Life of an Asian in the U.K

11-08-2008 Monday

2008-08-11T04:50:00.000-07:00

London Time: 12.50pm

Here I am sitting at St Pancras Station, Starbucks with my dad. Waiting for our 3.30pm train to... PARIS!

The past 2 days here in London have been pretty good apart from the lousy weather... Been raining for the past 2 days during most of the day.. But yeap.

Anyways my plan here was to live on a budget, by eating sandwiches and stuff. But my dad wants to have proper meals. So we end up spending around 15 pounds per meal instead. haha. Ah well I guess I'll indulge him cause its his first time here in Europe. Might as well enjoy it. Its also my first time in Europe anyways.

I'm GONNA BE BROKE!!!!!!

Ah well.

Oh and tomorrow's my birthday! Whoooooooo.

Alright don't know when I'll update again, but yeap. Haven't got pics from the past 2 days to post up yet...

08-08-2008

2008-08-08T09:28:00.001-07:00

London Time: 5.20pm.

This is the last day for me in Rolls-Royce and Derby... 3 and half months just flew by...

I want to thank all the people I have worked with here in Rolls-Royce. For I had an amazing time and experience. I couldn't have had a better placement for my attachment. I don't know when will I see them again, but hopefully in the near future I'll be back!

Hopefully...

These are the amazing people I worked with during my attachment.

And tomorrow early in the morning its off to London...

And the start of my Eurotrip!!!!!!

4-08-2008 Monday

2008-08-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

London Time: 7.00pm

Its my last week here in Derby. The last 5 days. And on Saturday morning, I'll be leaving for London! WHoooooooooooooooo.

I'll be picking my dad up from Heathrow Airport, then spend 2 nights in London.

On Monday, I'll be heading off to Paris by train.

And on Tuesday, it's my birthday! Which will be spent in Paris of course!

On Wednesday I'm off to Venice.

Come Friday, I'll be flying to Rome... Where I will spend 4 nights before returning to London.

And finally after another 2 nights in London, I'll be flying home.. Home sweet home.

Touch down in Singapore on 22 August, Friday! Approximately 5pm.

Looking forward to see you guys soon!

20-7-2008 Sunday

2008-07-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

London Time: 2.00pm

Wow. Another week gone by.. And that means I'm only left with 3 more weeks of work. Then 2 weeks of holiday... And I'll be back on the 22 August! WHOOO.

So during most of my free time, I'm doing my Final Report, my travel plan for my Eurotrip. And I'm proud to say... I'm left with Venice and Rome to plan! And I'm halfway through my Final Report!

Hopefully I can be done with them soon.

Alright, so the last weekend I went to the Derby Beer Festival. It was... Crap. The entry cost 6 pounds and the beers tasted really bad. Had 4 half pints of beer then caught the last bus home. So yeap. Didn't get pissed that night..

Then on Tuesday night, Andreas invited us over to his place for dinner. I had to use Google Maps to look for his place. Wasn't that hard to find cause it was near the main road towards the City Centre. But yeap. It was good cause he prepared Langsane(not sure if that's how you spell it, but yep). It was yummy. There was booze as well. Yay.

That's the entrance of his place.

Toby chopping up some ingredients. Andreas in the background.

The guy in the shirt is DeePak, from Trinidad!

Chilling out and having a beer while waiting for dinner to be ready in the oven...

There's Robert...

Tucking in into a plate of mouthwatering food. Quality food.

Sara got here just in time! well robert went to pick her up from work.

Last shot of the day.

Then on Friday night its party night! It was Robert's last night before he returns to Germany. And its probably the last time I'm ever gonna see him unless he comes down to Singapore or something. But he's a good lad.

We started off at the Fat Cat and a bunch of Robert's friends that I didn't came after that as well. But there were a few familiar faces that I've seen before on the other nights out.

Didn't take many pics though... But Robert took loads on his camera. Hopefully will be able to get them from him soon.

At the Fat Cat...

Next we headed off to a place called the Walkabout. Didn't really like that place cause the music were really crappy. But anyways, the drinks there cost only 2 pounds each. That's dead cheap.

On the way to the Walkabout.

In the Walkabout.

After that we went over to the Revolution. Had a couple of beers there but didn't do much cause the dance floor on the second level was closed.

So we headed across the street to Coyote Wild. The first level was all pop music and stuff and there was bar top dancing! But. The girls didn't look too good. Damn. haha.

Then we went upstairs where there was R&B and Hip Hop! WHOO. That's my kinda music.

When it got to around 2am, we decided that it was time to leave...

The guy in the left was proper drunk. haha.

Funny thing is I didn't really get tipsy at all that night. Not drunk at all.

12-7-2008 Saturday

2008-07-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

London Time: 3.00pm.

I went to the city center today to pick up some maps and stuff for my Eurotrip and... I got stalked. By 2 Asian girls. Haha.

So I was walking out of Westfield and planning to head to a retail outlet nearby called NEXT. I can sorta remember walking past 2 asian girls along the way. They were... Young? I'd say around 15 or 16 years old? I didn't really notice them anyways but yea. In a place where most of the people there are Caucasians. Its hard not to notice.

So I got into NEXT and into the Men's section to look at some clothes and stuff. Oh yea. The ladies stuff are quite cheap. You can get a tank top for 3 pounds? It may be around the same price in Singapore if you do a direct conversion? But its cheap considering the cost of living here. And lots of other cheap stuff as well. But the men's stuff are slightly more expensive. So yeaps.

So I was looking at the stuff and in came the 2 girls. I didn't really bother about them at first? But then they came over to the men's section and were hovering about.. And one of the girls started taking her phone out and aimed the camera at me. This was when I kinda thought they were stalking me.

So after looking at the stuff, I went out and went into another shop across the street and looked at the stuff there. And what do ya know. The same 2 girls came in the shop.
Then I walked around more and got out of the shop and headed for T.K Max.

As I went up the escalator to the third level, the girls stopped at the first level and waited at entrance for god knows what. But yeap. I got up to the men's department at the third level and looked at some stuff. I tried out some caps and decided to get one which cost 5 pounds. Then I went to the jacket section and found this really cool leather jacket. Its for 40 pounds and it fits pretty good. Was thinking about getting it... But yeap. The sleeves were kinda long. But yeap. If I can't find a nice leather jacket soon I'll probably go back another day and get it.

So after awhile... the girls came up! Haha. So i went to queue to pay for the cap. They got over to the other side of the cashier and were looking over all the time while I was queuing. Ah.

As I was paying for my stuff, the girls went down the escalator and I thought this was the last time I'm gonna see them. But noooooo. I went down the escalator and there they were. One girl with her hand phone out again and aiming the camera at me. Ignoring them, I went down and out of T.K Max. It was getting late and I was really hungry so I decided that it was time to go home... SO I went to queue at the bus stop and when I turned around, the girls were standing in a distance looking over.

And finally when I got on the bus, they turned and left.

Oh and by the way, I really like the cap I bought. haha. Think I'll get the jacket next time.

8-07-2008 Tuesday

2008-07-06T04:44:00.001-07:00

London Time: 8.00pm

***Sorry for the belated post. My internet is pretty crap cause more people have moved in next door. And we're sharing the same router. So yeap. Had problems loading up the photos. But they are finally here!***

And just like that, Sunday's here again. Which means I've left with 5 more weeks of work, and 7 more weeks before I return home! Its so near yet so far... ;)

So... Yesterday I took a trip around London, and... At the end of the day, I'd say its a really worthwhile visit. And I can't wait to explore more of it during my Eurotrip!

Its gonna be a really long post for a really long day! So.. Bear with me!

Alright, first of all, I had get up at around 5.50am in the morning cause the taxi is arriving at 6.20am and the train leaves at 6.50am. So I hurriedly packed some biscuits into a bag and packed some stuff and was ready to go!

The taxi costs 5 pounds to get to the Train station and when we got there, we used the ticket machine to obtain our tickets. Basically all you had to do was to insert in the debit card that was used to book the tickets online and key in the confirmation number, and you get the tickets!

This is Derby East Midlands Train Station!

We got on the train and it left promptly at 6.50am. The weather was looking to be a typical British day of rain, rain, and more rain. It wasn't looking good. The train journey took us 1 and half hours to reach London, so during the journey, I managed to catch some snooze time...

Train arriving at the Derby East Midlands Train Station.

We finally got to London St Pancras at around 8.30am and the weather still wasn't looking to be letting up at all. From St Pancras, we walked on towards the St Pancras, Kings Cross Underground Station. On the way there, we stopped by the ticket booths to get our day pass for the Underground. It was... PACKED. The queues were crazily long and there were people everywhere.( FYI. It was going to be like this for the whole day).

Getting off at London St Pancras.

Walking to the Underground...

So when it was our turn at the ticket counter, we found out that we were only able to get passes for certain zones of the Underground. But I was told before that if we were mainly going to the tourist places, the passes for Zone 1 and 2 were sufficient. The pass cost us 5.30 pounds each. We grabbed a free map of the Underground as well.

Crazy queues at the ticket booths.

For those of you who are confused, basically the London Underground is divided into Zones. the middle section, central London as they would call it is Zone 1. Around that was Zone 2. Surrounding Zone 2 was Zone 3. And so on until you reach Zone 6. And if you've seen the Underground Train Map. You'd know how bloody confusing everything is. But if you know where you are, and where you'd wanna go, then your fine...

So after getting our tickets, we planned to go to the British Museum first. This was located at Holborn Underground Station. So we got on the Northern Line and took down to Bank Underground Station, we then switched to the Central Line and finally arrived at Holborn station around 20 minutes later. Thank god the maps were clear.

So we got off at Holborn station and followed to the exit where the signs to the British Museum was pointed at. However, once we were out of the Underground, we were lost. There were no signs as to where the museum was at. And, sadly, we didn't have a street map of London at that time.

So we walked around and asked people where the place was, and after around 15 minutes, we managed to reach the British Museum.

Walking around looking quite lost...

One of the famous London Telephone booths. ( These are located almost everywhere)

I was really impressed.

The museum is... HUGE... and well. Magnificent. It looked amazing just on the outside.

And this is a picture of me!

Oh and I wanted to take pictures with my digital Cam. But I found out that my memory stick was still at home. Damn it. Haha. Thankfully Donato had his camera along. So I used his camera for the day. He had his video cam as well. So yeap. Anyways the photos taken before were all using my mobile phone camera.

The pictures that are posted from now on are taken using his camera and only until alter on when the cam memory was running low that I took somemore pictures with my camera.

So we got in the museum and well. It was another sight to behold. On the inside, it was massive as well. It was spacious, with a couple of displays around in the main area. We got a map from the information counter and started planning out route. We would first visit the Egyptian artifacts, then the Greek, then the Egyptian mummies. There was Asian history, African history stuff as well. But we were not really interested in them, so we decided not to.

Its incredibly large.

Some statues on display. This apparently is a Roman official.

So we got to the Egyptian section of the museum. It was spectacular. Its just amazing, to see artifacts on display..

Entrance to the Egyptian section.

Crowds around the Rosetta Stone...

More Egyptian stuff..

Some large pharaoh's arm. Really LARGE.

And this is the Assyrian section. Its apparently the age before the Egyptians.

One of the amazing Lion Statue.

And there are inscriptions on it... Cool eh?

Back to the Egyptian Stuff..

This is a false gate. Where the ancestors from the dead pass through to take the offerings.. If I remember correctly..

Baboon!

An empty coffin...

This is an ancient Egyptian Ritual Bathtub. LOL.

Ahh.. the Rosetta Stone. Well for those of you guys who don't know what it is. Its basically a stone that has the 3 ancient languages written on them. Its the same text in 3 different languages. It has helped archeologist's decipher loads of scripts and texts.

After the Egyptian stuff, we moved on to the Greek stuff... It was located in another room nearby, so we didn't really have to walk alot.

The Goddess Aphrodite. Or commonly known as the Goddess of Love.

And this one states that the Goddess Aphrodite is caught off guarded when taking a bath.. LOL. (Notice the water jug at her feet)

God of Wine. Dionysus.

The head of Hermes I think...

And this is the temple of the Nymphs. Daughters of the Lord of the Sea. Poseidon. They are all headless though. I don't know why...

And this is the Pantheon. The ruins of the temple of Athena in the city Athens.

A model of the Pantheon.

These are some more random Greek artifacts.

And as we were moving from the Greek stuff to the Egyptian Mummies upstairs, we passed some African stuff..

Mummies!!!!!

A preserved feet!

Some other Egyptian stuff..

This is an Egyptian Casket.

Another dead preserved person.

Cool eh?

Outside the second level. Amazing place isn't it. The British Museum.

And after getting some souvenirs, we went out!
The pillars of the British Museum.

The view outside..

Next up we planned to go to Leicester Square Train Station. Its also where China Town is! Well I wanted to go and get some sweets for the guys back at work. So yeaps. Thankfully the weather was looking to be really good. Bright and sunny. Yay!

So we got back to the Underground at Holborn. And we got took it down to Leicester Station. Thankfully, it was a straight trip without any changing of the lines. So yeap. Managed to get Leicester Station in around 15 minutes. From there, we walked out and I asked around for directions to China Town! Managed to get there a few minutes later. Its not really far from the station anyway. So I went to some shops and got some sweets.

Walking towards Chinatown.

In one of the shops..

More of Chinatown.

So after getting some sweets, we walked back to the station to get to the Science Museum at South Kingston's.

Walking along the streets towards the station..

So we took the Underground to South Kingston. And it was a pretty long walk underground that linked directly to the Science Museum.

And that's the Science Museum!

This is the view outside the Science Museum..

And this is at the entrance inside the Science Museum.

When we got in, our bags had to be searched by security. Well. The Science museum I would say is more like the science center in Singapore. With alot of interactive stuff . Its more for kids I would say. But its still a pretty nice visit!

These are the large machines and one of the earliest steam engines.

And this one was actually moving. A really huge wheel spinning by the power of steam.

Some other displays about Plastics...

And this one was about the communications technologies..

There were other stuff in the Museum as well, with loads of interactive stuff for the kids and adults alike. But didn't really take pictures cause the camera was running out of memory. haha.

In the Aerospace section. The lighting here was really bad. But the planes there were awesome.

When it got to around 6pm, the museum was closing, so we decided to head out. I was planning to go to Victoria Train Station next cause the hotel that I would be staying at was around that area and I needed to ask if I could leave my luggage there while I traveled around Europe and claim it back when I come back. So we proceeded to Victoria Train Station. Oh and I managed to buy a map of Central London for 2 pounds at the Science Museum.

London Underground

Alrights didn't really take any pictures during this part of our trip. We arrived at Victoria Train Station and got pretty much lost finding the hotel. Cause I didn't have the address. So I called up certain people I know and Andrew Newton told me to dial 118118. It was like a call search thing. So I dialed it and asked the operator to give me the address of the EasyHotel. They gave me a text of the address with the telephone number after that. And after asking around and wondering around for abit I found the place.

It was quite a tiny place I would say. Too bad I don't have any pictures now. But you guys will get to see it when I actually stay there the next time. So when I got there, there were 2 people smoking outside, and apparently one of them was a staff at the hotel. He asked me if I was checking in, and I told him about my situation. He told me the most they could hold the luggage was for one or 2 days. So I asked him if there was any other way I could leave my luggage. The other person told me that at Victoria Station, they had a service where travelers could leave their luggage there and pick them up later. And they could be left there for as long as we want. I'm not sure if the cost was 6.80 pounds per day or 6.80 pounds for as long as you'd like. So yeaps. I'll have to check that out if I can. But I don't really have a choice cause I can't really travel with my huge luggage around Europe.

After that was done, we went to Victoria Place, which was like a shopping centre beside the Train Station. We went in and most of the shops were closed cause it was around 7.30pm. We went to MacDonald's and had a meal there. By the way, it costs around 4 pounds for a meal. At Macs, I think there was a Singaporean family there cause I could recognize the Singaporean accents. It was really amazing for me cause I haven't seen another Singaporean for the past 12 weeks. I know I sound a little crazy but yea. It felt a little closer to home. Ah well. So we decided that the next place to go was Buckingham Palace. Wow whee.

Thankfully it was within walking distance and after walking for around 10 minutes we reached.

Walking to Buckingham.

They actually have these signs on the road everywhere telling you where to look for the traffic.

Buckingham Palace. Doesn't look as grand as I thought it would be.

However, the area outside the palace was amazing. A really wide open area with the monument in the middle. There were quite alot of people there, just chilling out and stuff. It was a really really nice place.

Lovely...

