To Sotong...

Here I am.. writing this post after a letting my blog die a few months. Well it's not that I'm too busy to update.. A part of me name Sotong had stronger influence in me these days. Yeah it's fun allowing Sotong to take over me (getting to relax on holidays, stay cool even exams is near, take time doing what I FEEL like doing), but sometimes I kept thinking: IF Sotong was forced to sleep for the next few days, am I able to focus on my revision for the exam? :/

Basically I'm just getting annoyed for contradicting myself over and over again. Wonder if anybody feels the same when what you planned contradicts what you feel like doing at the moment. I knew deep inside that the Sotong personality of mine have to stop ever since I came back from my trip. However I lied to myself for a week, telling myself "I'll speed up my revision tomorrow!". Well this have to come to an end. Therefore, I'm here.. writing this post.. to once again REMIND MYSELF and SHUT Sotong UP now! You know what Sotong? Please sleep until 1st of June.

Sotong: mumble mumble *swims away*

Okay time to focus. Sorry Sotong :) You can help me with the competition I'm having with Sei Yea after that.

Haha I'm getting crazy for talking to myself =x Oh well it did bring me the right mood now :) For those who were having exams, ALL THE BEST!

Yam Cha Day?

It's been a while since I had used the word 'Yam Cha' in UK. For those who don't understand its, meaning, it's actually a word used by fellow Malaysian for chatting :) Anyway, this came to my mind when I realized that the chatting sessions today are MUCH longer compare to the usual days in Leeds.

I had two Yam Cha sessions today. One of it was during the afternoon class break. My friend Edele and I was invited to Jing Han's house today. We packed our bread/sandwiches (whatever they call it) and ate in her place. On side note, her place was.. WOW! Try imagine staying in a castle like house (from the wall to the windows, doors, and also the design) and that was her place. Although her room doesn't have a castle theme (it will be scary to see this), it was actually like a hotel! Large windows, large bed, personal kitchen with high chair, personal study table.. Anyway we had our lunch there and start chatting. The details are confidential, of course (according to the ethics of APA), but the whole yam cha session just keep going on until 15 minutes before class, which was a bit rush. Overall this Yam Cha session was great and honestly I get to know my friends more than before through it. :)

Another Yam Cha session was at night. My brother's friends had booked an "appointment" with my brother to come at 11 pm to meet up (my bro's schedule was full due to hotel work). When they arrived, I was feeling kind of awkward. Why? Because.. we let them sit on the sofa and when they sat on it, it looks like some camp or something like they were forced to sit in lines (and yes I kept laughing inside me about that). However, this feeling faded as my bro came in and chat with them. The topics revolves around INTI life, friends in Engineering fields, basketball (they would never miss this) and life in Malaysia when they go back during summer holiday. Well the Yam Cha session was quite interesting although I just laugh whenever they say or do something funny.

Okay apart from that, I would like to share something that my friends and I found out about. Ever watched Winnie the Pooh? During our Yam Cha session, we were talking about it and we discovered something amazing! Do you all know that the main characters of Winnie the Pooh all have a certain psychological disorder?

Pooh Bear (Binge Eating Disorder)

Piglet (Generalised Anxiety Disorder)

Eeyore (Depression)

Tigger (Mania)

Rabbit (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Okay, that was random... Anyway time to sleep :) Night~

Tang Yuans

As I mentioned in the earlier post, today we attempted to make Tang Yuan again :D But 1st off, grocery shopping.

As usual, we went to the Chinese shop to get our grocery needs :) While searching for the glutinous rice powder, we realized that the powder we used earlier was different.. The packaging was almost the same except for the color of the frame of it. We grabbed a packet of the powder and a bottle of olive leaves pickles (Sim say it's nice @@) and then headed to the counter for payment.

After the payment, instead of continuing grocery shopping, we had a nice walk in the town, looking at shirts and furniture and stuff :P Also I got my badminton racket here (7 pounds)^^ that solved the problem for me to rent badminton racket all the time in the sports hall for 1 pound each time. While having a stroll in the city, it was natural for us to stop by Starbucks (again) to have a nice cup of coffee (instead I got an ice-blended fruit juice today). We continue grocery shopping after the rest in Morrison to get some gingers and some other stuff for dinner :)

We started making Tang Yuan after we reached home. The whole process was interesting (although it killed 3 hours of my time), wrapping the glutinous rice powder in chocolates and red bean paste :) The wrapping was done by Sim and me while my bro prepare dinner for us. After dinner, we had our Tang Yuan (finally after so many weeks) ^^ although bro took most of my chocolate Tang Yuan and complained about being too bitter (it's dark chocolate.. my favorite.. T__T), I had finaly tasted a home-made Tang Yuan made by my own hands, which is kind of satisfying :D.

Okay that's all I'm writing today :) had to sleep now for tomorrow's class. Night :)

Picture of the Tang Yuan:

Tang Yuans :D

Chocolate Tang Yuan :P

Updates

Hi hi :D sorry for not blogging quite some time =x thanks to my laziness, this blog was half dead. Anyway HEY I'm here to out some updates now :P

Firstly, exam had just over last week. The exam was tougher than I expected at first; but using a different approach to understand the material, I found the second exam easier to do.. Although the last exam was somehow GGed, I'm still glad I had ended this 3 weeks long of suffering! =x Right after exam, I revised the list (yes, I literally created a list of things to do after exam) and started it one by one :D

CHAT:

Yup! 1st thing in my list~ chat XD due to exam stress, I failed to stay in contact with my friends and that made me feel somewhat guilty ._. Right after exam, I had about an hour long session chat (and it's a wonderful one despite the laggness of my Internet). By chatting, somehow I realised how outdated I was due to the exam and tried to get to know and understand things more than usual =x Well that's 1st thing 1st XD the next few days I even spent my time talking to best friends in Malaysia. Chat chat chat bla bla bla =x

Bah Kut Teh:

Last Friday we spent out time relaxing outside (I'm sick of sitting at home) at Starbucks with a cup of warm Mocha. During the outing (or grocery outing), we went to the market to get some fresh fruits and meats. We then head to Morrison and the Chinese Shop to get some other groceries. Main plan? A meal of Bah Kut Teh tonight! Yes, Bah Kut Teh was recorded in my list, too. :P The idea of cooking Bah Kut Teh came from Sim during the revision periods, where she suggested we should have Bah Kut Teh right after exam (to clear our Malaysia stock). Bro was pro at making Bah Kut Teh (although the amount of soy sauce added to the soup annoyed Sim all the time :P". Had a wonderful meal that night. Although I didn't get to walk around Leeds with my friends that day, I really enjoyed the time I spent with my bro and Sim. :)

GYM:

Been around a month I had not move my muscles. After the exam, Sim and I had decided to exercise in the gym :P It feels so relaxing to be able to work out in the gym to release the stress accumulated during the revision period :) OO I reached my optimum BMI (Yay~)

Cleaning:

Due to the exam period, my house was like a rubbish hill (just that it was all made up of INFORMATIONAL notes, more like a knowledge hill :P) The carpet was full of tiny paper scraps and the table was super dusty. We spent 2 hours in cleaning the house, from living room to toilet to bedroom and now I can officially announce that THE HOUSE IS OPEN FOR HUMAN TO STAY, AGAIN! 3 of the things in my list crossed ^^

Tong Yun (more like a ball of glue ._.):

The next food that we proposed during revision days was Tong Yun. We bought all the materials for making Tong Yun and decided to make it yesterday. Well, it didn't work out quite well.. We totally forgot to use boiled water while mixing the powder with water, causing the powder to become a lump of.. rock? Initially we thought that it needed more water. This caused us to ignore the normal amount of water needed and the rock, instead of becoming a cute ball, turned into a lump of glue ball. Well, we were sad due to the fact that we wasted 2 pounds worth of powder due to a silly mistake :( Oh well~ a nice meal of Chinese Food outside cured everything XD ironically, we even had Tong Yun outside instead. Lesson learnt: never EVER use cold water on glutinous rice powder if you don't want to have a rock or glue as your glutinous rice ball. =x Gonna try it again tomorrow :D

Bat Tin Soup:

Okay this sounds weird due to the fact that Bat Tin soup was for girls to drink after their PMS. HEY! THAT doesn't mean guys can't drink or love it right??? Well, had a nice bowl of Bat Tin XD Loved the bitter taste that brings sweetness in the mouth~ Feels so heavenly~~ ahhhh~~ XD

Well that was all the things that I had accomplished in my list so far :) that was 6/12 and yes the list still continues even class had started. Speaking of class, I just had the worst Practical class ever! We, as participants, were required to drink a few type of scented color water (or should I say CHEMICALS). One sip and I found myself nauseous @@ A scary thought came to mind whether I would faint in front of the class (which is kind of embarrassing ._.). Oh well that's all for this post :) Will blog more often from today onwards :D Stay tune!

about 2010..

After reading a few reflective posts about 2010, I was inspired to post about it, too. Well truthfully, due to the 3 semester per year system in University, I tend to feel that 3 years instead of 3 semester had passed (which is kind of TOO FAST). When I realized today is the last day of 2010, i can't help thinking of how many changes I had been through this whole year. And believe me.. it's a lot.

2010 wasn't an all good (or all bad) year for me, thankfully. I do have many happy moments compare to the not so happy times. Basically there were many eventful days in this year, leading me from one path to another. The events had taught me not only to be strong and get over with my mistakes, it also helped me realized one of my deep (or deathly) flaw, which is being envious.

For years I've been wondering "Why the hell I reacted so emotionally when I see people being more capable or better than me??" Well, it is a dark side of mine (Sotong's personality? =x) that always made me feel inferior to others since young. And believe me, I also realized that due to this stupid flaw of mine, I had unintentionally hurt people around me and worse still, made myself down for most of the times. However, during the middle of 2010, a certain event had guided me to realize this dark side of mine (Yes, I'm slow at realizing things~) and taught me to rationalize myself whenever I started to feel envious about a certain situation or event. This also made me realized that my past "down" experience were almost all from the same cause and since then, being able to rationalize events had reduced my tendency to feel down most of the time.

Well, looking at what I had been through in 2010, I had definitely learnt a lot, and mostly on my personal developments. Thanks 2010 for teaching me a valuable lesson. Happy New Year PEEPS :D

(Slacked off from study~ back to work!)

Dublin

Hey guys! I'm terribly sorry for not updating my blog for so long. Part of the reason was due to the assignment rush AND laziness :P Anyway, this post is about my recent activity :D that's right! DUBLIN TRIP!!

First of all, I would like to say that Dublin is a nice place for relaxing, food testing, and of course.. photo-shooting! :D Why is it relaxing? (because bro plan the whole activity and I just need to shake leg and enjoy the trip :x) Well partly because there is a large river near our hotel and the cool breeze (or freeze breeze) make me feel like I'm next to the sea :P Besides that, Dublin have a lot of traditional Irish restaurant, and most of them offer a 3 course meal! XD (but some are seriously overpriced.. -.-) Pictures of food can be found in my facebook but not all of them are there because I tend to gobble my food before I realize the need to photograph it ._. And lastly, photo-shooting! There are so many buildings and scenery to take in Dublin :D one of my favourite building there is the Custom House because it looked so majestic with all the pillars there with sculptures! And also the bridges! There are so many bridges to connect gap due to the river. My bro and Sim had a fun time explaining about suspension and stuff that I can't really understand :P

Okay so that was my opinion about Dublin. However, what I realized from this trip was.. Dublin was about Songs! GUINNESS! and of course... the SHOPPING STREETS! Compare to UK, it was also a shopping paradise (UK seriously need some shopping center.. Malaysia looks far advanced in this).

Songs:

While travelling in Dublin, traditional Celtic Irish songs are played throughout the town especially pubs, bars and restaurants :D I mentioned this because these songs.. ARE ACTUALLY SONGS THAT I LOVED SINCE YOUNG!! Seriously.. the first song I heard from the pub next to the restaurant I'm was so cheerful and lively! I even started to download those songs now :P Besides the songs aren't the only one which is cool. The people that enjoyed the songs (or maybe drunks) had made the song even more cheerful like they had just won a battle or what :P Anyway if your up for cheerful and lively songs, I recommend these traditional yet alive songs :P

Guinness:

Well beer is always famous in Western Countries I guess? :P However, the fact that Dublin is the house for Guinness made it even famous. :D On the 2nd day of the trip, we went to the Guinness storehouse. The building looks normal on the outside (with a lot of poops on the floor, too..) but inside was beautiful! Inside the building, the center was emptied and was constructed like a pint glass shape from ground floor to top floor.

The ground floor shows the 5 main ingredients for brewing Guinness, which are water, barley, hops, yeast and ARTHUR! =x They even provided a brief history of Arthur and how he started brewing beer.

Level 1 of the building shows the various processes of brewing the beer, guided with videos with perfect timing on how the machine works (although those are cardboard machines only ._.). We were also allowed to test a quarter pint of Guinness there in the tasting laboratory :D.

Level 2 is where the various ads were shown. The ads, as you watched in the cinemas, are kinda... interesting (?).

Level 3 provided a interactive system for people to check out their drinking habits AND some quizzes to test how well we know about alcohol, Guinness and other stuff (scored 7/10 XD).

Level 4 tells the story of the building and other franchises. Apparently the 1st overseas brewing factory for Guinness is in MALAYSIA! (yay finally see Malaysia in famous place).

Level 5 is where the fun begins. We were taught to pour our own pint of Guinness and DRINK! XD the pouring part was exciting and we really did well in it :P After drinking a half pint of beer my vision start lagging~

Level 6 is were the restaurants were. It was an traditional Irish restaurant and most food was cooked with Guinness! The food was awesome and the desert was 1st class :D

Level 7, the top of the pint glass, was the Gravity Bar. It is a circle shaped bar with windows as walls. Due to that, it was a great place for photo-shooting (despite the amount of people there):D

Therefore if you ever come to Dublin, don't forget this place!! It will be meaningless to go Dublin without entering the Guinness Storehouse XD

Shopping Streets:

On the days we're in Dublin, we've been to 3 shopping streets ._. These places are always full of people and sometimes we were able to see people singing x'mas songs on the street. These shopping streets not only full of shop houses, they also have shopping complex there @@ which made it even bigger place for shopping. Due to the fact that I'm not the person that loves shopping, the ONE and ONLY places that I loved there was... souvenir shops (LOVE THE IRISH MUSIC PLAYED THERE!!) :P

Besides Dublin, we also been to two other places, which are Malahide and Howth.

Malahide:

This place was well-known for the famous Malahide Castle :D Well the castle was just like any castles or rich people houses, but the surrounding is marvelous! We had to walk through a mini forest, to a endless field, and then we reach the castle itself (see how big is it?). This place had allowed me to practice a few shots of photograph and learn to adjust the settings depending on the amount of light of each places. And about the castle, I was interested in the history of the family who used to live here. Voice guides also lead us to the different chambers to learn about the architecture, the furniture, the paintings, and also the family. It was told that this place was also haunted, which was quite the interesting to know, too (keke).

Howth:

Howth, the fishing village, is like another Kuala Selangor :P HOWEVER!!! There's 1 thing that Kuala Selangor will NEVER have :P that's right! Wild seals (or is it sea lions?) ~~~ :P It's cute when people were trying to lure them up for photography and the seagulls snatch the fishes away :P We walked around there for more photographs and ate in a bar there. The seafood there was awesome and super fresh :P loved the mussels a lot XD

Despite having fun and enjoy the relaxation, we learnt quite a lot of things from this trip :)

1. They used Euro here. ._. Actually thought they used Pounds at 1st.

2. We learnt that the hotel breakfast is similar to Queens =x even the layout and the food (lalala)

3. We learnt that Malaysia IS famous here in Ireland, especially in Guinness.

4. We learnt about the Irish folklore and other stories regarding Leprechauns.

5. Learnt the Irish Celtic Symbols and its meanings.

6. Irish songs is cheerful and lively! XD

7. Things here aren't cheap because it is in Euro @@

8. It is super cheap to fly to Dublin using RyanAir.

9. Malahide has better scenery than Dublin (and interesting story about the family).

10. Howth have fresh seafoods!!

AND LASTLY!!! I GOT A CERT FOR POURING A PINT OF GUINNESS!! XD okay bye bye =x

Pictures in facebook (laziness attacking me again ~ )

Manchester, Bonfire NIght, Notts Games :D

Sorry for the late updates for the past two weeks. After all the assignment rush, I was relaxing myself throughout the week, which resulted in the increase of laziness to update my blog =x

Anyway, these are the things I'm going to talk about in my blog: Manchester trip, bonfire night, and Notts Games.

Manchester Trip:

This was the second time i travel through train, but the first time I saw the procedure of getting into the train :D It was early in the morning when we walked down to the train station. Surprisingly, there are so many seagulls in Leeds @@ I wonder if there is any sea nearby because the whole street is full of them. We bought a cup of coffee and a burger each and we're off to the train to Manchester :D At the same time bro taught me how to read the sign board. While waiting for the train, I saw Jing Han and her friends there, too. She was going to Liverpool that day (and yup she had fun =x).

We got down at Manchester Piccadilly and went to shop for groceries (YES ALL THE WAY TO MANCHESTER FOR GROCERIES!!). The China Town there is kind of quiet in the morning, and many shops were still close. We meet up with Shen's friend, Mun Yee there. She was the tour guide for the day :P We went to more Chinese shops and a shopping center, and then to University of Manchester. Gosh I was surprised that the university is so big @@ There are tons of buildings that caught my attention. After a brief tour there, we ate at TaiPan. The dim sum there was delicious, but I still prefer dim sums in Malaysia :P. Mun Yee then went back to continue her work while we took a bus to Trafford Centre, the largest mall here in Manchester :D The mall looked a lot like Sunway Pyramid, just that it is BIGGER than it. We took a bus back to Picadilly and meet up with Mun Yee for dinner in Tokyo Season :D The sushi here was DELICIOUS!! We also bought a few egg tarts in Manchester as my bro say the egg tarts here were the best among other places. After a satisfying meal, we got home. :)

Bonfire Night:

On November 5th, I suggested to my bro to go for the Bonfire Night. What is Bonfire Night all about? According to Wikipedia (2010), Bonfire Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Night, is an annual celebration for the failed Gunpowder Plot on November 5th, 1605. It was made a public holiday under the Observance of 5th November Act 1605, also known as the Thanksgiving Act. The reason behind the lighting of bonfire can be found in detail in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night)

The place was full of people that night. I witnessed the lighting of bonfire that night and was glad that I didn't miss this opportunity. Although I was innocent of the whole event, the cheers of the crowd really made my day that night. It was said that there were fireworks after that, but I'm not a fans of fireworks, and therefore went home after the lighting of bonfire.

Notts Games:

The next day after Bonfire Night, we went to Nottingham to watch the Nottingham Malaysian Games. It is a large sports event in Nottingham that attract many Malaysians-related university society to join and meet up. It was first organised by the committee of the Nottingham Malaysian Society in 1985, and was since held annually until today.

Again we woke up early in the morning to catch the train to Nottingham. When we reached Nottingham, we were told that the basketball match is held in the main sports centre, which was 1 mile away from the train station @@ GOSH we had to walk for 1 mile to get there. Anyways on the road to University of Nottingham, we naturally got attracted by the buildings and scenery in Nottingham and end up walking in the park. I enjoyed that moment a lot because the whole long journey had become a photo-shoot outing!

After finished walking the park, we finally reached the sports centre. We meet up with Jess, Ying Sim's friend during her intern and Chong Boon, our cousin in law XD. Chong Boon took part in basketball that day. After watching his match, we went out together for lunch in Portland Building, where they sell a lot of Malaysia's delicacy there. After meeting up with Mun Yee and Kay Por, we had our lunch (NASI LEMAK!!). We then off to find another friend of bro, Vincent, and Vin Soon. After a session of chit chat, we went to Vincent's place and another photo shoot outing :P In the evening, we went back to watch basketball semi-finals and final match. I was surprised that University of Leeds made to the final, playing with Imperial College. The players of University of Leeds were rough @@ imagine 7 fouls in 10 minutes.. In the end Imperial College won 21-20.

After the match, we went for dinner in The Dunkirk Inn. It is an Indian restaurant. Due to the lack of time, we were forced to eat faster to avoid missing our train. The lamb there is delicious! love it :D after dinner we took a taxi back to the train station. Lucky us we made it on time :D.

Okay that's all for this post. Sorry for the slow updates and laziness =x BYE!

Pictures: GO TO MY FACEBOOK!! XD I'm lazy :x