the co. doctor should never have prescribed me with steroids. Apparently, steroids can awaken another kind of lung-problem which lays dormant in most people. My recovery may actually be delayed because of this prescription.

Luckily, it's still curable. The markings in my lungs were caused by impurities in the air. I am not a smoker, so it's not a result of smoking. However, I am rather sensitive to dust. Dr. W thought it's most likely due to the unclean ventilation in the office. I heard the last time they really clean the ventilation was about 4 -5 years ago! I'll probably need an air purifier in office if I want to prevent the problem but it's not really my choice. Now I am prescribed some proper medicines to clean my lung.

My case is definitely not a rarity. Dr. W said he had encountered similar cases in the past. One particular case was a girl who developed persistent cough like mine and suffered from asthmatic attack. Upon questioning, Dr. W discovered that her seat in the office was located very near a huge printing machine. This kind of machine uses powder for printing and the powder is harmful to anyone sitting within 10 feet to the machine. Once the girl managed to convince her management to remove the machine and place it in a separate room, she stopped coughing. But that was also after she was subjected to 6 months of medication.

My seat is not near the printer. Neither is there a photocopying machine. Hence, best guess is the ventilation itself. It will be hard to find a solution to this :(

(News) Boy dies from bilateral bronchopneumonia:
http://www.caribdaily.com/article/128401/boy-dies-from-bilateral-bronchopneumonia/

(Definition) Bilateral bronchopneumonia:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Bronchopneumonia

(Definition) Nasal Rhinitis:
http://www.nasal.net/allergy/rhinitis.htm

Hope

2009-03-13T09:08:00.002+08:00

When the tunnel appears to turn darker with no hope of escaping, ray of light peeks out from little holes on the wall, reigniting the memory of happiness...perhaps it's just a matter of determination and patience. Like Calvin waiting for his beanie, it will come just not sooner but later.

My long-lost handphone chain

2009-03-04T14:47:00.003+08:00

Today is a great day for me! Some people may call me weird for my reaction but I don't care. I can be happy over very small thing.

April 2006 - I bought a handphone chain from Tokyo Tower. It was a really pretty chain. Unfortunately, I lost it before I got home. I searched through my luggages when I was in the hotel and again when I arrived home. No success. I thought I had misplaced it in the hotel.

March 2009 (today) - I was looking through an old folder, searching for some information I got from the course 3 years ago. Midway through, my eyes caught sight of a little yellow package, stuck in the middle of my notes. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the content.

Good things often happen unexpectedly.

It...

2009-03-02T07:54:00.004+08:00

I can't believe what I saw this morning...

It was around 7.10am. The light at the zebra crossing in Jalan Hang Tuah turned red. A red car was in front of me. A primary school kid was crossing the road. All of a sudden, the red car just sped off. The boy was about a metre away. Had the boy ran across the road, the car would have hit him!

I just don't get it. Did the driver not see the red light? Perhaps "it" was colour blind. Then why did the car stop in the first place? Did the driver not see the little boy? Perhaps the sky was still dark. But that's no excuse to drive off when the light is still red!

3 consecutive nights of cultural activity

2009-02-15T18:45:00.002+08:00

11 Feb

Attended a 9-course chinese dinner hosted by ADB in Maju Palace Restaurant, Corus Hotel. Some of the participants were amazed by the huge amount of food being served as they were not accustomed to chinese dinner.

I sat at a table with very good mix of cultures from SEA, South Asia and East Asia. Interestingly, of the 10 people, half is of chinese origin - PRC, Taipei, HK, Malaysia and Vietnam. In addition, we later found out that the fish served, kuai fah fish, was imported from China! That was a really good dinner.

12 Feb

Welcoming dinner at Saloma Bistro, Jalan Ampang. I thought the buffet spread was so-so. However, the highlight was not the food but the multi-cultural dance performances from the various states in Malaysia. Towards the end of the performances, volunteers were seeked from among the audience to join in the bamboo dance. Too bad none of the participants from our delegation took part.

13 Feb

Puteri Gunung Ledang night! We left for Istana Budaya at about 6.30pm and managed to park in a pretty good spot. Dinner was at the cafe. The musical began at 8.30pm. Our seat was on the grand circle next to the VIP rows. I was impressed by the props and the storyline. Much more entertaining than the movie itself. Unfortunately, it was a pain trying to read the subtitles from above. I developed a bad headache at the end of the show.

Loneliness

2009-02-10T19:34:00.002+08:00

First attempt driving to Putrajaya on my own, with the help of road signs and by tailing slow-moving vehicles which enables me to read road signs properly.

Not so lucky on the way back. Mom told me to follow Sg Long sign and not to turn into Jalan Reko. Ended up paying an additional RM1 for toll to Semenyih. As I wished not to travel any further, I followed the first sign into Kajang. That brought me into the right highway. Everything was fine till I turned too early when I spotted the sign to Pekan Bt 9. Ended in Hulu Langat. Luckily that was the end of my unfortunate drive today.

During the course, was placed right at the centre and front row! They must have high regard for my institution. Not easy trying to keep awake during the whole time :(

Best time was morning tea break. We were served fried macaroni, roti jala with chicken curry and salad. On top of that, for dessert, there were 5 types of kuih. Some foreign participants thought it's lunch time. I don't blame them.

Tomorrow will be another day...

Time & money for a piece of paper

2009-02-08T20:15:00.002+08:00

A little more than two weeks ago, I was back in UK for my graduation. It was not really hard to obtain leave as graduation is a pretty good excuse. It was a pretty good trip except for some minor hiccups.

18 Jan

Arrived in Heathrow late in the afternoon. Was only asked two questions by the officer - Why are we here and where am I graduating from. Caught the tube to Central London. Stopped at Russell Square. Then the "problem" began. I can't really read map! It was supposed to be a short walk to the hotel on Gower Street but I took a slightly longer route. In the end, we asked for direction and managed to get there.

The hotel owner was a really nice man, although he doesn't appear too friendly. Our room was warm and cosy and clean. We rested for awhile before heading out for dinner. My original plan was to take them to chinatown but parents weren't too keen. So, the hotel owner recommended a Thai restaurant, less than 10 minutes away. The food was pretty good although the servings weren't really in proportion to the price.

19 Jan

I woke up at around 3 plus thinking that it's already time as my parents were moving about. It was then I discovered that they had mistaken the time (jetlag!). It was not easy going back to sleep after that. I laid on my bed till 4 plus before I decided to get up to get ready to pick up my sis from Heathrow.

It was a wet morning. My family accompanied me to Russell Square to catch the first tube to Heathrow. We were too early as we found that the station was still closed. As we were deciding on a warmer shelter area, a girl approached the station. Upon enquiry, she, too, was waiting for the first tube to get to Heathrow. We started chatting.

A little bit about my new-found friend. She is a final year phd student from Cornell. She was in London for a seminar and also job interviews. Her research interest is in game theory. We had a good conversation during the whole journey. We parted at the airport, promising to keep in touch.

I rushed to terminal 3, thinking that sis had arrived. I waited and waited, all the time growing more impatient. I was wondering if I might fail to recognise her since we have not met for 1 1/2 years. It was close to 7.30am when I finally saw her. It's hard to describe the feeling of seeing sis again but I know at the moment, I miss her.

Apparently, her delay was caused by the long questioning she had to endure for having bought a one-way ticket. At the Dubai airport, she was warned that people had been sent back to Dubai previously for buying one-way tickets. True enough upon her arrival in Heathrow, the officer would not let her go easily. She was getting worried as the officer kept doubting her words. Luckily, after more questions, the officer did let her go. Phew! I will always remember the danger of one-way ticket from now on.

Our first trip was to Windsor Castle. I wanted to take my family to see the changing of the guard ceremony in Windsor as it was said that we can see the whole thing from inside the castle (paid entrance, of course). I thought the parade is smaller than the one in London but tourists get a more up close view. We explored the castle a bit more before heading out for lunch. Once we decided to eat in the Crooked House Tea Rooms (the building is really crooked like Pisa), the rain started again. It was a truly wet day. We left Windsor soon after that.

At night, we had dinner at Four Seasons in Chinatown.

20 Jan

I sent my family to Warwick Castle while I went to meet a friend. She was to arrive in Heathrow early in the morning. I met her at Primark since both of us were not familiar with London and it was supposed to be a shopping trip for us. Lunch was at a pizzeria. We shopped till close to 7pm before departing. I was to meet another friend at the Liverpool Street Station. We dine at a nice Lebanese restaurant. It was close to 10.30pm when I got back to the hotel. My family were already in bed :P

21 Jan

Finally, a tour around London. I took them to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace and Covent Garden. On the way to Covent Garden, sis and I were stopped by the various shops along the road. In the end, we did not make it to Covent Garden (but the rest did not follow us). Rather, all our precious time were spent on shopping :)

Soon, it was time to catch our bus to Coventry. The hotel owner had kindly allowed us to keep some of our luggages at their place. So, we packed only a day's worth of clothing to take to Coventry. It was pretty late by the time we arrived in Merlyn Guest House.

22 Jan

A rather uneventful day as I spent most of my time in the university. Sis and bro were pretty bored as they didn't have anything else to do but to walk around the uni. It was bad planning on my side. My graduation ceremony was to start at 11am but it was delayed by 10 - 15 minutes. We had to endure song after song, in the extremely cosy temporary hall. Some of my coursemates started sweating. We were seated very close to each other due to the tininest of the seats. The whole session was dedicated to the business school students. They began with short speeches. Finally, it was my turn. 5 seconds, perhaps 10 seconds and it was over...I went back to my seat to wait for the ceremony to end. A girl started walking to the centre of the stage when her name was called. And then, her shoes slipped off! She had to bend down a little to put it back on amidst a laughing crowd. Bravo for turning an uneventful ceremony into a memorable one.

While my family had lunch in Xanana, I head to the business school for the free luncheon. Spoke to some coursemates, ate a bit of food and then I was off to see my supervisor. I had made an appointment to meet him between 2 - 2.30pm. He was running a little late but he did leave a note to me telling me bout it. A student was waiting for him too. It was a really long chat between us...well, he was doing the talking most of the time. He even took me to the staff pantry to make tea for both of us. He kept telling me he has class at 4pm yet we went on till almost 3.45! As I was getting up to leave, he saw my robe and asked for the honour to let him see me in the robe but I declined! It was awhile later before I realise my stupidity. I kept thinking bout returning the robe that I didn't want to put it on again. So when he posed that question, I said no! Effectively, I am now a very rude Asian girl.

I met my family at the pool meadows station. We were supposed to go back to the hotel together to get the luggages but I was held back. So, my family went back first. It was still a long time before the bus will arrive. Knowing that the shops were still open, I took my siblings to shop. Mom and dad just wanted to rest.

Soon, we were back in London.

23 Jan

The whole day was spent touring the Cotswold Villages. A short stop in Woodstock, lunch in Burford, a drive past Stow-in-the-Wold, an hour stop in Bourton-on-the-Water (my favourite Cotswold village) and cream tea in Lechlade. We were back in London by 6pm. There were still time to walk around. I took my family to do their souvenir shopping on Oxford Street. Mom and dad were tired. So, they headed back to hotel first (Mom said she thought it was easy to navigate around the tube but she was sooo wrong. They got lost but then managed to find their way again).

I took my siblings to see Big Ben at night. It was beautiful.