So after that we decided to walk to Trafalgar Square. It was around a 15 minute walk and it was pretty far. But the sights walking there were priceless.

There was a bunch of police officers patrolling the place... On horses!

And this statue is a dedication to the marines.

And this is amazing. Its the Admiralty Arch. Looks really grand. Just a fantastic view...

After walking for abit more Trafalgar Square was in sight.

A view around the Square.

And looks like I was out of luck. Just a little late. Cause they apparently had a concert there.

And it was just outside the National Gallery. The large building at the back is the National Gallery. Amazing...

There's the stage..

And apparently they are all watching some movie on a large screen...

Then I realized... It was... A GAY PRIDE PARADE PARTY. LOL.

So after hanging around there for abit, we went up towards the National Gallery.

Then after that we decided to proceed towards Piccadilly Circus. Its one of the shopping districts here in London. And well the sights were really... Amazing. I don't know. Probably its just cause it was getting dark. The atmosphere was just too good.

After walking around for abit more, we went back to the Underground and took the train back to St Pancras. And took the train home.

The train left at 9.25pm.

Reached Derby at around 11.10pm? And took a taxi home and got home and... Went to Zzzzz.. Walked for around 12 hours that day. Amazing.

I guess the only thing I hate about London is the crowd.

Saturday 28 June 2008

2008-06-28T06:17:00.001-07:00

London Time: 2.15pm

Well... Sorry for not really updating that much but there's nothing interesting happening for the past 2 weeks. So didn't really bother to blog about that.

So basically I'm blogging now its because something interesting happened. And well, my internet connection is dead slow right now so all I can do is just to blog.

So yesterday I basically finished work at 4pm. Didn't manage to get around to play football cause I had to get some testing done in the test cell, and by the time I finished it was 4pm. And football started at 4. So I thought what the heck, and decided not to go anyways.

Oh and at work there's a new intern that just came in. His name is DeePak. Not sure how do I spell that but basically he's from Trinidad. If your asking me where's that, all I can say is that its pretty close to South America. But I'm sure if you've watched the world cup, you'd remember a team called Trinidad and Tobago? Yep. Well this guy's from there. But he's been studying in a university called Imperial College in London for the past 3 years and he's doing an internship with Rolls-Royce for the next half year.

So yeap. On to the interesting stuff. I asked Toby if he had any plans for tonight or the next night and he told me that he was actually going to the Friary cause a friend of his, Claudia is spending her last night in Derby there before heading back home to Germany. He told me I was more than welcome to tag along if I didn't mind not knowing the people there. I considered it for a bit cause I'm not really good with people I don't know. But I thought what the heck. Its probably better to meet more people I don't know than staying at home watching the tele.

So I met Toby down at London Road (Although its London Road, its just a road in Derby) at our usual meeting point and we cycled to the city center. My bicycle had a weird screeching sound as i cycled. Its probably because of the ball bearings being a little rusty or not enough lubricant in them. Its been bugging my bike for weeks. But I've generally ignored it.

Anyhow, we made it to the city center at around 8.50pm and it was still pretty bright. Well for those of you who find it weird for it to be bright at around 8.50pm, its because of it being Summer. The sun rises at around 4.30am in the morning and sets at about 9.30pm. But it only gets dark at around 11pm? So yea. Well in Winter, the sun rises at around 10am or so? And sets at around 4pm. Kinda sucks doesn't it. But I'm glad I'm here during the Summer.

Alright back to the party. So we parked out bikes outside the Friary and went in. We got ourselves some Dutch beer (can't remember the name) and went to look for Claudia and her friends. We finally found them sitting in a section close to the back of the place and well we got ourselves a seat with them. There were 4 ladies there and 1 dude. I was introduced to them but I'm really bad with names (can't remember the names, just the faces), and met Claudia. Apparently she's gonna drive all the way back to Germany. I was quite curious about this cause I knew that well the U.K is basically an island surrounded by water and the only way to get to the other shores was either to take a flight, take a boat, take the train across the channel to France (which I will be doing for my trip), or to swim across the channel. I'm joking about the last one though. But yea, so I was curious cause there were no roads that you could use or bridges to get you out of the U.K.

She told me that the trains that ran across the channel was able to take cars as well. This meant that the cars would be loaded onto the train and across the channel. From there, she'll drive up all the way to the Netherlands and then to Germany. Friggin long road trip that is.

Soon after, 2 more ladies came to join us. One was Katherina and I can't remember the other one's name. So we got them seats and Toby started chatting with them. I chatted up the other guy there and turns out he's the boyfriend of one of the girls there. I found out that he's from Derby and working at a company that dealt with instrumentation and calibration. All in all a pretty friendly guy to talk to. Toby then asked me if I would like to go to Chester on the next day. He and the 2 girls that just came were planning of going there and wanted me to come along. But they were gonna take the train there which would cost around 30 pounds for a return trip. Thinking it was a bit too dear, I said I'd think about it and let Toby know once the night was over.

There were a couple of pool tables near to where we sat and Toby asked me if I wanted to play pool. It was a coin operated pool table and it was 1 quid per game. But unfortunately all the tables were already being played on. 2 guys at one table asked us if we wanted to play doubles with them. We agreed and started the first round. One of the guys asked Toby if he wanted to bet 20 quid on the game and well, he politely said no. haha. So the guys said that they would play for the table, whoever won got to keep the table. We were pretty alright with that and so we played on. I was pretty lucky and potted a few balls in and well those 2 guys there were abit drunk I guess? That made them really hilarious cause they kept saying we're hustlers when we said we weren't that good. And of course in the end we won. We asked them if they wanted to play another round, but they told us that they lost the table and it was ours now. Well they basically just said that cause they were going out to get more drinks. So yeap.

The guy that I talked to earlier with Claudia and her friends came up to us and joined us in playing pool. Since there were 3 of us, it was decided I would play with him first and whoever won would play against Toby. I found out that his name was Simon as the game went along (Its strange isn't it, to chat with someone without even knowing their name until a few hours later). As we played along, I was outnumbered by 3 balls. But like I said, I was pretty lucky that night, he accidentally potted the black ball in before he was supposed to and that made me win that round. Pretty lucky.

There's Simon

So next I was up against Toby. I was leading all the way through the game and managed to win it by 1 ball. So yeap, it was pretty lucky again. A lady came to join us and it turns out she's Toby's friend. She was a French lady and well her English isn't too good with alot of French accent thrown in. So as I was chatting with her I couldn't really understand quite abit of what she was saying. But I just kept nodding my head as if I did. Its only polite right? haha. Oh and by the way her name was Claire. She was quite a Tomboy. But she was really friendly as well.

The one in black is Claire.

So for the next game, I paired up with Simon against Toby and Claire. During the game, I went out to get the next round of drinks for the guys there. Toby came along with me to the bar and I ordered a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea. The bartender that attended to us was quite good lookin' but young according to Toby. She asked me for my ID so I got out my passport and it was cleared. When our drink was about to be ready she told us that they ran out of something I didn't really understood and asked if it was ok to add an extra short of tequila instead. I told her it was alright and we got out drinks. BLEH. Its the crappiest long island iced tea ever. The taste of the tequila was too much. But ah well.

So we played a couple more games and Claire left soon after cause she was flying back to Paris in the morning. I went outside to meet the rest of the earlier group and well. There were more people that I didn't know. So I introduced myself to some of them. There was two guys( one of their names was Nathan or something) and a lady(Mara) from France, and two ladies(Siskia, can't really spell it but I pronounced it this way, and another one I can't remember) from Holland. According to Toby, Siskia was a really dutch name. haha.

So we got out of the Friary and Claudia had to go cause she has a pretty long next day ahead of her. We decided to go to the Saddlers next, it was a place further down the road.

Walking to Saddlers

Outside Saddlers

When we got there, it was left with the group that I just met awhile ago and 2 more guys, one was Toby's housemate and another one I didn't really know. So we got in, it was quite a tiny place. We got to the bar and they went to order some drinks. I didn't really want anything to drink then but I got a tequila short since Toby, Siskia and Nathan was having it as well. It was pretty cool cause to have the drink properly, we had to lick the area of our hands just before the thumb, pour some salt on it (that was what the licking was for, to get the salt to hold), have a slice of lemon ready in the hand with the salt, and take the short, lick off the salt, down the short, and stick the lemon in your mouth. It was a pretty cool experience and well from that experience, basically the salt and lemon was to mask the taste of the tequila. Pretty cool.

We then went upstairs onto an open air area just covered using pieces of cloth. The music here was pretty Trance like. Like in MOS or Zouk. So we just danced the night away.

When it got to about 1.30am, a few of them left and the only ones left there was me, Toby, Nathan and Siskia. It was a pretty smoky area cause it was open aired and everyone who could smoke, smoked. Nathan practically had a stick in his mouth the whole night. haha. Turns out that Siskia was only 20 this year. She looked like she was Toby's age, 25. But she's a good laugh and really fun. Nathan kept telling me which girl around us was beautiful. haha.

At around 3.15am, we left the place, Nathan stayed though and got outside, Toby asked me if it was ok to walk Siskia home cause she lives pretty near and she would be walking home alone if we didn't. So yeap. We took some photos with my phone and it wasn't really good shots anyway. As me and Toby unlocked our bikes, Siskia found a bottle on the floor and tried to kick it away. But she fell on her ass instead. Really really funny. And when she got up, it turned out she had slipped on someone's puke. Eeew. And her coat had puke on. It was a good laugh though. She kept talking about her having a blue bum in the morning which made it even funnier.

Claire fell on her ass!

Blurred...

Man I'm not photogenic. haha.

So we walked her home which was around a 15 minute walk from where we were and we cycled home after that. Somehow I reached home at around 4.30am and finally got to sleep at around 5am.

Good times...

Alton Tower Videos!

2008-06-25T09:48:00.001-07:00

Here are the videos from Alton Towers! Finally got them from Toby. Check out the first one. Its called Oblivion. Its CRAZY!

This next ride is the CorkScrew. Its a pretty mild ride compared to the others.. But it has really hard turns. Knocked my head a couple of times against the support. haha.

13-6-08 Friday

2008-06-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

London Time: 7.00pm

Friday again! WHOOP! WHOOP!

Time really passes quickly here. Week after week just fly by... And in no time I'll be back in Singapore missing this place already.

Just came back from playing football at a pitch near my workplace. Having blisters on my foot now. Ouch. But it was good fun.

My roommate Donato will be going back to Italy with his Mom from tomorrow till Wednesday. So I'll have the whole place to myself. I'm thinking of throwing a house party... Nahh. Don't know who to invite anyways. And I'd rather not spend that much. Gotta save for my Eurotrip!

Time flies. In the first few weeks here, I'd have dreams that I was still in Singapore and when I wake up expecting it to be in the comfort of my room, its a whole new place. But those dreams are long gone now. I'm pretty accustomed to the place here, and don't really have any home-sick feeling here.

That's the thing about me I guess. I'll get pretty darn depressed when I'm thrown into a new place and made to stay there. But once I get familiar with things, I can pretty much last there however long is needed. Maybe it happens to everybody. Or maybe its just me.

Whatever it is, Toby's gone to Dublin for the weekend as well. And Andreas's girlfriend is coming down to visit him. But he told me that he'd drop me a text if he was going out or something and wanted me to tag along. I wouldn't really want to play gooseberry though. But... If not I'll just stay in and plan plan plan for my Eurotrip.

Anyone knows cheap places that are good location-wise and comfortable in Paris and London?

9-06-2008 Monday

2008-06-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

London Time: 4.20pm

Ahh.. Its a nice Monday. Its really warm now. Cause I did some exercises in my garden.. Whoooo! Love the sun.. And well the weather here is comparable to Singapore on a Sunny day? Maybe slightly cooler. Too bad it doesn't last long here. The forecast tomorrow says that it'll probably be slightly cooler with less sun. Ah well.

So I went out to town on Saturday night. Well I basically cycled there with Toby. The first place we went was called The Fat Cat cafe bar.

There were loads of women there wearing sashes that resembled the Miss Universe sashes. I thought there was a paegent going on. But... On closer inspection, most of the women weren't good looking. Bleh. And the wording on their sashes was "something something... Hen Night... something something". Toby explained that Hen nights were parties organized for women here. It would be a birthday party, or a bachelorette party.. or somewhere along the lines. And similarly, a party for guys would be called a "Stag Party". Its quite common here to have these parties though. Wonder why it isn't popular in Singapore though...

So we met Robert and Sara in the bar queuing for drinks. They were ordering a drink called Pimms-lemonade. Its basically a light alcohol drink called Pimms mixed with lemonade. So they bought the drinks for Toby and me and proceeded to rest our bums on some seats outside.

There's Robert covering his face and Sara.

Pimms-Lemonade. Took a few sips before the picture was taken.

The drink was really good. You could barely taste the alcohol in it. And they had mint leaves inside the glass with strawberry. Lovely drink to start the day.

So we chatted till Andreas and his friend Andy arrived. Then the others got some wheat beer, its also known as white beer. Since I didn't really like beer anyway, I got some Jack Daniels Coke. This round was on Toby. Another guy, Ralf, from Rolls Royce came down and sat with us with his wife. Small world. But probably the number of people in Rolls Royce make up a large percentage of the people in Derby. So yea. Its not that hard to bump into people.

Ralf and me

I went out of the Fat Cat with Toby cause I had to draw some cash and wow. The city isn't as dead as I thought it would be at night. There were pubs everywhere and music playing at almost every corner. Really nice.

When I got back, we decided that it was time to move on to the next pub. So we left the Fat Cat. It was getting a little too crowded there anyway.

Getting late at Fat Cat

Ralf and his wife didn't join us from this point on though. The rest of us went on to the Frier, also known as Scream. There was a short queue to go in the pub there and they were checking ID. Thankfully I brought my passport with me. While queuing though, there were these women outside wearing some sort of a sexy police outfit. You know, those with tiny white shirts that they tied up at their mid-riff, wearing the police caps and carrying batons. I felt a prodding on my behind and when I turned around, I got a really big shock. One of the women were prodding my arse with the baton! Another one of the ladies were prodding Andy! Of course they were giggling while they were doing it and Toby was laughing his head off. Ahh well. They weren't that good looking anyway. Seemed a to be in their late 20s. But it was a good laugh.

The Frier

However the staff there looked at my passport and was looking at the first page. Which had a picture of me when i was... 7 years old? So he said do you have any other ID? This was hilarious cause he wasn't having a serious tone, he was just casually asking. The Toby and Andreas were laughing cause they said the picture was really cute. So i got out a few other IDs to show him and he was satisfied and let me in.

We got in and it was Andreas turn to get the drinks. I wanted to order Long Island Tea initially, but they only came in a pitcher. So we all got beer instead, Fosters.

Inside Frier

Frier

There's Sara, Robert and Andreas!

Inside Frier, there were a couple of girls in Cowgirl outfits. With cowgirl hats, tiny denim shorts, cow boots and a mid riffed shirt. It was kinda interesting cause you'd never get to see this kinda thing in Singapore. Oh and they had plastic pistols as well.

So after our drinks it was close to 10pm and Toby wanted to go to Scream. Which was a dance club next door. Robert and Sara were pretty tired so they didn't wanna join us.

It was down to 4...

There was a pretty long queue outside Scream, and while we were waiting, Toby was really friendly. He chatted to everyone around him. Just saying random stuff to random people! He'd turn around to these 2 girls who were wearing some sort of a yellow jacket that construction people wore with safety helmet! Turns out they were celebrating the 18th birthday of one of the girl and this was their night out. They weren't pretty. I know I'm mean. Shoot me. haha.

Queuing outside Scream

A friend of Toby came up to him and chatted with him for abit. She was here with her friends as well. But likewise she wasn't pretty. haha.

So after queuing for around 15 minutes, we managed to get in. And I didn't even get ID-ed this time. Yay! It cost us 5 pounds to get in though. But its cheap compared to Singapore.

So we go in and we all just left our jacket's in a lump on a chair beside the door. I know, we don't do this kinda thing in Singapore, but to these guys it seemed pretty normal.

The place was pretty large, its about the size of Zouk's main arena. But it wasn't as crowded. Actually it wasn't crowded at all, if you compare it to Zouk in Singapore. The music playing were generally British radio hits though. I would have preferred a more R&B and Hip Hop genre though.

Toby bought us another round of drinks and it was another glass of Fosters for me. We stood around and danced abit. And just basically enjoying our time. The people here aren't that raunchy anyways. Nothing too obscene happened that I could see. So it was basically nothing much interesting. But it was good to just dance!

The guys then wanted another round of drinks and it was my turn to buy them, so I got myself Jack Daniels Coke again while they got Fosters. We danced around till it was around 1.30am and Toby thought it was time to go home. So me and him bid goodbye to Andreas and Andy.

Notice the crazy dude in front of me. LOL.

When we went out, I asked him if we could rest for a bit before cycling back. He told me that he wanted to show me the other places as well. So we walked along and went to Coyote Wild. Its another dance club and I didn't get ID-ed when I got in. So another Yay! It was pretty empty by the time we got there though. And we just danced abit more and left.

I didn't really bother noticing the last place that we went though. But it was pretty empty as well. So we went back soon after.

And I cycled home. Its fun doing it when your tipsy. haha.

Got home at 3pm and slept.

Scream!

6-6-08 Friday

2008-06-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

London Time: 5.45pm

My blog is dead.. Well its cause there isn't much thats interesting enough to post.. And well I'm just too lazy.

Been busy doing my Interim report though. Although the format says that the report should be around 2000 words, the current market rate set by my peers in Singapore are.. around 10,000 words. Close to 40 pages. And the guy that came for the attachment in Rolls Royce last year has a report of over 90 pages.

Bloody hell. I'm only on page 20. With approximately 5,000 words.

Wish me luck.

29-5-2008 Thursday

2008-05-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

London Time: 5.05pm

Ah its Thursday already. Past 2 days have been rubbish cause I was feeling so sick from the rides. Man. Bleh.. At least now my head's all cleared up.

So I went to Alton Towers on Tuesday. Cycled to Rolls Royce in the morning to meet the rest of the people going that day. When I got there, the rest had already left for the amusement park first. So only Toby, Sara and Robert was left there, waiting for me.

In Sara's car

And that's Toby

So we got on the car and it took around a half hour to get to Alton Towers. The place is HUGE. Where we got off at the car park, we had to take a monorail tram to the actual amusement park itself. That was how big it was.

The Massive Carpark. And there's more than one.

Alton Towers!

The Monorail Station

In the tram

At the entrance to the Amusement Park. Loads of people.

Tickets cost me 17.50 pounds. It was a 2 for 1 price. If not I had to pay 35 pounds. Crazy expensive eh.

And thats when you just step past the entrance. This is only one small part of the park.

These are the blokes I came with. Cheers

We walked on right to the other side of the park hoping that it'll be less crowded over there. It was a really long walk. Probably 20 minutes? And the park was basically set into different themes for different areas.

Pirate Theme. Arrgghh!!! (Captain Jack Sparrow!)

Walking along now..

Getting a sense of how big the park really is now eh?
This is the Ghost Theme.

Alien Theme. Where the NEMESIS Ride is at. Friggin crazy ride.

This ride is called Air. First ride of the day.

Next Ride. NEMESIS!!!

They've got a nice scenery while your queueing for the ride. Bloody waterfalls and stuff.

Then we took a cable car to the other part of the park. That is how BIG the area is.
These were taken inside the cable car.

Jurasic Park Theme

Middle Ages Theme.

And they have wide open spaces like these.

Space Age Theme

Ahh.. My personal Favourite. The most thrilling ride.
OBLIVION. Its basically a 90 degree drop into the ground.

This was viewed while queuing for the OBLIVION.

Inside the queue.

And this is where the ride does its 90 degree drop into the ground.

Kinda forgot what the name of this ride is. But its the same as the one in Escape Theme Park in Singapore. Not really exciting at all.

This is my second best ride. RITA. You just accelerate really fast at the start. REALLY FAST. And you get the same feeling as if your taking a ride that's falling when this one is just going straight ahead. It is that fast.

Corkscrew! A pretty slow ride compared to RITA.

There's Toby

There's me.

And this is just outside the RITA ride. You can see the cable car overhead.

Spinball Ride. Didn't take this one cause it'll give me a headache.

So while the rest were queuing for this ride, I walked around and explored more.

This was a Comic going around in his mobile Piano teasing people.

More wide open fields. Lovely.

After that, we got back to the Nemesis and sat that 3 times in a row. Cause there was no queue since it was closing soon. That was a really really really bad idea. Made me sick after that. Bleh.

The car ride back was torture. Head was spinning like mad. And to be honest. Sarah's not a really good driver. Really jerky with a stick shift car.

We drove back to the Standing Order in Derby City Center to have dinner. Its like a pub/restaurant place. Wasn't too crowded. And I ordered a burger with chips for 4.50 pounds. Expensive though, but i was really hungry at that time.

When we finished it was around 9.30pm and when I got back to Rolls Royce it was close to 10. Cycled back and slept at around 11pm.

Thankfully I'm feeling better 2 days later. haha.

Toby took 2 videos on the rides. Will post them out once I get them.

26-5-2008 Monday

2008-05-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

London Time: 8.00pm

Vroom Vroom!!!
British Super Bikes Event at Donington Park!

Andy (the 20 year old Andy) picked me up in his car at around 10.30am this morning! He had SatNav GPS in his car that helped him to find where I stayed at. A friend of his, Patrick, was in the car as well and we were introduced.

During the ride, I couldn't really understand the conversation between him and Patrick cause both their Brit accents were really thick. But I could pick out bits and pieces of what they were talking about. Andy told me that I may need to pay for my tickets cause he was not sure if he could get me in with a free pass. So we stopped off at a nearby cash machine to get some cash. And while we were getting the cash, this fat bloke that looked like he was drunk half the time he's awake (he was sober though) came up to us and asked us if we had any spare change. Andy quickly brushed him off and said 'no'. But he kept telling us that the bus was coming in a few minutes and he had to get to the airport.

When we got our cash, Andy then said to the bloke that was still pestering us, "I've already f*cking told you we don't have any spare change man, what the f*ck is your problem? Here's a quid, leave us alone". So he took out one pound from his pocket and tossed it at the guy and we quickly went back to the car and drove off.

In the car Andy asked me that if there were such people in Singapore. I told him there were, but there weren't many. The SatNav GPS guided Andy to the Donington village. It was kind of an old town village like Chellaston where Mrs Mary's place is at. We drove through the village an into Donington Park.

There were tons of people there! And loads of Motorbike riders in racing gear. Well they probablly wear like this all the time when they are riding. So I don't think they are one of the racers. Andy called his friend and was unable to get the free passes. Bloody hell. That meant me and Patrick had to pay to get in. So we went to the booth and bought our tickets for 28 pounds each. REALLY EXPENSIVE TICKETS. But Patrick told me that the ticket prices was quite average. The expensive ones for other events on other days would cost up to around 60 pounds if a world champion was racing that day. So yeap. Blew 28 pounds on a Motorbike event. It better be good.

The back area of the garages.

It was really windy around the area, its mainly cause we're actually on higher ground for the event. Walking against the wind felt like you could be blown away. It was THAT windy.

The Garages

We walked around the garages where the teams were at and Andy told me to take pictures with the race girls. He asked them for a picture with me and they agreed. So here are the shots. But well. I look quite crap in them cause I had to wear the beanie to stop my hair from flying around and well. The wind was so damn strong I could only have my eyes half open. Wonder how the girls manage to survive the weather wearing only that.

Whoo Whee. ( Andy took the photos. haha)

We walked around more and went to certain parts of the circuit. There was more than one event that day and we caught around 6 races for the whole day. So these are just the pictures from the event. We basically walked around for each different race to the different part of the circuit.

The Grand Stand. ( we didnt' view the event from there, cause you only can see a straight section of the track from there.)

There's Andy and Patrick. ( Andy's the one with his head turned)

This was an accident that happened while I was taking a video. Amazing. It happened right infront of us. But the last race was the best. We stood at a 180 degree bend at the circuit. And there were like 3 or 4 accidents on that last race that happened in front of us. Jaw dropping man.

First Viewing Spot

Second Spot.

Patrick trying on a jacket which he later bought for 40 quid.

The shops in the exhibition hall.

Another location

Amazingly close to planes landing in the East Midlands Airport just next door.

The Crazy Hairpin where around 4 accidents happened.

2 Bikes down, was quite serious cause the race had to be stopped and one of the rider was carried off in an aumbulance.

Last race.

After the races were finished, Andy drove me home. I'd say the 28 pounds was well spent. A little ex but yep, don't think I'll ever see this in Singapore.
Enjoy the photos.

Loads of videos but was too lazy to upload all. So here are 2 of them.

Damn, gonna spend around 20 pounds tomorrow for the Amusement park thing. Damn it.

I'm gonna be so broke.

24-5-2008 Saturday

2008-05-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

London Time: 9.50pm

Ah.. Its the weekend. Turns out only Monday's the official bank holiday. But Rolls Royce Derby gives Tuesday as a holiday for the people working there as well. And I'm one of the people working there. Cool.

And... They don't have bank holidays (to us Singaporeans its public holidays) in the middle of the week. They normally push it to the weekend, so if the official holiday is on a Wednesday, it'll be pushed either to the coming Friday or the following Monday. Lovely isn't it?

Went to JJB sports store during my lunch break yesterday, my supervisor, Andy Payne and my collegue, Andy Newton drove me there, they both aren't actually Andys. Their real names are Andrew Payne and Andrew Newton. And in the U.K they call Andrew, Andy. Weird. And the slang for the currency here is quid. So instead of saying something costs 9 pounds, you can say it costs 9 quid.

So I went to the sports store to get a pair of running shoes for football later (The brits don't like soccer to be called soccer, they call it football. I found quite a nice pair for 9 quid. Then after work we all went for football at the pitch nearby.

It was good exercise, loads of running. And at the end of the day, my toe had a pop-ed blister. Ouch. And I suck at football. Ahh well. At least did some exercise since a long time.

So I'm alone at home again, Donato left for Italy yesterday and won't be back till Wednesday.

21-5-2008 Wednesday

2008-05-21T08:47:00.001-07:00

London Time: 4.45pm

Ah. Work is goood. Sitting in a room doing all the tests. During the test there's practically nothing to do. So I always grab the free newspaper before I head into the test bed. And well. I read almost every section of the paper! I can even read them twice. That's how free I am when the tests are running.

Ahh well. The landlord, Giuseppe is coming over soon with someone else to view the place. I think we're gonna have one more person staying with us soon. Ahh well. Lets all pray he's a nice bloke. But I'd reckon that he's from Rolls Royce as well. And introduced to Giuseppe by Mrs Mary. Guys from Rolls Royce are usually pretty alright.

Whooo! I'm going to Alton Towers Amusement Park on Tuesday! And most likely the MotorGP event on Monday! Awesome!

Ah. The speakers are able to recieve the radio frequency as well! Whoo!

20-5-2008 Tuesday

2008-05-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

London Time: 5.50pm

And Monday came and went. And I'm almost done with Tueday. Its really fast. Really fast.

I've been listening to the British Radio recently; well just started today. Its a pretty good medium for news and well Brit Music. There's quite a few American songs on the station as well. So its not that bad.

And apparently there's a debate over if they should reduce the abortion timeline from 24 weeks to maybe 22 or 12 weeks. The MPs here are gonna vote for whether the time should be reduced or not soon. Well basically the argue was that mom's who have had babies born prematurely survived and that meant that the abortion deadline should be reduced. And those saying the deadline should be remained the same is that if the mother is unable to care for the baby, or the have had the baby cause she got raped or along that lines, then it wouldn't be right to keep the baby.

Well personally I think the deadline should be maintained. I'm looking at this in a way that girls who get pregnant when they are maybe 15 to 20 years old and feel that they are unable to take care of a child, and think that abortion is the way out should be able to do the abortion without making them a criminal. So yep. Wonder how will the vote turn out here in the U.K.

On a lighter note, Andrew's really nice. He just got a new Nokia phone and he has Sony Erricsson speakers from his old phone. Since he doesn't have his old phone anymore, he gave me the speakers! Whooo! I finally have speakers in my room! Too bad they only can be plugged into my phone and can't have the radio function. Cause apparently the wire for the headset is the antenna for the radio. I've just found that out after using Sony Erricsson walkman phones for over 2 years. haha.

19-5-2008 Monday

2008-05-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

London Time: 8.10pm

And just like that Monday's gone by. I guess living alone in a country so far away has it benefits; being independent. No parents here to make meals for you, do the laundry for you, and basically just being take care of.

Its all really good in a sense that being alone out here forces you to take care of yourself. You plan what you are going to eat, plan when to do your laundry, and alot of other stuff that you don't really take notice of about yourself when your living with your parents. And its all good. I think I'm eating healthier here than I would be if I was in Singapore. Cause during weekdays I would have lunch in school and buy some takeaway at the food center nearby. Probablly the only healthy stuff I would actually be having a proper meal prepared by my mom.

Here, I prepare my own lunch and dinner from scratch. Purchasing groceries at the supermarket, preparing dinner with my housemate and after dinner, prepare my lunch for the next day and store it in a lunch box. Not too oily or salty stuff in my meals, which I think would be a main part of my diet if I was back home.

Then comes the thought of keeping yourself healthy. When I was back at home, I didn't really take that much fruit cause basically I was just too lazy to grab an apple. And if I'm hungry during the day I'd grab some snack outside or at home. Here, when I get hungry before dinner time, I take out an apple to keep me filled till dinner was ready. And I'm proud to say... I haven't touched soft drinks since I got here. Which is probablly 1 month plus without fizzy drinks. Well I mean fizzy drinks such as Coke, pepsi and whatnot. But the only unhealthy thing I've been drinking is beer. And even that I don't drink often. Only twice since I'm here.

And being alone here you learn to manage your own finances. When shopping for groceries, I'd try to find the best deals before making a purchase. That I probablly won't do if I'm shopping for groceries with my parents.

So yep. These are the benefits of staying alone out here. Given the chance I'd probablly want to live independently again. Of course probablly not here in the U.K. Haha. But yea. Think the only thing that sucks about here is the weather, and that my friends and family are all on a little island 11000km away.

Other than that, I'm doing pretty well on my own.

18-5-2008 Sunday

2008-05-18T02:50:00.000-07:00

London Time: 11.05am

And the weekend arrives once again. The last day of the week. And officialy I'm here in the land of the Brits for exactly 4 weeks.

Yesterday night, Donato invited fellow RR people that lived just opposite us to have dinner. We had pizza, beer and pop corn. The 3 of them were actually staying together in the same house.

One was a Korean dude who's name we can't pronounce, so we all just call him Hugh.

Another was a German dude called... Wolfgang. How COOL IS THAT? His name is Wolf Gang!

And lastly was Alextio? Well he was the Italian guy that came over the other day for dinner.

Oddly, they all commented that my Engilsh was the best among them. And when I told them English was my first language, Donato burst into laughter cause he said the same thing when I met him. I guess to European people, as long as your asian and not from the U.K and if you can speak English fluently, it was a surprising thing.

Well we basically just chatted till around 1am in the midnight. i only had 2 bottles of 250ml Stella Artois. Its beer from Belgium but produced in the U.K. It wasn't that nice anyway.

And well. Heard tomorrow's a holiday for Singapore! Long weekend!

My holiday's from next Saturday till the following Tuesday! Whooo! Hopefully will be going to a MotorGP event and the amusement park!

16-5-2008 Friday

2008-05-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

London Time: 8.45pm

Just had my dinner, which was pasta with eggs, cheese and some pepperoni. Didn't really update cause I'm just too lazy to blog.. Seriously lazy..

Anyways. Work is great. I think its really good that I am able to have my attachment at Rolls Royce, but then again, the only thing is that its in the U.K, Derby. Which kinda sucks. But ahh well. We can't have the best of both worlds.

Andrew Newton, a 20 year old guy in the same team as I am, asked if I wanted to come along for a Motobike race on the next bank holiday Monday. He said he would try to get a pass for me to go in for free. I think tickets costs around 20 pounds? And he's driving. So yep. Good deal. Told you the people there were nice.

And on the Tuesday bank holiday, I'd probablly be going to the Elton Towers? Or Olten Towers? Not sure though. But its an amusement park and its apparently quite famous in the U.K. Will be going with Toby and a bunch of other people I think. But I'm hoping there will be a seat for me in the car. If its full then I can't go. So well. Will ask on this coming Monday!

Donato's going to club tonight at Nottingham. He's collegue's gonna drive him there. He asked if I wanna go... But I passed up on the offer. Mainly because its quite last minute, and just not really in the mood. Would like to go one day though. Just not tonight. haha.

14-5-2008 Wednesday

2008-05-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

London Time: 4.55pm

Its mid week!!! Wednesday! Did more testing at work today.. So nothing much to report.. haha.. But I think I'm heading down to the supermarket later with Donato to stock up on food. Think this time gonna get chicken. Kinda had enough of beef for 3 days in a row.

