Time Flies

9th week already??? I am in the UK for the 9th week already. Still remember the day when my family brought the heavy-hearted me to the airport, it was still first day of Chinese New Year. But well, 9th week already. Another 12 weeks in the UK before hitting Europe with boyfriend, and then back to Singapore. Not forgetting that I am going to Spain next week and Ireland the week after next?? I have never traveled so hard in my life before LOL. Loads of money to burn but loads of experience to gain as well. Totally worth all the money spent.

For the 9 weeks, we have been travelling around UK a lot. Since I am so lazy to post my experience one after another, I shall sum it all up here!

London for their Oxford Street shopping. Okay, to sound less bimbotic, gotta visit the Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Town (London) Bridge, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace for the Changing of Guards, London Eye and of course the red telephone booth which smells quite funky in it. After shopping in Oxford Street, you can just head on and on and on until you reach the China Town, Leichester Square.

Leichester (pronounce as Les-ter) Square: Must go for the famous roast duck rice, Four seasons. But they have several branches around London and it's really comfort food, especially when you need to leave home when everyone is feasting on Chinese New Year dinner.

Camden Town for the alternative scene, a.k.a. Punk scene and also Camden Market (flea market) If you are a punky person, or so you think you all, Camden Town will have good clothings for you. And not forgetting the Camden Market which is so huge. You can shop for nice souvenirs here, buy some antiques and also food.

Borough Market is yet another flea market in London. They sell mostly food, which is totally my favorite. Fresh or cooked, seafood or meat, cured or uncured meat, cuisine from all other countries and not forgetting the, awesome-st cheesecake! (I gotta go back there and try all their yummy food).

Windsor Castle for the British history and also to imagine how is it like if I were the Queen :D It is very surprising that we could spend almost all the day in the castle?? Listening at all the audio guide, getting awed by the magnificent architectures. It is in this town that we had our best encounter with British food. It is a pub called Carpenters!

Portsmouth, great harbor city withe good outlet shoppings. When we were there, the sun was shining, the wind was blowing and all in all, the day was really very good. And of course, coupled good weather with some retail therapy, totally the happiest day anyone could ask for.

Greenwich, yet another beautiful town where you go to see the Meridian Greenwich Line and visit the not-so-interesting museum. Too bad I didn't went into the paint musuem/hall, but according to boyfriend, that place is breath taking. Everything, from ceiling to the wall is painted! And if you are talented in music, this place will be your stop as Greenwich is where the Trinity School of Music is. Imagine you are surrounded by all talented music player~ That's life :)

Stonehenge in Salisbury. Nothing much to say here because it was raining when we went there. But it was very excited to me. We were driving from Bath to Stonehenge and along the road with green grasses, I was really anticipating the Stonehenge to pop in front of my eyes. And when I really see it (I think I was the first one to spot it, damn excited) I literally wanted to shout!

Bath. Our first drive trip which makes me feel that the North-South highway in Malaysia is actually slightly better than their motoway. But their service centers (or R&R in Malaysia) are way, way better than those we have in Malaysia. At least, they have  and Spencer and we don't even have things like Jusco in our service centers:P.  Bath is a small town for good spa if you have the extra bucks to spend. If not just hang around the Roman Bath, which is converted into a museum to learn about the history. But, never fall for the Sally Lunn's Bun. It is totally not worth it. We bought 4 and thought they were something special. But, oh dear they are just like any "roti kosong". We had to butter-toast the bread to go with some curry in order to swallow them.

Blackpool for the dance experienced of my life. This is the only town in the UK that I wrote elaborately about. Blackpool.

And of course not forgetting Guildford, the town that I will be in for the next two months. It is a small town but sad to say, I have not finish exploring it. I have not went to the castle, the Alice in Wonderland walking through a glass statue and anything beyond the High Street. I shall do that during the Easter break.