24 Jan

It was our last day in UK. We spent the morning visiting the Borough Market, London bridge and Tower bridge. Then, it was time for more shopping. After awhile, my parents decided they want to go back to the hotel to rest before going to the airport while bro wanna visit the British Museum, leaving sis and I to continue our shopping adventure (despite the numerous mentionings of shopping, we didn't really buy much stuffs).

On our way back to the hotel, we met an old lady who was lost. She started speaking to me in cantonese. She was trying to get to Bourdon Street but she didn't know which station she should go to. I knew she was lost but even I can't tell her as the name was unfamiliar to me. We asked the staffs for assistance. However, she refused to go back to the tube even after we know which tube station she was to stop (mainly because she doesn't understand English). Sis and I were in a dilemma as we couldn't bring her to the destination ourselves as we were supposed to catch the train to the airport in about 45 minutes. Finally, she decided to take the bus as she was more familiar with buses. We tried to keep her company for as long as we could. When we left her, she was walking towards a bus going to Oxford Street. I do hope she is safely back home now.

The trip back home was uneventful which is a good thing. Weather was sufficiently normal for no delays. In addition, the plane landed rather gracefully in KLIA.

Overall, it was a good break. We were back in time for the CNY celebration. Sis stayed till thursday before flying back to Dubai.

Career suicide

2009-02-04T16:21:00.001+08:00

I just made the biggest mistake anyone can ever make in front of their colleagues - sending my personal career aspiration to the whole department! Sigh...bad year ahead :P

Christmas in November

2008-11-13T07:57:00.003+08:00

That was how I felt as I tore open the boxes and started digging out the stuffs. Almost every piece of item had been carefully wrapped to ensure safe return. I began with my fingers before finally resorting to scissors to expedite the process. It was a lot of excitement even for my dogs as they began sniffing around, spreading their furs and saliva on my belongings.

There was the souvenir for my sister, the York Minster for my brother, the coffee and herbs, my pots, magnets and most importantly, my shoes! Red, black, pink, beige...all intact.

Tonight, I shall continue with the inspection. This time will be the retrieval of my files and books which are all buried deep down the boxes.

I am glad that shippingtomalaysia did not fail me and it only cost me GBP50.

Maiden OT

2008-10-17T08:12:00.002+08:00

Less than two weeks of getting back into the office and before I have even been assigned a portfolio, I got my first staying back experience. While the urgency of the work definitely required my boss to exercise this option, half of the time was wasted on waiting. My colleague even managed to tidy up the charts numerous times from changing the fonts to aligning the titles. The process finally ended at 10.20pm. Optimistically, I still arrived home before 11pm :P

The result of this is what a friend called "Fast Food Policy" done in less than 48 hours to save the nation. No, I am not that wai tai. It's just a job.

It's a dog's world

2008-10-11T22:21:00.001+08:00

Unhappiness is when your dog holds a grudge against you for punishing him.

Happiness is when he finally forgets his grudge.

Happiness

2008-09-14T19:10:00.000+08:00

Happiness is when the dogs you have left for a year recognise you

What water?

2008-09-11T05:38:00.002+08:00

It's Bourton-on-the-water (Botw), known as the "Little Venice" of Cotswold. I only heard about this place from a friend whose friends went there for a day trip. I thought why not since it's just 1 1/2 hours train ride. And so we managed to gather a group of people, booked the tickets (GBP17.50) yesterday and hopped on the train early this morning at 7.56am. While the trip itself is relatively short, the journey to the village is not as easy. From the Cheltenham Spa train station, we had to get to Royal Wells to catch a Pulham's bus to Botw, which comes every 1 1/2 hours (GBP1.80). The walk to Royal Wells takes 24 minutes, assuming we can navigate our way around. So, we opted for the wiser choice - a cab (since we missed the infrequent bus to city centre due to the 15-minute delayed train to Bristol) shared among 5 persons.

35 minutes later, we arrived in Botw. The journey to this charming village was a joy itself, passing through vast green and brown fields, dotted by white sheeps against the backdrop of a clear blue sky, decorated with fluffy clouds. But the village turned out to be even more enchanting than the ride. The first sight to greet us was the yellow Cotswold stone houses along the banks of river Windrush. I could not help but to keep marvelling at the possibility of the existence of such a heavenly land. Along the river are a total of 5 low bridges, the perfect spot for photography.

As we tried to navigate our way towards the tourist information centre (less than 10 minutes away from the bus stop), our pace was occasionally interrupted by the need to capture the beautiful scenery with our cameras. Sini, sana, sini, sana - that's how our photography steps looked like. Finally, one of us came to her senses and managed to shepherd everyone to the right path. But that was not before we stopped to contemplate entering a flea market. As the village is actually really, really tiny, it was not difficult for us to find the attractions.

Our first stop was the model village, featuring an excellent miniature of Botw in 1937. We had a great time pretending to be Gulliver. Too bad there wasn't any little people to accentuate our gigantism. Nevertheless, those little houses (at 1/9th scale) still managed to do wonders to my height. Some of the prominent buildings I could remember is the Edinburgh Woollen shop (which I think should be decorated with sales sign), post office and Llyod bank. There was also the church, from where we could hear the choir.

Soon it was lunch time. We stopped at Knightsbridge inn for a traditional meal. I ordered a Lanchashire hot pot (made of muttons and potatoes) served with vegetables and new potatoes (I never develop a taste for these). At the end of the meal, I discovered that the shop sells treacle pudding, a favourite English food in Enid Blyton's books. I wished I had room for dessert. Unfortunately, the hot pot was too heavy. I am not sure when and where I will be able to find a shop serving this old dessert.

With renewed strength, it was time for shopping. With good self-control, I constrained myself to a magnet and postcard. With much enthusiam, my friends ended up with some good and satisfying bargains.

We continued to stroll along the river as we headed towards the Dragonfly Maze (GBP2.50). There was a point when we got so distracted that we forgot where we were heading to. And we are talking about a village with less than 10 main attractions, all within walking distance (i.e. less than 20 minutes away).

The maze is not a normal maze. We had to solve a puzzle. According to the sign, the brainy ones will solve the puzzle within 20 minutes. So we had a benchmark. At the entrance, we were given a piece of paper with instructions and space to write down the answers. There were a total of 14 clues which will form into a 14-word sentence. Each clues were placed on flagstones, some pictorial, some words. In the beginning, we were pretty excited, stopping for photography once in awhile. However, after some time, we were turning round and round without any sign of the last two clues. I began to feel like we had been trapped there for more than an hour but of course, this was just an exaggeration. Finally we came to a little round house. We entered to find a frog in a mirrored cylinder in the middle of the house. Our answer was "Place your clock on the friar's keys and stare on the caterpillar and weight". Didn't make much sense to me. After staring at the frog for a good few minutes, we wanted to give up before someone finally spotted a white, miserable-looking dragonfly. We decided that was the answer and left.

At the exit (which was just a short distance away), we met the lady at the counter who helped us to correct the clue. So we returned to the house and tried again. Yet, we did not find anything additional. And so, we left again. The lady asked,"Did you press on the ******?" Oops. Returned to try again. This time, we found the real dragonfly. It was a pretty neat trick. Unfortunately, we were not brainy enough (:P) Paiser...took us an hour to complete this whole task.

We spent the last few minutes on more photographs of the wonderful river. How I love the name windrush. I could sit by the river bank a whole day, enjoying the breeze (if it happens to be a fine day like today) and listening to the water gushing down the river. Every nook and every corner of this village was a pleasure to the lens.

If I were an investment banker in London, I would buy a little cottage in this little village and come by every once in awhile to destress. I would watch the leaves changing colours throughout the different seasons. I would be able to see snow covering the banks, flowers blooming all over the place, ducklings playing on the water and leaves falling onto the ground.

An absent-minded friend

2008-09-10T07:46:00.003+08:00

Farewell after farewell - that was the theme for the past few weeks. No one knows when our path will cross again. Memories are all that will be left.

Today, I had a farewell dinner with two friends, one of whom was my very first friend here. I still remember clearly the day we met. It was in the van, heading towards the SU. Initially, we were merely acquaintance with me being closer to another friend of hers. As time went by, our sharing of the same dialect brought us closer together.

I have always been impressed by her maturity at such a young age and her vast knowledge on topics outside her field. Her ability to confront conflict far exceeds mine. She has always complained of my inability to deal with annoying people around me. I think it must be a case of short-term memory.

Tonight's meal was amazingly heavy as my friends attempted to finish off all their food before leaving the next day - roast chicken, japanese curry vegetable, stir-fried long beans, eggs and onions (my dish), roast potatoes and roast corns. We almost had ice-cream for dessert till my friend discovered that the tub was missing from the freezer. What's new?

Later in the night, my friend came and looked for me in my room. We talked for awhile. Then she left. I went back to my laptop. Before long I heard a knock. It was my friend again. She forgot her room key. It was her second time coming back to my room. The first time, she forgot her camera case. And she was telling me how often she forgot to take her keys with her whenever she left a friend's room. I think this will be the final time she forgot her keys in Heronbank. We had a good laugh that night.

Then it was time to say "zhai jien"...

Boots, book, toys

2008-09-09T22:58:00.003+08:00

I have finally come to the realisation that I am a shopaholic. I am not sure when it started but it did. Why else did I buy a pair of boots which I don't need but was the last available pair in my size? Or why would I be buying a signed book on Artemis Fowl even as I have never heard of the book? And how bout the little toy dog which bears no significance of UK nor the county I was visiting? Someone, stop me!!!!

Bright and sunny in York

2008-09-09T05:11:00.002+08:00

After the horrible experience from LD, I was wary of travelling by train. However, one day later, I found myself on a train once again, heading up north to York to visit a friend. Surprisingly, the further up I went, the better the weather became. Soon, all that was left of the bad weather was drizzle with the sun peeping out from behind the clouds, occasionally. Unfortunately, for the passengers heading to Manchester airport, they were not so lucky as the track was flooded. From Manchester Piccadilly, I changed to another train to York.

At about 1.30pm, I arrived in a city I know nothing about (except that a friend did some charity work there). Very quickly, I got on the no. 10 bus (GBP1), heading towards the city centre. My stop was on Lawrence Street, close to Nicholas Street where my friend's place is. She came to pick me up from the stop and we left my bag in her house before heading out for lunch.

The walk to the city centre took about 10 - 15 minutes. The first sight to greet me was the city wall at Walmgate. We took a stroll on the wall (feels like Great Wall of China but of course this is just a miniature in comparison) and got down at another gate. We walked and walked and walked, aimlessly. There wasn't really much time for me to visit any of the attractions as most of them closed at around 5pm. The city was bustling with excitement - the traditional folk dance festival was on during this weekend. We passed by two groups of dancers, performing in two separate squares.

As none of us were really hungry, we just bought a steak pie from one of the sandwich shop. More time was spent on strolling around the city before we finally decided to stop for dinner at Betty's tea room, the oldest tea room in York (probably a hundred years old or so). The tea room was certainly popular as the crowd never seemed to cease. We had to queue up to get into the tea room. 15 minutes later, we were taken to our table. I ordered Yorkshire sausages and ice-cream milkshake (banana flavour) while my friend got the salmon dish of the day and tea. The food was pretty good but my favourite was really the ice-cream milkshake. Although we went in for dinner pretty early, we only left at past 8pm due to the long wait for the food. Can't be helped given the crowd.

Our final stop for the day was the University of York. Not that it was my intention to visit the campus, rather I required the use of a PC and internet to fulfill my promise to a friend to read her dissertation. We spent more than an hour there before heading back home.