This morning's lunch was the same i guess? Beef with pasta sauce and pasta. But this time I added a fried egg inside. So yum yum.

13-5-2008

2008-05-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

London Time: 5.20pm

I think you guys are gonna say this is turning out to be more of a Cooking blog.

LOL. Cause well i've got nothing else to post!

Another day at work. Whoo. Was really fun at work today.. Learnt more about the new test that I was doing yesterday.. And well. Basically carried out the test myself as well. But I'm still not that familiar with the set up for this test.. But I guess I'll be more familiar with a few more tries.

And well, I still gotta repeat this again, the guys are REALLY REALLY friendly. They are really helpful and well. Its not like in Singapore where everything's rush rush rush. The work here is greattttttttt. But living here is another thing. haha.

Anyways. Had this for dinner yesterday.

It was toasted bread, with baked potatos and pan fried chicken breast.
Yummy. And Luca( I don't know if its spelt right, but he's an Italian working at the same office as I am and he knows Donato), came over with his daughter yesterday night after dinner. She was soooooooo cute! haha. She's only 1 year and a month old!

12-5-2008 Monday

2008-05-12T10:41:00.001-07:00

London Time: 6.40pm

Helloooooo Monday!

I'm kinda in the middle of cooking my lunch for tomorrow... But waiting for the beef steak to defrost. So yeap. And its what I had for lunch today as well. Same ingredients. Gotta finish up first.

Yesterday was pretty much just slacking around at home. Had lunch, which was quite a simple meal? Salad with bread and oven baked Cod fish fingers. Simple meal.

Then just slacked away the afternoon online...

And watched Free Willy 2 on TV while preparing my lunch for today? Will tell you how its done in abit.

Then basically prepared my dinner as well. Which was pasta with boiled mixed vegetables with cod fish fingers again. With ketchup of course.

Then today went to work and basically did more testing on the engine. So yea. It was really interesting. The people in my team, 6 including me, were all really really really friendly. They make the work so enjoyable. I want to work more! Cause well its basically better than sitting at home blogging about this. haha.

After the testing was done, at around 3pm, I went back to the office and just bummed around? Cause there was nothing to do. Went to wikipedia to check out certain places, like London, Amsterdam and basically the map of Europe. My supervisor Andy Payne is a really nice dude. He chatted to me about his trip to Singapore... and what he ate there and stuff, then later me, him and Kevin( the Irish lad) and a few others joined in for a conversation on good places to go in Europe. And just chatted away till it was 4.30pm. Then picked up my stuff and cycled home.

So right now I'll be preparing the lunch for tomorrow, its basically pasta with boiled vegetables. But I'll be cutting up the beef steak into small pieces, put some oil in the frying pan and lightly fry it, add some salt, and add the Bologoniese sauce ( i cant spell it) from a jar. Then let it simmer for awhile and Presto!!! Yummy beef bologoniese pasta.

Doesn't look fantastic. But it tastes pretty good.

And for dinner tonight it'll be baked potatos with chicken breast. Will post up pics tomorrow for it!

11-5-2008 Sunday

2008-05-11T01:10:00.001-07:00

London Time: 9.10am

Happy Mother's Day!
Happy Mother's Day Mummy!

I didn't realise it was mother's day till yesterday? Guess its not a big thing over here. Seriously there's like no mention of it on the TV or shops whatsoever. Just heard from some friends. haha.

Yesterady was spent cycling down to the city center. Where Donato shopped for some clothes. He's quite picky.. But well I didn't have much to buy. But I came across this back pack that costs only 6 pounds. And since carrying a sling bag to work isn't really good for cycling and there's not enough space to put my lunch box and raincoat in. So I decided to get it. Damn another 6 pounds gone. Well at least I saved on the transport here.

At T.K Max. Its like O.G in Singapore.

The guy in stripes is Donato.

Reached back at around 5.30pm and had dinner, it was something like rendang? Well not exactly, but its lamb cubes in a tomato sauce, with bread. Kinda forgot to take any pictures of it. But yea. So after that got back to my room and tried to watch some movies online. But the connection sucks.

And went to sleep at around 11pm. Then woke up today at around 7am? But tossed and turned in bed till 8.30am.

Had some really weird dreams. Weird.

Oh here's my bag, doesn't look much. But ahh what can one expect from 6 pounds here.
But at least its branded. haha.

10-5-2008 Saturday

2008-05-10T02:11:00.000-07:00

London Time: 10.10am

Was too lazy to blog yesterday... haha.

Wow. Its close to the end of the third week I'm here. Guessing i'm left with 3 more months? Its quite fast actually. ;p

There's gonna be a ton of photos here. I took around 100 photos yesterday.

Had Subway for lunch yesterday and for dinner had grilled beef with courgettes and bread. Courgettes are basically something that looks like cucumbers? But aren't exactly it. You've got to simmer it in the pot till it becomes soft before you can eat it.

And the dinner the day before was courgettes with eggs and bread.

Yesterday morning woke up at around 7am, had breakfast, and left the house at around 8am. Took the bus 44 to the City Center(paying 3.30pounds for a day pass) where I asked around for the Red Arrow bus stop. Its where I can take the bus to Nottingham. It was not far from where I dropped off though. When I got up, I bought a return ticket for 5 pounds. The bus was different from the buses I used to take. Its more of like a coach that you take in Singapore to go to Malaysia. You know the kinda with the really comfortable seats.

So the bus ride took around half and hour to reach Nottingham. The view along the journey was beautiful... Wide open grass plains with horse ranches, little cottages and stuff like that. Really beautiful. Plus the weather was really nice.

I dropped off 2 stops before Victoria bus terminal. The place was... Wow. Shopper's paradise. Shops EVERYWHERE. But it was quite early.. around 9am? So most of the shopping centers aren't open. But the street shops were all open. Amazing. There was this trams that operated around the city. They were powered by cables overhead. Its a pretty cool sight to see long-ass trains on the road.

See the groves on the road? Those are the tram tracks.

That's one of the shopping centers there. But is not open this early in the day.

This is actually their open air market. Really interesting stuff they got in there.

I think these are made from wood by hand. Looked so damn real... a flock of sheeps.. bahhhh...

I proceeded to the information center and took alot of brocheurs. And got a map of Nottingham city. Apparently, Nottingham is called Nottinghamshire. And the City is called Nottingham City Center. Its the same as with Derby. Derby is called Derbyshire, and the city is called Derby City Center. Weird right? Yea. I know.

This is basically one of their many churches in the area. I can't remember what's it called though...

Marks and Spencer is actually quite a popular store here in the U.K. Along with other fashion brands like N.E.X.T, TopShop and a few others.

This is actually a really neat little shop thats filled with booze. Well. Top quality wines and stuff. Looks really nice...

On the way towards the Castle of Nottingham. Its where the story of Robin Hood was born! I think its a true life story...

As I approached the Castle...

The steps at the back of the castle...

The Statue of... who else? Robin Hood! He looks kinda stout on the statue right?

And these are his merry folk.

This is the information display about the castle origins and of Robin Hood!

And there were Engraved pictures on the wall depicting the life of Robin Hood...

And this was still the back of the Castle.. With really old gates and stuff...

Going around the Castle, I reached the Entrance of the Castle...

This was taken at the entrance... I didn't go in cause I had to pay 3.50 pounds for it. I didn't have the time then, but shall visit it the next time I come here.

Beautiful eh?

Walking out of the castle entrance, and towards the an Inn. This Inn is the oldest pub they have in Nottingham, its basically since 1189AD. Thats like. 800+ years ago? Ancient...

But I think they renovated it a couple of times since then...

Then there was the Brewhouse Yard. Its a museum as well. If you pay for the entrance to the castle you can get in free... Since I didn't, I just walked around it..

The walls of the Castle... Then again, I think they had to restore the wall...

Then I decided to proceed to BroadMarsh Shopping center since it was nearby...

At BroadMarsh Shopping center, it was dissappointing. A really terrible shopping center. Nothing much here.

So I went out the front entrance of the shopping center, and it was back to the city center where most of the action is at.

This dude was playing the saxaphone.. Is it spelt right? But he was really good at it.

Had lunch at Subway and then proceeded to the Job center to get my National Insurance Number sorted out. Well basically it was quite far away from the City Center. And the view there wasn't really nice, nothing much interesting.

After that was done, I went back out and started to make my way back..

Hey look! Another Tram...

Loads of Shops.. Think if a lady came here to shop, she'd be shopping till she drops.

The Body Shop!

Walking back to the old parliment building, really grand building eh...

More shops...

This was another shopping center called the Exchange Arcade, its basically a high end shopping center.

Out of the shopping center and MORE SHOPS!

There was this dude selling baloons out in the distance... a really big bunch...

This lady apparently does something like english calligraphy, getting some letters and making it into Art...

They actually have little Casinos out along the shopping districts..

And more shops..

Walking to Victoria Shopping center...

Inside the shopping center...

Walking towards the Bus station to take the bus back to Derby..

Oh yea the Taxis are a different colour! Here they are green. In Derby they are yellow!

Inside Victoria Bus Station. Smells quite bad here... The stench of a toilet nearby..

So I got back home at around 2.00pm. And by then I was dead tired from all the walking... But managed to stay online and chat with friends and family! Whoo.

Then dinner was done and basically went to sleeepp..

Thats a crazy number of pictures for today...

8-5-2008 Thursday

2008-05-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

London Time: 5.45pm.

Ahh last day of work for the week. Gonna head down to Nottingham tomorrow to sort out my National Insurance Number. And tour around there for a bit. So I guess there's gonna be quite a few photos up here tomorrow.

This is what I had for Dinner yesterday. Its some corn thingy that looks like mashed potatos. But isn't very tasty. There was also a sausage that went along with it. Doesn't look that appealing does it? The sausage was good though.

Well. After dinner yesterday, I prepared lunch for the next day. Basically some pasta with vegetables, and I toasted some cod fish fingers. And of course ketchup.

Then I basically took my bicycle and went down to London Road to meet Toby. He managed to get his bike online for only 10 pounds!! Thats dirt cheap. And he's pretty lucky as well. Heard from him today that he actually lives with 5 other people in a 6 bedroom house. With a living room and a kitchen of course. But only 3 of them are from Rolls Royce. So yea. And he only pays like 230 pounds per month? He says the house isn't that good. But, I don't think I'll mind. Too bad anyways, I've already got this house I'm staying in. So yea. I'll live with it. My house's pretty nice anyways. Consoling myself here.

We cycled down to a park. it was amazing. The weather was nice and well. ALOT of FLIES were flying around. And chatting with him while cycling through a bunch of flies isn't fun. Think 1 or 2 went directly into my mouth. Nasty...

But the scenery there was amazing. You don't get to see stuff like that in Singapore. Its basically a cycling track beside a river, and there's like ducks walking around beside the path. And you can literally see rabbits hopping across. Very cute. Too bad I couldn't take any pictures cause I was on my bike and trying to get to the pub as quick as possible cause the flies were irritating.

When we got to the pub, which was about half and hour later, it was... Different from what i expected. Its basically a building that looked like a big house. And inside was a diner and a pub. We met a couple of people outside and I recognized one of the lady there from the Jet Turbine course the other week.

Toby and I then went in to get a drink. He asked my what I wanted, but I didn't know what to have. But I saw that they had Hoegaarden. So I ordered that. Toby was really nice. He insisted on paying for this round of drinks. And well of course I told him I would pay for the next. Was planning on only having one glass. But since he paid for mine, I thought it was only right if i bought the next round.

So we went out and chatted with alot of other international people from Rolls Royce. It was really fun chatting with those people there cause you get to learn alot of what its like from the other country and how its like working here. So yea. It was good fun. Most of the people from the international society were outside chatting. I've got no idea why they didn't wanna chat inside. But I guess it was nicer outside. The scenery was good... And there weren't much people in the pub anyways.

Toby told me that a few of them were going to the amusement park on the next bank holiday, which was on the 26 and 27 May. And he asked me if I wanted to come along as well. So I told him it should be ok. But I was actually planning to go to London for that holiday anywyas. But I can't seem to get people to go. I didn't really ask though. haha. Just casually popped in the question. But yea. Response wasn't that good. haha. Shall ask Toby if he wants to go on that saturday or not. Hopefully he'll want and manage to get more people along as well.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

After finishing my glass of beer, it was around 9.45pm? Toby asked me if I wanted to get more drinks. And well I agreed cause I thought it was my turn to buy his beer.

But when we got back in, he told me that he was buying for another 2 guys too, so he was paying this round as well. I didn't want him to buy he insisted and said I could buy him next time. So ahh well. He ordered Fosters for me this round and well. It was slightly more bitter than the Hoegaarden.

This was inside the pub.

When it got to around 11pm, Donato told me he was heading back and so I followed him. He's other 2 friends were cycled back with us as well. So yea. We took another path, basically the path along the road, instead of back through the park.

When I got home at 11.30pm, I just parked my bicycle in the house and went up to sleep. Yawns.

And woke up this morning, went to work, did the same testing as yesterday but with a different model. So well the results were quite random. But I was getting a hang of things. And well left work at around 5.15pm? And got home and typed this.

7-5-2008 Wednesday

2008-05-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

London Time: 6.07pm

Its mid week! Well I took a bath and I'm gonna head out to the Bridge Inn later. Its apparently a pub and there's an international society meeting there later. Its basically a gathering for all the internatinoal people from RR to meet up. Not sure all of them will go anyways. But yep. Hopefully I'll meet people who are willing to travel with me out of Derby during the weekends. Keeping my fingers crossed here. But yea. I'll be cycling there with Toby later, at 8.30pm.

I guess today was a pretty interesting day for me. Got to work at around 8.00am, and slacked around till 11am. 3 hours of basically sitting there doing nothing cause we were waiting for a rig testing to be set up. Well I managed to get a appointment in Nottingham on Friday for my National Insurance number. So yep, no work on Friday for me. Shall take that chance to tour Nottingham. Yay. But yep I'll be alone again. Damn.

Basically today was mostly spent in the test facility and doing tests. Just sitting in front of a computer and adjust the settings to see different results. It was all really interesting. But then again, I don't think I can say much. Sorry about that.

But yea, it was really cool cause this was what an actual test facility was like, and I was doing work that was basically what graduates do for the Research and Development side in the Aerospace Industry.

Carrying out the test was just kevin and me. He talked to me a great deal about what he was doing and why the tests were carried out. And he's a really really nice guy. He's been in Rolls Royce for the past 5 years now. But he's not planning to stay here permanently. He prefers Ireland. Well thats the funny thing. Most of the people I met don't really want to settle down in Derby, or England for that matter. They'd say working here is good. But living here for the rest of their lives is just not for them. I guess I feel the same way yea? And most of them hate the weather as well.

These few days have been good though. Its bright and sunny in the afternoon. Not really cold anymore. So yea. Its comfortable. Had sandwiches for lunch cause the testing had to continue. So basically ate my sandwich in front of the computer. Not that I'm complaining. I don't like the canteen anyway.

So till about 3pm, the testing was done. And kevin was really a good person to follow. He lets me carry out the tests and also have hands-on on shutting down the system. Its really complicated with a 2 page check-list. Shut down this, then shut down that, then go back and shut down this. Really awesome experience. Confusing though. He said I'd get it in the next 2 or 3 tries. So yea.

When I got back to the office, Andy Payne was there. We started chatting about Singapore and what he did there when he was there for 2 weeks and stuff. He also helped me find out the best way to get to Nottingham. Its only 4.60 pounds by train to and fro. And the place I had to go for the interview was really close to the train station. So I guess its better than taking the bus.

At around 4.45pm, I cycled home and bought a microwavable lunchbox on the way back. Finally I can prepare my own lunch for work.

Hmm.. I'm having an apple now. Yummy. Donato's friend, alex, is coming over for dinner as well. They both are going to the meeting later as well..

Oh this was what i had for dinner yesterday, grilled pork chop, salad and bread.

6-05-2008 Tuesday

2008-05-06T10:07:00.001-07:00

London Time:

First day of work! Offcially.

Woke up this morning feeling quite warm. Then I noticed, it really was getting warm. The weather is warming up everyday! Whoo!

So basically got up, washed up, prepared breakfast (toast with butter and milk), and got ready to go to work. Had to report at 9.00pm, so i left the house at around 8.20am. I put on my windbreaker and waterproof pants as well.

Apparently the windbreaker works really well. It wasn't cold at all. Only my fingers were a little chilly. But all in all. It worked wonders.

So cycled to Moor Lane building, its basically just opposite HSBC bank. And parked my bicycle in the parking area. And got a week pass from the security shack.