Easter is next week. One month of holidays with the Royal Wedding of William and Kate in the middle. I can't wait for my Spain and Ireland trip and also to witness my first royal wedding! Till then :)

IVDC-Blackpool

Winter Gardens, Blackpool. If you are Dancesport dancer, this is THE place to be. Every year, right before the huge Blackpool Dance Festival, there's Blackpool Inter Varsity Dancesport Championship (IVDC), and Universities all around the UK will "shipped" their dancers into this small little town of Blackpool. Like any other competition, there will be two sections-the Latin (Cha-Cha-Cha, Rumba, Jive, Samba, Paso Doble) and the Standard Ballroom (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz, Quickstep).

Surrey BDLC to Blackpool with our mini bus and driver, Alex

Being in the Dancesport for 3 years, I had only competed in Singapore and Malaysia. IVDC brings dance competition to a whole new level and scale to me. Usually in Singapore, we only have at most 2 rounds before semi-finals but in IVDC, you can have up till 10 rounds before the semi-finals with each round having almost 10 heats! Can you imagine how large the competition scale is? Okay, I might be a bit "san ba" (out of the jungle) to some people, but this is the largest competition that I have ever participate in.

Inside Winter Gardens, walkway to Spanish Hall

Empress ballroom

Under the Surrey University Ballroom and Latin Dance Club, we paid 31 pounds each to Blackpool with meals and accommodation included. We checked in Blackpool at about 11 pm on 4th March and started the competition day on 5th March by 6 am. Yes, hair, make-up, breakfast takes up this much time. And at 8.30am, all of us walked to Winter Gardens, in the freezing cold weather. 

Cosy dining hall in Highland Bank's Hotel

Breakfast for the day-crunchy nut

Hearty breakfast before a busy day

Getting ready

Off we go to Winter Gardens-on foot

My first waltz-photo courtesy of Fred

Winter Gardens is such a magnificent and grand ballrooms. The first event starts at 9.30 am and lasted all the way to almost midnight. Boyfriend and I took part in the Intermediate Latin and Beginners Waltz. First time doing Waltz felt really good and for Latin, I thought we did well, better than expected.

Roarrie--Our mascot to cheer for us

While waiting...

Before the Latin segment

After all the individual events, all the schools have a team match. Every school will send in 2/3 teams of 4 to dance (Waltz, Cha-Cha-Cha, Quickstep or Jive) and each team will be marked in accordingly. We've only lasted for 2 rounds, but I still enjoy every bit of the process.

One of the best couple on the floor

New dance experience, new friends made. That's all I can conclude from this competition. Although we are always never at the top, but seeing other dancers dance just inspires me to work harder to be better. 

Surrey BDLC @ Blackpool

New found friends

Will this be my last time here?

Of Waffles, Chocolates and The Hand-throwing story

Train Station of Bruxelles

Before and after Netherlands, we stopped over at Belgium. My mind was filled with Belgian waffles and chocolates even before the trip has started. Haha. I have this soft-spot for desserts. And to make my craving worse, you can just smell scent of freshly baked waffles one you stepped out of the train. After doing some research, I found out there are two types of Belgian waffles, the Brussels waffle and the Liege waffles. Since I have soft spots for sweet stuff, I tried both! We got a Liege waffle from some street vendors and a Brussels waffle from this famous shop called Le Gâteau de Bruxelles. But personally, I do not really like the famous Brussels waffle. First because of the cut throat price (4.60 euros) and second, it was not as fragrant and warm as I thought.

Liege Waffles

The Brussel Waffle with cream and chocolate syrup

THE Belgian Waffle

For the day in Bruxelles, we just wander around the town, walking on cobbled-stone roads, awed by the magnificent architecture of the buildings in the town with boyfriend taking endless photos, walked around Grand Place and getting amazed by the seafood stalls around and getting cheated by this van Gogh imposter person, who asked for 2 euros per person from us. We didn't realized that it was a tourist trap after he "gladly" took pictures with us. Lucky us that we didn't brought out much coins with us. In the end, we still got cheated 1.50 euros :(

Bruxelles town

Amazing architecture on the wall of a cathedral

Magnificent cathedral

Grand Place-The north, south, east and west has building with different architecture

Another building in Grand Place

The famous Manneken Pis

Awesome seafood range

After Netherlands, we went over to another town in Belgium called Antwerpen, which we visited another friend of boyfriend's. He took us to this Turkish restaurant which I could still remember how juicy and tasty the food are. Generally, Turkish food and Kebabs are very common in Netherlands and Belgium. Some may taste just so-so but others are really very delicious.