The following day was a hectic day. Our original plan was to visit the York Maze. Unfortunately, the previous day was the final opening day of the year. So, I settled for the Clifford's Tower, Castle Museum and York Minster. My favourite place had to be the Castle Museum. Photography was allowed. Hence, I was able to take photos of the old Victorian street, where we got to experience day and night (with sound of raindrops) and walked into some of the stores (I should mention at this point that the actors here did a better job than the chit-chatting actors in Shakespeare's birthplace).

Once again, we paid a visit to Betty's tea room (I know I am a bit crazy about that place) to have tea. While my friend got the afternoon tea set (tea + scones), I opted for the Fat Rascal (house specialty - scones with raisins, nuts and cherries) and hot chocolate with cream. The meal cost me almost GBP7 (imagine that!). Due to the heaviness of the meal, both of us were unable to have dinner that day. We reached home rather early today and spent the night watching the "Big Bang Theory".

On my last day in York, we visited Jorvik, a viking centre. First, we had to get into a "time machine" where we attempted to go back to the year 866 till the machine went into the error and started shaking violently (actually not that violent, more like shaking thru and fro). Then, we got into a "car" which took us around the viking village. The faces of the mannequins in the village were all reconstructed based on the skulls found in this village (i.e. York). I thought the place was truly interesting. The only drawback was that no photography allowed.

By the time we left Jorvik, we still had another 2 hours to kill. So, we headed towards the Treasurer's house. And then, it happened. A simple window-shopping became a guilt trip. I bought stuffs which will be of no use in the immediate future. Great...whatever. We spent so much time shopping that we only had enough time to take lunch at La Vecchia, an Italian restaurant with a courtyard view of the Minster. We finished our meal at around 1pm and had to rush to the train station to catch my train at 1.25pm. Thankfully, we were on time. I bid my friend farewell, not knowing when will we meet again. It was a truly good trip except for a few hiccups.

3rd time unlucky

2008-09-07T04:36:00.000+08:00

I just want to remember today as such...

Rain, rain, go away

2008-09-05T05:46:00.002+08:00

Unfortunately, the rain did not go away. And it nearly spoiled my first trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. I know it's hard to believe but it's true. After almost a year here, this is only my first trip there.

On Tuesday morning, I left for the town early in the morning (well, probably not that early but still earlier than my friends). The journey was supposed to be almost an hour ride but having to change bus in Leamington Spa managed to lengthen the trip by half an hour. As I got onto the bus, I realised that even though I know my stop is Bridge Street, I had no idea where the stop is! So, I sat in the bus quietly, hoping someone will stop at the same place. Luckily, it was not hard to spot. Once we pass the river Avon, we arrived on the main road, bustling with activites. I knew then that that was my stop.

I arrived in Stratford around noon. The first thing I did was to stop at the tourist information centre, before heading to High Street for some shopping. This marked the beginning of my guilt trip down the retail therapy lane. I am really not sure what had gotten into me. Anyway, enough said on this matter. Having made some quick satisfactory purchases, my friends finally arrived. Good timing I must say.

We began our trip by touring Shakespeare's birthplace. It was just a very old house in its original form. Still interesting to note the tininess of the one-bedroom house to fit the family, their apprentices and servants. When we left the house, it was pouring cats and dogs. We had no choice but to stop for lunch. Soon, the rain was reduced to drizzles and we were able to continue to our next destination - Anne Hathaway's cottage, 1 1/2 miles away from town. We walked and walked and walked. It felt neverending but it did. The thatched-roof cottage was set in the middle of a pretty, little garden. We were only allowed to take photos of the exterior but not the interior. What a pity!

While I think that Stratford is a beautiful town, the main reason for its attraction is Shakespeare. Without him, it will not be as popular as it is now. More effort needs to be poured into making the visit a memorable one.

The following day, my friends and i caught a train to Windermere, Lake District. We had to change train 3 times (Cov-Birmingham-Crewe-Windermere)! With the delay of our first train, the whole journey ended up being delayed by two hours. Two whole hours were wasted in the train stations. I began to question the efficiency of the UK's train system.

Upon arrival, we began to find a way to reach town. There were limited information available. Hence, we had to call the hotel to ask for direction. At that point, I realised my second mistake. I knew the name of the road we had to find but I did not know the direction! Luckily, the map navigator did a good job and we found the hotel even as we had to walk under the rain. Seriously bad weather. The owner of the hotel was a very friendly man. He chatted with us for awhile before taking us to our room. There were a double bed with two single beds in the room. The so-called ensuite bathroom was situated outside our room. The reason it is ensuite was because we were the only ones with the key to enter. Brilliant! We spent some time in the room waiting for the rain to subside while drying our jeans with the dryer. It didn't take that long though. Phew.

The walk to Bowness was about 30 - 45 minutes, depending on our pace. The plan was to catch a ferry to Ambleside. The journey took 30 minutes, during which we moved up and down to the open top of the ferry whenever the rain stopped. The view was breathtaking (If Botw is the epitome of sugar sweet beauty, then LD is the wild beauty) especially when we arrived at the pier of Ambleside. We spent so much time there that we were left with little time to reach the town. In the end, we never made it to the town centre and we were only two blocks away.

Dinner was at a restaurant recommended by the hotel owner - Carvery at GBP3.95, a good deal for students like us. Due to the wet weather condition, we were unable to get any sunset photos. I can only imagine how it will look like.

On the following day, we woke up early to take a walk around Windermere. The town was so small that it took us probably half an hour to finish the tour. So, we headed back to the hotel to take breakfast which was only ready at 8.30am. After that, we checked out and asked for permission to leave our bags at the guest living room as we wanted to head back to Bowness.

This time, our mission was to visit Beatix Potter's World of Peter Rabbit. It was the time to reignite any childhood dreams or perhaps to bring out the child in a person. Admission cost GBP6 but it was worth the price. We were able to snap loads of photos of the adventures of Peter Rabbit and his friends. It was a truly wonderful experience. Of course, the trip will not be complete without a purchase from the Peter Rabbit's shop. More time was spent around the pier, both to enjoy the wilderness and to take more photos.

And then it was time to leave. The trip was really too short. I didn't have enough time to digest the beauty of the place. We boarded the train at 1.24pm. While the trip began smoothly, soon we encountered some obstacles. At the stop in Lancaster, we were informed that the track between Lancaster and Preston was flooded, halting all train services using that track. The train we were on had to head back to Scotland. We waited and waited before a train finally arrived to bring us to Preston. Initially, we were informed of the possibility to stay overnight in Lancaster as the tickets remained valid for the next day travelling. Luckily the train came. From Preston, we had to figure another way to get back to Coventry. After awhile, bright light shone upon my friends as they were able to switch to the London Euston train with an additional GBP6.

I decided against following them to London due to my tight schedule in the next few days. With their departure, I found myself waiting hopefully for the Birmingham train alone. It was not a long wait. 10 minutes later, I found myself on my way to Birmingham New Street. The rest of the journey went smoothly. I was back in my room by 9pm.

Interestingly, a commotion caused by a drunkard in the London Euston train led the train to detour to Coventry. I believed both my friends' and my train stopped in Coventry at almost the same time. What a coincidence! It was a blessing that everything worked out fine for us in the end.

This is how the end looks like

2008-09-01T23:23:00.004+08:00

RED!

I discover a disadvantage of staying on-campus. Binding takes longer than usual! If it takes only 15 minutes outside, on-campus binding takes a minimum of 5 hours. Today took 7 hours because of high demand. Good thing I did it a few days before deadline.

Merdeka! Merdeka!

2008-09-01T03:09:00.003+08:00

Today marks my country's 51 years of independence. Being away from home means there will be no national holiday. But since it falls on a Sunday and I am a student completing her dissertation, it does not actually make a difference to me. Nevertheless, it is still a special day.

A Malaysian friend called me yesterday to invite me to a small, informal gathering. I was told to dress down. Little did I know that when I turned up, they were in their baju kurung, batik and qipao. The lunch spread consists of nasi lemak, sambal ikan bilis, prawn sambal and roast chicken (courtesy of a Taiwanese friend) contributed by various chefs. I know I will be going home soon but it still feels nice to have these food on a national day.

For a moment, it felt strange. All those years in Malaysia, I can't remember celebrating national day like today. To me, it means holiday. Holiday means either stay at home to watch tv or to go out shopping. But today is different. With the efforts of several friends, we had a great time.

Smarties doughnuts

2008-08-27T21:59:00.004+08:00

I have passed by the bakery section numerous times but often, I never end up with anything. With just roughly 3 more weeks to go, I thought "what the heck". I should be more adventurous. Will never know when I will step foot here again. And so, the smarties doughnuts found its way into my basket. I must say "never judge a book by its cover". The same applies to food. If you ask me to describe the doughnuts in 3 words, this is my reply - pretty, normal, sweet. But at least I tried :)

Kitchen devil

2008-08-24T06:40:00.004+08:00

I am sure a lot of us are familiar with the kitchen god, whom we bribe every year with "nian gao" to ensure he puts in good words to the Jade King. If you think a tell-tale god is scary, then you haven't meet the kitchen devil.

She is the one who always leave a trail of mess behind her. It's hard not to notice her presence in the kitchen even when she is not physically there. Her cabinet door will always be left half open. Perhaps she want to air it. Must be pretty smelly inside. Then there is the dark stain around the cookers. I saw her messing up the cooker just by cooking noodles. No one but her is capable of that. Hats off to Miss Mess. Sometimes, she will leave chopped food on the floor and on the counter. Today I found grains of rice, scattered all over the counter. Interesting...I have heard of jumping beans but jumping rice? Oh yeah, not forgetting the stuffs spilling from her section in the fridge onto my section. How else do I explain the sticky stuffs on my plastic containers?

The best part of this devil is that once she dirtied one spot, she will move on to another. There is no stationarity in her action. How can such a person exist certainly baffles me.

Case closed

2008-08-21T06:52:00.003+08:00

Happiness is when you finally know the truth.

Well, not exactly the whole truth but knowing part of the truth is sufficient for me in this case.

Today, my flatmate gave us a pleasant surprise. The kitchen thief had been found. We only know that the culprit is an undergraduate boy. But this information is sufficient for us to quit doubting one of us. He admitted to another boy, his friend who caught him red-handed, that he stole food from kitchens. His targets were kitchens with door facing the exit to the staircase (i.e. my flat). Another target is the kitchen at the corner of the connecting row between north and west bank. This design of this kitchen is such that the door is hidden from the view of the occupants even if they walk along the corridor. I must say he is pretty smart and has great attention to details.

His friend took pity on him and never reported. Hence, we will never know his identity. I do wish to ask him why did he eat all the sausages in the fried rice.

A day in London

2008-08-16T07:36:00.002+08:00

Almost a year had passed before I finally get to do the "tourist" thing in London. After some careful planning by my friend, I was pretty much looking forward to seeing the major attractions beside Oxford Street.

While most of the week were wet and gloomy, we were blessed with a glorious sunny day on Friday. Our first stop was Big Ben. Somehow, I felt let down by the first sight of it. Then, we took a short stroll along Thames River to get some photos of London Eye which was on the other side of the river. As I wanted to see the "Changing of the Guard", our route was directed towards the Buckingham Palace. Along the way, we passed by Westminster Abbey and St. James park. We missed Downing Street but did not bother to turn around. There wasn't really much to do except to take photos. None of us were keen on visiting the interior of any of the attractions. The reason being the steep admission fee, which was not student-friendly at all.

