the land of chocolates

Okay super unproductive today and doesn't help that my nose has been running pretty much the entire day (okay, excuses, excuses) -it's just a vicious cycle -cough, nose runs, cough, nose runs etc. Damn Ear-Nose-Throat connections (but I guess it keeps me alive by allowing me to breathe so I had better not curse it too much).

Moral of the story: Try NOT to stay up all night doing last minute work because immunity plunges after that. And it doesn't help when sleep is delayed by missing a bus and having to wait 7 hours more for another (leaving me desperately short of sleep for the next 4 days at least, one of the consequences of which is being able to fall asleep just reading the dinner menu)...

And that was the start to my exciting travels! Some travel tips and potential consequences:

1. Always read your ticket thoroughly. Sometimes prints are very small and some people just don't bother reading, and so some people might actually reach the station about 15 min before the bus leaves when they are supposed to check in an hour before -and unluckily meet a horrible man who refuses to let them board the bus even though everyone else (e.g. bus driver and check-in lady) might have let them. And these people might have to end up buying tickets for a bus that leaves 7 hours later. Even if there is no fine print on the ticket go check the website!

2. Even if you are really 80% asleep and all, if you hear a mumble on the not-very-clear announcement system on the bus that sounds vaguely like your destination, do NOT go back to sleep! Check if it is your destination. Or hope the bus driver is clever enough to notice 2 bleary looking girls and ask where they were headed to, and then announcing very clearly in their faces "This IS Brussels." -very unglam for the girls to quickly gather their belongings, put on their coats and rush off the bus.

3. Another sleep-related danger on trains, be alert if the train stops really really long at a station. And when the destination on the board seems to have changed to a place you came from. Don't go back to sleep again! Then again, how would you know that delayed trains will turn backwards just because they can't reach their destinations in time?

Ahh I'm really tired to do a recount of every place. So it's going to be short and sweet! And just Belgium for now. And no pictures to show for it I'm sorry, was camera-less and just decided to soak the places in (:

Brussels

Destination #1! Apparently, nobody pays to take the metro here. Hahaha. Mich and I only found out AFTER we dutifully bought our (luckily) single-trip ticket. Also, people speak French here (yes I didn't do my research and didn't know that)! Brussels is a nice place (not terribly exciting but it has its merits), with a very pretty old city centre (the Grand Place) -it's very interesting to see how the streets change and become a lot more modern as you walk out from the city centre.

And the FOOD OMG! Chocolate, waffles, chocolate, waffles, mussels, chocolate! -dies and goes to heaven- So many chocolate shops! We had this wonderful concoction which involves melting a block of chocolate attached to a spoon (pick your choice of flavours from the many many) into a cup of hot milk -good for a cold day! :D Chocolate shops were amazing, with such intricate designs which look too good to be eaten -even chocolate in the shape of shoes designed in conjunction with LV. Whoaa. And it was Vday so this chain of shops just launched a new line of macaroons -which are a shimmery pink colour (they REALLY glitter, I'm not kidding) and what's best was that they gave free samples (not tiny pieces, like a WHOLE macaroon). That was my first macaroon ever and apparently according to my friends it's the best ever. Heh. We then visited another outlet, and when the person asked if we had tasted it, we just replied with an evasive "Can we try some?" (: teehee.

And also friendly slightly strange people such as the man at one of the restaurants who calls JY his girlfriend and tries to hug/get a kiss from her everytime we walk past. Oh and I've never seen so many rainbow-coloured flags hanging outside establishments before! Closet spaces somewhat open here!

What I also liked about Brussels was the comic paintings on the walls of buildings, literally painted from the ground right to the top of a 4-5 storey building. Every turn you make in the streets could provide a pleasant surprise in the form of a nice wall, and the walls seem to sometimes incorporate parts of the real street into them (wires, landmarks) so that was nicee.