Entrance of Antwerpen Train Station

Some Dorayaki look alike thing which you can stuff meat and salads in to

My first Turkish food. 

This place serves awesome Turkish food

Durum for Lunch

For fries lovers, Belgium is your heartland. People like this snack called Frites. The French Fries, fresh from the fryer French Fries will be bought and dipped into various sauces of your choice. Apart from normal ketchup and mayonnaise, you can have something like the Samurai sauce. Boyfriend's friend brought us to this shop with long history for fries and according to him, the shop will have long queues on peak season! One thing bad about the fries is you have to pay for any dippings that you want. And it's 0.60 euros for each dipping.

Frites from Fritkot Max

So, according to friend, Antwerpen's name came from this story. Long ago, a village was attacked by ogre and a hero came to fight it. He managed to break the ogre's arm and decided to throw the arm away. There's a statue in the Grand Place which shows the hero throwing a hand of and ogre, like this.

The Antwerpen symbol

How can we go home without Belgian chocolates. While the chocolates are a little bit pricey, but I guess it's worth all the money. The famous brands out there are like Leonidas and Godiva. But instead of this two, we tried a new brand called Chocalate line. The retail shop is situated in a building which was the royal's kitchen once. In the shop, they have statues, all made from chocolate. Like this! I was so afraid that I could not refrain myself from leaning forward to take a bite, hehe.

It's all made from chocolates!!!!

Once the royal kitchen now the Chocolate Line's retail shop

And, right before we headed back to London, we had another round of waffles, from Belgraufa, which is much much more yummy than the one I had in Bruxelles. After that, we also had ice-cream, in a cold day! Hahaha shiok! This ice cream beats any other creamery outlets in Singapore! And the shop in Antwerpen is the first outlet to open!

Belgraufa Waffles

Australia's hand made ice cream

Ladies, if you want diamonds, Antwerpen is a good place to get one. There's a street, filled with shops selling diamonds. I did not find out about the price though!

Buildings in Grand Place of Antwerpen-each has a gold statue on the tip

Gothic-designed church in Antwerpen

Don't you just love the architecture in European countries? If only I have more time and money to slowly walk, sit down somewhere, to really admire all of them and to understand their stories.

Give and Take

Give and take. That's what I learned about for this exchange program. When I signed up for INSTEP, I already know that I would need to make sacrifices in order to come here as course matching is always causing problem. While everybody is clearing the life-taking Year 4 Major Electives during exchange to escape from being graded, I am still left with Year 3 core modules (including a 6 hours lab/week for my final semester). And, I've switched from choosing Industrial Attachment to doing Research Project, in an environment that I am totally not familiar with. I am risking not clearing the modules which will contribute to my majors. But for the once in a lifetime experience, I think all the giving in will be totally worth it.

Now that I am here, with the project rolling, I am very very occupied, with literature reading, lab work, course work, self studying blah blah blah. The teaching/learning fashion is very different from what I did in NTU. The class is 10 times smaller, and very little spoon feeding. Notes is given, but a lot of self-reading and exercises are required. To me, giving up learning in the comfort zone of Singapore is not a bad thing at all. At least, if I have the chance to continue my studies here, I would know what to expect.

One month down and 4 months to go. Everybody is excited, planning for trips to the Europe, around UK, skipping classes because every modules taken here is a pass/fail (40% to pass). But, since my FYP is a graded one, I need to put in 100% or more effort into the research project. So, while everyone is planning to go away starting from next week, I will need to lock myself up in the lab to try to finish my project by next month and churn out a report by the month after next. Give and take. I will miss skiing with boyfriend in Sweden and maybe the whole drive around UK trip. I do hope my giving in brings me at least A- for my project so that I could at least have chance to pull my grades a little bit higher.

To be on exchange is such a great experience. Although I know I will miss out some of the fun, at least I am going to have experience that is going to last me for a lifetime.