Hence, we arrived pretty early at the Buckingham Palace. Yet, the crowd was already overwhelming. The ceremony began at 11.30am. I couldn't really see much of it. After awhile, it became boring and we decided to break for lunch. Destination was Pizza Hut (don't ask why) on Victoria Street. While the pizzas were just normal, I was impressed by the hospitality shown by the crew. One of them even offered to help us with our direction upon seeing my friend taking out the London map. That has got to be the best restaurant service I have seen so far in this past year.

After lunch, we headed towards Tower Bridge. Of the four bridges I saw, Tower Bridge has got to the prettiest. London Bridge was boring. Millennium Bridge was rather interesting especially having read about its closure following the unsteadiness of the structure. Besides bridges, we saw St. Paul Cathedral and went into Tate.

We ended the day with a musical - The Wizard of Oz at Southbank Centre. My friend managed to get very good seats at amazing prices because of our student status. While I love the songs from the show, it is not the most impressive musical I have seen. I thought it was more suitable for kids. The best part of the show has to be Toto, played by a really cute white dog who kept looking for food. At some point in the show, it sat down. I presumed it's getting tired and couldn't really understand why it had to do this every night.

To wrap up, I think London is over-rated as a city of attractions. My biasedness could be a result of too many trips around Europe, seeing almost similar structures. In addition, it is a very expensive city to visit. Most attractions cost around GBP10. This is in contrast with attractions in other European cities, which cost below EUR10 most of the time. Sometimes, the entry is even free for students (e.g. Athens). But not all is bad. At least this time, everything is in a language I can comprehend.

Roasted in Greece

2008-08-11T06:19:00.007+08:00

Being back in London feels good. The nice cool weather overcomes any urge to complain about the drizzling afternoon. Nevertheless, the trip to Greece is an experience I will never want to reverse.

It was only last sunday when I remember setting out early in the morning to catch our flight to Athens. It was a bad start with the plane delayed by almost an hour, leading to our late arrival to the Hermes Hotel. Then, we found out that one of us had been arranged to stay in Plaka Hotel, which is a few minutes away. We arranged to meet in the lobby to head out for dinner in Byzantino, recommended by Lonely Planet. With the help of a free map from the airport, we managed to navigate our way around Plaka, arriving at the tavern safely. Along the way, we were fascinated by the liveliness of the atmosphere, reminiscence of the pasar malam back home. Dinner that night cost slighly over EUR30 (expensive!).

The next morning, we set out early to walk to Syntagma Square, led by our tour guide (AJ) from Contiki to catch the bus to Piraeus Port. Although it was still early in the morning, the port was already busy with passengers from the last cruise leaving and us waiting in line to get in. It was a really long wait. Luckily, we had AJ, explaining the processes and procedures to us and ensures that everything runs smoothly. A strange procedure is the handing over of our passport to the crews for entry in various islands. The only proof of identity we had were our ship boarding card in which my name was spelt wrongly. Just great. The ship we were to board was Aquamarine, carrying approximately 2000 passengers with close 2000 crews. My cabin was M157, quadsharing. The cabin was comfortable enough, although there was a lack of space to move around given that two of our roomies had really huge luggages. At 11.15pm, we participated in an emergency lifeboat drill. This is to ensure that we know how to put on our lifejacket and knowing which boat to take (number 11). The process was a strict one. According to a crew, in some ships, if we don't follow the instructions properly, we could be fined. We were only allowed to leave after the Captain's inspection.

The first stop of the day was Mykonos. We arrived at the island late in the afternoon, leaving us with little time to explore the place. As the ship was unable to get close to the port due to strong wind, we had to use a tender boat to get there. The boat can carry probably around 30 - 40 passengers at one time. Getting in was not easy as the wind was blowing strongly, rocking the boat all the time. Then, we had to take a bus to get into town. AJ gave us a walking tour around the main town area. Some of the interesting attractions include the island's mascot i.e. pelicans (we spotted several along our way) and the windmills. We managed to snap a few photos and bought our souvenirs before boarding the ship to head to Patmos.

Unlike Mykonos, known for its whitewashed buildings, Patmos is more known for the Monastery of St. John. AJ took us up the mountain, explaining to us the significance of the attractions as we approached some of the places. The journey was a long and difficult one. One false step and we will tumble down the mountain. Adding to our misery was the extreme heat of a summer day.

In the afternoon, we stopped in Kusadasi, the only Turkish island in our itinerary. As we didn't participate in any of the optional excursions, we had to move around by ourselves. We decided to see Ephesus which is located about 20 minutes away from town by car. So, we got ourselves a cab, costing EUR70 return. The entry cost us 20 lira each (about GBP9), without any concession price. Having seen the magnificent Roman forum, the Ephesus pales in comparison. 45 minutes was all we took to finish the tour. We got back to town earlier to do some shopping. Interestingly, it was on this Turkish island that we spent a lot.

Tuesday was Greek night where passengers were encouraged to dress in white and blue for dinner. We were served with traditional Greek cuisine and later, at 11pm, treated to a Greek show with dancing and singing.

Wednesday was a free and easy day, spent entirely in Rhodes. We used the morning to walk around town and spent the afternoon taking nap! Later in the evening, we had Captain's night where by we get to meet the captain and his crews. It was also a formal dinner.

On Thursday, the ship docked at Heraklion, Crete. We only arrived in Santorini at about 4pm in the afternoon. Of all the islands, Santorini has to be the most beautiful. Once again, we had to use a tender boat to get to the island. The whitewashed buildings were all perched on top of the mountain. So, we had to get up there either by cable car (cost EUR4), donkey ride (same cost) or walk up the zigzag path, shared with the donkeys. We opted for the cable car which took only about 4 minutes. The view from atop was breathtaking. There wasn't really any significant attractions in Thira, the town we visited in Santorini because the whole town itself is THE attraction. This time, we decided to descend by walking. It was not a very nice experience as we had to walk past a whole line of donkeys waiting at the side for their customers. The step itself was rather dangerous with 588 steps! Some of the stones were slippery. I couldn't help imagining myself missing a step and tumbling all the way down. All I could do to ensure my own safety was to concentrate on the steps. It wasn't that wise a decision when I realised that I had lost my friends at the bottom of the stairs. I had missed the turning! There was not a soul in sight. I told myself not to panic and that I will find my way out. Luckily, there were other tourists who missed the step too. So I followed them to the way out. Thus, reuniting with my friends.

That night, we were told to leave our luggages at the doorway to be collected by the crews at midnight. As we were part of Contiki, our guide took the responsibility of collecting all the luggages for us early in the morning (around 6am) to avoid confusion later. This is one of the plus point of being a part of a tour group.

The last 3 days was spent in Athens. The weather was burning hot, leaving us all with very tanned skin. As we can only check in at Athens Backpackers at 1.30pm, we took the opportunity to see a bit of Athens. Our first stop was the Acropolis. To our delight, as students in EU, we were exempted from any entry fees. We received the same privilege at other cultural sites, making Athens the most student-friendly city by far. Later, at the hostel, we got a free upgrade from a 6-person dorm ensuite to a 3-person studio! We were only charged EUR25 per person per night. There's a kitchen (complete with cutlery and cooking utensils), living room with tv, air-conditioner, bathroom and balcony. We were reluctant to leave such a heavenly place. Hence, our afternoon was spent watching the opening of Olympics in Beijing and taking a nap on the cosy sofa.

Later in the afternoon, we dragged ourselves out again to look for food. We decided to look for Bairaktaris, a restaurant popular for souvlaki. It was recommended in the Athens booklet we got from the hostel. It took us awhile to find the said square as the square doesn't look much like a square after all. The restaurant has a very interesting feel with its walls decorated with photos of the owner with famous people. Unfortunately, their service was a let-down. Perhaps I am not accustomed to being "ignored". The food was just alright. I couldn't really finish the souvlaki I ordered. One, the weather was too hot, spoiling my appetite. Two, the meat was too dry even with the sauce.

We began the following day by first visiting the Ancient Agora. Situated on top of the hill is the Temple of Hephaetus and Athena. Our next stop was the Parliament, near Syntagma Square to watch the changing of the guards. The most interesting I noticed was the uniform of the guards. They wear fustanella, a traditional skirt-like garment, matched by a pair of pompom shoes (I am not sure of the actual name). The changing of the guard happens every hour throughout the day. The guards perform a slow dance-like march to switch positions with the newly-arrived guards. The afternoon was spent indoor in the National Archaeological Museum. Main purpose was to avoid the afternoon heat. Our final stop for the day was Hadrian's Arch and the Temple of Zeus.

Having completed our Athens tour, we headed to Plaka for souvenirs and dinner. This time, we passed by Byzantino again. A friendly waiter stopped us to try to promote the restaurant to us. After some thoughts, we gave the restaurant another go. This time, I managed to get my "fish soup". It's actually fish with a bowl of soup (most likely vegetable soup). Nevertheless, I had minimal complaint of this dish.

Greece is our last Europe tour for the year. What an amazing finale it is. What do I like about the country? The beautiful islands which are beyond imagination. The student-friendly admission fees in all the major attractions. Of course not all is wonderful. I conclude that I am not a fan of Greek cuisine. And their hospitality is an eye-opener. Not forgetting the organisation of the airport, unlike the other airports I have been to. My biggest disappointment is of course my failure to remember sending the postcards I bought from Athens. My last chance and I blew it. Oh well, I suppose not everything will always go smoothly.

Learning how to cook

2008-07-30T05:33:00.003+08:00

Clockwise from top left - tea eggs with stuffing, 3 cups chicken, stir-fry squid and chicken in korean BBQ sauce, tomyam, tapioca, fruits

B & B in B & B

2008-07-29T05:51:00.004+08:00

It was not an easy journey. Funnily, it began with me going to the wrong bus-stop and ended with me almost missing the bus.

I set off early on Saturday morning to ensure that I don't miss the bus. The walk itself was a joy with wonderful scenery of houses and fields. At almost 9.15am, I spotted national express but it was on the other side of the road! I quickly dashed across the road, hoping that the bus driver saw his lone passenger. He did! And what a jolly driver he turned out to be. Told myself to write in to natex to compliment such a nice driver (which I have yet to do).

The bus was slightly delayed by the Saturday traffic. Upon arrival, my friend whisked me off to her home to have lunch. After that, we left for Clarks Village, which was an hour away from Bristol. I had fun just looking around while my friend and her family did some serious shopping. Shops closed at 6pm. As the sky was still bright, we took the opportunity to take a walk around the Clifton suspension bridge. The view was amazing. Unfortunately, the sun was shining too gloriously for us to be able to get good photos.

On the following day, we tried to set out early to get to the car boot sale in Bath. It was my first car boot sale. What an amazing experience that was! All kind of knickknacks were on sale. Happily, I got myself the dvd of BBC's Pride & Prejudice (for a total cost of GBP0.20!!!), some of David Attenborough's wonderful filming of nature and a Beano Annual 2004. I could have ended up with more stuffs had the weather been friendlier. Two hours later, we were on our way into Bath, the city known for its Roman bath. At first there were hardly anybody in sight. However, when we reached the city centre, the roads were brimming with tourists. All eager for a glimpse of the bath house. I paid GBP9 (concession price) to go in. The posters turned out to be prettier than the real thing. And the wonderful spring water tasted awful. However, I was rather thirsty and managed to gulp down the whole glass of warm spring water.

