2016

It didn't occur to me that it was going to be a new year and suddenly the year changed from 2015 to 2016. Usually I would spend it watching the KBS drama awards, but now being away from home, I just jumped over to my friends' place to have potluck dinner and watched funny movies, ending off with live telecast of the fireworks at london eye (which was really pretty). I guess there was no excitement in me from ushering in the new year cos i was in the middle of trying to study for my exams T.T Anyway, new year resolutions? Decided to do away with them cos I can never keep to them. My main focus of the year will be to successfully complete my masters so that I will not let down the faith that many people have in me! Looking back at 2015, it had been an eventful year. From stressing over FYP to finally graduating, first time planning and going for an overseas trip with a friend, and finally to moving to london for my masters. There have been some ups and downs being in this masters course, but I'm grateful to have met so many people and I believe that some of these relationships can stick through. The forensic science practicals have been interesting as well, so it has been a good experience for me. Apart from the academic component, living by myself away from home has also trained me up to be more independent for myself I guess.

My last trip of year 2015 was spending my Christmas over at my friend's place in Edinburgh! And of course, sort of touring around the place, as well as visiting nearby villages. I have to say that Edinburgh was such a pretty place! All the cobbled walkways and old architecture made me feel like I was transported back in time. I wasn't being really touristy, like I had to go to all the tourist spots and take photos of all the sights. Maybe because I was still in UK, so I felt that I wasn't really a tourist. But it was a good trip and hopefully all those pretty sights I came across can be properly stored in my memory. My favourite was Culross! I definitely wouldn't mind going back there <3

Edinburgh Castle (Didn't go in cos it was too pricey for me><)

View atop Calton Hill

Christmas Market

Dunfermline

Abbey in Dunfermline

Pittencrieff Park

Culross

Palace

Dean Village

Year 2016, please be good to me! Okay back to studying.

London Life: First Week

Okay, so I've been in london for a week now, how has it been? Time passed really slow, probably since there was nothing much to do, except trying to settle and all those admin things (which can be really irritating at times). All these things don't really take up much time, but they do suck all the energy out. Like what everyone probably know, london is a REALLY expensive city. I mean, if you look at the prices without the pound, things are actually affordable and comparable to singapore's, but when you put the pound sign back, you get, wellllll, depressed. Luckily I'll only be studying for a year, so I think I can avoid depression >< Maybe there will come a time when I will subconsciously ignore the pound sign just to make myself feel better and buy more groceries. Andddd achievement unlocked: I've cooked nearly every meals here, except for one lunch! I guess I have a stomach made of steel, seeing how I survived. But guess what, my cooking gets worse after each meal, does that even make sense?!? So masterchef after year? I don't think it'll happen. I don't even think I'll fall in love with cooking. Although I like buying groceries teehee. Commuting here is costly too, so I walked a lottttt to get from place to place (especially the bank; I've made 3 trips -.-). Then decided to get a travelcard for zone 1-3, even when it's more expensive because I haven't gotten my student oyster card yet. IT MADE THINGS SO MUCH MORE CONVENIENT. I can take the train or bus without the need to work out which is the cheapest route. Just take the fastest route. About my accommodation, I'm sooooo grateful to my housemates, they've really helped me out a lot. And I hope I haven't disrupted their usual way of lives or irritating them with my questions, because it's my first time sharing a flat. Okay, so introducing my neighbourhood:

THIS IS A PRIMARY SCH CAN YOU BELIEVE IT

I love the architecture here, it's bricks everywhere! Makes me feel like I'm in the movies some times. If only I can own one of those pretttttty houses some day.

Besides roaming around in my neighbourhood, I've also been to school a few times for admin stuff and talks. I like walking around in the strand campus building, it does have the harry potter kinda feel. But my classes will be held in waterloo campus, which has a more modern interior. Had the welcome party for the forensics science class yesterday. It was quite unexpected, like I expected a formal address by a professor or someone, but no, it was a pure socialising event. Which I cannot handle, I was sooooo tired halfway through the thing that I didn't feel like talking to anyone and just stuck to a group of people that I felt more comfortable with. Plus, we were placed in groups for school. LIKE WHAT?!? I don't mind being in groups for games and stuff, but study groups? :O It's okay I CAN DO THIS RIGHT? Okay, some photos from roaming around the strand campus area while waiting for the intl postgrad orientation to start:

Other than this, I didn't do much sightseeing and stuff because I keep telling myself that I'm gonna be here for one year anyway right, so there is no need to rush. The one place I did went to was the natural history museum, and it was SO BIG AND PRETTY. I couldn't finished looking at everything. It was quite nice, cos they tried to write the descriptions in an interesting way, and I liked the exhibition explaining the development in kids, besides all the animal stuff.

