Ok no more school.. and abit of myself...

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for many nice and interesting comments. It was certainly very heartwarming to hear from all of you. I haven't been updating this site for a while partly because my internet can be rather quirky at times.. I can spend like 10 minutes writing up the stuff, and when i post it, it just shows me the "this page cannot be displayed" sign. Grrrr.

For all your information, I am settling in very well here and starting to get used to being alone in a foreign country. Perhaps that isn't totally accurate, because I am starting to find new friends from all around the world, and also new friends from my home country. Meals are also coming along well. I have formed a cooking group of three. One is my good buddy and fellow officer Edwin, the one that all of you wouldn't know is Feng Li from China, and of course, myself. Meals are planned on every Saturday of the week, with each of us three taking 2 days (sunday we eat out and relax). On Sunday morning, a breakdown of the required ingredients will be gathered into a grocery list and we go shopping! I'm learning how to cook, and I must say very honestly... I'm not that good at it. Yet. =) But no fear! I shall practice and experiment at the expense of my cooking group, who are my greatest critics. We try to give each other constructive advice on what's not too nice with our cooking, and how we can make it better the next time we try it. And hopefully this constructive criticism will decrease as the days go by.

AGJJ, nope I am not a civil engineer.. nor am I an architect. I just dun usually take many pictures of me in them. But due to popular demand... I shall make (a few) exceptions. Haha. I'll be posting up some nice pics of museums and parks near Imperial College, and no... sorry to disappoint all of you I didn't take any pictures of the squirrels here. I should work harder, before they go into hibernation. hehehe. okie pictures from the parks and museums!

The Imperial College Medicine faculty.. I think. Dun really know my way around school totally yet.. The glass structure shows the glass elevators within, it's mechanisms.. and passengers. The Queen's Tower features prominently as a reflection, that's why you can't really see those elevators. =P 

This building is the administration building of Imperial College. I think. Nothing much to it, it's just colourful and nice. So took it down for you to see. =) 

The Queen's Tower from the other side. At the foot of the tower are two stone Lions. I think they're like supposed to be guarding the tower and stuff. Just for laughs, we went to take all the pictures on a Sunday, so that we won't look ridiculous snapping pictures like tourists on a schoolday. But it was good, without having people constantly walking past your pictures. =) 

Autumn in Imperial. The leaves are starting to change colour here, and beginning to drop. The tower you see at the backdrop is the Queen's Tower. Located in a large grass patch known as the Queen's Lawn, this imposing structure is the landmark of Imperial College London. 

The side of Imperial College where the Tanaka Business School and Mech Eng Building are situated (Walk towards the white poles and enter through the nice sliding doors on your left.) I was wondering why the Tanaka Business School was called the Tanaka Business School... there is this guy living on my floor called Toshi Tanaka from England, and his dad is pretty rich. I thought it was his father who made some donation or something, but it's not. It's someone else, a former student of imperial who donated something like a sum of about 30 million pounds? You know what to do now?? hehehe.  

End of Boat Trip, Now to School!

So much for the boat trip, hope that you all enjoyed the pictures that I posted. Some of the pictures aren't very good, but I hope that the beauty is able to make up for the lack of photography skill. U may be wondering why I haven't appeared in any of my pictures yet... Don't worry i have them.. Just that I haven't posted them up yet. It will be up soon! After the first Sunday in London, it was time to go to school. Running around for most parts of the day, mainly due to me getting lost repeatedly in the London streets (the buildings are really quite similar...) and the mazy corridors of school. Getting my phone, internet, bank account set up and finding ways and means to call home, made my week really hectic. The first few days of school were fraught with uncertainty, with many changes happening so quickly, I had to make decisions without consulting/informing my family like I used to. The most disappointing of which was finding out that I couldn't continue with the french programme that I was on. Initially, I was supposed to study 2 years in England, followed by a year in France, and my final year in England. However, the application process totally overlooked the fact that I have no qualifications in french, where in fact i was required to have a minimum GCSE Level in french to qualify. I could still try to do french, but it would have been a terrible 4 year catch up race with the more experienced french students. So i decided to focus on management and aero. And pulled out of the french programme, a decision that was tough, but perhaps necessary? only time will tell. Okay enough of the boring stuff. Last week I went for an evening jog with Edwin and my roommate Ruben. Running from hall to school, then to the nearby Hyde Park and Kensington Park, I took many pictures for your viewing pleasure.