We left Bath late in the afternoon. After a brief stop at home to refresh, we headed out again in the evening to the port. We spent our time, strolling along the port and stopping to snap photos once in awhile. Seagulls can be heard calling from above. How I love their voices. They do give one a very sea-like feeling. On our way back, we detoured to a large field some distance away from the city centre. We were in luck as the sun was about to set. Probably one of those rare moments where I don't have to freeze to wait for the sun set.

Monday was Bristol day. My friend brought me to see the University of Bristol and around town. We climbed the Brandon Hill when the sun was right above our head to have a closer look of the famous Cabot Tower. Unfortunately, the tower was closed to public at the moment. Nevertheless, the view from the hill was still something not to be missed. The last stop I made was the SS Great Britain, UK's museum of the year in 2006. For only GBP5.65 (concession price), I can make numerous visit back to the museum for the next 12 months. Too bad my stay here is ending soon. Having seen the ship for myself, I can understand the charm it has on its visitors.

I almost missed my bus because of this visit. Luckily the bus was slightly delayed. Having bid my friend farewell, I boarded the bus for my 3 1/2-hour journey back to Warwick. These 3 days had been rather well-spent in the company of my friend and her family. Their hospitality made the trip more fulfilling.

What will you do?

2008-07-19T07:00:00.002+08:00

Today I met someone who experienced the Chengdu earthquake on May 12. This is his story...

"Suddenly, my room began to shake. I looked out the window and saw the other buildings swaying through and fro. As I was on the 8th floor, I may not be able to run down in time before the building came crumbling down. I realised at that moment that I was going to die. I called my family to tell them I love them. But my parents wouldn't believe that a strong quake would occur in Chengdu. I called my girlfriend and got a scolding for making up stories. When the news came on the television minutes later, they all knew I was telling the truth. But by that time, the phone was already disconnected, leaving my family distraught."

Surviving Spain

2008-07-09T21:48:00.006+08:00

Hot weather, crowded streets, stingy hotel owner, slow service, fairytale Gaudi...that pretty much summarises my idea of Barcelona.

Arriving late in the afternoon did not stop us from beginning to explore Barcelona thanks to the longer daylight. Our first stop was Port Vell. We busied ourselves enjoying the seabreeze and taking photos. Our first night was completed with a meal in Gloria Restaurant serving tapas and paella. Not bad.

The following day, we set off early to explore Port Olympic, further down from Port Vell, with a beach. There is really nothing much to see though and the beach isn't that great. The rest of the day was spent on a vineyard tour which cost €85 per person. Not sure if that is considered overcharged. We were driven into the countryside of Barcelona and made a stop at one of the vineyard as the guide wanted to explain some of the growing process involved. Don't think his explanation was that interesting. Then we headed to the wine factory to have lunch in the wine cellar (pretty cool) and to "make" our own bottle of cava. We were served five type of wines - white, red, rosey (?), cava and maskat (?). The food was terrific, served with a local potato pie (?), a myriad of iberian hams and some breads (something like bruschetta). I think we enjoyed the dessert the most, made of sweet, fresh peaches (grown from the host's farm) topped with some syrup.

Next, we moved on to the wine-making. Wasn't that difficult except for the uncorking part where we had to use our thumb to prevent the cava from spilling out. That's the cleansing process to get rid of the "mother". Nevertheless, it takes a lot of skill to be able to prevent minimal spillage and to repeat the process hundred/thousand times in a day. The day was ended with a shopping trip. Couldn't resist with all the sales going on...haha.

On the third day, we began the morning with a stop at the Arc de Triomf. Our initial plan was to be the early bird in the line to enter Picasso Museum. However, we were too early (there were hardly anyone around) and hence took a detour. By the time we got back to the museum (half an hour before opening), there was already a long line! Luckily, we were still considered early. Lucky still, it was the first sunday of the month and therefore, entry was free. The museum features some of Picasso's early work. An interesting attraction was his many interpretation of Las Meninas. Later, we took the furnicular and cable car up to Montjuic, a hill located near the centre of Barcelona. While there are many attractions up on the hill, our main purpose was to get a bird eye's view of the city (as usual). With some time (and money from the 10-trip train ticket) left, we headed to Parc Guell, the first of many of Gaudi's design which we were going to explore the following day. The walk from the station to the park proved to be a long one - about 1.5km and up the hill! But it was not wasted as the park proves to be one of a kind. We were greeted by the two gingerbread houses at the entrance. Inside were more interesting freatures such as a big lizard.

I think our theme for the fourth day was "Chasing Gaudi". Everything we saw on that day was designed by Gaudi, beginning with Sagrada Familia, followed by Casa Mila and completed by Casa Batllo. All his designs incorporate the nature theme. For example, the attic in Casa Mila is built to resemble the shape of a snake with it's spines serving as support for the roof. The view on the roof was even more interesting, surrounded by alien-looking chimneys! We did not go into Casa Batllo because of the steep entrance fee. Nevertheless, the exterior itself was worth the stop.

Dinner was a platter of seafood in a restaurant along the port. The spread was humongous. There was an overdose of mussels which we couldn't finish in the end. We also ordered a plate of paella in squid ink. Despite the blackish colour of the dish, it was oishii. I can't believe I ate it without knowing what's exactly inside.

While Barcelona did not appeal to me initially, towards the end, I am fascinated by it's creative occupants. Their form of arts are most peculiar, yet enchanting. I would love to have a Gaudi-styled home.

p/s: Love the photos taken by my friend.

Satisfaction is when...

2008-06-23T08:26:00.002+08:00

After more than a week being stuck with a model, I finally solved the whole thing today. Not entirely by myself but with a few pointers here and there from some really smart people. The feeling upon solving the whole thing is indescribable. I guess this is just pure joy of having a burden lifted. Best part is getting congratulated by my supervisor at 12.20am after I sent him the solutions :)

I just want to remember this moment...

To catch a thief

2008-06-19T04:18:00.002+08:00

Kitchen 117 had been invaded! At first, it was brushed off as a mistake by a member of their own. But now, via some sharing of info, they discovered the truth. There was a break-in. Among the things missing were a bar of kitkat, a bag of spinach and sausages from a pan of fried rice left on the counter.

SM: I think we should set up a bait.
PC: How to catch the person?
SM: Maybe we should put a "junk" wrapped in choc outfit and store inside the fridge.
PC: Right.
SM: I wonder why they stole LR's spinach but not my tomato...
PC: My bell peppers are still in the fridge too...
SM: So the question is what kind of person prefers spinach to tomato and bell pepper.
PC: The person also ate all the sausages from fah's fried rice which was lying on the counter.
SM: Right.
PC: And likes sweet things (kitkat bar)
SM: That's universal.
PC: Erm...ok
SM: The next question is if we do catch the thief, what do we do? Take photos?
PC: Hit him...real hard.
SM: You sure? Bout the hitting.
PC: I have an umbrella.
SM: Maybe we should yell loudly: thief! thief!
PC: I suppose...
SM: Or throw water?
PC: Good idea. I need a bucket.

At the same time...
FP: I think I am gonna leave some poison food outside.
JC: Good idea.
FP: I was really shocked. If they ate everything, it's alright. But they ate only the sausages!
JC: That is seriously shocking.
FP: I should have asked my friend to buy some laxatives pill from T***.
JC: Yeah, we can marinate your sausages in laxative pills.

PC: I am gonna keep my ears open from now on especially at night.
SM: Alright. I will keep an ear open as well. I don't mind since I sleep at 2am.
PC: I sleep at 1am. Maybe the thief comes at 3...
SM: ...

And so the member of kitchen 117 are on a mission now. To be continued...

First official personal meeting

2008-06-17T00:50:00.002+08:00

Believe it or not, I went through most the papers I was supposed to go through for my first meeting with my supervisor only this morning. Around 5 hours before the appointed time. That's the level of my laziness now (I call it post-exam trauma). Luckily, I survived after following him round the dept in search of empty room for our next group meeting and having a cup of tea at his insistence in the staff lounge.

To get into business, I think I might finally have a dissertation title. Quite a departure from the original idea. Now he is looking for "intellectual sketch", whatever that means. So, my works for these next few days are to try to solve Shin's model of two assets (in which he said a copy will be given to Dr. Rocket-Science-with-monotonous-tone to have a look and I am to send him a copy of my answer, darn) and to come up with a plan for my proposal to be presented on Thursday. The main theme is to analyse the difference between two very different models between Shin's marking-to-market problem and Foster & Young's faking alpha model. My contribution could be to find the link or the evidence supportive of either one model to tip the balance.

So, let's start sketching intellectually!

Second meeting

2008-06-14T04:05:00.002+08:00

Today is the second meeting of the consortium. 4 students presented their dissertation proposal. One of them came ready with presentation charts, complete with a model and results!!! At that moment, I feel that I should just sink into a hole and disappear. Too depressed with their apparent strong grasp of their subjects and their ability to modify models. Each of their stories seems to link together and weave into one final tale.

At the end of the presentations, me and 3 other students were asked to stay behind to have further discussion with our supervisor. He wanted us to come together to build a story of the credit crunch. He kept insisting on us working together. As a result of this, I am without a dissertation topic anymore. I wasn't sure how to move on with his continuous stream of new ideas. I need a certain topic by monday. Seriously...

Preliminary thoughts after listening to my prof and his argument with another student...

In Shin's model, moral hazard is not seen as a cause of the banking crisis, rather it's largely due to active balance sheet management. AH thinks that moral hazard is still part of the story because banks can gamble via SPV. What struck me is that we may be able to assume that banks were gambling without knowing it. There's a lot of talks bout the complexity of the structured financial assets that no one understands them. In the beginning, these sound like pretty good ideas for risk-sharing and most investors believed they had bought high quality assets given the perceived AAA ratings. So, it does sound as if no one was gambling if we agree to take this side of the argument. I am not sure how convincing the argument will be. Need to look into it further.

Punctuality

2008-06-13T08:37:00.002+08:00

I used to think it's a Malaysian problem. Now I realise it's a global problem. Everybody comes late, regardless of the occasion; late for class, late for meeting, late for appointment, late for anything that you and I can name in this world.

Our final class was held yesterday. The business school organised a class photography session and stressed in the email, asking us to be punctual. Yet, after we had taken our photo, a small group of my coursemates started appearing and we were asked to stay on for a second round. I do not know what was the reason for their lateness. In KL, we can blame the traffic jam. In a campus university where most of us stay 10 minutes away from the piazza, what kind of creative excuses can anyone conjure up? I can probably think of a few:

1. I stepped on bird shit when I walked out and had to run back to my room to change to a new pair of shoes.

2. The wind was blowing too hard that it's stopping me from moving forward.

3. A group of ducks were crossing the road and I am afraid of them. Hence, I let them crossed first.

I am not saying I have never committed this offense before. I just wish to say that if ever you are late, you do not expect people to turn back time for you.

Such an idiot

2008-06-13T00:58:00.003+08:00

I can't believe I missed the last class of my course!!! I did not overslept. I merely thought the class was being held at the same hour when it was actually moved to the morning. My friends did wonder where I went when I did not turn up. Largely because, they knew I never miss a class no matter how boring it will be.

This does not mean I am free. I still have two more projects to hand in by end of the month and I have yet to decide which topics to do. I am definitely going along with CAPM (since I have wasted my printing quota on the papers). I was planning on doing ARCH effect in stock prices till I missed the class (that's the final class) for this chapter. I am doomed. But having said that, I am qualified for my MSc already even if I failed this paper. Rules said we are allowed to fail one paper. Of course if I can help it, I will try not fail any.