SO PRETTY RIGHT

This is pretty cool, wood exterior, stone interior

Scientists make great artists too

Giant baby, 8x the normal size

 And to conclude this one week, I went to Wimbledon Park today, which was close by. My housemate suggested to me to visit a park today, since the sun was out and the weather was really nice. And we never know when the sun will next show its face again. It was a really nice park! It was filled with a flurry of activities, probably cos it's a sat. I have to say, the dogs here are extremely disciplined. Most of them go about without their leashes, and there were so many different breeds of dogs. Then there were kids riding scooters, people playing tennis, elderly playing a ball game (no idea what it's called) and people just sitting around on the grass. And the lake filled with swans and ducks. Like I knew they were going to be there, but I didn't expected SO MANY. And you can go so close to them, it's so cool! Now I know where to go when I do get depressed haha.

This has been a pretty long post! Hopefully I'll be able to update regularly, erm given that I do have anything to update!

Gratefulness

Whoo it's been too long since I wrote, my laziness is amazing >< I've never got time to finish writing about my tw trip, hopefully I can share another time! Been working for the past 2.5 months and I swear, working sucks my soul away that when I get home, I just knocked out. And the work was quite mundane, so I found myself counting down to my last day. But on the last day of work, something happened that made me feel so touched that I thought that I should pen this down.

Okay, so at my company (or particularly my office), it is quite common for temporary staffs to come and go, so I understand that the permanent staffs working there would not put in the extra effort to get to know the temp staffs. At first I wasn't used to this kind of "cold" enivronment haha, but I got better and I know that they're all actually nice people. So on my last day, I naturally thought I'll go as quietly as I had come, just doing my work as usual until the time comes for me to knock off. Since I interacted most with the perm staff that I was directly under, I decided to leave some chocolates on her table. Then, as I was silently doing my work, my manager quietly came beside my desk and passed me  red packet. I was like :o. And then she thanked me. I was like, I don't think I've done that much to deserve this, or rather, I didn't know she thought so much of me. At that moment, I was super super touched, and felt bad that I didn't have anything in return. When it was time for me to leave, I was a little disappointed that the perm staff wasn't around cos I wanted to hand the chocolates personally to her. But I saw her at the lockers when I came out! Turns out she was waiting for me to pass me the gift that she and another perm staff shared to buy. The second time that I was touched that day. Two times in a row, and seriously my heart can't take it. She was like," don't need to feel bad for accepting this, you really did a lot for us." TT So while I thought they didn't care about temp staffs, they actually thought so much of us. I was really damn grateful for this.

Actually being grateful was always somewhere on my mind, and it usually surfaces when I'm doing nothing and just stoning. For instance, I'm really grateful that my parents are fully supportive of my reading my master's overseas, even though I'm not under a scholarship and they need to fund me. And all my friends, who made time to plan and meet up with me, and showering me with gifts when they don't need to, hey I'll only be gone for a year! Hahaha. But I'll take everyone's blessings with me, and do my best when I get to london!When I thought this day would never come, it has become time for me to fly tomorrow. Hopefully I can get everything settled when I get there, and adapt!

Graduation Trip: 10 days in Taiwan

Finally getting around to write about my grad trip, after being back for almost 2 weeks already! Explored the southern part of taiwan with my travelmate SH namely meinong, tainan, pingtung, maolin, kenting and kaohsiung. I guess it was the first time for me to plan out an itinerary, from booking all the accomodations and finding out directions to the places we wanna go. I realised it was a lot of work to draw up a good itinerary and it is only when you are on the trip itself that you find out the plan doesn't always work and sometimes you need to give up some places of interest. Well, I comforted myself by saying that I'LL BE BACK :D Anyway, it was a really good trip! It was my first time in taiwan, and I have to say I really loved the scenery! I was greeted my sights of mountains almost everywhere I went, and the clouds in the sky <3 I'm sure there are more amazing views in many other parts of the world, but I felt it had been a while since I walked among nature.

We started our trip with the most countryside-like place in our itinerary, meinong. With the help of our minsu owner, who provided us with cycling routes, we cycled around with their bicycles for most of our time there. However, the bicycles were a little too high for us and our feet couldn't touch the ground; we had to tiptoe >< And we got lost a little too often as well, so we couldn't visit every place that the owner recommended us to go. After an almost sleepless night in the plane, I think we exerted most energy in our first day there (and also got really sun burnt). Oh, the temperature there at that time was quite similar to singapore, but how the heat felt on the skin was different, probably due to the humidity difference. I actually love the place cos it was small and so uncity-like! I wouldn't mind staying there longer, since we were only there 2D1N. 