I wish you were all here to share this with me, to run with me through the London streets, cool air brushing past your face, to admire its beauty, the lush greenery of the parks with its elegant swans and adorable bushtailed squirrels. Meanwhile, this is the best that I can do for now. Miss you all at home. Enjoy.

The picture isn't very clear here, but if you see the traffic light things at the far down the picture, those represent the mouth of River Thames. In times when the water level rises too much, a barrier will be raised so that the river will not overflow its banks. I think that's what it's for, if I remember correctly... please correct me if i'm wrong ok? =) This was the furthest we went on our boat trip.. at the moment i took this picture, the boat was just doing a u-turn to go back.  

Further down River Thames, (or is it up? Hmm. not sure about that) we arrived at the famous Millenium Dome! The infamous white ketupat with it's satay sticks (the english will kill me for calling it that...) seems to be having some problems attracting the crowds. If i ever do go there, I'll keep you all posted. Did James Bond do something on this building? He couldn't have slid around the roof without getting entangled in the wires could he? hmmm... zi tou luo wang...  

The tower bridge on the return trip. As you can see, it is at night already. Many people are dancing in the party boat, while I was getting refrigerated at the helm of the ship by the wind chill and taking pictures. No life rite... =P And at this moment, I was aware that the London Bridge was coming up soon, and I took pictures of it! But it was really too dark, so i'm not going to post it up, but if you still wish to see the REALLY DARK pictures of London Bridge, I have them. =) 

Coming up next is the impressive Tower Bridge, in front of which is the battleship HMS Belfast. Just asked my room mate Ruben about whether the HMS Belfast is still in service, and he told me that it is now a museum. Isn't it amazing how little I know?! Just for info, the London Bridge is behind me when I took this picture. As I said... it's so normal looking that I totally missed it. At that moment I understood the song "...London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down..." =p 

Next up along the journey is the giant Ferris Wheel, known as the London Eye. Lovely and huge, I have complete pictures of it, but this shot is to give you an idea of its size and proportion. I think u may get dizzy when you reach the top of the wheel. It spins really slowly, and I can only assume that the view is great. Would love to go on it someday...  

As promised, the clock tower... Looks grand doesn't it?! yeah luckily I didn't eat so much, so I managed to come out of the bottom level early enough to catch this grand structure! I also have a video of the Buckingham Palace, at night though, so please do ask me for it too if you see me online. 

After dinner, I came out just in time to catch Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately I couldn't catch all of it in one shot, cos it's rather long... so the nice clock tower on the right is coming up next... 

This is a picture of the boat. It is what they call a "party boat". Split into two levels, the top level is like a dance floor, with large speakers as you can see on the top right of the picture with nice colour spotlights that change colours like disco lights. The lower level is like a lounge, where you sit down and eat, or chat, and you can buy drinks like vodka and alcoholic stuff... the only thing i would by there is... pepsi. but i didn't... a rather thirsty trip, but thoroughly enjoyable. Although you can't hear it in this picture, the music was really loud, playing songs like shut up (black eyed peas) and toxic (britney) and so on. This picture isn't good, but i was unable to find a nice angle to capture the effect of it all. I have a video of it. So if you're interested, pls let me know on MSN or email me yeah? 

Bernard Sunley House

Moving into Bernard Sunley House was an interesting experience. I came in and my roommate hasn't arrived yet.. So I got to choose which bed I wanted, and the table too! It was an interesting wait because i was rather curious what kind of guy my room mate would be. I read his name from the door .. Guang Wei Quek. Sounds rather Singaporean/Malaysian/Hongkonger etc... I went downstairs to the ground floor to check out the pictures of the new occupants and he looked rather Singaporean/Malaysian/Hongkonger too. I couldn't really tell. All I knew about the hall then was that it had a free pool table. FREE!! Yup. Fear not because I will soon take pictures of the hall and load them up! It would look pretty weird to everyone if someone strange just starts snapping pictures of them and their activities. At least if I know them it's not too bad I guess. =) OKOK... I just didn't take pictures of my hall yet. hehe. Now that I'm starting to know my room mate better, and he's a really great guy. I was correct in his nationality, cos he's a Singaporean. He has like... 11 cousins and uncles here in England, so he has everything!!! I told him I have a rice cooker, and he tells me "oh.. i have also, microwave version. I also have an.. Oven Toaster. I also have something for celebration purposes... STEAMBOAT!!!" I fainted. But he is really so helpful and willing to share... with my miniscule experience in living alone, least of all to make all my own meals and cook my own dinner (my mum looked after me really well! okay and dad too... okay and sis too... hhehehe thanks to my lovely family.) On the second day of staying in Bernard Sunley House (a sunday) , the seniors (known to us as sub-wardens and re-apps) organised a free breakfast for hungry freshers like me! and in the evening, they organised a boat trip down River Thames. Of which i shall update you all shortly... but in summary, the view was great, Buckingham Palace was grand, the Tower Bridge looks so impressive! But the famous London Bridge looked so ordinary I missed it. -_-!!!

Almost an identical picture... and taken around the same time too... but note the jet aircraft flying over the rainbow. Fantastic luck! I think it's a lovely picture! But my roommate says it looks really creepy.... hmmm. Looks like i'm an optimist. 

Shortly after arrival, Edwin and I had to lug our stuff about 400 m to our new home for the next 9 months. For Ed, it was Southwell Hall, and for me, it's the Bernard Sunley House. Located in the beautiful region of Evelyn Gardens, the area is so peaceful (usually) that I found out that I actually snore in my sleep. (something that never happened, or was never found out, back home! Ashamed of myself... for sleeping like a pig). Unfortunately... I haven't taken the time down to take other pictures of my room or parts of the hall yet... so i'll leave this picture taken by a fren of mine, after a London evening shower, above Evelyn Gardens.. somewhere near my hall. =) 

My first few days in London were terrible. Homesick, lovesick and not knowing where my next meal was coming from, the two lovely ladies here are Edwin's aunt and mum.They helped Edwin and myself to settle in. Staying in Gainsborough Hotel, they bought us food and more, allowing us to gradually stock up our refrigerators and focus on settling urgent matters like bank accounts, internet... and duvets! Many thanks to these two angels... 

Further down the journey as we enter more built up areas, english houses and nice cars starts to appear. In this photo, I deduced that curb-mounting is an essential pre-requisite to passing the driving test. You've gotta park that car some where... Right? 

On the bus ride to the Royal Borough of Chelsea and South Kensington. Lovely country houses and lots of greenery along the journey. Jet trails in the sky are a common sight. 

Welcome to Britain! Awating for the HoteLink bus to bring us to a certain Gainsborough Hotel, Edwin with his mum and aunt, (with me tagging along) sit out the wait. At 0815, the bus arrived. 

Sunrise caught on the plane en route to Heathrow. A new beginning to a long journey. Butterflies of homesickness settle uneasily in my tummy. 

Arrival in London

Arriving in London on the 5.30 am 2nd October 2004, 11000 km away from sunny singapore, first time away from my beloved family. Completed all the medical checkups, luggage collection, and moving out of Heathrow heading for the Royal Borough of Chelsea & South Kensington.