The pissing statue of the boy also lives here (the Mannekin Pis) -and he has 804 different costumes housed in a museum! The day we were there he had on a colourful costume that resembled a South-EastAsian/Taoist deity of some sorts (imagine lion-dance coloured costume with Javanese shadow puppet sort of face), which is just weird because he is still able to piss through all that costume (even his face was obscured by a mask).

Oh and the hostel we stayed in was the Van Gogh Youth Hostel which apparently was where Van Gogh stayed for a while when he was in Brussels (In Amsterdam, we realised that Van Gogh is not pronounced "Van - Goff" or "Van - Goh" but "Van -Gog [insert choking sound]h" )

Antwerp

I liked the train ride to Brussels -my first encounter with the pastoral in Europe (Argh damn geographical concepts of the airy fairy pastoral, the counter-pastoral and urban pastoral kept running through my head thanks to my module and I really got a bit annoyed by myself hahaha -other geographical concepts I don't mind at all)! It was cloudy and the grass was a very faded green colour and from far away it would actually look like water surfaces if not for a tree sticking out of it. The sky was really pretty too, with pinkish and yellowish hues streaking horizontally across the sky amidst the clouds (:

Yet another lesson to learn, have the exact address of your hostel! This hostel was so nondescript and tucked away (basically the sign was written in such an unobstentious way and you would only be able to see it if you walked from one direction) we took forever to find it (okay JY and friend Eugene found it while we sat around in a pub)! The hostel itself is amazing though, it's those sort of old-looking houses. When you walk in you are greeted with a loooong staircase. Take the door to the left and you enter a carvenous living room with a ceiling at least 2 storeys high (and the storeys/stairs per storey are very looong) and with chandeliers covered in sheets hanging from it, the whole place darkened and smokey, with some random guys sprawled across the sofas, and near the counter are tables and shelves covered in random knick-knacks. I'm so glad for FS and Cambodia for teaching me the usefulness of backpacking (of course they had to put us right on the top floor -3rd storey which is an attic)!

Well the good thing about the hostel was that it contained these quirky little maps for young people, with tons of recommendations of what to do in Antwerp ("You probably thought of Antwerp as a short pitstop between Brussels and Amsterdam and planned to stay just long enough to do your laundry. Pardon us if we're a bit insulted" -the map). And they really were quite interesting, Antwerp (thanks to the map) is full of little interesting random stuffs to see, e.g. the Ugliest Building in Antwerp (the hotel Park Plaza Astrid), the legendary organ (you put in 0.50 euros and watch it play -accordians, cymbals, drums), the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe Kathedraal (which took like 200 years to build -I was quite disappointed that it required an entrance fee to get in) etc etc. Thanks to Ryl for efficiently delegating all the different parts of the maps for us to read and highlighting all the interesting stuffs. Hee.

I do wonder how 'local' Antwerp is though (cos the guide said that for one of the squares, the Grote Markt, "Real Antwerpians never come here, unless there is a protest march"). I wonder when this change occured hmm. Oh in Grote Markt is a statue of a man who has cut off the head and the hand of some other person, and he is posing in way that shows him throwing the hand. and somewhere on the Meir (the shopping street) is where a giant hand lies, which is apparently the location where the hand was flung to. Hahaha.

Oh Antwerp is famous for its artist Ruben. Unfortunately I don't know much about him cos we didn't get to visit his house, but some of his paintings are in the (privatised) Cathedral. ):

Well since I was without a camera one of the memories of Antwerp that ring most clearly are the bells from the Cathedral, they chime really beautifully and the sound just reverberates across the squares. (:

[Note: Thank you to JaredWong for the notebook or I wouldn't be able to remember little stuffs and some things would eventually become one big blur mix-up in my head!]

Okieee that's all for now gotta wake up super early tmr for COASTAL FIELD TRIP in Brighton! Wahaha. I don't even take the module but who can resist crashing such stuffs. :D

hey, this is MY turf.

Loving the graffiti of Old Street and Shoreditch! This one's along Old Street, done by a graffiti artist called Blam.