Our next destination was tainan, where we spent 3D2N. It was my first airbnb experience, we chose a room with an attic and it was nice and comfortable! Anping district was walkable from our place, which is sort of a tourist area, with the old street, anping fort and the anping treehouse. There are a lot of dining options in anping. On our first night there, we had dinner at this famous place and their fried prawn rolls was amazing! I preferred our local oyster omelette to their version though, their oysters, egg and flour were like separated. So on the 2nd day, we went to a few of the tourist spots. I was really looking forward to the treehouse because through my research, they said it was not actually a house atop a tree, but the trees grew so large that it sort of consumed the abandoned warehouse! Really glad that I saw it with my eyes, it was a nice place. Then we also went to the famous Chikhan towers, and I thought it was not bad too. Another place I looked forward to was the Hai'an street, which was somewhat like an art district, with the painted exteriors of buildings. Not sure if we walked correctly, but there were fewer buildings than I thought haha. Then we also walked through Shennong old street, which was close by. The last destination of the day was the Tainan flower night market! Our first night market of the trip! I've never been to one before so I thought it was fairly big. There were so many food options that we couldn't decide on what to eat.Our first choice there, the 统大 chicken cutlet was soooo good! (Then I concluded at the end of the trip that actually, most chicken cutlets sold in taiwan are yummy haha) There were many stalls selling clothes, accessories, house products, and also game stalls.

Our third destination of the trip was pingtung, where we also stayed for 3D2N. The area itself is not a popular tourist spot, but from there, there are buses that take you to several tourist attractions like sandimen and maolin. We took a train from tainan station to pingtung station but before that, we had some time, so we explored the area around tainan station. There were many clothing shops so we went shopping haha (with our luggages ><) I love the fact that our 飞马饭店was just across the road from pingtung station. Since we reached there only in the afternoon, we chose to go to places near to our hotel. The hotel provided a map that showed all the tourist spots in pingtung, so it was quite useful. There were several museums, so we went to this art museum nearest to us. To me, it is more interesting than being in a history museum ><. Andddd the artist actually did quite a few paintings of meinong, so it felt familiar. After that we walked around the department store situated opposite the museum and spent a lot of time in the bookstore. In the end I bought 2 chinese books despite thinking that I'll take forever to finish those books. (Currently I have already finished the 九把刀book, what an achievement) We then sat in the park nearby until it was dinnertime and we made our way to the pingtung night market. Unlike the tainan one, where many many stalls were set up in a large empty area, the pingtung one was much smaller and consisted of streets of stalls, with indoor options. It was harder to navigate around because there were so many motorcycles moving through as well, so we settled dinner in an air-conditioned restaurant. There were a lot of small shops in the area, so we spent some time shopping around after dinner before making our way back.

The next day, we took a bus to maolin. The different attractions in maolin are quite a distance from each other and transport was not that convenient, so we decided to only visit the waterfall. It was a long walk to the mountain from the bus stop, and we still needed to hike up to reach the waterfall. We did a good thing by buying bread on the previous night because there were practically no shops in the area. I have to say, even though it was no grand waterfall, I loved the place!! It was so cooling, and there were soooo many butterflies. We figured it had many more butterflies than the yellow butterfly valley in meinong haha. And a bonus was there was a young family with us, and their 2 boys were so cute! We also sort of exchanged our food. I swear I could sit there forever (anything to get out of the heat). We ate the fruits we brought and relaxed there. Lucky for us, the crowd only came when we were about to leave! I don't think I would be able to enjoy the place as much if there was a crowd of people. 

For the rest of the trip, we spent it in kenting and kaohsiung, but since there's so much to write about kenting, I shall leave it to another time! Anyway, I realised it is soooo important that you get a sim card with internet access throughout your trip! We used google map almost the entire time day. Without it, I think we would have spent so much time getting lost. Really thankful to my travelmate, cos she was the one navigating us most of the time with google map haha. And if you have a student card, you really need to bring it along because all your entrance tickets will become half-price, saves you a lot of money! Our trip was not without its drama though. I almost couldn't fly because I didn't renew my passport and they only let me because it was exactly 6 months. Fly any later and I really wouldn't be able to fly, so I was extremely fortunate in that sense. Then we got involved in a dog war in kenting and got chased by a dog, it was pretty scary; I think I developed a fear for that particular area. And at the end of our trip, what with all the delays and transfer, our luggages went missing in action and we only got it back the next day. Besides all the drama, it was an enjoyable trip, and I got to experience myself how nice taiwan people generally are (: