Monday, November 24, 2008
for the love of bread!
5:18 AM

went London on saturday. went alone but that's fine actually. getting so used to doing stuff alone that it feels almost natural. scary huh. morphing into a hermit!

but i'm reli glad coz i managed to visit all the places that I wanted to see.. one of the benefits of travelling alone ==> efficiency! haha.

here's the German Cologne Xmas Market @ Southbank, near the London Eye. there were lil shops (in log-sheds) selling crafts, xmas presents, sweets & german food. loads of stuff to see, not to mention a buzzling crowd as well!
one of my favourites.. the ugly doll - tt somehow manages to look so pretty =)


crossed the Westminster Bridge across the Thames River.. beautiful sight of the London Eye & the House of Parliament. Intricate architecture =)


btw, there were tourists EVERYWHERE! but they were all in groups so since I was alone, they thought that I was a local and asked me for directions. hohoho. dunno if I should be pleased.

wanted to walk to Harrods after that. but it was FREEZING cold! (dun be fooled by the sun.. the sun's so far away tt its warmth never reached the earth surface. it was 1 deg celcius!)

anyway, Harrods was amazingly HUGE! it was an entire building (kinda like Taka, but much more posh & sophisticated). It was divided into sections like the Egyptian Hall, the LUXURY room, perfumes & cosmetics etc.. they even had a sign tt directs you to the EGYPTIAN LUXURY TOILETS!! *faintz*. I'll verify its authenticity the next time I visit. haha. rite.. and the main reason that I'm there.. they have got an EXTREMELY large food hall!! =D so large.. that they have a separate room just for tea & coffee.. everything in there looks so exquisite & gorgeous it makes you wonder if they're edible. no photos though. one gotta act posh in posh places like this =)

next stop was Portobello Road Market. This market is really LOOOOOONNNGG.. haha. no better word to describe it. It stretches on and on and on.. and I thought it was never going to end. There were mostly antique stalls.. selling stuff from a few generations back! (things that looked so odd I never knew they existed.. haha. or maybe i'm juz ignorant.) and there were loads of second-hand clothes/shoes/everything imaginable on sale as well. kinda like our pasar-malam.

and of coz.. the food! (food is NOT secondhand thankfully.)and everything's so.damn.cheap. I ate till I was delirious. heh. like wat's new.


after Chinatown (for my dose of charsiew & red bean bread - i sound like an addict), it was Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park! =) The entire place was all lit up & the place was packed full with family + couples (remind me again why i'm alone). there was an ice skating rink, another german xmas market, a huge ferris wheel ( i love ferris wheel!!) and other theme park rides.




the place was so alive & vibrant, it was amazing. but only go if you've got company. else you'll just end of wallowing in self-pity. I didn't though. I'm a special case. =P

ooh.. btw, i found the best dark chocolate cake ever!! it's so rich and decadent, i'll die happy eating this.

.
.
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woke up to a beautiful sight this morning...

it was SNOWING!! not just snow on the ground but it's actually SNOWING!! =) all warm & snuggled up in bed watching the snow flakes fall.. ahhh.. one of life's great luxury (something tells me I won't be so pleased seeing snow on a wkday morning..)

there was an Italian market at Tunbridge Wells today & i bought this ==> Pistachio Nougurt =) it costs a bomb actually. but the taste more than made up for it!

and I bought 2 humongous italian foccacia as well =) one of them is GOAT's Cheese & olives!! haha. yeh. i'm mad. Goat's cheese!

stinks like hell. but I'm starting to like the taste of it actually =) the other one's sea salt. tastes like sea salt. (wat was I expecting anyway)

Bread overload this wkend (and for the next few days). 2 loaves of focaccia to finish by myself! not that THAT's a challenge of coz. I would gladly do that anytime =)


~gone in a moment..

Monday, November 17, 2008
1 day trip to Brighton!
4:38 AM

went Brighton with Jean-Hilaire, one of the french student interns, on saturday. took a bus all the way there.. 1hr 50mins journey!! the bus was relatively empty so I managed to get the front seat on the top deck. great country-side scenery the entire way =)

Brighton's a sea-side town on the south coast of UK. It's reli pretty!! miss the sea and the sea-breeze. but it's a pebble beach though. not the sandy kind.. loads of cafes, restaurants & shops lining the streets selling all sorts of stuff..from 2nd hand clothes, vintage, antiques, old records.. to hand-made craft, high-end fashion & of coz.. handmade chocolates & fudge!! loads of them! =D just the sight of them made me instantly happy. haha.

St Peter's Church

Brighton Pier

View of Brighton from the Pier

the re-knowned Bagelman!! super long queue.. this is the lox deluxe (salmon + heaps of cream cheese), it's AWESOME!! the best bagel I've ever eaten!! =)


Roly's Fudge pantry.. the fudge here is simply divine! it's the kind that crumbles in ur mouth (coz it's laden with artery-clogging fats - not that I care) and not those irritatingly sticky kind that glues ur teeth together.

LICK - frozen yoghurt. tastes like.. frozen yoghurt. should have spent the money on more fudge/ bagels =)

the Royal Pavillion..extremely grand & majestic

busy street in North Laine

yup.. love the place! if only it's not 110mins bus ride away, I'll go there more often.. to shop & eat, shop & eat! hohoho.

side track a lil.. Jean-Hilaire tricked me into eating goat's cheese yesterday! alright, it's unfair to say he tricked me. but he kept saying that it's really good and blah blah blah.. (maybe he did mention that it's goat's cheese but his accent is soo strong that I probably didn't catch it) anyway, I bought a huge slab - the kind tt's unwrapped and u have to eat asap. i took a bite and *wham* i was swarmed with the GOAT smell. it was OVERWHELMINGLY smelly! kinda like eating ur meal amongst the goats. bleah. I demolished an entire foot long baguette with the cheese! anyway, now that I have tried.. I've decided that cows smell much better =)

fixed myself sth nice for dinner today! (and the next few days)... a big pot of baked pasta! (to miff & noo: mae mae will be proud)

the dish is massive enough to serve 4 actually. but i ate half of it for dinner. haha. oh well. cold weather = big appetite.

ooh.. bought a pair of shoes today as well! coz my track shoes are on the brink of rotting due to the delightful rain that visits ever so frequently. hope they last =)


~gone in a moment..

Saturday, November 15, 2008
gluttony
6:08 AM

see how BIG my pear is!! haha. it's called a conference pear. it's HUMONGOUS!! not to mention reli delicious and sweet as well. Best pear I've eaten ever! hoho.

it's reli amusing.. the pear's 3/4 the height of my computer screen at work!

my colleagues couldn't stop laughing at my GIANT pear =) guess how heavy it is? it weighs 600g!

had to cycle home with a 4kg backpack today (up the hill mind u). serves me right.. went sainsbury's after work today and got too carried away with all the food. bought 4kgs worth of stuff! it's like shooting myself in the foot. the price you have to pay for being such a glutton..


~gone in a moment..

Friday, November 14, 2008
4:02 AM

right.. i couldn't resist.. here's a photo of the flooded tunnel!! it's so flooded that it's become a mirror lake.. see the images of trees? impressive..(click on photo to ZOOM)

see? I wasn't exaggerating.. it looks more like a canal doesn't it.

anyway, today's splendid!! (funny how the weather commands my mood..) here's one of the lakes enroute to work (the real one, not the flooded fields)..complete with mist just above the water surface and the rising sun behind.

it's simply gorgeous.. like a painting.. so this is what they call sunshine after the rain.... =)

yup.. and just some random stuff.. here's my favourite bread from london chinatown!! =) charsiew pastry + lotus paste bun. woohoo!! someone should open a branch in tonbridge. I'll be their biggest fan!

and for noo: look! fluffy elephant at one of the second hand shops..


~gone in a moment..

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
the day soccer fields became lakes
4:44 AM

i finally understood the REAL meaning of flooding today.

the river overflowed its banks,
submerging the footpath that no longer existed.
the soccer fields became lakes (complete with ducks and swans mind u)
the tunnel under the railway became a CANAL.

if i didn't know the route to work well enough, I would have thought that I'm cycling IN the river itself. the water was knee deep!!
what an experience.
ppl on foot were taking off their shoes and socks, folding up their trousers, waddling thru the flood plains (how apt).. i half expect them to start planting rice shoots in the flooded plains.
the cyclists all smartly refused to get off their bikes and struggled to cycle through the muddy waters. me included.

and today was a sunny day (thankfully). the irony of it all. sunny day + flooded route/path/track (dunno what to call it anymore) that merged WITH the river.
dunno if I should laugh or cry..

and everybody says, " welcome to england.."


~gone in a moment..

Tuesday, November 11, 2008
4:37 AM

today was an absolute disaster.

the heavy rain for the past 3 days caused the roads to flood.
and i managed to puncture my supposedly puncture-proof tyres today on the way home.
they went totally FLAT.

i felt so exasperated that I actually broke down and cried.

at long last.
an outlet for pent-up frustration, misery, anguish, fear.
an outlet to help preserve my sanity. or what's left of it.


~gone in a moment..

Monday, November 10, 2008
Rainy Fireworks Spectacular @ Leeds Castle
6:10 AM

went for Leeds Castle Fireworks Spectacular on Saturday with Sylvia.. met up with the Stevenage ppl there as well.

it was raining the entire day!! and we were supposed to take Syl's car there but it wouldn't start coz the car batt's dead. guess the weather's too cold. oh well.. so we had to take the train there.. THREE different trains coz there simply wasnt a direct route.

anyway, we made it in time for the jousting.. nothing much actually. just men dressed in bright costumes, fighting each other while riding gallantly on horses. oh well. anything tt's new is an experience! =)

Leeds Castle is HUGE!! its grounds stretched into vast farmland.. and there was an aviary.. winery and a few lakes.. it is reli an awesome sight to behold (I was trying very hard to take in the scenery while holding an umbrella fighting the wind and rain)





there were tents set up selling food as well.. kind of like a carnival. anyway, the fireworks display was awesome!! it lasted abt half an hr.. complete with laser display, music, story-telling of king arthur.. with the castle as its background and lake in front.. soooo pretty!! it would have been perfect if not for the rain. I was so cold AND wet.. I was shivering and both my thigh muscles went into spasm(not exaggerating). It was so bad that I could hardly walk after that. argh.. cold and wet. wat a brilliant combi.

no photos for the fireworks display though - too busy shivering.

heavy rain today and tmr as well. and i have to cycle to work =( life keeps getting better.

anyway, I made my own version of THICK cut fires + ice cream today!! woohoo. feels like home. Stuart says tt he's no longer surprised by the weird stuff that I eat..


~gone in a moment..

Friday, November 7, 2008
Operator morning shift
4:16 AM

Was on operator morning shift last week. It turned out to be much better than I expected actually. Shadowing the operators was great fun!! They're all extremely friendly and really nice =)

Learnt loads of stuff on the plant as well. I was kind of fascinated by EVERY single thing (abit embarassing really).. discovering how ignorant I am. =P From the mundane chores like manual cleaning of valves and filter dryers to the charging of solvents into reactor head tanks.. and of coz, being able to wear an air hood and feel the air gushing so close to your ears (Thanks Vince) .. they all added up to make my wk of operator shift work really enriching and fun =)

ooh.. and I get to eat 8 meals a day on the morning shift!! haha.. I can go on and on about the fabulous english breakfast that's available daily but shall spare you the agony.

the ONLY thing bad about the morning shift is the early hours of coz. Waking up at 4am in the morning and cycling to work in the DARK & COLD is so not fun. Ramming head on/ side on/ all other orientations possible into bushes heavily populated with spiders. oh yay. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I had.

yup.. back to endless calculations & P&IDs this wk! and it's been raining non-stop throughout.. (where does all the rain come from??)

I had to cycle home in the pelting rain for TWO days in a row!
soaking wet jeans.
mud covered windbreaker, boots + backpack.
woohoo. sounds like fun.
BEHOLD the great wonders of nature.


~gone in a moment..

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
halloween part 2
6:08 AM

here're some more exciting photos taken by stu during halloween =) there're heaps more on facebook.. enjoy!








~gone in a moment..

Monday, November 3, 2008
Halloween!! 1st Nov 08
4:01 AM

Stuart held halloween party at our place yest nite. His frens all came over and we were all dressed up for fright night! haha

food and decor.. there're spider webs strewn up all over the place, complete with rubber spiders. check out the carved pumpkins!! nice handicraft!

Trevor & tony getting ready..amongst cobwebs

stuart ==> red devil! he had the entire mask GLUED to his face! great devotion to the cause of halloween. heh

lynn & bf scott. lynn's the previous occupant of my current room. they're both from ireland and reli nice! (lynn's a witch, scott's a erm.. i'm not sure wat that is)

here's tony!! - he's been voted BEST costume of the night =) he's supposed to be a scary monk. (i dun think monks shld look like that though)

and here's cara.. dressed as a pumpkin =)

adam as a witch! haha.. he had self constructed fake boobs made up of socks & loads of tape. everyone was pinching them the entire nite.


we then set off some fireworks in the backyard. it was raining the entire day yest so it was kind of irritating, cold & gloomy. anyways, we then piled into 2 vans and went to town centre for the start of pub crawl.

i can't remember exactly how many pubs we went to. they were juz drinking at EVERY single pub (i had lemonade at all pubs), and along the way.. the guys were juz creeping up to unsuspecting passers-by, tapping their shoulders and gg "BOO!!" and scaring the hell out of them. haha. a real riot to watch reli.

all in all, fabulous halloweeen! (the more exciting photos taken during pub crawl are all with stuart. he'll upload them to facebook soon i think)

yup.. this morn, stuart fixed us all the traditional BIG english breakfast!!

here's mine. baked beans, bacon, eggs, sausage, potato bread + black pudding!!

btw, black pudding (the black thing), is made up of pig's blood. sounds real gross. but it doesnt taste like the chinese version in kway chap. it tastes quite good actually =)

went to the reli huge supermkt (again) today and bought home this!!

i reli couldn't resist. it's 3 for 2. yeh.. excuses. the long bar on the left is the chocolate flapjack. flapjack's one of their common pastry here. it tastes reli reli good. like the reli fattening and chewy version of cereal bars =) then there's the sticky date loaf cake & the chocolate brownie!!!!! wooohoo.. i'm reli well-fed, round and happy. =)


~gone in a moment..

ME~
23 yr old fresh grad from NTU (beginning to go stale)... stuck in the mad world of elites. perpetually tanned w/o even trying; nonsensical; prone to mood swings; yet highly lovable when asleep.

AgaPe
♥ I adore FOOD!!=)
♥ love adventure sports, travelling ard the world, experiencing the unexperienced.
♥ my beloved family & chumchum.
♥ dreams to be a doctor.. or a food critic!!

I have ZERO tolerance for:
(1) disgusting house lizards!,
(2) fishball noodles,
(3) cycling up monstrous slopes (this will stay here for the next 16mths of my stay in UK)

Let me hear u SAY...

Frens
haoz
oint
alex
roomie
dorcas
yupin
bing
madaliene
all time best bud - PK
noo's online dress galore!
miffu!

Credits
moargh
deviantart
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