Wishing only wounds the heart

Wicked was so good that I won't even try to describe it, because whatever adjectives I use just won't be adequate or capture the essence of the experience.

Kerry Ellis has a voice that penetrates the soul and just left me in awe. The title of the post does not mean I'm heartbroken or anything, but that was just one of the more haunting lines sung by Kerry Ellis. Ah.

You know a musical is one of the best when it lingers in your mind in a haunting way for the next few days (:

The day I had a ponytail

While still missing my camera, I had an interesting Saturday.

The morning started out by waking up at 11am (I take forever to get out of bed here, cos it just sucks to get out from warm covers into the not-as-warm room), and then heading out to Mich's place for apple and cinnamon pancakes! Well the organic and very healthy pancakes tasted exactly as what healthy food is expected to taste like (i.e. not much taste) but with the help of raisins, maple syrup, yoghurt, nutella, and berries the whole situation was salvaged. Hurrah!

After this, I decided to head down to Covent Garden to check out the area (while old friend and "true" friend headed down to the library together). And DESPITE comments about being apparently friendless (since I was going alone), camera-less (okay not true because I still have my hp cam -I forgot how good it was), and money-less (since I chose to walk instead of taking a bus) I quite enjoyed my little walk.

Covent Garden is a REALLY nice area! Or more specifically, I really like the lanes radiating out from the Seven Dials. Many things I really really liked (weird books -e.g. a jotterbook like thing that was already doodled inside so you didn't have to doodle yourself, nice clothes) but couldn't afford. This is really an upmarket area! And I really enjoyed the entertainment on the streets, they are REALLY funny (e.g. targeting random audience members to tease)!! (:

This man was going on about the recession. That bag contains the money he just emptied out of the dog-dish hahaha.

This man is juggling a CHAINSAW (which was on), a baton and a ball. Notice that he is only wearing pink underwear (well he was wearing a shirt but he stripped at some point in his show) and shoes in this weather!! And really nice lighting as the sun set (:

Had a really good dinner with Heather at Green Note in Camden afterwards! We ordered some tapas which all tasted amazing (and was vegan so Heather could eat) -1) Ministrone soup (okay not a tapas), 2) Marinated mushrooms, 3) Spring rolls with mock duck, onions, cucumber etc -I was trying to figure out why the sauce tasted so familiar and midway through dinner I realised it tasted like CHEE CHEONG FUN sauce so it was quite a surreal experience, 4) Greek dip with pitas. I concluded that even though the portions were small the taste was just SUPERB. Green Note also features Live Music (not free though), so Heather and I sat on the outskirts of the cafe to listen -and it sounded good! We'll definitely be going back (and bringing more people along so that we can try more tapas) whee.

More exciting adventures with Weirdos/Interesting people today! Except this time it was really one-to-one conversations with 2 random people on the street (somehow male again...)

Interesting guy #3: Okay this one could easily fall into Weirdo but he really was quite nice. I was at Tottenham Court Road looking at cameras (though I still hope to retrieve mine), and I think he entered behind me in one of the shops. So anyways I left the shop and was about to go to the bus stop to get a bus back to Camden, when he came up and asked if he could ask me a question (and said a lot of random stuff before that).

Anyways in the process of introducing himself he said he did a Masters in music therapy, had a supervisor in UCL and that he used to be in the cast of the Lion King (musical ongoing in London) -and asked me to go watch it in end March/April cos he was changing his role to the main evil hyena, and that he did backup vocals for Alicia Keys, and that he also did a commercial for Motown Records on radio (and then sang a few lines for me -and thats why I believe he really can sing). Okay all this sounds very creepy but he really sounded very earnest when talking bout himself so I quite enjoyed listening to him. Haha. And he sounds damn cool la (i'm guessing he's in late 20s early 30s?). I mean of course I wonder if he actually did all this stuff but either he does it or he's got to be a pretty damn good liar (or just plain crazy) to lie about so many things?

So anyway again he said he was doing some writing and wanted to ask me something, a question that sounds quite dumb but just wanted to know what I thought- did I think that everyone in this world has problems (err yes?). Haha. Then it went on to what do I think of people who have problems -would I negatively stereotype them, what do you think of people, e.g. teachers/psychiatrists who can teach other people but cannot teach themselves or solve their own problems. So anyways once again application of Winnie's (haha mentioned you in my blog so many times) there-is-no-such-thing-as-normalcy theory came in handy (which I agree with anyway) -and he goes "oh that's so sweet" when I say there's nothing wrong with these people.

He seemed really earnest and genuine about everything he talked about (okay maybe the eccentric sort of thinker who goes around thinking about issues all day long and then finally cannot stand it and asks a stranger their opinion) so I THINK he might actually be telling the truth about himself? And afterwards he gave me a tip-off on how the electronic shops along Tott Court Rd might actually be ripping you off with traded-in cameras being passed off as brand new, so err he can't be that bad right? Haha. Quote from him "We don't meet strangers, we meet people. We just choose to see them as strangers!"

Next,

Weirdo #4: I was walking back to my hall after dinner, and was waiting to cross the road and this cyclist beside me suddenly commented that it was really cold (same conversation opener as Weirdo #1 - I must be more wary of such conversational openers). This guy is middle-aged, says he's from London (but not-so-much of a Brit accent, thats the only reason why I asked if he was from London) and says he is visiting his friends living in the area.

So anyway as I walk up the road back to my hall he walks alongside me and chats to me about normal stuff, how old am I (which Interesting guy #3 also asked -except interesting guy #3 apologised before asking cos he said it was a personal question -and both guys commented on how much younger I looked) how long have I been in London, I should make the best of my time in London, why am I going back so early I should be out enjoying London etc. So anyways I reach my hostel gate and I assume we will go our separate ways right? But he says oh no let's stand around and chat for 5 more min, I really enjoy talking to you (and I mean it's nice meeting and talking to seemingly friendly people -which doesn't happen very often, but this one really seemed a bit dubious by now). So I really didn't know how to escape so stood around for a little while longer (okay la cos at my hall gate, and quite a few people going in and out).

Then later he asks me for my number cos he said he comes to this area quite a bit, so maybe we can hang out and all. The good thing about only having being here for a month and leaving in June is that you can get away with pretending that you don't own a phone (all the while hoping hard that nobody would ring/msg at that moment). I just said I'll leave my email with him -Okay stupid me should have given a fake email address, but I guess it'll be interesting to see what he emails and I DEFINITELY am Not going to reply.

Can someone tell me is it normal to have such "friendly" people in London??

I wonder if tying my hair up makes people want to talk to me hurhur. This is the first time I've sported a pony-tail since I got here, cos I woke up with really messy hair.

Okay such a long post. Going to zzz and enjoy Columbia Rd Flower Market tmr!! :)

Oh my darling.

Now that you're gone, I truly realise how much I have failed to cherish you. I'm sorry for everything (bad) I said about you, I'm sorry for comparing you with others, I'm sorry for expressing dissatisfaction with you. I understand if that's why you left. I already miss many things about you -missing the feel of you in my hands, missing how you responded to my touch, missing how you were my eyes, missing how you helped to frame my world. I miss your sleek moves, I now know how you were such a big part of my life since I found you, and how attached I've grown to you without even knowing.

My dear Sony T-70, please come back to me! :( The more I think about it the more I realise how much I like that camera even though the pictures were not really turning out satisfactory to my (above average) standards.

[To cut a long story short I think I left my camera somewhere -I suspect in school, and only realised about 7 hours later. Will check with UCL's lost-and-found services on Monday]

I miss youu :(

Well, the day didn't totally suck I guess. After still feeling slightly depressed that the cafe people said nobody turned in a camera, I popped into Argos to check for water filter cartridges (which were out of stock) and ended up purchasing a pair of speakers -which don't exactly have fantastic sound (I have above average standards for sound-systems too) -but what do I expect for something that cost 4.94 pounds? Though the sound is still amazing -I compared the sound with/without speakers at least 3 times and concluded that my purchase is TOTALLY WORTH IT and wonder why I didn't do this earlier. Goodbye Crappy Sound and Hello Somewhat-Crappy-But-Still-Amazing-Compared-To-Really-Crappy-Sound!

Today I also managed to catch up with many people that mattered and I feel really blessed about that.

Strange/Interesting people I've come across

I think there's a very thin line between Weird and Interesting, and I don't know quite where to draw it! Of course, as Winnie always says there is no such thing as Normalcy so I do not expect that at all. Just a short list of them (I don't know why they are all male, but hmm).

Weirdo #1: A guy I met in the hostel I stayed in during my first few days in London. It seemed to start out as a normal conversation until it got to the "Who's your boyfriend in Singapore" (nobody), "Maybe you should try having a boyfriend of a different nationality" (No thanks, I think boys are the same everywhere) parts which somehow eventually progressed to "Would you like me to shower with you" (It's alright, I like to be alone) and "Well, if you need help in there just let me know!" (I'll be fine). The bracketed areas are what I REALLY did say to him (imagine all of them with a very amused tone of voice, I was just so... amused at his straightforwardness and cliched who's your boyfriend line). All this while he is lying in his briefs (thank goodness it was early so it was dark plus I had not put on my glasses yet) -and he started the conversation by commenting on how cold it was -I WONDER WHY.

Weirdo #2: This one was encountered as Mich, Huien and I were walking in the Tottenham Court Road underpass. I wouldn't have given this guy a second glance cos he just looked like a normal bald Brit bloke in his 30s ambling through the underpass, except that he suddenly jumped out at Mich and yelled "BOO" (or just yelled, I cant remember) super loudly HAHAHA. I'd be so traumatised if I was her!!

Weirdo(s) #3: Well this was also in one of the underpasses at Waterloo Station. When I entered the underpass, I could already hear some guys calling out to passersby from a distance. As I approached I saw that it was 4 guys just sitting with their backs against the wall of the underpass with their legs outstretched, and when the first one saw me he patted his lap and said something to the effect of "Come take a seat, you know you want to!" (repeat 2-3x). I think my reaction is totally wrong (proper reaction should be to glare and stalk away I guess?) but I kind of laughed at him because it was just too ridiculous to me. Haha.

Okay enough about the weirdos.

Interesting guy #1: There's a PUNK guy who serves food during dinner here at Ifor Evans! He has a short multi-coloured mowhawk (he's bald otherwise) which ends in a short ponytail and has multiple piercings on his face. I'd probably avoid him on the streets except here in hall he is so nice and friendly (calls you 'love' -okay many Brits do that actually, and he also tried to charge me 4 pounds for dinner the first time I encountered him haha) -also the apron he wears kind of dampens that punk image but oh wells.

Interesting guy #2: My geopolitics lecturer! He is American and is ultra charismatic (also quite good looking -I honestly think he should be on a TV drama -I'd be a big fan) and is hilarious (which makes up for the lecture content which I'm still not very impressed by) -e.g. he told us he was going for an AAG conference and so wouldn't be around for a lecture -or in his own words, "I'm going to be in Las Vegas... SUCKERS!" Other quotable quotes: "Everyone talks about Darwin, nobody talks about Ratzel, geography once again screwed out of the media", "Notice the more modest beard" (as he chronologically traced the personalities intertwined with geopolitics), "I'd like to at this point say that he was a nice man, but he wasn't." (after criticising the quantitative methods of the 1970s in which his old supervisor played quite a leading role -another quotable quote "He gets to say cool stuff like 'force fields'")

Ermss so weirdos seem to outnumber the interesting people I've met so far! And I will try to correct the gender imbalance next time too.

Over the past few days,

Oh gosh what a backlog of things to update about. No thanks to the distracting snow. Hohoho.

On Saturday, it was Greenwich day! Ziwei, Huoyfen, Yinghong and I headed down to Greenwich to check out the place, and it's such a relief to see a place with such green green grass, that isn't too crowded, that has wonderful views. This was one of the days when the weather was starting to get cold already, and together in the face of adversity we climbed up the hill to the Royal Observatory where the Greenwich Meridien (the ZERO DEGREE LONGTITUDE) is located. So yes, I have placed one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western hemisphere simultaneously (as Winnie aptly puts it, I was in liminal space)! So that was cheap thrill #1. Haha. But I really did love the area, just because the walls of the Observatory (where they trace the history of time -astrology, clocks, maritime issues with time) and surrounding areas are just brimming with history to be told to the world. Historical geographies anyone? (: It felt like the surfaces had just absorbed so much rich history that it emanated a very rich aura (either that or kudos to whoever chose how to represent the place).


And after that it was Michelle dearest's birthday!! :) Hope you had a great birthday my dearie Mich!! The first of us to turn TWENTYTWO! hahah.

Sunday was the day I got my fill of CNY atmosphere in Chinatown -things I'd ordinarily had found cheesy or annoying made me really really happy -lion dances, red lanterns, CNY songs etc! The place was crazy crowded, with many vendors trying to rip tourists off with their wares (like paper dragons with crepe-paper bodies on a stick), angmohs trying to be Chinese (we spotted a father and son pair in Chinese-vampire-looking caps complete with pigtail and a girl with a "huan zhu gege" headdress -as Huoyfen very accurately described) and we were expecting to see fireworks -except we didn't know where the fireworks were being let out from (well I guess getting to hear it isn't too bad). It was a snowy CNY ironically -the first time snow fell thickly enough to be captured by my camera.


And everyone knows what happened the next day right? :) SNOW! Being stuck in hall the previous night with nobody to play with, I made a playdate with Ziwei. Thank goodness the Northern Line on the tube was still working with only minor delays (phew. Delays on the other lines were horrible -Circle line was entirely closed, the District line was facing severe delays -Ziwei and I had to wait half an hour for a crazily crowded train), and thank goodness my place is walkable to a tube station! I went trigger happy and I swear there was a bounce in my step as I walked down the white blanketed streets with snow falling lightly onto my coat. Definitely a day to remember! The entire London seemed to become a giant playground, with open spaces sporting the usual snowball fights and snowpeople of all shapes and sizes. It was a nice atmosphere (except in various stations with people anxiously waiting for their trains) (:


And the day after, the snow on the pavement FROZE. And this is NOT good, as my walking speed slows by 3x and my heart is filled with trepidition for fear of unwittingly performing a complex ice-skating manouevre that will definitely not end well. Same thing for today, but thank goodness when I walked back to my room it wasn't as icey as before. It's amazing how much a landscape can change in few days. Despite all the inconveniences associated with snow, it's nice to be part of climate history in London and definitely a special time to remember. Whee!

Okay I need to sort out my life now, I feel like I've been drifting along the past month, and it's really time for me to get focused and work out how I'm going to make the best of the next few months, because I know time is just going to FLY.

Most exciting thing ever

Well I've had a good weekend (Saturday at Greenwich and Sunday at Chinatown -more updates another time) (:

But most exciting of all is that...


IT SNOWED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I must have looked so retarded smiling to myself as the snow came drifting down from the sky, at first in light flakes -and then to my delight it actually started SNOWING for real at Leceister Square -like snow that was thick enough to be captured on camera! Later in the evening while at Mich's place we discovered (after a nice dinner) that the streets and cars outside were coated in a sheet of white -Oh gosh what a sight!

I think I could just sit at a window forever and watch the snow drifting and blowing around in the winds before landing softly on the surfaces below. (: Beautiful.