Reverse of the law of large numbers

2008-06-10T03:13:00.002+08:00

I found this fascinating piece of news on FT today. Summarising the idea:

In general, the law of large numbers states that large sample size leads to convergence towards expected value. Reverse LLN, on the other hand, describes the reverse effect of LLN. In a market where there are many participants, herding behaviour reverses the LLN effect, moving the probability distribution away from normal towards the extreme tail end. Therefore, market views become unbalanced, tipping on either end of the extreme. This has implication on market prices, enabling prices to move away from equilibrium and hence, driving bubbles formation in the markets.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2005e96a-33f1-11dd-869b-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html?nclick_check=1

Mwy nag a welwch...

2008-06-08T05:11:00.004+08:00

Ringggg....my alarm went off. A thought crossed my mind. What if I text my friends now to tell them I have decided to skip the trip to Llandudno because I am too lazy to wake up? Didn't take me long to conclude that I do not want to waste the GBP12 I paid for the trip. The next thing I know, I was already on the way to Llandudno, the name of a place in Wales which I can't quite pronounce.

Wales greeted us with its stunning view of houses perched on top of mountains, a mine and a castle hidden among the trees. LLandudno offered us a nice, pure traditional town by the rocky seaside, the very epitome of timeless beauty. According to the owner of a souvenir shop (where I bought a cute little fishing boat magnet), the town has not changed since she was a little girl. That is really a long long time ago.

We began our journey by looking for a place to lunch and found a simple-looking restaurant offering fish and chips. Actually most of the shops there (except KFC) sell fish and chips. Next, we headed to the beautiful seaside to stroll along the rocky beach on the North Shore. Sea larks were everywhere. It was a joy to hear them calling out every now and then. Part of our mission of the day was to capture a proper photo of the sea lark. I have to confess that it's my first encounter with them.

After making a stop at the pier, we went up to Happy Valley to catch the cable car to the Great Orme (679 feet). The Llandudno cable car is the longest passenger cable car system in Britain, which is about 2 miles. The ride costs GBP6.50 for return and GBP6 for a single journey. The ride was nothing like the ride up Genting Highlands i.e. not scary. As our cable car glided up smoothly to the summit, we had the most amazing view of Llandudno, covering both the North and West Shore. Our photos will never be able to do justice to the view we saw nor explain my feeling at that point in time.

We continued to be amazed by the breath-taking view of this little resort town upon reaching the summit of the Great Orme. Had we had the time, we could have spent the day, lying on the big field, enjoying nature or take a hike down the mountain. But time was a luxury. By 3.40pm, we had to leave the summit. On our way down, we spotted some of the feral Kashmir goats, enjoying themselves under the bright, sunny day, chewing grasses. They were such pretty creatures.

The last few hours were spent on looking for souvenir shops and walking by the seaside once more. By then, the sun was glaring at us, making it difficult to take photos properly. We were glad we spent the best part of the day on the Great Orme and not in the castle. One regret was missing out the chance to see the West Shore where Alice Liddell's family own a house in the 1860's. There's still so much we wanted to do that we began looking at the prices of hotel. Thus far, we found mainly GBP30 per night per person for B&B.

If there's one place I am willing to depart with a coin to ensure my return, Llandudno will be it.

More than meets the eye...

First meeting

2008-06-06T17:06:00.002+08:00

As soon as my lecture ended, I ran or rather walked hastily to the social science building. My first meeting with my supervisor was starting at 4pm and according to the email from him, he can't postpone the session any longer as he had already did it once to accommodate the business school students. Upon arrival, he had just started handing out some forms for the students to fill in. There are more than 10 students in the room. I looked for a seat. He saw me and gestured me to the front row. Great.

He began the session by explaining to us the 3 big grouping of all our dissertation topics. Each of us was assigned to one of the supervisors who formed the consortium of three. "We want your help", he said. The meetings were designed to help one another, between students and supervisors and among students. We were encouraged to hold our own group discussion. I like that idea.

So, yesterday, he just went round the table asking each student to brief the group on his/her ideas. The ideas range from global macro to credit crunch to the oil market. When it came to my turn, I couldn't believe my own nervousness as if I wasn't prepared even though I had mindmaps and slides ready to be distributed. In the end, I did not distribute any as I was caught by surprise. Initially he said only students who had discussed with him will be speaking. Hence, I thought I won't need to say anything this round. I was wrong. Nevertheless, it was helpful to let him know my plan, allowing him to suggest papers to check out and to speak to another student working on similar topic.

For the next meeting, 3 students will be allocated 20 - 25 minutes each to present their ideas to the whole class. I am not one of the first three yet. Phew.

No more salmon

2008-05-30T04:47:00.002+08:00

When I went to tesco to get my groceries today, I found that the salmon price reduction had ended. So no more salmons for me till the next sale :(

On another note, price of milk went up by 5.3% to GBP0.80 (the last time I bought milk was mid-May). Meanwhile, 2 kg rice went up in price by 25% to GBP4.99. That's a massive increase. I am pretty sure the little asian shop in Cannon Park is maximixing it's monopoly position by "stealing" from students. And their failure to provide price tags for all the items on sale annoys me even more. I thought UK is pretty strict bout these things but I am so wrong.

Steam fish

2008-05-22T01:40:00.003+08:00

8 months later, I tried steam fish for the first time in UK. All I did was put the fish into the bowl, add some soy sauce and oil. Then I figured that I can't be bothered with cooking vegetables and ended up dumping the mushrooms in. And then, I needed to use up my tomato which was showing signs of expiring. Left the whole thing in a steamer for about 30 minutes and it's done. I think I could actually reduce the time since salmon can be eaten raw. Heavenly...

Post-exam pre-final celebration

2008-05-16T08:34:00.002+08:00

I have been wondering how it feels to be finally completing the whole examination process. Will I be elated? How will I react upon stepping out of the exam hall?

6 weeks had gone by since I began my exam prep. 6 long weeks, trapped within the four walls of my room, only to step out occasionally for survival and to fulfil my destiny (i.e. sit for the exam). I don't think many people can understand how painful and demotivating those times were. Many times, one began to question one's existence and purpose. But with each exam paper being completed, the painful journey became shorter. Yet, the agony continued to increase further. Towards the end, the spirit had already reached a new low. It was getting more and more difficult to memorise anything. Looking back, I couldn't understand now how I manage to cram in all those stuffs or how I can remember numerous equations and pages and pages of essays.

Day in, day out, I stuck to the same routine, 24/7. Sleep at 2am. Sometimes 3am. Wake up before 9am. Try to study each day with properly set out targets though I seldom meet my target of course.

The final paper had to be the most depressing paper I have taken throughout the whole process. Had the paper been held from the very beginning, my spirit will be destroyed to bits and there will be no more hope for the rest. It was not like I didn't read for it. I have been reading those stuffs at least thrice. Given more time, I still wouldn't be able to do it. So, what went wrong? Till now, I cannot figure it out. But it's over. That's a fact which I cannot change. I only hope that what I wrote did actually made sense despite not being sure of the final answer. Oh, and I had a paper cut on my wrist. That must have been a sign...

Unhappiness aside, having completed the final paper, a burden was lifted. Suddenly I found myself with time again in hand. Time to do proper, normal human things. Like shopping for grocery, taking a walk, lunching with friends etc. However, at that very moment, my whole body began to ache. I have been telling myself that I cannot fall sick during the exam period and it cooperated. Now, it's telling me I have to stop the strainous activity. Yet, here I am writing at 2am in the morning. Staying up late had became a habit which I will get rid of soon. Tomorrow.

And now some nice post-exam pictures. I know...it's always about food with me. I dunno why.

Gammon steak, Salmon

Lamb kebab

A moment to ponder

2008-05-13T22:43:00.003+08:00

It's been more than a month now since I started preparing for my exam. When was that? 4 April to be exact. The day I came back from London. The preparation has stretched so long that I am reaching my point of saturation. It doesn't help to see more and more of my friends who started the exam at the same time or some who started later, completing the whole process and are moving on with their life. Most of the postgraduates I know are in the final stage of the masters i.e. writing a dissertation. They have their titles in place, met their supervisors and did the presentation. While I am only beginning the process when the exam is over (it's still not over by the way).

At the same time, my course requires us to attend one more module which is "Research Technique in Finance". Nothing can be even more depressing than getting the email from the professor in the middle of the exam period, providing us with reading lists for the first two lectures, together with his lecture slides and the course outline which states that we have to complete two projects by 30 June, with around 3,000 words each! I finally understand why my dissertation length is shorter than most people. I did not get a better deal at all in this case.

Despite my unhappiness with the intensity of the course (I believe they are attempting to cramp too much in a one year program), I am glad that these 8 months had been a very fruitful time. Although I struggled day by day, I knew that not a moment was left idle for me to engage in empty activities. Time had become something really precious that every second counts. I have never had so much fun in learning, discovering new things every day or suddenly understanding a diagram my professor had drawn 45 minutes before the exam.

Lesson of the day: If you stare at something long enough or you keep reading the same material over and over again, you are bound to learn something new.

That's exactly what I am going to do for my final paper on Thursday.

Post-exam plan!

2008-05-12T03:45:00.002+08:00

A list of things I wanna do immediately after exam:

1. Have a Japanese-theme dinner party
2. Picnic by the lake in Kenilworth
3. Have a long walk on the field behind HB
4. Fox and deer-watching
5. Take photos of ugly ducklings before they disappear
6. Shopping for summer clothes

And finally, prepare for dissertation (yeah right!)

"Unofficial ritual"

2008-05-09T08:46:00.002+08:00

It's official. Driving out for a good dinner after a long tough exam has become our unofficial ritual to treat ourselves for the hardship we went through. Well...it's only our second time. The first time was after IFM in which we drove out to Kenilworth, looking for a nice pub for dinner. The second time was yesterday when we drove out to Coventry to have some persian food. Now we are ready for a third outing, immediately after the final paper on 15 May.

These outings represent the only time I can get away from my room for more than a km. For 7 days, the furthest I had been away from my room was the kitchen which is a door away. I shall repeat this same pattern for the next 4 days and I am certainly not looking forward to it. This will also mean I have not been grocery shopping for more than 2 weeks. How did I survive? Mainly on frozen food and instant noodles. In between, I found some angels, who offers me fresh cooked food and who buys me grocery. I am truly grateful for their help. Without them, I would not have the energy to carry on. Mom must have been praying real hard for someone to ensure that her daughter does not return thinner than she was.

If working is hazardous, try doing a master.

A spoonful of coffee

2008-05-02T10:06:00.002+08:00

Music: Spoonful of coffee helps to keep you up all night. To keep you up all night. Keep you up all night...

Tiramisu making-process

2008-05-02T01:22:00.004+08:00

Left: Preparing the coffee using an Italian coffe-making "machine"
Right: The breads (not really "savoiardi")

Left: Arranging breads soaked in coffee into the tray
Right: Pouring the cream (made of mascarpone cream, sugar, eggs)

Sprinkling cocoa powder onto the tiramisu as a final touch. Keep in fridge.

Halfway thru the nightmare!

2008-04-29T00:24:00.002+08:00

Today, I have officially completed all my papers for the finance side after having nightmares bout it! Well, no, I didn't dream of being chased by exam papers, or failing every single tests or arriving late or any kinds of nightmares related to exam that I can think of. It's just an expression to say I have been under tremendous stress. I can't remember CFA being this difficult. Burning the midnight oil...fill up my room with notes all over...my friend was shocked when she came by yesterday...she thought I have gone crazy...of coz I am still sane...else, I won't be writing now.

Next paper will be on 8 May. Econometrics which i haven't touch at all. I thought I have been having a bad time with the exam but now I am consoled having found out that students from FM had to finished 6 papers in a week. I think that's crazy and am blessed not to have chosen that course.

Time for some relaxation before the next round of battle....

New look

2008-04-23T07:56:00.003+08:00

Today is the start of my final exam. Two subjects compressed into one 3-hour paper, to answer 6 questions. A total of 20 weeks worth of lecture. I think it's crazy. I cannot understand the rationale for compressing two subjects in one paper especially given that there's minimal link between these two subjects.

The intensity has led me to re-decorate my room. Yes, re-decorate.

Panic!

2008-04-21T03:01:00.002+08:00

I began to panic yesterday when I realised I had misunderstood an exam question while preparing a sample answer for it. Today, I am seriously panicking when I looked at past papers on macroeconomics! I thought it should be relatively easy since I had done a round of studying for it before the Easter break. But I am soooo soooooo wrong. I can't answer the question at all!!! What's wrong??? I need to calm down...deep breath...inhale, exchale...need to clear my mind...

Kimchi fried rice

2008-04-17T05:46:00.003+08:00

My modified recipe (more like simplified) for kimchi fried rice:

First, stir-fry some diced onions in oil. Then add in the kimchi. Stir-fry for awhile. After that, remove the kimchi from the pan and put in the rice. Add egg. Fry the rice till the egg is well mixed with the rice. Finally, add back the kimchi and fry for a while more. The kimchi fried rice is ready to be served :)

My first kimchi soup

2008-04-15T20:44:00.004+08:00

Running low on fresh food. Hence, had to open my bag of kimchi. Found a recipe from internet. Check it out:

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 teaspoon Korean sesame oil 1 cup cabbage pickle (Kimchi) 1 garlic clove, crushed
1/4 pound boneless pork, sliced thin 3 cups water 1 scallion, cut into 3-inch pieces
1 firm chinese soybean curd, cut into 9 cubes 6-8 small clams, optional but recommended

1 Put the sesame oil in a saucepan and stir-fry the kimchi over moderate heat for 1/2 minute. Add the garlic and pork and continue to fry as the meat changes color.
2 Now add the water, bring to a boil, and cook for 10 minutes. Add the scallion, bean curd, and clams if used, and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes more.
3 Serve warm with rice.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Amor.iQn08olH_u8z5nTvZR56xR.;_ylv=3?qid=20080212121130AAMhTaA

Result: Love it. Although it's not as spicy as I hope it would be. Probably I put too much water as I did not follow the recipe closely. Pardon the soup in the rice as I was too lazy to use extra bowl as it will mean I need to wash another bowl :P

A tub of Ben and Jerry

2008-04-12T08:00:00.002+08:00

It was on sale again! But not as good as the last one. Still...it's a good bargain. I checked the RRP. It's GBP4.39 now! That's a 10% inflation from the price I last saw in the beginning of the year at GBP3.99. My friend said it could be a gimmick to give the illusion of higher discount. I wonder what's the true explanation. Will know once the sale is off. I managed to finish a whole 500ml tub of Bohemian Raspberry. This was rather unexpected as I was not meant to step out from my flat for two weeks.

Snow and curry

2008-04-06T22:13:00.003+08:00

It snowed again early this morning. I was awaken by the ringing from my handphone. It was my flatmate, telling me to look out the window. I checked the clock. It was 3am. I dragged myself out from bed, still half-asleep and true enough, the snow was falling rather heavily. By that time, there's probably an inch or more on the ground. Someone was out there having some fun. I grabbed my camera and started recording but it was too dark to see anything.

About half an hour ago, I saw specks of snow again. Unfortunately, this time, it stayed for only 5 minutes before the sun started shining brightly again. According to weather forecast, we will be getting snow again tonight. I thought it's spring now. If I am a flower, I will be so confused by the weather. Did I spring up from my slumber too early?

Got inspired by a friend to cook curry today. It's only my second try in my 7 months here. Turned out pretty well I must say though it's not hot enough.

Moving clouds

2008-04-06T02:24:00.003+08:00

I just spent more than a minute watching the clouds moved by. Is it just my imagination or clouds do move faster here? If these thick, grey clouds stayed for awhile, the weather forecast might be right - that we will be getting sleet showers tonight and hopefully snow tomorrow. But tonight is still not here yet as the sky is still bright out there eventhough it's already 7.30pm. Quite a contrast from the beginning of the year when I had to walk back from class in the dark at 5 plus. How I dread those days.

Murano in Venice, Food in Florence and Culture in Rome

2008-04-02T04:23:00.007+08:00

8 hours later, we returned to our comfort zone...The past 10 days had been extremely hectic but not without it's worth.

Chasing the sunset in Venezia

Our arrival in Venice was greeted by a sight almost reminiscent of Penang. Fear not as the view within the island was actually too charming for words. Knowing that most first-timers will get lost in Venice even with a map, we set out to search for our hostel, hoping that we can find it quickly to waste no time of catching a proper sight of the city. And we were lucky. The hostel was family-run with an extremely beautiful interior design. Having dropped off our luggages, we went to the owner to get direction on places of interest only to be told not to ask for road names as the road names changes every few steps. No wonder people get lost.

We spent most of our time walking around, locating important landmarks, finding the perfect murano gifts and chasing the sunset. The weather was quite a let-down as there seemed to be more gloom than sunshine. Nevertheless, the chase for murano glass gave us most of the fun. I believe we visited at least half of the murano glass shop in Venice. The best part was me passing the same store thrice. The first time, having spotted some EUR0.21 postcards, I decided to wait before making my purchase. The second time was to buy the postcard and the last time was to get some murano glass jewellery. We never got onto any gondola due to its price tag (EUR80 for an hour ride). That was a big too much.

Unimpressed in Firenze

We got lost in Florence!!! Only because we were given a useless map. In the end, we had to turn back to the train station to purchase a map (the next day we discovered that we were cheated as we could have gotten a free map from one of the tourism office nearby some attractions).

Our sunset chase in Venice continued in Florence. This time, the weather was better. However, the wait on top of the bell tower was just crazy and my friend, being so engrossed in capturing the perfect sunset moment, forgot to enjoy the moment itself.

On the very next day, we met the famous David for the first time after lining up for half an hour. He was magnificent. Such a huge sculptor. For the next few hours of the day, we met David (a copy) again in a piazza and later a green David at the Piazale Michaelangelo. But the first David is the grandest among them all.

The best thing ever happened to us in Florence was the food. First was the stop for dinner in Marione (via della spada). Our original plan was to eat in the highly-recommended Il Latini. However, upon arrival, we found a whole group of people waiting for the restaurant to open. That's how famous the restaurant is. Due to our hunger and also the slightly more expensive price tag, we decided to eat in the other recommendation, Marione which turns out to be amazing. First, we shared a plate of pecorino with pink mustard which had a fruity taste. Our next course was ribollita, a local soup which was amazing (I can't describe the taste but it remains in my mind). Finally, we were served the juicy, crispy house special bistecca, Florentine-style beef steak. It was totally worth the price we had to pay.

This dinner cost us most of our allowances for the rest of the trip that we had to survive on free breakfast from the hostel and cheap dinner also from the hostel everyday. No lunch. But it wasn't that bad. For the morning breakfast, we were given a choice to pick from a range of set menu ranging from french toast to scrambled eggs and toast to croissant. On top of that, we get buffet consisting of pasta, fruits, cakes, chips, salads and biscuits. The most wonderful breakfast I had for the entire trip. For dinner, we opted for the super menu consisting of pasta, pollo arrosto and a dessert for EUR6. It was rather surprising to have such delicious food coming from a cheap youth hostel.

On our final day in Florence, we finally managed to find a lampredotto stall (largely because we spotted a sign saying roti perut lembu. I was wondering how I suddenly managed to understand those words. anyway...). We ordered one to be shared and it turned out to be one of the most amazing roti perut lembu I have ever tried (actually the only one I have ever tried). Cost us EUR3. Why are we being so cheapo? That was because we just spent almost our entire allowance on food again when we stumbled upon a market selling local specialties. The owner from a stall named perrini was such a great salesman. He kept stuffing us with free samples till we couldn't resist from falling into his trap and ended up with pecorino and fruity mustard. Further strolling took us into some pasta shop with us emerging out with pasta sauce and italian monument pasta.

Free in Roma

Rome was...huge and uphill with lotsa people and dangerous drivers. We checked into Alessandro Downtown which is on facebook and situated in an area with lotsa asian shops. We thought we were in chinatown. Our first stop in Rome was the Spanish steps which was hardly visible amid the sea of humans. That was rather disappointing. The same phenomena was spotted at the Fontana di Trevi. There were just TOO MANY tourists in Rome, tainting our first impression of Rome. Luckily, our trip turned out better later when we found out from our roommate that due to the cultural week, we could go into any museums for free!!! It was then we realised our free entry into Galleria dell'Accademia was not because we were early. So, our mission for the next few days was to hop on, hop off any museums (including the Coliseum) along our way.

On sunday, following the daylight saving thing, we overslept and arrived pretty late at the Vatican City, causing us 1 1/2 hours wait before we could enter. Nevertheless, the trip was another saving as entry is free every last sunday of the month. The place is really huge as we had to walk past many rooms before finally reaching the Sistine Chapel to see Michaelangelo's great painting. By about 1.30pm, we were done and ready to leave when I felt a sudden urge to grab a postcard and send back home. It felt like once in a lifetime chance at that moment to get something sent from within the city. And the guard was kind enough to let me in even though they had already put up a barrier to prevent entry into the post office. I conclude that people from the Vatican City are very nice (also from experience on the following day).

Monday was our final day to roam around Rome and we just did a bit of walking as we overwalked the previous day. The main itinerary was to see St Peter Basilica. It was also the final day of the cultural week which started on 25 May. We ended the day early to take proper rest before our long journey back to London on April's Fools. Also, to wait for the free pasta party offered by the hostel i.e. rock bun (known as rosetta) and overcooked pasta.

Wrapping up

There's been ups and downs on our trip to Italy. Some general observations:

1. Water cost more in Venice (EUR1.50 for 1.5l) than in Florence (EUR0.80). In Rome, found a korean supermarket selling the water for EUR0.80 on our second last day in Italy.

2. Old Italian men are so impatient. In Venice, we were looking at some murano glass plates and the owner came out to tell us to hurry as he doesn't have all day (it was only 11 plus in the morning!). In Florence, the waiter in Marione tried to hurry us too. Geez. Went into a tabachi to ask for direction only to be chased away by the owner when he found that we are not interested in buying anything.

3. Entry to toilets are expensive! In Venice, we have a choice to buy a Venice card which allows us to get discounts for certain attractions, unlimited ride for the water taxi and best of all TWO toilet entry per day. We opted to walk back to our motel during midday as we stayed on the island.

While there's more attractions here, the place is not as tourist-, student-, and foreigner-friendly as in Germany. If I ever go back, it will be to Venice for its small town charm and generally nicer people and also back to Mercato Centrale in Florence for the super amazing food.

I need Mary

2008-03-20T02:15:00.002+08:00

Seriously...without classes, I am a lost sheep

Let's see what I did today:

Watched more "House" (I am finishing season 1 soon).

Made syrup for the grass jelly I got for my birthday. Taste good. Reminds me of home although the weather now ain't so suitable. I am doing a bit more cooking because I bought some new pots from Ikea yesterday. Cost me GBP5.99 for 3 pots. Love it.

Met my professor to discuss about my dissertation proposal. He was ok with it but cautioned that theoretical approach is gonna be more difficult than empirical. I know it's gonna be a tough one to write after reading just two papers but no pain no gain. If I do fail, then fine. At least I have tried. Next step is to convince the professor I want to be my supervisor. Time is running out...

Went to pick up my online book orders from the post room. So excited bout it although these aren't fictional books. I think it's because I shopped and I am finally getting my goods, not so much bout being able to start studying.

Got a belated birthday gift! Environmental Protection Cutlery Set...all the way from Taiwan. What's is that? It's a pair of chopstick and a spoon. According to my friend, it's a common thing to have in Taiwan. As part of the government's effort to promote environment preservation, the people are encouraged to carry their own utensil set to restaurants including lunch boxes. Customers who do so will get 10% off their meals. Disposal chopsticks are being phased out (not sure if there's still any available now). Plastic bags are no longer available in supermarkets. In UK, the supermarkets are also encouraging their customers to use environment-friendly bags. Good for them. Perhaps, Malaysia will follow suit soon.

Price changed in 12 hours

2008-03-18T20:13:00.002+08:00

5. "Lectures on Macroeconomics" from GBP25 to GBP27 (8%) - I last checked the price when I was writing the previous blog and when I checked again just now, the price had changed.

Inflation: up, up and away

2008-03-18T08:07:00.005+08:00

Goodness! Everything is happening so fast. In just a blink of an eye, prices just skyrocketed. Let's take a look at some price changes:

1. Nissin instant noodles from GBP0.29 to GBP0.32 (+10%)
2. Iceland Pizza from GBP0.80 to GBP1 (+25%) - On 7 March, the price was still the old price but I discovered the new price yesterday.
3. "The Economics of Exchange Rates" from GBP26.59 to GBP27.99 (+5.3%) - I bought the book on 9 March and when I checked today, the price had changed. I should have bought it at the beginning of the year when it still cost around GBP21 but I hesitated as I was running low on fund.
4. Set dinner in Varsity from GBP5 to GBP5.50 (+10%)

I shall attempt to continue tracking the changes in the price of goods.

On another note, today has been a good day. First day of temporary liberalisation. I did nothing in the morning. Took brunch (seriously unlike me as I tend to eat a lot). Watched "House" (totally addicted to the show now). Checked the mailbox and discovered, to my delight, my books from Amazon had arrived. Yippee...and it's all for my upcoming final exam...nothing fictional at all! Then, headed to Tesco for grocery shopping as I can no longer bear eating frozen or instant food. I should mention at this point that my thoughtful flatmate made dinner for me last Tuesday, knowing that I didn't have time to cook. Next, went to the business school to help a friend besides printing journals for my dissertation (Okay, so I am officially a nerd. I have no choice). The day ended with an end-of-term party in the students' lounge. It was quite cool relaxing in the lounge as most of us realised we never took time to appreciate the design of the place amid our rush for classes. Kinda sad that it's coming to an end...

Submitted

2008-03-17T08:03:00.005+08:00

DONE! At 12.01am.

Deadline is 12 noon. But I can't bear keeping it with me any longer. I need to get rid of it and I did. After working on this project for almost a month, I am finally relieved from the torture chamber. I am amazed how some people can just spend months looking at data set, generating results. Takes a lot of patience. Unfortunately, I am not those kind. I'll rather manipulate my data if I can. Oops.

It's pretty crazy. I started with a simple analysis on the relationship between spot and futures prices in the crude oil market. I picked this title based on my naive belief that since the data is easy to obtain, I will have no problem working on it. Little did I know that it brings me to a whole lot of dead-ends till I have to abandon the project two weeks before due date to start on another topic which is to correct for the problem I found in the first place. Apparently, the non-normality in my residuals are due to the presence of volatility clustering in the series itself (which is proven by a number of findings). Therefore, correcting it is beyond my ability and perhaps the scope of the course.

That was a big risk since the lecturer had just started teaching the methodology. So, I had to do a lot of readings on my own. I just couldn't bear going back to attempting to achieve success in obtaining a correctly specified VAR. It was not a decision to be regretted. ARCH and GARCH is not that difficult after all since I am not trying to re-model the whole regression. Just too bad my lecturer never did went into much details. So, I had a bit of hard time trying to decipher the results.

Nevertheless, it has reached an end...for now as I fear my next two projects could be related to testing PPP or UIP. Sigh...

The end...not quite

2008-03-17T05:40:00.005+08:00

Finally, it's the end of the term. No more classes after this. Well...there's one more but that's for research purpose, not for exam.

This term has been a truly hectic term. Yet, there's so much more satisfaction despite the rush. I think partly it is because I am finally adapting myself back to the education environment. Calculations no longer felt impossible, theories no longer senseless. Everything starts to piece together that I am able to appreciate the learning process more.

In addition, I think I have changed. I am less lazy compared to last time. I make an effort to read before and after lectures as much as I can. Books, journals, papers...I try to read it all (I feel so bookish...goodness, what is the school doing to me???). And I also attempt to understand what I learnt and if I still can't understand, I seeked clarifications from the professors. These little meetings have been truly beneficial. Take my last monday meeting with a maths professor for example. Had I not gone to see him, I would never have figured out how to solve the complicated differential equations he set for us in the second seminar (OK, I admit I still slack but there has been tremendous improvement). After more than an hour working on the question (it was only ONE question), I managed to arrive at his answer. At that point, maths does not feel like an enemy anymore.

Had I not make a point to meet this macroeconomic lecturer of mine, I would never have gotten an interesting idea for my dissertation proposal. It's interesting to note how things will turn out sometimes. This idea makes me want to work as hard as I can to get it through. It's not going to be an easy journey. Like my professor said,"It's a challenging topic". Up till now, I have only a vague idea on what I want to do. But, I am convinced, if I work hard enough for it, something will turn out. Strange how I sometimes like to take the road away from norm eventhough I like being in the norm. Not entirely my own choice though...

The course has also made me realise how intelligent the phd students are and how hard and dedicated they are in pursuing their interest. I know it was a tough journey but now I know it takes a lot of passion and perseverence to be able to complete it. Having to face irritating students just compound that painful journey. And yet, these people seem to face it with such optimism. So too do lecturers who are sometimes bombarded by rude remarks or silly questions.

This whole program has certainly changed my outlook towards the academia world.

p/s: Not quite the end as I have not submitted my econometric project which is due tomorrow. I am just waiting to click the send button now.

More than I bargained for

2008-03-11T02:59:00.002+08:00

It's exam week again. But this time, I thought I should make an effort to meet some of my lecturers to clarify my doubt. Little did I know that a simple meeting as this will result in a dissertation title. While this is not exactly my forte, the topic is certainly interesting and feasible and fresh although it may involve more research and diagrams than I may want to do in two months. So, the next step is complete my tests and econometric project before starting work on the dissertation. Amazing how things will work out sometimes.

Excited over mathtype

2008-02-29T10:29:00.002+08:00

Believe it or not, I managed to finish my first essay in many months today. It came up to almost 1000 words. That wasn't so bad. The most interesting thing was that I am driven to finish the essay because of a new software which allows me to write cool equations on word! Anyway, too tired to write more now...

In darkness...

2008-02-28T05:49:00.002+08:00

First the internet. Then, the earthquake. Now, the electricity. What's happening?

At about 2.30pm today, almost the entire campus was affected by power failure. I was in the middle of a seminar when the room lights went off. As we could still get natural light into the room, our lessons continued. Half an hour later, I discovered that I can't go back to my residence because there weren't electricity there too. The only place we could go to was the learning grid and so we headed there. Although the power was restored about an hour later, some system remained down. I am just pleased the internet is working.

These experiences hadn't been interesting at all to me. Now I have started keeping a small torchlight nearby in case there's another power failure in the middle of the night. This is really getting tiresome.

BBC: Reports of tremors felt in west midlands. More soon

2008-02-27T09:01:00.004+08:00

Initially it was small. I thought I was dreaming. Then my table shook!!! Not having a second thought, I ran out of my room to ask if anyone else felt it. Such a horrible feeling.

From BBC (1.26am)
"People from across large parts of England have reported an earth tremor.
The BBC has received calls from people in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Manchester, Berkshire and the West Midlands about a "quake".
The tremor could be felt in central Birmingham at about 0100 GMT but it is unclear if it has caused any damage.
The West Midlands was hit by an earthquake in 2002 in the Dudley area that reached 5.0 on the Richter scale and caused damage to homes."

I did something illegal and so I got disconnected

2008-02-26T05:53:00.002+08:00

Not really...I just frightened myself. It all began when my visiting friends told me they can't access internet after watching movie online. Although I appeared calm and composed, I was very very worried that my internet connection had been terminated without notification. Having spent the whole morning worrying, I finally discovered that the whole campus was offline. Phew!

And thus began a long day of isolation. It was supposed to be a good time for studying. Yet without internet, anxiety set in. It was like being cut off from civilisation. When I discovered that I am still connected via Skype, I was ecstatic. Life returned to normal.

However, this episode made me realised something. I can't live without internet and I believe this is an unhealthy condition.

Yuan xiao jie kwai le

2008-02-22T06:20:00.004+08:00

Last day of Chinese New Year...

Wonder what did my family do today...

I had such a wonderful dinner tonight. This has got to be the most luxurious meal I have ever had in UK. I made bak kut teh for the second time and turned out much better. Will continue to improve on it though my friends seemed horified by the 3 huge garlic in the soup. Meanwhile, my very creative flatmate tried a new dish - fried oyster in tempura batter. The dish was fine except that the oyster had a really strong smell. Probably not fresh enough. Another friend made two dishes - baked duck (yes, duck!!!) and pork slice with bean sprout in sichuan sauce. The meal was completed by tang yuan (glutinous rice ball) in rice wine. It was my first time eating tang yuan this way and tasted mighty strange. Nevertheless, I managed to finish a whole bowl. Too full now. Need to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ingenious!

2008-02-21T08:37:00.002+08:00

Of all the birthday gifts I have ever received, this has got to be the most creative and well-suited for my current situation...something which rightly expresses my desire...This is truly from friends who understands you and who cares enough to notice this simple, basic necessity. So, thank you to my dear, dear friends. Words cannot express my gratitude at this moment.

Older and wiser?

2008-02-20T08:00:00.001+08:00

I was hating my birthday a few minutes ago but now...I am not sure anymore.

First, it's nice to have people staying up late just to wish you whether by phone or by knocking on your door. So now I am committed to a dinner tomorrow. Hmm...big dilemma.

Second, getting an unexpected wish from an unlikely person can be a strange surprise. Am I happy? I think I should be but it's just strange...I fear growing older may not make me wiser but rather more cynical. It's not a healthy thought which I have to work very hard to discard. How does one control one's perception? I don't know how, neither do I know if I will even try.

Should I or should I not?

2008-02-16T09:43:00.002+08:00

The big question is whether I should spend GBP7.99 on a book to get it autographed by the author and perhaps another GBP9 for another book by another author. I think I shall be thinking bout this the whole night. I have till 10am tomorrow...