Managed to settle one of the stuff on my "Things to do" list: Go do my hair. I know the phrase is typical of a gal but then that's practically what I did. I just wanted a hair cut, and was contemplating dyeing. So I went down and decided to cut and colour. Then my stylist asked if I wanted to try perming my hair. I was like, "har?!? perm?!". Then she said just perm the sides so that it won't be so "pong" cos the sides always stick out when its short. So, I decided...what the heck, just try lor. Think after so long, she knows that I am always game for trying new stuff with my hair. In the end, I sat on that chair for 3 whole hours. Luckily I brought a book to read. But I am quite satisfied with the cut and the colour. Hopefully its acceptable enough for work though. The perm...well, I can't really see any perm at all honestly. But it does look like it stays down now.
As a result of that unexpected 3 hours spent sitting on the salon chair, I was late in meeting Joe Tang Kim Bin for dinner. Had dinner at Gluttons Bay, which I never knew existed (I am quite a sua ku when it comes to Singapore). We then adjourned to Harry's Bar, which is also my first time setting foot in, and I don't mean first time in Harry's Bar Esplanade, but first time in Harry's. I delibrately ordered the Sangria to check out the Singapore standard. The verdict: It tastes similar, but then as I watched them mix it, I knew the alcohol content is probably as much as jolly shandy. Like 3 quarters of it was juice. In Spain, when I watched them mix it, I was horrified that I was actually guzzling so much hard alcohol. It must have been like half a bottle of red wine, then add in the whisky, gin and brandy, then a small little can of Fanta Lime, then the ice and the citrus fruits. At Harry's, it was filled with a little cherry brandy and brandy, then 3/4 the jug was ice and orange and lime juice, then she slowly added exactly 4 shots of red wine. Kaoz. Oh well, no more Sangria in Singapore for me. Something really embarassing happened last night too. While at Harry's, I noticed a lady who looked really familiar, but I couldn't recall where I met her. Then at that moment, she turned around and looked in my direction. I thought she had that look as though she recognised me too. Then she waved, so instinctively I waved back thinking that I was right about recognising her. Then she smiled and told her fren something and her friend looked over too. So I was thinking to myself, that seems like I did meet her somewhere before and I was trying real hard to recall whether I met her at the BP interviews or she was from KP. But somehow, I couldn't seem to remember seeing her in BP nor KP! Joe and Bin asked me to go over and chat a little and try to indirectly find out where I met her, but I decided not to. So the whole night until we left, I couldn't figure it out. Then when I stood up to go, I wanted to say bye, but she didn't look up from the table. SO I was more baffled. I walked out and asked Kimmy if I should go back in and say bye, just in case she was gonna be working with me. So I walked in and went right in front of her table to say bye, BUT SHE DIDN'T LOOK UP! Totally bo hiew me! So I just walked back out immediately,sensing something was amiss. I went out and I told Kimmy about it and still he didn't think much about it. I told him that I suspected that maybe I didn't know her and she was actually waving to a waiter behind me or smtg. Then, on the way home, it suddenly all dawned on me. I DID recognise her, but I never talked to her nor was she from KP or BP. I recognised her because she was one of the HR pple from UBS or Barclays and she was one of those speakers during their recruitment talks I attended. Alamak! I think she really must be waving to a waiter or someone else la, then after that see me wave then laugh to her friend that a moron over at the bar thought she was waving at me. Then she is like at least late 20s or 30s even! Must be laughing her head off that a young boy tried to pick her up. See bey pai seh man. Bet her friends (confirm 30+ pple) must be having a good laugh man...esp when I went back in to try and say bye.
Anyway, back to the recap of the past 6 weeks. Shall start of with the week in the UK.
As mentioned before, I took more than 24 hours to get to Glasgow, partly due to the long transit I had in Stansted airport. Landed in Heathrow and took a bus to Stansted which cost me 20 GBP. Super heart pain. Reached Stansted and couldn't get on an earlier flight into Glasgow, so I had to nua at the airport for 7 hours or so I think. My first meal in the UK was this breakfast set which I got from the cafe in the airport. Cost me 6 GBP. Ouch.
Then came lunch which I tried to save on by looking around the whole airport for the cheapest sandwich and cheapest Coke. After trying to sleep, study, read, but invail, it was finally time for me to board the plane. Was a pretty short flight of just over an hour into Glasgow. Landed and too a train into the city centre where I met my friend Xinyi who's there on exchange. Free lodging from her and her Scottish friend Gareth certainly helped save some money, esp when its Pounds we're talking about.
Anyways, it was quite cold in Glasgow. It was bearable with just my thin windbreakers though, unless I walked in the rain, which I did one day because Xinyi insisted on doing so. Cold wind, drenched jacket, drenched shoes and socks. My toes almost felt like they were dropping off.
Wasn't really much to see in Glasgow though, among those I checked out were...
George Square, which is kinda like the main squares of the city centre. You see this kinda square with nice buildings around it and a tall pillar monument in the centre and many statues all over Europe btw, as you would notice in my photos of the other places. Just like cathedrals and palaces and castles, they're everywhere such that its all the same most of the time.
Sauchiehall Street, one of the main streets of the city centre where most of the shops are. Its pronounced "SUCKY HALL" by the way, well at least thats what the Scottish people call it.
Goya Museum. Not a famous museum, but check out the statue outside the museum.
Apparently, some people who get high on their drinks somehow love to climb up the statue and put that cone on the head of the dude riding the horse. The police will always remove it, but after a while it will appear again. So, the police decided that they're wasting their time taking it down all the time and prolly looking like morons climbing the statue, so heck it and leave it there. Absolutely hilarious.
Provand's Lordship. Just some small little house which wis supposed to be the oldest dwelling in Glasgow that was built in the 15th century. People then were smaller in size, so I had some trouble entering the doors.
Glasgow University. Just took a look at it for the sake of looking at it since I was already at West End, which is like the other happening place other than the city centre. Its like Bugis Junction. Somewhere off the main city centre and full of life. But I didn't see much life there when I went though. Heh.
On the other days, I just hung out with Zhi Hui, also there on exchange, and some other Singaporeans I got to know there as well. Went to this tea house for English tea. The tea house was not just any ordinary teahouse, but a teahouse designed by a famous Mckintosh, a famouse Scottish architect, which Xinyi seems so impressed with. Didn't really impress me though. He jus kinda like to put mosaic patterns into his buildings or smtg like that.
Anyway, it was the food that I was more concerned about. Unfortunately, I was highly disappointed by the tea, which I just didn't like. I think I'll stick to chinese tea, green tea and teh. I tried gingerbread just for the sake of trying it, and guess what?! It came as a Gingerbread Man!!!!
Not! I cut the shape myself. Ha.
Went over to Edinburgh for a night cos I had to take my CFA there. Just an afternoon there was enough for me to see all there was to see, which basically is just the Edinburgh Castle I guess.
I like Edinburgh more than Glasgow. I get the old town kind of feeling like I'm in a medieval town, probably cos the architecture of the buildings are the old Victorian kind. The buildings were preserved since the 16th century or smtg. For example, along the Royal Mile, the road that leads up to the Edinburgh Castle, the buildings are typically what was found in the 16th century.
Saw this bag-piper along the way. Wonder how he withstands the cold breeze blowing up his kilt. Hope he is wearing some thermal underwear to protect his "bag" and "pipe".
The major highlight, the Edinburgh Castle. Didn't get to go in because I was there too late. But I didn't feel the pinch though cos I knew I had more castles in store for me in the rest of Europe.
As I mentioned before too, Gareth took us on a road trip one day. He drives at an average speed of 140km/h. Scared the shit out of me. Anyway, we went to Falkirk to see the Falkirk wheel. An amazing structure which carries boats from a lower canal to a higher one.
This is how it starts off. The boat enters at the bottom or the top...
and the thing spins 180 degrees to lift or lower the boat into the higher or lower canal respectively. Power ah.
Then we went to Stirling to see the Wallace Monument. I'm sure you all have watched Braveheart to know who William Wallace is. Anyway, I got some wonderful views from the top of the monument which I had to climb by foot. Just like in Secondary school Geography lessons, the meanders of the river. In years to come, with continued erosion on the river banks, a cut-off would form, and following it, an ox-bow lake would develop. Heh. Dun pray pray, I top the level in Geog before ok!
Sidetrack: Melvin Deng (aka Dengue)... I remember that you always tried to beat me in Geog but failed! muahahaha. There was once, we got back our exam scripts and he had a higher mark than me and he was over the top! I was in shock! He finally beat me at my pet subject! As he celebrated, I checked through my paper in disbelief. BUT...I discovered the marker totalled the marks wrongly! HAHAHA. I had some extra marks added and poor Dengue was over the CLIFF. muahaha.
Ok back to the main story. Then we went to Dundee, which I've said is a dump. So nothing much to show. Then we headed to St Andrews, which is where Prince William is studying and of course home to the world's most famous golf course and the home of golf itself.
Went past some castle ruins by the sea and took pictures of the coastline. I love the sea and coastline btw.
Then this was where we saw this girl stripping down to her underwear. They heard us laughing from below the cliff cos of the echo and the girl started shaking her bon bon when she saw Zhi Hui trying to take a picture. She then jumped into the freezing cold water and swam in that "pool" of water from the North Sea. It was low tide so the sea water was trapped in that pool-like structure that must have been part of the castle in the past. Her frens then joined her in the water too.
Then, they beckoned to us to go down and join them. Crazy as it sounds, I did. Zhi Hui and Gareth chickened out. I walked slowly into the pool and f***! it was cold! Not just cold, it was ice cold! In addition, the sea breeze was already cold to begin with. I was already quite cold with my clothes and windbreaker on, I didn't know why in the world I would take it all off (save for my underwear and singlet) and go in the water. And no, its not because the girl was hot, she was not. Ah ma panties? Definitely an immediate turn-off! Heh. Nevertheless, it was refreshing. But, I had numb toes for the next half hour.
So that basically sums up in short what I did in Scotland. Can't possibly load every picture cos I took more than 800 pictures i think. 512mb worth of pictures.
Left Scotland after spending about 6 days there. Went over to London for a day before my flight to Brussels. Actually, taking BA was perfect for me to go over to Scotland because I had to transit in London. So the next time you have a transit, make full use of the trip there and stay in that place for a while first before getting your next flight. It was just nice that BA stops over at London before going on to Brussels, allowing me to go up to Scotland.
Anyway, I didn't really take much pictures of London since I was there 2 years ago. I just wanted to catch Les Mis that night. Pictures in London all quite dark and gloomy, its usually cloudy and overcast most of the time there, or at least the times I was there I barely saw the sun.
Whatever time I had before the show, I just walked around taking some pictures, which would be all too familiar to most people. The Big Ben, River Thames, Westminister Abbey, blah blah blah...no need to show pics la, I'm sure you've seen those places even in Mr Bean.
But I'm sure you never knew I had my own place in London...
One other thing I saw in London that not everyone would see is...... well actually its someone......
Ewan McGregor.
Was walking back to the hostel after Les Mis when I saw a crowd of people outside the theatre just down the road from my hostel. So as a typical kaypo Singaporean, I went to check it out. And I saw girls, mainly, crowding around this dude, whom I soon recognised as Obi-Wan. But of course it wasn't the premier of Star Wars, but he was acting in a new Broadway musical "Guys and Dolls" which recently came to London. He was signing autographs after the musical for the gals and so I just took a couple of pictures of him just because.
So that's about all for the 1 week in UK. There was much more fun when I met up with the others. Talk about it in another post soon.
Managed to settle one of the stuff on my "Things to do" list: Go do my hair. I know the phrase is typical of a gal but then that's practically what I did. I just wanted a hair cut, and was contemplating dyeing. So I went down and decided to cut and colour. Then my stylist asked if I wanted to try perming my hair. I was like, "har?!? perm?!". Then she said just perm the sides so that it won't be so "pong" cos the sides always stick out when its short. So, I decided...what the heck, just try lor. Think after so long, she knows that I am always game for trying new stuff with my hair. In the end, I sat on that chair for 3 whole hours. Luckily I brought a book to read. But I am quite satisfied with the cut and the colour. Hopefully its acceptable enough for work though. The perm...well, I can't really see any perm at all honestly. But it does look like it stays down now.
As a result of that unexpected 3 hours spent sitting on the salon chair, I was late in meeting Joe Tang Kim Bin for dinner. Had dinner at Gluttons Bay, which I never knew existed (I am quite a sua ku when it comes to Singapore). We then adjourned to Harry's Bar, which is also my first time setting foot in, and I don't mean first time in Harry's Bar Esplanade, but first time in Harry's. I delibrately ordered the Sangria to check out the Singapore standard. The verdict: It tastes similar, but then as I watched them mix it, I knew the alcohol content is probably as much as jolly shandy. Like 3 quarters of it was juice. In Spain, when I watched them mix it, I was horrified that I was actually guzzling so much hard alcohol. It must have been like half a bottle of red wine, then add in the whisky, gin and brandy, then a small little can of Fanta Lime, then the ice and the citrus fruits. At Harry's, it was filled with a little cherry brandy and brandy, then 3/4 the jug was ice and orange and lime juice, then she slowly added exactly 4 shots of red wine. Kaoz. Oh well, no more Sangria in Singapore for me. Something really embarassing happened last night too. While at Harry's, I noticed a lady who looked really familiar, but I couldn't recall where I met her. Then at that moment, she turned around and looked in my direction. I thought she had that look as though she recognised me too. Then she waved, so instinctively I waved back thinking that I was right about recognising her. Then she smiled and told her fren something and her friend looked over too. So I was thinking to myself, that seems like I did meet her somewhere before and I was trying real hard to recall whether I met her at the BP interviews or she was from KP. But somehow, I couldn't seem to remember seeing her in BP nor KP! Joe and Bin asked me to go over and chat a little and try to indirectly find out where I met her, but I decided not to. So the whole night until we left, I couldn't figure it out. Then when I stood up to go, I wanted to say bye, but she didn't look up from the table. SO I was more baffled. I walked out and asked Kimmy if I should go back in and say bye, just in case she was gonna be working with me. So I walked in and went right in front of her table to say bye, BUT SHE DIDN'T LOOK UP! Totally bo hiew me! So I just walked back out immediately,sensing something was amiss. I went out and I told Kimmy about it and still he didn't think much about it. I told him that I suspected that maybe I didn't know her and she was actually waving to a waiter behind me or smtg. Then, on the way home, it suddenly all dawned on me. I DID recognise her, but I never talked to her nor was she from KP or BP. I recognised her because she was one of the HR pple from UBS or Barclays and she was one of those speakers during their recruitment talks I attended. Alamak! I think she really must be waving to a waiter or someone else la, then after that see me wave then laugh to her friend that a moron over at the bar thought she was waving at me. Then she is like at least late 20s or 30s even! Must be laughing her head off that a young boy tried to pick her up. See bey pai seh man. Bet her friends (confirm 30+ pple) must be having a good laugh man...esp when I went back in to try and say bye.
Anyway, back to the recap of the past 6 weeks. Shall start of with the week in the UK.
As mentioned before, I took more than 24 hours to get to Glasgow, partly due to the long transit I had in Stansted airport. Landed in Heathrow and took a bus to Stansted which cost me 20 GBP. Super heart pain. Reached Stansted and couldn't get on an earlier flight into Glasgow, so I had to nua at the airport for 7 hours or so I think. My first meal in the UK was this breakfast set which I got from the cafe in the airport. Cost me 6 GBP. Ouch.
Then came lunch which I tried to save on by looking around the whole airport for the cheapest sandwich and cheapest Coke. After trying to sleep, study, read, but invail, it was finally time for me to board the plane. Was a pretty short flight of just over an hour into Glasgow. Landed and too a train into the city centre where I met my friend Xinyi who's there on exchange. Free lodging from her and her Scottish friend Gareth certainly helped save some money, esp when its Pounds we're talking about.
Anyways, it was quite cold in Glasgow. It was bearable with just my thin windbreakers though, unless I walked in the rain, which I did one day because Xinyi insisted on doing so. Cold wind, drenched jacket, drenched shoes and socks. My toes almost felt like they were dropping off.
Wasn't really much to see in Glasgow though, among those I checked out were...
George Square, which is kinda like the main squares of the city centre. You see this kinda square with nice buildings around it and a tall pillar monument in the centre and many statues all over Europe btw, as you would notice in my photos of the other places. Just like cathedrals and palaces and castles, they're everywhere such that its all the same most of the time.
Sauchiehall Street, one of the main streets of the city centre where most of the shops are. Its pronounced "SUCKY HALL" by the way, well at least thats what the Scottish people call it.
Goya Museum. Not a famous museum, but check out the statue outside the museum.
Apparently, some people who get high on their drinks somehow love to climb up the statue and put that cone on the head of the dude riding the horse. The police will always remove it, but after a while it will appear again. So, the police decided that they're wasting their time taking it down all the time and prolly looking like morons climbing the statue, so heck it and leave it there. Absolutely hilarious.
Provand's Lordship. Just some small little house which wis supposed to be the oldest dwelling in Glasgow that was built in the 15th century. People then were smaller in size, so I had some trouble entering the doors.
Glasgow University. Just took a look at it for the sake of looking at it since I was already at West End, which is like the other happening place other than the city centre. Its like Bugis Junction. Somewhere off the main city centre and full of life. But I didn't see much life there when I went though. Heh.
On the other days, I just hung out with Zhi Hui, also there on exchange, and some other Singaporeans I got to know there as well. Went to this tea house for English tea. The tea house was not just any ordinary teahouse, but a teahouse designed by a famous Mckintosh, a famouse Scottish architect, which Xinyi seems so impressed with. Didn't really impress me though. He jus kinda like to put mosaic patterns into his buildings or smtg like that.
Anyway, it was the food that I was more concerned about. Unfortunately, I was highly disappointed by the tea, which I just didn't like. I think I'll stick to chinese tea, green tea and teh. I tried gingerbread just for the sake of trying it, and guess what?! It came as a Gingerbread Man!!!!
Not! I cut the shape myself. Ha.
Went over to Edinburgh for a night cos I had to take my CFA there. Just an afternoon there was enough for me to see all there was to see, which basically is just the Edinburgh Castle I guess.
I like Edinburgh more than Glasgow. I get the old town kind of feeling like I'm in a medieval town, probably cos the architecture of the buildings are the old Victorian kind. The buildings were preserved since the 16th century or smtg. For example, along the Royal Mile, the road that leads up to the Edinburgh Castle, the buildings are typically what was found in the 16th century.
Saw this bag-piper along the way. Wonder how he withstands the cold breeze blowing up his kilt. Hope he is wearing some thermal underwear to protect his "bag" and "pipe".
The major highlight, the Edinburgh Castle. Didn't get to go in because I was there too late. But I didn't feel the pinch though cos I knew I had more castles in store for me in the rest of Europe.
As I mentioned before too, Gareth took us on a road trip one day. He drives at an average speed of 140km/h. Scared the shit out of me. Anyway, we went to Falkirk to see the Falkirk wheel. An amazing structure which carries boats from a lower canal to a higher one.
This is how it starts off. The boat enters at the bottom or the top...
and the thing spins 180 degrees to lift or lower the boat into the higher or lower canal respectively. Power ah.
Then we went to Stirling to see the Wallace Monument. I'm sure you all have watched Braveheart to know who William Wallace is. Anyway, I got some wonderful views from the top of the monument which I had to climb by foot. Just like in Secondary school Geography lessons, the meanders of the river. In years to come, with continued erosion on the river banks, a cut-off would form, and following it, an ox-bow lake would develop. Heh. Dun pray pray, I top the level in Geog before ok!
Sidetrack: Melvin Deng (aka Dengue)... I remember that you always tried to beat me in Geog but failed! muahahaha. There was once, we got back our exam scripts and he had a higher mark than me and he was over the top! I was in shock! He finally beat me at my pet subject! As he celebrated, I checked through my paper in disbelief. BUT...I discovered the marker totalled the marks wrongly! HAHAHA. I had some extra marks added and poor Dengue was over the CLIFF. muahaha.
Ok back to the main story. Then we went to Dundee, which I've said is a dump. So nothing much to show. Then we headed to St Andrews, which is where Prince William is studying and of course home to the world's most famous golf course and the home of golf itself.
Went past some castle ruins by the sea and took pictures of the coastline. I love the sea and coastline btw.
Then this was where we saw this girl stripping down to her underwear. They heard us laughing from below the cliff cos of the echo and the girl started shaking her bon bon when she saw Zhi Hui trying to take a picture. She then jumped into the freezing cold water and swam in that "pool" of water from the North Sea. It was low tide so the sea water was trapped in that pool-like structure that must have been part of the castle in the past. Her frens then joined her in the water too.
Then, they beckoned to us to go down and join them. Crazy as it sounds, I did. Zhi Hui and Gareth chickened out. I walked slowly into the pool and f***! it was cold! Not just cold, it was ice cold! In addition, the sea breeze was already cold to begin with. I was already quite cold with my clothes and windbreaker on, I didn't know why in the world I would take it all off (save for my underwear and singlet) and go in the water. And no, its not because the girl was hot, she was not. Ah ma panties? Definitely an immediate turn-off! Heh. Nevertheless, it was refreshing. But, I had numb toes for the next half hour.
So that basically sums up in short what I did in Scotland. Can't possibly load every picture cos I took more than 800 pictures i think. 512mb worth of pictures.
Left Scotland after spending about 6 days there. Went over to London for a day before my flight to Brussels. Actually, taking BA was perfect for me to go over to Scotland because I had to transit in London. So the next time you have a transit, make full use of the trip there and stay in that place for a while first before getting your next flight. It was just nice that BA stops over at London before going on to Brussels, allowing me to go up to Scotland.
Anyway, I didn't really take much pictures of London since I was there 2 years ago. I just wanted to catch Les Mis that night. Pictures in London all quite dark and gloomy, its usually cloudy and overcast most of the time there, or at least the times I was there I barely saw the sun.
Whatever time I had before the show, I just walked around taking some pictures, which would be all too familiar to most people. The Big Ben, River Thames, Westminister Abbey, blah blah blah...no need to show pics la, I'm sure you've seen those places even in Mr Bean.
But I'm sure you never knew I had my own place in London...
One other thing I saw in London that not everyone would see is...... well actually its someone......
Ewan McGregor.
Was walking back to the hostel after Les Mis when I saw a crowd of people outside the theatre just down the road from my hostel. So as a typical kaypo Singaporean, I went to check it out. And I saw girls, mainly, crowding around this dude, whom I soon recognised as Obi-Wan. But of course it wasn't the premier of Star Wars, but he was acting in a new Broadway musical "Guys and Dolls" which recently came to London. He was signing autographs after the musical for the gals and so I just took a couple of pictures of him just because.
So that's about all for the 1 week in UK. There was much more fun when I met up with the others. Talk about it in another post soon.