Then I got directions to the C-wing reception, and basically asked my way around. Finally I was led to the Combustion area office, where I met Kevin. He's a really nice guy, probablly late 20-ish? But noticed from his accent that he sounded abit Irish. And I was right, cause he said something about it later on at lunch. I knew that accent probablly from watching BraveHeart DVD back in Singapore. Its by Mel Gibson. Really good show. FREEDOM!!!!

Then he told me that I'd probablly be working in the Rig testing facility across the street. And he introduced me to a bunch of other people, from his team as well as from other teams. I'm not gonna talk much about what teams there are, cause I'm probablly not allowed to do so anyways. So pardon me for being vague on the details.

Most of the people there were guys and were really nice people. All around 20+ to early 40s age. After all the introduction was done(I can't really remember most of the names though, I'm really bad with names), we left the building and went across the street to the SRC. Strategic something something, its not that I don't wanna tell you what it is, but I probablly can't anyways, I can't remember the full name. Its always mentioned as SRC.

I was told that most of the buildings here were constructed during World War II. So basically the buildings were OLD. But they were slowly knocking them down and building new ones. So yep. But I heard that the buildings were used to test the Merlin Engines that they used on the Spitfire WWII fighter plane. Awesome.

So I went in one of the buildings, into a workshop, and basically met my supervisor, Andy Payne, and a few other guys that were part of the team I was in. Before this, I pictured Andy Payne to be a formal looking person, probablly in a long sleeve shirt and a tie, office-like person. You know, the usual tall and fairly skinny type with a face that probablly doesn't take jokes well. But boy was I wrong. Andy Payne turned out to be a guy probablly in his late 30s or early 40s, pudgy, with a really big nose, as in literally. And well. Bald? He was funnny. A really nice man. He told me that he went to Singapore few months back to meet up with Choon Kiat, the guy who came here last year from Ngee Ann. And brought him around Singapore.

There was this really tall guy as well, his name was Tobey, or Toby? I don't know. But its pronounced that way. Apparently he's quite new there as well. He's only been there for the past 3 months and had around 3 more months to go. He was there as an intern as well. He's REALLY tall. Probablly 1.90m? And again, he's bald. Not that he's too old or anything, I think he's just probablly around 20 years old? He just shaved it all off. And he's got a ring on his right eyebrow. Kinda punkish. But he turned out to be a nice guy as well. He told me there was the International Society Meeting tomorrow and asked me to go along as well. He'd give me the details later.

As we were walking back to Moor Lane Building, we walked past a container like area, that was the canteen. That was a temporary one because the older one was burnt down. They suspect it was arson by a few kids that got told off by the security guard for cycling around that area.

When we got back, I was given a report to read, it was basically the tests that were carried out 2 years ago. It was hard to stay awake reading the report cause it was so damn wordy. But yep. I think I was given that to read cause there was nothing for me to do that time anyways.

Lunch time came and we all went to the canteen for lunch. I ordered rice, and was given a HUGE serving. I've got no idea why. Then I ordered sausages as well. So basically I could only finish 1/3 of the rice and all the sausages. There was really ALOT of rice. And it was cooked with egg and some veges. Tasted... not really good. And that all cost me 3.30 pounds. Damn ex. Shall eat something better and healthier tomorrow.

After lunch I went back and did an online tutorial course on Combustion. Pretty interesting stuff, but got slightly boring at the end. Then just slacked around cause there was nothing to do till around 4.45pm. Then I suited up and went home.

The weather was warm. I was perspiring by the time I got home. Yay. Summer's coming! I got up, chatted to some of my friends still online, did some push ups and sit ups, and went to bathe.

Donato came back soon after and we went to the Supermart to shop for groceries. It was a long walk to the supermarket. And most of the stuff was for me cause Donato had enough food for him at home. So yep. The bill cost me 17.10 pounds. I hope thats all for this week's groceries. But I still gotta get a mircowavable lunchbox. So I can cook my own lunch and bring it to work.

Donato's gonna prepare dinner soon. I think its steak for tonight. Well. Here I am typing out this entry. Oh yea. Apparently the work hours are quite flexible. The total hours to work a week is 38 hours. I don't know if lunch time is included. But we only need a half hour for lunch. And if we come in early, we can end early. Or we can work later one day and leave earlier on the other. And its really based on trust. Cause there's no signing in or anything. Cool. But yea of course I'm gonna work my 38 hours. Its good in a way that I can work later on other days and go home earlier on Friday.

Oh yea. Tomorrow night I'll be going to the International Society Meeting. Its gonna be held at a pub called Bridge Inn. And it starts at 8.30pm. Whee. I'll be cycling there with Toby probablly. Cause he lives at Alvaston too. Quite near to where I stay.

5-05-2008 Monday

2008-05-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

London Time: 6.40pm

Well, here's the second post of the day. I'm basically too free.

Woke up amazingly late today, at 9.30am? Slept for around 11 hours. Man I'm becoming a sloth...

So I got up, washed up, and prepared breakfast. Had toast with nutella choc. Yummy. Then basically slacked around online till around lunch time.

When I got downstairs, I realized that the freezer door wasn't shut. Shit. Alot of the stuff in the freezer were soft. So I shut it and prayed nothing spoilt. Man. Hope nothing goes wrong with it. I got out some prawns from the freezer, took out some cut onions, and brocolli and cauliflour. Then I got out some pasta, and started boiling them. I boiled the brocolli and cauliflour as well.

This part was totally based on what my mom cooked at home before. I was gonna prepare ketchup prawns. Firstly I added some olive oil into the frying pan, a little too much maybe. But yep. After the oil was heated up, in goes the onions. Then I added ketchup, man I love ketchup. Then I added abit of water to make it a little more saucy. If that makes sense? Then finally added in the prawns. Stir fried it and it was ready to serve.

Put all of it into a bowl and PRESTO! There's lunch. It was... GOOOD.

Then I slacked around, chatted online... Man my life is boring. Shall do more next weekend. Maybe go to Nottingham. I don't know. Probablly Saturday or Sunday...

So yep. At around 5.00pm, went downstairs and turned on the TV. National Treasure just started! I prepared dinner while watching it. Took out the same kinda pasta and boiled that. Boiled some cauliflour and brocolli as well. Then I took out some Fish Fingers from the freezer. And basically tossed them in the oven. Added ketchup to the pasta and there it was done. Pretty good too. The Fish Fingers were good.

Think I shall sleep early tonight. First day of work tomorrow. Last week was just a course. Wish me luck!

5-05-2008 Monday

2008-05-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

London Time: 10.20am

Isn't supposed to feel good when its a holiday on Monday? Well not for me. Its boring as hell.

I was too lazy to blog yesterday so I'm gonna talk about yesterday now...

Woke up pretty early yesterday, at around 8am? I can't remember. But yep got online.. Chatted with a few people then I went off to Derby City Center. I walked back down the street and went to the bus stop. This time I took notice of the information at the Bus stop. Its basically information on the bus arrival timings. Check it out. The street I was on has a friggin weird name.

Its London Road. Burnable Street. Burnable. I wonder if there's a street called Inflammable Street. Or Flammable Street.

Ahh well. The bus came at around 10.30am and this time i bought the Day Saver pass. Which cost me 3.30 pounds. Well I got off outside Westfield shopping center and walked around and took some photos.

I went to hunt for Poundland, apparently everything there's for one pound. Its like the value store in Singapore, where everything is for S$1. I was looking around for a razor for shaving, and a nail clipper. I found the razor, but the nail clipper was part of a set of manicure products. With a really neon orange pouch. Really feminine. But what the heck. I bought them anyways.

After that I got out and went to Matalan, its a major departmental store opposite Westfield. I got a pair of in house slippers, for 3 pounds. It was the cheapest I could find. So yep. Then I was left with around 15 pounds. Friggin broke.

So I went up to Marks and Spencer to change more Singapore dollars. Well apparently the rate was 2.8878. So I changed S$200 for 69.26 pounds. There goes S$200. Hopefully with amount will last me till the next pay day. which is around.. 23 days away. Thats, 3 weeks more. Hopefully. Hopefully.

This was a shop I passed by that looked really cute.

When that was done, I took a bus back. It was close to lunch time so I went to prepare lunch. There was still this frozen Pizza in the fridge that I bought on Sunday. So I thought I'd better eat it before it expired. I heated it up in the oven and threw in extra ham. Those were expiring soon too.

And this was my lunch.

Spent most of the afternoon chatting with family and friends. Thank god for the internet again. And well for dinner I prepared some pasta again, fried some ham, and boiled cauliflour and brocolli and carrots. Then I added in ketchup sauce for flavour to the pasta. Was pretty darn good. Yummy.

Then watched a movie online and went to sleep.. Till around 9.30am the next morning, today...

3-05-2008 Saturday

2008-05-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

London Time: 9.17 pm

Woke up in a lazy mood this morning. But at 8am, it was already bright and sunny. So washed up and had my teeth brushed. Then i went online to see if i could catch anyone i could chat...

Managed to talk to a few people throughout the morning. When it got closer to lunch, i decided that it would be a good idea to try and prepare a meal for myself. So i looked around the kitchen, and decided that i would cook that pasta which was something like dumplings with a small piece of minced meat inside it.

After i heated up the water, i got out some of the pasta and dumped it in. Then i got out the frying pan, poured in some olive oil and started frying the ham i bought a few days ago. It smelled really good. After that was done, i got out some lettuce in the fridge and plucked some off and rinsed them under running water.

When the pasta was sufficiently boiled, i drained the water from the pot and basically mixed everything up. The lettuce, fried ham and pasta. And Presto! There's my first Italian lunch. Oh and I cooked enough pasta to last me for dinner as well. Kept the remaining in the pot.

After lunch, i managed to talk to my parents online and a few of my friends as well. Basically spending most of the afternoon just doing video calls. Thank god for the internet.

At around 5.30pm, i got out of the house and began to make my way to Derby City Center. Walking along the street and finally coming to a busstop where i took the bus 44 to the City Center. It cost me 1.70 pounds. Friggin expensive! Shall ask Donato to lead me to the City Center by cycling one day.

When I got there, it was slightly after 6pm. Sadly, most of the shops outside Westfield are closed at 5.30pm. ON A SATURDAY. There is seriously no night life here man. Good thing is that the shops inside Westfield are still open till 9pm.

Inside Westfield, i looked around for a sports shop, hoping to get some waterproof clothes. So i went in Sports World. Its something like Sportslink or World of sports. I asked around for waterproof clothing and managed to find some. Its on offer. And quite cheap. I got the windbreaker for 9.99 pounds and the waterproof pants for 7.99 pounds. They were initially priced at 29.99 pounds and 26.99 pounds i think. So yep it was pretty reasonable. But there went 18 pounds.

I went back to ORANGE to top up another 5 pounds into my prepaid SIM card. Hope that lasts me longer. Then i went around looking for gloves. But apparently they didn't have many to choose from cause its said that they don't sell gloves during the coming summer since it wasn't needed during this time of the year. But they told me i could try the shops outside Westfield. So yep, probablly will try tomorrow.

I looked around for muppets as well. I'm not sure if thats the right name for it, but its basically those kinda slippers that you wear at home? Those soft furry kind. Apparently only Marks and Spencer had it. And it costs 5 pounds for a pair. Which was quite expensive. But i was told to check out the Pound Store. Apparently they may have it for 1 pound. But then again, its closed at this time of the day. So shall try tomorrow.

Took bus 44 back, which cost me another 1.70 pounds. But the driver told me that i should get a day saver. Which was 3.30 pounds and could get me on any bus any number of times i want for a day.

When i alighted, i took the wrong turn and ended up walking the wrong way. Thankfully the people around were nice enough to tell me where Kiwi Drive is. (Its the street towards where my house is.) And i got round a corner shop and bought a bottle of ketchup for 89 pence. Thought it'll make the pasta taste better.

So i got home and took a shower and started preparing dinner again. Basically all i did was re boil the pasta. Dump the pasta into a bowl with lettuce, left over ham from lunch, and ketchup sauce. It tasted pretty much better with the ketchup sauce. Yummy.

And now here I am typing out this post while waiting for 'I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry' to load.

I've done some calculations, and I've already spent 520 pounds. I'm left with 20 pounds. Shit. Gotta change money tomorrow.

2-5-2008 Friday

2008-05-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

Thank God Its Friday!

Whee. So finally ended the course today. Lessons ended at around 3.30pm? So that was kinda early. So i cycled down to Subway which was around a 10 minutes ride from my place. And got dinner. The bread wasn't ready yet. So i got a wrap instead. It costs 3.20pounds. haha. Going broke soon.

Anyways i hope i'll be able to meet my group mates from the course again next time. Though I don't think it'll be possible to see all of them again cause we're all in different departments.

Rushed home cause i thought i could catch some people online before it got too late. But when i got home, the internet connection was no good. Couldn't connect at all. So i called the land lord and finally he came over and reset-ed the modem in the house next door. And it worked.

Anyways I realised i really can't live without the internet. Its the 02 in my air.

Here's a picture of my class and a design drawing of my Jet Turbine. Cool eh?

The class pic and design pic has been removed by me. haha. In case anyone may complain about revealing company secrets.

Welcoming a lonely weekend.

1-05-2008 Thursday

2008-05-01T10:21:00.001-07:00

London Time: 6.20pm

Happy Labour Day!

Well apparently from what i heard, there's labour day here as well. But they name it bank holiday. And its supposed to be on the 1st of May, like in Singapore, but they push it back to the following monday. So it stretches for a longer weekend. Amazing huh. Unlike in Singapore where today you don't have to work and tomorrow you do. And the day after that is the weekend.

Ahh well. This is the U.K. So i guess things work differently around here.

Today was pretty much the same thing as yesterday. Had lunch at the cafeteria, consisting of rice (which was quite hard) and curry chicken. It wasn't even spicy. But it was alright i guess. The lunch today was better than yesterday. But it costs me 3.50 pounds. And i also had Hot Chocolate from the vending machine for 30 pence. It was really good. Yummy. Shall have another cup tomorrow.

Oh yea. A bottle of coke costs around 90 pence here? So that works out to be S$2.50? Thats quite expensive ya? Ahh well. I guess i'm not having fizzy drinks here. Actually. I haven't touched fizzy drinks here at all. Wow healthy living.

Thankfully the calculations and sketching of the turbine blades ended quite early today, at around 4.40pm? So managed to get back home quite early.

The weather today is WONDERFUL. Its bright and sunny. But it isn't hot like in Singapore under this kinda Sun. Its still colder. But comfortable cold. So yea. Great weather. I heard this doesn't come by often anyways.

Wonder what Donato's gonna fix up for dinner...

30-4-2008 Wednesday

2008-04-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ahh.. Wednesday. Guess tomorrow's Labour Day for people in Singapore ya? Gotta wake up damn early tomorrow to chat with friends. Then go to work.

Donato's friends left for Italy this morning and he's gonna go back on Friday. So yea. Kinda dread this weekend.

But then again, I'm hoping things will improve when I really start working next Tuesday. Anyways, I've made friends with my groupmates for these couple of days. But they won't be working with me after this course. So I guess it'll be unlikely that I'll see any of them again where I'm working next week onwards. Among them there's Dave, a 22 year old guy from Derby(apparently he's engaged and has just got a house, he's still in University by the way). Catherine and Laurent from France. Catherine's a real math genious. She's been helping me along for the entire course (cause she's sitting beside me) and she completes the questions faster than any of us there. And to my other side is Laurent. No idea how old is he though. But apparently he's just got a new house as well and he drives to work.

The other 2 people in my group are sitting slightly further from me. So I don't really communicate that much with them. There's Alex, who's a real weird guy. He brings this broken ruler and says that it has sentimental value to him. And on Tuesday a couple of people commented on his ruler and he got real pissed. He said he was gonna punch the next person who comments about it. He also brings to work a hand sanitiser to clean his hands once he gets to work. Freak.

The last guy... I can't really remember his name. But he's the only one in our course who's on the Marine side. Basically he's dealing with Submarines. And he can't tell us much about what he does. Cause its sorta like the Government Secret. But he's alright I guess. He's probablly 30+?

Oh and lunch for yesterday was really soggy rice with meat and sauce. That costs me 3 pounds.

And today I had Fries and Sausages. That cost me another 3 pounds. Basically that was what they had. The menu kinda changes everyday. But it wasn't that good. Most of the people here bring their own lunch boxes from home.

Sorry I don't have any pictures to upload yet. But yea will try to take some interesting ones soon.

Happy Labour Day.

I'll be going downstairs to help fix dinner with Donato. Free! haha.

29-04-2008 Tuesday

2008-04-29T11:09:00.001-07:00

London Time: 7.10 pm

Wow work was crazy today. Well not cause I'm actually doing work. But its cause of the course I'm attending now. We gotta do loads of calculations and stuff like that. And alot of the stuff are on the University level. But thankfully I managed to complete them with the help of my group people.

My group only managed to complete the entire assignment at 6pm. But that was expected already by the lecturer.

And well. The assignment was on doing the designing of a TurboFan Engine. Basically dealing with LOADS of calculations. But there was that sense of statisfaction there when its completed.

Brain Dead.

Cycling to work today was quite alright. Cause I wore my Billabong sweater that had long sleeves compared to the sleeveless jacket i wore the day before. But never the less. It was cold. Not because the wind got through my jacket. But cause the uncovered parts of my face had wind blowing towards them. So yeap.

No pictures for today though. And i dont think there will be for the next couple of days. Nothing much to take. And I can't take pictures inside Rolls Royce Compound.

28-04-08 Monday

2008-04-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

London Time: 6.07 pm

Man i just got back from work. Cycling to work this morning was crazily cold. I was freeezzzzinggg my ass off when I got to work. So yea.

Donato led the way to work today and he told me to get a sort of like windbreaker/raincoat and waterproof pants. In case it rains halfway the next time. Well that's a good idea. But I don't have the time during weekdays to go down and get them. So yeap. Guess I gotta pray it doesn't rain whenever I'm cycling these few days. Ah what the hell. I think I'd just pray for it not to rain whenever I'm cycling throughout my time here.

Its a 15-20 minutes cycle from here to Rolls Royce Research and Development Center. So when I got there, there was this other English guy with a bicycle, trying to get in through a gate. I asked him where I could park my bicycle. And it turns out the gate he was trying to get open with his card was in fact a bicycle shelter. Its basically where you get to park your bicycles outside the building.

So he kindly let me in and he told me that he was going for the Holistic Gas Turbine Induction Course. Which was the exact same course I'm attending. His name was Dave. He happened to be a 22 year old, living in Derby and he's doing something of like an internship as well in Rolls Royce. But he has been here since September. So yea I've got no idea how their universities work there.

When we got in the main door, I approached the reception to ask for a letter Erica Tyson left me. It was a reference letter so that I could open a bank account. After getting that letter, i went up to the third floor for the course.

Basically what I'll be doing this week is attending a course on Holistic Gas Turbine Engine. So yea. Sounds chim?

Well the topics covered were very relevant to what I had studied in AT in NP. Alot of them had to do with Thermofluids and Mechanics of Flight. So yeap. I'm kinda happy that I did listen on to the lectures in class. I asked directions from Dave on how to get to HSBC bank and planned on rushing there during lunch time.

During lunch I went down to the canteen. It sucks. There's no real food there. I got a pre made sandwich for 1.55 pounds. It was just 4 triangle slices of bread with ham. So yea. It sucked. Well I walked and ate at teh same time. Cause i was heading over to the HSBC bank nearby. Its about a 5 minutes walk there.

When I got there I told the person at the counter what I wanted and she got another person to assist me. This lady then took me to a room and helped me open the account.

My break ended at 1.15pm. But at 1.15pm, I just got out of the bank. I finally made it back at 1.25pm though. And thankfully nothing much was covered during that 10 minutes. And I think Dave helped me explain why I was late while i wasn't there yet.

So after work I got back my bike and cycled home. It was that cold to cycle home. But it was slighly drizzling. Damn it. But i managed to get home without getting too wet. Actually i wasn't that wet at all.

There wasn't anyone at home though. I've got no idea where Donato and his friends were. SO yep I'm alone at home typing out this entry.

Here are some pictures of my house.

Thats the back yard...

The kitchen...

The living room...

The Stairs..

My toilet...

My room. Messy though.

2008-04-27T05:50:00.000-07:00

Sunday 27-04-2008

London Time: 1.50pm

Whoo I've officially moved in to my new apartment. And i got a bicycle as well. But i've gotta return it to the land lord, Giuseppe after 4 months. And he's charging me 30 pounds for the rent. I guess thats cheaper than spending the money on transport.

Well when i got here it appears that there were already people in the house. So i was guessing that my roomate was at home. And indeed he was. Well i finally met him. And what can i say. He's a really gentle guy? Not those big burly 26-27 year old guy. And his Italian. So yep.

But cuurently, his girlfriend is staying with him in his room up stairs and on my level another female friend of his is staying there as well. So yep.

Well not really in to the mood of blogging much today. But I'll upload pictures of the new place once i've taken the pictures ya?

26-4-08 Saturday

2008-04-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

26-4-08 Saturday

London Time: 7.44am

Ahh. Finally its Saturday. And soon I’ll be able to start work on Monday! But I gotta go down to the bank during lunch time to get my bank account done. Wonder if I’ll have enough time. I’ll probably bring my big luggage down to the new apartment today. But I’ll come back to Mrs Mary’s place and stay for one more night. Cause she’s getting paid by Rolls Royce for each night I stay here. So I gotta stay for one last night.

Well yesterday after having breakfast, Giuseppe came down and picked me up. Weird name right? He’s the land lord of the new area where I’ll be staying. He looked around 40+? He had graying hair and a really large nose. And he’s in need of breath mints. Well we took his tiny little car down to the place where I’ll be staying.

In the car he told me that the rent was 315 pounds/month. And I had to pay an administration cost of 100 pounds, another 300 pounds for bills and tax on the building, 50 pounds for the remainder of the month I’ll be staying and another 50 pounds for miscellaneous stuff like bedding and stuff like that. Oh yea there’s a deposit of 200 pounds that I need to pay but will be refunded once I move out of the place after 4 months if there’s nothing wrong with the apartment. That was A LOT of money. Gosh I’m gonna be broke. So I worked it out, excluding the deposit that will be refunded, I’ll have to pay around 440pounds/month. That is A LOT of money. Ahhh!!!
As he drove along the road towards the city, he turned right at a round-about where normally if you’d drive straight you’ll reach the city. And he told me to the left was Rolls Royce. He drove for a couple more minutes and turned in to a smaller road. As he drove on, he pointed out to me which of the nearby houses was currently occupied by Rolls Royce people.

Surprisingly the area was quite new. The houses were quite modern. Compared to the houses nearby The Manor Hotel that were quite old. The area where I’d be staying looked like it came out from the show, Desperate Housewives. The road was clean and new, so were the houses.

He pulled up at a house at Gala Drive. And the house was labeled 2. As we got out of the car, he mentioned that the houses around the area were only 3 years old. He also explained to me that currently there’s an Italian (whom I can’t remember the name) from Rolls Royce that was staying at there. He was also a intern there but was offered a contract for one year after he completed the internship. And currently his girlfriend was over visiting him for a few days.

He rang the doorbell but no one answered. Kinda expected cause the Italian guy was probably working at the time. So he took out a bunch of keys and started trying everyone of them. After 5 minutes he finally got the door open.

The door way was quite small. Cause around 2 feet of the door way is a stairs leading upstairs and to the right was a door. He opened the door and it revealed a living room with 2 couches and a big LCD TV. The living room wasn’t very big. There was a guitar beside the sofa. Whoo. I probably could pick up a few tunes from the Italian dude. Inside the living room there was another door at the back. A kitchen was behind that door. The kitchen was slightly bigger than the living room. There was an oven, microwave, fridge, stove, cupboards, and a washing machine. Well almost everything needed in the kitchen was there.

A door in the back of the kitchen led to the back yard of the place. It was a small grassy area with a pavement through it.

Then we went back to the door way and he told me to take off my shoes and proceed upstairs.

There were 3 doors here and one of them led to a giant bathroom. The bathroom was sparkling clean. There was a giant tub that could fit 2 people there as well.

Awesome.

Through another door was my room. It was a pretty small room with just a double bed there without any bedding on it and a chair and an unconstructed table that was still in a box. He told me that it would be best if I could fix up the table myself, he’d provide the screw driver.

So we went back out and he said that the other room was occupied by the Italian’s girlfriend.

There was a third floor as well but we didn’t go up. Cause he said that the room up there belonged to the Italian and there was a bathroom for him as well.

After all that was done. We went out and took his car back to The Manor Hotel. He told me that it was easy to get to Rolls Royce. I could buy a bicycle from him and could sell back to him after my 4 months here. That was quite a good idea cause bus fares were very expensive. (12 pounds/week for the weekly pass).

When we got back, I signed the contract and paid him 300 pounds first. The remaining will be paid when I got my bank account done up and manage to cash in the cheque from Rolls Royce.

After that was done with, I got my stuff and prepared to go to Derby City for lunch. Similarly for the past few days I took bus 60 to the city center.

When I got there I went back to Subway and ordered the a foot long Turkey Breast and Ham Sandwich with bbq sauce, lettuces and some black little veggie. No idea what that’s called. I packed half of it into my bag and had half of it there. Then I went around and took a couple of photos and went to get a microphone headset. That cost me 5 pounds. And I topped up my SIM card for another 5 pounds. In all, I spent 25 pounds on phone alone this month. My SIM card now has 11 pounds remaining. Bloody ex. That means I’ve already spent 14 pounds on calls.

Then I went to the bus stop. It seems that I just missed bus 60 cause the next one would come on 37 mintues. But there was bus 61 that would come in 4 minutes. I thought 61 would get me back as well, so I took it when it came. Big mistake.
As I sat in the bus all the way, after 45 minutes I was still wondering why we haven’t reached. Then I noticed that the bus was going back to the City Center. So I asked the driver if the bus went to Chellaston. He said we just came from there! Shit. I guess bus 61 didn’t go by my bus stop. Damn. So I got off and went opposite and waited for bus 60. Lucky for me this time I only had to wait for 5 minutes for it to come.

So I got back to The Manor Hotel and played my PSP and had my other half of the Subway for dinner before taking a bath and going to sleep at around 9pm.
Oh yea. My address for the new place:

2 Gala Drive
Alvaston, Derby
DE 248YA

Here are some pictures I took in the Derby City

2008-04-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

25-4-08 Friday

London Time: 6.36am

Ahh darn. Slept pretty early yesterday. Got to bed at around 8pm. And woke up at 6am. So yea. So the plan for today would actually be viewing my new place. Mrs Mary set up for me for the owner of the place to come down and pick me up at around 11 to 11.30am to view the place. So I’m hoping its good. Wish me luck! Well I’m not feeling that bad compared to the day I arrived. I guess I’ve become more familiar with the surroundings and well, getting used to the place I guess? So I guess I’ll last the next 3 months and 3 weeks yea?

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. Had the continental breakfast again in the morning made by Mrs Mary. I ate a small box of cereal with milk, then 2 slices of toast with jam and nutella again. And finally a glass of orange juice.
After breakfast I went back upstairs and lazed around watching American TV shows. Then at around 12pm, I packed my laptop into my bag and planned to go to Westfield Shopping Center to use the WiFi there.

It started raining once I got out of The Manor! So I walked briskly all the way to the busstop and took shelter outside a butcher’s store nearby. Soon after I got there, the rain stopped. The weird thing about people living here is that even if its raining, they don’t really carry an umbrella around! They’d just walk slightly faster to wherever they were going.

When bus 60 came, I went up the bus with a lot of kids around my age. I wonder why don’t they have school on a Thursday. Cause they weren’t in their school uniform. So most likely they didn’t have school today.

A bunch of them got down at Westfield Shopping center and I went to Subway to get lunch. The Subway store was opposite Westfield shopping center. I basically ordered a foot long Terriyaki Chicken Sub and asked the person at the counter to slice it into half and pack one half of it. As soon as that was done, my dinner was settled as well. I put down my stuff at one corner and began munching on half of the Sandwich. It was pretty good, I gobbled it down in around 10 minutes and soon after, I was back out onto the street.

I walked back to Starbucks at Westfield shopping center and asked the person at the counter if there was WiFi there.

“ Oh no, we don’t have our own WiFi here but the entire building has WiFi. But you gotta pay for that one though. You could probably try the Starbucks beside HMV outside on East Street.”

Bloody hell. I thought the lady there told me yesterday that I was able to use WiFi for free there. Feeling damn sianz I asked for directions to the other Starbucks.
It wasn’t too far out, it was just a short walk outside Westfield to get to East Street HMV. As soon as I got there I spotted the reflection of Starbucks on another store’s window plane.

As I got into Starbucks I asked the counter if there was WiFi there. Thank god there was. Then I asked for a power source. She pointed out 2 power sources to me at both ends of the store. But the seats near them were taken. Damn it. So sat down near the entrance and just took out my laptop. Deciding that maybe I could use the internet just for awhile depending on the life of my battery. Thankfully, I was able to hook on to a WiFi service. And got on to the internet. Finally.

Awhile later, a lady and her son got off the seat near the entrance opposite of where I was sitting. I got up and took my laptop with me and went to sit down where they were before they left. I found the power point and plugged in my adapter.

WHOOO I HAD INTERNET CONNECTION AND A POWER SOURCE! WHOOOO.

So I got on to MSN and started doing up a blog.

So basically from 1pm till 5pm I was at Starbucks chatting to family and friends and doing up a blog without even ordering anything from Starbucks.
I felt bad. Haha. But ah what the heck. I shall be thick skinned and not order anything.

Once it got to 5pm, I made my way back to the bus stop to take bus 60 back. Lucky for me the sign said 5 minutes for bus 60 to arrive. Didn’t have to wait long for the bus, I got on and managed to get a seat.

I took the bus all the way back and during one of the stops I saw the same Gangster dude I saw the other day. The one with the leather sleeveless jacket and tattoos. Surprisingly, he got on and was really friendly towards the bus driver. Haha. So I guess he wasn’t that scary after all.

When I got back to the Manor, it was already around 6.00pm. Feeling hungry, I heated up the other half of the Sub sandwich and gobbled that half in no time. Then I had a bar of Kinder Bueno that Candice gave to me.

Some pictures of The Manor:

Yummy.

Think I’m gonna get fat.

Damn it.

Ahh well. Then I took a bath and got to sleep at around 8.00pm.

24-4-08 Thursday

2008-04-24T05:49:00.002-07:00

24-4-08 Thursday

London Time: 7.04am

Well, slept pretty well yesterday night. Think I’m getting accustomed to the London time. But it’s a damn cold morning. Damn it. One side of my nose is running. Plugged it with a tissue. Problem solved. Well I’m pretty used to the idea of being here for the next 4 months. I think its cause I’m more familiar with the surroundings. Mrs Mary told me that the owner of another apartment would give her a call today and he’ll probably get me to go down tomorrow to view the place. It shouldn’t be too bad cause most of the Rolls Royce interns all go there anyways. Essential thing is that there has to be internet. I’m dying here without internet. I’ll bring my laptop down to Derby City Westfield Shopping Center later and try to use the internet at the starbucks later. Really hope its possible.

Well yesterday wasn’t that eventful. Woke up at around 7am and had the continental breakfast again at 8am. Then I went back up to my room and watched Frasier, The O.C, and Smallville. In between watching the shows I was typing out my last post.

Then at around close to 12pm, I left The Manor Hotel and made my way to Derby City. Well I was actually planning to head down to the library first so that I can book a time slot to use the computer at around 3.30pm. While waiting for the bus, there were a lot of kids who just got off school. Like Singapore, they had to wear uniforms. But holy shit, they look awesome. They all wear blazers and white cotton shirts and black pants. And topped off with a tie. Of course I understand that this wouldn’t be possible in Singapore cause of the bloody hot weather. But yea. I wouldn’t mind dressing like that to school. Also while waiting, there was this tall dude who looked like he was in his 30s? Well he was bald with a mid length blonde beard. He was bloody big sized and he was wearing a sleeveless leather jacket, revealing tattoos on his upper arm. And he wore boots. Boots all the way up to just below his knees. I was scared. He looked like a friggin gangster.

So when the bus 60 came, I got on and managed to get a seat. The scary man got on board as well. So I just sat there in my place hoping nothing would go wrong. But as he got on, he was pretty normal. Well he just asked for his ticket and went to the back and seat down. Nothing gangster-ish about him. And just before a stop before where I was getting off, he got off with a bunch of other people.

One stop later I got off. Knowing which way to go, I walked straight to the library. It felt good to know my way around, but then again it didn’t feel good cause I was all alone. I walked past McDonalds and saw a sign that said Happy Meal for 1.99pounds. That wasn’t very expensive, compared to Singapore prices. So I went in to have a look see. It was really crowded when I got in, and really warm. Then there was this fat lady who looked like she’s in her late 20s. She was talking to another person and yelled “f-k blah blah blah” She said it really loud. Since I wasn’t there to have McDonalds, I went out and walked towards the library.

When I got to the library, there was a lady outside who told me that it was closing. I asked what time does it close and she told me, right now. Well I thought they were taking a lunch break or what. So I looked at the sign that shows the operating hours of the library. Bloody unlucky. On Wednesdays they only operate half day. So they closed at 1pm. And it was 12.58pm at the time. Damn suay.

Feeling damn f-ked up, I went back to Westfield to get some lunch. Looking for the healthiest/cheapest option, I had a Potato with Tex Mex Chicken. That cost me 3.14pounds. Don’t ask me why the 0.14 pounds. I have no idea. The guy who served me looked around my age and he was quite handsome. I’m not gay but yea, he had blonde hair something like Zack Effron from the High School Musical. That was when I noticed something. Most of the staff here were young people around my age. It was very different compared to Singapore. Their service attitude was really good as well. They were very nice and polite. While in Singapore its all the grumpy Aunties that want to get you out of their face once you got your food.

The meal was pretty good. It’s something like a baked potato the size of 2 tennis put together. And the topping was the Tex Mex Chicken. Which had a little sour-ish taste. But it was pretty tasty. I had to force my self to eat finish it cause it was too much for me.

After that I walked around and asked around if there was an internet café. Turns out Westfield Shopping Center didn’t have one. But there was WiFi in the building. So if I had my laptop I could access it for free. So I went to the information counter to check it out. The lady who served me was a girl who looked around my age with retainers in her mouth. She talked kinda funny but was really helpful. She gave me a pamphlet about the WiFi in the building. It said that I had to pay to use the internet. Which was kind of a bummer. But she told me Starbucks has their own internet. So I went over to Starbucks and asked around. The lady at the counter told me that there was WiFi in the building and it was free. She told me if I had a laptop I could access it. And there was a power point at one corner. Thanking her, I left Starbucks thinking I’ll give it a try tomorrow.

So I went back to the bus stop and waited for bus 60. The digital sign showed that the bus wouldn’t be here for at least 15 mins. So I went opposite the busstop to a mobile phone store. Going in, I asked the Indian man at the counter what was the cheapest phone I could use just to make calls. I was looking for one cause it was quite a hassle trying to change SIM cards all the time. He showed me one that costs 30 pounds. It was the old Nokia phone, one of the earliest generations of Nokia models that had colour display. Then I said thank you and went out the shop. I was still contemplating whether or not to get the phone.

Soon enough my bus came and I went back to The Manor Hotel to rest. Though when I got back, I didn’t know why I felt so tired. I tried to read the books given to me by Erica Tyson, about Jet Engines, but couldn’t really concentrate. But I knew I gotta try to read finish the books, at least I’ll be prepared when I start my course next week.

I took an hour’s nap and it was already 6.00pm. Though I wasn’t really hungry I thought I’d better get some dinner before it gets dark. So I went out and walked to the Supermart and bought a Curry Chicken Rice set for 1.50pounds from the supermart. Its those kind where you just heat it up in the microwave and it becomes edible.
I was pretty hungry by the time I got back. So I heated up the Curry Chicken Rice Set and waited. It wasn’t such a good idea buying such a strong smelling dinner back cause my room started to smell of curry.

When it was done, I took it out of the microwave and left it to cool. It was pretty alright I guess. I wouldn’t say it tasted great. The rice was quite hard and stuck together. And the chicken was really tough to eat. The Curry sauce was ok though. It wasn’t too spicy, just a little sour-ish.

After dinner I went to play some PSP and read the Jet Engine book. Then I went to sleep at around 8.30pm. Oh yea. The days are really long here. It gets bright at around 5.30am and gets dark only at around 8.00pm.

23-04-2008. Wednesday.

2008-04-24T05:49:00.001-07:00

23-04-2008. Wednesday.
9.30am London time.
Well. Basically its morning right now. And well my phone SIM card is finally activated for 5pence/min. And I’m left with 9 pounds in my SIM card.
Alright so yesterday, 22/04/08 Tuesday, I woke up at around 8am and went downstairs. Mrs Mary prepared for me a Continental Breakfast, I have no idea why in the world it was called that. But there was the breakfast. Fruits and Fibre Cereal with milk, 6 half slices of toasted bread, orange juice, yoghurt, a giant jelly, Nutella Spread, Jam spread and Margarine. I had the cereals, 2 slices of bread spreaded with Nutella and Jam, and I was full.
After thanking Mrs Mary for the meal, I realized that I wasn’t the only one staying at The Manor Hotel. Mrs Mary’s family’s there as well. There’s a blonde lady who looks like she’s in her 40s, and a young blonde girl who looks around my age. Well I’m guessing the blonde lady is Mrs Mary’s daughter and the girl would probably be her granddaughter. Well those are just guesses. But I guess its comforting to know that I’m not the only one other than Mrs Mary.
After breakfast I went back up my room and turned off the TV. Thank god there was regular American shows, Fraiser, The O.C and Smallville. So basically I spent most my morning watching tv and typing out my last post.
Not really in the mood to go to Derby city today, so I’d figured I’d just laze around in my room till lunch time.
When it got close to lunch time, I suited up into my 3 layers of sweaters and went down the lane and walked around looking for a place to get lunch.
There was a Chinese take-away just down the lane and it was really expensive. One dish costs around 4.50 pounds. But I got to a fish and chip take away place and bought fish and chips for 3 pounds. I asked for ketchup, which costs 80 pence for a small packet. Then I started making my way back.
Back at The Manor Hotel, I had my lunch in my room and only managed to finish half of the fish and 1/3 of the fries. It wasn’t really that nice though. I wondered was it because I didn’t have the appetite or because it wasn’t that tasty. So I kept the remainder inside the microwave oven for later.
At around 3.00pm Mrs Mary knocked and came in telling me that there was a call for me. It was someone from Rolls Royce whom I really can’t remember the name. She told me to come down for a Drugs and Alcohol test at 4.30pm.
So after getting directions from Mrs Mary, I took bus 60 down to a place called Merrill Way. It wasn’t really far because it was a few stops before Derby City. So I got off and asked around for directions to Rolls Royce. It was a really long walk. I reached there at around 4.15. And the Rolls Royce area was really really huge. There are so many buildings there. It was crazy big. I was perspiring by the time I got into the building, the Research and Development Center. It wasn’t a really nice feeling cause I was perspiring inside but it was quite cold outside. So yea. Well I went to the reception and told them that I came for a drugs and alcohol test. And the officer there led me to an area where there were interview rooms and sat down on a chair outside the room.
At around 4.35pm an white haired man who looked like he was in his early 50s walked in and told me to wait outside while he went into one of the interview rooms and set up his equipment. Awhile later he told me to get into the room.
Well the test wasn’t what I was expected. I thought they would need to draw some of my blood out for testing. But turns out that for the drug test, all I needed was to swab a cotton bud in my mouth and it would be placed into a small vial and then some of the liquid will be dripped onto a piece of test paper and inserted into a small hand held device. 12 minutes later, the result was out and I was negative for any drugs. For the alcohol test all I had to do was blow into a breathalyzer, kinda like those that traffic police use to test for drink driving. My reading was zero for any trace of alcohol. So basically I passed both the test.
Erica Tyson, the person I’ve been in contact through email with in Singapore met me outside the interview room. It was the first time I’ve met her and she was not what I expected. I was picturing some prim and well dressed lady. But she was a bespectacled, slightly rotund lady who looked like she was in her early early 40s? I can’t be sure. But she was a nice lady. She introduced her self and sat me down in a nearby seat. She handed to me a few documents and a few books on Jet engines. I was told that I would be attending a course on Jet Engine’s next Monday onwards for a week. Then after that I’d be posted to the Combustion Site to start work. She handed me a cheque from Rolls Royce for 1,500 Pounds. It was to cover my travel expenses. But I was only able to bank in the cheque once I moved into my permanent accommodation for the next 4 months and opened a bank account using that address.
Doing the math, I spent around S$3900 when I first came, on my train fare, air fare, and bringing around changing 545pounds here. And 1500 pounds would mean around S$4050. So well I’ve only got S$150 extra. But it was comforting to know that at least I got everything that I spent back.
Erica Tyson sent me back to The Manor Hotel in her car. It was a really small stick-shift car. And she didn’t need to turn on the aircon. Just wind down the window and it gets cold enough.
I got back to my room and mircowaved the remaining fish and chips. I finished up the remaining half of the fish and left 1/3 of the fries.
So I’ve only spent 3 pounds today!
By the time it was already close to 8.00pm and I took a bath and went to sleep. This time I woke up at 5am the next morning.

22/04/08 Tuesday

2008-04-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the poor English.

To all that came down to send me off – Thank you. With all my heart.

22/04/08 Tuesday

London Time: 10.12am

Singapore Time: 5.12pm

Alrighto, here’s my first update to a life in the U.K:

Well I’m currently in my room in The Manor Hotel, Chellaston, Derby. There’s no internet connection here so I’m kinda typing this and posting this once I move into a new place with internet connection.

Trust me, if you’re a Singaporean, alone abroad, an internet connection is what you really need. I’m going mad right now cause I can’t be connected to my friends abroad and calling back home isn’t cheap at all. And I’ve got absolutely nothing to do. Well, I’ve got a SIM card here which is gonna cost me 5pence/min to call back to Singapore, but that discounted rate won’t be in effect till they send me a message saying that it is.

I wish they told me that when I bought it. Cause I thought it was 5p/min immediately once I got the SIM card. Cause I didn’t know that and happily topped up 10 pounds into my SIM card, started calling home and chatted for around 7 mins? Then I checked my account again. I’m left with 3 pounds in the card. That was a real f-king shock. So if you do the math, it cost me 1 pound/min. Which is like, f-king S$3/min??? Only consoling thing is that it cost slightly cheaper to call back using this new SIM card than my Starhub one, which costs S$3.50 to call back.
So now I’m just waiting for the message to tell me that my SIM card has been activated for cheaper overseas calls.

Alrights. I’m just gonna start talking about my friggin-ass long trip here.
So… Well after I said good bye to my loved ones and friends that sent me off, I turned around to have one last look at them for the next 4 months. It was kinda emotional to be honest, cause it was really heart warming to see the people you care and love waving goodbye to you. If you have the chance to experience that, you should.

Then I started looking around for the gate where I’m supposed to go for my flight. Wasn’t too hard cause the signs leading there were quite clear. But the queue at the gate was really long. So I went and joined the queue, wasn’t really much of a surprise when I looked around and saw that most of the people queuing were Ang Mohs. Then I realized that this was how it was gonna be in the U.K. No more little Asian people around and just mostly big white Ang Mohs.

So I went in the gate and had to put my backpack through the scanning machine and was told to take out my laptop. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Maybe they thought laptops could be bombs or something like that? Then when my backpack came through the machine, the security personal asked me this “you have a small foldable scissors in your bag?”
“yea I do” I replied.

Then I realized that it was not allowed to have a scissors in your bag on an airplane. So I apologized and took out the scissors from my pencil case and gave it to the person. It was kinda embarrassing but I didn’t really care cause no one there was gonna recognize me or remember me. I guess that’s the only perk being abroad alone, telling yourself that no one’s gonna remember or care who you are.

So I got into the waiting area to board the plane, and found a seat right at the end. When I sat down, all the nervous-ness and fear started to sink in. I was gonna be alone. All alone in a land far away for the next 4 months. You’ll never want to have that feeling inside you. It just kills all excitement for the trip ahead.

The time to board had finally come, I picked up my backpack and walked in to the plane. This was when it got really embarrassing. My seat was in the second seat of a 4 seater in the middle of the plane. I opened up the top compartment where we were supposed to put in our bags, and it was full. And as I was standing there figuring out what to do, there was a line forming behind me. So I took my bag and said sorry to the people queuing behind me and walked in to the area behind where the toilets were. And waited.

When most people were settled down in their seats, I got the attention of the flight attendant and he helped me put my bag in a compartment a few seats in front of mine. Then I got into my seat which an young Ang Moh who looked around my age had to get up and let me in. Well I don’t know if she was my age but she looked that. And she was tall. And slightly plump. So this lady was to my left. And to my right was an older Ang Moh lady. She looked like she was in her 50s? Well I can’t really tell how old are they.

So the flight took off and began my 13 hour journey.

The journey was… Not enjoyable? Well its mostly because every time I needed to pee, I had to ask the lady on my left to get up and let me through. Which wasn’t very nice cause she was sleeping most of the time on the flight. I talked to the lady on my right and found out that she was an Italian and was going back to Italy as she lives there. She was on a flight back from Australia and had to take another flight in London to Italy. She told me it took at least 36 hours in total from Australia to Italy due to all the transit flights. And she has 2 sons who were aged 28 and 32. One was taking his PHD and the other was taking his pilot’s license. Lucky her.

So I spent most of the time watching shows on the in flight entertainment system and trying to sleep. I watched a stand up comedy and “27 Dresses”. And 13 hours, 11000km later, I reached Heathrow Airport Terminal 4, London at 5.30 London time.

I got off the plane and took my backpack after most of the people got off and made my way to the immigration authorites and had my passport stamped and work permit stamped as well. Then I walked to the baggage reclaim belt to reclaim my other 17.5kg bag. So I lugged it along and walked to the London Underground Tube. All alone.

The Underground was at one end of the airport and getting to there wasn’t too much of a problem. Cause there wasn’t much people there at 6.20am anyways. So I got a ticket for 4 pounds from the ticket machine and thankfully I didn’t have to wait cause the train was already there. Just for your information, the Underground’s something like Singapore’s MRT. But the MRT is so much better. The Underground’s trains are quite… old? And its not as clean as Singapore’s. I’m beginning to appreciate Singapore more and more.

So I took the Underground to King’s Cross St Pancras Station, which was around an hour’s journey. At 7.25am, I arrived at King’s Cross St Pancras. I got out of the Underground train and started making my way to the East Midlands train service. It was tough to look around for the right way cause there were no signs that said “East Midlands Train Service”. So I just followed the crowd and asked around.

It was freezing when I was making my way to the train station. Well. Only the uncovered areas of my body was freezing. Basically, my head and hands. So I got out my beanie, gloves and scarf and put them on. I’d like to thank my mom for that.

St Pancras Train Station

After getting the ticket (which cost me a shocking 70.5 pounds) from the ticket counter, it was already close to 8am and the train leaves at 8am. So I got on the train and managed to get in just before the door shut. Inside the carriage, I had to get past a sliding door, with a small round protruding sign that showed 2 arrows in opposite direction that was lit up with neon bulbs, which I had no idea how to open. Cause there was this handle there and when I tried to push and slide it open, it opened up slightly and slid shut again. So I stood there like a dumbass trying to figure out how the hell to get it open. Then I noticed that the sign is actually a button. Pressing it allowed the door to slide open automatically. So I got in and took the seat closest to the door while placing my luggage beside me.

Interior of the East Midlands Train

The stupid sliding door.

The train from St Pancras to Derby took me another 2 hours. When I reached Derby station, it was 10am. It was kinda run down for a train station, with the walls all grafit-ed, looking really old and used. I got into a convenience store in the station and looked around for mineral water. Wow, the water here was expensive. I bought a 1 litre bottle for 1.59 pounds cause I was already dying from thirst since I haven’t drank anything since the plane landed. So as I approached the counter I asked if they sold the pre-paid SIM card. The young guy at the counter said no and told me that if I wanted to get it I had to get into the city.

Then I stepped out onto the street and got into a cab. The cab was really cute, different from what you’d normally see in Singapore. Its beetle-looking, and yellow. The interior is quite large though. But the cab was really old and not comfortable at all. But the cab driver was a nice guy.
In the cab, I looked around the area where the cab was heading and it was, disappointing for me I guess? Cause I’m more of a city boy that was used to clusters of tall apartment buildings, and well, you know, the way Singapore is. This part of Derby was quiet. A few shophouses along the road, residential houses scattered here and there. I felt really out of place and wondered how in the world am I supposed to survive here for the next 4 months.

Inside the cab

The cab driver drove me to the place where I’ll be staying, The Manor Hotel, Chellaston, Derby. In my mind I was imagining a slightly large building with a reception counter where I can check in and stuff like that. Well basically what you’d expect from a hotel. But when the cab turned in to a small corner, drove in to “school lane”, I was wondering if the driver had made a mistake. Then there was this sign on a low brick wall beside a creaky old metal gate that’s quite small. I got out of the taxi and paid my fare of 8.40 pounds. The driver gave me a hand written receipt with his number on it and told me to call him if I needed a cab.

Not impressed by the front of the hotel, which isn’t really a hotel in my Singaporean mindset. It was like a large bungalow with a front lawn. Not knowing what to expect I approached the front door and knocked. It was a really old door that looked like it was from the middle ages.

“knock knock”

No one came. So I looked in through the window and was quite surprised to find that the house was quite… nice? It was very well furnished. I mean its nothing like what you’d see in a Singapore house. It was beautiful. And since no one came to answer the door, I took my phone out and dialed the number of the owner of The Manor.

“Mrs Mary Fowkes?” I asked.

“Hello?” The voice of an old lady.

“ Oh I’m Jonas and I’m supposed to check in today? I’m at your front door.”

“Ah alright, love, why don’t you come on in?”

“ I can’t, it seems to be locked.”

“Oh alright I’ll be out in a minute, love.”

So I waited. Then a really old lady, wrinkled with a kind face and looked like she in her 70s or 80s, walked to the door and opened it. I smiled to her and said that I was here to check in, and I was from Rolls Royce. She told me to come in and as I lugged my luggage in, I looked around and found that the place was beautiful. Carpeted floor, nice furnishing, comfortable couches, frames of photos and portraits hanging on the walls. It was unbelievably beautiful compared to the exterior of the place.

“ Do you like dogs?” She asked.

Wondering why she’d ask that, I said I was alright with dogs. So she went off to a room and opened it and a slightly large dog came lumbering out. It was white with brown patches. I think it’s a cockerel spaniel. But I don’t have much knowledge about the breed of dogs so that’s my guess. But Mrs Mary called it Dennis.

She showed me to my room which had me climbing a stair up to the second level and turning into a walk way with a lot of doors. As she led me to the door on the left, I opened it. As with the rest of the house, it was a beautiful place. It was nothing I would expect from a hotel. Well. Basic stuff like a microwave oven, tv and bed were there. Then there was a shower room. It wasn’t exactly a room. Its like a small square area at one corner that’s made of 2 sliding glass doors. So there was no privacy what-so-ever from the entire room. So if you wanted to bathe, you gotta lock the room door. Apart from all these, there was a kettle, a sink, a fire place and 2 couches. The place looked wonderful.

Mrs Mary taught me how to set up the fire place. It wasn’t the charcoal wood type that used the burning of wood to produce the heat. It was a modern one that used gas and an ignition to light up the fire. Once I got the hang of how to operate it, she told me to settle down and come downstairs to talk to her if I had any questions. I had loads of them.

As I put down my stuff on one of the couches and realized that I had to use the toilet. Thankfully Mrs Mary told me before she left the room that the toilet was just outside the room. So I went out of the room and headed for the toilet which was… 5 steps away? Then I realized that this was a common toilet. It was a tiny room with just a toilet bowl. No sink or mirror. But it was nicely decorated.

I got back to my room and took out my note book and a pen and went downstairs. I had to know everything. But first of all I needed to know where I could get a SIM card. Cause it’s damn expensive to call back to Singapore using my StarHub SIM card.

I headed downstairs and knocked on the door where Mrs Mary was at. She told me to come in and sit down on a couch. The room had a small LCD tv, with 3 couches, and again, the place was wonderfully furnished and decorated. So I sat down and she told me that she worked for Rolls Royce and have been doing lodging for interns for over 20 years. I asked if there were any other interns staying here, cause I didn’t see anyone else around, and she said none at the moment. So I thought to myself, I’m gonna be the only one staying here for this week?? That was a scary thought.

She filled me in on information about places to go around here and what buses to take to get into Derby. That was weird, I thought I was in Derby. She then explained that I’m actually in a village called Chellaston and Derby was like the city for the area. Then I asked about the SIM card. She told me that I could get one from the nearby shop-houses like Tesco or the Post Office. But she told me it was a good idea to go in to Derby, Westfield shopping center, to look around at phone shops such as Virgin mobile, Orange and places like that to find out the best deals. Then after all that was told, she gave a call to Erica Tyson, the person that I was in contact with from Rolls Royce and informed her that I had arrived in Derby. I was then told to go for a drug and alcohol test when I got an appointment. And that I was supposed to start work only on next Monday. That was quite disappointing as I wanted to be able to start work as soon as possible to get my mind off being home-sick. She also told me that she was heading down to the hospital for a few jabs and would be back at around 4.00pm.

So I got back up to my room and get my stuff and put on my jacket that I wore from the airport till here and headed out. When I got out it was freezing. So I put on my beanie and my gloves and started walking down the lane. As I walked down and looked around, the same feeling of dread returned to me cause it wasn’t really Singapore? I’m really a city person. I can’t picture myself living in quiet areas like this. Especially for the next 4 months. How was I going to survive!!

Walking down the lane I saw a couple of shop houses, among them was a hair dresser, a Chinese take-away restaurant, a place that sells alcohol and a couple of other shop houses that I didn’t bother about. Then I walked past a really old church. It was the vintage looking type with reddish brown bricks and a clock at the top of a tower.

As I continued walking down the lane, I still freezing. Wondering if it would be warmer inside a shop, I turned into a supermarket to walk around. Inside was blissfully warm. Well it isn’t exactly warm that you’d feel hot. It was at a temperature of a normal shopping center in Singapore, maybe just a tad warmer. Walking around the super market, I looked at the prices of the stuff around and was actually quite expensive if you’d convert it to Singapore dollars.
However, if you’d consider that your living here and working here, the stuff aren’t exactly too expensive. I don’t know how to put this across. But yea. Lets just say. A loaf of bread costs around 0.80 pounds to 1 pound? That’s expensive if you convert that to Singapore dollars and compare it to a loaf in Singapore right? But you gotta think that if your working in the U.K, it wouldn’t be too expensive then. It was actually cheap stuff if you think about it. Cause lets say I earn around 1.2k pounds right? And that was a really low income for someone living in U.K, basically it’s like a part time job pay. So if earned 1.2k Sing from a part time job in Singapore, I’d still have to pay S$1 for a loaf of bread. Which wasn’t actually too expensive. So if you are actually living and working in the U.K, most of the stuff here aren’t exactly expensive. Does it all make sense? I hope it does.

As I walked further down and out to the main street and the bus stop, I was already freezing my ass off. Deciding that it was too cold to wait for the bus, I walked back up the street, heading back to The Manor Hotel.

As I got back, I told Mrs Mary that it was too cold to travel wearing only that one jacket. So I went back up and took off the jacket and tee shirt that I wore from the airport, and put on a long sleeve tee that my mom calls a ‘Long John’, and a woven long sleeve sweater and a sleeveless jacket. I was wearing 3 layers. I got my sling bag out of my luggage and put in my bottle of water and camera. I put back on my beanie and gloves and went out of The Manor Hotel, and walked back down the lane towards the bus stop.

Feeling much warmer than I did when I arrived at the bus stop, I waited there for the bus to come. I was told to take any bus as all of them headed towards the city in that direction. There was a sign board that had indications of how long the bus would take to arrive. And the earliest one said “ 5 “ minutes. A while later, the bus ‘60’ came. I got on the bus and, as I was told by Mrs Mary, I asked for a week pass that cost me 12 pounds. A pass was printed and the driver helped me stick it to a cardboard holder. Then I told him to let me know when we reached “The Spot”. A few others got on the bus as well and some of them showed a card to the driver and he just printed out a receipt for them. Others said the name of their destination and the paid the amount to the driver. It was very inefficient if you compared to Singapore where we use the EZ link card and just ‘tap’ on the reader when we board.

As the bus moved on, I looked out and saw that most of the area was the same as to where was I was staying. A few clusters of shop houses by the main road and a few residential areas here and there. Being the city boy that I am, I felt dreadful that I was gonna be living in this area for the next 4 months.

As the bus went along the area became more and more filled with shop houses. And soon when it turned at a bend, I saw a giant building that said Westfield. As the bus approached the bus stop, an old man that got on the bus at the same stop at I did, told me that I wanted to get to “The Spot” and this was it. So I thanked the man I got off the bus and looked around. The area was… busy. Cause it was like a shopping mall surrounded by shop houses here and there. It looked amazing. Feeling happier cause this resembled more of what I thought of the U.K than where I stayed. As I went in to the building I was told by Mrs Mary that there was a stand that had a digital directory. I went up and used it and it was really advanced. Basically you just had to type in the starting letters of which shop you’d wanna go and a map will be displayed. You can even press a tab that actually tells you how to walk from where you were. It’s a wonder where giant malls in Singapore don’t have such a system. It was real helpful.

Westfield Shopping Mall was basically a 2 storey complex that had a shape of a ‘T’. Looking up at where I was, I saw an area that looks like a food court. Feeling really hungry cause I haven’t had a bite since 5.30am and it was around 12.30pm at that time. So I went up the escalator and went in to the food court. It’s huge for its size. But there aren’t many food varieties. Basically one stall took up a really large space. So there were around 10 food stalls? As I looked around I noticed that there was KFC right at the end as well. Since I was living on a tight budget I hunted around for the cheapest and healthiest choice there is. So I finally settled on a stall that sold sandwiches. Well its more of like ‘subway’ kinda place? Cause you’d basically just need to choose what sandwich you want and what kinda bread you’d like. So I ordered a Smoked Beef Sandwich. Which cost me 2.69 pounds. If you’d come to think of it again, it was expensive in Singapore dollars. But it was relatively affordable if you were someone from U.K. Cause if you compare to Singapore, you’d have to spend at least S$4.00 to S$6.00 at a food court in a shopping mall to get a decent meal.

After I got my sandwich I sat down at an area alone. That was when I started feeling depressed again cause I was all alone. All alone. It was a really saddening thought. So I sat there silently eating my sandwich. It was pretty alright I guess? Cause there was beef, bread, vegetable, tomatoes. It was healthy I guess? When left with a quarter of the portion left I was already full. So I packed it up and stuffed it back into my bag and went to walk around. I walked back downstairs and looked around. The first mobile phone store I entered was Virgin Mobile. I stood at the counter waiting for someone to ask me what I needed. And finally a large African-British came and asked me if I was waiting to be served. So I told him I needed to call back to Singapore often and what they had to offer. He told me that I could get a Pay-as-you-go SIM card, which was basically a Prepaid SIM card. I asked him what the rate was calling back to Singapore, and he showed me a booklet that said it cost 20pence/min. Which if converted to Singapore dollars its S$0.60/min. Friggin expensive. So I said thank you and looked around. I went into another shop and asked and found that it cost 40pence/min. That was way too expensive. By that time I was already slowly accepting the fact that it was gonna be around that price to call back to Singapore.

Then I remembered that there was one more mobile phone store I haven’t checked out. Not knowing where it is, I walked back to the digital directory and typed in the letters “Orange”. Then a store name “Orange” popped out on the screen. I tapped on the name and a map appeared showing where the store was. Then I tapped on “How to get there”. A route was displayed and immediately I knew which direction to walk.

As I walked into Orange, a blonde young lady in her early 20s approached me and asked me if I needed assistance. I told her what I was looking for and she checked for me the price of calling back to Singapore. And then this was where I got really happy. Cause she told me that they had a Pay-as-you-go SIM card that would only cost me 5pence/min. Which was like. Damn cheap???? So I got it and topped up 10 pounds. So I started calling back to Singapore happily.
Then I remembered that Mrs Mary told me that I could have access to the internet free at the library. So I asked around and walked out of Westfield Shopping Center. Then I headed in the direction for the library as I asked around where it was. I went into one of the shophouses that sold baby clothes and asked where the bus terminal was cause Mrs Mary told me to head there and take bus 60 to get back to The Manor Hotel. The nice lady in the shop led me out and pointed me in the direction and I thanked her and walked in the direction. As I was walking out, a middle aged man with a grey-ing scruffy beard told me that I could take bus 60 from a busstop nearby to get back to Chellaston rather than walking all the way back to the bus terminal. What a nice guy.

So as I walked to the library, I was expecting it to be some building like those you see in Singapore? Like the one at Jurong East. But I was surprised once again. The building was like a chuch, with a clock tower right on top. So I went in and it was really warm inside. I went up to the counter and asked if I could use the computers. The nice lady there who looked around my age told me that I could use it if I booked a time slot. I asked what was the closest available timing and she told me it was from 2.30pm and she could book for me for one hour the most. She was really helpful and nice! I mean compared to the nasty impolite old ladies at the libraries in Singapore. Since it was around 1.45pm, I decided to look around while I waited for 2.30pm to use the computer. There was no charge for using it by the way. So I sat down on a seat where and Indian girl that looked around my age was reading a book opposite me.

Since I had nothing to do, I went and dialed the number to check the amount I left inside my SIM card.

“Your remaining credit is, 4 pounds and 81 pence”.

I was like. WHAT THE F-K! How in the world did I spend that much since I only made a few calls. So I tested it out. And I called for back Singapore for 1 min. Then I checked the remaining amount.

“Your remaining credit is, 3 pounds and 81 pence”.

WHAT! It cost me 1 pound per minute???? Unbelievable. I thought of going back to Orange and clarify why. But it was getting close to 2.30pm. So I decided to use the computer before I got back to Westfield.

When I got to the computer, it was a pretty old computer and the keyboard was terrible. I logged on to MSN ( thankfully they had it installed ), and chatted there while checking my emails. It was really warm where I was seated and it didn’t help that I was wearing so many layers. I took off my sleeveless jacket but it was still warm. So I decided to bear with it and continued chatting. It felt good to finally have contact with the world in Singapore. It was then I realized how important the internet was to modern day young people like me.

At 3.30pm I logged off and went out and started making my way back to Westfield. It was still freezing so I put back on my beanie, gloves and the sleeveless jacket. It was slightly more crowded than before along the streets of the city.

When I got back to Orange, the lady that sold me the SIM card was busy with other customers so I approached the counter and told an Indian lady there my problem. She said she’d check out for me and told me that the card has not been activated for overseas calls at a discounted rate. I was like what??? She told me that it takes at least 24 hours before that tariff would be activated. I asked her why I wasn’t told before hand and she said she was sorry and there was nothing she could do. So I topped up another 10 pounds into my card and left the store. Which meant I had already spent 20 pounds just for the phone. Which is around S$60!! That is f-king expensive.
It was getting to be around 4.15pm and I decided it was time to get back. So I went back to the food court and bought a Tuna sandwich for 2.50 pounds from the same stall I bought my lunch from and stuffed it in my bag with the quarter portion of my lunch.

I left the shopping center and waited at the bus stop. Soon bus 60 arrived and it was quite packed. But I managed to get a sit beside an African-British girl reading a book, who looked a few years younger than me. The journey back was quite long cause the bus went in several residential areas before arriving back at the Church where nearby The Manor Hotel was. The nice thing about people here is that they all area really friendly to one another. They’d say “cheers” to the bus driver when they get on or off the bus. And the bus driver would stop when pedestrians tried to cross the road even though they weren’t crossing at a traffic light. Of course the pedestrians would then wave a friendly gesture and smiles would be exchanged. It was a really friendly town.

As I walked back into The Manor Hotel, I entered and found that the door was never locked. And as I walked in Dennis, the Cockerel Spaniel, came strolling out of Mrs Mary room with a slipper in its mouth that was hers. I knew at that moment that she hasn’t come home yet from the hospital. So I went up to my room and put down my stuff. It was very quiet. Then the feeling of loneliness came to me again. So I turned on the TV for some noise and I took the quarter portion of the lunch and placed it in the microwave and heated it up. After eating the portion I placed my dinner beside the microwave, deciding that I’ll have it later.

It was around 5.30pm and I was already feeling really tired. So I decided to lie down on the bed for awhile. My door isn’t really locked and its just left ajar in case Mrs Mary came back and had to look for me. Then Dennis the dog came in by pushing the door with his head and with the slipper in his mouth. He came right by my bed and put his two front paws up onto the bed beside me where I was laying down.

“I don’t know where she is… Go out alrights I need to sleep…” I didn’t know why in the world did I just talk to a dog, but I did.

I led the dog out of the room and it went back downstairs. Heading back to my room, I went back to lie down on the bed and soon fell asleep.

I woke up at 12am.

And there was nothing to do.

So I played my PSP and took my bath and finally got to sleep again at around 4am.
I did some financial calculation on my status here. For the first day in U.K, I’ve already spent a total of around 120 pounds.

And woke up at around 6am and bummed around till 8am.

So there it is. Finally completed the first day in U.K. And many more days to come. I don’t think I have that much time to complete another 9 page report about my life just for one day.
Right now its actually Wednesday, April 23, 9.30am. I just had a wonderful breakfast spread made by Mrs Mary. I’m starting work on Monday.